to you. Oh, my illness has made me forget that. I am ashamed, I am
ashamed. But now I had better add that it was a small commission he
did for me by one of his boats going to Andros. I would not have him
think me unfaithful to my promise. I beg of you earnestly not to tell
him that I spoke of it.”
“Indeed, I shall not tell him, Chrysis.”
There fell another pause between them, while her strengthless hands
lightly pressed upon the bed in her self-reproach.
“Yes,” said Pamphilus. “When there is more sunlight you will feel
better at once. The sky has been overcast for a long time. I cannot
remember when it has been overcast so long.”
To themselves they both cried: “How shall we ever get out of this?”
“We have missed the banquets. I would like to tell you again,
Chrysis, what great pleasure they gave me. I have been looking
forward to the next one when you promised to read us I forget what
play.”
“It was to have been the _Ion_ of Euripides.”
“Yes.”
“This,” said Chrysis, glancing towards the priest with a smile, “this
is my Ion.”
But perhaps the words were ill-chosen. She thought she saw the priest
frowning as he bent over his work. “Forgive me,” she said to him
abruptly, “if I have offended you. I did not mean it ill.”
But the tears were rolling down her cheeks. “Life, Pamphilus,” she
said, “is full of mistakes, but the wrongs we do to those we love and
honor are more than we can endure.” The priest approached the further
side of the bed and adjusted the pillows; he whispered a few words
into her ear and went back to his brazier.
“Am I tiring you?” Pamphilus asked.
“No, no. I am very happy that you have come.” To herself she thought:
“Time is passing, and what are we saying! Is there not something
heartfelt that I can find to say to him, something to remember, for
him and for me?” But she distrusted the emotion that filled her
heart. It was perhaps mere excitement and pain; or a vague and false
sentiment. Probably the best thing to do was to be stoic; to be brave
and inarticulate; to talk of trivial things. Or was it a greater
bravery to surmount this shame and to say whatever obvious words the
heart dictated? Which was right?
Pamphilus was thinking: “She is dying. What can I say to her? But I
have never been able to place words rightly. I am dull. I am nothing
to her but the man who has wronged her sister.” Aloud he said in a
low voice: “I shall marry Glycerium if I can, Chrysis. At all events
you may be sure that no harm will come to her.”
“Though I love her dearly,” replied Chrysis, finding her words with
great difficulty “I shall not urge you. I ... I no longer believe
that what happens to us is important. You will marry Glycerium or
another. The years will unfold these things. It is the life in the
mind that is important.”
“I shall do what I can for her.”
“You have only to be yourself without fear, without doubting,
Pamphilus.”
“Chrysis, you will forgive me for having spoken to you so little at
the banquets ... and for having sat at the further end and ... that
is the way I am. It was not because I did not respect you. I cannot
talk as those others can. I am only a listener. Even now I cannot say
what I mean. But I followed all that you said.”
The pain in Chrysis’s side seemed to increase beyond all endurance.
“Oh, friend,” she said, “do not distrust. These things are not so
unsatisfactory ... so interrupted as they seem to be.” The priest
had been watching her; she made a slight sign to him. “I do not wish
you to go away,” she continued to Pamphilus, almost in a whisper,
“but it is best that I sleep now.” Then raising herself on one elbow
she breathed in anguish: “Perhaps we shall meet somewhere beyond life
when all these pains shall have been removed. I think the gods have
some mystery still in store for us. But if we do not, let me say now
...” her hands opened and closed upon the cloths that covered her,
“... I want to say to someone ... that I have known the worst that
the world can do to me, and that nevertheless I praise the world and
all living. All that is, is well. Remember some day, remember me as
one who loved all things and accepted from the gods all things, the
bright and the dark. And do you likewise. Farewell.”
