she was tempting herself; that only love
for him and the charm which he exerted were attracting her, nothing
else. Thus she lived in a ceaseless struggle, which was intensified
daily. At times it seemed that a kind of net surrounded her, and that in
trying to break through it she entangled herself more and more. She had
also to confess that for her the sight of him was becoming more needful,
his voice was becoming dearer, and that she had to struggle with all her
might against the wish to sit at his bedside. When she approached him,
and he grew radiant, delight filled her heart. On a certain day she
noticed traces of tears on his eyelids, and for the first time in life
the thought came to her, to dry them with kisses. Terrified by that
thought, and full of self-contempt, she wept all the night following.

He was as enduring as if he had made a vow of patience. When at moments
his eyes flashed with petulance, self-will, and anger, he restrained
those flashes promptly, and looked with alarm at her, as if to implore
pardon. This acted still more on her. Never had she such a feeling of
being greatly loved as then; and when she thought of this, she felt at
once guilty and happy. Vinicius, too, had changed essentially. In his
conversations with Glaucus there was less pride. It occurred to him
frequently that even that poor slave physician and that foreign woman,
old Miriam, who surrounded him with attention, and Crispus, whom he saw
absorbed in continual prayer, were still human. He was astonished at
such thoughts, but he had them. After a time he conceived a liking for
Ursus, with whom he conversed entire days; for with him he could talk
about Lygia. The giant, on his part, was inexhaustible in narrative, and
while performing the most simple services for the sick man, he began to
show him also some attachment. For Vinicius, Lygia had been at all times
a being of another order, higher a hundred times than those around her:
nevertheless, he began to observe simple and poor people,--a thing which
he had never done before,--and he discovered in them various traits the
existence of which he had never suspected.

Nazarius, however, he could not endure, for it seemed to him that the
young lad had dared to fall in love with Lygia. He had restrained his
aversion for a long time, it is true; but once when he brought her two
quails, which he had bought in the market with his own earned money, the
descendant of the Quirites spoke out i