For a long time she had been sad and unhappy, but now she was seized by a certain uneasiness which she had never felt before.
So far life had seemed to her simply grievous and deprived of a morrow; now all at once it seemed to her dishonorable.
Increasing chaos rose in her head.

Again the door to light began to open and close.

But in the moment when it opened, that light so dazzled her that she could see nothing distinctly.

She divined, merely, that in that light there was happiness of some kind, happiness beyond measure, in presence of which every other was nothing, to such a degree that if Caesar, for example, were to set aside Poppaea, and love her, Acte, again, it would be vanity.

Suddenly the thought came to her that that Caesar whom she loved, whom she held involuntarily as a kind of demigod, was as pitiful as any slave, and that palace, with columns of Numidian marble, no better than a heap of stones.