by George Moore
In the hope of retrieving himself somewhat in her eyes Kebren asked if he might read part of the next book. Otanes was willing to prolong the reading, and as Biote did not shrug her shoulders disdainfully he began again. But she heard very little of what he read, and to keep her secret from her father she sat the next evening like one afraid to lose a syllable of the hexameters, asking that a passage should be read over again, vexed when Otanes inquired why she desired a second reading of it. On another occasion she left the courtyard abruptly, saying: I am weary of the Iliad! and the two men sat talking of the moods to which women are liable, Kebren murmuring that these interruptions made the reading so difficult that he dreaded the approach of evening. Answering him, Otanes said it was true that the Iliad seemed to please her no longer, and his advice was that Kebren should refrain from reading the last books. She is very various, said Kebren. Like her mother, Otanes replied. But next day another Biote, more attentive, begged that Kebren should read Priam’s visit to Achilles, and she sat, taking pleasure in every harmonious accent of the hexameters, saying when the reading was over: A ship looses to-morrow for Troy; why should we not be passengers in her, father? Leaving my business to look after itself, Biote? And Kebren? Kebren will not miss us, she replied, without glancing in his direction; he will spend the last few days reading the manuscripts in search of his goddess. For us to find him gone, daughter, when we return from Troy, or haply to return in time to see him step on board a ship bound for Cnidus. Art sure then that he is leaving us? Sure indeed, she answered; he goes at my bidding. Thy words, Biote, leave me thinking that thy heart hath turned against him; I would hear his story, but since thou hast ordered his departure for good reasons or bad, it is for thee to speak first. Kebren asks for the right to return hither after wandering for a year, and doubtless he will gain applause for his reading. Women follow the laurel —
Jealousy, Biote! Otanes interjected reprovingly. I love thy daughter, Otanes, but I love my life. And conceive it to be a wanderer’s, Otanes replied. But in youth we know not in what direction our true instincts lead us. Remain with us for a year, Kebren, and if a year in Aulis should prove thee another Odysseus thou wilt re-engage in thy long pursuit of Helen. And looking from his daughter’s face to his future son-in-law’s, Otanes waited for one of them to speak. Thou art a kind and wise and foreseeing father, Biote cried at last, and if Kebren be willing so am I. A betrothal of a year will do no harm to either, she continued, and mayhap will bring forth much knowledge of each other that will help us through future years when the bliss is over. Thou lookest ahead, Biote, said Kebren. Thinkest that I shall return to Helen?
Thou wert willing to leave me for her, Kebren — A truce to your bickerings! cried Otanes. To the woods, where nightingales are singing in the branches! Out under the moon, the friend and companion of the betrothed! And with a sense of Otanes’s wisdom in their hearts they left him.
To some gift for prediction I may lay claim! And the thoughts of Otanes flitting to the Red Flamingo, he remembered that his father on his deathbed had warned him not to put his trust in ships. His friends, too, had warned him that the Red Flamingo would sink in the first storm, but he had not listened to father or to friends and had sent her into dry-dock to be repaired, and for years afterwards she had voyaged successfully in the Euxine. Biote had heard the story of the Red Flamingo and judged him by it; two cannot live together for many years without coming to know each other; and he had often answered her: I have never regretted any act that came from within. Wherefore not very different was his lot from Kebren’s. No God had spoken in his ear, it is true; all the same, fortune had come to him year after year, the safe unloading of one rich cargo making good the loss of another by shipwreck, and his reverses of fortune were so trivial that he had never been able to rid himself of the belief that he was not as other men are, purblind, seeing but dimly. He cast into the other scale the death of his wife, a great misfortune truly, but she had left him Biote, who would marry and give him grandchildren. If she did not marry all the wealth he had accumulated would fall into other hands; he’d be forgotten in Aulis. The need of grandchildren had often stopped him on the wharf; he would stand admiring the ships and the ships’ crews, and on a sudden turn away sadly with the phrase between his teeth: Who will take charge of all this trade when I am gone? And often on returning from the wharf he would walk about his house, filled with Theano’s tapestries and sculpture in marble and ivory brought from over seas. His house had contributed to his sadness. Who will live in it in the days to come if Biote does not marry? he had said to himself. A beautiful girl and a charming girl, yet her eyes do not turn to any man; true, there are few in Aulis that are worthy of her. But the cause of his despondency was now over; Biote would marry, and her wedding would be a memorable event in Aulis. And his thoughts passing out of the present into the distant past, when Aulis was no more than a little fishing village, raised by his industry and foresight to a great merchant port, he sat in a sort of happy stupor, awakening at last to ask himself of what he had been thinking all this long while for it was a long while since he had bidden his daughter and his future son-in-law away to the woods.
