He was no longer the
light, amiable, smooth-tongued trifler, but a moody, reckless, desperate
man, careless of every obligation and pursuit which had hitherto
influenced the easy surface of his patrician life. The startled
Camilla, who had as yet preserved a melancholy silence, ran towards him
with affrighted looks and undissembled tears. Carrio stared in vacant
astonishment on his master's disordered countenance; and, forgetting his
bundle of dogskins, suffered them to drop unheeded on the floor. A
momentary silence followed, which was suddenly interrupted by the abrupt
entrance of a fourth person, pale, trembling and breathless, who was no
other than Vetranio's former visitor, the Prefect Pompeianus.
'I bid you welcome to my approaching feast of brimming wine-cups and
empty dishes!' cried Vetranio, pouring the sparkling Falernian into his
empty glass. 'The last banquet given in Rome, ere the city is
annihilated, will be mine! The Goths and the famine shall have no part
in my death! Pleasure shall preside at my last moments, as it has
presided at my whole life! I will die like Sardanapalus, with my loves
and my treasures around me, and the last of my guests who remains proof
against our festivity shall set fire to my palace, as the kingly
Assyrian set fire to his!'
'This is no season for jesting,' exclaimed the Prefect, staring round
him with bewildered eyes and colourless cheeks.
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