Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  Mother, mother! cried Earine. Mother! cried Melissa. The motley on top of the stilts kicked a little boy so badly that he was carried off with something broken in him. But you had no ears for the brawling that began, so busy were you exchanging secrets! The crowd would have killed the acrobat, said Earine, if his friends had not got round him, crying that if he hadn’t struck at the boy, who had hold of his stilts, he would have had a fall that would have broken his back or his neck. And did the acrobat mount his stilts again and continue his dancing? Biote asked. I know not, Earine answered, but we’ll run and find out and leave you to your secrets.... Thou wert telling me about a night spent in Corinth, Leto, a man sharing a room in a tavern with thee. Share a room we did, but not a bed. And why not a bed, since thou wentest thither on a fair understanding? A man doesn’t love a woman after he hath had her, Biote, not with the same love, at least, as he did before. A quiet, dispassionate friendship, yes, but the tremble of the hand and the greed of the lips are lost for ever. As with a man, so it is with a woman. But thou hast not told me, Leto, why thou shouldst have chosen Corinth for such a mood of chastity. Canst give no reason for this mood? There was something in his face I didn’t like. Leto, dost take me for an innocent? I kept him sighing and craving for ten years, said Leto. Pooh! Pooh! Biote replied. But thy girls are returning to us, edging their way through the crowd to relieve our anxiety, mayhap, for the poor boy that got beaten with a stilt.... His howls were for fright rather than pain, mother, said Melissa. And the motley on stilts — is he up again and dancing? Yes, he is on his stilts, striding over the heads of the crowd in search of other customers, his pitch taken by two dancers. One throws a ball high into the air, the other catches it whilst dancing, and every step falling in time with the music he throws it back again to his companion, who catches it unfailingly. But here comes a wain bringing sightseers from Tanagra.

  Wagoner, cried Leto, thou’rt not going to drive over the good people of Aulis, come to celebrate the funeral of their well-beloved townsman? My company would witness the fire, lady. Witness the fire! Canst thou not see it from the hillside? Wouldst push me, sir, under the wheels of the wain? she continued, turning to a man standing beside her. Lady, the fault is not with me, the stranger answered; I, too, am being pushed. Halloo, wagoner! Draw in thine oxen! Lady, he added, turning to Biote, fear nothing. We are all on thy side, even to you drunkard standing in front of the wain willing to be crushed, crying: Do not push! Do not push! And now, sir, said Leto, since thou hast saved us from the wain wilt tell me the way to the pythoness? for my daughters would have their fortunes told by her. No more than natural it is for them to wish their fortunes told, lady; but it needs no pythoness to tell them, for their faces are their fortunes, among many other things. Sir, we asked not for compliments, but for the way to the pythoness’s tent. Pardon me, lady; I meant no harm. The pythoness’s tent will be found fifty yards higher up on the hillside.... Now, Melissa, now, Earine, take my hands and let us go in search of the pythoness and your lovers; mayhap we shall meet them by the tent. Mother, give us time to draw breath! said Earine. A goblet of wine and water would be welcome indeed to me and to Melissa. And to me, said Biote. And to me, said Leto. I could drink a bottle of Chian — well watered, for wine is heating. Mother, speak not of drinking till the goblets are at our lips! cried Melissa. And talking of the flaming sky above them and of the flaming pyre, the heat of which seemed greater than ever, the logs being now all aflame, the women pushed their way through the crowd till they came to the Barker — a man standing on a stool calling to the people to have their fortunes revealed to them by the pythoness. Let us listen to the Barker, said Leto.