To send them away to Euboea was part of my wisdom, and it was part of Biote’s wisdom to refuse to allow her betrothed a year in which to wander all over Greece preaching his doctrine of Helen. Had I been Biote I should have answered him as she did, yet it is easy to understand the pain that it costs him to relinquish his dream of creating an undying memory of himself by his revival of the worship of Helen. It may be that he is right, and that Helen was once worshipped as a Goddess. It is strange that I should have collected all my manuscripts without knowing wherefore, and that they should suddenly come to be of great use to my son-in-law. He may find something in them that will prove he hath sight beyond the present moment, like myself. But the dethronement of Athene was a young man’s dream, a sterile dream without fruition in this world. My wit was needed, and I was happily inspired when I proposed a betrothal so long that they themselves will weary of the constraint and come to me asking if the term cannot be shortened. The quiet evening, a kiss exchanged under the boughs... let him kiss her, O God that didst bring him to Aulis, let him kiss her, and thy will shall be done! He raised up his hands to pray, but dropped them on hearing footsteps. They have returned from the woods; and he waited for the lovers to ask him of what he had been thinking all this while. But so absorbed were they that they did not perceive him in the dusk, and he had to call to them, saying: Tell me of the nightingales and of their songs. The birds jargon, no doubt, for their pleasure, Kebren answered, and we jargoned for ours, having no ears for the birds, or eyes for the light of the evening star. It kindled to-night, said Biote, unheeded by us; we spoke not of it but a good deal of the few manuscripts that remain in the library for Kebren to read. The wily Otanes replied that although the Iliad was read there was the Odyssey to fall back upon, and he mentioned six months as a term for the reading of it, knowing well that before long the emptiness of their lives in Aulis would bring them to him again asking for another advancement of the wedding. Nor was he wrong; before the end of the month they were complaining that storms in the Ægean were sudden in autumn.
I would, he said, make your wedding a memorable event in Aulis; Aulis hath done much for me. And thou hast done much for Aulis, Kebren replied, and he pressed Otanes to agree that the wedding should not be postponed. It would be my pleasure to see you married to-morrow, but the ship — my present to you, Otanes added, looking from one to the other — is in dry-dock undergoing repairs, and I would have your departure for Troy coincide with the wedding festivities Once a ship goes into dry-dock, he continued, there’s no saying for certain when she will come out of it. And henceforth much of his time was given to supplying small comforts to the wharfingers and the needy populace of the mean streets of Aulis. There shall be no hungry ones at thy wedding, he said to Biote. The sea beyond the Tauric Chersonese shall be fished for tunny — food for the multitude �
� and a ship shall bring oysters from Abydos for our distinguished guests. Nor shall any complain that they were thirsty; wine shall come from all the islands. He who hath drunk well and eaten well shall be amused, tragedians in carts declaiming verses, acrobats throwing somersaults. Have ye anything to add to the festival that my imagination sets forth? he asked. Kebren was well satisfied with Otanes’s plans, and spoke of a great procession, charging himself with a return by torchlight. The Gods themselves could hardly save the woods from catching fire, Otanes answered. He told of an accident that had befallen some years before, and chagrined Kebren arranged that the procession should proceed instead up the valley. It was by the bridge over the river Asopos that the torches were lighted, and in a great flare the processionists returned to Aulis, to assemble later round Otanes’s house rejoicing. The time-honoured joke of keeping the lovers out of their bed faded with the moon, and the last stragglers rolled home telling that the rejoicings would begin again when the ship in dry-dock, Otanes’s wedding present to his son-in-law, was ready to put to sea.
The story that Kebren had come to Aulis on an errand and had been persuaded from it by Biote, was known to everybody, and next day the croakers were busy with the doleful morality that a woman, can do nothing worse than to turn a man from his errand. However a man may love a woman, it was averred, he will hate her if she injures him. And if a man injures a woman, will she hate him? somebody asked, and the answer was: When she finds out that she hath been injured her love will turn to hate, like a man’s. Nor were these the only croakers; there were others who foretold that the wedding was the end of Otanes’s fortunate days. The wedding is but a fleabite, said one; the cost of the ship and her crew and captain will leave him with empty pockets, though he be the richest man in the world. And when the news came to Otanes’s ears that he was looked upon as one likely to ruin himself in useless extravagances, he began to reflect on the wisdom of his present to his daughter and son-in-law. It was true that the ship and the manning of her would cost him a great deal, but knowing more about his riches than his neighbours he was not abashed by the money he was spending, but much by the thought that his life would be lonely indeed without Kebren and Biote; and on his way to the wharf to inspect the ship he resolved not to commit himself to promises that he might not be able to fulfil.
