The Mask of Apollo: A Novel

14

IT WAS NOT THE RETURN OF SPRING SAILING weather which had persuaded Dionysios to part with Plato. The cause was war.

Dion, from his knowledge of the Carthaginians, had tried to keep them ignorant of his fall from power; but the upshot was that they had learned he was an exile who could neither help nor harm them. Their envoys treated with Dionysios and Philistos; they distrusted the second, and despised the first. All winter they prepared for war. They attacked in spring.

Speusippos told me later the tale of those winter months. While Plato was sick, all Syracuse remarked that the Archon seemed more concerned than when his own father lay dying. But the danger past, Plato was barely on his feet again when once more he was worn out with scenes, always with this same demand to be first among his friends. Speusippos, who had had all he could stand and more, said it was like a young boy at school enamored of another, but owned that the wretched fellow seemed really to be suffering.

A base man would have flattered him; a man of more common virtues put him quickly out of hope. But for Plato, who was used to young men loving him, this was the first step towards philosophy; he would have thought shame to reject it, just for his own peace of mind. Patiently and selflessly, he used that charm which Dion had remembered for twenty years, to make his jailer captive. Speusippos said it was like a dialogue between bird and fish, each calling from an element the other could not live in. To the one, the crown of love was excellence; to the other it was possession.

“His father has a good deal to answer for,” I said. “As long as he lived, the poor wretch was never allowed an hour of self-esteem. Now he comes like a starving man to an elegant symposion, grabbing without manners. Put it down to poverty.”

“I don’t suppose,” said Speusippos impatiently, “he had half the troubles in his youth that Plato did. The war, the siege, the death of friends in battle and by the hands of friends, his kinsmen killed as tyrants, and execrated to this day—and then Sokrates, whom he loved and honored above all men, murdered in form of law … But never mind; the man who squeals gets all the pity. At all events, he kept telling Dionysios that the way to his regard led through philosophy; and Dionysios kept replying that Dion must be first disowned, else how should he know he was being advised to his own advantage? Philistos’ faction had warned him he was just being softened to make way for Dion’s usurpation. He wanted evidence of good faith.”

This startled even me. “By the dog! How did Plato swallow such insults?”

“Insults are given by men. One doesn’t strike a whining child when it tugs one’s clothes.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But sometimes he has his wits about him.”

“Quite true. That’s why Plato struggled all this while. But he is a child in his soul. A stepchild, rather.”

Even when the spring brought war, he was very unwilling to let Plato go. Speusippos had been desperate, for the Archon would have to show himself in the field and, left alone in Ortygia among his enemies, Plato would have been lucky to live a week. He knew this, but kept his fortitude, and took care to show no dismay. Urging his long absence from the Academy, and his need for a change of climate, at last he prevailed on Dionysios to part with him, but only in exchange for a pledge that if Dion were recalled from exile, he too would return to Syracuse. Thus for his friend’s sake, with both eyes open, for the third time he put his life at risk.

I saw him soon after he got home, at a concert in the Odeion. He stooped more, he was sallow, and had lost a good deal of weight; his wrestler’s shoulders looked bony, and deep lines were carved beside his mouth. But a fine head. Leanness showed up its structure. Hagnon said he would like to paint him, though he would be a better subject for bronze.

At the last he, and even Speusippos, had been seen off with a load of guest-gifts and every mark of honor. Plato, if he would have taken it, could have had a fortune in Sicilian gold, either for himself or for the Academy, of which it would have delighted Dionysios to be a patron; but endowments were never taken except from those who had embraced its precepts. Rather than give outsiders the power to interfere, Plato would have taught in the streets like Sokrates before him. Nonetheless, one thing was clear: whereas Plato had left old Dionysios as a wronged man without obligations (except to revenge, if he had not been above it), he was bound now to the son by the sacred ties of guest-friendship, and I wondered what that would lead to later.

I had meant to arrange a tour that year. But I found I had so many offers that engagements kept me busy. I played at Ephesos and Miletos, and while there was asked to Pergamon. And at Delphi, at the Pythian Festival, by Apollo’s favor I got the crown. As I bent my head for it, I heard from high up over the Phaidriades the scream of an eagle, maybe the very one who had shouted “Yaah!” at me as I dangled on the crane.

