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508 DAEKNESS AND DAWN
vacuity of aimless ?
self-indulgence Who was there to love
her, or whom she could love ?
She thought of her early home, of her lovely mother, of
her consular and triumphant grandfather, of the adoration
which had surrounded her in the days of her own dawning
beauty. She thought of Eufius Crispinus, the bridegroom of
her youth, who had loved her tenderly, and whom she had
loved, and of the little son whom she had borne him. He
had grown up into a beautiful and gallant child, and the
mother had always listened with pride to the anecdotes about
him which were secretly brought to her. One of the heaviest
of the many afflicting thoughts which were weighing upon her
was the manner in which Nero had treated her former
to-day
husband and her son.
Rufiiu Crispinus had once been Praetorian
Prsefect, and had been rewarded with consular insignia,
but Nero hated his very name because he had been Poppsea's
husband; and he had taken advantage of Piso's conspiracy
first to banish him to Sardinia and recently to order him to
put an end to his life. How fatal had her love been to him !
It had blighted his career ;
it had stained his home ;
it had
cut short his life. But what had her poor boy done that he
too should perish? She had heard only a few days since
that simply because in his games the high-spirited lad had
played at being general or emperor, Nero had given orders to
his slaves to drown him by suddenly pushing him into the
sea while he sat fishing on a rock. She knew that this crime
had been committed, and his bright young life sacrificed simply
because he shared her blood; and what maddened her
most of all was that she dared make no complaint, dared not
even to reveal that she was aware of the murder, because to
allude to her first husband or her son was always to rouse
Nero into a paroxysm of fury. In the brightest and most
luxurious room of the Golden House she sat solitary, and
sobbing as if her heart would break.
Then she thought of Otho. Dandy as he was, and debauchee,
to her at least he had been passionately faithful.
She had abandoned Crispinus to live with Otho partly from
a certain fascination which hung about his wickedness, but
even more from motives of ambition, and because he was
Nero's most cherished favourite. She heard good accounts of
his administration in Lusitania. Her intrigues to entangle