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"And yet he would gladly give years of his life for a single night with you." "Ah, by Styx! If I should grant him a night, it would be an eternal one!" cried Glyceria, drawing herself to her full height while her face crimsoned. Manlius went up to her and clasped her hand. "Now you see, Glyceria, that your dreams deceived you, for I shall not kill you.
Manlius started back, his breath failed, his face grew corpselike in its pallor. He strove to pronounce Sophronia's name, but his lips would not form the word, and staggering back, he was obliged to lean against a pillar. Glyceria went toward him, her staring eyes fixed upon his face as if she wished to read his inmost soul. "Manlius Sinister!" she said calmly.
Deep, despairing, consuming grief, that blight of beauty, was expressed in every feature. Manlius recognised Glyceria. His blood rushed feverishly to his temples, and he convulsively clutched the hilt of his sword. Yet he did not wish to kill her thus. He thought that this, too, was only a new variety of the arts of temptation in which women are such adepts.
"So your dreams have predicted that I shall kill you? You are beautiful, Glyceria; really marvellously beautiful. Is it true, as people say, that Carinus loves you ardently?" "Still more ardently do I hate him. Why do you ask?" "Because I should like to know whether you have ever rendered Carinus happy by your favour?" "Never even with a smile."
In a few minutes the whole palace was in flames and, at the end of an hour, a sea of fire was rolling through Rome. Carinus had been borne back to his palace senseless. Glyceria fled that same night to the temple of Cybele. While in Rome pleasures alternated with horrors the troops commanded by Numerian marched over rough roads, amid severe privations, to the Bosporus.
This is the vehiculum of the unaccountable and indescribable Glyceria, and the woman who outwitted me was no other than the Circe who has turned goddess, is worshipped by every one, including myself and Carinus, and who thus maltreats every one and changes her adorers, including myself and Carinus, into calves and oxen." Manlius did not hear the poet's last words.
"May this darkness embrace me. Life only oppresses me like a burden. I do not desire to live again, but wish to pass away, to be forgotten, to rest undisturbed in a silent grave. I want to leave this brilliant chaos, whose sole reality is pain. But may you lead a long and happy life." "O Glyceria, why should your face become so gloomy?"
The slave soon returned with a letter from Glyceria to Manlius. The latter handed it to the Cæsar: "It is yours; read it!" Carinus, with trembling hands, unrolled the parchment; his eyes sparkled as he read: "Manlius! Your lines quiver in my hand. A thousand emotions are raging in my heart; fear, longing, holy horrour, and wild love. I am under the ban of an irresistible spell.
Woe betide ye, Roman people! Woe betide thee, Imperator of Rome!" The woman came out into the portico and, as she fixed her cold, expressionless eyes upon the throng, Carinus, seized with horror, grasped the hand of Manlius, who stood by his side. "That is Glyceria." Manlius also shrank back in terror. The madwoman, with the face of a prophetess, stood upon the steps of the temple.
One, Glyceria, had married when very young, thanks to the imperial favour, a great lord who had become a libertine; soon after the libertine lost his head, and his property, as well as the imperial favour, went to the beautiful widow, who in a short time had the reputation of being the Aspasia of the Roman capital.
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