Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Quo Vadis (1897 Curtin translation).djvu/29

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a refreshment which was called a morning meal and to which the two friends sat down at an hour when common mortals were already long past their midday prandium, Petrouius proposed a light doze. According to him, it was too early for visits yet. “There are, it is true,” said he, “people who begin to visit their acquaintances about sunrise, thinking that custom an old Roman one, but I look on this as barbarous. The afternoon hours are most proper,—not earlier, however, than that hour when the sun passes to the side of Jove's temple on the Capitol and begins to look slantwise on the Forum. In autumn it is still hot, and people are glad to sleep after eating. At the same time it is pleasant to hear the noise of the fountain in the atrium, and after the obligatory thousand steps to doze in the red light which is filtered in through the purple half-drawn velarium.”

Vinicius recognized the justice of these words; and the two men began the walk, speaking in a careless manner of what was to be heard on the Palatine and in the city, and philosophizing a little upon life. Petronius withdrew then to the cubiculum, but did not sleep long. In half an hour he came out, and, having given command to bring verbena, he inhaled and rubbed his hands and temples with it.

“Thou wilt not believe," said he, “how it enlivens and clears one. Now I am ready.”

The litter was waiting long since; hence they took their places, and Petronius gave command to bear them to the Vicus Patricius, to the house of Aulus. Petronius's “insula” lay on the southern slope of the Palatine, near the so-called Carinæ; their nearest way therefore was below the Forum; but since Petronius wished also to step in to see the jeweller Idomeneus, he gave the direction to carry them along the Vicus Apollinis and the Forum in the direction of the Vicus Sceleratus, on the corner of which were many tabernæ of every kind.

Gigantic Africans bore the litter and moved on, preceded by slaves called pedisequii. Petronius after some time