“It is said by us scientists,” Anaxagoras remarked, “that one day we shall control nature.”
Socrates lifted pious and antic eyes. “That will be an even worse calamity than the uncontrolled furies of nature. I do not trust my beloved fellows. We are more inventive than nature, and with malice. Nature, at least, is without discrimination and knows no evil passions.”
“You are a Sophist,” said Zeno.
“No,” said Socrates, “I am a Stoic. I endure all things, even humanity, which is the hardest of all disasters to endure.” And he laughed with good temper, and his absurd little beard wagged.
The storm broke over the city. They could hear the wildness of the wind, the thunder, the rush of trees, the slashing of rain against the walls. A slave fearfully drew aside a window drapery and through the glass they could see the marching steel rods of the falling water in the lights of the lamps.
The women sat in their chairs like tall bright birds, their jewels twinkling, their beautiful faces alert to please, their mouths ready to converse, their hair, auburn, black, yellow or chestnut, sleek and glossy, their robes of many colors. The men sat comfortably on their divans, fondling the women’s hands, touching their cheeks, whispering to them. But Pericles did not touch Aspasia. Helena, watching, was satisfied. However, she saw that Aspasia had become sad of countenance again, and she knew the reason. Aspasia had confided to her, on receiving the fortune from Al Taliph, “Alas, I know now that he loved me. I believed he did not. Had I but known I should never have left him.” To which Helena had replied sensibly, “But the east revolted you. You would have left in any event, or Al Taliph would have tired of you as you aged. Had he tired of you and dismissed you he would not have left you that money and the many treasures which adorn your house. One must reflect on that.”
“Money does not answer all things,” Aspasia had replied. At this Helena had laughed incredulously.
“When you discover only one, my dear, you must tell me!”
Pericles also saw the abstracted sadness on Aspasia’s face, which seemed like a pale veil over her features. He guessed the reason—that she was remembering the Persian satrap; he knew that if he touched her now, even slightly, she would recoil from him. Also, she was a woman of fastidiousness, and an overt approach would offend her. He knew that he loved her as he had never loved before, and knew all her qualities. He also believed that she was drawn to him, however reluctantly.
A group of young women slaves at the rear of the dining hall began to strike their harps and to sing softly. The rain had become a gentle hissing against glass and wall, and the wind began to fall. Intermittent lightning flashed, but the thunder was growling in retreat. The scent of flowers and grass and leaf flowed refreshingly through an open door, and the perfumed lamps flickered.
Helena’s dinners were notable not for gross quantity but for artful flavors and textures. Her wine was incomparable, her whiskey undiluted. Her friends said her dinners were Epicurean delights, stimulating both the mouth and satisfying the soul. They were not dinners for frankly hungry people, who desired only to appease rumbling stomachs, but for men who regarded a fine dish as a work of art, to be gazed upon with anticipation and delight, and then slowly enjoyed. Above all, conversation was the important sauce, whether it was frivolous or serious. All things, lamps, beautiful plates and cutlery and cloths and food, were the auxiliaries to speech, the joy of the exchange of ideas. For this reason Helena had no distractions such as dancing girls or tumblers or jokesters in the dining hall. Needless to say, she rarely if ever invited dull or pedestrian people who could contribute no mental exhilaration to the gathering. Even the entrancing music of harp and lute and voice was only the soothing background to conversation, and never intruded.
Slowly Aspasia began to be more acutely aware of Pericles, in spite of her despondent thoughts of Al Taliph. She began to glance at him sideways, and saw the clear hardness of his features, which had no hints of softness or sentimentality. Almost imperceptibly his expression would change, while he conversed with others. It was not as subtle as Al Taliph’s or as elusive and elliptical, and had more discreet control and sharpness. If he had passions they were not overt. He had command, not only by inspiring fear—which she guessed he would do but rarely—but by the cold force of his personality, his aura of authority. He was the least impetuous man; yet she knew that he could be moved by terrible anger when aroused. It would not be violent, that anger. Its very restraint was all the more intimidating. But at moments she discerned a certain silent disquiet about him, which only the most astute eye could see. Helena had been right. Here was a most formidable man, a man of men, a man of chill thoughts, a man who reflected objectively, whose decisions were wrought in stone after long internal argument. He was also a man of precision.
