The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter (little red riding hood read aloud txt) 📕

We had just disposed of the supper prepared by Giton, when there came a timid rapping at the door. We turned pale. “Who is there?” we asked. “Open and you will find out,” came the answer. While we were speaking, the bar fell down of its own accord, the doors flew open and admitted our visitor. She was the selfsame young lady of the covered head who had but a little while before stood by the peasant’s side. “So you thought,” said she, “that you could make a fool of me, did you? I am Quartilla’s handmaid: Quartilla, whose rites you interrupted in the shrine. She has come to the inn, in person, and begs permission to speak with you. Don’t be alarmed! She neither blames your mistake nor does she demand punishment; on the contrary, she wonders what god has brought such well-bred young gentlemen into her neighborhood!”

We were still holding our tongues and refraining from any expression of opinion, when the lady herself entered the room, attended by a little girl. Seating herself upon the bed, she wept for a long time. Not even then did we interject a single word, but waited, all attention, for what was to follow these well ordered tears and this show of grief. When the diplomatic thunderstorm had passed over, she withdrew her haughty head from her mantle and, ringing her hands until the joints cracked, “What is the meaning of such audacity?” she demanded; “where did you learn such tricks? They are worthy of putting to shame the assurance of all the robbers of the past! I pity you, so help me the God of Truth, I do; for no one can look with impunity upon that which it is unlawful for him to see. In our neighborhood, there are so many gods that it is easier to meet one than it is to find a man! But do not think that I was actuated by any desire for revenge when I came here: I am more moved by your age than I am by my own injury, for it is my belief that youthful imprudence led you into committing a sacrilegious crime. That very night, I tossed so violently in the throes of a dangerous chill that I was afraid I had contracted a tertian ague, and in my dreams I prayed for a medicine. I was ordered to seek you out, and to arrest the progress of the disease by means of an expedient to be suggested by your wonderful penetration! The cure does not matter so much, however, for a deeper grief gnaws at my vitals and drags me down, almost to the very doors of death itself. I am afraid that, with the careless impulsiveness of youth, you may divulge, to the common herd, what you witnessed in the shrine of Priapus, and reveal the rites of the gods to the rabble. On this account, I stretch out my suppliant hands to your knees, and beg and pray that you do not make a mockery and a joke of our nocturnal rites, nor lay bare the secrets of so many years, into which scarcely a thousand persons are initiated.”