Nero's Heirs Read Free Page A

who has been so kind to us, to me as a child, should be living like this. I remember that when poor Britannicus, my dearest friend, was so cruelly murdered - I can call it murder here, I suppose, though it would be as much as my life is worth to speak the word in other quarters - I remember then that when I wept, you dried my tears and comforted me, and that in the terrible days after, when I became like a little boy again, it was with your help and thanks to your sympathy and wise words that I was able to recover and resume my life. So, to see you confined in this miserable apartment makes me sad. More than that, it disgusts me. So, if there's anything I can do, anything my father can do - not that he can do much because, in my opinion, he clings to office, to his own position and perhaps even to his life by bare fingernails and fortune -well, just let me know. I really am devoted to you and your interest.'
    He spoke beautifully, if a little incoherently, but that, it seemed, was evidence of his sincerity. The words tumbled forth, unbidden, straight from the heart, I couldn't doubt. My mother, of course, received them with gracious reserve, as her due. Whatever our circumstances, she was a great lady, a Claudian, while Vespasian and his family were parvenus - parvenus moreover who had not actually succeeded in arriving. But she was charmed by Titus nevertheless. Who wasn't in those days?
    I have only to close my eyes to see him clearly: tall, long-legged, blond, his hair worn rather long and waved, his skin translucent, despite the African sun, nose short and straight, eyes cornflower blue, lips a little loose, the upper very slightly overhanging the lower, as if stung by a bee. And I can hear him, too: a beautiful voice, rather light, almost girlish in its upper notes, but saved from effeminacy by a few residual long Sabine vowels, caught from his father, or perhaps a childhood nurse. Then, just as his voice was rescued from the suspicion of affectation by this underlying strength, so too his manner, which might have seemed that of the self-consciously elegant dandy, was saved by a certain clumsiness - his feet were too large and he was inclined to knock things over with sudden movement.
    I have given myself away, haven't I? Yes, while I listened to him and then poured him wine with a hand that I could not prevent from shaking, I fell headlong in love, as only a fourteen-year-old boy can fall in love, with an intensity in which hero-worship quite superseded any physical desire. I simply wanted to be with him, all the time from then on, to be noticed by him, cherished by him, and permitted to serve him.
    I was not disappointed. Titus, though naturally I was ignorant of this, already deserved the reputation that clung to him in later years, of a great coureur - I use the Greek because we have no Latin term that so exactly fits - of both boys and women. And, if I may say so, I was in those days worth running after, and accustomed to being eyed and ogled and propositioned at the baths: I was athletic and slim; my face was framed by tumbling black curls, my skin was creamy, my eyes the darkest of browns and large, my nose straight, and my lips - as Titus was to say - were 'made for the madness of kisses'. In short, though I say it myself, in the knowledge that this passage will arouse your stern moralist's disapproval, I was what the pederasts who thronged the baths used to call in my day 'a peach'. I never allowed their admiration to go beyond flirtation, in which like so many pretty boys I excelled, taking a lively delight in fanning an ardour which I had no intention of satisfying. But it was different with Titus, though at first
    I took care not to allow him to gain the easy victory that I anticipated with relish.
    I dwell on this, because that visit of Titus to my mother would determine the course of my life. It would lead me to action in Judaea, to military renown, to joy and heartache, and I think now that it also aroused