The Unwilling Vestal

singly the respect and affection of her elders. Her outbursts were less frequent and less violent; she learned to hold her tongue, to appear calm, to stand with dignity, to move wit

t Brinnaria had been notably more prone than Meffia to assume gawky or ungainl

eld herself erect, head up and shoulders back. Meffia slouched and sagged along,

s particularly no

-time attitudes, and her mild easy-going mother had often had to speak to her and bid her remember herself. In the Atrium she had found her leg

lem of how to influence her by getting her to watch

the Fates on the Parthenon pediment. Meffia sprawled uncouthly and was forever spreading her knees apart, generally with o

succ

oncern to Causidiena, but Meffia and Brinnaria, great her triumph when she made sure that Causidiena had ce

erally ailing, though never actually ill. She never looked clean, no matter how faithfully her maid toiled over her; she could somehow reduce, in an amazi

tter how much she was made to practice, she dropped things continually and frequentl

of its floor the circular altar on which burned the sacred fire, solemnly extinguished and ceremonially rekindled on each first of March, the New Year's day of the primitive Roman Calendar, but which must never at any other time be permitted to go out, upon whose continual burning depended the prosperity of Rome, according to the belief implicitly held by all Romans from the earliest days until Brinnaria's time, and for centuries after. The extinction of the perpetual fire, whether by

as also a matter of immemorial ordinance. Each piece was about a cubit long, about the length of the forearm of an average adult, measured from elbow to finger-tips. Each piece must be wedge-shaped, with the bark on the rounded side and the other two sides meeting at a sharp edge wh

but not strong. This discretion, this good sense, Meffia was slow to acquire. The art of laying the wood properly she acquired very imperfectly. She did it well enough under direction; but, even with Causidiena watching her, she was likely to drop the piece of wood on the floor, or, what was worse, to drop it on the fire instead of laying it on. The scattering of ashes on the floor of

pale, delicate-looking and fragile-seeming, never actually ill, but usually ailing, peevish, limp and querulous. Life in the Atrium largely consisted in the effort to keep Meffia wel

full of healthy vigor, lithe and strong. She was radiantly handsome, knew it, and was proud of it. Her d

was burning properly and then left it and herself waked her relief, it being entirely inconceivable that, under roof and protected all round by bronze lattices, a properly burning fire could

the instant conviction that she had slept long past midnight, w

roping, she dressed in the dark. Silently she slipped out of her room, noiselessly she closed the door, sof

nd the pillars, under the

aintly hinted in the blackis

en columns; swiftly she traversed the three small rooms at its eastern

nd gilded panels of the lofty ceiling; the ceiling

altar, not even a glimmer o

shes. Nowhere could she discern mo

d feel the chill of the faintly stirring dawn wind that breath

loughed the ashes across and across. She did bring to the surface a faint redness, but not even one

assailed

a sno

ffia crumpled in a heap on the mosaic flo

once viciously and

y, Meffia half

m I?" sh

ple!" Brinn

xclaimed, "wha

fool," Brinnaria raged at her

do?" wailed Meffia,

ay asleep, keep your mouth shut, say nothing, pretend you woke me at midnight, pretend you had nothing to do wit

y think you let the fire go o

nnaria, "what's tha

out. I ought to take the blame, not y

'd be ill, and have to be sent off to be nursed and kept away for a month or more to recover. I won't have Causidiena worried with any such

of you if I

go t

flogged? I have tinder and flint and steel in my ro

, blasphemous wretch! To save your hide you'd desecrate the temple, pollute the Altar, anger Vesta, make all our prayers in vai

"you hate me; why do y

espise you! And I've told you why I'm goin

ill persisted, "

you've left a warm spot on the floor and go to sleep

he scourging!"

