In the chamber, between a statue of Juno and a statue of Venus, the bed was set on an ivory pedestal. Claudius had forgotten the words that he had promised himself to pronounce, by which a tender delicacy would have been translated. He simply took off his toga, and then his tunic, and sat down on the bed, drawing Messalina to his side brutally and tipping her backwards.
She had the part of resignation that all women have, whatever their nature, at such moments. But Claudius, with his bald cranium and his fat belly, appeared to her so ugly that she closed her eyes in order not to see him.
She felt his large hand, which parted the folds of her stola and brutally, with a single thrust, tore her linen chemise from top to bottom. Then that hand moved over her, caressing her breasts, and it had the effect on her, with its moist softness and its slowness, of a huge slug moving over her. But to her great surprise, the caress of the hand became slower, more inanimate; there was something mechanical about it, something dead. It became heavy, and eventually stopped.
Messalina opened her eyes slightly. Claudius was asleep.
All the sounds of the feast had ceased, one by one: first the epithalamium, then the laugher and the adieux of the guests, and then the calls of the slaves, the barking of the dogs and the clicking of doors.
Messalina got up, animated by a confused hope. She went to the window and respired the warm night air avidly. The lanterns in the trees were extinct. Only the light of the stars cut out the shadows of the trees over the sand of the paths.
There was a birch whose white trunk was gleaming near the fountain, and that moved her, as if she had seen a melancholy young woman walking beside the water with an anxiety similar to her own.
She made sure that Claudius was profoundly asleep. His respiration was heavy and noisy. She threw the pleats of her stola over herself and leaned on her elbows, contemplating the glimmer of the coral pink powder that had been sprinkled on the gravel of the paths.
A nightingale started to sing somewhere in a tree and she lent to that music a tone of sadness that she had within herself.
But in an opposite direction another nightingale started to sing, and she shuddered. There were two nightingales in the garden, but the voice of the second was not exactly similar to that of the first. It bore a strange resemblance to the imitation of the bird’s song that the handsome Syrian had made during the meal.
Messalina leaned over and scrutinized the garden. In the direction from which the second nightingale’s song was coming, she distinguished a human figure propped up on the lawn. Doubtless the young Ithamar, inconvenienced by the heat, had emerged from the slaves’ room, where the performers were spending the night, and had come to lie down in the garden. He was awake, and imitating the song of the nightingale. But his voice did not have the sadness of the voice of the bird. It was like a magical appeal, an incantation of all nature, a hymn whose meaning Messalina perceived.
O Priapus, it’s you who are granting my prayer! she thought.
The young man had been sent by the god.
She opened the door very quietly, but without excessive precaution, since Priapus was protecting her. Semi-naked, she walked into the garden.
She did not say a word. She set aside the veil that scarcely covered her and lay down beside the Syrian, placing her two white arms on his bronzed shoulders. She drew him toward her and weakened on sensing the warmth of the man’s blood against her breasts.
And there was only one nightingale singing any longer on Messalina’s wedding night.
VII. The Chain of Lovers
She submitted to her husband’s caresses. She grew accustomed to them. She sought better ones. She had two children. By means of those children, by the science of pleasure that was innate in her and that which she was able to acquire, she dominated the feeble Claudius.
Then circumstances brought the latter the Empire.
It requires a marvelously tempered soul to resist the sudden advent of power. A individual struck by success thinks that his own value has been previously misunderstood and, instead of being astonished by his good luck, he convinces himself that immanent justice has just become manifest.
The certain sign of baseness is the rapidity with which one becomes accustomed to immense wealth or immeasurable power that has just suddenly come to you. A true sage suddenly borne to a throne would surely keep his simple mores and modesty.
It was not satisfied pride by which Messalina was intoxicated, but the joy of satisfying all the caprices of her flesh. The Empire was, for her, a means of enjoying the men she desired, of having by terror those who might have refused her, and of savoring in complete security the amour of those attracted by the prestige of her incomparable beauty.
She was twenty-five years old and she exerted the kind of fascination that bodies ever avid for the enjoyment of amour emit. It was like a material fluid spread around her, a wave that bathed those who approached her. The green light of her eyes had lost its original softness and had taken on a hard gleam. She looked all men in the face, even old men, with an embarrassing insistence, as if to estimate the quality of virility of which they might be susceptible. She had become imperious and violent, but she had crises of weakness, moments when she became similar to a child, and when she had an irresistible need to be commanded, and even struck, by the strong hand of a master.
She also had great surges of tenderness. Then she desired affectionate words, a shoulder against which to huddle, and she wept for a long time with the regret of not having belonged to one man all her life. But she was ashamed of those crises afterwards and hated those in whose company she had had them.
She wore the nail of her index finger very long, painted with care, and had the habit of rubbing it incessantly, especially when she was bored, with a little golden brush that was in a case suspended around her neck. She liked to stripe the skin of her slaves with that fingernail, playfully, or that of her lovers, lustfully
She did not depilate her body, with the exception of her armpits, in accordance with the Greek fashion then in usage, because she had heard a Jewish physician say that human vitality breathes in the air through the down.
