Rome For Sale, page 32
While the men were waiting, the talk turned to politics, and Clodius jeered at the weakness of the Senate that passed an Ultimate Decree and yet feared to make any real use of it.
“You’re right,” drawled Paullus. “Something ought to be done about it. All my sympathies are with Catalina as long as he doesn’t try to rob me. That’s to say, I think all politics are rot. But it’s disgusting to see such a cowardly collection of nincompoops calling themselves the ruling class.” He sat up excitedly. “ I’ll tell you what I’ll do, fellows. I’ll shame the lot of them. I’ll start a prosecution of Catalina to-morrow for violating the peace. That’ll show up their Ultimate Decree for what it’s worth.”
His friends cheered him. “He’s the coming dictator,” remarked Curio.
“Well, now that’s settled,” said Antonius, “I’ll take any six of you on at a wrestling-match, and if you won’t have it, I’m going to sing a song.”
“Bring in another cheese and throw it at him,” moaned Curio. But the company’s attention was taken up by the man who had eaten the thirty hard-boiled eggs. He was twisting on his couch and clutching an anguished stomach. Paullus ordered him to be carried out and inspected by the house-physician. A second time he had scored; not everyone had a fully qualified Greek ready at a moment’s notice. He beamed with good nature towards the sufferer who had twice been the cause of these triumphs.
But now the girls, washed of apple juices and anointed with Assyrian nard, were trooping back. The bruises from the apple-chase would not be showing until the morrow.
3
Next day the eater of thirty hard-boiled eggs died and Paullus appeared in the law-courts to give notice of an impeachment of Catalina for breach of peace. The authorities were rather astonished at their new ally but did not refuse his aid, though they felt that his use of the ordinary methods of prosecution reflected somewhat ludicrously on their extraordinary but scarcely-used powers under the Ultimate Decree.
Catalina, like Cicero, was taken unawares by this eminently obvious procedure; but it did not affect his plans particularly. To continue his policy, he demanded that some citizen whose repute was beyond suspicion should receive him into his house until the end of the trial. He first approached one Lepidus, a consular, but was refused; then he offered himself to Cicero, and was refused again; then to Metellus Celer with the same result. After that he delivered himself to the Marcus Marcellus who had accompanied Crassus during the visit with the anonymous letters to Cicero. Marcellus was a man who wished to be on both sides.
On the whole Catalina was satisfied. It would be even more difficult for the conservatives to make an unconstitutional attack on him while he was awaiting trial in the law-courts. Such an attack would now be a confession of disbelief in the justice of their own cause.
Meanwhile Cicero was hard at work. The signs of rising in the South gave him the most fears; for Manlius was an open enemy. If the South rose in mass, there would be a general revolt. He therefore sent Sestius, as one of the few reliable officers, to take charge of Capua. Sestius reported that he had turned out two important emissaries of Catalina, one of whom was tampering with the gladiators. In Rome Cicero had established watches under the inspection of the minor magistrates; and he now sent word to Fulvia that she would be well paid if she could extract more than general points from Curius.
This suited Fulvia’s mood. She had reached the end of her tether. Now that Sestius was gone, she felt that she had no one to trust, and her rage against Curius became unbounded. She must drag him down. He came in, half drunk, and began ranting.
“You’re mad,” she said. “You think that you have a lot to tell me, don’t you?”
“I will soon, Ecastor! I’ll rub your face in gold and strangle you with a string of pearls. How much do I owe you now?”
“Come here.” He lurched across and she drew him down. He struggled and then lay still. Clasping him tight, she whispered into his ear. “You owe me your life.”
He struggled again. “Let me go. You make my ear burn. What did you say?”
“Do you want me?”
He seemed sobered by the direct question. “Do I want you? I want nothing else. I suppose I do. You drive me mad, but I want you.”
She felt her body stiffen as she nerved herself to the dreaded statement. “Then you’re going to act as a spy on Catalina.”
He tore away. “It’s you that’s mad. I’d die first. I love him.” Tears rolled down his cheeks; even in this moment of repudiation of her threat she saw all his future surrender, all the pain and dirt.
