The Last of the Wine: A Novel Page 4

  The club was called the Sunhorses. It was, in those days, moderate in politics, but though it served the usual purposes of that kind, good talk was its chief function, and they never let the number get above eight, to keep the conversation general. All the foundation members, of whom my father was one, had been knights of moderate wealth; but the war had brought a good many changes of fortune. They tried nowadays, as between gentlemen, to overlook the fact that they had become a mixture of rich and poor; the dinner subscriptions had always been moderate, with no costly additions expected from the host. But lately things had reached a point where some men could not afford the extra lamp-oil and condiments for a club supper, and, ashamed to charge them to the common account, had dropped out on some excuse. One man, who was easy in matters of pride but well liked, had more than once had his share paid by a whip-round among the rest.

  “Where are you off to?” my mother asked me.—“Only to see Xenophon. His father’s given him a colt to train for himself, to ride when he joins the Guard. I want to see how it’s coming on. He says you must never train a horse with a whip; it’s like beating a dancer and expecting grace, and a horse ought to move well out of pride in itself. Mother, isn’t it time that Father got a new horse? Korax is too old for anything but hacking: what am I going to ride, when I’m ready for the Guard?”—“You?” she cried, “silly child, that’s a world away.”—“Only three years, Mother.”—“It depends on next year’s harvest. Don’t stay late at Xenophon’s. Your father wants you in tonight.”—“Not tonight, Mother; it’s club night.”—“I’m aware of it, Alexias. And your father’s order is that you are to go after supper, and serve the wine.”—“Who, I?” I was much affronted; I had never been asked to serve tables, except at public dinners where lads of good family do it by custom. “Are the slaves sick, or what?”—“Don’t show your father that sulky face; you ought to feel complimented. Run away, I have work to do.”

  When I went to the bath that evening I found my father just finishing, with old Sostias rinsing him down. I looked at his fine shoulders, flat and wide without being too heavy, and resolved to spend more time with the disk and javelin. Even now, though the rising generation seems to think nothing of it, I cannot bear to see a runner gone all to legs, looking as if he would be fit for nothing, when off the track, except to get away from a battlefield faster than anyone else.

  When Sostias had gone my father said, “You will serve us the wine tonight, Alexias.”—“Yes, Father.”—“Whatever you may hear in the guest-room, nothing goes out. You understand?”—“Yes, Father.” This put another colour on it. I went off to make myself a garland; I chose hyacinths, I believe.

  They finished their business concerns early; while they were still eating my father commanded me to fetch my lyre and sing. I gave them the ballad of Harmodios and Aristogeiton. Afterwards my father said, “You must forgive the boy’s hackneyed choice; but it is while these old songs come fresh to them, that they can learn something from them.”—“Don’t beg our pardon, Myron,” Kritias said. “I fancy I am not the only one here who felt, on hearing it tonight, that he understood it for the first time.” The slaves were clearing the tables, which gave me an excuse to pretend I had not heard.

  After mixing the wine, I went round the couches, quietly as I had been taught, without drawing attention to myself; but one or two of my father’s old friends held me back for a few words. Theramenes, who had given me my first set of knucklebones, remarked how I was growing, and told me that if I did not idle my time in the bath-house or scent-shop, but remembered the Choice of Herakles, I might be as handsome as my father. One or two other guests had a word for me, but when I got to Kritias, I took care to be as brief as if it were a mess-table in Sparta.

  He was not much above thirty then, but already affected the philosopher in mantle and beard. He had a hungry-looking face, with the skin stretched tight on the cheekbones, but was not bad looking apart from his thinness, except that his eyes were too light, the skin being dark around them. He had not belonged to the club very long, and was considered something of a prize to it, for he was extremely well-born, wealthy, and a wit. No one, as you may suppose, had asked for my opinion. As it happened, I had met him rather earlier than my father had. I had noticed him first in Sokrates’ company; which had disposed me so well to him, that when he came up afterwards while Midas’ back was turned, I let him speak to me.