This was my last tour with Anaxis. We still got on pretty well; but he was a disappointed artist now, and the only thing which kept him from growing bitter was the hope of a career in politics. Since this was so, I did not try to dissuade him, and even let him practice orations on me, the sort of exercise they teach in the schools of rhetoric for making, as they so frankly put it, the worse cause sound like the better. This shows, I think, what I will do for my friends.

Once an actor gets known, he does a good deal of traveling; but in the next few years, Dion traveled at least as much as I.

One saw him at all great festivals—at Olympia, Delphi, Epidauros, Delos—always with a crowd about him, always some distinguished person’s honored guest. For this reason or that, he was everybody’s hero. Most tyrants on seizing power start off by murdering the aristocracy, so conservatives are as tyrannophobe as democrats, and Dion was all that they admired. His political aims had been moderate; his hands were clean; he had never stooped to use spies or knife-men, nor roused mobs to riot; all the gentry of Hellas praised his antique virtues. Even the Spartans gave him the freedom of their city, though they were Dionysios’ allies, because of his reverence for law and the sacred bonds of kinship. Yet he was beloved too by all the democrats, having opposed a tyrant and suffered exile. You could not go wrong anywhere if you praised Dion. I grew almost ashamed to do it.

He bore fame as nobly as misfortune. He could wear his honors without fear, being what he seemed, with nothing to hide that could help his enemies. Philosophers dedicated major works to him; poets brought him into heroic odes. His distinguished presence, his great change of fortune greatly endured, his wealth (for his revenues came over every year, a vast sum by Attic reckoning), his links with the Academy, brought credit everywhere to the philosophic life. Living sparely himself, he could open both hands to others. His forecourt was crowded with petitioners; he was a liberal patron of the arts. I think it was the second year of his exile that Plato put on a choral ode in the contest at the Dionysia, making it known that Dion had financed it, as a gesture of thanks for Athenian hospitality. The costumes were splendid, green patterned with vine-sprays worked in gold, with a gold vine-wreath for the flute-player. The music was in the Dorian mode, Plato and Dion being agreed, like all Pythagoreans, in thinking the Lydian too emotional. The good breeding with which they shared the public applause was much admired.

This was a good Dionysia for me too. I got the lead in a revival of Euripides’ Chrysippos, the play it is said he wrote while he was courting Agathon. Doubling Chrysippos’ lover Laios and the wicked stepmother, I got the prize, the first I had won at the greater festival. The sponsor gave a splendid party. I did not presume to ask Dion, his friends being all so distinguished now, but he looked in with Speusippos. The two were much in company; Axiothea confided to me that Plato favored it, thinking it would loosen the proud shyness which often caused Dion to be misunderstood. Praise left him at a loss for answers, which made people think him cold, especially the democrats. But now he seemed more at ease than before, smiled oftener, and stayed at the party longer than I had expected. The truth is, I thought, he is an Athenian in his soul. Young Dionysios did him a good turn in the end. He thrives on exile.

One heard little from Sicily; few artists were going, because of the war, which dragged on some years. I could not learn that either side made much out of it. The Greeks lost no major cities, which they owed I think to Philistos; though a bad man, and getting old, he was a soldier and knew his trade.

These were good years for me. I could do the work I wanted. I had worked hard and gone short to make this beginning; for it is that, and not an end. But I had more than my work to live for.

I had bought a house near the Kephissos, just out of town; a pleasant place, not too fashionable, in reach of friends but not in the path of time-wasters. The garden ran to the river; birds sang in the willows, and at night one heard the stream. There were orchards and small vineyards between the houses; the road was quiet, so that passers-by drew a second glance. At sunup, when I did my practice, there would often be someone loitering. Then it stopped, and I forgot it, till one day as I did change-of-pitch I found that I had an echo. I went on as if I had noticed nothing, and finished with a speech, then slipped quickly out at the back. Against the wall, where its corner had hidden him from my window, a boy was standing, softly running my last speech over, to fix it fresh in his mind. He had every inflection and rise and fall, just so.

