MENA READS A LETTER
"They have gone," said Ariston, on his return home one evening.
"Who have gone?" his wife inquired.
"Clearchus and his two friends, Chares and the Spartan," the old man
replied. "They set out for Pella this afternoon to join the Macedonian
army. Fortune has smiled upon us once more and I think there will be a
turn in our affairs."
Ariston made no attempt to hide his satisfaction. His shoulders no
longer stooped, and his step was light. A hundred schemes were running
through his head for repairing the disasters that had brought him so
low. For all practical purposes he was again the richest man in
Athens, and with the gold at his command he imagined that it would be
easy for him to regain his feet.
"You must be cautious," Xanthe said anxiously. "You know that at any
time Clearchus may demand an account."
"Yes, but he will not," Ariston replied, pinching her withered cheek.
"He will never return to trouble us. I have news of what the Great
King is doing and unless the Gods themselves interfere to save
Alexander, he will be crushed as soon as he has crossed the Hellespont.
The Persians will meet him there in such numbers that there can be no
escape for him. None who follow him will return. By Hermes, I feel
almost young again!"
He entered his workroom briskly and sat down at the table. Producing a
roll of papyrus, he broke the seal, slipped off the wrapping, and
spread the document out before him.
"Iphicrates to Ariston," he read. "Greeting: I have obeyed your
instructions. Syphax brought me the girl. I dismissed him with
promises after she had told me that she had no complaint to make
against him. I am convinced that he is a rogue and that he will live
to be crucified. For Artemisia, she remains in my household. I have
told her that I am awaiting a suitable opportunity to send her back to
Athens; but I have put her off from time to time with excuses. She has
lost flesh since she came hither, and if she is to be sold, I think it
would be best not to delay too long, as her value will be less than if
she were offered now. She has written many letters, which I promised
to forward for her. One of these I send you with this; the others have
been destroyed.
"It is expensive for me to maintain her as you directed. It has cost
me already one talent and twenty drachmæ, which leaves me in your debt
six talents, eleven drachmæ, and thirty minæ. Please make this
correction in our account.
"There is talk here that Alexander, the Macedonian, is preparing to
lead an army against this city. Nobody doubts that he will be
defeated, since Parmenio could accomplish nothing. Memnon, the
Rhodian, has been here, strengthening the fortifications and exercising
the soldiers, but of this there is no need; for all the armies of
Greece could not take this place, even though they should invest it by
land and sea. May the Gods keep you in good health! Farewell."
"He has cheated me out of a talent, at least!" Ariston muttered. "The
old skinflint!"
He turned his attention to a second roll of papyrus, which had been
enclosed in the first.
"My Beloved," it ran. "Why hast thou not answered the letters I have
sent thee, or come thyself to take me home? Clearchus, my Life, I know
thou hast not forgotten me, although it seems ages since I last saw
thee. Each day I watch and wait for a word from thee, only one little
word, but none has come. I try to keep up my courage, thinking that
perhaps thou art seeking me elsewhere and that thou hast not received
my letters. I do not doubt thee, Clearchus, but I am weary of waiting
for thee and my heart is sick. When shall I hear thy voice and see thy
face again? I pray each night and morning to Artemis to give thee back
to me. My love, my love, may the Gods, who know all things, keep thee
safe! While I live, I am thine. Farewell."
A smile played about the corners of Ariston's thin lips as he thrust
the papyrus into the flame of the lamp and held it over the brazier
until it was consumed. He did the same with the epistle that
Iphicrates had sent to him, and then plunged into his accounts.
Xanthe had never been quick-witted, and the monotonous round of her
labors had dulled even her natural perceptions. At the bottom of her
heart she believed her husband to be the cleverest man in the world.
She did not pretend to fathom his schemes. The twistings and windings
of his subtle mind confused and bewildered her, and she had no thread
by which to trace the labyrinth. While she had long ago ceased to try
to follow him, the fact that she did not know all that he was doing
tended to make her suspicious, and her distrust, as is usual with women
of limited intelligence, took the form of jealousy.
In their forty years of married life Ariston had never given her the
slightest cause for such an emotion. Among his few weaknesses there
was none for women, whom he despised as mere machines or treated as
commodities. But notwithstanding its lack of result, Xanthe, year
after year, maintained her vigil, ever seeking what she most dreaded to
find.
Of late her husband's cares and advancing age had given her a feeling
of security, but the revival of his spirits at the departure of his
nephew sent her mind back again to the well-worn track. Could it be
that he was deceiving her after all?
This idea laid siege to her thoughts with recurrent insistence. What
had she to attract so brilliant a man? Her mirror showed her a
wrinkled brow and hollow cheeks. She turned away from it with
bitterness in her heart. The wonder was that he had ever loved her;
but that was years ago. She could not blame him if he sought a younger
and fairer companion for his hours of relaxation. Other men did the
same, and men were all alike.
Tormenting herself with these thoughts, the unfortunate woman passed a
sleepless night, and rose determined to know the worst. As soon as
Ariston had gone out, she entered his workroom. Her search brought her
at last to the brazier, where she found the charred fragments of the
letters from Halicarnassus. Unluckily one corner of Artemisia's
missive to Clearchus had not been wholly burned. She bore it in
triumph to her own apartments and set herself to the task of
deciphering its contents. The very fact that her husband had sought to
burn the letter was enough in her excited frame of mind to convince her
that her suspicions were correct. It remained only to establish the
proof.
