I began to walk once more up and down the deck. I thought of John—gentle and handsome youth, as I knew him—and of our great friendship. I thought of Mary—of her magnificent body, of our passionate embraces. It was so long ago! They had become characters, more or less fabulous, in a greater fable. The hundreds of people I had known, and the many women I had possessed—all were shadows now that had merely crossed my path. These two alone were real.

VIII: I ARRIVE IN ROME—I TEMPT THE GODS AND—SNEEZE—I TRANSLATE NERO’S POEMS—MY FIRST AMOUR WITH AN EMPRESS—I AM EMBARRASSED—”HOW STRONG YOU ARE CARTAPHILUS”

I ARRIVED in Rome just as the sun was setting. Its immense reflection in the Tiber resembled a great conflagration.

I was walking slowly along the shore, analyzing a half dozen emotions that besieged me, when I heard a piercing cry. “Help! Help! Help! “

The mock fire upon the river rose into tongues of flame as a boy beat the water desperately. Several people rushed to the spot. A woman pulled one, then another, by the toga. “Save him! Save him! My son! Save him!”

“I cannot swim.”

“The Tiber is too rough. It will swallow us both.”

“Save him! My son! Help! Help!”

‘You are eternal, are you not?’ a voice distant, extraneous, as of another person, rang in my ears. ‘Prove it now!’

‘I cannot swim,’ I answered.

‘That’s just the reason… Tempt fate!’

I made a motion as if to disengage myself from an invisible hand.

‘Prove that your life is inviolate!’

I meant to continue my walk. What strange power then, hurled me suddenly, dressed as I was, and against my will, into the river? By what stranger instinct did I find myself swimming, when I had never swum before?

I caught the boy, just as he was sinking, and held him in one arm; with the other I beat the water. The Tiber pulled at my body like a great iron weight. I beat it, as one beats a living enemy—a wild beast.

A fisherman’s boat arrived. I felt a power pull me upward. The great iron weight became light. I heard a shout—and then,—a long silence.

I opened my eyes. My lids were a little heavy. I tried to keep them from pasting together again. A man was bending over me. I sneezed in his face. He remained grave and unperturbed. Wiping his face, he said: “Only a cold. A few days of rest, and this drug both for him and the boy.”

I noticed then that he was talking to a man and a woman, standing in back of him. In the opposite corner, a child coughed. I realized that I was in the home of the boy I had saved from drowning. If immune from death, I was nevertheless susceptible to colds.

For weeks I was the guest of Lavinius, an enormously wealthy patrician. He introduced me to the Imperator. I translated Nero’s poems into Hebrew and Chaldean and gained his favor by flattery. I was prejudiced against the Imperator because his face was red and covered with pimples, but I was fascinated by the Empress Poppaea. Was it her finely etched nose, was it her lips, indented at each corner, making two exquisite dimples, was it her voluptuous posture revealing the dazzling fragment of a breast that made me whisper ‘Mary’? And Sporus, the Emperor’s minion, how his large blue eyes gazed directly into the distance. ‘John!’ Was it an illusion? Was it my loneliness that invested with similitude unrelated things?

It was bruited in Rome that Poppaea was a Jewess. I do not know. Judaism was the one topic that we avoided when we exchanged confidences. Nevertheless it is possible that the consciousness of our racial consanguinity established a secret tie between myself and the Empress.

Nero, after one of his vulgar banquets reeking with drink and retching with food, disappeared in the vomitorium to relieve angry nature with the aid of a peacock feather. He did not return. The guests departed. I found myself alone with the Imperatrix. She was reclining on the sofa as was her wont, and Sporus sat at her feet. The boy, concerned about the health of his imperial Master, to whom he was deeply devoted, kissed her hand, bowed to me, and walked out.

The Empress made a sign to two slaves who were standing at the door with arms crossed, a mode learned in Egypt. Making deep obeisance the two eunuchs closed the door behind them.

Poppaea’s eyes smiled. Her lips curled like the hungry petals of a carnivorous flower. The message of her blood to mine made her silence eloquent. My blood rushed to my head.

Did she mean to accept me as her lover? Should I, Cartaphilus, the shoemaker’s son, venture to touch the Empress of the world?

Apparently Poppaea, imperial even in her love-making, preferred to make the advances. She caressed my cheek and pressed her finger-tips against my eyelids. The tumult in our blood leaped over the abyss that separated the cobbler’s son and the Empress. Poppaea drew me gently upon the couch. She caressed my body. What cruel divinity interfered? Was it too great a privilege to touch the Mistress of Rome? What secret sense of inferiority stopped the onrush of the blood? Perhaps the very aggressiveness of her passion paralyzed mine…

In a sheet of flame, yet incapable of quenching the fire, I beat my fists against the couch. My limbs trembled as if a sudden spell had been cast upon them. Impotent to break the ensorcelment, I cursed in Hebrew and in Latin. I raged against myself, but my wrath was of no avail. Flushed and ashamed, I whispered, “Poppaea, Poppaea, I do not understand.”

She made no answer. Her eyes glistened. Her teeth clenched. The futility of my gestures became tiresome and, no doubt, ridiculous, for suddenly she burst into laughter.

Her laughter unleashed wild beasts in my bosom.

White with anger, no longer master of myself, I struck her brutally across her imperial mouth. I grasped her arms roughly, leaving upon them, like wounds, the imprint of my hand. My passion, expending itself in fury, I shouted obscene insults. Poppaea’s bosom shook, but no longer with laughter.

“Strike me, Cartaphilus, strike hard! “

She groaned, her eyes closed, her mouth opened.

A drop of blood, falling upon my hand like a red petal, brought me to my senses. “Forgive me, Poppaea.” The features of the Imperatrix relaxed. She opened her eyes.

“Cartaphilus, I love you.” Her voice was unexpectedly strident.

“Hurt me, crush me,” she gasped.

I rushed out of the palace. The night was cool, the stars hung in thick clusters like grapes. To my left I could hear the Tiber beat softly against the shores like a dog lapping.

The tempest aroused by the Empress raged in my brain for hours after I had reached my home.

My slave, a young girl from Damascus, brought in my night-robes.

“Wine!” I commanded. When she brought the wine, I ordered her to remain. She trembled. She had never seen me in such a mood.

“Don’t be afraid. Come, drink with me!” I poured a cup for her. “You will share my couch, tonight. Are you glad?”

“Whatever pleases my master, pleases me.”

It was already morning, when the slave, exhausted, placed her head upon my chest.

“How strong you are, Cartaphilus!”

‘If Poppaea could only hear you,’ I thought.

“When you rise, my child, you are a free woman.”

“I don’t want to be a free woman. I want to be your slave.”

She fell asleep. Her regular breathing lulled me to sleep as well. The sun was high overhead when we rose.