III.
THE HYMN OF THE WATER-CARRIER.
As the lawyer and his children reclined at the triclinium in the cool
arcade opening on the garden, Martius narrated to Virgilia his
conversation with Hermione that morning in his father's office.
It was the custom, in the summer months, for the family to take their
meals out of doors, in the shadowed corridor, where there was almost
always a pleasant breeze, even when the sun scorched the bricks and
square stones of the street in front of their house. Occasionally, a
man would pass through the streets, carrying a sheepskin filled with
water. He sang a strange, low song as he sprinkled the red bricks from
which a thick steam arose at once, so scorching hot were they.
He was singing now; the weird melody penetrated even to the corridor.
"What a strange song!" said Aurelius Lucanus, cutting a piece of
tender chicken, roasted on a spit before an open fire in the kitchen
so tiny that there was scarcely room for the cook and his attendants
to move about. Yet here, they prepared the elaborate dinners, served
with the utmost nicety, in which Romans delighted.
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