He had not ceased speaking when a cock crowed! Alarmed at this omen,
Trimalchio ordered wine thrown under the table and told them to sprinkle
the lamps with it; and he even went so far as to change his ring from his
left hand to his right. "That trumpeter did not sound off without a
reason," he remarked; "there's either a fire in the neighborhood, or else
someone's going to give up the ghost. I hope it's none of us! Whoever
brings that Jonah in shall have a present." He had no sooner made this
promise, than a cock was brought in from somewhere in the neighborhood
and Trimalchio ordered the cook to prepare it for the pot. That same
versatile genius who had but a short time before made birds and fish out
of a hog, cut it up; it was then consigned to the kettle, and while
Daedalus was taking a long hot drink, Fortunata ground pepper in a
boxwood mill. When these delicacies had been consumed, Trimalchio looked
the slaves over. "You haven't had anything to eat yet, have you?" he
asked. "Get out and let another relay come on duty." Thereupon a second
relay came in. "Farewell, Gaius," cried those going off duty, and "Hail,
Gaius," cried those coming on. Our hilarity was somewhat dampened soon
after, for a boy, who was by no means bad looking, came in among the
fresh slaves. Trimalchio seized him and kissed him lingeringly,
whereupon Fortunata, asserting her rights in the house, began to rail at
Trimalchio, styling him an abomination who set no limits to his lechery,
finally ending by calling him a dog. Trimalchio flew into a rage at her
abuse and threw a wine cup at her head, whereupon she screeched, as if
she had had an eye knocked out and covered her face with her trembling
hands. Scintilla was frightened, too, and shielded the shuddering woman
with her garment. An officious slave presently held a cold water pitcher
to her cheek and Fortunata bent over it, sobbing and moaning. But as for
Trimalchio, "What the hell's next?" he gritted out, "this Syrian
dancing-whore don't remember anything! I took her off the auction block
and made her a woman among her equals, didn't I? And here she puffs
herself up like a frog and pukes in her own nest; she's a blockhead, all
right, not a woman. But that's the way it is, if you're born in an attic
you can't sleep in a palace I'll see that this booted Cassandra's tamed,
so help me my Genius, I will! And I could have married ten million, even
if I did only have two cents: you know I'm not lying! 'Let me give you a
tip,' said Agatho, the perfumer to the lady next door, when he pulled me
aside: 'don't let your line die out!' And here I've stuck the ax into my
own leg because I was a damned fool and didn't want to seem fickle. I'll
see to it that you're more careful how you claw me up, sure as you're
born, I will! That you may realize how seriously I take what you've done
to me-- Habinnas, I don't want you to put her statue on my tomb for fear
I'll be nagged even after I'm dead! And furthermore, that she may know I
can repay a bad turn, I won't have her kissing me when I'm laid out!"
When Trimalchio had launched this thunderbolt, Habinnas commenced to
beg him to control his anger. "There's not one of us but goes wrong
sometimes," argued he; "we're not gods, we're men." Scintilla also cried
out through her tears, calling him "Gaius," and entreating him by his
guardian angel to be mollified. Trimalchio could restrain the tears no
longer. "Habinnas," he blubbered, "as you hope to enjoy your money, spit
in my face if I've done anything wrong. I kissed him because he's very
thrifty, not because he's a pretty boy. He can recite his division table
and read a book at sight: he bought himself a Thracian uniform from his
savings from his rations, and a stool and two dippers, with his own
money, too. He's worth my attention, ain't he? But Fortunata won't see
it! Ain't that the truth, you high-stepping hussy'? Let me beg you to
make the best of what you've got, you shekite, and don't make me show my
teeth, my little darling, or you'll find out what my temper's like!
Believe me, when once I've made up my mind, I'm as fixed as a spike in a
beam! But let's think of the living. I hope you'll all make yourselves
at home, gentlemen: I was in your fix myself once; but rose to what I am
now by my own merit. It's the brains that makes the man, all the rest's
bunk. I buy well, I sell well, someone else will tell you a different
story, but as for myself, I'm fairly busting with prosperity. What,
grunting-sow, still bawling? I'll see to it that you've something to
bawl for, but as I started to say, it was my thrift that brought me to
my fortune. I was just as tall as that candlestick when I came over from
Asia; every day I used to measure myself by it, and I would smear my lips
with oil so my beard would sprout all the sooner. I was my master's
'mistress' for fourteen years, for there's nothing wrong in doing what
your master orders, and I satisfied my mistress, too, during that time,
you know what I mean, but I'll say no more, for I'm not one of your
braggarts!"