When I coughed, he jumped a foot and went white. Reassuring him as best I could, I asked him in. He was a big-boned lad, with high hollow cheekbones and gray eyes, and the auburn hair of the north. Though scarcely past the awkward age, he knew how to manage his big hands and feet, and kept his head up. I invited him to share my breakfast, which my man had just brought in, and asked how long he had wanted to be an actor. As red, now, as if scalded, he answered, “Since first I saw a play.” He would not tell me his given name, saying no Athenian could pronounce it. “They call me Thettalos.”

“Well,” I said, “you speak good Attic, which is right if you want to act.” Then, putting in the soft northern s’s, “When did you come from Thessaly?”

“That was my father,” he answered. “I was born here myself, and we are citizens since last year.” But of course, while a metic, he had not been eligible for chorus work at the sacred festivals, so though now eighteen he was quite without experience, and had picked up all he knew from sitting in front, or in ways like this today. His father would do nothing to help; he had come south with little, in flight from one of his country’s oppressive local lords, and worked hard till he owned a riding school. He was waiting, none too patiently, for the boy to outgrow his nonsense.

“It seems,” I said, “that you chose me to be your teacher. So why not have come to me, and asked for help?”

“I meant to,” he said, as if I should have understood. “But I was waiting till I was better.”

At these words I refrained from singing a paean, or embracing him, but asked where he went to practice. He just walked, he said, till he found an empty field. “Let me hear something,” I told him. “Do what you like.”

I thought he would go straight into Electra or Antigone or Ajax, and tear himself to bits. But no. He gave me a speech for the third actor, young Troilos pleading to Achilles for his life. Not only did he know his limits, he turned them to account; he was the youth who would not see his manhood. There was no softness, nothing pretty, but under the pathos a muted terror as he read the doom in Achilles’ eyes. I could have sworn I saw the relentless figure standing over him; the placing of his gestures shaped it out of air. He would die with his scream unuttered, because he was a prince of Troy, and had despaired in time. When it was over, he sat back on his heels, a light sweat on his brow, and waited for me to speak.

I forget what I first said. For just then I saw his eyes look up past my shoulder, caught and held. I had no need to turn. I knew where the mask hung in its shrine. It was just as if a look had passed between them, of recognition, or of complicity.

They say that Daidalos, the first artificer, saw his apprentice would surpass him and threw him off the roof. In the soul of every artist the murderer’s ghost lives on. Some make an honored guest of him; some chain him, and bolt the door, but know that he is not dead. Well, I could not have been cruel to this boy. That was not in me. There are things, however, one can do and live on with the thought of them. One can say, “You show great promise, but it’s useless to start till you have more range. Come back when you are twenty.” That would have wasted his time and got him stale, and put back his career five years. But having seen him without the mask as he spoke for Troilos, I knew I could do better for myself than that: “My dear boy, I think you have a future, when you have lived a little. What you need is to feel, to know the passions. Come back at sundown. We will have a little supper, and talk it over …” There are more ways of killing a bird than wringing its neck.

Once more he looked past me, and I saw that meeting of silent eyes. Though they only spoke to one another, they spoke to me. No good ever came, I thought, of robbing a god, and this one above all.

“Well, Thettalos,” I said, “I think you have learned as much as you will manage from behind a wall. It’s time you got up on a stage. Tell me what kind of man your father is, and I will do my best with him. There’s not much time; I am taking a company to Epidauros a month from now, and I shall need an extra.”

This, then, is how the god acquired his servant Thettalos, an artist seldom surpassed—at his best, unequaled in our day. It was a few years yet, though, before he knew himself, coming to the art so late. He was uncertain, scared often of his own force. It was like training a nervous blood-horse.

Our play for the Epidaurian Festival was Iphigeneia at Aulis. From the first I let him understudy the third roles, which include the name part; with only a little more technique, he would have been better than the man I had. At first I took him through the lines once or twice alone. Soon I thought better not. He played it all from the heart, knowing no other way; he was so eager, mulling half the day over everything I taught him; his eyes were flecked with green, and his chestnut brows met in fine down above them; in a word, he was starting to break my rest. But he was using himself so hard, and was stretched so taut, that I dared not disturb him. Besides, he was both proud and honest, and his whole life, as he must see it, was in my power. I waited. Some god said to me that a time would come.