She succeeded in making out a few words, but she could derive no
meaning from them. Study them as she would, her skill failed her. The
tantalizing thought that knowledge was within her grasp and eluding her
filled her with rage. She was still puzzling over the fragment when
she was interrupted by a knocking at the door. On the threshold stood
the sharp-faced Egyptian whom she had so often seen with her husband.
"Is Ariston here?" he demanded.
She told him that her husband was away from home.
"Then I will wait for him," Mena returned coolly, pushing past her into
the house. "He told me to see him without fail and he will soon be
here."
There was no help for it now that he was inside the house. Xanthe led
him to a bench beside the cistern and gave him fruit and wine. The
thought occurred to her that he might be able to read the riddle that
had baffled her. There could be no harm in showing him the fragment,
she reasoned, since it could tell him nothing, although to her it could
reveal so much. The temptation was strong, and after all the
opportunity was too good to be lost.
"Can you read this for me?" she asked, placing the blackened papyrus
before him.
He took it up and studied it curiously.
"Where did you find it?" he demanded, shifting his beadlike eyes
quickly to hers.
"The wind blew it into the court, here," she stammered, taken aback by
the question. "I wondered what it might be."
His glance continued to rest upon her face for an instant before it
went back to the fragment. It was easy enough for him to read them
both, and a malicious smile twitched his mouth as he understood that
Ariston had a jealous wife. The idea struck him as distinctly
ridiculous. More in idleness than with any direct purpose, excepting
that of making mischief, he determined to humor her mood.
"It is difficult to understand," he said, looking carefully at the
papyrus, "as it seems to have been burned. But here it says: 'When
shall I hear thy voice and see thy face?' and here: 'While I live, I am
thine.' It sounds like a poet, but the writing is that of a woman.
You seem to have surprised some romantic love affair. You probably
have some amorous youth among your neighbors whom a girl is foolish
enough to adore."
Xanthe's forebodings had suddenly become realities. Ariston, then, was
deceiving her, and she had not been mistaken in him. Of that, she was
now certain. He had probably always deceived her and she had been a
fool ever to believe him. Her world seemed coming to an end.
"Why do you say that the letter was sent to a young man?" she asked.
"Might it not have been an old one?"
"I dare say," the Egyptian replied carelessly. "Old men are often the
worst in these matters."
"This girl, whoever she may be, seems very much in love with him,"
Xanthe remarked.
"No doubt," Mena said, watching her with increasing amusement, "and
probably he has a wife of his own. Why else should he burn the letter?"
Xanthe winced at this thrust, although she had no idea that Mena had
fathomed what was in her mind. "At any rate, he cannot marry her," she
said, as though thinking aloud.
"The old one might die, you know," Mena suggested. "Such things have
been known to happen at the right moment."
These words were accompanied by a look so full of meaning that poor
Xanthe felt a chill of apprehension. She did not trust herself to say
more, but carried away the fragment to her own room, where she
concealed it.
Mena's hint had fallen upon fertile ground. She went over the
situation again and again in her mind, coming always to the same
conclusion. That Ariston was carrying on an intrigue with some girl
was now certain; for it never occurred to her that the letter might not
have been intended for him. It seemed certain to her also that her
husband would seek to rid himself of her so that he might marry her
rival. Mena was right. Such things had happened more than once and
poison was the easiest way. If she should die, who was there to ask
what had caused her death? Nobody. She began to take infinite
precautions regarding her food, tasting nothing that she had not
herself prepared; yet she felt that she was in hourly danger in spite
of all she could do. When nothing happened to her, she concluded that
her husband's failure to attempt her life was due solely to the fact
that his plans were not yet ripe. When all was ready, he would kill
her and flee with Clearchus' fortune to some distant land, where he
could meet the abandoned creature upon whom his affections had fallen.
She knew only too well that he was capable of anything in the
furtherance of his selfish schemes. Thus her folly led her on until at
last she came to regard her imaginings as truth confirmed. But if she
was to be murdered, she thought, at least she would prevent him from
enjoying the fruit of his wickedness. She would write to Clearchus and
tell him all.
When she had reached this conclusion, she lost no time in carrying it
into execution. But it was long since she had used the stylus and she
was forced to confine herself to the barest outline of what she wished
to say. After many failures, she finally produced the following:--
"Clearchus: Iphicrates has Artemisia in Halicamassus. My husband is a
beast who wants to poison me. If you hear that I am dead, you will
know why, and I hope you will see that he is punished. Go to
Halicamassus, and when you get her, keep her safe. Iphicrates is a
wicked man and he should be killed. If my husband does not poison me,
make no accusation against him."
Xanthe sealed this letter and hid it away until a chance should offer
to send it to her nephew. She felt much easier, as though the fact
that she had written it were in some way surety for her safety.
Several weeks passed before she found the opportunity for which she had
been looking. At last she learned that Callias, son of a widow of her
acquaintance, had joined a mercenary troop that was being raised in
Athens. She gave the letter to his mother to be delivered to Clearchus
in Pella, but Callias, having received part of his pay in advance,
could not tear himself away from his friends in Athens until the gold
was spent. Consequently the letter was not delivered until after
Macedon and Persia had met at the Granicus.