  I see many women in the crowd, cried he, and wherever there are women there are thoughts of: Will he love me? and wherever there are men it is the same question: Will she love me? All lovers seek to know the future, and the pythoness will tell it to you and many other things. She will tell men and women of distant relations they have not heard of for years but whose money they will inherit. If they be childless they will be told what must be done to obtain children, and if they do not wish for children the pythoness will tell them how to escape from children. All kinds of knowledge are sold here and at a fair price. The beauty of youth can be given to the middle-aged. Pills can be purchased that will stir sluggish hearts to love. Every man should provide himself with a phial, for none can say when this will not be needed; and women, too, should procure a phial, knowing well they will need help to bring their lovers to their sides, ready for them and love. Are there no women eager to look into the future and learn of the children that Fate hath allotted to them? Enter, lady. Give me thy hand so that thou mayst not trip over the step, and I’ll hold thy shawl lest it catch on a nail. Come, ladies, enter and hear what your fortunes shall be in children, in drachmae, and perhaps in golden talents. Enter, he repeated, his eyes fixed on Earine. The man speaks well, said Earine. Speaks well, lady? None better, for I am confidant of the pythoness and she hath the key to the book in which the future is written. And what I tell thee she can give, and will give. Now, ladies, would you hear of the statues that Rhesos will carve and the temples that Thrasillos will build?

  He knows of Rhesos and Thrasillos! How did he hear of them? the women whispered together, to-day is our chance to consult one so learned. Ask, girls, said Leto, if the Gods will give you husbands at once; and later grandchildren for us, she added. And the girls were about to enter when a young woman came out of the tent brawling with a man for having let her sit under a lamp that was leaking. We were waiting our turn, she cried, and it was not until ten people had passed before us that I felt a drip upon my shoulders and said: What is this? and the answer I got was that the lamp above me must have been leaking. Why did he not cry that it was leaking? Why let me sit under it for so long? Here is my shawl; I ask everybody to look at it — the embroidery I have been working on for the last three months ruined by a dripping lamp! Had I seen that the lamp was dripping, the man began —— Seen that the lamp was dripping? It was thy business to see if the lamp dripped before I sat under it! Melissa and Earine looked at their shawls and asked if all the lamps were dripping, and the Barker answered them that no lamp was dripping in the tent. Well, then, how came my shawl to receive all this oil? It’s soaking! Seek a herbalist, lady, who will sell thee a potion that will take out the oil. To think, he added to those about him, that the pythoness should lose half her earnings for that a lamp was broken or leaked! The lamp hath been mended, he cried; you have nothing to fear now. Come up, my good sirs; you would have your fortunes told, and you shall have them told, and favourably.

  The shouts grew fainter as Biote and Leto and the girls struggled through the crowd, and coming fortuitously upon Rhesos and Thrasillos, they were conducted by the young men to the rock selected by Kebren for the delivery of his funeral oration.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  NO, MNASALCAS, I will not give ear to the notes of the bugle calling the people round the high rock — A few words, Kebren, will be enough to finish the day plausibly, for in the midst of their sports and games the multitude did not forget that at the close of day thou wouldst tell them from the high rock the story of two men who worked together for twenty years, not two ropes but two strands of the same rope. Two strands of the same rope, Kebren repeated; verily it was that, and what greater story is there to tell? I hear it when I look into my heart. But a great story needs a great teller, such as I am not and never shall be, least of all at this moment, whilst Otanes is burning on the beach. This is a time for dazed grief, not for words clear and precise, harmonious to the ear. Spare me, spare me, Mnasalcas! Speak for me. I have naught but grief in my head for a friend who cannot be replaced. Grief takes us unawares and we are rocked like trees in a wind; branches are broken, roots cracked, and then all becomes calm again. Yesterday whilst working with the lumbermen in the woodyards thou must have thought me cold and indifferent. On the rafts, too, I had other things to think of besides my personal grief, and the bu
ilding of the pyre was a distraction. But now there is no distraction; I am alone with my grief and without words to tell it. Kebren, I would address the multitude in thy place, but they are crying for thee. Hearken: We want to hear Kebren! We want to hear Kebren! My tears and tremblings, Mnasalcas, and the confusion of thought in which I labour will pass away, but not my grief. These paroxysms are unfortunate —

  Hush! say no more, said Mnasalcas. The passers-by are listening to thee. We must not keep the people waiting. Hasten thy steps. And pressing forward without considering the convenience of anybody, the crowd behind them muttering: Kebren and Mnasalcas! the twain arrived at the rock. Now, to it, Mnasalcas. Say all that thou hast said to me, and what thou pleasest. Reconcile me to the multitude. Hearken: We want Kebren!

