“Plancus, come hither!”
The lady Longa Duilia was in an easy-chair, and a slave-girl, Lucilla, was engaged in driving away the flies that, perhaps attracted by her cosmetics, came towards the lady.
Summer was over, and winter storms were beginning to bluster, and the flies were dull with cold and only maintained alive by the warmth of the chambers, heated by underground stoves, and with pipes to convey the hot air carried through every wall.
“Plancus, did you hear me speak?”
“I am here, my lady, at your service.”
“Really; you have become torpid like the flies. Has the chill made you deaf as well as sluggish?”
“My lady, I can always hear when you speak.”
“Do you mean to imply that I shout like a fishwife?”
“I mean not that. But when a harp is played, it sets every thread in every other stringed instrument a-chiming; and so is it with me.”
“The simile is wiredrawn. What I want you for is—no, I will have no stroking of your face like a cat!—is to go to Rome and see that the palace is made ready to receive us. The stoves must be well heated, and everything properly aired, The country at best of times is tedious; in winter, intolerable. Besides, I have no right to remain here buried. I must consider—Plancus, why are you scratching? I must consider my daughter. She is in a fit of the blues, and has nothing to say to amuse me. You need not blow like a sea-horse, breathe more evenly and equably;—Plancus, you are becoming unendurable. I must not consider my bereaved feelings, but her welfare, her health. The air or the situation of Gabii does not suit her. Rome is an extraordinarily healthy place in winter. I myself am never better anywhere than I am there. I was pretty well at Antioch; there were military there, and I find the soil and climate salubrious where there are military. Plancus?—as the Gods love me, you have been in the stables. I know it by infallible proofs. Stand at a distance, I insist. And, Plancus! you are not showing off conjuring tricks, that you should fold and unfold your hands. You go to Rome and take such of the family with you as are necessary. I am not going to be mewed up here any longer, because my two years of widowhood are not over. You are making faces at me, positively you are, Plancus. Do, I entreat you, look as if you were not a mountebank mouthing at a crowd.”