So involuntarily had she been concentrating on him that she had become unaware of the conversation near her, and she was vexed, for all looked to her for opinions. He would not, like Al Taliph, goad her to epigrams for his amusement, or demand that she display her intelligence before guests. He had accepted that she was intelligent; he would never urge her to intellectual exercises for his sole entertainment. She could not imagine this man prostrating himself before Deity as Al Taliph had done, for he was proud if, perhaps, reverent. She knew, from many remarks from Helena, that he had been trying to lead the Athenian religion into monotheism, which had inflamed the priests. He also had a contempt for governments, though himself Head of State. Yet, this was not inconsistent or devious. He had a respect for humanity even if he deplored its excesses, its wildness and savagery, its turbulence and perilous nature, its childish unpredictability.
She became frightened by her own fascination with him, and turned to listen to others. The conversation had advanced from whispered and intimate remarks with adjoining neighbors, and had become centered on the approaching three-day festival of plays, and other arts.
Sophocles, that gentle poet and writer of plays, had introduced three actors on the stage simultaneously, and he was famous for his delicate discrimination as well as for the power of his work. His play, Oedipus Rex, was to be produced again this year during the festivals, though some priests had protested that there was little religious dialogue or direction in the play.
“I have talked with him concerning a sequel to Oedipus,” said Zeno of Elea. “It would concern a man’s expiation of evil through penance and understanding of his own evil. He thought of it long and said he would remember our conversation and that he might, at some later date, write a sequel.”
“I respect Sophocles,” said Socrates, the light of controversy glittering in his brilliant and colorless eyes. “I grant you that expiation of a crime is most desirable. But the perpetrator of such a crime must be a man who undertook evil deliberately and with complete knowledge and will and malice. Oedipus was not such. His crime was an innocent one, in that he did not know he was committing it, did not do so with deliberation and will and malice, was not aware that his wife was his mother and that the hostile stranger he had encountered and killed was his father. He gouged out his own eyes for a crime of which he was intrinsically blameless, however we may find it horrifying. That was absurd of him, as was his self-exile.”
He smiled at the listening company. “In one way I am a Sophist. Truth, as they say, is often a matter of individual opinion, and varies with cultures and philosophies and religions, and, with governments. We can, therefore, call it subjective. The agreed truth is that Oedipus committed a crime against nature and law and order. But, the truth also is that he did not know he had committed a crime. Why, then, should he have expiated anything? Why should he even have engaged in an agonizing dialogue with himself, which led to his destruction?”
“But you, yourself, Socrates,” said Zeno, “have said that ultimate truth is attainable through dialogue and the defining of terms.”
“I have said,” Socrates replied, “or I meant, that an agreed-upon truth can be arrived at. But who knows it is the ult
imate truth, however many agree? The terms we think we define exactly are often a mere accord on semantics, for a word which means something to one man may mean nothing to another. Therefore, in the very agreement we must admit that that agreement, itself, is subjective, and each man will retain his own version on what has been agreed.”
“You are disagreeing with yourself,” said Pericles, smiling.
“But, that is the function of philosophy! To assert a hypothesis, then demolish it!” He laughed his high piping laughter, at himself. “I affirm nothing, not even that I affirm nothing.” He continued: “If Oedipus had been a prudent man, given to reflection, he would have discerned that he was not truly guilty of anything at all. But he did not examine himself, and the unexamined life is not worth living.”
He turned his faun’s face on Pericles. “And what is our politician thinking of all this?”
“Do not mock politics,” said Pericles, with a slight edge of reproof in his words. “Would you tell me that politics are nothing to the man of mind? I do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics minds his own business. I say he had no business here at all.”
