“Don’t do that any more! Why do you do that? Have I ever set myself apart from you?”
“You don’t have to, Varinia. The master sets you apart from us. We are something to have in his bed when he is bored. One, two, three. But he loves you, Varinia. That is why you make it hard for us. We get whipped if you are not dressed just so. You don’t get whipped. We get whipped.”
“Let him whip me!”
“Let him. Just let him. We can see him whipping you.”
“All right. All right,” she told them. “Now I’m nursing the baby. Let me finish nursing the boy. Then I’ll get dressed. Any way you want me to get dressed. I won’t make it hard for you. Only let me finish nursing my baby.”
“How long?”
“He doesn’t drink long. Just look at him. He’s slowing down already. In a half hour, I’ll be ready. He’ll be asleep then. I promise you I’ll do whatever you want me to. I’ll wear whatever you want me to.”
So they left her for a while. Three of them were Spanish girls. The fourth was a Sabine woman, and it was a cancer inside of her that her mother had sold her for debt. Varinia could understand that. It was a bitter thing to be sold by your own folk, and it made you bitter. Envy, jealousy, bitterness—it festered in this house. The whole house festered.
She nursed the boy, and sang to him softly.
“Sleep, my baby, sleep beloved,
While your father in the forest,
Seeks the otter, spears the otter,
Brings the pelt, midnight softness,
Never shall the cold of winter
Touch my baby, my beloved . . .”
The sucking eased. She could feel the pressure on the nipple slacken. When he sucked strong and hard out of his hunger, a sharp current went through her whole body. And then bit by bit as his belly filled up, the sensation eased off. What a thing it was to have a baby suck!
She gave him the other breast, just in case he needed more milk, and she stroked his cheek to start the sucking reflex again. But he was finished. His eyes were closed, and he had the monumental indifference of children whose bellies are full. For a while, she cuddled him against her warm bare breast; then she put him in his crib and closed the front of her dress.
How handsome he was, she thought as she stood over him. Fat and round and strong—what a fine baby! His hair was like black silk, and his eyes were deep blue. Those eyes would turn dark later, as his father’s eyes were, but there was no telling about the hair. When this black birth-silk fell out, it might grow in with dark curls or golden and straight.
Quickly and easily he fell asleep. His world was proper and right. His world was the world of life, ruled by life’s own simple laws, undisturbed and uncomplicated. His world was the world which outlasted all others . . .
Now she left him and went to where they were waiting to dress her. Four slaves to dress her for dinner with the man who owned her. She stood obediently while they took off her clothes and sponged her naked body. It was still a very lovely body, long-legged, and lovelier for the fullness of her breasts with milk. They put a sheet around her and she lay down on a couch, so that the
ornatrix
might prepare her face and arms.
First a covering of fine chalk for her arms and brow, the chalk fading onto her cheeks. Then the rouge, light red on her cheeks, heavy red-brown on her lips. Then what they called the
fuligo,
a black carbon paste to bring out the brows.
When that was done, she sat up and allowed them to do her hair. The soft, straight blond hair was carefully built into a pile of fixed curls, held in place with pomade and little ribbons.
Then the jewels. She stood naked, without the sheet, obedient and listless, while the diadem was fixed onto her hair. Golden earrings were next, and then a gold and sapphire collar called the
monile
. Small matching collars were placed on her ankles and wrists, and a diamond ring was placed on the small finger of each hand. She was being dressed well and splendidly, dressed as the richest man in Rome would dress his mistress, not his slave. It was no wonder that these poor devils assigned to her wardrobe could not pity her. See how she wears the wealth of an empire just in jewels! How can one pity her?
At that time, the most precious material in Rome was not silk, but the delicate and wonderful sheer cotton, spun in India, and having a gossamer quality that no silk could equal. Now they slipped a cotton
stola
over her head. This was a long, simply-cut dress, which was gathered around the waist by a tied belt called a
zona
. The only decoration on the dress was a gold braid on the hem, and indeed it needed no decoration, its lines were so simple and so lovely. But Varinia could never be unconscious of the fact that every line of her body showed through; it was the nakedness which meant horror and degradation, and she welcomed the discharge from her breasts which wet the front and spoiled its looks.