Simo arose early to witness Chrysis’s funeral. The Greeks, for
reasons that lay deep in their sense of the fitness of things and
in their superstition, conducted their funerals in the hour before
dawn, and it was therefore still profound night when the little
procession of her household prepared to pass through the streets
of the town. When Simo arrived at the square he found that many of
the men of Brynos had already gathered there and, drawing the folds
of their rough cloaks about them, were standing talking together
in low voices. The men of his own age had brought their curiosity
and contempt with them and were congratulating themselves on the
island’s happy deliverance from the foreign woman; but the younger
men who had known Chrysis stood with sullen faces, their throats
rigid with antagonism at the glee of their elders. Simo took his
place in silence beside Chremes, but refused to respond to the
latter’s animated comment. Presently as the sounds of the flute and
the mourners were heard approaching he discovered Pamphilus standing
beside him, as silent as himself.
Mysis herded the shuffling and stumbling company before her as best
she could. Philocles walked with lifted knees, as children do in a
procession. In one hand he held some grasses and with the other he
clutched the mantle of his companion, the old doorkeeper; but he was
continually straying off, or standing still to gaze with wide dazzled
eyes at the torches that preceded him or at the laughing by-standers.
Behind him the deaf and dumb Ethiopian girl could scarcely be
restrained from running forward to walk beside her sleeping friend,
Chrysis, whose rebuke had been so terrible when she had done wrong
and whose smile had been sufficient compensation for her imprisonment
in silence. Glycerium walked with lowered eyes, lost to hope and
lost to the decorum that now required of her the wailing and the
distraught gestures of a conspicuous mourner. All these passed
forward under the bright stars that had received the first intimation
of day and shone with a last heightened brilliance, and under the
long garlands of smoke that hung above the company in that windless
air.
As the onlookers accompanied the procession into the open country,
Simo’s attention was fixed upon Glycerium, by reason of her
condition, which was apparent to all, of her resemblance to her
sister, of the dejection that invested her, and of the beauty and
modesty of her bearing. And he became aware that his son also was
watching the girl. In fact, during the whole journey, Pamphilus
bent upon her his burning eyes, trying to intercept her glance and
to communicate to her his encouragement and his love. But not until
they reached the heaped-up wood whereon the bodies of a goat and
a lamb were laid beside that of Chrysis, and not until the fire
had touched it, did she raise her eyes. Then as the sound of the
wailing increased in shrillness and the sound of the flute floated
piercingly above all, she turned to Mysis and began to speak wildly
into her ear. But the words of her vehemence were not heard in that
din, nor were Mysis’s words of encouragement. Glycerium was trying
to draw herself away from the supporting arm of the other and the
slow faltering struggle of the two women was lighted up by the
rising flames. Pamphilus, in the intensity of his concentration upon
the suffering of the girl, moved slowly forward, his hands held out
before him. And now he heard the words that she was repeating: “It’s
best. It’s best so!” Suddenly Glycerium pushed the older woman away
from her and with a loud cry of “Chrysis!” stumbled forward to fling
herself upon the body of her sister.
But Pamphilus had foreseen this attempt. Running across the sand,
he seized her by her disheveled hair and drew her back and into his
arms. The touch of that encircling arm released her tears. She laid
her head against his breast as one who had been there before and was
returning home.
The scandal of this embrace was felt at once by all the by-standers
and chiefly by Chremes, who turned upon Simo with his protest and
astonishment. But Simo had moved away and was walking slowly home
through the breaking dawn. Now he understood the Pamphilus of the
last months.
The islanders discussed interminably the surprising event that had
taken place at Chrysis’s funeral. They watched with hushed excitement
the chill that had fallen across the relations between the families
of Simo and of Chremes. Rumor presently asserted that Pamphilus had
promised to acknowledge the child, though no one, naturally, even
discussed the possibility of a marriage. Readers of a later age will
not be able to understand the difficulties that beset the young man.
Marriage was not then a sentimental relation, but a legal one of
great dignity, and the bridegroom’s share in the contract involved
not so much himself as his family, his farm, and his ancestors.
Without the support of his parents and without a residence in their
home a young man was a mere adventurer, without social, economic
or civil standing. A marriage was only possible if Simo declared
it to be so. The customs of the islands encouraged fathers in the
luxuries of blustering and tyranny, but Simo’s relations with his
son had always been strangely impersonal. He was confused by his
own deference for his son, by what he thought was his own weakness.