We made a hit at Epidauros. What with the festival, the beauty of the theater, and his first appearance, he was quite drunk with joy; I was relieved that he kept his head. After the performance, I took him sightseeing. Going up to the portico of the Asklepeion, we met Dion coming out. He seldom missed these great occasions. Though men of note were pressing round him, he stopped and greeted me, spoke well of the production, and had a gracious word for Thettalos when I presented him. He, as soon as we were alone, said, “Who was that?” I told him Dion’s story, adding, “There goes the best man of our age.”

He followed my eyes, then broke out suddenly, “Yes, and how he agrees with you.”

“My dear boy!” I said, quite startled, for though frank he was never impudent. “What a thing to say. His modesty is proverbial.”

“And he knows that too.” He kicked a pebble, and swallowed a curse when it hurt his toe. I could see no cause for this sudden anger, which was quite unlike him, but took it he was overwrought.

“You mistake him,” I said. “He is shy by nature; but he is a man of too much pride to own it.”

“Why not? Who is he to be proud with you? You’re just as great as he is. Why, the first time you spoke to me, I thought I should stifle before I could get my breath to answer you. Even now, if it weren’t that I—” He broke off, red to the ears, almost swallowing his tongue backwards, and looking round like a thief for somewhere to run. I just put my hand behind his arm, and quietly walked him on. In silence we said everything.

So the god rewarded us. It may be that when I am dead, if he lives his span, he will hand on, to the young men coming after, small things I taught him. Since memories die with men, that’s as near as one gets to immortality.

Success brought his father round; before long, he could leave home without discord, and live with me. Even before that, we were never long parted, and could do as we liked on tour. As I said, those were happy years.

Young as he was, he could manage everything except the heavies. He was, and I think will always be, one of those actors in whom feeling works like intellect, so clearly it forms its concepts. They have it straight from the god; they give reasons if you ask, but those came later. But he was greedy for technique; born knowing why, he had to know how before he could bring it forth; and his reverence for me was touching. He would come to the end of it soon, I thought; what then? Meantime we read The Myrmidons, talked half the night, and taught each other; for the thoughts he threw off while we walked, or ate, or lay in bed were full of careless wealth.

At about this time, Speusippos married a young wife, a niece of Plato’s. He seemed contented, and praised her to me. I don’t know how much she saw of him, between his work and his diversions. As for Dion, I met him often, as I had at Epidauros. I could never think without a smile of Thettalos’ betraying jealousy; Dion had come as our god of luck, as the lad himself admitted, adding that no doubt he had been unjust, for what could he know of such a man? To me it seemed that Dion, though a king in exile, was still a king; he might lead no armies, but men would serve him with their minds, for by believing in him they could believe better in themselves.

As I said, the people round him were of many different kinds—gentlemen, soldiers, philosophers, politicians. He joined the best supper clubs; and it was at one of these, I think, that he renewed his friendship with Kallippos, who had been his co-initiate at Eleusis. I myself had known the man rather longer; he was often about the theater. One met him at all the sponsors’ parties, and in the skeneroom after the play. He had often paid me compliments, which would have pleased me more if he had not been just as ready with them after a bad performance. It gives me no joy to be praised at the expense of a better artist, by someone who does not know the difference or who thinks me too vain to be aware of it myself. After a while, I used to acknowledge his civility, and leave him, so to speak, hung up with the other masks.

His real interests were political; politics were the first thing he looked for in a play. One that was only true to man’s nature, bad and good, he found insipid. He was a sand-colored man, with eyes like shallow sand-pools, which he would fix on one as if to say that he read one’s soul. Knowing, as I did at home, what such a gaze is really like, I was hard put to it sometimes not to laugh in his face. I don’t know what he read in me; his readings of others were often out, but when this appeared, he put it down to dissimulation, a quality he saw everywhere.

I had a good deal of attention from Kallippos, because I had been in Sicily. Actors and hetairas, in different ways, hear about affairs if they have time to listen, and Kallippos knew it. Charissa the Delian, an old friend of mine, told me he never chose a girl for looks or erotic skill, but according to her clientele, which he took pains to learn beforehand.

