o loved
Berenice that grief almost drew the life out of him. So could I too
love, O Lygia! Riches, glory, power are mere smoke, vanity! The rich
man will find a richer than himself; the greater glory of another
will eclipse a man who is famous; a strong man will be conquered by a
stronger. But can Caesar himself, can any god even, experience greater
delight or be happier than a simple mortal at the moment when at his
breast there is breathing another dear breast, or when he kisses beloved
lips? Hence love makes us equal to the gods, O Lygia."

And she listened with alarm, with astonishment, and at the same time as
if she were listening to the sound of a Grecian flute or a cithara. It
seemed to her at moments that Vinicius was singing a kind of wonderful
song, which was instilling itself into her ears, moving the blood in
her, and penetrating her heart with a faintness, a fear, and a kind
of uncomprehended delight. It seemed to her also that he was telling
something which was in her before, but of which she could not give
account to herself. She felt that he was rousing in her something which
had been sleeping hitherto, and that in that moment a hazy dream
was changing into a form more and more definite, more pleasing, more
beautiful.

Meanwhile the sun had passed the Tiber long since, and had sunk low over
the Janiculum. On the motionless cypresses ruddy light was falling, and
the whole atmosphere was filled with it. Lygia raised on Vinicius her
blue eyes as if roused from sleep; and he, bending over her with a
prayer quivering in his eyes, seemed on a sudden, in the reflections
of evening, more beautiful than all men, than all Greek and Roman gods
whose statues she had seen on the facades of temples. And with
his fingers he clasped her arm lightly just above the wrist and
asked,--"Dost thou not divine what I say to thee, Lygia?"

"No," whispered she as answer, in a voice so low that Vinicius barely
heard it.

But he did not believe her, and, drawing her hand toward him more
vigorously, he would have drawn it to his heart, which, under the
influence of desire roused by the marvellous maiden, was beating like a
hammer, and would have addressed burning words to her directly had not
old Aulus appeared on a path set in a frame of myrtles, who said,
while approaching them,--"The sun is setting; so beware of the evening
coolness, and do not trifle with Libitina."

"No," answered Vinicius; "I have not put on my toga yet,