CHAPTER THE SIXTY-FOURTH.
Though we wondered greatly, we believed none the less implicitly and, kissing the table, we besought the night-hags to attend to their own affairs while we were returning home from dinner. As far as I was concerned, the lamps already seemed to burn double and the whole dining-room was going round, when “See here, Plocamus,” Trimalchio spoke up, “haven’t you anything to tell us? You haven’t entertained us at all, have you? And you used to be fine company, always ready to oblige with a recitation or a song. The gods bless us, how the green figs have fallen!” “True for you,” the fellow answered, “since I’ve got the gout my sporting days are over; but in the good old times when I was a young spark, I nearly sang myself into a consumption. How I used to dance! And take my part in a farce, or hold up my end in the barber shops! Who could hold a candle to me except, of course, the one and only Apelles?” He then put his hand to his mouth and hissed out some foul gibberish or other, and said afterwards that it was Greek. Trimalchio himself then favored us with an impersonation of a man blowing a trumpet, and when he had finished, he looked around for his minion, whom he called Croesus, a blear-eyed slave whose teeth were very disagreeably discolored. He was playing with a little black bitch, disgustingly fat, wrapping her up in a leek-green scarf and teasing her with a half-loaf of bread which he had put on the couch; and when from sheer nausea, she refused it, he crammed it down her throat. This sight put Trimalchio in mind of his own dog and he ordered Scylax, “the guardian of his house and home,” to be brought in. An enormous dog was immediately led in upon a chain and, obeying a kick from the porter, it lay down beside the table. Thereupon Trimalchio remarked, as he threw it a piece of white bread, “No one in all my house loves me better than Scylax.” Enraged at Trimalchio’s praising Scylax so warmly, the slave put the bitch down upon the floor and sicked her on to fight. Scylax, as might have been expected from such a dog, made the whole room ring with his hideous barking and nearly shook the life out of the little bitch which the slave called Pearl. Nor did the uproar end in a dog fight, a candelabrum was upset upon the table, breaking the glasses and spattering some of the guests with hot oil. As Trimalchio did not wish to seem concerned at the loss, he kissed the boy and ordered him to climb upon his own back. The slave did not hesitate but, mounting his rocking-horse, he beat Trimalchio’s shoulders with his open palms, yelling with laughter, “Buck! Buck! How many fingers do I hold up!” When Trimalchio had, in a measure, regained his composure, which took but a little while, he ordered that a huge vessel be filled with mixed wine, and that drinks be served to all the slaves sitting around our feet, adding as an afterthought, “If anyone refuses to drink, pour it on his head: business is business, but now’s the time for fun.”
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.