r. Besides, who would dare? Would that gigantic
blue-eyed Lygian, who had the courage to enter the triclinium and carry
her from the feast on his arm? But where could he hide with her; whither
could he take her? No! a slave would not have ventured that far. Hence
no one had done the deed except Caesar.

At this thought it grew dark in his eyes, and drops of sweat covered his
forehead. In that case Lygia was lost to him forever. It was possible
to wrest her from the hands of any one else, but not from the hands of
Caesar. Now, with greater truth than ever, could he exclaim, "Vae misero
mihi!" His imagination represented Lygia in Nero's arms, and, for the
first time in life, he understood that there are thoughts which are
simply beyond man's endurance. He knew then, for the first time, how he
loved her. As his whole life flashes through the memory of a drowning
man, so Lygia began to pass through his. He saw her, heard every word
of hers,--saw her at the fountain, saw her at the house of Aulus, and at
the feast; felt her near him, felt the odor of her hair, the warmth of
her body, the delight of the kisses which at the feast he had pressed
on her innocent lips. She seemed to him a hundred times sweeter, more
beautiful, more desired than ever,--a hundred times more the only
one, the one chosen from among all mortals and divinities. And when he
thought that all this which had become so fixed in his heart, which had
become his blood and life, might be possessed by Nero, a pain seized
him, which was purely physical, and so piercing that he wanted to beat
his head against the wall of the atrium, until he should break it. He
felt that he might go mad; and he would have gone mad beyond doubt, had
not vengeance remained to him. But as hitherto he had thought that he
could not live unless he got Lygia, he thought now that he would not
die till he had avenged her. This gave him a certain kind of comfort. "I
will be thy Cassius Chaerea!" [The slayer of Caligula] said he to himself
in thinking of Nero. After a while, seizing earth in his hands from
the flower vases surrounding the impluvium, he made a dreadful vow
to Erebus, Hecate, and his own household lares, that he would have
vengeance.

And he received a sort of consolation. He had at least something to live
for and something with which to fill his nights and days. Then, dropping
his idea of visiting Aulus, he gave command to bear him to the Palatine.
Along the way he concluded