by George Moore
A great peace-maker the bed certainly is, he said. We have had quarrels like others, but on entering our bed all differences came to an end, and we were one mind, one body, one soul. And he remembered many delightful moments, little acts of needed help as he watched her laying aside her outer garments and sitting before her toilet-table covered with essences, phials, brushes, combs, picking these up in turn, making mysterious use of them and braiding her hair into two long braids; and all the while they talked of the happenings of the day, broken words interrupted by long silences, and at last by the silence leading into sleep. These were happy memories and still happier were those of their awakings side by side. Biote’s thoughts were of her children, and there was always something to say about Rhesos and Thrasillos, and when remembrances of his business called him from her, she would say: Why should the counting-house always come between us, Kebren? Wait a little while. And he had often waited to please her. But now he was a stranger, and his thoughts wandering on round the bed on which his life had always been centred, it came to him to compare it with the foundations of a house; if the foundations be not secure the house, however beautiful, is in danger of falling into ruin. The comparison pleased him, but after a while he changed the simile, gathering one out of his own experience: The bed is to marriage what an anchor is to a ship. As long as the ship does not drag her anchor and the anchor holds firm, she outweathers almost any storm. But without an anchor she’ll drift and go to pieces, as my life hath gone. All the strength and the security that the bed gives have been withdrawn. I am a stranger in my own house, and I leave it only to stupefy myself with figures, profits and losses. At the end of the long columns I say: Of what avail is all this searching and striving to me or to my sons? By the carving of marbles and the erection of pillars they will earn all they need. Biote no longer tempts me to shorten my work in the counting-house so that I may walk with her along the seashore, where we have walked so often. Ah, had I an aim, had I an ambition, I might live — without much zest for life, but I could live. And very soon he was asking himself why he should continue in a vacant world when the Euripos ran idly by, ready to carry him out of it. Why live through another purposeless day of figures? he asked, to return to a lonely bed, now worse than lonely — a bed of long dreams out of which I rise wearier than before I lay down, dreams of vain seekings. He had never met in life the men and women that he now associated with in every doze or dream, and from these there was no refuge; only death could bring them to an end. But he could not part from Biote without seeing her for a last time, and he dropped one by one the stones that he had gathered to help his drowning, saying: I can gather them again. But before gathering them I must think upon Otanes’s words to me when I asked him if self-destruction was permissible. It is not wise, he said, to cast off the life we are in, for the coil remains; which means that I cannot free myself from life in the Euripos. And should I meet Otanes in the underworld, with what eyes and voice will he greet a deserter such as I am? O man of little courage! will be his words. And thinking of the pain that the tidings of his drowning would bring to Biote, he left the shore to beg her to say for the last time if he was excluded from her intimacy because of his brag to Mnasalcas that they lay together every night in the same bed; and with these thoughts shaping and reshaping themselves in his mind he entered the house, to find her before her loom.
Biote, he said.... Why this air of fear, why this trembling hand, Kebren? I have come, Biote, to lay my life before thee in all its simple misery, and thou canst judge if I am worthy to make an end of it. Make an end of it, Kebren! What art thou saying? she cried, starting to her feet. The door opened, and Leto, feeling she was not wanted at that moment, whatever the talk might be about, said: — A letter from Melissa; but I cannot stay — From Melissa? cried Biote.
Yes, she is quick; she is six months gone. And will give birth to a boy or a girl in three months’ time! cried Kebren. No, no, Leto; thou canst not go. There are many things to talk about. The letter in thy hand — wilt read it to us? Leto began to read, but very soon dissatisfied, she passed the letter over to Kebren, saying: There are many hard words in it. Even Kebren stumbled now and then over an architectural term, and when asked to replace the long words with simpler ones he did so, but middling well, as he confessed, not being learned in the erection of pillars. Did Mnasalcas read the letter to thee? Biote asked, and Leto answered: A phrase here and there, but when he tried to fit them together he got lost, saying: — None but an architect could make much of it. Besides, what matter to us the length of the cella or the height of the architrave? Enough it is for us to know that they are building temples and carving statues and being paid for them. If they had asked us to pick out a name for the infant.... And a long time was spent in choosing names to select from if Melissa should give birth to a boy, and another list prepared in case the grandchild should be a girl. At length, weary of nomenclature, Biote said: — Girl or boy, the child will need a cradle, and the cradle will need a quilt. She and Leto put their heads together, and Kebren, feeling the need of the evening air, sought the solitude of the wonted valley. His happiness was too great to be borne under a roof, and his mind was captured by the warble of the brook among its sedges and the evensong of a flock of little birds just now settled in the reeds.
