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[17]
and showed no approval one way or the
other. Then Quartilla herself came in with one girl by her, sat down on my bed, and
cried for a long while. We did not put in a word even then, but sat waiting in
amazement for the end of this carefully arranged exhibition of grief. When this very
designing rain had ceased, she drew her proud head out of her cloak and wrung her
hands together till the joints cracked. “You bold creatures,” she
said,“where did you learn to outrival the robbers of romance? Heaven knows
I pity you. A man cannot look upon forbidden things and go free. Indeed the gods
walk abroad so commonly in our streets that it is easier to meet a god than a
man. Do not suppose that I have come here to avenge myself. I am more sorry for
your tender years than for my own wrongs. For I still believe that heedless
youth has led you into deadly sin. I lay tormenting myself that night and[p. 25] shivering with such a dreadful chill that I even fear an attack
of tertian ague. So I asked for a remedy in my dreams, and was told to find you
out and allay the raging of my disease by the clever plan you would show me. But
I am not so greatly concerned about a cure; deep in my heart burns a greater
grief, which drags me down to inevitable death. I am afraid that youthful
indiscretion will lead you to publish abroad what you saw in the chapel of
Priapus, and reveal our holy rites to the mob. So I kneel with folded hands
before you, and beg and pray you not to make a laughing-stock of our nocturnal
worship, not to deride the immemorial mystery to which less than a thousand
souls hold the key.”
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