With Catullus, on the other hand, a moved or troubled mind could
usually find an outlet in swift, hot words, and, in the unnatural
restraint put upon him by his father's speechlessness, his despair,
like a splinter of steel, had only encysted itself more deeply.
To-day he welcomed the relief of being articulate.

The tie between his brother and himself was formed on the day of his
own birth, when the two year old Valerius--how often their old nurse
had told the story!--had been led in to see him, his little feet
stumbling over each other in happy and unjealous haste. Through the
years of tutelage they had maintained an offensive and defensive
alliance against father, nurses and teachers; and their playmates,
even including Caelius, who was admitted into a happy triumvirate,
knew that no intimacy could exact concessions from their fraternal
loyalty. Their days were spent in the same tasks and the same play,
and the nights, isolating them from the rest of their little world,
nurtured confidence and candour. Memories began to gather and to
torture him: smiling memories of childish nights in connecting
bedrooms, when, left by their nurse to sleep, each boy would slip
down into the middle of his bed, just catching sight of the other
through the open door in the dim glow of the nightlamp, and defy
Morpheus with lively tongue; poignant memories of youthful nights,
when elaborate apartments and separate servants had not checked the
emergence into wholesome speech of vague ambitions, lusty hopes and
shy emotions. It was in one of these nights that Valerius had first
hit upon his favourite nickname for his brother. Pretty Aufilena had
broken a promise and Catullus had vehemently maintained that she was
less honest than a loose woman who kept her part of a bargain. It
was surprising that a conversation so trifling should recur in this
hour, but he could see again before him his brother's smiling face