“You love him more than me?”
“More than any woman. I loathe you now, you filthy-hearted slut.”
“Then I’ll have you arrested at once for the money you owe me.”
He writhed. “But you wouldn’t do that, Fulvia. I’ll have all the wealth of the world in a few days.”
“Don’t talk to me like that again. Your Catalina is doomed. I want my money now.”
He walked over to her unsteadily and placed his hands round her throat. “I’ll kill you if you corner me. Do you hear?”
She lay back, opening her arms laxly. “Kill me then. You won’t go far before you’re arrested. I thought this would happen. I’ve left all your bills with a full statement about you in the keeping of someone who’ll know what to do.”
He dropped his hands. She lay there still laxly offering. He shook his fist in her face. She did not move. He threw himself beside her, kissing her wildly, snuggling against her.
“Speak to me, Fulvia. Speak to me. Ask anything else, and I’ll do it. I love you.” He caught her and tried to drag her up. “Speak.” He collapsed again. “Oh how wretched I am. Why can’t you pity me?” He caressed her again, and embraced her. “Love me, Fulvia.”
She made no response and he paused. “I can’t stand it. I’ll betray him.”
Suddenly she came to life. She clasped him close, she kissed him. Her hot lips sucked the tears from his cheeks. She stroked him. Convulsively he surrendered.
“Love me,” she said. “Please, please, darling.” She was as terrified as he was.
“I’ll do anything you want,” he sobbed. “Anything. Yes, yes, yes.” Then he broke down. “I can’t do it.”
“You promised,” she whispered. “You’ll do it for me, and I’ll know you love me, and I’ll be kind always.”
He clung to her. “I’m so wretched, Fulvia. I can’t live without you, but I can’t betray him. It would haunt me sleeping and waking. He’s the only true friend I’ve ever had. My food would choke me.”
“You’ve got to do it,” she answered harshly, holding him close. “For me. Don’t you see he’s doomed?”
“But how do you know?” he persisted.
“I have friends. They tell me. Cicero knows everything. They were going to arrest you and torture you.”
He burst into a sweat. “But they can’t torture a free man.”
“Who would know? They meant to kidnap you in the dark and throw you into one of the dungeons. Then they meant to break you on the wheel.”
“But why me? I’m not one of the heads. Why me?”
“They had to choose someone—someone who knew enough but whose absence wouldn’t be noticed too much. They’re waiting outside now. I’ll show you.”
They were in the upper-storey front-room. She took him to the small latticed window, paned with mica, and showed him a hooded man skulking at the corner below. It was the man from Cicero waiting to hear her news. Curius drew away, trembling. “I won’t be tortured. I couldn’t bear it.”
She soothed him. “Don’t fear. Nothing will happen. I swore to them that you would tell everything without it. You must do as I say. You won’t be harming anyone. Catalina will fail whatever you do.”
Curius beat his head. “If I were only sure of that … But it must be so.”
“Can’t you see it? Why do you think I’ve been unkind of late. I’ve been suffering in my love for you. I feared …”
“Did you?” His self-pitiful beseeching face looked up at her, his mouth open. “O Fulvia, if you truly loved me, I wouldn’t care for any shame.”
She turned and took down her purse from a shelf on the bedside table. “And they sent you money.”
He watched with avid eyes. “I don’t want any. If I do it, it will be because of my love for you, because you say it will make you kind again. I don’t want money, I tell you!” he cried, his voice rising and breaking. “Take it away.” He covered his face. “I can’t sell my friend. I’ll do it from love of you, but I can’t sell him.”
“Very well.” She threw the purse down on the bed. Curius watched it as if it were a live thing, a rat that would whisk away into a hole or make a squealing leap for his throat.
“Why didn’t they give it to you?” he said at last, gulping.
“It’s mine now, since you won’t have it. He isn’t my friend.”
Curius hesitated for a while, then he said, “Well, you can lend me some.” He shifted, unable to face her. “I need it as much as you do. More. I’ll pay it back.”