Hundreds of female donkeys were maintained for her in the palace. She bathed in their milk, which, she believed, gave her skin firmness.
Her nurse Tryphene was charged with composing aphrodisiacs for her. She drank them and made others drink them, but never found their effect on men efficacious enough.
She instituted a strange competition among painters and men of science with a large sum of money as a prize. It was a matter of finding an ointment that could completely efface from her skin the streaks and bruises that she loved to see imprinted there by those to whom she gave herself.
She only liked women in the measure that that was necessary to distract Claudius. She made them think that she loved them and gave the impression of sharing their pleasures, but it was only to avoid sharing that of Claudius. She was never jealous of their beauty because she felt that her own was always more perfect. She only attached two slaves to herself, Calpurnia and Cleopatra, by both of whom she was loved, but who were nevertheless to betray her. She often said to them, in moments of confidence, that the only thing that made living worthwhile is the moment when a man is on top of you, uttering the grunts of a savage beast, while he takes his pleasure.
She had Narcissus for a lover, but only once, even though he was neither handsome nor agreeable. The reason was that he was incessantly around her to take her orders, that he was obsequious and approved her in all things. Having retained a bad memory of that experience, however, she often mocked him for being a poor lover, for which he bore an eternal grudge against her.
She gave herself to Lucius Vitellius, who inspired disgust in her, because of the admiration he had for her. He had asked for one of her brodequins, which he always carried on his breast, to which he addressed his prayers. She only found out later that adoration was a form of dementia in Vitellius. When he had returned from Syria, where he was g
overnor, he had only dared approach Caligula with his head veiled, had circled around him three times and had fallen down, as if dazzled. He sometimes lay face down before Claudius in spite of the latter’s protestations. He had little gold statuettes of Messalina and Claudius in his house, which he worshiped, and he even had the freedmen Narcissus and Pallas sculpted, whom he worshiped in the same way.
She gave herself to Pallas because, by dint of administering and stealing the wealth of the Empire, he had become its richest man, and he rendered her services.
She gave herself to a lanista of gladiators because of his strength, to Vinucius, Claudius’ nephew, because he was paltry, to Sabinus because he had long hair and she liked the perfume of verbena that it gave off, to another because of the color of his eyes, another because of his hands, which had the particularity of always being hot, another because he had a hairy body, and another because of his smooth skin.
At Baiae, after having bathed in a solitary spot in the presence of her maidservant Livia, she gave herself to a passing fisherman, because he was passing.
And yet she never stopped thinking about Valerius Asiaticus. When she closed her eyes, she saw his pale face emerging from the shadow. She imagined how he would be, losing his noble gravity in her arms. She took advantage of every embrace with a new lover to enjoy in imagination the familiar lover that she had not had.
She wore a long Greek chain in sculpted gold around her neck and marked one of its links every time she had experienced a man’s caress. She laughed with Livia when she put it around her neck and she exclaimed “How light it is! What a little thing pleasure is!”
It was only later that she was to experience its crushing weight.
VIII. The First Encounter with Death
Mnester was the man that Caligula liked to kiss on the lips in the hippodrome, in front of the assembled people. His celebrity in Rome was very great, and did not only come from the amour that he had inspired in the Emperor. Phoenician in origin, he had learned the art of dancing in Tyre and Antioch, and that of pantomime. He was both a clown and an actor. He danced on a rope, executing perilous leaps, and excelled in the art of producing laughter by grotesque imitations of the illustrious heroes of literature and history. He had composed little scenes in which he was by turns Ulysses, Achilles Menelaus and even Helen. He appeared, dressed as a woman, covered in jewels, and mimed the gestures of amour.
As laughter is the great of forces, he was adored by the people, especially by the crowd of courtesans, procurers and all the servants of debauchery who lived in Suburra and the outlying districts. He was carried in triumph after performances. Several women had died of amour for him. He was rich and he lavished his money freely on parasites and catamites.
He was cynical. He did not hide the exclusive amour he had for men. Many had ruined themselves for him. He had never been handsome, but over his face, with its overly prominent nose, after a bored lassitude, passed a vulgar joy that was fascinating. He was past thirty and becoming sensibly fat, which was driving him to despair, when Messalina saw him and desired to know him.
At that moment she had just had a house furnished not far from the Circus Flaminius that was supposed to belong to her servant Livia, but was actually to serve for her rendezvous. It was there that she received Mnester.
She knew his reputation and doubtless did not expect too much from him. Mnester did not count on vanquishing the repugnance that the feminine form inspired in him. He glorified the beauty of the Augusta without attempting to profane it. Messalina treated him as a prince of vice. The two of them, passionate for flesh, obsessed by the same sexual image, found that they were close to one another by virtue of the community of their desire. A kind of amity was born between them, based on the mutual services they could render one another. Messalina did not seem to be offended by Mnester’s physical coldness for her. She was charmed by his cynicism, and by the stories of his debaucheries. She confided in him, and a sort of pact was concluded.
