Electra

by Henry Treece

  I put my hands over my ears and would not listen. Iphigenia took them away gently and hugged me to her. ‘Dear one,’ she said, ‘you want everything to be as you dream it should be. But the world is not a sunlit dream; it is not clean and simple. It is confused and nasty, very often. And the truth of it is hard to find. What do we know, we two sisters? We have lived here in Mycenae all our days—yet Mycenae is but a small village compared with other places of the world. Yes, the folk here bow down when our shadows fall on them in the streets, and the poets call us the children of Zeus, and such like. We lie in bed and think that our dreams are ours alone, and that no lesser one may share them—but all this is nothing. In every farmstead in Laconica, children lie down at night and dream they are the chosen of Zeus, that they are changelings, that one day the god will give them their rights…. Each one thinks he is the chosen one, and perhaps that we are tyrants, usurpers, impostors. One day, they dream, all will be right in the world, and the truth will be known to all men. But, I ask you, what is the truth?’

  I could not answer her, for I had never heard it put so before. I just sat and rocked myself under the laurels’ shade in the sunshine, crying in misery. Iphigenia got up and smoothed her skirt and then began to nibble at a laurel-leaf.

  ‘Dearest,’ she said, whispering, I will tell you—there is no truth; that is, if by truth we mean the only one and undivided way. There is a truth for each single one of us, and each one will see the truth he wants to see. So each truth is different. There is no more to it than that.’ I had said much the same to my mother, but hearing it come from Iphigenia now, somehow made it seem wicked.

  There was a little rustling in the bushes and I said, afraid, ‘But, beloved, you do not mean this. You are talking as men do, when they have drained the wine-cups too often. Surely, the god shows us his truth? He shows us the only way, gives us our destiny; then, if we do not follow that way, that destiny, he sends the Furies to drag us down and punish us. You know that, as well as I do; you know, besides, that when we do wrong, or when we wish for the god to help us, whether we have done wrong or not, we must make an offering to him, a sacrifice. We must…’

  But she would not let me go on. She smiled a thin smile and took two handfuls of my hair and pretended to tug at it.

  ‘Little one,’ she said, almost whispering among the rustling leaves, ‘in my heart I know none of these things. In my heart. Truly, I say such things when I am among the others. But in my heart, no.’

  Then she bent right over me and said in my ear, ‘Electra, it has come to me in these last days that there is no truth, no destiny, and not even a god!’

  I started to jump up, to run away, but she laughed and pushed me down again into the tall grass. Then as I lay, my heart fluttering, she fell beside me and put her arms about me. ‘There is no god, and no goddess,’ she said, quite wildly, as though a great load had been lifted from her. ‘We, the men and the women, have dreamed a god, that is all. There is no god—there are only flowers and rivers and hills, and the white clouds in the sky, and the birds in their nests, and the lions roaring out, far away, up on the mountain. And we are meant for joy, and not for death. The lamb without blemish that is led to the altar at Delphi, so that a mad old woman can dabble in its innocent blood and mumble her stupid dreams, dies for nothing. We are sacrificing to our own fear, not to the god. No god, no god, no god!’

  I lay dumb and terrified. I had never heard such words before. The only thing I could think of to say was, ‘But our sister, Chrysothemis, is a priestess of the Hearth; and our mother was once a priestess of Via. How can you tell me that there is nothing to sacrifice to?’

  She leaned over and bit my ear hard, as though to bring me to my senses. ‘You little stupid,’ she said. ‘Our sister is a fool, did you not know that? She is pretty, oh so pretty, but she is not right in the head, my love. Tell her that she is a priestess, and she will be one. She will put on the dress and hold the libation cup for the stuff to drip into it. She will go through all the silliness. But ask her the name of a flower, or the distance from Mycenae to Aegira, and she won’t know. You might just as well ask her how to fly, or where the night goes to when dawn comes. Poor Chrysothemis would believe she was a fish if mother told her so. She would leap into the deepest lake and try to swim to the bottom for a green morsel of weed. If mother told her she was a bird, our sister would spread her arms and try to soar from the highest tower of the palace. Oh, you are such a baby, you do not know what lies behind her pretty face… there is nothing!’