Actors and whores, though he found them useful, were passing concerns for him. He had more serious business at the Academy, where he hung on the fringe, attending the lectures and discussions on political theory, but (as Axiothea told me when I asked her) finding no time for those upon philosophy, or the nature of the soul. Such being his interests, he was sure to seek out Dion; and though I was sorry to see him in the company of anyone so much beneath his quality, I could understand it. Kallippos took color from his company, if it sufficiently impressed him. And he was a true hater of tyrants. In this he did not dissemble. He was a hater of many things, beginning I think with himself; but tyrants he had made a study of, and could tell you all their histories, right back to the Peisistratids and Periander. Dion, as I have said, had become for all Hellas the symbol of resistance to all tyranny. He was as a god, therefore, to Kallippos, who showed him a true face, whereas he only made use of men like me. Even fulsomeness, when the heart is in it, does not disgust the just man like sycophancy. I have no doubt, too, that the information Kallippos had picked up in the skeneroom or the stews was believed by gentlemen and philosophers to be the fruit of insight and logic. As for his adulation, Dion was used to that. It met him everywhere.

Meantime, a year as third actor had been enough for Thettalos. Within three years of his joining me, I took him on as second, not just for love, but because I could have done no better. Often I felt like Arion; after the song, after the splendid dolphin swims up at call, comes the breathless sea-ride, feeling the creature’s power curbed by its tenderness, yet awaiting the moment when it knows only its own strength and the grace Apollo gave it, and with some great leap or dive is gone into the glassy green, leaving one to swim. He was obedient always. When he had talked me round to his own way of thinking, he would say how wonderful was our harmony, and so I am sure he saw it. When I insisted on my own interpretation, he supported me with all he had. His loyalty was perfect. But there is a curse on him who holds back the messengers of the gods. In the depth of night, the moon at the window would show me his face intent upon a dream. I would think, He will outgrow me and excel me, and leave me to love him still.

In the fifth year of Dion’s exile, news came that the war in Sicily was over. It had dragged to a standstill, and ended in a draw. I think the Carthaginians, who are unloved by all their neighbors, had trouble at home in Africa. At all events they got tired, and there was a patched-up peace.

That same year, as soon as sailing weather opened up the sea roads, the Sicilian ambassador called at the Academy. He had a letter from Dionysios, entreating Plato to visit Syracuse.

As you may suppose, Plato asked at once whether Dion, then, had been recalled. The ambassador said that no doubt during Plato’s visit there could be fruitful discussions of all such matters. On this Plato declined with thanks, and went back to his studies. As Speusippos said, he detested the very thought of Syracuse. He was now rising seventy, not an age when men lightly go on voyages, with their stale food, bad water, hard beds and the chance of storms. At that time of life a man must take some care of his body, to get the best from his mind.

The peace, though troublesome to Plato, was good news to theater men, and many tours were being planned. For myself, I too had seen enough of Sicily, at least without Dion there. The Bacchae had been a bellyful which still lay heavy. So Thettalos and I went east; we played in Ephesos, Lesbos, Samos, Halikarnassos and Miletos, and toured the chief cities of Rhodes.

The old mask-box went with us. I never left it behind. But each time I hung it up on the wall, it seemed that the face within was saying, “Nikeratos, you have something of mine. I have been your friend; but do not tempt me.”

The grapes were trodden; winter came; we went by torchlight to bright rooms, then home to lie warm and discuss the party. The Lenaia came, then the Dionysia. It was one of the years I got the crown.

On a warm spring evening, two days after the feast, we sat on the grass by the riverbank, upon one cloak. A thrush swung and sang in the hanging willow. I said, “Do you love me as before?”

He said, “What? Niko, how can you ask me such a thing? What has made you doubt it?” I could not bear to see his look of guilt, so undeserved.

“My dear,” I said, “I have never doubted less. You gave good proof at the Dionysia. But there are proofs love dies of giving; it is better to keep hold of love. So you must join another company.”