She lifted the purse and poured out the coins among the tumbled bedclothes. He scraped them up with his hands, fumbling for some that slid behind creases. Fulvia turned away and pretended not to be watching. “You can come back later.”
He approached and kissed her hand. “Thank you, little dove. Thank you. I know you love me. I couldn’t live now unless I knew that. There’s nothing else to live for.” Under his gown he clutched the coins.
“See what you can find out,” she answered. Still not looking into his face. “And come back later.”
“I will, my darling,” he said with a whine of joy in his voice. “Let’s always be happy. Life’s too terrible otherwise.” He paused, drew himself up, and moved towards the door. “I’ll be back later.”
Fulvia did not dare to speak for fear that she would insult him. Yet she was shaken with relief, as if she had escaped a great danger. As soon as the conspiracy was crushed, she would turn him out. He was degraded, the most worthless creature alive; and yet she was already yearning for the time when he would return.
4
Clodius continued to avoid Nacca’s hall, but one day, meeting Nacca in the streets of the Subura, he had no reply to the man’s rough jests and promised to call soon. “Flaviola will be glad,” said Nacca. “She hasn’t been at all well. I suppose the dog days don’t agree with her, though I’m told the dogstar sucks the marrow out of men but makes women all the sprightlier. She’s getting a big girl.”
Clodius bought a book of verse and went straight to the hall. He knew that Nacca would be absent as he had complained about an errand to the Aventine. Knocking at the house-door, he was met by a sad-faced Flaviola, whose eyes lighted at once.
“Oh do come in and don’t run away,” she said. “I’m so frightened you’ll vanish.” She caught his hands and dragged him in. Clodius was remorsefully pleased to have come. He would give Nacca a good sum of money as a dowry and enable him to marry her off to some better-class tradesman. But Flaviola had taken the book and was spelling it out. As she came up to ask him what a long word meant, he put his arm about her and kissed her. She showed no surprise. She waited till he had finished the kiss, and then said gravely, “Thank you.”
“You’re a sweet thing,” he replied, trying to pretend that the kiss had meant nothing.
“I hoped you’d kiss me,” she said sitting on his knee. “I was so miserable when you never came.”
Clodius took up the book and began reading it through with her. She looked up lightly into his eyes, her arm about his neck, and was so studiously attentive that he did not know how to take her prior complaisance. At last he heard Nacca’s step. Flaviola at once jumped from his lap and sat on the chair at the other side of the table.
“I came straight along to see the little invalid,” said Clodius. “She doesn’t seem very ill, if you ask me.”
“Neither she does,” agreed Nacca. “Pour me out a cup of wine, young woman. I’m turned to dust inside like one of those funeral figures where you take the head off and pour in the ashes of the late-departed. But look here, Master Clodius, you can tell those that you and me both know that things are going very well. If need be, Nacca’s boys will be in the forefront, and it’s more than dust they’ll raise.”
“What does Met-a-mor-phos-is mean?” asked Flaviola. looking up from her book.
“It means the turning of someone into something new and strange, something quite unlike the old self,” said Clodius. Was her remark a sign? He had changed her. Was he changing too? Certainly he had been thoroughly bored at the party of Paullus the other night. If only Flaviola were in his own class and he could marry her … But he wouldn’t harm the girl. He wouldn’t change her that way. “If you were changed into a pusscat,” he went on, “that would be a metamorphosis.”
“O dear,” she said, wriggling. “I’d rather be myself. I saw the boys throw a cat down the sewer hole yesterday.” She looked troubled, and Clodius wanted to console her.
5
Tension was deepening. Though from one point of view the conflict had become a test in staying-power, yet neither side could afford to hang on indefinitely. If the deadlock persisted till the end of the year, Cicero would pass out of office and the whole affair would be deflated. If Catalina did not do something, the veterans in Etruria and the disaffected persons in the South would become disheartened. The prosecution by Paullus made Catalina finally face this dilemma; and once it was faced, he saw that for him there was only one solution. Cicero must be killed. With Cicero removed, the conservatives would be demoralised; the radicals could make arrangements to seize the other consul, who would submit to dictation and if necessary announce a dictatorship.
