LOVE IN THE LANE
Theria paced to and fro in the large upper room, weaving. She had
unskilful hands for this craft also as well as for spinning. Her figures
of gods were stiff, her colours never true. But these days the long task
was grateful. The whole household seemed hushed, as before a storm. Even
Melantho now knew how near the Persians were. She, too, must be told.
“Last week they were at Pydna, to-day we hear they have reached Larissa
in Thessaly.” So the vast armies approached nearer, nearer, fateful,
certain, awful, and the tiny land toward which they came seemed crouching
with arms upheld to ward off a blow.
But Melantho was unexpectedly quiet. She had taken charge of the house as
never before. And there was need. The slaves were irritable with fear,
disobedient. This morning Olen had run away.
As for the Argive youth, Theria had not seen him since the night of
Dryas’s singing. She had forsworn her beloved window. Better so than to
see him again. That one moment of piercing beauty in his face. Ah, that
had taught her the danger. Tender-conscienced child that she was—she was
remorseful for every moment that she had lingered at the window listening
to his speech. Those moments were not worthy of Nikander’s daughter. One
day she went into the storeroom to fetch a book-roll which she had left
there. The floor again was strewn with flowers, faded and dewy fresh, as
though thrown there each day.
That the Argive youth should keep coming. This haunted her. Patient,
persistent, each evening, lonely in the lane. How was she to drive him
from her thoughts?
She looked up from her weaving. Her father had opened the curtain of
the doorway. He came toward her. There was in his face a finality which
brought her to her feet.
“Father! The Persians!”
“No, child,” answered Nikander’s low voice. “The delegation of Athenians
is in Delphi.”
“Yes, Father, I knew that.”
“They have received their answer from the Oracle. Child, the message
needed no interpreting priest. It was fearful and fearfully clear. The
Pythia in her own voice, in ecstasy upon the tripod, warned them out of
the shrine. ‘Quit Athens,’ was her cry. ‘Flee afar; fire and sword shall
come upon your city—and not yours only, but many cities. My temple sweats
blood; get ye away from my holy place; and steep your souls in sorrow.’”
“Father, how dreadful; horrible!”
“The priests, of course, are horror-struck. But they are triumphant, too.
They have prevailed over me. The Athenians! Theria, the Athenians dare
not go home with that message. We have told them, Timon and I, not to
go home with it. That message would put their armies to rout before the
Persians should strike one blow.”
He stopped. His face took on a deep regret, almost abhorrence. Then he
said hurriedly:
“Theria, I have come to make you the Pythia. It is a last resort.
You say you can pray. God grant you can! Oh, my child, put into this
consecration every effort, every spiritual strength you know!”
She was so dazed that she could only stand before him trying to say “Yes.”
“You will leave the house early to-morrow morning. You will have your
days of rites and preparation. But the Athenians will await your days. We
will enter the Precinct as supplicants—you and I. The Athenians also as
supplicants. Supplication may win the god.”
He put his hands on her shoulders, gazing deeply into her eyes. But his
mind was far away, wrapt in the purpose for his state.
“Theria, the honour of the Oracle, the very saving of Athens and of all
Hellas are in your hands. Pray, pray!”
At the door he paused again with bent head. “You will have your wish now
to stay a virgin. And you can never come home again.”
She was alone. It is in such moments that one grows old. Maturity is not
of years but of such experience. She was neither happy nor sad. What she
had desired so long seemed strangely impossible now that it had come to
her. There was no exaltation for the great task.
She kept naming the task over to herself. “I am to win the good
oracle which will save Athens. Apollo will give me a good answer if I
supplicate.” But she felt very dazed.
Now she laid aside her hated weaving. It was the last time. The Pythia
did not weave. Greater tasks were hers. Theria’s home which had seemed so
prison-like, that, too, she was leaving for ever. Very quietly she walked
along the balcony to her own room and there stood thinking.
How distant her father had seemed. The great state-sorrow weighed him
down. He was beyond thought of her. Yet there had been something tragic
in his face as though he were laying her as victim upon the altar rather
than lifting her to the tripod.
A fearful thing that tripod. It stood in a dark cavern, and the breath of
the god rushed up from a gulf below and filled her who was set there. How
would it feel—that breath upon her? What would it do to her, that ghostly
thing? She shook her shoulders as if to free them of a load.
