Malthus's duty is to sec that every man's cup is filled and to regulate the proportion of wine to water: it is a duty that he has often performed for Modestus. He can be trusted to whisper to the man with the wine-jar and water-pot 'More wine', when conversation is formal and frigid, and 'More water' when the conversation is becoming too free or quarrelsome and spirits need cooling. A hired dancing-girl supplied by the Theatre at Constantinople, with a wreath of roses on her head, bare legs, and a very short tunic, hands the cups around, making pretty jokes as she does so.
Now Simeon the burgess says something in a low tone to Paleologus (who is reclining on his left), indicating the frieze with a critical inclination of his head. Palaeologus replies with a warning frown, and Modestus calls out: 'Hey, Sirs, is this proper banquet comradeship? Did not Petronius the Arbiter lay down hundreds of years ago in his famous satirical novel that at a courteous table all offensive comments should be made aloud? Come, let us have it I What do you find amiss with my frieze? It is a reproduction by a gifted contemporary copyist of a major work of Gorgasus the mural painter. The original was at Corinth, but is now destroyed, which makes this doubly precious to me and to all connoisseurs.'
Then he goes on, in a chanting voice: 'Observe how Bacchus, having ravaged India, the land where the sages, called fakirs, nude but for a loin-cloth, sleep (praying to their gods) supported by nothingness three feet above the parched serpent-haunted ground – how great Bacchus, ever youthful, is harnessing the tigers to his triumphal chariot, wreathed with vine-clusters, with vines for bridles! From his curly head sprout golden horns, symbol of valour, which themselves sprout lightning – that very lightning in which Jove begat him on astonished Semele. His smooth temples, you will notice, are adorned with poppies…'
'If I may be pardoned such a rude interruption of your charming and eloquent speech,' Malthus puts in – he sees that the guests, having drunk little so far, are growing restless at the prospect of a long, dismal, classical recital, and he knows the only way to silence Modestus -'those are not poppies, they are intended for asphodel. Poppies are proper to Morpheus and to Ceres and to Persephone; but asphodel to Bacchus. Gorgasus was too well-informed an artist to make such an error in floral attributes.' Then, hastily to the servant: 'Boy, pour again, and let it be all wine!'
Modestus apologizes: he meant asphodel, of course – 'A slip of the tongue, ha, ha!' But his confidence is shaken; he hesitates to resume his recital.
Simeon considers that the half-clothed women of the frieze, in attendance on Bacchus, are not proper ornaments for a Christian dining-room. Looking up at them, one might imagine oneself inside a brothel at Tyre or Sidon or one of those heathen places, he complains,
'I was never a customer at any such haunt,'. says Modestus sharply, 'but perhaps you know best. At the same time let me tell you that I regard the attitude to nudity as one of the tests of civilization. The barbarians hate the sight of their own unclothed bodies: just as the singing, illiterate, savage fraternities of monks do.'
Nobody takes up the challenge on behalf of the monks, not even Simeon, but Bessas answers stiffly: 'We Goths regard the sight of a person unclothed as ridiculous – just as you, Modestus, laugh at a person who cannot sign his own name – as many a noble Goth cannot do, I among them.'
Modestus, in spite of his crotchets, is a good-humoured man and does not want to pick a quarrel with a guest. He assures Bessas that he is surprised that a man with so noble a name cannot record it on paper or parchment.
'For what were Greek secretaries created?' laughs Bessas, ready to be appeased.
Next, Modestus tells his Thracian guests how proud he is, though a Roman of exalted rank, to be resident in Thrace, once the home of great Orpheus, the musician, and the cradle of the noble cult of Bacchus. 'Those naked women, Simeon, are your own ancestresses, the Thracian women who piously tore King Penthcus in pieces because he spurned the God's gift of wine.'
'My ancestresses all wore long, thick, decent gowns!' Simeon exclaims; and his indignation raises a general laugh.
While the appetizers are being cleared away, the dancing-girl gives a clever performance of acrobatic dancing. As a climax to her hops and skips, she walks about on her hands and then, curving her body into a bow and arching her legs right over her head, picks up an apple from the floor with her feet. Continuing to walk on her hands, and even slapping the floor with them in time to the apple-song she is singing, she pretends to debate with herself as to who shall be awarded the fruit. But her mind has long been made up: she lays the apple on the table beside young Belisarius, who blushes and hides it away in the bosom of his tunic.