Once Catalina had settled this in his mind, he felt no qualms about the use of murder as a political weapon. The conservatives had successively murdered all the popular leaders, and only lack of nerve was preventing them at the moment from attacking him with an armed force. To shrink from murder as a counter-weapon would be idealistic foolery of the most obnoxious type. Moral values had passed beyond any question of individual equity; they could appear only in the broader issues of class against class, idea against idea.
Catalina therefore called a meeting of his chiefs at the house of one Læca, who was conveniently obscure though devoted to the cause. Marcellus, in whose house Catalina was lodging, closed his eyes to the evening-stroll of his prisoner-guest, and Catalina, heavily muffled, reached the Street of the Scythemakers safely unrecognised. Cethegus, Lentulus, Cassius and all the others were present, including many representatives from the municipalities and lesser followers such as Volturcius and Curius. Curius was soddenly drunk but did not show it, save for his bloodshot eyes. Catalina at once put to the gathering his decision about Cicero. They agreed without a dissentient voice, obviously lightened by his words.
“I can’t leave Rome till he is dead,” said Catalina. “But if he was killed, we could at once seize the city and set up a provisional government. The first step would be to annex Antonius and make him the figure-head. At the same time the wife and sons of Pompeius must be guarded as hostages, and all the conservative leaders thrown into prison. All efforts to resist by force must be met by force and the opposition crushed by the sword. I could leave Rome the moment that the first steps were taken, join Manlius and lead the army to Rome, breaking up the government-levies. Nothing stands between us and an easy assumption of power but Cicero. He must be murdered. Who will volunteer?”
Flat-nosed Cornelius spoke. “I’ll do it. I hate the man. He snubbed me once before a woman I wanted. She turned me down.”
“I want two men,” said Catalina, smiling at Cornelius. “Who’s the other?”
A large sleepy-looking fellow named Vargunteius, son of a dealer in hides, stepped out. “I can’t see Cornelius done for without putting in a word. We shared a flagon and a wench last night. We share something else before to-morrow ends.”
“I look on Cicero as a dead man,” said Catalina. “I suggest that you call on him early, before dawn, to-morrow morning, saying that you have come to claim the informer’s reward. Make a great noise at the door and get it opened before anyone quite knows what’s happened. Take a picked body of slaves, good fighting fellows. Have some with you and place the rest near at hand so that they can rush in after or rescue you if need be. Arrange signals for all that. I leave the details to you.”
Cornelius and Vargunteius retired to talk at the further end of the room. Læca, a fat-bellied man with thin arms and legs, hustled the slaves round with wine for the guests; and the company broke up into groups of action, discussing their final arrangements. Lentulus, Cethegus and Cassius were in charge of Rome; Septimius of Picenum; Gaius Iulius of Appulia; Cæparius of Capua; Catalina himself of Etruria. Catalina moved from group to group seeing that all details were understood and that at the signal of Cicero’s death every man could proceed instantly on his task.
There was a spirit of hope and energy in all the groups. Catalina was satisfied. “To the death of Cicero,” croaked Læca, seeing that all were served with wine. “And to the new state under Catalina.” The toast was drunk in silence, then a buzz of enthusiasm sprang up again.
Catalina noticed Curius half-hidden behind a group. Something fuddled and lonely about the man attracted his eye, and he spoke to him, “You seem the only one without something to do.”
“No, no,” said Curius, drinking deep. “I know what I’ve to do. You don’t doubt me, do you?”
“Where have you been lately? I haven’t seen much of you.” Catalina recalled how once Curius for all his sly touch of unhappiness had been full of jests and stories; and he was drawn for the moment out of his preoccupation to consider the private existences of all these men who were linked with him, venturing so much. Such a network of emotions radiated out from this room; hundreds of families were directly dependent on the results of the meeting; and beyond those families the whole of Italy, the world, would be affected to the depths by those results. For the first time Catalina saw the impact of his idea on life as a multiplicity of human factors, incredibly entangled. He withdrew from the contemplation; action would be impossible if one was to become obsessed by those infinitely ricocheting effects instead of the simple and inspiriting cause that alone gave meaning and sanctified all suffering.