“Ah,” said Socrates. “That is true. I did not mean to offend.” He looked merrily at Aspasia. “Was it only two nights ago, Lady Aspasia, that we were discussing politics in your house? Will you repeat what you have said of government so that this company can not only have the pleasure of gazing at your face but of listening to your words?”
Aspasia blushed, and Pericles thought this most charming, for, again, she resembled a young girl. “It was nothing, Socrates,” she said. “But, if you wish, I will repeat it: Republics suppress aristocracy, democracies, freedom. What, then, is the best government? I have heard it said, from one who was a governor, that a benign despotism is the best, but as there are few benign men and despotism is abhorred by such, my—friend—was wrong. It is my belief that an aristocratic Republic is the best, though that may seem a contradiction in terms. Democracies are the worst; they become tyrannies, for the reason that when every man speaks, whether or not he is a fool or a wise man, chaos and shouting take over government and inevitably a strong if dangerous man assumes power. The man on horseback.”
Pericles looked at her fully and smiled at her with amusement. “You do no like our form of government?”
She hesitated, looking for mockery in him, but there was none. “I see it, in its present form, as a disaster to Athens.”
Pericles drank from his goblet and then said, “So do I.”
He thought of Ichthus, whom he still mourned unceasingly, and so did not see the look of surprise on some of the guests’ faces. But Anaxagoras nodded, and so did Zeno, and then Socrates. Pericles said, “There is a great clamor among politicians in Athens now that my plans to make her the diadem of the world, in art and poetry, in science and in marble and in learning, should be abandoned for ‘the domestic necessities of the people.’ In short, to pamper all the appetites of the mob, as one pampers cattle—for their milk. Votes. The tearful critics who shrill at me proclaim that their own plans arise from their love of humanity, but it has been the experience of history that when government pretends benevolence it really means it intends to abolish freedom. We have little enough now, the gods know. We shall have even less if those who prate of the purity of their intentions and their hearts prevail. An official who truly loves mankind seeks to elevate it through beauty and knowledge. An official who thinks only of bellies degrades mankind.”
He looked at his old teacher, Zeno, and said with respect, “What does the speaker in paradox think of this?”
Zeno considered. Then he sighed. “I am growing old, Pericles, and I discover more and more paradoxes, and no longer do they seem consistent to me. For instance, we long for that which is alien to our natures. The violent man craves peace, the coward, bravery. The dissonant speak of harmony, the placid, enterprise. The husbandman dreams of cities; the urban man of grass. He who cannot love admires love; the loving would often hate. Not in self-deceit are these. They are the unattainable, and therefore the stuff of poets. We philosophers, alas, are less astute. I no longer understand this world.”
Helena, seeing that her guests had taken on melancholy countenances, said with her robust smile and laugh, “Pindar has said that the best of healers is good cheer, so let us drink to this night and this gathering, for this moment is all we have.”
Aspasia gave her a look of fondness and for the first time she truly smiled and said, “Aeschylus has remarked that the pleasantest of all ties is the tie between host and guest. And so, let us drink to our dearest Helena, who condescends to teach one of my classes twice a week, in the art of medicine.”
After the toast had been drunk and the singers and harps had struck a lighter note, Pericles said to Aspasia, “Tell me of Persia, for I admire the Persians.”
Again she hesitated, and the pale veil of sadness drew down over her features. Then she began to speak to him alone in a quiet voice, as the guests had begun to jest among themselves and Helena was telling some of her more indelicate stories. Aspasia spoke of Al Taliph with difficulty yet with candor. As she became more eloquent, and saw that Pericles was regarding her with disconcertingly intent eyes, she was less constrained. A warmth pervaded her. She discovered she could now speak of Al Taliph without the overwhelming pain she had endured for several years. In fact she laughed gently now and then as she related some tale of his unpredictabilities and his acrid conversation. Yet she was not able to conceal from Pericles the sombreness of the aristocratic Mede, the bitterness under his sallies.
“I should have liked to have known him,” said Pericles, when she fell silent, smiling to herself at some memory. She looked up, started, and said as if with amazement, “He should have liked to have known you also, Pericles!” She knew this was true, and was even more astonished.
