The young artist turned pale and said with bowed head, and in low voice as he turned to go: 

“Right is always on the side of the strongest.  Let me go.  I am nothing but a poor artist—­you are some thing very different.  I know you now; you are Caesar.”

“I am Caesar,” snarled Hadrian, “and if you think more of yourself as an artist than of me, I will show you which of us two is the sparrow, and which the eagle.”

“You have the power to destroy, and I only desire—­”

“The only person here who has a right to desire is myself,” cried the Emperor, “and I desire that you shall never enter this palace again, nor ever come within sight of me so long as I remain here.  What to do with your kith and kin I will consider.  Not another word!  Away with you, I say, and thank the gods that I judge the misdeed of a miserable boy more mercifully than you dared to do in judging the work of a greater man than yourself, though you knew that he had done it in an idle hour with a few hasty touches.  Be off, fellow; my slaves will finish destroying your image there, for it deserves no better fate, and because—­what was it you said just now?  I remember—­and because it enrages me.”

A bitter laugh rang after the lad as he quitted the hall.  At the entrance, which was perfectly dark, he found his master, Papias, who had not missed a word of what had passed between him and the Emperor.  As Pollux went into his mother’s house he cried out: 

“Oh mother, mother, what a morning, and what an evening.  Happiness is only the threshold to misery.”

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

Happiness is only the threshold to misery
When a friend refuses to share in joys

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