Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/140

 124 Arria Marcella.

low tone, but so that he did not lose The walls were made of fancifully

a word, — decorated panels. Octavio noticed all

" I am Tyche Novoleja, companion the details with a glance ; for Tyche

of the pleasures of Arria Marcella, put him into the hands of some slaves,

daughter of Arrius Diomedes. My who carried him into a thermal bath, in

mistress loves you ; follow me ! " spite of his impatience. After having

Arria Marcella had just stepped into passed through the different degrees of

her litter, carried by four slaves naked vaporized heat, being rubbed with a

to the waist, their bronze skins glitter- flesh brush, then washed in perfumed

ing in the sun. The curtain of the litter oils and cosmetics, he was clothed in a

was open ; and a white hand, glittering white tunic, and found Tyche at the

with rings, made a sign to Octavio, as opposite door waiting for him. She

if to confirm the words of her maid, took his hand, and led him into an-

The purple curtain fell, and the litter other richly decorated room,

went on its way. Upon the ceiling were paintings, ex-

Tyche conducted Octavio by short ceedingly pure in design, of a richness cuts and alleys, crossing the streets by of color, and freedom of touch, which stepping lightly upon the pieces of belong to the hand of a master and not stone which connected the sidewalks, of a simple decorator ; a frieze com- and between which were the ruts for posed of stags, hares, and birds play- carriage-wheels. Octavio noticed that ing among foliage extended above a they traversed some quarters of Pom- border of marble ; the mosaic pave- peii that modern people have not dis- ment, marvellously done, — perhaps by covered, and which were consequently Sosimus of Pergame, — represented fig- unknown to him. This strange circum- ures in relief, executed with a skill that stance, among so many others, did not rendered them lifelike, astonish him. He had decided to be At the rear of the room, upon a di- astonished at nothing. In all this phan- van or bed, Arria Marcella was stretched tasmagoria, which would have driven an in a position which recalled the woman antiquary wild with happiness, he saw in bed, by Phidias, upon the front of only the black and profound eye of the Parthenon. Her stockings, embroi- Arria Marcella, and the superb throat dered with pearis, lay at the foot of the victorious over the centuries, and which bed ; and her beautiful naked foot, even destruction wanted to preserve, whiter than snow or marble, peeped They arrived at a door, which opened out from under a light coverlid of white and closed quickly after their entrance ; linen of the finest quality, and Octavio found himself in a court Two earrings made of strung pearls surrounded by columns of marble of lay along her pale cheeks ; a collar the Ionic order, painted half their height of balls of gold, with pear-shaped pen- of a lively yellow color, and the capital dants, hung over her breast, left half relieved by red and blue ornaments, uncovered by the negligently arranged A garland of birthwort suspended its folds of a light straw-colored hand- large leaves, in the form of a heart, from kerchief, with a Greek border of black ; the summit; and near a basin sur- a band of black and gold held her rounded by plants, a flaming rose was ebony-black hair in place (for she had held by a sculptured paw. changed her costume on returning from

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