I was very angry, and spoke my mind. I said I thought it was most rash and daring for an amateur to recite before professionals like Cicero and Bassianus. I was really frightened, because Catullus’s verses are either terribly long and serious--I have never been able to listen when he reads them out; in fact, I always used to ask him to read to me when I wanted to add up my bills mentally--or else they are short and quite _impossible_. He then turned scarlet, and said something about drawing-room poetasters who wrote stuff fit for women, and, looking at Caesar, he recited a short poem which was _dreadful_. I didn’t understand it all, but I felt--and I am sure every one else felt--that he meant to be rude. I sent him a small note by a slave, telling him that if he did not know how to behave he had better leave the house. But I looked as if I hadn’t noticed anything, and tried to treat it all as a joke. But every one felt hot and uncomfortable. I then ignored Catullus altogether, and devoted my whole attention to Julius Caesar. I suppose it was that which really made him lose all his self-control. He entirely forgot himself. He got up and said that, as the company did not like comic verse, he had written a serious poem, which he was quite certain would interest them. He had no wish, he said (and for once in his life he was modest!), to rival such great writers of verse, such masters of music and passion, as were Cicero and Bassianus, but his verse, although it could not rival theirs in art and inspiration, had at least the merit of truth and sincerity. He said (and he almost shouted this) he was a plain man, who expressed in the simplest possible words what were the common experiences of every one, from the Senator to the man in the street. (So vulgar!) He said his verses were about a woman (how could I ever have thought he was a gentleman!) who was far-famed for her beauty, and still better known for her heartlessness. She heightened her wickedness by the supreme coquetry of pretending to be virtuous. She professed virtue and practised vice. (He always was coarse.) He would not name her; he would call her by a name which was colourless, namely, Lesbia. (Of course every one knew he had written verses to me under that name!) Then, looking me straight in the face, he recited a poem which was _quite_, _quite_ impossible, with a _horrible_ word in it (at least Lalage said it was horrible). Pollio came to the rescue, and said that Catullus was ill, and dragged him out of the room. And in a way it was true, for he was quite tipsy, and tears were rolling down his cheeks; and I do hate drunken men, but, above all, I hate coarseness.