I have brought Leto to see the temple that our sons will come back to finish, Biote said, and without seeming to notice his emotion she reminded him of the instructions they had received from Thrasillos for the protection of the temple against storms and time, saying: — I spoke of a tarred cloth, but he answered that the first high wind would carry it away, mayhap with some of the masonry, and that it might be well to build a hut hard by for a slave whose charge would be to defend the temple against night thieves who might come to steal the marbles. All this hath been done, Kebren answered, and they walked down the spacious valley, seeing it with different eyes, when good-natured Leto said: This valley will be a fine walk for the children. But there are many bees about in the flowers, and I shall have to take care they do not get stung — a premonition that caused Biote and Kebren to break into gentle laughter; and in the hope of making herself better understood, Leto continued: — If boys be given unto us they will come with toy boats to sail on the brook, and I shall have to keep my eyes open lest they fall in it, and the same if they be girls, for then irises and forget-me-nots will tempt them.
We’d do well to put up a railing. Again there was laughter, and obedient to their instincts the women began to gather flowers to take home.
CHAPTER XX
A GIRL AND a boy would have suited us better than two girls, said Kebren, and without raising her eyes Biote mentioned that she had always felt Melissa would be the first to bear. But one never knows, she continued. A bosom and a burn are no sure foretelling of motherhood. As often as not a thin girl — Earine is no reed, Biote! By her sister’s side she is one; but their sizes and shapes will not determine the grandchildren that the Gods will give us. And she went away, a bunch of keys at her girdle, a scarf about her shoulders, giving her orders, exacting obedience as she passed down the passages, entering the different rooms in an ever-increasing certainty that she was glad motherhood had fallen to the lot of Melissa rather than to Earine, for Rhesos’s sake. His art is derived from the pattern which he still believes to be a gift from Aphrodite, and it may be that he is right, since the oracle said it; and as she went through courtyards and outhouses she took pleasure in remembering that Rhesos had little more from Earine than he would have had from any other girl coming to his workshop as a pattern. Even this was too much. Were she not his mother she would have liked to inspire his statues; she had a pretty little body; but a woman of forty is not the same as a girl of twenty, though the difference is little. And then her thoughts taking a swift turn, she found herself face to face with the fact that she had connived at this marriage. She had even planned it; if it had not been for her it never would have come to pass; and her absent-mindedness was such that the slaves wonde
red at the scowl that came and went in and out of her face, till rousing herself she gave her orders and passed on, resinning her thoughts as she walked. She had always disliked the thought of Rhesos marrying, and could not put out of her mind the injustice that falls upon a mother when her favourite son is taken away from her by a girl. Rhesos’s toddling steps were before her and his first words were unforgotten. She had taught him to read and to write, and now all of a sudden a girl claimed him, saying: — He is mine! Such was the law over every mother, but she liked it none the more for that. She would have preferred her son to remain with her for some years longer, but she could not plan Thrasillos’s marriage without planning Rhesos’s at the same time. She could not have kept Rhesos for ever in Aulis unmarried, nor have followed him up and down the seas, having a home to look after. She fell to thinking what would have happened to her if she had met a man like Rhesos when she was a young girl; there would have been nothing else for her to do but to follow him; and her thoughts sweeping by, she returned to her envy of the girl whose body inspired Rhesos. Away went her thoughts again, darting and skimming, crossing the seas, visiting the temples and statues that her sons were building, taking pleasure in Melissa’s little girls, Lamia and Lais, and imagining a great robbery, hoisting sail with them, leaving but a brief message for their distracted mother to follow them to Aulis — a desperate drama of anguish and tears, travel and discoveries, and reproofs from Kebren, who would meet her at the Piraeus. But his reproofs would be neither too bitter nor too long; the sail of Melissa’s ship would be seen on the horizon; and they would all be happy together.
