I turned away and went down from Palatine to cross over to the Golden Palace and seek audience at Nero’s morning reception. If I were to denounce Antonia, then I had to hurry so that no one did so before me. At the thought of the insanity of life, I burst out laughing, so that I was walking half-laughing, half-weeping, like a man in ecstasy.

Mimdus absurdus, the world is absurd, I repeated aloud to myself, as if I had found a new and astonishing truth. But in my state it seemed the greatest wisdom, though I calmed down later on and thought better of it.

My head cooled a little as I greeted the waiting people in the reception room, for I seemed to see animal heads on them all. This was such an astonishing sight that I had to brush my hand across my eyes.

In the glittering silver ivory salon, its floor decorated with a huge mosaic portraying a banquet of the gods, many people were gathered, patiendy waiting until midday for a glimpse of Nero. The whole of the animal world was there, from a camel and a hedgehog to bulls and pigs. Tigellinus seemed to be so obviously a thin tiger to me that I clapped my hand to my mouth when I greeted him to stop myself from laughing aloud.

This strange delusion, which was probably caused by lack of sleep, love and my inner tension, passed when Nero allowed me to enter his bedroom before all the others, after I had sent a message to say my information was very important. He had had Acte as his bed companion. This showed that he had wearied of his vices and wished to return to natural habits, which happened sometimes.

I did not see Nero as an animal. Indeed, he seemed to me to be suffering, a man in despair from distrust, or perhaps a spoiled overfed child who could not understand why other people thought he was evil when he himself wished no one ill and was also a great singer, perhaps the greatest of his time, as he himself believed. I am no judge, for I am rather unmusical.

Anyhow, when I arrived, Nero was just doing the singing exercises he did every morning. His voice penetrated right through the whole of the Golden Palace. In between he gargled. Nero did not even dare eat fruit because some physician had said that it was not good for his voice. I think an apple or a few grapes are good with the usual morning honey-bread and also assist digestion, which is important for anyone who lives rather well after a certain age.

457

When I spoke Antonia’s name, my voice trembling and stammering, Nero’s salt gargle fastened in his throat, and he coughed as if he were about to choke. Acte had to thump him on the back and he was furious and chased her out of the room.

“What have you got to say about Antonia, you damned informer?” asked Nero, when Acte had gone and he could talk again.

I confessed that hitherto I had kept it from him that Antonia had been involved in Piso’s conspiracy, out of respect for her father Emperor Claudius, who in his time had been kind enough to give me the name Lausus when I received my man-toga. But my conscience would not leave me in peace when it came to Nero’s safety.

I threw myself onto my knees and told him that Antonia had many a time summoned me at night and with promises of rewards and high office, had tried to persuade me to join the conspiracy. She considered that as a close friend to Nero, I had excellent opportunities to plan to murder him with poison or a dagger.

To add salt to his wounds, I also told him that Antonia had promised to marry Piso after the coup. This absurd rumor wounded his vanity more than anything else, for Antonia had rejected Nero in a most decisive manner.

But Nero was doubtful still and did not trust me. It seemed to be beyond his understanding that a woman such as Antonia could have shown confidence in me, who in his eyes was an insignificant person.

He now had me arrested and put under the guard of the centurion on duty in the Palace, in one of the uncompleted rooms in which a well-known craftsman was doing a magnificent painting of the duel between Achilles and Hector on the walls of Troy. Nero was a Julian and wished to remind his guests that he was descended from an improper relationship between the Trojan Aeneas and Venus. So he never worshiped in the temple of Vulcan, for instance, but always spoke disparagingly of Vulcan. The influential guild of smiths did not like this at all.

The smell of paint irritated me as much as the artist’s self-conscious performance. He would not permit me to talk to my guard even in whispers, in case we disturbed him in his important work. I was affronted that Nero had not put me under the guard of a tribune so that I had to make do with the company of a centurion, although he was a Roman knight. To pass the time and soothe my inner tension, we could have talked about horses if only that conceited craftsman had not forbidden it.

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