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Updated: May 20, 2025
Dea Flavia was standing beside a tall stool, on the top of which on a level with her hands was a shapeless mass of clay. Her fingers buried themselves in the soft substance or ran along the surface, as the exigencies of her task demanded. Now and then she paused in her work, drew back a step or two from the stool, and with head bent on one side surveyed her work with an anxious frown.
A young patrician girl would never dream of rebellion against the power of a father or a guardian, and when that guardian was the Cæsar himself and the girl was of the imperial house, the very thought of disobedience savoured of sacrilege. But hitherto that question had loomed ahead in Dea Flavia's dreams of the future only as very shadowy and vague.
So was she known on this dull earth of ours, but in heaven in the heaven of my imagination, at all events she was, of course, a goddess. How she managed to keep her disguise I never could understand. To me she was so obviously dea certe. The nimbus was so apparent. Yet no one seemed to see it but me.
Twenty-four and sixteen! So it happened that Ursus, who did not lose sight of the ill turn he intended to do them, said, "One of these days you must choose a religion." "Wherefore?" inquired Gwynplaine. "That you may marry." "That is already done," said Dea. Dea did not understand that they could be more man and wife than they were already.
Who knows how long this same semblance would have been kept up on this occasion? for Hortensius Martius, obviously a slave to Dea Flavia's beauty, was ready to do battle for the glorification of his idol, whilst Escanes, smarting under the clumsy insult, had much ado to keep his rage within bounds.
At other times he said, "She is lucky for her health's sake." He shook his head, and at times read attentively a portion treating of heart-disease in Aviccunas, translated by Vossiscus Fortunatus, Louvain, 1650, an old worm-eaten book of his. Dea, when fatigued, suffered from perspirations and drowsiness, and took a daily siesta, as we have already seen.
But he told his slaves not to bear him away from the Forum altogether but to place the litter down under the arcades of the tabernae, and then to stand round it so that it could not be seen, whilst he himself could still keep watch over the movements of Dea Flavia.
Now, however, he made wild efforts in thought to draw her downwards by that thread, sex, which ties every girl to earth. Not one of those birds is free. Dea, like all the rest, was within this law; and Gwynplaine, though he scarcely acknowledged it, felt a vague desire that she should submit to it. This desire possessed him in spite of himself, and with an ever-recurring relapse.
"I know what this is. I am dying!" Gwynplaine rose in terror. Ursus held Dea. "Die! You die! No; it shall not be! You cannot die! Die now! Die at once! It is impossible! God is not ferociously cruel to give you and to take you back in the same moment. No; such a thing cannot be. It would make one doubt in Him.
"But I am so tired," she added after a slight pause, with a weary little sigh, even whilst Licinia, subdued and frightened, stood silently by: "I would like to sleep." "Then sleep, my goddess," said the old woman, "I'll watch over thee." "No! no! I could not sleep if I were watched," rejoined Dea Flavia with the fretfulness of a tired child. "I would rather be alone."
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