Vetranio reclined
at the head of the table, dressed in a scarlet mantle. An embroidered
towel with purple tassels and fringes, connected with rings of gold,
fell over his breast, and silver and ivory bracelets were clasped round
his arms. But of the former man the habiliments were all that remained.
His head was bent forward, as if with the weakness of age; his emaciated
arms seemed barely able to support the weight of the ornaments which
glittered on them; his eyes had contracted a wild, unsettled expression;
and a deadly paleness overspread the once plump and jovial cheeks which
so many mistresses had kissed in mercenary rapture in other days. Both
in countenance and manner the elegant voluptuary of our former
acquaintance at the Court of Ravenna was entirely and fatally changed.
Of the other eight patricians who lay on the couches around their
altered host--some wild and reckless, some gloomy and imbecile--all had
suffered in the ordeal of the siege, the famine, and the pestilence,
like him.
Such were the member of the assemblage, represented from the ceiling by
nine of the burning lamps.
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