Their intercourse was fitful and unconventional.  Clodia was accustomed to Lucretius’s coming at unexpected hours with unexpected demands upon her understanding.  He even came, now and then, in those strange moods which Cicero said made him wonder whether the gods had confused neighbouring brews and ladled out madness when they meant to dip from the vat of genius.  At such times he might go as abruptly as he came, leaving some wild sentence reechoing behind him.  But at all times they were amazingly frank with each other.  So now Clodia’s eyes met his calmly enough as he said without any preface:  “I have come to answer your note.  I prefer that my wife should keep out of your circle.  You used to have doves about you, who could protect a wren, but they are fluttering away now and your own plumage is appalling.”  With the phrase his eyes became conscious of her emeralds and her shimmering Cean silks and then travelled to the nude grace of Venus the Plunderer.  He faced her violently.  “Clodia,” he said, slaying a sentence on her lips, “Clodia, do you know that hell is here on this earth and that such as you help to people it?  There is no Tityus, his heart eaten out by vultures, save the victim of passion.  And what passion is more devouring than that frenzy of the lover which is never satisfied?  Venus’s garlanded hours are followed by misery.  She plunders men of their money, of their liberty, of their character.  Duties give way to cups and perfumes and garlands.  And yet, amid the very flowers pain dwells.  The lover fails to understand and sickness creeps upon him, as men sicken of hidden poison.  Tell me,” he added brutally, leaning toward her, “for who should know better than you? does not the sweetest hour of love hold a drop of bitter?  Why do you not restore your lovers to their reason, to the service of the state, to a knowledge of nature?”

His eyes were hot with pity for the world’s pain.  Hers grew cold.  “Jove,” she sneered, “rules the world and kisses Juno between the thunderbolts.  Men have been known to conquer the Helvetii with their right hands and bring roses to Venus with their left.  Your ‘poison’ is but the spicy sauce for a strong man’s meat, your ‘plundering’ but the stealing of a napkin from a loaded table.  Look for your denizens of hell not among lovers of women, but among lovers of money and of power and of fame.  Their dreams are the futile frenzies.”

“Dreams!” Lucretius interrupted.  Clodia shrank a little from the strange look in his eyes.  “Do you, too, dream at night?  I worked late last night, struggling to fit into Latin words ideas no Latin mind ever had.  Toward morning I fell asleep and then I seemed to be borne over strange seas and rivers and mountains and to be crossing plains on foot and to hear strange noises.  These waked me at last and I sprang up and walked out into the Campagna where the dawn was fresh and cool.  But all day I have scarcely felt at home.  And I may dream again to-night.  This time my dead may appear to me.  They often do.”  He walked toward her suddenly and his eyes seemed to bore into hers.  “Do you ever dream of your dead?” A horrible fright took possession of her.  She fell back against the Venus, her sea-green dress rippling upon the white marble, and covered her eyes with her hands.  When she looked again, Lucretius was gone.