And that, Sidonia, is all I can remember.
52
You may sit or stand as you wish, Plato. This is the judgment of London. The citizens have decided that you are innocent of any attempt to corrupt the young. They have also concluded that you have not lied or prevaricated in your testimony. They believe that you suffered some fevered dream or hallucination while you lay among your papers. That is all. Your mask of oratory will be returned to you.
No. Wait. Is it not the custom that I should now pronounce sentence against myself?
But there is no sentence. You have not been charged with any wrongdoing. The city has acquitted you. There is no more to say.
I understand that. If I may put it differently, there is no more for me to say. I have not been condemned as a liar or as an impostor, but I have been judged a dreamer or mistaken visionary who is not worthy of attention. All I have said or done is merely some fitful delusion. So now I pronounce sentence against myself. I cannot exist in a world which will ignore me or deride me—or, worse, pity me. I condemn myself to perpetual exile. I wish to be taken under escort beyond the walls of the city never to return.
This is madness.
But have I not been accused of madness already? What else could you expect from me but further folly? At least you will be rid of me.
We have no more authority in this matter, Plato. We are dissolved.
53
Plato: So you have been chosen to escort me beyond the walls.
Sidonia: Unhappily, yes. We are from the same parish, and I sat beside you in the Academy. What greater bond could exist? But, Plato, none of us has any wish to see you wander abroad.
Plato: I will wander and wonder. Perhaps I will find the old world again. Perhaps there is a cave or threshold in some distant place.
Sidonia: It was one of your suggestions at the trial.
Plato: Do you believe me, Sidonia? It is foolish of me, I suppose, but it would be some comfort to know that one of my childhood companions recognised the truth of my journey.
Sidonia: Are you sure that you believe it yourself?
Plato: It no longer matters what I believe.
Sidonia: You doubt yourself, and so you have spread doubt.
Plato: Our ancestors, Sidonia, were told that the first inhabitants of London were giants. There are stories of them carving great hills and valleys in which the city was planted. But what if this were prophecy, not history? What if we are the giants of which they had heard?
Sidonia: You are confusing me again.
Plato: Then it is better that I be gone and bother you no more.
Sidonia: Will you ever return?
Plato: Who can say?
Sidonia: You know, Plato, that I shall miss you.
Plato: Think of me as someone within a dream. Then I will never have left you.
54
Sparkler: Look. There he goes. Do you see how many children are following him down Lud Hill? You would think that he was leaving the city in triumph. Some of them are even giving him tokens of remembrance, to carry with him beyond the walls. The daughter of Ornatus is embracing him. But Plato is staring straight ahead, as if he were already considering his fate. Of course, that is it. Our world is already dead for him. He does not want to glance back in case his resolution falters.
Madrigal: Here comes the barge to take him down the Fleet. And Sidonia is sitting at the prow. What an unhappy expedition for her! Listen to the children singing by the banks of the river, as he steps on board the vessel. Do you see how its sails gleam against the waters? Now Plato is raising his hands in farewell. But, Sparkler, I have just noticed something. Why have the angels stayed away?
55
So Plato left the city and was never seen again. There are many who say that he travelled to other cities, where he continued his orations. Some are convinced that there was indeed a cave beneath the earth and that Plato returned there unknown and unseen by the people of Mouldwarp. Sidonia and Ornatus believe that he simply entered another dream.
Peter Ackroyd
THE PLATO PAPERS
Peter Ackroyd is the award-winning author of the national bestseller The Life of Thomas More. His biographies—including T. S. Eliot, Dickens, and Blake—are as prized as his novels, which include Chatterton, Hawksmoor, and, most recently, The Trial of Elizabeth Cree and Milton in America. He lives in London.
ALSO BY PETER ACKROYD
FICTION
The Great Fire of London
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Hawksmoor
Chatterton
First Light
English Music
The House of Doctor Dee
The Trial of Elizabeth Cree
Milton in America
BIOGRAPHY
T. S. Eliot
Dickens
Blake
The Life of Thomas More
POETRY
The Diversions of Purley
CRITICISM
Notes for a New Culture
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, MARCH 2001
Copyright © 1999 by Peter Ackroyd
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
All of the characters is this book are fictitious, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Nan A. Talese
edition as follows:
Ackroyd, Peter, 1949–
The Plato papers: a prophesy / Peter Ackroyd.
—1st ed. in the U.S.A.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PR6051. C64P58 2000
823’.914—dc21 99-16573
CIP
www.anchorbooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42920-9
v3.0
The Plato Papers Page 9