Over all of this went a large, pale yellow silk shawl; Varinia wore it like a cloak. She covered the dress with it. Each time she appeared for dinner, Crassus said,
“My dear, my dear, why should you hide your beautiful body that way? Let your
supparum
fall free. The dress underneath cost ten thousand
sesterces
. At least I should have the pleasure of looking at it if no other does.” He said it again tonight as she entered the dining room, and again tonight she obediently allowed the shawl to fall open.
“You puzzle me,” said Crassus. “You puzzle me a good deal, Varinia. I think I told you once that I had the pleasure—or displeasure—of having to spend an evening in my camp in Cisalpine Gaul with that monstrous
lanista,
Batiatus. He described you to me. He described you as a wildcat. A very vivid description of a woman who couldn’t be tamed. But I see no sign of that. You are unusually obedient and compliant.”
“Yes.”
“I wonder what has made the difference in you. You don’t care to tell me, I suppose.”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell you.”
“I think you do know, but let it pass. You look lovely tonight. Well-groomed, well-dressed—Varinia, how long does this go on? I’ve been very decent to you, haven’t I? Grief is grief, but contrast this with the salt mines. I could take your child away and sell him for the three hundred
sesterces
he would bring on the market, and then send you off to the mines. Would you like that?”
“I wouldn’t like it.”
“I hate to talk this way,” Crassus said.
“It’s all right. You can talk any way you please. You own me.”
“I don’t want to own you, Varinia. As a matter of fact, you own me just as completely. I want to have you the way a man has a woman.”
“I couldn’t stop you—any more than any other slave in the house could stop you.”
“What a thing to say!”
“Why is it such an awful thing to say? Doesn’t anyone in Rome talk about such things?”
“I don’t want to rape you, Varinia. I don’t want to have you the way I have a slave. Yes—I’ve had the slaves here. I don’t know how many women I’ve slept with. Women and men too. I don’t want any secrets from you. I want you to know me as I am. Because if you love me, I’ll be something else. Something new and fine. My God, do you know that they call me the richest man in the world? Maybe I’m not, but with you, we could rule the world.”
“I don’t want to rule the world,” Varinia said, her voice level, toneless, a dead voice, as it always was when she spoke to him.
“Don’t you believe I would be any different if you loved me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“But you would care if it came to that baby of yours? Why can’t you take a wet nurse? Sitting there with milk running from your breasts—”
“Why do you always threaten me with the baby? The baby belongs to you and I belong to you. Do you think that by threatening to kill my baby you make me love you?”
“I didn’t threaten to kill your baby.”
“You—”
“I’m sorry, Varinia. We always talk ourselves into this same circle. Please eat. I do what I can do. I serve you a meal like this. Don’t tell me that you don’t care. One could buy a villa for the price of this dinner. At least, eat it. Nibble at it. Look—let me tell you something amusing that happened today. At least, you may find it amusing. And eat a little.”
“I eat as much as I need to eat,” said Varinia.
A slave entered and set down a duck on a silver platter. Another slave carved it. Crassus had a circular table—they had just come into fashion—with a continuous couch circling two thirds of it. The diners ate with their feet drawn up, pillowed on a pile of silk cushions.
“This duck, for instance. It’s smoked, stuffed with truffles, and cooked with tart brandied peaches.”
“It’s very good,” Varinia said.
“Yes—I was telling you before of an amusing thing that happened today. At the baths, Gracchus came in. He hates me so virulently that he can no longer hide it. Curiously enough, I don’t hate him. I forgot—you don’t know him. He’s a senator and a great political power in Rome—or was. His power is very shaky today. He’s one of the new crew who pulled themselves out of the gutter and made a fortune out of graft and block votes. A fat pig of a man. No pride—no body; that’s usually the case. And no sensitivity either, so he will sit on his throne until it washes out from under him. Well, I could see immediately that he wanted something from me. He made a great display of parading his fat carcass back and forth in the
tepidarium
with me. And then finally, he came out with it. He wants to buy you. Offered quite a price too, and then, when I brushed him off, he doubled his price. Very determined. I insulted him, but nothing got under his skin.”