  Kebren, cried Mnasalcas, cannot speak to-day; overwhelmed with grief he begs me to speak for him. The crowd consented with one accord to listen, and when Mnasalcas had concluded his speech and climbed down from the rock, he almost fell into Kebren’s arms. Art satisfied with my telling? he asked. No, Kebren answered; thou hast the instinct of truth in thee, but no man tells another man’s story. There is nothing for it but that I speak. Then go to it at once, said Mnasalcas, or the crowd will disperse; say to them what thou hast said to me. Whereupon Kebren climbed to the rock, and when the cheers that saluted him had subsided, he said: When I came to this rock, fellow-townsmen, to praise my lifelong friend, Otanes, I was beside myself with grief and fears for the future, and perforce had to ask Mnasalcas to tell my story, which he did as well as a man can tell a story that is not of his own flesh and blood; and his telling of it having helped to rescue me for a time from grief and a confusion of thought, I have returned at his advice to tell you that my father was a fishmonger in Athens and that I served in the shop until, exasperated by my bad chopping of fish and a trick I had of reading the Iliad whilst customers waited, he lost patience. Betake thyself to the theatre, he said; thou hast a fine resonant voice and a good presence, and for these qualities wilt be hired. The parts of messengers were always handed to me, for I looked like a man who would be good on a journey, and I played them, hoping to be given kings. But for one reason or another — lack of talent or lack of luck, I know not which — I remained a messenger till my father died, leaving me not the large fortune I had expected but a pittance that obliged me to look out for a means of getting my livelihood; and no career seeming to suit me better than that of a rhapsodist, I paid for a passage to Cnidus. We were to loose at daybreak, but at midnight a voice spoke in my ear, saying: To Aulis! To Aulis! and believing the voice to be that of a God (for what else could it be?), I trudged in the clear moonlight across Attica without any due comprehension of the design of the God, inventing from time to time reasons for the journey, saying to myself: The God sends me to the bays of Aulis so that I shall be able to answer any questions that might be put to me by a caviller, for there are always cavillers among audiences. The trudge was a long one, and I arrived so weary that I could not pursue my way into the town but lay down on the sand, and when I awoke I met Otanes and Biote, my wife that was to be.

  All these circumstances will be found in the different versions of the story that have reached your ears and that have been repeated by you and will be repeated again by your children, till the story is transformed, perhaps for better, perhaps for worse, and I would have been pleased to let the story be as you yourselves have invented it and will continue to invent it, were it not for the honour of Otanes, to whom the Aulis of to-day owes its being. When the Greek fleet sailed from our bays Aulis was a great town or city, trading with all the islands of the Ægean and the Greek cities on the southern shores of the Euxine. But everything rises and falls, and soon after the fall of Troy Aulis drooped into a long decline, without hope of resurrection, till the father of the man who is burning yonder built a great ship. Few, if any, are alive to-day whose memories go back to this ship, but you all know the ships that Otanes built; and as I learnt these things from my friend I doubted no longer that I was among you by the will of a God, and my belief gave me strength, courage and perseverance to keep our trade out of the hands of the Salamis merchants — a great design projected to ruin us. We came out of this war poorer by many cargoes and some ships, for we had to hazard a great deal to win in the end; and having won, we were overjoyed, for we saw Aulis richer and more prosperous even than she was when the fleet assembled in the bays. Otanes trusted me and I trusted him, and our mutual trust helped us both. On looking back I recognised the will of the God in giving me Biote, Otanes’s daughter, for a wife, whereby I became his associate and accomplice in all his enterprises. I often said I did well to obey the summons of the God that spoke in my ear, and my self-congratulations were not seldom when I returned from the sea and learnt that my first son was a great sculptor and my second an architect worthy of his brother’s genius. From Phidias and Kallikrates they learnt their trades. You knew all this before by hearsay; you know it all now by word of mouth; and believing myself to be in some small measure if not the accomplice the instrument of the God, chosen for the redemption of Aulis, the idea came to me, or I would say came to all of us, that before leaving Aulis my sons should build a temple of thanksgiving for the gifts of the Gods. On this point we were all agreed: that a temple should be built by my son Thrasillos containing a statue carved by Rhesos — but to what deity? Opinions were divided, some judging that we owed a temple to Poseidon, others being in favour of Aphrodite, and striving to propitiate both deities, we decided that the temple should be built on the hill known as Heros half-way up the valley. You know all these things and circumstances; you are part and parcel of them with myself and with my sons; but none of us knows why Poseidon should have raised up waves that threatened to engulf Aulis and drove two of our finest ships, the Pandora and the Triton, upon the rocks. The designs of the Gods are unsearchable.

