When his daughter affrightedly approached to soothe and succour him, he
impatiently waved her back; and began to speak in a dull, hoarse,
monotonous voice, pressing his hand firmly over his brow, and directing
his eyes backwards and forwards incessantly, on object after object, in
every part of the room.
'Listen, child, listen!' he hastily began. 'I tell you there is no food
in the house, and no food in Rome!--we are besieged--they have taken
from us our granaries in the suburbs, and our fields on the plains--
there is a great famine in the city--those who still eat, eat strange
food which men sicken at when it is named. I would seek even this, but
I have no strength to go forth into the byways and force it from others
at the point of the sword! I am old and feeble, and heart-broken--I
shall die first, and leave fatherless my good, kind daughter, whom I
sought for so long, and whom I loved as my only child!'
He paused for an instant, not to listen to the words of encouragement
and hope which Antonina mechanically addressed to him while he spoke,
but to collect his wandering thoughts, to rally his failing strength.
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