Chapter III: Part 3

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!"

CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-SIXTH.

"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!"

CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-SEVENTH.

"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."

CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-EIGHTH.

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.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Affairs start to go wrong, your friends will stand from under Doctor's not good for anything except for a consolation Everybody's business is nobody's business He can teach you more than he knows himself Learning's a fine thing, and a trade won't starve Men are lions at home and foxes abroad No one can show a dead man a good time The loser's always the winner in arguments Too many doctors did away with him We know that you're only a fool with a lot of learning Whenever you learn a thing, it's yours Believes, on the spot, every tale You can spot a louse on someone else