cking will worry me. I'll sleep like a top. Now to bed with you, or I'll break every bone in your worthless body!" Meffia started to speak again;

ked like a s

If you let on that it was you and not I that let the fire go out what I did to you then

e," gaspe

!" Brinnar

ia w

he remains of a fire that had died out of itself, to efface all signs of her effort

lf on the floor and was

er when the daylight

Brinnaria mer

ome. The report was noised abroad that the holy fire had gone out and a chill of h

dern writers on them have been more or less Christians, chiefly interested in Pagans because most Pagans were in the later centuries converted to Christianity. With that fact in the foreground of their thoughts and with the u

n heat and cold, birth and death, fire and water, pleasure and pain. Government, from the Roman point of view, was a partnership between the Roman people, as represented by their senate, and the gods. Under the Republic every election had appeared to the Romans who participated in it to be a rite for ascertaining what man would be most pleasing t

ance of the liver, heart, lungs and kidneys of the cattle and sheep sacrificed, by the flight of birds, by the shape of the flames of altar-fires, all regarded as definite answers to expl

e part of them or the conduct of the government was so displeasing to the gods that the Empire would come to a sudden end unless matters we

Rome. The report of a great defeat for their army, with a terrible sla

ildest and most reckless felt no inclination towards frivolity, even the games of children were checked and repressed, gravity and solemnity enveloped the entire city and its vast suburb

they were anxio

ne and Danube, desperately resisting the pertinacious attacks of the Marcomanni. The Pontiffs were without their chief and acted under the leadership of Faltonius Bambilio, Pontifex of Vesta, the busiest and most anxious of them all. In consultation wi

t be offered for the matrons in the Temple of Castor and in the less popular women's temples in every quarter of the city, there must he public sacrifices of cattle, sheep and swine, there must be solemn and gorg

Vestal must be punished; and at once the

worried and exhausted

he sacred fire might not be rekindled by anything so modern as a flint

used and the fresh fire produce

a round rod of maple wood about as thick as a large man's thumb. The upper end of the rod fitted freely into a socket in a ball of maple wood of suitable size to be held in the left hand and pressed down so as to press the lower end of the rod into the hole in the apple wood plank. Round the middle of the rod was looped a bow-string kept taut by a strong bow. B

. The quart or more of apple-wood chips burst into flame at last; Causidiena, standing ready with the prescribed copper sieve, caught the blazing

ged that very night, and, as in respect to the rekindling of the fire, every detail of what must be done

st be done by th

were knotted the tiny, horny half-hoofs of a newborn white lamb, eight to a thong, twenty-four in all. These bits of horny hoo

he ankle or shoulder of a Vestal, let alone her entire body, it was enjoined that the scourging take plac

urtain, he might catch a glimpse of his victim and bring down the wrath of the gods on himself and on Rome. And, apart from all else, he was shame-faced and hot and cold at the idea of being in the same room, even in a darkened room screened by a curtain, with a naked Vestal. He blushe

d the or

ark as he should have liked. Some ghost of a glimmer of starshine filtered into t

d and guided it in the dark. He felt the curtain's edge against his wrist, felt a warm soft elbo

lt that the scourge met its mark, but slantingly and

made the scourge whi

pping me!" That made him angry and Brinnaria experienced as se

s drowned in a rising tide of anger and wrath. She felt the long repressed, half-forgotten tomboy, hoyden Brinnaria surging up in her and gaining mastery. She fairly boiled with rage, she blazed and flamed inwardly with a conflagra

d back a pace. "My daughter," he said, "you have been punishe

n a voice tense, not wi

't hit m

er," said Bamb

done beating m

one," he

o herself, Brinnaria

going to begin beating you. Shut your e

innaria gave her a push; Numisia slipped, fell her length on

after Numisia's head cracked the floor, h

his eyes

the back of his neck grasped by a muscular young hand, fe

othing they st

d to get away, but he dreaded unseemly contact wit

man exhausted by a long day of excitement a

e snorted: the pain of the blows made hi

d ran from his back almost as from hers, b

e him a kick, threw the scourg

a had

e said, "why d

ria. "I was furious. I did it

you pushed me. I'll never tell. I don

ard, was appalled to descry in the gloom a totally na

sted, "why did you no

orted. "I'm boiling hot; I'm all over swe

oing to do?" Ca

Please send Utta to me and tell her to b

objected, "you'll ne

rt. I don't mean to have a festered back. I'll have Utta rub me with salt

she does it properl

ia. "Numisia and Bambilio

ueried C

fell on the floor and was stunned. She came to after I was done with Bambilio, but she fainted again. I beat him t

idiena cried, "t

ned, a tall, white shape in the star

either of the Emperors to show me a word on the statutes of the order or in any other sacred writing that forbids a Vestal, after her thrashing, to beat the Pontifex to red pulp.

e child!" sa