“You’re right,” drawled Paullus. “Something ought to be done about it. All my sympathies are with Catalina as long as he doesn’t try to rob me. That’s to say, I think all politics are rot. But it’s disgusting to see such a cowardly collection of nincompoops calling themselves the ruling class.” He sat up excitedly. “ I’ll tell you what I’ll do, fellows. I’ll shame the lot of them. I’ll start a prosecution of Catalina to-morrow for violating the peace. That’ll show up their Ultimate Decree for what it’s worth.”
His friends cheered him. “He’s the coming dictator,” remarked Curio.
“Well, now that’s settled,” said Antonius, “I’ll take any six of you on at a wrestling-match, and if you won’t have it, I’m going to sing a song.”
“Bring in another cheese and throw it at him,” moaned Curio. But the company’s attention was taken up by the man who had eaten the thirty hard-boiled eggs. He was twisting on his couch and clutching an anguished stomach. Paullus ordered him to be carried out and inspected by the house-physician. A second time he had scored; not everyone had a fully qualified Greek ready at a moment’s notice. He beamed with good nature towards the sufferer who had twice been the cause of these triumphs.
But now the girls, washed of apple juices and anointed with Assyrian nard, were trooping back. The bruises from the apple-chase would not be showing until the morrow.
3
Next day the eater of thirty hard-boiled eggs died and Paullus appeared in the law-courts to give notice of an impeachment of Catalina for breach of peace. The authorities were rather astonished at their new ally but did not refuse his aid, though they felt that his use of the ordinary methods of prosecution reflected somewhat ludicrously on their extraordinary but scarcely-used powers under the Ultimate Decree.
Catalina, like Cicero, was taken unawares by this eminently obvious procedure; but it did not affect his plans particularly. To continue his policy, he demanded that some citizen whose repute was beyond suspicion should receive him into his house until the end of the trial. He first approached one Lepidus, a consular, but was refused; then he offered himself to Cicero, and was refused again; then to Metellus Celer with the same result. After that he delivered himself to the Marcus Marcellus who had accompanied Crassus during the visit with the anonymous letters to Cicero. Marcellus was a man who wished to be on both sides.
On the whole Catalina was satisfied. It would be even more difficult for the conservatives to make an unconstitutional attack on him while he was awaiting trial in the law-courts. Such an attack would now be a confession of disbelief in the justice of their own cause.
Meanwhile Cicero was hard at work. The signs of rising in the South gave him the most fears; for Manlius was an open enemy. If the South rose in mass, there would be a general revolt. He therefore sent Sestius, as one of the few reliable officers, to take charge of Capua. Sestius reported that he had turned out two important emissaries of Catalina, one of whom was tampering with the gladiators. In Rome Cicero had established watches under the inspection of the minor magistrates; and he now sent word to Fulvia that she would be well paid if she could extract more than general points from Curius.
This suited Fulvia’s mood. She had reached the end of her tether. Now that Sestius was gone, she felt that she had no one to trust, and her rage against Curius became unbounded. She must drag him down. He came in, half drunk, and began ranting.
“You’re mad,” she said. “You think that you have a lot to tell me, don’t you?”
“I will soon, Ecastor! I’ll rub your face in gold and strangle you with a string of pearls. How much do I owe you now?”
“Come here.” He lurched across and she drew him down. He struggled and then lay still. Clasping him tight, she whispered into his ear. “You owe me your life.”
He struggled again. “Let me go. You make my ear burn. What did you say?”
“Do you want me?”
He seemed sobered by the direct question. “Do I want you? I want nothing else. I suppose I do. You drive me mad, but I want you.”
She felt her body stiffen as she nerved herself to the dreaded statement. “Then you’re going to act as a spy on Catalina.”
He tore away. “It’s you that’s mad. I’d die first. I love him.” Tears rolled down his cheeks; even in this moment of repudiation of her threat she saw all his future surrender, all the pain and dirt.
“You love him more than me?”
“More than any woman. I loathe you now, you filthy-hearted slut.”
