Brinnaria

“ No one can cavil if we use the commonest kind of sieve, of medium fineness and of normal make.
“As to the question of procuring one we must arrange that Brinnaria may feel wholly secure that it has not been tampered with by some enemy of hers, and, on the other hand, that all persons whatever, to whomsoever hostile or friendly, or wholly indifferent, may be at once and forever certain that neither Brinnaria nor any partisan of hers has had any access to it before the test. ”

“ Brinnaria cried. “There’s no one alive I despise as much as that detestable ninny. I’ve a mind to chuck Almo and ask Daddy to offer me, just to spite Meffia.”
“Why d-d-don’t you?” Flexinna stuttered. “D-d-do it n-n-now, right n-n-now. You might be t-t-too late.”
“Oh bosh,” Brinnaria groaned. “What’s the use of talking nonsense? What would be the sense in my spoiling my life to spite Meffia? I hate her. I’ll hate to see her putting on airs as a Vestal, but I’d hate worse to be a Vestal myself, and worst of all to lose Almo. I just couldn’t give up Almo.” ”

“ Then Brinnaria is so genuinely brave that she will really not dread the pestilence, and all the doctors say that there is nothing like that feeling to protect any one from the danger. She makes me feel that she will be safe. ”

“ I say it solemnly, as sure as my name is Marcus Brinnarius Epulo, I’ll have you made a Vestal unless you agree this moment to give up all thoughts of Almo, to obey me about marrying Calvaster, and to be properly polite to him and Pulfennius.”
“Daddy!” Brinnaria cried. “Only don’t have me made a Vestal and I’ll do anything. I’ll forget there ever was an Almo. I’ll be sweet as honey to Pulfennius till he loves me better than Secunda, and I’ll marry Calvaster; I’ll marry anybody. Why, Daddy, I’d marry a boar pig rather than be a Vestal.” ”

“ Brinnaria replied.
“What kind of water do you propose to carry?” Commodus asked. “Spring water, rain-water from a tank, aqueduct-water, or what?”
“I assumed,” said Brinnaria, “that I would carry water from the river, in accordance with the legend of my predecessor: Father Tiber being himself one of our gods, one of the sternest to evildoers, yet to the righteous most kindly and helpful.”
“Excellent!” said the Emperor. “My notion precisely. That is settled. ”

“ Truttidius asked, eyeing her over his work.
“Not I!” Brinnaria declared. “I can’t think of anything worse except being killed.”
“Well,” mused Truttidius, “there is no accounting for tastes. Most girls would be wild with delight at the idea. But there would be no sense in being a Vestal unless you wanted to be one.”
“I don’t,” Brinnaria proclaimed emphatically, “but I have been thinking about Vestals ever since Daddy threatened me and scared me so; I’ve been thinking about Vestals and sieves. Did anybody ever really carry water in a sieve, Truttidius?” ”

“ Brinnaria admitted, “and I have thought over all that. But I am old-fashioned in my feelings even if I have often been the reverse in my behavior. I am revolted at the thought of Almo as a professional cut-throat—I was insulted at the sight of him in the arena. I feel that by his abasement of himself he has obliterated my love for him. It is as if he had never existed. I shall not marry him, even if we both outlive my obligatory term of service. I shall never marry anybody. I shall die a Vestal.” ”

“ Their influx sent up the price of large residences and caused much activity in the renting and selling of properties suitable for the homes of people of ample means.
Brinnaria, without a male relation of even the remotest degree, came to lean more and more on Vocco, the husband of her chum Flexinna. He was a young man of not unpleasing appearance and of courtly manners, but very haughty, reserved and silent by nature; and exceedingly spare, lean and wiry, with black hair and brows, a complexion as if tanned and weatherbeaten and an habitual frown. ”

“ The obstinacy faded from Brinnaria’s handsome, regular face. She looked merely reflective.
“In the first place,” she said, “because I despise him and hate him worse than any young man I ever knew; I would not marry Calvaster if he were the only man left alive. In the second place, because, if all the men on earth were courting me at once, all rich and all fascinating and Caius were poor and anything and everything else that he isn’t, I’d marry nobody ever except Caius. You hear me, Father. Caius Segontius Almo is the only, only man I’ll ever marry. Nothing can shake my resolution, never.” ”