His eyes were like those of a sick man who hears from the doctor what he already knew. He wanted to be angry; it crossed his face and he let it go. When he spoke, it was as if we had been talking of this an hour already. “No, Niko, it’s no use; I can’t do it. How can I go? We should be forever parting, for half the year. Besides, it’s too soon. It’s not in reason I can be ready.” It was not with me he was contending; I might have known the god had been hounding him as well. “It’s you who can get the best from me. Who else would push me on as you’ve done? Wherever could I do better?”

“Henceforward, anywhere. You know it. Name me one other actor, one, for whom you would have underplayed as you did this time.”

“Now you’re absurd,” he said, pulling up grass by the roots. “In a contest, nobody steals from the protagonist. I should hope I know that. I am sure you never did so.”

“Not so as to get pointed at. But one shows what one could do. Come, my dear, you understand me.”

“Say I don’t wish to. In the name of the god, Niko, what do you want to make of me? From you I have had everything. If at last I’ve something to give, don’t you think I want to give it? Before I can even begin, you start saying no. You make me angry.” He made an angry gesture, to show he meant it. I had never loved him more.

“What was yours I have taken gladly. But the time has come, and you have seen it, when you are giving me what is his.” I had only to move my head towards the room behind us. We had shared that secret from early days. “He will punish it,” I said. “There is no escaping him.”

“He owes you something. Is he less grateful than a man?”

“He cannot change his nature, which can light or burn. We are scorched already, my dear. You have felt it too. All through rehearsals, through the contest, all through the victory feast, you give and give, you behave perfectly. Then later your oil flask is mislaid, and it enrages you. So it will be; and in two years we shall have nothing. Let us obey the god and keep his blessing. The time is now.”

This had come hard to both of us. Having braved it, we were both in pain; but it was the pain of the cautery, not the poison. In our hearts we both knew it would be worth the cost. We disputed a little longer, both knowing the outcome now but offering it as a mark of love, then talked of the past, sharing our memories. But the thing must be finished clean, so presently I said, “Summer tours will be starting soon. You must be looking round.” To tease him I added, “What about Theophanes? You’d have the heart to steal from him.”

He laughed; we were laughing easily now, as people do after strain. “Theophanes would never let me within a mile of him. He likes his supports made of solid wood.”

“To be serious: Miron is getting no younger, and he feels his limits. He is looking for a second who can take more work. Of course all his plays will have some big oldish role, for him, but you will get some very good parts which are past him now. He’s a man of the old tradition, but you’ll fare no worse in the end from knowing how Kallippides did it in the ninety-third Olympiad or Kleomachos in the hundredth. He is quite well liked, if you can put up with his superstition and eternal omens.”

“I don’t mind other men’s omens,” he said. “I watch my own.”

“His greatest virtue in my eyes is that he only likes young girls.”

“I don’t mind his likes. I know my own.” He added softly, “I’m not one to go drinking vinegar after wine.”

So we talked, and slept, and next day he signed his contract. They were soon rehearsing; he would come home full of talk; we were happy, like autumn grasshoppers, living from day to day. Then Miron fixed up a tour to Delos and the Cyclades. All of a sudden they had sailed, and his absence lay everywhere, like a fall of snow.

I ought to have found a new second before he left. I had known this, but kept putting it off. With every day of missing him, I grew harder to please. I turned down a good offer from Macedon, and drifted, passing the time. It could not go on; I made up a short-term company, and went to Corinth for the Isthmia. Work made me more like myself; when the games were over, I stayed with old friends awhile, and went back to Athens resolved to get my life in order.

Theodoros exclaimed that I was getting dreadfully thin, and gave a party for me at which he produced all the handsome youths he could think of who were free just then. Though they went as free as they came, I was grateful for the kindly thought, and sorry to disappoint him by leaving with Speusippos. But he had let me know he had things to tell me, which would not do in a crowd.

As soon as we were alone, but for his linkboy walking ahead, I asked his news. He said, “The Academy’s by the ears. No one knows how it will end. Dionysios has written again for Plato.”

“Does it matter? He wrote last year, and Plato told him to go and play with it, or whatever philosophers say instead.” I was still rather drunk.

