The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party Slavery Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

To combat this situation, he requested that one of the slaves periodically creep to his door when he was absent, and hurl it quickly open, to determine whether the desk remained, or whether, with no one to perceive it, it had simply given up and dissipated. (1.14.7)

Mr. 09-01 is definitely not your typical slave master—he makes his slaves check whether or not something solid can actually disappear into thin air when no one's looking at it.

Quote #5

Some minutes later, Bono came in with the footmen, and bound my mother and me, and took us outside, and we were lashed to the horse-post. The moon was gibbous that evening, and the air cold. There was a chill to the cobbles beneath my bare feet that made them arch.

My mother's back was bared. They pulled her shift from her shoulders, and for the first time I saw her exposed, as she had been in the engraved figure hung upon the wall.

For an hour, they left us there before coming to inflict their punishment. We were all but nude in the night's chill. We shivered tremendously, and did not look at one another. (1.26.115-118)

What this passage shows is the shame that exists between Cassiopeia, Octavian, and—later on—Bono. They all have different reasons for their shame: Cassiopeia, for her naked vulnerability; Octavian, for seeing his mother naked; Bono, for having to do the dirty work of binding them to the stocks (he can't even look Cassiopeia in the eye later on). That's an emotional experience that will remain even after all that physical pain heals.

Quote #6

The first few nights, heart moved with sympathy, the cook sent up in secret soothing delicates and stews, supplemented with heavy spirits to draw off the pain, and whispered comfortably things such as, "Tell the dear to rest well, and that we know her woes"; my mother returned the dishes peremptorily as being too cold, too liquid, too morose, too dry. She demanded other dishes, special preparations, sauces glacées, a blanquette of veal seasoned with oysters, chapon Flandrois in white wine, pluck and numbles rubbed with Ceylon herbs. (2.2.3)

Someone thinks she's high and mighty… Cassiopeia isn't about to let the cook or any of the other slaves feel like they and she are alike. After all, Cassiopeia's a princess; she's royalty. So she's different from them. Of course, everyone knows what's really up—Cassiopeia can try to disassociate from the other slaves, but that's not going to make her any less of a slave (something her cut-up back knows all too well).