Yet Simo’s silence did not have the air of a final refusal; it even
seemed to imply that the decision, with all its possibilities of
lifetime regret and of a lifetime’s contention on the farm, rested
with Pamphilus.
One day several months after Chrysis’s funeral Pamphilus betook
himself to the palaestra for some exercise. He entered the low door
and, nodding to a group of friends that sat scuffling under an awning
at the edge of the enclosure, he walked across the hot red sand.
The old attendant at the door who had won a laurel wreath in his
youth came trotting across the burning ring after him and as soon
as Pamphilus had seated himself on a marble bench began kneading
his calves and ankles. In the centre of the field Chremes’s son was
going through the motions of hurling an imaginary discus; thirty and
fifty times he turned with lifted knee, trying to fix in his muscular
memory the perfect synchronization of the gestures. Two other young
men were practicing a festival dance, interrupting their work from
time to time to criticize one another’s slightest deviation from a
harmonious balance. The young priest of Æsculapius and Apollo was
running around the course. Pamphilus sent the attendant away and
lying down on his cloak let the sunlight beat upon him. He did not
think about his problem, but left his mind a blank, suffused with a
dull misery that identified itself with the drowsy heat. Presently he
placed his elbow on the ground and raising his head rested his cheek
upon his hand and watched the priest of Apollo.
The priest never entered the competitive games, but he was
undoubtedly first upon the island for endurance and second only to
Pamphilus in swiftness. Save on the days of festival he appeared for
exercise daily and ran six miles. He preserved a perfect temperance:
he drank no wine; he lived on fruit and vegetables; he awoke with the
sun and unless there was some call to attend the sick he went to
sleep with it. He had taken the vow of chastity, the vow that forever
closes the mind to the matter, without wistful back-glancing and
without conceding the possibility that circumstance might yet present
a harmless deviation, the vow which, when profoundly compassed, fills
the mind with such power that it is forever cut off from the unstable
tentative sons of men. His office required his passing so much time
among the sick and the distressed that he had become inadequate to
the cheerful and the happy and no one on the island knew him very
well. But he had a strange power over the sick and the demented and
only in their hours of confession and despair was the shutter of
his impersonality lifted; such as had known him then followed him
ever after with their eyes, in gratitude and in astonishment. He
was only twenty-eight, but he had been sent to Brynos by the priests
that attended the great mysteries of Athens and Corinth as a signal
honor; for the shrine on Brynos was one of particular significance
in the legend of Æsculapius and his father Apollo. Pamphilus had
never spoken to him beyond the salutations of the field, but he
would rather have known him than anyone in the world, and he in turn
watched Pamphilus with grave interest. Now Pamphilus lay following
him with his eyes and wishing he had his own life to live over again.
Suddenly he became aware that someone was shaking him by the
shoulder. It was one of his companions. “Here comes your father,”
said the boy and went back to the awning. Pamphilus rose to his feet
and waited respectfully as Simo approached, preceded by the old
attendant.
“Stay where you are. Lie down again,” said Simo; “I’ll sit here on
this bench. I want to talk to you.”
Pamphilus lay down, his face turned away towards the track.
Simo wiped his face with the hem of his skirt. “I won’t be long, my
boy.... But we must consider this matter somehow ... after all.” He
was not sure of himself. He blew his nose. He coughed several times
and roughly adjusted the folds of his gown. He repeated “Very well”
and “Now” and waited in vain for Pamphilus to say something. At last
he launched forth among his prepared introductions:
“Well now, my boy, I assume you want to marry the girl. Hm....”
Pamphilus put his head down between his folded arms as though
he were going to sleep. He sighed in anticipation of all the
irrelevancies he was about to hear. In his heart he knew he had only
to say yes or no and his father would accede to his wish.
“I don’t wish to coerce you. I think you are old enough to see the
good and the bad for yourself. But for a few moments now I want to
talk all around the matter. I want to put the other side of the case
in its plainest terms and leave it there for a while. May I do that?”
“Yes,” said Pamphilus.