  I was old enough to have received some attentions from men, while still young enough to think them rather absurd; as, for that matter, the kind of person who chases young boys usually is. But I had never been inclined to laugh at Kritias.

  When I reached him with the wine, he was all graciousness, and remarked, as if we had never spoken before, that he had watched me on the running-track and noticed my style improving; and he named one or two victors my trainer had taught. On my replying as shortly as I knew how, he praised my modesty, saying I had the manners of a better age, and quoting Theognis. I could see my father listening with approval. But as soon as he turned his head away, Kritias moved his cup a little, so that the wine spilled down my clothes. On this he apologised, said he hoped it would leave no stain, and put his hand under the hem of my tunic in such a way that, to everyone but me, he would have seemed to be feeling the cloth.

  I don’t know how I refrained from bringing the pitcher down upon his head. He knew I should be ashamed to call attention to him, before my father and his friends. I withdrew at once, though without saying anything, and went over to the mixing-bowl to fill the jug. I thought no one had noticed; but when I got round to Tellis, the man who had been too poor to pay his own subscription, he spoke to me with a certain gentleness which told me that he knew. Looking up, I saw Kritias watching us together.

  When the garlands had been brought in and the slaves had shut the door and gone, one or two people invited me to sit beside them; but I sat on the foot of my father’s couch. They had been capping verses, a diversion in which Kritias had shone; but now being alone they glanced round at each other, and there was a pause. Then Theramenes said, “Well, every dog has his day, and today is the demagogues’.”

  To this several voices assented. He went on, “They think with their ears, their eyes, their bellies or what else you like, except their minds. If Alkibiades has been insolent to them, he must be guilty. If he has spent money at the shop, and remembered to smile, he could walk the City with a smashed Herm under his arm and still be as innocent as this boy here. But remind them a little of expediency, point out to them that he is a strategist of genius such as Ares sends once in a century; their eyes glaze over; what do they care? They’ve not set foot on a battlefield in three generations; they have no armour, no, but they can give us our marching orders, and choose the generals.” Kritias said, “And we, who carry the burden of the City, are like parents with spoiled children: they break the roof-tiles, we pay.”

  “As for justice,” Theramenes said, “they have as much notion of it as the guts of a mullet. I tell you, my dear Myron, this very night I could raise a drunken brawl here, strike you before all these witnesses, wound your slaves; and if you would only come to court looking and behaving like a gentleman, I undertake you would lose your case. I, you see, should put on the old tunic I wear on my farm, and have a speech written for an honest poor fellow, which I should con till it came like nature to me. I should bring my children along, borrowing some little ones as the youngest is ten; and we should all rub our eyes with onion. I assure you, in the end it would be you who would pay the fine, for plying your simple friend with stronger stuff that he could afford at home, and trying to profit by it. They would spit on you as you left.”

  My father said, “Well, I agree, they are often like children. But children can be taught. Perikles did it. Who does it now? Now their folly is tended and fanned for gain.”—“Whoever complains of them,” said someone, “it shouldn’t be Alkibiades. He invented demagogy. Just because he practises it with a certain grace, don’t let us close our eyes t
o that.”—“Let us credit him with the invention, if you wish,” said Kritias, “but not with perfecting the art. He should have known better than to insult his strongest ally. He will pay for it.”

  “I must be slow tonight,” Tellis said. “What ally do you mean?” Kritias smiled at him, not without contempt. “Long ago,” he said, “there lived a wise old tyrant. We do not know his name or city, but we can infer him. His guards were sufficient, perhaps, to protect his person, but not to rule with. So out of the stuff of mind he created twelve great guardians and servants of his will: all-knowing, far-shooting, earth-shaking, givers of corn and wine and love. He did not make them all terrible, because he was a poet, and because he was wise; but even to the beautiful ones he gave terrible angers. ‘You may think yourselves alone,’ he said to the people, ‘when I am closed in my castle. But they see you and are not deceived.’ So he sent out the Twelve, with a thunderbolt in one hand and a cup of poppy-juice in the other; and they have been excellent servants ever since, to whoever knew how to employ them. Perikles, for instance, had them all running his errands. You would have thought it might have taught Alkibiades something.”

