ving was stifled in the presence
of the dead. The retribution that had gone forth against him had
struck his moral, as a thunderbolt might have stricken his physical
being. His soul strove in agony within him, as he thought on the awful
fatality which had set the dead mother in judgment on the degraded
son--which had directed the hand of the senator unwittingly to select
the corpse of the outraged parent as the object for the infidel
buffoonery of the reckless child, at the very close of his impious
career. His past life rose before him, for the first time, like a foul
vision, like a nightmare of horror, impurity, and crime. He staggered
up the room, groping his way along the wall, as if the darkness of
midnight had closed round his eyes, and crouched down by the open
window. Beneath him rose the evil and ominous voices from the street;
around him spread the pitiless array of his masters; before him
appeared the denouncing vision of the corpse.

He would have remained but a short time unmolested in his place of
refuge, but for an event which now diverted from him the attention of
Vetranio and his guests. Drinking furiously to drown all recollection
of the catastrophe they had just witnessed, three of the revellers had
already suffered the worst consequences of an excess, which their
weakened frames were ill-fitted to bear. One after another, at short
intervals, they fell back senseless on their couches; and one after
another, as they succumbed, the three lamps burning nearest to them
were extinguished. The same speedy termination to the debauch seemed
to be in reserve for the rest of their companions, with the exception
of Vetranio and the two patricians who reclined at his right hand and
his left. These three still preserved the appearance of
self-possession, but an ominous change had already overspread their
countenances. The expression of wild joviality, of fierce
recklessness, had departed from their wild features; they silently
watched each other with vigilant and suspicious eyes; each in turn, as
he filled his wine-cup, significantly handled the torch with which the
last drinker was to fire the funeral pile. As the numbers of their
rivals decreased, and the flame of lamp after lamp was extinguished,
the fatal contest for a suicide supremacy assumed a present and
powerful interest, in which all other purposes and objects were
forgotten. The corpse at the foot of the banqueting-table, and the
wretch cow