Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 1.djvu/255

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 per-