“Well, to begin with, it’s only right to face the fact that there is
no outward obligation to marry the girl. I’ve looked into the matter.
She is not a Greek citizen. She happens to have been brought up in a
sheltered manner, or so I take it. This Chrysis seems to have tried
to prevent the girl’s falling into her way of life; but that does
not alter the fact that she is a mere dancing girl. Now, mind you, I
can see that she is modest and well-mannered. She appears to be just
such a person as our own Argo. But she could never have hoped for
anything above the situation she is now in. The world is full of just
such likable stray girls as this Glycerium, but we cannot be expected
to welcome them into the fabric of good Greek family life. You may be
sure that Chrysis knew perfectly well that Glycerium must some day
become a hetaira like herself, or a servant.”
Simo paused. He could see the back only of his son’s head, but he was
able to imagine upon his face the set unhappy expression they had all
been obliged to watch there for the last weeks. He coughed again and
abruptly flung himself upon another of his openings:
“No doubt you feel yourself fairly bound to her by a promise--but
a promise, Pamphilus, in which you failed to consider the rest of
us, and especially your mother. If you decided to marry the girl,
your mother and sister would try to live with her as peaceably as
possible, we know; but it would be a good deal to ask of them. You
know them. This girl does not understand the first thing about our
island manners. She doesn’t know how simple and monotonous our
women’s lives are. I expect that life with the Andrian and with that
strange company at the house on the hill was an odd affair. She’d be
unhappy with us. And even if she didn’t contradict your mother all
day ... and worse ... she’d become silent and sullen. Pamphilus, they
would never grow fond of one another. It would be better to be cruel
to her now and let her alone, than to set up discord, a lifetime of
discord on our farm.”
For a moment his memory failed him, but he rallied and continued:
“Well, even assuming that your mother and sister came to like her and
to accept her cordially in the home, all her life she would have to
endure something insulting in the manner of the other women on the
island. We men do not take that interest in social discrimination, my
son, but women ... women with their few interests and ... and so on
... they enjoy having someone to ignore or to stare down. It warms
them. Glycerium is not a Greek citizen. Her sister was a hetaira. All
her life she would be obliged to endure their looking at her with
straight lips and (I can see them) with half-closed eyes. But even
that is not the chief thing.”
He hoped that the suspense in this splendid transition would be
reflected in some change in his son’s position, but the young man lay
motionless. Simo’s weary eyes turned slowly about the palaestra.
“The girl is not strong. The women of the village seem to know
something about it. She’s a quick nervous high-strung girl and she’d
bring you a series of thin and sickly children. You and I know those
homes. She’s not unlike our neighbor Douro’s wife; isn’t she? and
the uneven health of such women--even though they’re often more
likable, yes, more likable, than the Philumenas--takes the shape
of complaining and quarrelsomeness. And in their children. One has
no right to bring into the world those children that cannot join
others in their games, silent children who go through life regularly
subject to fevers and coughs and pains. The most important thing
in life is a houseful of strong healthy boys. Take Philumena, now.
You do not ‘love’ Philumena, as the poets use the word. Well, when
I married your mother perhaps I did not ‘love’ her in that sense.
But I grew to love her and ... euh ... now I cannot imagine myself
as having been married to anyone else, as satisfactorily married
to anyone else. Philumena is handsome. But most important of all,
Philumena is strong. So ... so, Pamphilus, does what I am saying seem
to have some truth in it?... Pamphilus?”
But Pamphilus had fallen asleep.
His last thought had been the recollection of one of Chrysis’s
maxims, an ironic phrase which he had chosen to take literally: _The
mistakes we make through generosity are less terrible than the gains
we acquire through caution._
Simo was not vexed. He sighed. Looking up he saw the priest of
Æsculapius and Apollo running around the course. He recalled the day
several months before when he and Sostrata had taken Pamphilus’s
sister to the temple. For two days and two nights, Argo had been
suffering from an ear-ache, and although they knew that the priest
was often ungracious when his attention was asked on smaller ills
they ventured to present her to him. The hour at which he was
accustomed to receive the sick was a little after sunrise and there
they found his colony. There were invalids brought to him on beds;
there were sufferers from tumors, from protracted languors, from
sore eyes; there were the possessed. Simo and Sostrata had passed
their lives without ailments. They regarded them, like poverty, like
uncleanliness, as mere bad citizenship; they were on the point of
returning home, so great was their distaste for such manifestations.
