Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Quo Vadis (1897 Curtin translation).djvu/70

54 few paces, she looked with delight on that matchless, spring-like form.

“Lygia,” exclaimed she at last, “thou art a hundred times more beautiful than Poppæa!” But, reared in the strict house of Pomponia, where modesty was observed, even when women were by themselves, the maiden, wonderful as a wonderful dream, harmonious as a work of Praxiteles or as a song, stood alarmed, blushing from modesty, with knees pressed together, with her hands on her bosom, and downcast eyes. At last, raising her arms with sudden movement, she removed the pins which held her hair, and in one moment, with one shake of her head, she covered herself with it as with a mantle.

Acte, approaching her and touching her dark tresses, said,—

“Oh, what hair thou hast! I will not sprinkle golden powder on it; it gleams of itself in one place and another with gold, where it waves. I will add, perhaps, barely a sprinkle here and there; but lightly, lightly, as if a ray had freshened it. Wonderful must thy Lygian country be where such maidens are born!

“I do not remember it,” answered Lygia; “but Ursus told me that with us it is forests, forests, and forests.” “But flowers bloom in those forests,” said Acte, dipping her hand in a vase filled with verbena, and moistening Lygia’s hair with it. When she had finished this work, Acte anointed her body lightly with odoriferous oils from Arabia, and then dressed her in a soft gold-colored tunic without sleeves, over which was to be put a snow-white peplus. But since she had to dress Lygia’s hair first, she put on her meanwhile a kind of roomy dress called synthesis, and, seating her in an armchair, gave her for a time into the hands of slave women, so as to follow at a distance herself the hairdressing. Two other slave women put on Lygia’s white sandals, embroidered with purple, fastening them to the alabaster ankles with golden lacings drawn crosswise. When at last the hair-dressing was finished, they put a peplus on her in very beautiful, light folds; then Acte, having fastened pearls to her neck, and touching her hair at the folds with gold dust, gave command to the women to dress her, following Lygia with delighted eyes the whole time.

But she was ready soon; and when the first litters began to appear before the main gate, both entered the side portico from which the chief entrance was visible, the interior