stifled in these narrow streets, amid these tumble-down houses, amid
these alleys. Foul air flies even here to my house and my gardens. Oh,
if an earthquake would destroy Rome, if some angry god would level it to
the earth! I would show how a city should be built, which is the head of
the world and my capital."

"Caesar," answered Tigellinus, "thou sayest, 'If some angry god would
destroy the city,'--is it so?"

"It is! What then?"

"But art thou not a god?"

Nero waved his hand with an expression of weariness, and said,--"We
shall see thy work on the pond of Agrippa. Afterward I go to Antium. Ye
are all little, hence do not understand that I need immense things."

Then he closed his eyes, giving to understand in that way that he needed
rest. In fact, the Augustians were beginning to depart. Petronius went
out with Vinicius, and said to him,--"Thou art invited, then, to share
in the amusement. Bronzebeard has renounced the journey, but he will be
madder than ever; he has fixed himself in the city as in his own house.
Try thou, too, to find in these madnesses amusement and forgetfulness.
Well! we have conquered the world, and have a right to amuse ourselves.
Thou, Marcus, art a very comely fellow, and to that I ascribe in part
the weakness which I have for thee. By the Ephesian Diana! if thou
couldst see thy joined brows, and thy face in which the ancient blood
of the Quirites is evident! Others near thee looked like freedmen. True!
were it not for that mad religion, Lygia would be in thy house to-day.
Attempt once more to prove to me that they are not enemies of life and
mankind. They have acted well toward thee, hence thou mayst be grateful
to them; but in thy place I should detest that religion, and seek
pleasure where I could find it. Thou art a comely fellow, I repeat, and
Rome is swarming with divorced women."

"I wonder only that all this does not torture thee yet?"

"Who has told thee that it does not? It tortures me this long time,
but I am not of thy years. Besides, I have other attachments which are
lacking thee. I love books, thou hast no love for them; I love poetry,
which annoys thee; I love pottery, gems, a multitude of things, at which
thou dost not look; I have a pain in my loins, which thou hast not; and,
finally, I have found Eunice, but thou hast found nothing similar. For
me, it is pleasant in my house, among masterpieces; of thee I can never
make a man of aesthetic feeling. I know that in li