“Then I’ll have you arrested at once for the money you owe me.”
He writhed. “But you wouldn’t do that, Fulvia. I’ll have all the wealth of the world in a few days.”
“Don’t talk to me like that again. Your Catalina is doomed. I want my money now.”
He walked over to her unsteadily and placed his hands round her throat. “I’ll kill you if you corner me. Do you hear?”
She lay back, opening her arms laxly. “Kill me then. You won’t go far before you’re arrested. I thought this would happen. I’ve left all your bills with a full statement about you in the keeping of someone who’ll know what to do.”
He dropped his hands. She lay there still laxly offering. He shook his fist in her face. She did not move. He threw himself beside her, kissing her wildly, snuggling against her.
“Speak to me, Fulvia. Speak to me. Ask anything else, and I’ll do it. I love you.” He caught her and tried to drag her up. “Speak.” He collapsed again. “Oh how wretched I am. Why can’t you pity me?” He caressed her again, and embraced her. “Love me, Fulvia.”
She made no response and he paused. “I can’t stand it. I’ll betray him.”
Suddenly she came to life. She clasped him close, she kissed him. Her hot lips sucked the tears from his cheeks. She stroked him. Convulsively he surrendered.
“Love me,” she said. “Please, please, darling.” She was as terrified as he was.
“I’ll do anything you want,” he sobbed. “Anything. Yes, yes, yes.” Then he broke down. “I can’t do it.”
“You promised,” she whispered. “You’ll do it for me, and I’ll know you love me, and I’ll be kind always.”
He clung to her. “I’m so wretched, Fulvia. I can’t live without you, but I can’t betray him. It would haunt me sleeping and waking. He’s the only true friend I’ve ever had. My food would choke me.”
“You’ve got to do it,” she answered harshly, holding him close. “For me. Don’t you see he’s doomed?”
“But how do you know?” he persisted.
“I have friends. They tell me. Cicero knows everything. They were going to arrest you and torture you.”
He burst into a sweat. “But they can’t torture a free man.”
“Who would know? They meant to kidnap you in the dark and throw you into one of the dungeons. Then they meant to break you on the wheel.”
“But why me? I’m not one of the heads. Why me?”
“They had to choose someone—someone who knew enough but whose absence wouldn’t be noticed too much. They’re waiting outside now. I’ll show you.”
They were in the upper-storey front-room. She took him to the small latticed window, paned with mica, and showed him a hooded man skulking at the corner below. It was the man from Cicero waiting to hear her news. Curius drew away, trembling. “I won’t be tortured. I couldn’t bear it.”
She soothed him. “Don’t fear. Nothing will happen. I swore to them that you would tell everything without it. You must do as I say. You won’t be harming anyone. Catalina will fail whatever you do.”
Curius beat his head. “If I were only sure of that … But it must be so.”
“Can’t you see it? Why do you think I’ve been unkind of late. I’ve been suffering in my love for you. I feared …”
“Did you?” His self-pitiful beseeching face looked up at her, his mouth open. “O Fulvia, if you truly loved me, I wouldn’t care for any shame.”
She turned and took down her purse from a shelf on the bedside table. “And they sent you money.”
He watched with avid eyes. “I don’t want any. If I do it, it will be because of my love for you, because you say it will make you kind again. I don’t want money, I tell you!” he cried, his voice rising and breaking. “Take it away.” He covered his face. “I can’t sell my friend. I’ll do it from love of you, but I can’t sell him.”
“Very well.” She threw the purse down on the bed. Curius watched it as if it were a live thing, a rat that would whisk away into a hole or make a squealing leap for his throat.
“Why didn’t they give it to you?” he said at last, gulping.
“It’s mine now, since you won’t have it. He isn’t my friend.”
Curius hesitated for a while, then he said, “Well, you can lend me some.” He shifted, unable to face her. “I need it as much as you do. More. I’ll pay it back.”
She lifted the purse and poured out the coins among the tumbled bedclothes. He scraped them up with his hands, fumbling for some that slid behind creases. Fulvia turned away and pretended not to be watching. “You can come back later.”
