The veils of the dancing girls fell to the foot of the table; they devoured the sweetmeats and fruits, they drank from the amphoræ, plunged their heads into the crater of the nymphs, and laughed on seeing their faces bespattered with wine. The eunuch continued singing and pounding furiously on the floor to mark the rhythm for his musicians. In vain! The girls who tried to dance could not escape from the hands of the guests, who at every turn slapped them on their buttocks and tore off their veils. The young men rolled at the foot of the lamps, maddened by these bacchantes wise in perversion, reared in a port to which navigators brought both the refinements and the corruptions of the entire world. Alorcus the Celtiberian, brutalized by his enthusiasm, walked around the triclinium making a display of his strength by sustaining in his sinewy hands two dancing girls, who screamed with fright, while outside could be noted in the darkness of the peristyle the movement of the slaves, men and women, from the kitchens, creeping near to enjoy from without the spectacle of the bacchanal.
It was not yet dawn when Actæon awoke, wondering, no doubt, at the soft couch and at the perfumes of the dormitory. Sónnica was lying beside him, and by the light of a lamp hanging near the door he could see a smile of felicity flitting over her lips.
After the intoxication of the night the Athenian felt a vehement desire to breathe the fresh, open air. He was stifling where he was, in Sónnica's room, sunk down in the couch that seemed to burn with the fire of their recent passion, near the form, which now lay inert and with no other sign of life than the gentle sighs which inflated her bosom.
The Greek softly tiptoed out to the peristyle. The lamps were still burning in the triclinium, and an insufferable vapor of viands, wines, and sweaty bodies floated through the doorway. He saw the guests lying on the floor among the snoring women. Euphobias had awakened from his drunken sleep, and, occupying the place of honor, Sónnica's couch, was forging for himself the illusion of being master of the villa. Wrapped in his tattered mantle he was compelling two sleepy dancing girls to dance, contemplating their nude flesh with a disdainful stare like a man who considers himself above carnal desires.