her golden hair, and pressing her rosy body to the white marble, she
pressed her lips with ecstasy to the cold lips of Petronius.




Chapter II

After a refreshment, which was called the morning meal and to which the
two friends sat down at an hour when common mortals were abeady long
past their midday prandium, Petronius proposed a light doze. According
to him, it was too early for visits yet. "There are, it is true," said
he, "people who begin to visit their acquaintances about sunrise,
thinking that custom an old Roman one, but I look on this as barbarous.
The afternoon hours are most proper,--not earlier, however, than that
one when the sun passes to the side of Jove's temple on the Capitol and
begins to look slantwise on the Forum. In autumn it is still hot, and
people are glad to sleep after eating. At the same time it is pleasant
to hear the noise of the fountain in the atrium, and, after the
obligatory thousand steps, to doze in the red light which filters in
through the purple half-drawn velarium."

Vinicius recognized the justice of these words; and the two men began to
walk, speaking in a careless manner of what was to be heard on the
Palatine and in the city, and philosophizing a little upon life.
Petronius withdrew then to the cubiculum, but did not sleep long. In
half an hour he came out, and, having given command to bring verbena, he
inhaled the perfume and rubbed his hands and temples with it.

"Thou wilt not believe," said he, "how it enlivens and freshens one. Now