He approached and kissed her hand. “Thank you, little dove. Thank you. I know you love me. I couldn’t live now unless I knew that. There’s nothing else to live for.” Under his gown he clutched the coins.
“See what you can find out,” she answered. Still not looking into his face. “And come back later.”
“I will, my darling,” he said with a whine of joy in his voice. “Let’s always be happy. Life’s too terrible otherwise.” He paused, drew himself up, and moved towards the door. “I’ll be back later.”
Fulvia did not dare to speak for fear that she would insult him. Yet she was shaken with relief, as if she had escaped a great danger. As soon as the conspiracy was crushed, she would turn him out. He was degraded, the most worthless creature alive; and yet she was already yearning for the time when he would return.
4
Clodius continued to avoid Nacca’s hall, but one day, meeting Nacca in the streets of the Subura, he had no reply to the man’s rough jests and promised to call soon. “Flaviola will be glad,” said Nacca. “She hasn’t been at all well. I suppose the dog days don’t agree with her, though I’m told the dogstar sucks the marrow out of men but makes women all the sprightlier. She’s getting a big girl.”
Clodius bought a book of verse and went straight to the hall. He knew that Nacca would be absent as he had complained about an errand to the Aventine. Knocking at the house-door, he was met by a sad-faced Flaviola, whose eyes lighted at once.
“Oh do come in and don’t run away,” she said. “I’m so frightened you’ll vanish.” She caught his hands and dragged him in. Clodius was remorsefully pleased to have come. He would give Nacca a good sum of money as a dowry and enable him to marry her off to some better-class tradesman. But Flaviola had taken the book and was spelling it out. As she came up to ask him what a long word meant, he put his arm about her and kissed her. She showed no surprise. She waited till he had finished the kiss, and then said gravely, “Thank you.”
“You’re a sweet thing,” he replied, trying to pretend that the kiss had meant nothing.
“I hoped you’d kiss me,” she said sitting on his knee. “I was so miserable when you never came.”
Clodius took up the book and began reading it through with her. She looked up lightly into his eyes, her arm about his neck, and was so studiously attentive that he did not know how to take her prior complaisance. At last he heard Nacca’s step. Flaviola at once jumped from his lap and sat on the chair at the other side of the table.
“I came straight along to see the little invalid,” said Clodius. “She doesn’t seem very ill, if you ask me.”
“Neither she does,” agreed Nacca. “Pour me out a cup of wine, young woman. I’m turned to dust inside like one of those funeral figures where you take the head off and pour in the ashes of the late-departed. But look here, Master Clodius, you can tell those that you and me both know that things are going very well. If need be, Nacca’s boys will be in the forefront, and it’s more than dust they’ll raise.”
“What does Met-a-mor-phos-is mean?” asked Flaviola. looking up from her book.
“It means the turning of someone into something new and strange, something quite unlike the old self,” said Clodius. Was her remark a sign? He had changed her. Was he changing too? Certainly he had been thoroughly bored at the party of Paullus the other night. If only Flaviola were in his own class and he could marry her … But he wouldn’t harm the girl. He wouldn’t change her that way. “If you were changed into a pusscat,” he went on, “that would be a metamorphosis.”
“O dear,” she said, wriggling. “I’d rather be myself. I saw the boys throw a cat down the sewer hole yesterday.” She looked troubled, and Clodius wanted to console her.
5
Tension was deepening. Though from one point of view the conflict had become a test in staying-power, yet neither side could afford to hang on indefinitely. If the deadlock persisted till the end of the year, Cicero would pass out of office and the whole affair would be deflated. If Catalina did not do something, the veterans in Etruria and the disaffected persons in the South would become disheartened. The prosecution by Paullus made Catalina finally face this dilemma; and once it was faced, he saw that for him there was only one solution. Cicero must be killed. With Cicero removed, the conservatives would be demoralised; the radicals could make arrangements to seize the other consul, who would submit to dictation and if necessary announce a dictatorship.
