Study Guide

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party Part 2, Chapter 29

By M.T. Anderson

Part 2, Chapter 29

The smallpox is really hitting the guests now.
People are sick all over the place—literally—and blood, pus, and open sores are everywhere.
Most of the guests aren't too sick, though.
Octavian himself isn't bad off either, only he's forced to work, which makes things harder on him.
Three people end up with a bad form of the smallpox: the boy who first showed a pox mark; the guy from the little love triangle involving Mr. Goff; and Cassiopeia.
Cassiopeia is having a tough time with the pox, stuck in the slave quarters.
She asks Octavian to read her a fairytale, but Octavian can't—he has to go work and recall fairytales from Ovid.
But hey, things could be worse—he could have had no break at all if he hadn't convinced Mr. Gitney that one of his experiments (the smallpox's effect on African slaves and the white masters of house) would only be accurate if the sick slaves (like Octavian) got the same treatment as the whites.
This means Octavian gets to sleep, though he dreams about one of those slave torture devices he saw in Bono's book—a full metal helmet—is on his head.

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