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| Petronius Illustration by George Barbier |
PETRONIUS
Romancer
by Marcel Schwob
He was born in the days when greengarbed clowns used to sit around a fire roast¬ ing young pig; when bearded porters in cherry-colored tunics squatted by the gay mosaics at villa gates, shelling peas into silver platters; when rich freedmen played politics in the towns of Provence; when minstrels sang their epic poems to the desert; and when the Latin language was stuffed with redundant words and puffed-up names from Asia.
Among such elegances he passed his childhood. His garments of Tyrian wool were never worn a second time, and if a silver vessel chanced to fall from the table it was swept away with the rest of the debris. Delicate, unexpected viands were served at every meal, the cooks never ceasing to vary the architecture of their dishes. To open an egg and find a fig in it was no cause for astonishment, nor was it unusual to slice a foie-gras statuette modeled in imitation of a Praxiteles. Plaster seals over the mouths of the wine amphorae were brightly gilded. Phials of Indian ivory held ardent perfumes for convivial folk, while ewers, pierced in many intricate patterns and filled with colored waters, sent down a pretty shower as they swung gently to and fro. All the glasses were iridescent monstrosities. Urns there were with handles made to turn in the fingers so that the sides opened out, letting fall a spray of painted flowers. African birds with scarlet cheeks cackled from their golden cages. Dog-faced Egyptian monkeys chattered incessantly be¬ hind gold-incrusted grilles set into the sides of the rich walls, while scampering around in precious boxes were slim little scaly beasts with azure eyes.
Here Petronius lived, believing the very air he breathed to be perfumed for his special use. When he arrived at the age of adolescence he did up his beard in an ornate sheath and began to look about him. Then a slave named Syrus, who had served in the arenas, showed him some things he had never seen before. Not of noble race, Petronius was a swarthy little squint-eyed fellow with the hands of an artisan and cultivated tastes. It pleased him to fashion words together and to write them down, though they resembled nothing the old poets had imagined, for they strove only to imitate the things Petronius found around him. Later he developed a grievous ambition for making verses.
Through Syrus he came to know barbarian gladiators, braggarts of the street corners, shifty-looking men of the market¬ places, curly-headed boys on whom the senators leaned during their promenades, curbstone orators, pimps with their upstart girls, fruit vendors, tavern landlords, shabby poets, pilfering servants, unauthorized priestesses and vagabond soldiers. With his squint-eyes he saw them all, catching the precise manner of them and their ways. Syrus took him down to see the slaves in their baths, to the dens of the prostitutes and through those underground cells where the circus gladiators practiced with wooden swords. Sitting by the tombs beyond the city gates, he heard tales of men who change their skins—tales and stories passed from mouth to mouth by blacks and Syrians and innkeepers and guardians who carried out the crucifixions.
Absorbed in these vivid contrasts which his free life allowed him to examine, he began, when about thirty, to write the story of those errant slaves and debauchees he knew. In the luxurious society of the city he recognized their morals, though transformed, and he found their ideas and their language among the polite conversations at high ceremonies. Alone, bent over his parchment at a table of odorous cedar, with the sharp point of his calm detachment he pictured the adventures of an ignored people. Under the painted ebonywainscoting, by the light of his tall windows, he imagined smoky torch-lit taverns, absurd nocturnal struggles, the twisted candelabras of carved wood, the locks suddenly forced by the axes of police slaves, and the harsh commands of slave drivers shrill above the shuffling rush of miserable people clad in torn curtains and filthy rags.
When his six books were finished Petronius read them to Syrus. And the slave is said to have howled his laughter aloud and clapped his hands for glee. At that moment they conceived the notion of putting those adventures into practice. Tacitus has falsely written that Petronius was present at Nero’s court, telling how his death was brought about by the jealousy of Tigillinus. But Petronius did not vanish murmuring lewd little verses as he stepped delicately into a marble bath. He ran away with Syrus to end his life on the roads.
His appearance made disguise easy. Turn by turn, he and Syrus carried the leather sack containing their money and clothing. They slept in the open air, on hillocks beside the crossroads, often watching the dismal cemetery lamps twinkling among the tombs. They ate their bread sour and their olives rancid. They became wandering magicians, vagabond fakirs, companions of runaway soldiers. Petronius dropped his writing completely, for he now lived the life he had once imagined. They had treacherous friends whom they cared for, he and Syrus, and who left them at the gates of towns after borrowing their last coin. They car¬ ried on all sorts of debauches with escaped gladiators: they became barbers and scrubmen. For several months they lived on crusts stolen from the graves of the dead, and all who saw Petronius were terrified by his been with a tangle-haired girl, but a drunken squatter had sunk a knife in his neck while they were lying together on the floor of an abandoned cave in the open country.
Imaginary Lives
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