  Disasters enough these were, but if Otanes had lived they would not have mattered. With his wisdom to guide me I should have had strength to build new ships and to discover new sources of trade. But without Otanes I am without light. All the light I had was borrowed from him, and now that he is taken away I shall fade into darkness. I am afraid of the future, for alone I am nothing. Our lives were as two strands of the same rope. But I would include Mnasalcas, who was also our associate; three strands made the rope, and now one strand is broken. Yes, I am afraid of the future; Otanes will never be replaced by me or by Mnasalcas or by any other man in Aulis. I am sorry for Aulis and I weep for my friend. The love of two men who have worked together year after year for a definite end, each dependent upon the other, is greater than the love a man can bear for a woman, though she be his wife or his mistress. His children, even, are small compared with this love. Nothing can recompense me for Otanes. I am but a darkened moon, the sun having been withdrawn. Go now to your games; leave nothing unfinished; and when evening descends return home with thoughts of him whose bones we shall collect to-morrow when the embers are cold.

  His hands went to his face to hide his tears or to dash them aside, and he could not answer Mnasalcas, who sought to detain him, but moving on blindly he met Biote and took her in his arms. I have heard thee speak of my father, Kebren, thy dead friend, and I prayed the while that some echoes of thy voice might reach him in the underworld, for they would have consoled him for leaving me and thee and our sons and all he had ever seen and heard and known or cared to know. I prayed that he heard thee, for hearing thee he would know that his love was not wasted on a profligate, a self-seeker. He never doubted thee. I can speak no more, Kebren. Let us never speak of Otanes again but think of him; he will be always in our hearts. I can speak no more, she repeated. We must follow the others. Send Leto to me.... Leto, call to Mnasalcas; say that thou wouldst not leave Aulis without lifting thy heart in prayer to a man who hath done so much for Aulis, and where canst thou do this so well as in the temple partly destroyed? Thou understandest me, Leto? I am stricken with grief, but I think of my son Rhesos, and thou
hast in mind thy daughter Earine. Be sure of thy words; Mnasalcas approaches. Our way home is a long one, said Mnasalcas; we have a league to walk — I would not return before seeing the temple, damaged though it be, Leto interjected. Come, the evening is but beginning and will be followed by a moonlight bright as day. And I will take Melissa and Earine in my charge, said Biote. Mnasalcas hesitated, but for shame lest his mistrust of Biote should be perceived by the others, he allowed Kebren to lead him over the ridge down the valley towards the temple. Plan against plan! Biote said to herself, and remembering with satisfaction that the girls chattering by her side had never strayed from the stead among the hills farther than the Euripos, she continued: They will not need much persuasion to go away with my sons, to marry them in Cnidus, in Mitylene, Rhodes, Cos, Syracuse — no matter where; so long as they go away together all will be well, but let them remain and the stead will be as unwelcome as Hades, as Leto knows.... Slender indeed are their hands, fair are their fingers, yet without a ring upon them, and I have rings in abundance and necklaces and ornaments brought from over seas by Kebren. Now, how will these girls seem to themselves when folded in my shawls? And her plan now entirely shaped in her mind, she recalled to them a promise made long since to show them the treasures Kebren had brought back from distant countries.