  I shuddered and said, ‘But surely you would not deny that our mother….’

  Iphigenia held her narrow hard hand over my mouth, and said,’ Our mother is our mother. She is the queen in Mycenae. Nothing more. There is no more to be—a woman, walking under the sky, eating bread, drinking wine, having her babies, suckling them, and at last dying and falling to dust. Nothing more—all else is dreams.’

  I struggled up and pushed her away. ‘The god will punish you, sister.’ I said. ‘I will say prayers for you every night, but he will punish you.’

  My sister straightened her skirt and laughed again. She said, ‘Pray for me, my bird, as you please. It will do me no good, and no harm. If it eases your mind to pray, then pray. But, one day, you will see the sense of what I have been telling you. One day we will laugh about it all, together. One day, when this heavy dream of blood and altar-smoke lifts from our people.’

  All the time she was speaking, somewhere at the back of my head, I sensed that something was about to happen, something ill. Even the sunlit air about us seemed to be thickening. I felt the little runnels of cold sweat going down my hack, inside my thin bodice. Over away to the sunrise, in the dry hills, I heard thunder growling like an old lion. The leaves of the trees above us began to quiver, as though the god brushed them with his hand, lightly. It was frightening, and I wanted Iphigenia to unsay all she had told me. I was holding out my hands towards her, to beg her to take back all her words, when a shadow fell across us, hiding the sun. I shut my eyes, and let fall my hands. I waited without breathing for the god to send his lightning into us and burn us up.

  Then I heard our father’s voice above us. He said, ‘There are some things that no heart should think, no tongue should utter, either in the silence of the chamber, or under the wide sky.’

  His voice was steady and as chill as the winter breeze. The thunder in the far hills stopped for a moment. The wind that shook the leaves above us was still. All was suddenly so still that I thought I was asleep and dreaming. So still and heavy that I could not have arisen to my feet even if a wolf had run at me then.

  I opened my eyes with great effort and saw him standing there among the laurel-leaves, dressed in his armour and holding his sword to his thigh so that its fine scabbard should not be scratched by the twigs. He was not wearing his mask, but that made no difference, for he seemed to have on a face made of dull gold, stiff and carved.

  My sister was gazing at him as though she had never seen him before, and her lips were open like those of a drowning girl sucking for air. All her body was shivering, and the silver beads about her white neck were shuddering together like tiny timbrels.

  Agamemnon said slowly, ‘What has been said, cannot be unsaid. I am as sad as you must be for that. I, on the eve of great enterprise, with half of the world at my call, never thought to hear a daughter of mine defy the god. I, with the god’s wind blowing in my face to hold me back, have need of all my persuasion to cause him to stay his hand; yet you, my daughter, taunt him with being nothing, a dream. How can that be good?’

  Iphigenia began to cry then, her little hands across her face, and the tears running down below them on to her breasts. She did not dare answer our father the king, nor did I, though I wanted much to beg his forgiveness. We sat, silent and afraid, among the laurels, while he towered over us in the silent world and made all cold.

  I do not know how long we sat there. It was the longest time of my life. I have known what it is
like to give birth to children, alone in my room, thinking the night would never end—but this, in the garden, was longer than all my childbirth’s. All sense went from me; no thoughts or words would come to me. I only knew that I was deathly cold and trembling. Every part of me knew that I was wrapped in the Mystery then, powerless in it, nothing, in the presence of the god. I wanted to die now and to feel no more terror, no more pain.

  My eyes could see, but only a little way, and only a little circle of light. All else was blotted out—the trees, the sky, the palace walls. And in that small circle of light, I saw my father’s great hands come down and take my sister by the shoulders and raise her. Her mouth was set in the shape of screaming, hut no sounds came to my ears.