“ In a trice Brinnaria was flat on her back in bed with Utta massaging her vigorously and methodically. After one comprehensive rubbing she went off for hot milk, hot wine, honey, barley-meal and spices. The posset she brewed she compelled her mistress to swallow. Then she gently massaged her until she was asleep. Thanks to these attentions Brinnaria, after some four hours abed, was able to reappear in the Temple looking not much unlike a Vestal who had enjoyed twenty-four hours of unbroken repose. ”

“ Life in the Atrium largely consisted in the effort to keep Meffia well, to make sure that she was not overtired, to foresee and forestall opportunities for her to blunder, to repair the consequences of her mistakes, generally to protect and guide her.
In the same four years Brinnaria had developed into a muscular girl, tall, amply fleshed, robust, rosy, full of healthy vigor, lithe and strong. She was radiantly handsome, knew it, and was proud of it. Her duties she knew to the last, least detail, and Causidiena trusted her quite as much as Manlia or Gargilia. ”

“ It is only in this respect that Brinnaria has ever given me any cause for concern. She is more like a boy than a girl in many ways. She not only plays with boys and plays boys’ games and plays them as well as boys or better, not only climbs trees when she is in the country, and rides bareback and goes fishing and swimming in any stream or pool, and ranges the woods and cannot be restrained ”

“ He hoped to spy on an interview b-b-between you and Almo, for he surmised that you would arrange to have Almo meet you in the empty house!”
“The nasty beast!” cried Brinnaria, shocked. “How dare he?”
“Oh, b-b-be sensible,” Flexinna admonished her. “You know the k-k-kind he is. He’s b-b-bound to impute to everybody what he would d-d-do in their p-p-place. Any man under the same circumstances would jump at the same suspicions.”
“But why?” queried Brinnaria, bewildered and angry.
“Think a minute,” said Flexinna. “To suspect all women is a c-c-convention, almost an axiom, with most men. ”

“ Your leisure is your own to do with as you please. And your immediate success appears an evidence that, to say the least, your undertakings give no offence to the gods.”
During the latter months of Bambilio’s oversight Brinnaria had felt restive and as if some inward force was forever driving her to feverish activities; under the care of Lutorius she became placid and thought less of her stock-raising, journeys to and fro to her estates, talks with grooms and such like activitie and devoted herself with more cool ardor to her duties. ”

“ I think you will find Brinnaria everything you could wish as a daughter-in-law. The most uncanny thing about her precocious habits of thought is her tenacity of any resolve and her grave and earnest attitude towards all questions of duty and propriety. She takes clan traditions very seriously and is determined to comport herself according to ancestral precedents. You will have no fault to find with her respectfulness towards you and Herrania or with her behavior as a wife. She will be circumspect in her deportment towards all men and is sure to turn out an excellent housewife. ”

“ All persons were assumed to be too much in awe of Pontiffs, for anyone to dare to raise a hand against any Pontiff, least of all a Vestal against her spiritual father. The world had to wait for a Brinnaria to demonstrate that the unimaginable could come to pass. ”

“ Flexinna declared.
“All members of our clan keep their word,” said Brinnaria proudly. “We do not ask whether it is advantageous to keep our word or pleasant; when we have passed our word we keep it. I’ve given my word and there’s nothing to do but to wait for Almo and Daddy and hope that both, or at least a message from Daddy will get here before Faltonius.” ”

“ When summoned his host’s wife appeared as a medium-sized woman, neither plump nor slender, with a complexion neither brown nor white, with yellow-brown hair, gray-brown eyes, and in every outline, hue, and feature as neutral and inconspicuous a creature as could be conceived of.
“Yes,” Quartilla said, “everybody is surprised at Brinnaria’s growth. I was scared, when she first began to grow so fast, and had special prayers offered and sacrifices made at the temples of Youth and Health. ”

“ Grasping her robe firmly with both hands, escaping by a hair’s-breadth the despairing clutch of the horrified Manlia, Brinnaria half vaulted, half rolled over the parapet, swung sailor-fashion to the rope her robe formed, went down it, hand over hand, raced across the sand and faced the victorious secutor.
He, although a foreigner and a savage, had been long enough in Rome to know perfectly what a Vestal was and he recoiled from her in a panic no less than he would have felt had the goddess Vesta herself come down from the sky to balk him of his prey. ”