Mnester returned to Messalina’s house a few days later, before sunset, with young Titus, of the family of Domitius. Titus was scarcely fifteen, and had no great intelligence, but had a troubling beauty that Mnester appreciated.
Mnester offered Titus to Messalina as one offers a present to seal a nascent amity. All three remained together late into the night, and it was necessary for Livia to insist to remind her mistress of the necessity of returning to the Palatine.
She had Titus return alone thereafter, and took a liking to his youth. She even had an attachment for him, of short duration.
But it happened that Titus, who had no experience of life and was dazzled by Messalina’s beauty, denied the tastes that had driven him thus far to seek out adolescents of his own age and had taken him into the arms of Mnester. He proclaimed to his friends the discovery he had just made of the woman, boasted about the body that she had revealed to him, omitting no intimate detail, and taking pride in the woman’s illustrious name. All the young debauchees in Rome were soon informed of that liaison. Mnester, whom Titus neglected, informed Messalina of the danger she was running by virtue of those rumors, which might reach the ears of Claudius. At the same time, Lepida, who had been warned, came to find her daughter and beg her to be careful of her safety.
Messalina thought she was in danger. She deliberated with her mother as to what to do, and they fell into agreement that the best means of putting a stop to everything was to make Titus disappear.
There was then in Rome, living on the first floor of a commercial street in the vicinity of the Aventive hill, a widow named Locusta, who was the perfect image of the Roman middle class. She had a life regulated to the point of appearing manic to those who knew her. Either to economize on lamp-oil or by force of habit, she went to bed exactly an hour after sunset. She made an exception to that rule twice a week; on those days she received her lover, who was as punctual as her. He was a functionary in the administration charged with receiving notification of deaths, and lived on the far side of the city. Twice a week he came to take the evening meal and spend the night with his mistress. Invariably, both of them went for a walk the next day in the Forum Pistorium, and they went as far as the Porto Navale, at a slow pace. Then they separated, and Locusta went to buy vegetables at the Favaria market: the beans and chickpeas that composed her exclusive nourishment.
In the middle of the day, she went out for another hour with her dog, but—something that surprised her neighbors—the dog was often different. That perpetual renewal of the dog was characteristic, the only singular thing in such a settled existence.
However, that slave to the rule she had traced for herself, that lover of habitude, that good employee of life whose closed visage reflected neither curiosity nor hope, exercised, with method, application and intelligence, the curious profession of poisoner.9
Who knows where she had learned it, and the origin of that particular genius? Perhaps the desire to see the disappearance of her first husband, who had beaten her and ruined her, was the basis of her science. Perhaps a taste for extinguishing life by means of herbs and powders was innate in her.
Her clientele, initially not very numerous, only increased. She had important protections, for those who made use of her had no interest in her being disturbed by the magistrates. When she was in vogue she demanded high fees, but only from the rich. She was good to the poor and concocted poisons for next to nothing when those who came to find her had no fortune and appealed to her good sentiments.
She prepared beverages of all sorts. There were some that provoked death in an instantaneous fashion, but that was not always what was requested of her. In many cases, a slow death that appeared to be natural was preferable.
For the cruel, to whom the death of an enemy seemed insufficient, she had found a blue powder that caused frightful suffering without attacking the sources of life. For women jealous of the beauty of a rival, she had a paste that it was necessary to have them chew in a bonbon, and which deformed the jaw after having ma
de the teeth fall out. She had one perfume that provoked blindness and another that communicated the vital properties of a dog when it was breathed in, which made one walk on all fours, bark and raise a paw like the animal in question.
She claimed that certain minerals had a hidden force within them that, if one succeeded in disengaging it, rendered a man similar to them by virtue of a law of analogy that she was seeking. She said that she would soon find a tenuous powder that would change those who respired it into a kind of soft stone. It was by means of a poison of that nature—at least, so she said—that the woman mentioned in Jewish books had been turned into a pillar of salt. She did not have time to perfect that discovery.
The functionary who registered deaths only found out about the mysterious activity of his mistress later. How did he explain the visit of a peasant woman carrying a box of scorpions and various pebbles? How was he not chagrined by the incessant deaths of the dogs that he walked in the morning? Doubtless he was an insensitive man devoid of curiosity. When, because of the numerous visitors who came, Locusta no longer hid from him what she did, he showed the courage of a hero in continuing to eat, drink and respire perfumes in her company.
He had no reason to complain. The functionary nourished the dreams of wearing jewels. He had rings on all his fingers. He became an important man. No malady without a cause and no deformation of the jaw ever afflicted him. That was because he was beloved, and knew it.
It was the violet powder, the one that transmitted instant death, that Messalina obtained from Locusta.
Tryphene came that day to the house near the Circus Flaminius. In growing old she had acquired a hideous appearance. When she opened the door to Titus, the latter thought he was seeing Death in person, but he did not run away, and he went into the room where he expected to find Messalina full of desire.
The Angel of Lust Page 6