  I sat as still as a stone and saw her body arch away out of my vision. Then I was alone and she had gone. My father had gone, as well. I was among the laurels; and the harsh grasses, sharp under the sun’s drought, were pricking at my legs. I began to see the sky again and the trees. The thunder had stopped in the dry lulls and the birds were at their song above me once again. I felt the warmth of the sun on my head once more. I could move my hands now, and turn my head.

  ‘Sister!’ I called. But she was not there.

  ‘Father!’ I called. But he had gone.

  I rose and ran into the palace, but none of the guards had seen either of them. I went down the dark corridors until I came to the place where my other sister, Chrysothemis, tended her sacred fire. I thought my father might have dragged Iphigenia there, to beg the pardon of the goddess. But there was only Chrysothemis, kneeling and fumbling with a little dead bird, and shaking her head like an old crone.

  I went to her and took her by the shoulders. ‘Where are they, sister?’ I said. ‘Oh, where are they?’

  Chrysothemis shivered and turned round towards me. Her face was pale and still, like a mask carved from alabaster. Her eyes were wide-open and stupid, encircled with their blue paint. She tried to speak for a while, but all she could say was, ‘Silver, gold, copper, tin and lead are the sacred metals. Iron that falls from the sky is too holy to use. In Argolis, a slave may be a king.’

  Her tongue seemed too big for her mouth, and saliva flowed on to her chin as she spoke. Anyone who had seen her thus, sitting beside the highway, would have said she was stricken by some great sickness. They would not have said she was a princess, a priestess.

  Then all at once she began to cackle like an old madwoman, and to drag her nails down her face. I drew away from her, afraid of what I was seeing. Then, when she leaned back and began to fling herself about, frothing at the mouth and plucking at her dress, I ran away, and did not stop until I got to my own room. I did not think to have help sent down to her. All I could think was that Iphigenia had been right; that our sister was a fool.

  Either that, or that the god was already beginning to punish our House for the words that had been spoken in the garden, under the sacred laurel boughs.

  12

  I hid myself under the coverlet, still weeping, while about Mycenae a storm raged. Thunder rattled the doors and roofs; rain came in through the window-holes and swept across the floors, loosening the tiles. Then a great wind rushed through the palace, almost tearing the hangings from their poles, and blowing out the fires.

  I was too afraid to leave my bed. I felt so lonely that I knew no one could help me. And though I was as hungry as though I had not eaten for weeks, I fell asleep.

  Through that awful night, I suffered an evil dream. It seemed so real that I thought I was living in the middle of it. I felt I could touch everything in it, taste everything, smell everything. It was more real than the bed I lay on, the hangings that flapped about me.

  In the dream, I seemed to be in a cave near the sea-shore. The rocky walls were cold and black, and splashed with white bird-droppings. I could hear the waves outside sighing and splashing, and filling the air with a damp and salty chill. I was among others, pushing in a crowd to see what it was the folk were looking at. They were all pressing forward, and making strange sounds—sometimes moaning, sometimes laughing lightly, as though it was but a pretence which they must keep up, nudging one another, elbowing and pinching, then covering their eyes with their hands, yet looking though the fingers all the while.

  I was the only one not doing these things, and sometimes those nearest me would turn and whisper that I must obey the law and do as they did. I tried to, but could not see the sense of it. I could not see their faces, either, though in my heart I knew that they were enemies.

  At last they let me through, so that I might see what was happening. I leaned forward and peered through the thick, salty air of the cavern. In the middle of the black floor, among all the bird-droppings and the ashes and the brown sea-weed, there was a damp log, rotten at its end, and green with fungus. At first I saw only this log; but then the cavern lightened and I saw that a young girl lay half across it, her head hanging down on the far side, her fingers digging deep into the rotten wood, clenching and unclenching. Her dress was pulled back, covering only her lower body, and I saw that her back was as white as the flesh of the sacred lamb after it has been bled. It was unblemished and smooth, yet shining with oil as though anointed.

  I turned to ask one of the crowd the name of the girl who lay across the log, but the dark presence next to me shook its head and said, ‘Do not take your eyes from it. Watch! Watch!’

