Pandora - By Anne Rice Page 0,16

his precious joy, and I was let to run wild, and please make nothing of it.

And I said, being bold, and a born troublemaker, “Give my love to the great Ovid! Because I too wish he would come home to Rome.”

I then rattled off several steamy lines of the Amores:

She laughed and gave her best, whole hearted kisses,

They’d shake the three pronged bolt from Jove’s hand.

Torture to think that fellow got such good ones!

I wish they hadn’t been of the same brand!

All laughed, except my Father, and Marius went wild with delight, clapping his hands. That was all the encouragement I needed to rush at him now like a bear, as he had rushed at me, and to continue singing out Ovid’s hot words:

What’s more these kisses were better than I’d taught her,

She seemed possessed of knowledge that was new.

They pleased too well—bad sign! Her tongue was in them,

And my tongue was kissing too.

My Father grabbed me by the small of my upper arm, and said, “That’s it, Lydia, wrap it up!” And the men laughed all the harder, commiserating with him, and embracing him, and then laughing again.

But I had to have one final victory over this team of adults.

“Pray, Father,” I said, “let me finish with some wise and patriotic words which Ovid said:

“ ‘I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. This age suits my taste.’ ”

This seemed to astonish Marius more than to amuse him. But my Father gathered me close and said very clearly:

“Lydia, Ovid wouldn’t say that now, and now you, for being such a . . . a scholar and philosopher in one, should assure your Father’s dearest friends that you know full well Ovid was banished from Rome by Augustus for good reason and that he can never return home.”

In other words, he was saying “Shut up about Ovid.”

But Marius, undeterred, dropped on his knees before me, lean and handsome with mesmeric blue eyes, and he took my hand and kissed it and said, “I will give Ovid your love, little Lydia. But your Father is right. We must all agree with the Emperor’s censure. After all, we are Romans.” He then did the very strange thing of speaking to me purely as if I were an adult. “Augustus Caesar has given far more to Rome, I think, than anyone ever hoped. And he too is a poet. He wrote a poem called ‘Ajax’ and burnt it up himself because he said it wasn’t good.”

I was having the time of my life. I would have run off with Marius then and there!

But all I could do was dance around him as he went out of the vestibule and out the gate.

I waved to him.

He lingered. “Goodbye, little Lydia,” he said. He then spoke under his breath to my Father, and I heard my Father say:

“You are out of your mind!”

My Father turned his back on Marius, who gave me a sad smile and disappeared.

“What did he mean? What happened?” I asked my Father. “What’s the matter?”

“Listen, Lydia,” said my Father. “Have you in all your readings come across the word ‘betrothed’?”

“Yes, Father, of course.”

“Well, that sort of wanderer and dreamer likes nothing better than to betroth himself to a young girl of ten because it means she is not old enough to marry and he has years of freedom, without the censure of the Emperor. They do it all the time.”

“No, no, Father,” I said. “I shall never forget him.”

I think I forgot him the next day.

I didn’t see Marius again for five years.

I remember because I was fifteen, and should have been married and didn’t want to be married at all. I had wriggled out of it year after year, feigning illness, madness, total uncontrollable fits. But time was running out on me. In fact I’d been eligible for marriage since I was twelve.

At this time, we were all standing together at the foot of the Palatine Hill, watching a most sacrosanct ceremony—the Lupercalia—just one of so many festivals that were integral in Roman life.

Now the Lupercalia was very important to us, though there’s no way to relate its significance to a Christian’s concept of religion. It was pious to enjoy such a festival, to participate as a citizen and as a virtuous Roman.

And besides it was a great pleasure.

So I was there, not so far from the cave of the Lupercal, watching with other young women, as the two chosen men of mat year were smeared with blood from a