s time
to go star-gazing at night. What a state you are in."

"The boat upset and I fell into the water." Hadrian was startled, and
observing his favorite's tangled hair in which the night wind had dried
the salt water, and his torn chiton, he anxiously exclaimed:

"Go this instant and let Mastor dry you and anoint you. He too came back
with a bruised hand and red eyes. Everything is upside clown this
accursed evening. You look like a slave that has been hunted by clogs.
Drink a few cups of wine and then lie down."

"I obey your orders, great Caesar."

"So formal? The donkey simile vexed you."

"You used always to have a kind word for me."

"Yes, yes, and I shall have them again, I shall have them again. Only not
to-night--go to bed."

Antinous left him, but the Emperor paced his room, up and down with long
steps, his arms crossed over his breast and his eyes fixed on the ground.
His superstitious soul had been deeply disturbed by a series of evil
signs which he had not only seen the previous night in the sky, but had
also met on his way to Lochias, and which seemed to be beginning to be
fulfilled already.

He had left the eating house in an evil humor, the bad omens made him
anxious, and though on his arrival at home he had done one or two things
which he already regretted, this had certainly not been due to any
adverse Daimons but to the brooding gloom of his clouded mind. Eternal
circumstances, it is true, had led to his being witness to an attack made
by the mob on the house of a wealthy Israelite, and it was attributable
to a vexatious accident that at this juncture, he should have met Verus,
who had observed and recognized him. Yes, the Spirits of evil were abroad
this day, but his subsequent experiences and deeds upon reaching Lochias,
would certainly not have taken place on any more fortunate day, or, to be
more exact, if he had been in a calmer frame of mind; he himself alone
was in fault, he alone, and no spiteful accident, nor malicious and
tricky Daimon. Hadrian, to be sure, attributed to these sprites all that
he had done, and so considered it irremediable; an excellent way, no
doubt, of exonerating oneself from a burdensome duty, or from repairing
some injustice, but conscience is a register in which a mysterious hand
inexorably enters every one of our deeds, and in which all that we do is
ruthlessly called by its true name. We often succeed, it is true, in
effacing the record for a longer or a sh