as if they had been the arms of a child, and pushed
him aside, like a dried limb or a withered leaf. What had happened?
Vinicius rubbed his astonished eyes, and saw before him the gigantic
figure of the Lygian, called Ursus, whom he had seen at the house of
Aulus.

Ursus stood calmly, but looked at Vinicius so strangely with his blue
eyes that the blood stiffened in the veins of the young man; then the
giant took his queen on his arm, and walked out of the triclinium with
an even, quiet step.

Acte in that moment went after him.

Vinicius sat for the twinkle of an eye as if petrified; then he sprang
up and ran toward the entrance crying,--"Lygia! Lygia!"

But desire, astonishment, rage, and wine cut the legs from under him.
He staggered once and a second time, seized the naked arm of one of the
bacchanals, and began to inquire, with blinking eyes, what had happened.
She, taking a goblet of wine, gave it to him with a smile in her
mist-covered eyes.

"Drink!" said she.

Vinicius drank, and fell to the floor.

The greater number of the guests were lying under the table; others were
walking with tottering tread through the triclinium, while others were
sleeping on couches at the table, snoring, or giving forth the excess
of wine. Meanwhile, from the golden network, roses were dropping
and dropping on those drunken consuls and senators, on those drunken
knights, philosophers, and poets, on those drunken dancing damsels and
patrician ladies, on that society all dominant as yet but with the soul
gone from it, on that society garlanded and ungirdled but perishing.

Dawn had begun out of doors.

Chapter VIII

No one stopped Ursus, no one inquired even what he was doing. Those
guests who were not under the table had not kept their own places; hence
the servants, seeing a giant carrying a guest on his arm, thought him
some slave bearing out his intoxicated mistress. Moreover, Acte was with
them, and her presence removed all suspicion.

In this way they went from the triclinium to the adjoining chamber, and
thence to the gallery leading to Acte's apartments. To such a degree
had her strength deserted Lygia, that she hung as if dead on the arm of
Ursus. But when the cool, pure breeze of morning beat around her, she
opened her eyes. It was growing clearer and clearer in the open air.
After they had passed along the colonnade awhile, they turned to a side
portico, coming out, not in the courtyard, but the palac