Oh, dear Paian, what if it did harm her? That was nothing, nothing!
Could she win the good message? Could she by prayers, importunity, and
ritual-supplication win from the god the better fate for Greece? Apollo
had already given forth the terror and warning. Could she push that evil
back as with her two hands?
All the courage, the confidence, which had so easily been hers sank out
of her. Her heart, which had been like a pool reflecting the sky of the
god, was suddenly empty. She longed to go to her mother to hide in her
arms. But Melantho (how well she knew) would only weep and add weakness
to her own. Her father? It had been her father’s detachment, his way of
laying the task impersonally upon her, forgetting the daughter upon whom
he laid it—it was this that made her lonely. She thought of Dryas, of
Lycophron, of Baltè. She could only hide her face in her hands, rejecting
the thought of each. And the black loneliness grew at each rejection.
“Is there someone else? Isn’t there any one else?” she thought wildly.
And like answer to her thought came the clear picture to her closed eyes.
The Argive standing in the moon-lit lane with face upturned to hers.
“Can you stop the stream of Castaly? Even so will my love refresh you
whether you will or not.”
She lifted up her face timidly in the empty room. Ah, he had loved her.
He had come again and again with his love. So faithful, so patient, and
how true he was to Greece! How ready to fight for Hellas! If she should
go to the window to-night, would he give her strength—strength for her
fearful duty? But how could he? Would he reach up his hands? What could
he say?
Suddenly she was trembling so that she had to sit down, clasping her
hands, unclasping them again. How could he do anything except to put
arms about her as she had longed for her mother to do? But these arms
as they stole about her spirit were not like Melantho’s. They thrilled
her, brought her near to weeping. They were the arms of love, the love
he had told of, the love that understood the inmost of her heart. She
began to long so intensely for their comforting that she was frightened.
The barriers of her coldness went down at once, leaving her as tender as
young spring. Unconsciously she reached out her hands in the dim room.
Then a panic assailed her. Perhaps he would not come. Perhaps her long
refusal had broken even his faithfulness. Perhaps he would fail her for
just this one evening. Then it would be too late. To-morrow she would be
locked in the Pythia House. Then even to see him would be sin.
To-night! Oh, could she go down into the lane and greet him there? But
how? The house wall was too high for her down-clambering or for his
ascent. The front door was guarded by Medon.
She would ask Baltè to take her. Surely on this her last night at home
Baltè would be kind.
Meanwhile the news of Theria’s departure was noised through the house.
Melantho was excited, bewildered, frightened. She was closeted with
Nikander. The slaves were weeping. One after another stole to Theria’s
door, the men awkward in their grief, the women and girls throwing their
arms about their little mistress in stress of tears.
Theria waited till nightfall before she asked Baltè.
“Just to go out into the lane a little while, Baltè—to stand near the
stream.” Baltè sometimes had taken her there. But always of a morning
when Baltè was doing her washing.
“Not in the evening, little mistress. You know your mother would not
allow it.”
“She will not care this time. Oh, Baltè, you will have no more chances to
please me!”
“But surely I am going to be with you in the Pythia House, little
mistress?” cried Baltè, frightened.
“There, Baltè, don’t cry. Of course you will.”
But Baltè had already consented to her little mistress’s wish.
The two entered the lane at nightfall, climbed the short steep path
beside the stream to the very wall of the cliff.
“But, Missy, I should think you would rather stay down near the highroad
where you could glimpse the folk passing.”
“Not to-night, Baltè. It is only the air I want and to be still, very
still.”
She slipped into a cleft of the hillside and drew Baltè with her. How
quiet it was. A cricket chirped above her on the hillside, lonely in the
stillness. At the opening of the lane the highroad was half hidden by the
rocks.
“Missy, it’s growing late. We mustn’t stay too long.”
“Oh Baltè, wait—wait.”
Never in her life had Theria known fear such as this—the fear of the
Argive’s not coming. It choked her. It tasted bitter in her mouth. But
why should he come? Oh, why should he, to her who had been only cruel,
who had thrown only contempt from her window—that window which now stared
at her dimly at a distance like some vacant fate——
What was that? Oh, Paian, a stir in the bushes above her, a form in the
dusk that walked swiftly and stopped under her window. Ah, dear gods, how
intently he gazed up where he thought to find her!
