The Unwilling Vestal Part 35

"None of your concern to offer a sieve," Commodus growled. "You insult all of us and me most of all. Do you take me to be so unfair as to subject this lady to her test with a sieve brought and offered by her accuser?"

Calvaster was dumb.

"Show me that sieve," the Emperor commanded.

Calvaster produced from under his robes a copper-hooped sieve strung with linen.

Commodus handed it to Brinnaria.

"What do you think of that sieve?" he inquired.

Brinnaria held it up to the light and looked through the web; held it level, upside down, and looked along the web.

"It is very irregularly woven," she p.r.o.nounced; "some of the meshes are three times the size of others. It is very unevenly strung, it bags in two places." She held it up to her face a moment.

"Also," she concluded, "it has been scrubbed with wood-ashes and fuller's-earth. Vesta herself could not carry water in that sieve."

"Give it back to me!" the Emperor ordered.

He eyed it as she had, sniffed at it like a dog at a mouse-hole, and glared over it at Calvaster.

"You advertise yourself to all the world," he snarled, "as an unworthy Pontiff and a contemptible caitiff. You attempt to entrap me into the meanest unfairness! You pose as a public-spirited citizen solicitous about the sanct.i.ty of the wors.h.i.+p of Vesta and I find you a pettifogging wretch actuated by spite and malice. You desire not a fair test, but the ruin of a woman you are low-minded enough to hate. Eugh!" With one of his excesses of unconventional energy he flung the sieve far out over the river. It sailed whirling through the air, splashed in the water and sank out of sight.

"For the price of one dried bean, I'd order you thrown after it," said Commodus to Calvaster.

He beckoned one of his aides.

"Signal that boat!" he commanded.

A broad blunt-ended cargo-boat, rather guided than propelled by its four heavy oars, came drifting down with the current. Its gunwale was hung with horsehair sieves. Up from the thwarts stood many poles, each with cross-pieces, every cross-piece hung with sieves. Its oarsmen edged it nearer and nearer to the Quay and slowed its motion until it was almost stationary opposite the stair, scarcely an arm's-length from the lowest step.

When it was close the Emperor spoke to Numisia:

"Choose any sieve you see."

Numisia indicated the sieve on the forward arm of the second cross-piece of the fourth pole from the bow.

Lutorius, at the Emperor's bidding, called the directions to Truttidius, who, bowed and bent with age until he looked almost like a clothed ape, wizened so that his leathery, wrinkled face was like a dried apple, was standing near the middle of the boat.

"Go down the steps," said Commodus to Brinnaria, "and yourself take the sieve from him." Brinnaria, on the lower step, reached over the water, and grasped the rim of the sieve which Truttidius held out to her. She held it up to the light. Its web was of black and white horse-hair, each thread alternately of a different color. It was made for bolting the finest flour and the tiny apertures between the hairs were all of a size and scarcely broader than the hairs themselves.

She scrutinized the sieve from several angles and then looked back at the Emperor.

"Are you satisfied with that sieve?" he queried.

"I am satisfied with this sieve," spoke Brinnaria, loud and clear.

"I want to see close," said Commodus, coming down the steps.

Brinnaria, holding the sieve in both hands, lifted it towards the blue sky. "O Vesta!" she prayed aloud, "O my dear G.o.ddess, manifest your divinity, succor your votary! To prove me pleasing and acceptable in your eyes, grant me the miraculous power to carry up these stairs water from this river in the sieve which I hold!" She lowered her arms and holding the sieve in her left hand knelt on one knee on the lowest step, spread her towel over the other knee and took from her belt the sacrificial dipper. With that she scooped up half a ladleful of Tiber water. On the towel spread over her knee she carefully dried the bottom of the dipper.

Holding it just outside the rim of the sieve she glanced up at Commodus.

"Go on," he said.

She smiled.

"If you want to see me fail," she said, "talk to me. If you want to see me carry water in this sieve, let me alone."

"I'm dumb*," said he.

*"Dumb" at this time meant unable to speak. --PG editor

She eyed the sieve to make sure that it was level and steady. Commodus, also eyeing it, judged it both steady and level.

She brought the ladle over the rim of the sieve and lowered it until it all but touched the middle of the web.

She tilted the ladle slowly, slowly she poured its contents over its lip.

She lifted it clear:

On the web of the sieve lay a silver disk, as it were, of water, round-edged and s.h.i.+ning.

"Hercules be good to me!" cried Commodus.

"Keep quiet!" she admonished him. "You'll put me off." She dipped up a ladleful of water, flirted half the water out, wiped the bottom of the ladle on her knee and brought it cautiously over the sieve, cautiously she lowered it until it nearly touched the s.h.i.+ning disk of water, cautiously she tilted it, cautiously she let its contents flow over its lip.

The disk of water spread. She repeated the process. The disk of water spread.

Again and again she repeated the process.

The disk of water became a film hiding nearly all the web of the sieve.

Commodus noticed that, as she dipped up each ladleful of water, she watched the dipper out of the corner of her eye, as it were, with a sort of partial, sidelong glance, but that all the while her gaze was intent on the sieve.

He noticed other details of her procedure.

"You never pour twice in the same place," he commented.

Rigid as a statue, the sieve in her hand as unmoving as if clamped in a vise, Brinnaria spoke:

"If I take my eyes off the sieve," she rebuked him, "it will tilt in my hand and the water will run through. If you make me look round you'll destroy me. You are not fair."

"I'm dumb," said Commodus again, apologetically.

As she poured in the next dipper-load, the film of water touched the rim of the sieve at one point.

Commodus heard a sharp intake of Brinnaria's breath.