Glory and the Lightning (55 page)

But still she loved and anguished after Al Taliph, and yearned for his kisses and arms.

Helena embraced Aspasia, as she had embraced her earlier, and exclaimed, “You grow more entrancing every moment, my dear friend! Behold! Pericles, son of Xanthippus, Head of State, has deigned to grace our dinner tonight. I have told you much of him.” She glanced humorously at Pericles, who took Aspasia’s hand, bowing, and kissed it.

“Rumor has not lied of you, Lady,” he said, and she was pleased by his eloquent voice.

“Of what has it said concerning me?” she asked, and he saw the bright watery lights in her eyes dancing.

“Only that which was laudatory,” he replied. He still held her hand and smiled down at her.

“You are gracious, lord,” she said. “But I do not believe you.” He saw that she had a mischievous look, almost saucy, and that she suddenly appeared as a young girl. He held her hand tighter, when she tried to withdraw it. She frowned slightly and her smile disappeared. She felt a tremor through her body; where his lips had touched her hand there was a burning, a smarting, which ran up her arm. She had not felt this for two years and she was frightened. She was confused; she saw the pallor of his eyes and knew him to be inexorable, and all at once she was excited and the tremor was stronger in her flesh.

“I have heard of your school, Lady,” he said.

“That is good, lord. I educate young ladies from the age of twelve to seventeen, so that they may be worthy citizens of Athens.” She waited for a jocular remark, for a shrug. But he was regarding her seriously. “Alas,” he said, “they cannot vote.”

“Once, in Homeric times, they did, lord. Surely a woman is as worthy to vote as the market rabble!”

His powerful interest in her heightened. Here was no light woman; his first opinion of her was confirmed. “I agree with you, Lady. I had a very intelligent mother, who was worth ten thousand of the street men.”

He smiled over his shoulder at Pheidias, who was shyly trying to retire. “Pheidias,” he said, “I have much to discuss with you, and your plans to glorify our city.”

“Ah, yes, Pericles, I am at your service. I have sketches drawn, for the Parthenon.” Pheidias’ face was illuminated. “I hope you will approve of them.”

Pericles nodded, then turned to Aspasia again, whose hand he still held. “Tell me,” he said, “what do you teach your young ladies in your school, which has acquired some renown?”

“History, science, art, mathematics, medicine, patriotism, poetry, literature, responsibility, esteem for one’s self, astronomy, architecture—whatever path their native talents suggest.” She waited for an upraised eyebrow, but Pericles was still serious. She continued, “Not domestic duties, which are the province of their mothers, nor religion, which is the province of their priests.”

“Not dancing, not singing?”

“No. The arts of entertaining are to be taught by their mothers.” Now Aspasia’s dimples reappeared. “Surely their mothers are expert in that, having husbands!”

“Are all your young ladies intelligent, Aspasia?”

“I accept none whom I have not personally questioned, and chosen. I want no fools in my classes, to exasperate teachers and to degrade the teaching rooms. My school is not a place for frivolities and chatter and gossip. I also teach gymnastics, for the health of the girls and to develop their bodies. As the Greeks say, a sound mind needs a sound body, if it is to be effective.”

“I have seen many great men who were not sound of body, Aspasia. And many men of sound bodies who have the minds of pigs.”

‘True, lord. They both labor under misadventure. I do what I can in my school. I have two young ladies who have deformed limbs, who are extremely intelligent. How they escaped infanticide I do not know, except that they were rescued by their mothers.”

“It is a most extraordinary school,” Helena said, noting that despite Aspasia’s small struggles Pericles did not relinquish her hand. “You must send earnest men to observe it.”

“I will remember,” said Pericles. It was a polite remark but Aspasia believed that he spoke the truth and not idly.

“I have heard that you are an Ionian and that you have spent some years in Persia,” said Pericles.

So, she thought, he knows much about me. She looked at him directly with her luminous eyes. “I was the companion of a Persian satrap for nearly five years. No, he was a Mede.”

“He let you leave him?” he asked in an incredulous tone.

“No. I left him.” She drew a quick breath, and her eyes did not avert themselves. “It broke my heart, but I had to leave him, for never shall I understand the east. Two years ago he died, and left me a vast fortune. He had sought me earlier but could not find me.” Her eyes were suddenly filled with mist. “His lawyers were more successful. I am using his money in my school, though he would hardly have approved of that.”

She did not speak as the Greek and other women spoke, timidly and fearfully, averting their eyes when addressing a male stranger. She spoke, rather, with the forthrightness of a man, and with simplicity. There was an absolute fearlessness about her; she had his own assurance.

So, thought Pericles, she still loves her satrap, and love is women’s armor against other men. Here, he reflected, was a woman who once giving her heart gives it passionately and perhaps for life. For some reason this vexed him. Despite what Helena had told him of Aspasia he had believed that she would be delighted to fall into his arms, he the Head of State, and a rich and handsome man. After all, she was a courtesan. Now he was uncertain, and his yearning for her increased. She was no longer even faintly smiling at him. Her face had paled a little, as if at memory, and with sorrow. Seeing this, he felt a deep respect for her, and a gentleness, and he longed to hold her and console her, not with passion but with a tender understanding he had never felt for a woman before.

The thunder which had been snarling in the mountains now advanced on the city and the lightning glittered and flared at every window and door and the wind rose and shouted against the walls. Slaves scurried to close every portal and window, drawing curtains, securing bolts. But outside, the trees began to roar and whiten in the approaching storm.

“You must tell me of your Persian, or Mede,” Pericles said. “They are a mighty people, brave beyond imagining, with a magnificent history. I revere them, for all I am a Greek.”

“They are beyond our understanding, they being of the east,” Aspasia replied, and a sigh lifted her breast. All at once he saw her grief fully.

The guests repaired to the dining table, laughing and vehemently arguing, and Pericles, forgetting even his Helena, led Aspasia to the chair which stood beside the ornate divan reserved for him as the most distinguished guest. He could smell her perfume, that of lilies, and he wondered if that had pleased the Persian satrap, and that she wore it in memory of him. He felt a pang of jealousy. Nard became her more, or heliotrope. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, though he saw that she was not deliberately voluptuous, and used no conscious arts or seductions. There was a certain pure clarity about her, almost virginal, for all she had been a courtesan. He no longer believed in the vile rumors about her. She had put from her, like a garment, the lessons she had been taught by Thargelia, the artifices and smirks and graces destined to lure and hold a man. If she had any passions now it was for her school. He had heard that she had had lovers in order to obtain money for her young ladies’ tutoring. He knew it was not true. The satrap had left her a fortune. He must have loved her dearly, Pericles thought, with a stronger pang than before, and now with resentment. He decided he hated the satrap who had brought her to his bed from Thargelia’s house.

The guests began to seat themselves, still arguing. Suddenly the thunder became a deeper, heavier sound, a subterranean rumbling, and the earth moved and the lamps and curtains in the dining hall swayed. The guests looked at each other with dismay. “Pluto,” said one, “is stirring on his black bed. Doubtless Proserpine lies in his arms.” Some laughed, though uneasiness had them. They waited for another ominous rumble, but it did not come. The curtains fell into place, and the chattering of plates and cutlery and glass ceased.

“It is strange,” said Socrates in his high and piping voice, “that the forces of nature disturb us more than do the utmost ferocities of men. That is because we cannot control nature but we can exhibit even worse ferocity to enemies.”

“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.