own
confession, ought to be exiled: free, through vice, expert in vice, whose
favors came through a throw of the dice, who hired himself out as a girl
to those who knew him to be a boy! And as to the other, what about him?
In place of the manly toga, he donned the woman's stola when he reached
the age of puberty: he resolved, even from his mother's womb, never to
become a man; in the slave's prison he took the woman's part in the
sexual act, he changed the instrument of his lechery when he
double-crossed me, abandoned the ties of a long-standing friendship,
and, shame upon him, sold everything for a single night's dalliance,
like any other street-walker! Now the lovers lie whole nights, locked
in each other's arms, and I suppose they make a mockery of my desolation
when they are resting up from the exhaustion caused by their mutual
excesses. But not with impunity! If I don't avenge the wrong they have
done me in their guilty blood, I'm no free man!"

CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-SECOND.

I girded on my sword, when I had said these words, and, fortifying my
strength with a heavy meal, so that weakness would not cause me to lose
the battle, I presently sallied forth into the public streets and rushed
through all the arcades, like a maniac. But while, with my face savagely
convulsed in a frown, I was meditating nothing but bloodshed and
slaughter, and was continually clapping my hand to the hilt of my sword,
which I had consecrated to this, I was observed by a soldier, that is, he
either was a real soldier, or else he was some night-prowling thug, who
challenged me. "Halt! Who goes there? What legion are you from? Who's
your centurion?" "Since when have men in your outfit gone on pass in
white shoes?" he retorted, when I had lied stoutly about both centurion
and legion. Both my face and my confusion proved that I had been caught
in a lie, so he ordered me to surrender my arms and to take care that I
did not get into trouble. I was held up, as a matter of course, and, my
revenge balked, I returned to my lodging-house and, recovering by degrees
from my fright, I began to be grateful to the boldness of the footpad.
It is not wise to place much reliance upon any scheme, because Fortune
has a method of her own.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-THIRD.

(Nevertheless, I found it very difficult to stifle my longing for
revenge, and after tossing half the night in anxiety, I arose at dawn
and, in the hope of mitigating my men