"At last it came about by the will of the gods that I was master in the
house, and I had the real master under my thumb then. What is there
left to tell? I was made co-heir with Caesar and came into a Senator's
fortune. But nobody's ever satisfied with what he's got, so I embarked
in business. I won't keep you long in suspense; I built five ships and
loaded them with wine--worth its weight in gold, it was then--and sent
them to Rome. You'd think I'd ordered it so, for every last one of them
foundered; it's a fact, no fairy tale about it, and Neptune swallowed
thirty million sesterces in one day! You don't think I lost my pep, do
you? By Hercules, no! That was only an appetizer for me, just as if
nothing at all had happened. I built other and bigger ships, better
found, too, so no one could say I wasn't game. A big ship's a big
venture, you know. I loaded them up with wine again, bacon, beans,
Capuan perfumes, and slaves: Fortunata did the right thing in this
affair, too, for she sold every piece of jewelry and all her clothes into
the bargain, and put a hundred gold pieces in my hand. They were the
nest-egg of my fortune. A thing's soon done when the gods will it;
I cleared ten million sesterces by that voyage, all velvet, and bought
in all the estates that had belonged to my patron, right away. I built
myself a house and bought cattle to resell, and whatever I touched grew
just like a honeycomb. I chucked the game when I got to have an income
greater than all the revenues of my own country, retired from business,
and commenced to back freedmen. I never liked business anyhow, as far as
that goes, and was just about ready to quit when an astrologer, a Greek
fellow he was, and his name was Serapa, happened to light in our colony,
and he slipped me some information and advised me to quit. He was hep to
all the secrets of the gods: told me things about myself that I'd
forgotten, and explained everything to me from needle and thread up; knew
me inside out, he did, and only stopped short of telling me what I'd had
for dinner the day before. You'd have thought he'd lived with me
always!"
"Habinnas, you were there, I think, I'll leave it to you;
didn't he say--'You took your wife out of a whore-house'? you're as lucky in your
friends, too, no one ever repays your favor with another, you own broad
estates, you nourish a viper under your wing, and--why shouldn't I tell
it--I still have thirty years, four months, and two days to live! I'll
also come into another bequest shortly. That's what my horoscope tells
me. If I can extend my boundaries so as to join Apulia, I'll think I've
amounted to something in this life! I built this house with Mercury on
the job, anyhow; it was a hovel, as you know, it's a palace now! Four
dining-rooms, twenty bed-rooms, two marble colonnades, a store-room
upstairs, a bed-room where I sleep myself, a sitting-room for this viper,
a very good room for the porter, a guest-chamber for visitors. As a
matter of fact, Scaurus, when he was here, would stay nowhere else,
although he has a family place on the seashore. I'll show you many other
things, too, in a jiffy; believe me, if you have an as, you'll be rated
at what you have. So your humble servant, who was a frog, is now a king.
Stychus, bring out my funereal vestments while we wait, the ones I'll be
carried out in, some perfume, too, and a draught of the wine in that jar,
I mean the kind I intend to have my bones washed in."
It was not long before Stychus brought a white shroud and a
purple-bordered toga into the dining-room, and Trimalchio requested us to feel
them and see if they were pure wool. Then, with a smile, "Take care,
Stychus, that the mice don't get at these things and gnaw them, or the
moths either. I'll burn you alive if they do. I want to be carried out
in all my glory so all the people will wish me well." Then, opening a
jar of nard, he had us all anointed. "I hope I'll enjoy this as well
when I'm dead," he remarked, "as I do while I'm alive." He then ordered
wine to be poured into the punch-bowl. "Pretend," said he, "that you're
invited to my funeral feast." The thing had grown positively nauseating,
when Trimalchio, beastly drunk by now, bethought himself of a new and
singular diversion and ordered some horn- blowers brought into the
dining-room. Then, propped up by many cushions, he stretched himself out
upon the couch. "Let on that I'm dead," said he, "and say something nice
about me." The horn-blowers sounded off a loud funeral march together,
and one in particular, a slave belonging to an undertaker, made such a
fanfare that he roused the whole neighborhood, and the watch, which was
patrolling the vicinity, thinking Trimalchio's house was afire, suddenly
smashed in the door and rushed in with their water and axes, as is their
right, raising a rumpus all their own. We availed ourselves of this
happy circumstance and, leaving Agamemnon in the lurch, we took to our
heels, as though we were running away from a real conflagration.
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