  It was the first time in my life that I had heard talk of this kind. My mind went back to the dawn of this same day, when I had stood in the High City; it seemed a small thing to have kept my body to myself, when this had no defence from his filthy hands.

  My father, who clearly thought that my presence might have been better remembered, sent me round with the wine as a reminder. Then he said, “For that matter, nothing is proven yet. Reason asks a motive, no less than the law. Nothing could profit him so much as to conquer Sicily; the difficulty, I imagine, would be to stop the people crowning him king. If any Athenian broke the Herms, look for one who has his own eyes on a tyranny, and fears a rival.”

  Kritias said, “I doubt whether anyone will look so far, when the story of the Eleusis party gets about.”

  At this, there was a sound all round the room, of men filling their lungs to speak, and emptying them in silence. My father said, “The boy is an initiate.” But they had thought again, and no one spoke.

  It was my father in the end who broke the pause. “Surely,” he said, “even our heavy-handed friends of the Agora will hardly be solemn over that, after so long. Any good speech-writer … One knows what young men are who begin to reason, and think themselves emancipated. A procession with torches round the garden; new words to a hymn-tune; a surprise in the dark and some laughter; and the end nothing worse than a little love-making, perhaps. It was the year we … He had scarcely grown his beard.”

  Kritias raised his brows. “Why no. I don’t imagine that would raise much dust today. Did he get the notion so long ago? I was speaking of this winter’s party. He will hardly pass that off as a boyish romp, I am afraid. They raided the store, you know, for the ritual objects. It will take a very good speech-writer to explain that away. They did everything. The prayer, the washings, the Words; everything. Did you not know, Myron?” My father put his wine-cup from him and said, “No.”

  “Well, those who were there will have taken care to forget it by this time, no doubt. Unluckily, as it was late and some confusion prevailed, the slaves were overlooked and remained till the end. Some were uninitiate.”

  At this I heard, all round the couches, an indrawn breath. Kritias said, “They did the Showing, too. They brought in a woman.” He added something, which it is unlawful to write.

  There was a long silence. Then a man in the far corner said, “That is not only blasphemy. It is hubris.”

  “It is more dangerous than that,” Kritias said. “It is frivolity.” He picked up his cup and set it down again, to remind me it was empty. “He will destroy himself because he cannot keep his mind on serious things. His capacity is excellent; he begins a business of some gravity, knowing himself capable of success, and discounting the results of failure. Then something crosses his path: a quarrel, a love-affair, a practical joke that he can’t resist. He enjoys dangerous improvisations. He has the soul of an acrobat. Recall his public debut, to contribute to the war fund. No one knows better the value of an entrance. But he won’t leave his fighting quail at home; and this when the ban is on. It gets out of his mantle; in the event, people are tickled, and tumble about the Theatre trying to catch it for him. Ignoring all who might be useful later, he receives it from a nobody, the pilot’s mate of a warship; they go home together, and the man is about him to this day. Another time, entering on affairs, he will take a course in debate. He goes to Sokrates; not a discreet choice, but far from a foolish one, for the man, though mad, is a most accomplished logician; I have profited from him myself and don’t care who knows it. His processes, of course, all lead towards a rationalism which he himself refuses to accept; one knows these eccentrics. But Alkibiades, who by this time has tasted everything beautiful in the City, of all three sexes, is taken by the man’s extraordinary ugliness, and suffers him to extend the lesson in all directions. Before very long, he has caught his lover’s vagary for reforming the gods, and, by a simple syllogism, infers that unreformed gods are fair game. Hence the dangerous little mummery you spoke of, Myron. Nowadays he has given up improving the Olympians, though in matters of love he could probably instruct them. And danger, like wine, has to be strong now to quicken his blood.”

