The Satyricon — Complete, Petronius Arbiter [read book txt] 📗

CHAPTER THE SIXTY-FIFTH.

The dainties that followed this display of affability were of such a nature that, if any reliance is to be placed in my word, the very mention of them makes me sick at the stomach. Instead of thrushes, fattened chickens were served, one to each of us, and goose eggs with pastry caps on them, which same Trimalchio earnestly entreated us to eat, informing us that the chickens had all been boned. Just at that instant, however, a lictor knocked at the dining-room door, and a reveler, clad in white vestments, entered, followed by a large retinue. Startled at such pomp, I thought that the Praetor had arrived, so I put my bare feet upon the floor and started to get up, but Agamemnon laughed at my anxiety and said, “Keep your seat, you idiot, it’s only Habinnas the sevir; he’s a stone mason, and if report speaks true, he makes the finest tombstones imaginable.” Reassured by this information, I lay back upon my couch and watched Habinnas’ entrance with great curiosity. Already drunk and wearing several wreaths, his forehead smeared with perfume which ran down into his eyes, he advanced with his hands upon his wife’s shoulders, and, seating himself in the Praetor’s place, he called for wine and hot water. Delighted with his good humor, Trimalchio called for a larger goblet for himself, and asked him, at the same time, how he had been entertained. “We had everything except yourself, for my heart and soul were here, but it was fine, it was, by Hercules. Scissa was giving a Novendial feast for her slave, whom she freed on his death-bed, and it’s my opinion she’ll have a large sum to split with the tax gatherers, for the dead man was rated at 50,000, but everything went off well, even if we did have to pour half our wine on the bones of the late lamented.”

CHAPTER THE SIXTY-SIXTH.

“But,” demanded Trimalchio, “what did you have for dinner’?” “I’ll tell you if I can,” answered he, “for my memory’s so good that I often forget my own name. Let’s see, for the first course, we had a hog, crowned with a wine cup and garnished with cheese cakes and chicken livers cooked well done, beets, of course, and whole-wheat bread, which I’d rather have than white, because it puts strength into you, and when I take a crap afterwards, I don’t have to yell. Following this, came a course of tarts, served cold, with excellent Spanish wine poured over warm honey; I ate several of the tarts and got the honey all over myself. Then there were chick-peas and lupines, all the smooth-shelled nuts you wanted, and an apple apiece, but I got away with two, and here they are, tied up in my napkin; for I’ll have a row on my hands if I don’t bring some kind of a present home to my favorite slave. Oh yes, my wife has just reminded me, there was a haunch of bear-meat as a side dish, Scintilla ate some of it without knowing what it was, and she nearly puked up her guts when she found out. But as for me, I ate more than a pound of it, for it tasted exactly like wild boar and, says I, if a bear eats a man, shouldn’t that be all the more reason for a man to eat a bear? The last course was soft cheese, new wine boiled thick, a snail apiece, a helping of tripe, liver pate, capped eggs, turnips and mustard. But that’s enough. Pickled olives were handed around in a wooden bowl, and some of the party greedily snatched three handfuls, we had ham, too, but we sent it back.”

CHAPTER THE SIXTY-SEVENTH.

“But why isn’t Fortunata at the table, Gaius? Tell me.” “What’s that,” Trimalchio replied; “don’t you know her better than that? She wouldn’t touch even a drop of water till after the silver was put away and the leftovers divided among the slaves.” “I’m going to beat it if she don’t take her place,” Habinnas threatened, and started to get up; and then, at a signal, the slaves all called out together “Fortunata,” four times or more.

She appeared, girded round with a sash of greenish yellow, below which a cherry-colored tunic could be seen, and she had on twisted anklets and sandals worked in gold. Then, wiping her hands upon a handkerchief which she wore around her neck, she seated herself upon the couch, beside Scintilla, Habinnas’ wife, and clapping her hands and kissing her, “My dear,” she gushed, “is it really you?” Fortunata then removed the bracelets from her pudgy arms and held them out to the admiring Scintilla, and by and by she took off her anklets and even her yellow hair-net, which was twenty-four carats fine, she would have us know! Trimalchio, who was on the watch, ordered every trinket to be brought to him. “You see these things, don’t you?” he demanded; “they’re what women fetter us with. That’s the way us poor suckers are done! These ought to weigh six pounds and a half. I have an arm-band myself, that don’t weigh a grain under ten pounds; I bought it out of Mercury’s thousandths, too.” Finally, for fear he would seem to be lying, he ordered the scales to be brought in and carried around to prove the weights. And Scintilla was no better. She took off a small golden vanity case which she wore around her neck, and which she called her Lucky Box, and took from it two eardrops, which, in her turn, she handed to Fortunata to be inspected. “Thanks to the generosity of my husband,” she smirked, “no woman has better.” “What’s that?” Habinnas demanded. “You kept on my trail to buy that glass bean for you; if I had a daughter, I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t cut off her little ears. We’d have everything as cheap as dirt if there were no women, but we have to piss hot and drink cold, the way things are now.” The women, angry though they were, were laughing together, in the meantime, and exchanging drunken kisses, the one running on about her diligence as a housekeeper, and the other about the infidelities and neglect of her husband. Habinnas got up stealthily, while they were clinging together in this fashion and, seizing Fortunata by the feet, he tipped her over backwards upon the couch. “Let go!” she screeched, as her tunic slipped above her knees; then, after pulling down her clothing, she threw herself into Scintilla’s lap, and hid, with her handkerchief, a face which was none the more beautiful for its blushes.