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THE MOCKERY OF DEATH 31
a true Caesar, a true Claudius. Again and again she drew him
to her knee ;
she held him by the hand ;
she passed her
jewelled fingers through his hair she amused him
;
with the
pretence of constant messages to the sick-room of his father.
And all the while her soul was half-sick with anxiety, for the
Chaldaeans still sent to say that the hour was inauspicious, and
she did not fail to observe that the boy, as much as he dared
to show his feelings,
saw through her hypocrisy, resented her
caresses. He burned to visit the bedside of his father, and was
bitterly conscious that something was going on of which he and
his sisters were the special victims. For he was a noble and
gifted boy. Something he had of the high bearing of his race,
something, too, of the soft beauty of his mother. His tutor,
the grammarian Sosibius, had done for him all that had been
permitted, and though Britannicus had purposely been kept
in the background by the wiles of his stepmother, the teacher
had managed to inspire him with liberal culture, and to enrich
his memory with some grand passages of verse. Nero was more
than three years his senior, and in superficial qualities and
graces outshone him but keen observers ;
whispered that though
Britannicus could not sing or paint or drive a chariot like his
she had known no
stepbrother, and was less fascinating in manner and appearance,
he would far surpass Nero in all manly and Roman
virtues. The heart of Octavia was full of unspeakable misgivings.
Motherless, unloved, neglected,
aspect of life except its tragedy, and none had as yet taught
her any possible region in which to look for comfort under the
burden of the intolerable mystery.
The morning hours passed heavily, and Agrippina was almost
worn out by the strain put upon her. In vain she tried
to interest Britannicus in the talking-thrush, which had greatly
amused him on previous occasions. She went so far as to
give him her white nightingale, which was regarded as one of
the greatest curiosities in Borne. It had been bought for a
large sum of money, and presented to her. Pliny, among his
researches in natural history, had never heard of another l At
another time Britannicus would have been enraptured by so
interesting and valuable a gift but now he saw that it was the
;
object of the Empress simply to detain him and his friends
from any interference with her own designs. He thanked her
1
Note 5. Agrippina's white nightingale.