  And all at once a great wind blew through the cavern, and from somewhere a high shrill screaming began, then seemed to rise till it filled that dark place to the roof. The green sea began to lap in at the cavern’s mouth, then fall away again, leaving behind a scum of sea-froth and weed, and jagged pebbles, and twitching blank-eyed fishes.

  It was almost more than I could stand, and I tried to turn and get away from what was happening; but the crowd kept me there, and hands even forced my head back again, so that I must watch.

  Then, from the shadows at the far end of the cavern, stepped three figures. The tallest stood in the middle, and all wore damp grey cloths over their heads, reaching half-way down their bodies and hiding their features. They seemed like walking stones, with the sea-fret hanging about them as smoke does round a pine-trunk when the shepherds light their fires to shelter on the hills.

  And when these three appeared, the crowd fell silent, as though gods walked the earth once more. All was still in the cave, as the world is still before thunder sounds. I tried to cry out in this dream, but my throat was stiff and dry; no words would come from me. Yet the tallest of the three figures seemed to know what I had intended, for its head beneath the cloth turned towards me and stayed so for a while. I could not see beneath the covering, but it seemed to me that the tall figure could see me, could tell what I was feeling and what I had meant to do. This made me more frightened than I had been before, to see that these figures had entire knowledge, even of that which had not yet happened, or of that which would never happen hut which was only intended in the heart. In my dream, I thought how wrong my sister had been to say that there was no god, but only clouds and sky and the careless creatures of earth and air and sea. I heard myself, in that cavern, calling out suddenly,’ Iphigenia lied! She denied the god, and yet he is everywhere!’

  As I spoke, the three figures in wrappings turned towards me and said, in tones as deep and inhuman as the sea’s voice, ‘What then is her penalty, Electra?’

  In horror, I heard myself saying, ‘Who taunts the god demands death,’ As soon as I had said this, I tried to shout out that I had not meant it, that I did not wish to bring the doom on my dear sister, But now no words would come. The tallest figure seemed to bow the head before my judgement, and as it did this, from behind each grey shawl a flickering blue light seemed to grow, like that which shifts over the shallows of the sea in the moonlight, when the shoals of fish come inshore for rock-weed; and in this light I saw the faces of the three figures. The two smaller ones were the Trojan priest, Calchas, and the lard-faced man who had married me to the slave-boy in the t
avern of Mycenae. The tall one in the middle was my father the king, Agamemnon himself; but yet not Agamemnon quite, for each of my father’s noble lion-like features had somehow suffered a change—his nose was more hooked like an eagle’s; his eyes wider like an owl’s; his beard more sparse and ragged; his teeth sharper and longer, like those of a wolf, all yellow and gleaming.

  Then, as I watched, the blue light died away, and I saw only the grey cloths again.

  The one who had been Calchas fumbled under his wrapping and brought out an old, stone-headed axe; it was that same labrys that hung in our palace, above the Mother’s holy fire. Bowing, he held it towards the tallest one, who reached out with scaly hands and took it reverently. Then the one who had seemed like Aegisthus bent down and laid hands on the still, white girl who lay across the log. She had not moved all this time, nor did she move now. Only the white, anointed skin of her back seemed to ripple, as though a separate life lay in it. As though knowledge lay in that skin, but not in her heart.

  The end of the dream came fast now, like a runner gaining towards the laurel crown.

  As though they had done it many times before, the three grey figures turned from us and hunched about the log, hiding all. Then I heard the stone-headed labrys thumping down as though into the rotten wood, again and again, three times. A steady hissing came from the crowd behind me, like breath drawn in with expectation. And at last the thudding axe was silent. In the twilight, I did not know where to look.

  Then even that dimness was darkened, for through the cave’s mouth came fluttering myriads of bats, shutting out the grey sea-light with their numbers and filling my ears with their frantic fluting. I put my hands over my head to keep the creatures from going into my hair; but it was not me they were concerned with. I saw them flickering darkly towards the cave wall near the log, hanging for a moment against the stone, then falling away to let others come, in a constant stream, like poor folk filing in to empty the lord’s tables after a feast, when scraps lay about.