and I do not
feel the cold."

"But see, barely half the sun's shield is looking from behind the hill.
That is a sweet climate of Sicily, where people gather on the square
before sunset and take farewell of disappearing Phoebus with a choral
song."

And, forgetting that a moment earlier he had warned them against
Libitina, he began to tell about Sicily, where he had estates and large
cultivated fields which he loved. He stated also that it had come to his
mind more than once to remove to Sicily, and live out his life there in
quietness. "He whose head winters have whitened has bad enough of hoar
frost. Leaves are not falling from the trees yet, and the sky smiles on
the city lovingly; but when the grapevines grow yellow-leaved, when snow
falls on the Alban hills, and the gods visit the Campania with piercing
wind, who knows but I may remove with my entire household to my quiet
country-seat?"

"Wouldst thou leave Rome?" inquired Vinicius, with sudden alarm.

"I have wished to do so this long time, for it is quieter in Sicily and
safer."

And again he fell to praising his gardens, his herds, his house hidden
in green, and the hills grown over with thyme and savory, among which
were swarms of buzzing bees. But Vinicius paid no heed to that bucolic
note; and from thinking only of this, that he might lose Lygia, he
looked toward Petronius as if expecting salvation from him alone.

Meanwhile Petronius, sitting near Pomponia, was admiring the view of
the setting sun, the garden, and the people standing near the fish-pond.
Their white garments on the dark background of the myrtles gleamed like
gold from the evening rays. On the sky the evening light had begun to
assume purple and violet hues, and to change like an opal. A strip of
the sky became lily-colored. The dark silhouettes of the cypresses grew
still more pronounced than during bright daylight. In the people, in the
trees, in the whole garden there reigned an evening calm.

That calm struck Petronius, and it struck him especially in the people.
In the faces of Pomponia, old Aulus, their son, and Lygia there was
something such as he did not see in the faces which surrounded him every
day, or rather every night. There was a certain light, a certain repose,
a certain serenity, flowing directly from the life which all lived
there. And with a species of astonishment he thought that a beauty and
sweetness might exist which he, who chased after beauty and sweetness
con