Speusippos, who had sobered quickly, said, “I think this time he may have to go.”

“What? You mean Dion’s exile is rescinded?” Lately my mind had often turned to him. He was the man, after my father, who had taught me honor. Perhaps, I thought, it was he who had pointed out my way.

“No,” said Speusippos, and closed his mouth.

“But that was Plato’s condition. So he can stay at home.”

“It is not so simple.” He looked like a man with warring thoughts. “To begin with, Dionysios has turned back to philosophy.”

“My dear Speusippos! It’s ten days to Syracuse with a good wind. By then he will have turned on his other side.”

“No, he’s had a year at it, really studying. He’s been writing to Plato and even making sense. So Plato has answered, and at a good deal of trouble too. The mind is there; it’s character makes it balk like a half-broken horse. That’s what teases Plato—the thought that if the beast could be trained, he’d run.”

“Well, but since he got so frisky on the rein, he may study better alone.”

“So it began to seem. But it was you, I think, who said he always wants to be crowned before the race?”

“Don’t tell me,” I cried, “that he’s calling himself an Academician?” My laughter stopped when I saw Speusippos was not even smiling. Maybe, I thought, he had drunk himself sad, as some men do.

“That is the least of it. Being a special case, he’s got his hands on something no other student of Plato’s owns—a written scheme of his oral teaching.” He saw my surprise, and said patiently, “Plato believes in the spark that kindles mind from mind. If your brand won’t burn, you carry it back to the hearth again. But he had to send it to Dionysios, since he couldn’t come and his fire kept smoking. By now it amounts to a thesis, almost. So, instead of using in quiet such disciplines as make the mind’s eye to see, he invites a philosophic concourse, and poses as a finished product of the school.”

“Plato must be angry. But, surely, not angry enough to get him out to Syracuse?” There was a pause. “Who are these hangers-on?”

“Kyrenians, mostly, from the school of Aristippos. Like him, they equate the good with pleasure, but define their terms less carefully. And he himself wasn’t careful enough. He was Plato’s fellow guest with old Dionysios; unlike Plato, he did very well out of it.”

“Does the son deserve better company? Why can’t he leave Plato be? No, I can guess the answer. These are just rivals, flaunted to make the real love jealous. One could laugh, or cry.

“I wish it may end in laughter.”

The moon had set, and a watchdog howled in the dark. I thought of the cold bed at home. Whatever bad news he was holding back, I could do without it. But as one always does, I asked.

“Dionysios is resolved to get Plato there. Persuasion having failed, he turns, like every tyrant at the pinch, to power. His last letter invited Plato to confer with him on the settlement of Dion’s estates in Sicily. As I suppose you know, the income from them has reached him every year. If Plato goes, everything can be arranged to Dion’s liking. If not, not. In other words—confiscation.”

“So that’s it,” I said. “The wretched little blackmailer! He should know better the men he has to deal with.” Speusippos was silent. I thought, as we walked on, of Dion’s splendid progresses, how he had held court at Delphi, Delos, and Olympia, a beacon to every lover of justice. Of course spies must have brought word of all this to Syracuse, and one could picture Dionysios’ jealousy. The wonder was, I thought, that he had not sunk to this meanness sooner.

“Well,” I said presently, “it’s good that Dion has always lived like a philosopher. With what he has, he’ll be as well off I daresay as you or I. His wife and son can’t come to harm, being the Archon’s kin; and though he’ll miss his travels, at the Academy he’ll have all he truly values—Plato, his books, his friends.”

In the flickering torchlight, I saw Speusippos look at me, then look ahead. Still he said nothing.

“Don’t think I make light of it,” I said. “Of course it will come harder to a man of rank, especially a Syracusan. But we know the man, and his love of honor. The greater the sacrifice, the higher his tribute to friendship and philosophy. That’s how Dion will see it. Depend on it, he will never let Plato go.”

When still Speusippos did not answer, I began to be anxious, lest in some way I had offended him; but before I could ask him if this was so, he said drily, “You are mistaken. He has been urging it.”

I got him to repeat this. When one sees two moons in the sky, one assumes that it’s the wine, not that they are there. Having heard it again, I said, “Why? I don’t understand.”