And it being characteristic of Biote to emphasise her thoughts by an act, she sat down before her loom to weave a peplos for Melissa and she was still weaving when Kebren returned from the counting-house to sit beside her, embarrassed, for all day long at his desk he had been full of thoughts of her, and now the pleadings that had seemed so convincing to him had faded from his mind, and he rejoiced when she broke into speech, asking if a ship had come from Cnidus bringing a letter. He answered that no ship had come in, and getting up from her loom soon after, she put it away, saying that her ear caught sounds of the slaves in the hall preparing the evening meal. I must look after them, she said, and Kebren was left alone to remember that he was an alien in Aulis and might very soon become an unwelcome alien — for why it was difficult to say. He had done nothing to merit the treatment he was receiving, which Biote did not seem aware she was meting out to him. After all, he was in her house, but the children were their children. And his thoughts moving on from the present out into the past, the surge of the years brought up memories of the night they had slept in Mnasalcas’s grove, and of the day on the seashore when he had asked for a year in which to preach his doctrine that Helen rather than Athene should be the tutelar deity elect of the people. In his imagination, the three poplar-trees showed against the sky, the surf growled among the rocks, and her words resounded in his ears, telling him that if he went away he would go for ever. He had not consented; it was only fair that she should allow him to put his ideas to trial; and walking by his side her looks were harsh and her words cold. On their return to the house the evening reading of Homer had to go on, and when the last chapter was read he felt himself free. But Otanes said: — Remain with us for a year, and if a year in Aulis should prove thee another Odysseus thou’lt re-engage in thy long pursuit of Helen. Otanes’s words were the first link in the chain, the rest but a sequence which he could not break, and had not wished to break, and it was not until his bondage had become galling that he had betaken himself to the Euxine, the pretext being to seek new outlets for trade; in truth it was the enthusiasm of his youth rising up against the materialism into which his life had fallen without his perceiving it or insufficiently. But he had found none to listen to him in any of the Greek towns along the southern shores of the Euxine. As his youth had passed from him, so his ideas had passed out of the world, for each generation has its own ideas.
And his thoughts flitting from the failure of his lectures to Nika, the little daughter of Thelamis, the woman in whose house he had lodged at Sinope, he remembered her amorous childhood, how she liked to walk with him through the town, to point out the things to be seen, to listen to him and to take her tastes from his, hanging upon every word he spoke. When Thelamis had said: Dear child, thou Couldst not marry such a man (mentioning a name that had passed out of Kebren’s memory), Nika agreed that he was too old, and when her mother added: — He is younger than Kebren, the girl replied:
Kebren is different. Thelamis, without weighing the words or seeing anything in the phrase but mere words, left her daughter’s room, and finding herself alone with him Nika said: Kebren darling, come and sit upon my bed. It would have been easy to take her in his arms; she was even too willing to be lifted by him from her pillow; and if he had not taken advantage of the moment to possess her, it was because this would have meant that he would remain always in Sinope. There would have been no return for him to Aulis, unless with a lie upon his lips. Biote would suspect his infidelity, and he would be a prey to misgivings for ever after.... It is extraordinary, he said to himself, how moments like these fix themselves in memory. Nika is more clear to me now than she was in reality.
So did he think, and he continued to think of Nika whilst answering tiresome questions from Biote drily, without interest, leaving her no doubt wondering at his absent-mindedness. But she did not ask of what he was thinking, and in the silence into which their talk had dropped he remembered Nika’s jealousy of Thelamis, whom she suspected of being his mistress, and thought he discerned now a resolve in the child’s mind to outwit her mother. Thelamis had wished them all to go together to the theatre, but something had hurried her away, probably a meeting with her lover, and she had said: Thou’lt follow with Nika. But when the time came for them to leave, the girl was not to be found, and becoming anxious at last he had searched the house and discovered her alone reading. He had reproached her for causing him to lose a great part of the play that was being acted, not perceiving as he did now that Nika in her innocent heart, propense to kisses, had hidden herself hoping that a search for her would end in his arms. He was glad he had escaped her wiles. But Nika was a long time ago, and he began to see her in his imagination as a woman of five-and-twenty, married, the mother of children, perchance weary of her husband. If we were to meet she would not know me, he said, nor would I be certain that the woman in the crowd was Nika; and were each to recognise the other, we should look upon the meeting as unfortunate, for it would destroy the past, if any memory of the past remains worth thinking about. If he were to remind her of her desire on the evening she had hidden herself, to be discovered by him, a bewildered look would come into her face, and she would ask herself if it were really true that she had once loved him. She would think he was inviting her to listen to a story, for the young do not remember. She was very young, and mayhap had loved many men since, for the amorous child is the amorous woman for many a year, though sensuality dies in the end; but not as soon as Biote would have it die, not at forty. Believe Biote he must, and he resolved not to speak to her again of her sensual years, for it vexed her when he did, that was certain, and he did not wish to vex her. But memories of Nika were upon him now, and gathering up some dried raisins and almonds to give him courage as he spoke, he followed Biote into the courtyard to ask her if she knew that more than a year had gone by since she locked her door against him.