How long will it be before the ship is ready for sea? he asked, and the shipwright answered that in her last voyage she had suffered a good deal of strain in her timbers and needed caulking. The figure-head, too, he added, is much battered, and she will need a new name. The name still upon her is Medusa, not a very suitable one for a bridal ship. Had I remembered the name of the galley I would not have chosen her, Otanes answered. The plank on which the name is painted, sir, shall be taken out lest evil befall, and the new name painted upon it, which is...? And Otanes giving no answer, the shipwright mentioned Leda as a suitable name — Suitable, he added, if the story going round is a true one, that thy son-in-law and daughter would have Helen back again among the Goddesses. And if there is nothing to be said against Leda as a name, sir, we can settle for the figure-head; there is a young man in Aulis to whom I’d give the carving of it. And the shipwright produced a drawing showing the dainty loins of Leda clasped by a swan’s wings. A fine composition, said Otanes, her head thrown back and the amorous reach of the swan’s neck, his beak upon her lips. A fine bit of work it is, the shipwright repeated, the finest we have seen in the shipyard this many a day; the artist will be pleased to hear of thy commendation, sir. But when, asked Otanes, will the Leda be ready to put to sea? She’ll be ready, sir, before we can enlist a trustworthy crew; and more difficult even than the crew it will be to find a captain with knowledge of the currents and the rocks. We have not a ship in port, sir. How difficult everything in life is! Otanes muttered, and they turned into the counting-house to refer to the books and to speculate on the date of the return of the different ships to Aulis to discharge or to take in cargo. From one or more of these ships, said Otanes, we can pick a crew, filling up the vacancies with slaves from Scythia. Scythian slaves are rarer to-day than they used to be, replied the shipwright. These nomads pitch their tents away from the coasts, and so avoid kidnapping. All the same, the armed crew of a ship in the offing might still manage to capture a wandering tribe on the march and make sale of all and sundry in Athens. Timotheus’s grandfather came from Scythia, Otanes answered; and on his way home he looked forward to hearing Timotheus tell how his grandfather had been carried off into slavery. My grandfather was owned by his parents, sir — Who gave him mare’s milk to drink, Otanes interjected; from his new master he got wine. And they talked pleasantly of the advantage slavery is to barbarians till Otanes fell asleep.
A chillness creeping down his right side awoke him, and he knew it to be a stroke, severer than the one of two years ago which had not deprived him of speech, merely thickening his utterances for a few days. He tried to speak, but no sound came from his mouth, and the room being in darkness he remembered the lamp. Timotheus always lighted it every night, and he concluded it must have spluttered our whilst he slept. From the darkness of the window curtains he inferred that Timotheus would not be about for several hours. He is the earliest riser, but he’ll pass my door with muffled footsteps lest he should awaken me. I may be here till midday, and should the house take fire I shall burn in my bed. The thought that he might burn in helpless silence whilst the rest were hastening away from the flames frightened him. He knew that what he feared would not happen; all the same, he began to lose control over his mind, and in his imagination Biote and Kebren conspired to take his life. He foresaw them choosing the pillows for their purpose whilst he watched, unable to utter a cry, and the absurd figments continued to throng in his distraught brain he knew not for how many hours. At last the dawn began in the window, and it was not long after that footsteps went by. Timotheus will return, he said, and to escape from his thoughts he began to recite verses from Homer, repeating the stirring chariot race again and again. When he had exhausted his memories of Homer he sought refuge in memories of his youth, and when these failed him he asked himself why nobody came to his door, and if it were decreed in Olympus that he should die without looking on his daughter’s face again. The Gods may have devised this death to counterbalance the favours they have bestowed on me. But why do Biote and Kebren remain away? At last a knock came. He thinks I am asleep and will come back in half-an-hour. But in half-an-hour I may be dead. My right arm and leg are as stone. Another knock came and then a second and a third, but like the others they were not answered, and he heard Kebren say: He hath overslept himself. Or another stroke hath befallen him! Biote muttered, as she opened the door.