“Ask a god why, who can read men’s souls.”

“But,” I said, laboring it over, “even before Dion’s exile, Syracuse was not safe for Plato. Philistos’ faction hated him; the soldiers openly wanted his blood. Then he was kept there all winter against his will; he was sick; and he was younger then. As it was, he lost a year of work, at an age when every year counts. How can Dion ask him to go back there?”

“We must be just,” said Speusippos, appealing to himself. “It is not simply the money. Dion hopes Plato will procure his recall.”

I asked, “Does Dion himself say this?”

“Certainly. He said it to me.”

“How can he hope so for a moment? Dionysios was ready to believe the worst of him without any cause but jealousy. And now, for years, all Greece has been praising the Great Exile, every word of it at Dionysios’ expense, every word a stab to his pride. He must detest the very name of Dion. Besides, they couldn’t dare have him back; he is the hero of all the democrats in Sicily. Dionysios does not even offer it to get Plato there, for which he would offer nearly anything. Can Dion dream he would be recalled?”

“It is man’s nature to believe what he greatly wishes.”

“That’s true. But is it the nature of philosophy?”

He stopped still in the street. The linkboy paused at the corner, missed us, and came running back to make sure we were still on our feet. Speusippos waved him on. “So, Niko, you were listening all the time. And back it comes, just when I run to you for comfort.”

“I am sorry,” I said. “What do I know of philosophy? All that sticks in my mind is that Plato is his friend.”

Speusippos said, “Yes, you have your own elenchos. I should have feared the logic of your heart.”

Now both of us were silent. We walked on through the dark, following the bobbing torch; presently we reached the turn of the road before my house, and the boy ran ahead to light my door. We lingered, both thinking, I suppose, that there must be something cheerful to part upon, if we could lay hold of it in time.

I said, “One thing I can’t believe is that Dion would do this only for the money. He has had all the luxuries of Syracuse at call, just for clapping his hands, and has gone without from choice. Look at his style of living.”

“I am sure he has no wish to change it. But there is one danger to a rich man in simple tastes: they enable him to be generous. Of course he has asked for no return; he would abhor the thought of buying sycophants. But, the world being what it is, there is a crowd about him—not all disinterested, I’m afraid. It has given him great consequence, without his having anything to be ashamed of. Now he is used to it. As you know, he has his pride.”

We had come to the house. For form’s sake I asked him in; he thanked me and said he must be at work early tomorrow. We dawdled towards the porch, still seeking the hopeful word.

“I can’t forget,” I said, “how nobly he used to speak of Plato, the first year of his exile. Of course, you were still in Syracuse … There is a book of Plato’s I read once—yes, truly, I read the whole of it. It was a supper party where they made speeches in praise of love. I daresay you know it?”

“Yes,” said Speusippos. “Yes, I have read The Symposion once or twice. I reread it yesterday.”

“I just meant that Plato has lived up to it.”

“I see. I misunderstood. I thought perhaps you knew for whom it was first written.”

Our eyes met. I exclaimed, “This must be a passing mood with Dion. Good actors have days when they can do nothing right; no doubt good men do, too. Now he knows how Plato feels, he will remember himself and think no more of such a thing. I daresay we are troubling ourselves over very little.”

Dawn was breaking. Birds sang in the willows, the same that had wakened me when the house was warm within. In the gray light, I saw Speusippos’ face creased like a monkey’s which has bitten a sour fig. He said, “I see I must tell you everything. As early as last year, Dion wanted Plato to accept the Archon’s invitation. Since he refused, nothing has been quite the same between them. Then, when this latest summons came, Dion called to discuss it, walked out in anger, and has not been near Plato since. Plato has written, I know. But there has been no answer.”

A cloud had caught the hidden sun, and glowed pink above us. Looking up to the High City, I saw the gilded ornaments on the temple roofs glitter in the first shafts of day. Before the house stood the lad with the torch waiting for leave to quench it. Something stirred in my memory; a shudder like a cold finger rippled up my backbone. I began to speak, and ceased.

“What?” asked Speusippos, roused from his thoughts.

“No, nothing,” I answered. “I forgot you missed the play.”