“Why didn’t you sell me?” Varinia asked.
“To him? My dear, you should see him once, walking around in his flesh. Or wouldn’t that matter to you?”
“It wouldn’t matter,” Varinia said.
Crassus pushed his dish away and stared at her. He drained his glass of wine, poured another, and then in a sudden fury, hurled the glass across the room. He spoke now with considered control.
“Why do you hate me so?”
“Should I love you, Crassus?”
“Yes. Because I’ve given you more than you ever had out of Spartacus.”
“You haven’t,” she said.
“Why? Why not? What was he? Was he a god?”
“He wasn’t a god,” Varinia said. “He was a simple man. He was a plain man. He was a slave. Don’t you know what that means? You’ve lived your life among slaves.”
“And if I took you out to the country and gave you to a plough-hand somewhere, could you live with him and love him?”
“I could only love Spartacus. I never loved another man. I never will love another man. But I could live with a field slave. He would be somewhat like Spartacus, even though Spartacus was a mine slave and not a field slave. That’s all he was. You think I’m very simple, and I am, and I’m foolish too. Sometimes, I don’t even understand what you’re saying. But Spartacus was more simple than I am. Compared to you, he was like a child. He was pure.”
“What do you mean, pure?” asked Crassus, controlling himself. “I’ve listened to so much of this rubbish from you! Spartacus was a lawless enemy of society. He was a professional butcher who became an outlaw murderer, an enemy of everything fine and decent and good that Rome built. Rome brought peace and civilization to the whole world, but this slave filth knew only to burn and destroy. How many villas lie in ruins because the slaves neither knew nor understood civilization! What did they do? What did they accomplish in the four years they fought Rome? How many thousands are dead because those slaves revolted? How much misery and suffering was brought into the world because this filth dreamed of freedom—freedom to destroy!”
She sat in silence, her head bent, her eyes cast down.
“Why don’t you answer me?”
“I don’t know how to answer you,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what those questions mean.”
“I’ve listened to things from you which I would take from no one else on earth. Why don’t you answer me? What did you mean when you said that Spartacus was pure? Am I less pure?”
“I don’t know you,” Varinia said. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand Romans. I only know Spartacus.”
“And why was he pure?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you think I asked myself that? Maybe because he was a slave. Maybe because he suffered so much. How can you understand the way a slave suffers? You were never a slave.”
“But pure. You said pure.”
“To me he was pure. He could not do a bad thing.”
“And do you think it was good to raise that revolt and set half the world on fire?”
“We didn’t set the world on fire. All we wanted was our freedom. All we wanted was to live in peace. I don’t know how to talk the way you do. I’m not educated. I can’t even talk your language too well. I get confused when you talk to me. I wasn’t confused when I was with Spartacus. I knew what we wanted. We wanted to be free.”
“But you were slaves.”
“Yes. And why must some be slaves and some free?”
Crassus said, more gently, “You have been living in Rome now, Varinia. I have taken you through the city in my litter. You have seen the power of Rome, the endless, limitless power of Rome. The Roman roads stretch across the whole world. The Roman legions stands on the edge of civilization and hold back the forces of darkness. Nations tremble at the sight of the legate’s wand, and wherever there is water, the Roman navy rules the seas. You saw the slaves smash some of our legions, but here in the city there was not even a ripple for that. In all reason, is it conceivable to you that a few rebellious slaves could have overthrown the mightiest power the world ever knew—a power which all the empires of antiquity could not match? Don’t you understand? Rome is eternal. The Roman way is the best way mankind ever devised, and it will endure forever. This is what I want you to understand. Don’t weep for Spartacus. History dealt with Spartacus. You have your own life to live.”