The priest required that the guardians who had brought their sick
to him should retire to a distance during his interviews, and Simo
and Sostrata had withdrawn with an ill grace to a nearby grove. Argo
seemed not to share her parents’ revulsion from these matters; even
before she approached the place (her fingers pressed upon her ear)
she had been subdued to awe and when her turn came she told her
little story with caught breath. The priest gently touched her ear,
reciting a charm. He poured in some oil and looked deeply into her
shy eyes. And gradually as he gazed at her a smile appeared upon his
lips and slowly she smiled in return. True influence over another
comes not from a moment’s eloquence nor from any happily chosen word,
but from the accumulation of a lifetime’s thoughts stored up in the
eyes. And there is one thing greater than curing a malady and that
is accepting a malady and sharing its acceptance. The ear-ache did
not abate at once, but Argo pretended to her parents that it did, for
the other healing they would not have understood; and all night long
instead of complaining she pressed against her ear the little bag of
laurel leaves he had given her and talked to herself, rehearsing that
interview and that glance. Thereafter she never had any conversation
with the priest, but when she happened to meet him upon the road, her
heart was filled with excitement; she gave him a shy greeting and
her eyelids fluttered in a quick intimate glance and he in turn let
fall upon her a faint allusion to his smile. Her parents were amused
by this bond; the priest had brought out in their daughter a side
they had never known in her, and one that sent messages all along her
life. Henceforth she even stood up straighter. One day a cousin who
lived on the other side of the island came to a meal with them and
let fall a remark in disparagement of the priest, saying that he was
a comfort chiefly to old women who imagined themselves to be ill.
Argo’s eyes grew dark and her lips straight with anger. She refused
to eat another mouthful and forever after the poor foolish cousin
could never draw a word from her and never knew why. All this now
returned to Simo’s mind as he watched the priest.
“People like that,” he thought to himself, “have some secret about
living. Why don’t they tell it to us outright, instead of wrapping
it up in mystery and ceremonial? They know something that prevents
their blundering about, as we do. Yes, what am I doing here,” he
added, pushing out his lower lip, “but playing the fool? Blundering,
advising in things I know nothing about.” He looked long at his
sleeping son. “Pamphilus has some of that secret, too. And that
woman from Andros had it, too. Chremes was right, though he meant
it ill: there is something of the priest in Pamphilus, something of
the priest trying to make its way in him. Let me get up and go away
before I say anything more.”
So he arose and a little guiltily left the field.
Pamphilus’s mind was all but made up, yet still under the burden
of perplexity and self-reproach he decided to seek still more light
on his problem and a last reassurance by reviving a custom that had
been in frequent use among the Greeks of the great age, but which
had fallen off at the time of the events of this story. It consisted
merely in abstaining from speech and from food from one sunrise to
the next and in either passing the night in the temple enclosure or
in arriving there before the dawn that closed the watch. There was
not thought to be any particular magic in the practice: it cleared
the mind of bodily fumes, it removed it from the commerce of the
day and prepared it perhaps for a significant dream. The watcher
guarded his fast and his silence, but the Greek mind did not approve
of heightening the experience by any further self-denial. One moved
about the home as usual, exercised in the palaestra or worked at
the loom; one slept. If some uninformed person spoke to the watcher,
he drew his finger across his lips and the condition of the vow was
understood. Athletes still observed it several days before a race;
brides on the eve of their wedding; old ladies who hoped to recover
some lost trinket, or to recapture in a dream the features of some
all-but-forgotten love; and devout soldiers about to set forth upon
an expedition. It was indeed little short of odd that a healthy young
man in the even current of life should revive this custom, but the
islanders were still sufficiently religious to respect the habits
that had expressed the spiritual life of their glorious grandfathers,
and made no comment.