“ It’s horrible; it’s not human.”
More lecturing, a long session of lecturing, followed this outburst. At the end of it the victim was meek and pliable, or so professed herself. For at least five days Brinnaria kept up her effort to be comradely with Meffia. By the sixth day she was completely exhausted and the two avoided each other as before.
Agonies indeed Brinnaria suffered in her efforts to live up to Causidiena’s ideas of what she should be. On the whole she succeeded pretty well and committed few errors of deportment. Outwardly she controlled herself from the first ”

“ It scares me. I am a Vestal to bring prosperity and glory to the Empire, to pray prayers that will surely be answered. Suppose the Goddess is deaf to my prayers because I am unworthy to pray to her? Suppose that my prayers infuriate her because I am vile in her sight? Suppose I am causing disaster to the Empire? I keep thinking all that. Do you wonder that I think of suicide, of hanging myself, like the two Oculatas?”
“My child!” Aurelius cut in. “You have not done anything that justifies your comparing yourself to the Oculata sisters.”
“We’ll come back to that later,” Brinnaria replied. ”

“ There was an immemorial belief that if a Vestal could be induced to pray for the recapture of an escaped slave, such a runaway, if within the boundaries of Rome, would be overcome by a sort of inward numbness which would make it impossible for him to cross the city limits, so that the retaking of such fugitives became easy, as it was only necessary to search the wards for them. City owners of escaped slaves besieged Brinnaria for years and as it was reported that her intercessions were invariably effective, her fame increased and petitions for her assistance pestered her. ”

“ Brinnaria commented. “I’m sorry for her, whoever she is. Just think, she’ll have to pair with that unspeakable little muff of a Meffia. I hate that girl.”
“Whoever she is,” Flexinna continued, “she is sure to be chosen and taken mighty quick. For with this p-p-pestilence in the city, and all the trouble the P-P-Parthians are making in the East, of the Marcomanni on the Rhine colonies, and the thunder-storms that have raged about lately, there’ll be need felt for all the p-p-prayers all the offer. They’ll not leave the vacancy open long. ”

“ Brinnaria said nothing.
He resumed:
“Leave it all to me. I’ll go to Aricia myself; I’ll expostulate with Almo; I’ll appeal to his manhood, to his pride, to his patriotism. Ten to one he’s disillusioned by this time, sick of his job and ready to listen to reason. He’ll promise to obey me and he’ll obey me.
“The rest will be managed by men who will make no mistakes. They’ll find two challengers each much like Almo in build and appearance. One dark night Almo will slip off in charge of the men I delegate for that duty ”

“ Flexinna raged. “You’ll throw away your life for a mere scruple. You risk being made a Vestal every moment. Faltonius may be on the way here now. If I were in your place I’d make sure. I’d not wait for Almo. Any lad would do for me. You c-c-could make sure, if you had sense. Almo would forgive you and marry you anyway. Your father would forgive you; he’d never approve, I know.”
“Not he!” Brinnaria proclaimed, “and he’ll never have any such dishonor to forgive. No man of our clan ever had reason to be ashamed of his daughter or of his sister. I’ll not be the first to disgrace the clan. ”

“ Now it so happened that nearly all the spectators in that part of the audience were watching a far more exciting contest farther out in the arena, where two Indian elephants, each manned by a crew of five picked men, were clashing in a terrific struggle No one, except Brinnaria, had any eyes for the plight of the young retiarius below them The secutor beheld indifferent faces gazing over his head The few thumbs he could see pointed outward. Brinnaria, to be sure, was holding out her right arm, thumb flat, and doing her best to attract the secutor’s attention. She failed. ”

“ She is never openly disobedient, yet she is most ingenious at devising methods for avoiding obedience. Sometimes I lose patience with Brinnaria. But, when I really think it all over, there is no harm in any of it. Strangers, however, would think her a very terrible girl; she belies herself so. Any one becoming cognizant of some of her vagaries would form a very unfavorable judgment of her and most unjustly. In her heart she is anything but the wild creature she makes herself appear. ”