Do not tax thy strength trying to speak, father. I’ll put questions and thou’lt answer them with thine eyes. I shall understand. As before, a cold shiver awakened thee in the night? His face brightened a little, and she asked: In the arm? Again his eyes spoke, and taking his right arm she said: Here? He cannot tell me, Kebren, but Loxias will know. Timotheus shall go at once to fetch him. I will go, said Kebren. Take Timotheus with thee; he knows the house. And whilst Biote waited Otanes lay, his head hunched up among pillows, his left hand moving faintly on the coverlet. Here is Loxias, she said at last, warned by the sound of footsteps.... The first stroke two years ago was so slight that the faint thickening in his speech was barely noticeable. So spoke Loxias, and turning up his sleeves he began to rub Otanes, and at the end of an hour he said: I have met with some that got back their speech in a few weeks. And day after day the watchers waited for Otanes’s first words; when one came to relieve the other’s watch the question was always: Hath he spoken? You must have patience, Loxias said. He will begin to speak in about three weeks. He understands, Biote replied; his face brightens. To prove that he understood, Otanes tried to speak, but the sounds he uttered were unintelligible, and during the next few days very little progress was made. He still lay looking from Kebren to Biote, and to watch him striving after words wa
s so painful that Biote could not bear it. Loxias said that we must have patience, father, and thou must have patience, too. On thy return from Euboea, she continued, turning to Kebren, he’ll be as easy in speech as thou and I. And when some weeks later a message came from the wharves telling of Kebren’s return, she walked half-way to meet him.
We lifted him from his bed yesterday and he seemed to enjoy being in the open air watching the carp in the fountain’s basin. And his speech? Kebren asked. His utterance is still thick, but we understand him and he understands us. Thy news is so good, Biote, that I would go to him at once, for I am the bearer, too, of good news. Mnasalcas will discharge his debt to Otanes by surrendering half the profits of his sheep-farm. Father will not like to hear that his old friend hath been outwitted. How could a townsman like me, Biote, outwit Mnasalcas? And this seeming to Biote an unanswerable answer, she took Kebren to the sick-room, announcing him from the threshold with the words: Kebren hath returned from Euboea, father, sure that thou’lt be satisfied with the arrangement made with Mnasalcas for a division of the profits. It seems that I was very near to death, Kebren. Loxias saved thy life, Otanes, and he thinks the recovery will endure. I was dying easily, without pain, Otanes continued, and — And regret being picked out of the grave? I cannot tell, Kebren, whether I am glad or sorry. But of this I am sure: that on the approach of death we apprehend with a clearer understanding than before what life is and what death is. As we approach the gulf a great revelation is vouchsafed to us, by death or by something beyond death or over and above death, I cannot tell which, but of a certainty there is revelation. We see with different eyes, we understand with a different mind. We forget the past; it all seems futile and useless. We approach the gulf without any sense of fear. We welcome death for the sake of the knowledge that death brings to us. And what is the knowledge thou hast gathered from the edge of the gulf? Kebren asked. That the Gods, or the Fate over and above the Gods, implanted in man the fear of death so that he might become man, else he would have remained only something more than a mere animal. The fear of death is in us from the very beginning. Children have it; as soon as they begin to think they ask: Why am I here? for what purpose? Death is not important, a mere nothing, a corpse. Very different indeed is the fear of death, for that fear hath been man’s inspiration from the beginning. The Egyptians built pyramids and embalmed and rolled the bodies of their dead in cerecloths and placed them in impregnable tombs, with food and arms and everything they might need when the day of resurrection broke. But the Greeks, a lighter and wittier race than the Egyptians, build lovely temples, and fill them with marble representations of the Gods, hoping thereby to achieve an immortality, if not for the individual, for the race at least. Religions arise, we know not whence nor how; they are bred like the mayflies among the reeds; they rise from the depths of the waters. Priests hold out their hands and say: We will interpret the mystery of life; we will lead you, and there shall be no death; and steeped in fables men forget they must die. All our lives we are weaving fables or drawing veils around us. The most beautiful passages in our poets are evocations to death, for death, or perhaps I should say the fear of death, is everything to man. He will never weary of trying to probe the mystery, and when tired of the God she hath created, and the priests of the Gods and all their promises, he will become humble again and seek to prolong his identity beyond the grave in the bodies and the minds of another generation. So thou seest, Kebren, that there was sense in my words when I said that the Gods or the Fate over and above the Gods implanted in man the fear of death, for without it we should be as animals, living in quiet ignorance and dying in the same. But the animals die, too, Otanes. They die without fear of death, Kebren. Death takes the birds unawares; they fly joyously till the last urge of life leaves them. Then a bird will flutter to the earth, dead when he touches it. It is the fear of death that separates us from the animals, whether for good or for evil I know not; but lying on my bed speechless, deprived of will, liberated from the sensual chain, I saw farther into things and the meaning beyond things, their sadness and their joy, than I had ever done before.