“In his terrible way, he was a great man,” she added, and now without any sorrow at all but only with admiration. “He never said a crafty or deceptive word, yet he was most elusive and inexplicable. He could be frightful, and then the kindest of men. We did not understand each other, yet—”
“You loved each other,” said Pericles. His jealousy seized his throat. “How fortunate was he to have had your love, Aspasia!”
“He was spared a deep suffering: He never knew I loved him,” she replied, and all at once her face was no longer young but grave with years.
“You speak in mysteries, Lady. Do you not believe in the real rapture of the love between a man and woman?”
“I have not found it. I think it is the imagination of poets.” She looked restive. She knew he was scrutinizing her with too deep an intensity, and it disturbed her. She did not know how she felt concerning this man; she did not want to be concerned with him at all, yet there was a powerful struggling in her, and an overwhelming fear. She said, “I must content myself with my school, in the hope that women will be recognized as human and be permitted to acknowledge talents. The world is poorer for lack of this recognition.”
She thought, in her confusion, to turn him away, but he said, “I hope this also. It was not so in Persia, was it? Did its women submit to their servitude?”
She was horrified at his perceptiveness, for she had not spoken of the monstrous oppression of women in Persia nor the women’s bland acceptance of their fate. She stammered, “Without a single protest!”
He said, “But the women of Athens have been protesting, though futilely, since Solon. At least a number of them are so doing. Athens is the richer for your presence, Aspasia.”
She murmured her thanks. She was more and more frightened. She could feel the warmth of his body, now so close to hers, and the scent of fern which rose from his garments. It was all like a threat—or an embracing—and she feared both. She half-started to her feet, involuntarily, in instinctive flight, then sank down again and a bright haze seemed to cover her eyes and she felt weak and undone. She looked timidly into his face and saw there only kindness and appro
val, and she thought again that there was something Olympian about him, something splendid, and a soft melting came to her and for some reason she wished to weep. She saw his strong white hand near hers. She longed for him to touch her, yet she shrank. Never had she experienced such an inner trembling, such a tumult of feeling, and she did not understand it. This was entirely different from her passion for Al Taliph, and she endured no pang of betrayal.
When Pericles and Helena were alone Helena said with an arch smile, “So, you have fallen in love with my beauteous Aspasia? Ah, do not suddenly look so stiff and annoyed. I have watched your face for hours. She loves lilies and the scent of them. Send her a sheaf tomorrow. You have touched her heart.”
“She is like a nymph who has never been awakened,” said Pericles.
The cynical Helena said with demureness, “Then, awaken her. For the last time, my Hercules, you may enter my bed tonight, in a farewell. I am not unhappy. My heart rejoices in your future happiness. But Aspasia will be hard to woo. I must pray especially to Aphrodite tonight.”
Pericles, lying with Helena in her bed, found that he could embrace her, not as a lover, but only as a tender brother or passionless friend. With alarm, he thought of impotence. However, Helena understood and kissed him with cool tenderness. For the first time, she thought, he had truly loved a woman and therefore—for a time at least—he would be indifferent to other women. Yes, I understand, she reflected, for when I had my beloved I saw no charms in other men, but alas, as I am a faithful woman, I still find few charms in them, remembering my love.
Aspasia lay sleepless in her chaste bed in her small and delightful house adjoining her austere school. The moon stood in her window, as white and pure as Artemis, and as cold. She turned from it, restlessly. She could think of nothing but Pericles, not as yet with joy, but with yearning and fearful agony. Al Taliph had been like a sleek and sinuous leopard, revealing eyes which reflected secret emotions but which would not answer an inquisitive glance. Pericles was like a lion, stately and regnant, deliberate and lonely, resembling a mountain. The man of the east and the man of the west were singular in that both possessed enormous strength, yet one had the strength of the unknowable and the other the strength of steel, flashing yet icy. One moved with subtle grace, the other with overt power.