Once Catalina had settled this in his mind, he felt no qualms about the use of murder as a political weapon. The conservatives had successively murdered all the popular leaders, and only lack of nerve was preventing them at the moment from attacking him with an armed force. To shrink from murder as a counter-weapon would be idealistic foolery of the most obnoxious type. Moral values had passed beyond any question of individual equity; they could appear only in the broader issues of class against class, idea against idea.
Catalina therefore called a meeting of his chiefs at the house of one Læca, who was conveniently obscure though devoted to the cause. Marcellus, in whose house Catalina was lodging, closed his eyes to the evening-stroll of his prisoner-guest, and Catalina, heavily muffled, reached the Street of the Scythemakers safely unrecognised. Cethegus, Lentulus, Cassius and all the others were present, including many representatives from the municipalities and lesser followers such as Volturcius and Curius. Curius was soddenly drunk but did not show it, save for his bloodshot eyes. Catalina at once put to the gathering his decision about Cicero. They agreed without a dissentient voice, obviously lightened by his words.
“I can’t leave Rome till he is dead,” said Catalina. “But if he was killed, we could at once seize the city and set up a provisional government. The first step would be to annex Antonius and make him the figure-head. At the same time the wife and sons of Pompeius must be guarded as hostages, and all the conservative leaders thrown into prison. All efforts to resist by force must be met by force and the opposition crushed by the sword. I could leave Rome the moment that the first steps were taken, join Manlius and lead the army to Rome, breaking up the government-levies. Nothing stands between us and an easy assumption of power but Cicero. He must be murdered. Who will volunteer?”
Flat-nosed Cornelius spoke. “I’ll do it. I hate the man. He snubbed me once before a woman I wanted. She turned me down.”
“I want two men,” said Catalina, smiling at Cornelius. “Who’s the other?”
A large sleepy-looking fellow named Vargunteius, son of a dealer in hides, stepped out. “I can’t see Cornelius done for without putting in a word. We shared a flagon and a wench last night. We share something else before to-morrow ends.”
“I look on Cicero as a dead man,” said Catalina. “I suggest that you call on him early, before dawn, to-morrow morning, saying that you have come to claim the informer’s reward. Make a great noise at the door and get it opened before anyone quite knows what’s happened. Take a picked body of slaves, good fighting fellows. Have some with you and place the rest near at hand so that they can rush in after or rescue you if need be. Arrange signals for all that. I leave the details to you.”
Cornelius and Vargunteius retired to talk at the further end of the room. Læca, a fat-bellied man with thin arms and legs, hustled the slaves round with wine for the guests; and the company broke up into groups of action, discussing their final arrangements. Lentulus, Cethegus and Cassius were in charge of Rome; Septimius of Picenum; Gaius Iulius of Appulia; Cæparius of Capua; Catalina himself of Etruria. Catalina moved from group to group seeing that all details were understood and that at the signal of Cicero’s death every man could proceed instantly on his task.
There was a spirit of hope and energy in all the groups. Catalina was satisfied. “To the death of Cicero,” croaked Læca, seeing that all were served with wine. “And to the new state under Catalina.” The toast was drunk in silence, then a buzz of enthusiasm sprang up again.
Catalina noticed Curius half-hidden behind a group. Something fuddled and lonely about the man attracted his eye, and he spoke to him, “You seem the only one without something to do.”
“No, no,” said Curius, drinking deep. “I know what I’ve to do. You don’t doubt me, do you?”
“Where have you been lately? I haven’t seen much of you.” Catalina recalled how once Curius for all his sly touch of unhappiness had been full of jests and stories; and he was drawn for the moment out of his preoccupation to consider the private existences of all these men who were linked with him, venturing so much. Such a network of emotions radiated out from this room; hundreds of families were directly dependent on the results of the meeting; and beyond those families the whole of Italy, the world, would be affected to the depths by those results. For the first time Catalina saw the impact of his idea on life as a multiplicity of human factors, incredibly entangled. He withdrew from the contemplation; action would be impossible if one was to become obsessed by those infinitely ricocheting effects instead of the simple and inspiriting cause that alone gave meaning and sanctified all suffering.