I remember thy discourses, Kebren, that the bed is the centre of married life, and thy doctrine that as soon as a man or a woman withdraws from the bed marriage is at an end. But it cannot be that thou still clingest to the bed. We have slept more easily for the last year, and are good friends still. We would be better friends, Biote, more intimate friends, dearer friends, if — I will not hear thee preach the marriage bed all over again! I have answered thee on every point raised, that the marriage bed is for the young and the middle-aged. We are but middle-aged, Biote; forty is n
ot old. Old for love, she replied, and of all, for those who have ceased to bear children. For twenty years I have not borne, and to he together, pushing vainly, without any result, would be out of keeping with ourselves, derogatory, almost degrading. Thou didst not always think like that, Biote, and it is strange that love cannot be awakened in thee again. I might be roused, Kebren, but the time for love is past. We have our grandchildren to think about, and love of them will recompense us for what we have lost. Nothing will outweigh my love of thee, Biote. And feeling that at every word he uttered their estrangement was widening, he asked her if she had written to Earine. Why should I write to Earine? she replied. Biote, it distresses me to hear thee speak like this. It makes me think that thine interest in life hath perished and that no one is dear to thee now, and it almost seems to me that I would sooner lose thee in the love of another man than see thee indifferent. I am not indifferent to Earine, Kebren; nor to Melissa, who is a good girl. And a little bewildered in mind and grieved in soul Kebren rose to his feet, saying: — I will go to my room, unless thou wouldst hear me read a chapter of Homer? Biote answered that she would have liked to listen to him, but she wished to finish her peplos for Melissa; and so they parted, Kebren feeling that very little life remained for him, concluding at last that the source of his despondency was not to be attributed to Biote’s wish that their married life should end because she was not likely to have any more children. He did not wish for other children; he had two sons that any man would be proud of. He had been fortunate in his children, though unlucky in many other things. And he could not make sure, not of a certainty, that his despondency was owing to Biote’s locking of her door against him. Not of a certainty, he repeated, and a moment after he acknowledged to himself that the pleasures of sex did not mean overmuch to him. He had never known a woman but his wife, and was only stealthily aware of his chastity whilst watching men bidding at the wharves for the sort of girl that a wealthy townsman would like to possess. Biote had intimated that she had no objection to his purchasing a slave girl; all the same, he had not bidden for one. Not being as other men, he did not need a mistress, neither sentimentally nor physically. And to possess ourselves of what we need not, he said, is to lay up a store of trouble in the future. After a pause he continued: That the days should go by, every day the same as the preceding day, is enough for me, but is a daily round of duties enough for Biote? He was afraid it was not, and whilst staring at his ledger he pondered a long freedom for them both, he from his counting-house, she from her household slaves. There was nothing to keep them now in Aulis, and thinking of the time when they would sail away together, he made show of applying himself to his ledger with a view to deceiving his chief clerk, who stood by with a bundle of papers in his hand. Why he should wish to deceive his clerk he did not know; mayhap because it is the nature of man to suspect everybody when he is forming a secret project. But he found it difficult to settle the departure of certain ships; he could think only of the moment when he would sound Biote regarding the projected holiday. We are all sly at times, and Kebren was innocently sly that evening. After the meal he did not offer to read aloud to her in the courtyard, nor did he take any interest in the tapestry she was weaving. Before it was bedtime Biote began to yawn, and taking her yawn as a signal, he mentioned that they had been a long while in Aulis and needed a change of air and of scene.
