"Yes, yes, and I shall have them again, I shall have them again. Only
not to-night--go to bed."

Antinous left him, but the Emperor paced his room, up and down with long
steps, his arms crossed over his breast and his eyes fixed on the ground.
His superstitious soul had been deeply disturbed by a series of evil
signs which he had not only seen the previous night in the sky, but had
also met on his way to Lochias, and which seemed to be beginning to be
fulfilled already.

He had left the eating house in an evil humor, the bad omens made him
anxious, and though on his arrival at home he had done one or two things
which he already regretted, this had certainly not been due to any
adverse Daimons but to the brooding gloom of his clouded mind. Eternal
circumstances, it is true, had led to his being witness to an attack made
by the mob on the house of a wealthy Israelite, and it was attributable
to a vexatious accident that at this juncture, he should have met Verus,
who had observed and recognized him. Yes, the Spirits of evil were
abroad this day, but his subsequent experiences and deeds upon reaching
Lochias, would certainly not have taken place on any more fortunate day,
or, to be more exact, if he had been in a calmer frame of mind; he
himself alone was in fault, he alone, and no spiteful accident, nor
malicious and tricky Daimon. Hadrian, to be sure, attributed to these
sprites all that he had done, and so considered it irremediable; an
excellent way, no doubt, of exonerating oneself from a burdensome duty,
or from repairing some injustice, but conscience is a register in which a
mysterious hand inexorably enters every one of our deeds, and in which
all that we do is ruthlessly called by its true name. We often succeed,
it is true, in effacing the record for a longer or a shorter period, but