cypresses grew still more pronounced than during bright daylight. In the people, in the trees, in the whole garden there reigned an evening calm.
That calm struck Petronius, and it struck him especially in the people. In the faces of Pomponia, old Aulus, their son, and Lygia there was something such as he did not see in the faces which surrounded him every day, or rather every night. There was a certain light, a certain repose, a certain serenity, flowing directly from the life which all lived there. And with a species of astonishment he thought that a beauty and sweetness might exist which he, who chased after beauty and sweetness continually, had not known. He could not hide the thought in himself, and said, turning to Pomponia,—
“I am considering in my soul how different this world of yours is from the world which our Nero rules.”
She raised her delicate face toward the evening light, and said with simplicity,—
“Not Nero, but God, rules the world.”
A moment of silence followed. Near the triclinium were heard in the alley, the steps of the old general, Vinicius, Lygia, and little Aulus; but before they arrived, Petronius had put another question—
“But believest thou in the gods, then, Pomponia?”
“I believe in God, who is one, just, and all-powerful,” answered the wife of Aulus Plautius.