  I stood beside the wine-mixer, the jug in my hand, looking at Kritias. I was wishing him dead. I remember thinking that if I could make him meet my eye, my curse would be more effectual; but he did not look.

  Then Tellis, who had not spoken for some time, said in his quiet voice, “Well, we began by discussing the Herm-breaking. If we can be sure of anything, I should say, we can rule improvisation out. A couple of hundred men could scarcely have done it, all round the City in a night. Were they knocked up here and there by drunks, and no one remembers? None of these chance people refused, and denounced them? No, Myron is right; it was planned to a hair, and not by Alkibiades.”

  Kritias said smoothly, “No one, I am sure, will think worse of Tellis for supporting his host.”

  The men had been drinking, and were full of their affairs. But I, who was watching, saw Tellis’ face stiffen, as at the first bite of a sword-thrust. When you have thought yourself among good friends, who have given the best proof of their liking for your company, it strikes hard to be called a sycophant for the first time. I knew he would never sup with the club again. I went over to him and filled his cup, knowing no other way to show what I felt; and he smiled at me, trying to greet me as he always did. Our eyes met above the wine-cup, like men’s who have picked up the sound of a lost battle before the trumpet blows the retreat.

  4

  ADONIS WAS DEAD. MY mother put on her mourning veil and went out to weep for him, with a basket of anemones to strew about his bier. Soon one met a procession at every corner, the dead god carried in his garden, the women with hair unbound wailing against the flutes.

  I have never met a man yet who liked this festival. That year it was a cold grey day, with heavy cloud. The citizens crowded into the palaestra and the baths and any place where women cannot go, and muttered gossip about omens and prodigies. Word came from the Agora that a man had just gone raving mad there; he had leaped on the Altar of the Twelve, drawn a knife, and hacked off his genitals with it. The altar was defiled and would have to be consecrated again.

  In the High City, the temples were so thronged that those who came to sacrifice stood in lines to take their turn. They came away like men who having touched the plague have just washed themselves, and doubt if they have washed enough. In the midst of the temple, great Athene gazed down upon us all. Her gold robes gleamed, her cloak worked with victories hung behind her; the soft light, creeping through the thin marble of the roof-tiles, glowed on her face, so that the warm ivory seemed alive; one waited only for her to raise her mighty arm and, pointing, say in a voice of clashing gold, “There is the man.” But she kept her counsel.

  Men were busier. A public
award had now been offered to informers, and a board appointed to hear them. Soon information was coming in not about the Herm-breaking, but about anyone who might be supposed to have done, or said, or thought, something sacrilegious. My father said to anyone who would listen that this was bribing scum to come to the top, and that Perikles would have sickened at it.

  Xenophon and I, to escape all this gloom in the City, spent our spare time at Piraeus. Here there was always something new; a rich metic from Phrygia or Egypt might be building himself a house in the style of his former city, or putting up a shrine to one of the gods whom one hardly knew in his foreign dress, with even a dog’s head perhaps or a fish’s tail; or there would be a new shipment in the Emporion of carpets from Babylon, Persian lapis, Scythian turquoises, or tin and amber from the wild Hyperborean places that only Phoenicians know. Our silver owls were the only coinage, then, that was good all over the world. You saw in the wide streets Nubians with plugs of ivory pulling their ears down to their shoulders; long-haired Medes, in trousers and sequin bonnets; Egyptians with painted eyes, wearing only skirts of stiff linen and collars of gems and beads. The air was heavy with the smells of foreign bodies, of spices and hemp and pitch; strange tongues chattered like beast speaking to bird; one guessed at the meaning, and watched the talking hands.

  Alkibiades was denounced on the day when he stood up before the Assembly, to declare the fleet ready for sailing.

  The accuser, who had a slave at hand, asked for an immunity, and for all who were not initiates to depart. This being done, the slave recited aloud the central Words, which, he said, Alkibiades had profaned before him.

  It was the day after this that I missed Sokrates in the palaestra.