She slipped from Baltè’s hand and sped like a freed bird toward him.
Lightly she touched his arm. She could not speak.
He wheeled—saw her.
“Gods in Olympos! My lady!”
The Argive’s hope had been largely boasting. He had never imagined a
thing like this that she should greet him in the lane. Now he saw her
changed face. His voice broke with tenderness.
“Eleutheria,” he whispered. Her timid hand reached toward him.
Then the arms that she had dreamed of were about her, wonderful, amazing
in their love. She had not known they would tremble. She had not known
they would seem so strong. All thought for winning courage for her duty
left her—all thought of asking anything. She only longed to give him the
gentleness and affection she had so long denied him. She lifted her hand,
touching his cheek. It was wet with tears.
“I have been unkind. Oh, I have been cruel to you.”
“Never cruel,” he said. “Only a child whom the gods must teach.”
“They have taught me. They have taught me,” she answered.
But now Baltè recovered from amazement, and was shaking Theria’s arm.
“Oh, Missy, Missy, come back with Baltè. Wicked child, you deceived me.”
“Yes, yes, Baltè,” she said, tender even toward her old nurse, “I will
come. Eëtíon will not harm me. He is good, good.”
At this confession of faith the youth kissed her afresh.
But Baltè was not to be baulked. “Missy, please, please, for Apollo’s
sake,” she cried, again shaking Theria. “How can you, you who are to be
Pythia to-morrow?”
“Pythia,” repeated the lover. “What does she mean? Theria, that is not
true!”
“Yes, I am to pray for a good oracle from the god. Oh, Eëtíon, I feel now
that it may be granted me.”
“But you! Great Hermes, you cannot be Pythia. Your father will not allow
that!”
“But Father commands it. He says it is the only hope of saving the
Athenians. I must do it!”
“Theria, no, no!” he said wildly. The horror of the thing broke over him
and the horror of her being torn from him, for ever beyond his reach.
“What a frightful mistake. Nikander should know better. You are not
fit for a Pythia. The tripod will kill you. It will destroy your mind.
Theria, you must listen to me!”
She was listening indeed. His misery was sweeping down her high mission
as the gale sweeps down the grain. She clung to him, saying no word.
“I can take you away from it. Oh, it is a horrible fate. My darling, for
the god’s sake let me save you. I’ll take you to the islands. No one will
find you; no one.” He was drawing her toward the hill.
That moment her spirit returned to her.
“No, no, Eëtíon. You cannot save me that way. Oh, you know you cannot!”
His hands dropped to his sides, his head drooped.
“Yes,” he faltered. “Not that way, but how, how? You must not be Pythia.
You are not fit for pythiahood. I have seen the present Pythia—pale,
weak, and above all, empty, ignorant. Oh, darling Theria, you cannot be
made like that! I must save you!”
“You _have_ saved me,” she said, childlike. “I was afraid and you have
made me unafraid. Because you love me, just because you love me. Oh,
Eëtíon. Death lies both ways. For the Persians will kill us if they get
into Hellas. Only the god can keep them back. I must pray to the god. I
must pray to the god. I know he will hear me. Must I not go when I know
that? Oh, Eëtíon, help me—help me to go!”
He took her face between his hands, gazing into the brave depths of her
eyes.
“Always you make me remember that you are Eleutheria,” he said in a low,
awed voice. “If you were like other women I could not so love you—oh, do
you believe how I love you—love you?”
Then before she could answer—
“Go,” he said hastily. “While I can let you go.”
She bowed her head and started down the lane. But he caught her back with
passionate kisses. He knew it was the last time. There in the narrow lane
pure love, neglected and chilled by Greek custom and unknown to Greek
sullying passion, burned high and clear like an altar flame.
Baltè was beside herself with fear. Yet if she gave the alarm what a
punishment there would be for her darling! Only the dread Cyprian could
know when they would have parted had not a step echoed from the highway
and Medon’s deaf-hollow voice called:
“Baltè, ye fool. If ye don’t come in I’ll lock the door on ye. What time
is this to be stayin’ out in the night with the little mistress?”
And at this Baltè gathered her nurseling in her arms and almost carried
her into the house.