Glory and the Lightning (3 page)

“Who else is there but ourselves?” Thargelia asked. “Once I listened to the dissertations of a famous philosopher who was dexterous and wise enough to convince anyone that all is delusion, that we are all dreams except to the dreamer, that none exists but one’s self. How can we prove the existence of any other? How can we be certain that we are not entirely alone in a dream?”

The school engaged expert men and women who employed all the arts and perversions of love before the fascinated students. “There is more to such joys than mere copulation, which we share with the beasts,” Thargelia would admonish, “and has for its purpose gross reproduction. It is a hasty affair, such, and without delicacy or enhancement. While you must restrain your own selves from the utter pleasure, you must learn to give pleasure to the utmost, and if engaged in that pleasure yourselves you cannot be expert with a man, nor make him delirious with exotic sensations. Be voluptuous but never vulgar. Be abandoned daintily, but never with complete abandonment. A veil is more alluring than a naked body. Subtlety is more to be desired than shamelessness. A woman never must give all, not even in pretense, except for a moment or two.”

She trained the maidens never to express disgust or aversion, or even to feel either. “However,” she would say, “if you cannot control such revulsions completely invent epigrams or a poem while engaging in love with a man, or think of a lovelier way to dress your hair, or your money. So long as you are clever and proficient, and remember your lessons, the man will never guess your true feelings. Again, a woman must never fully surrender herself at any time. She must never listen to pleas, but only smile beckoningly, and promise.”

As she sat with her maidens this sunset she rejoiced in their beauty, and especially in Aspasia’s, for the promise of the maid’s childhood had not been false but in truth it had not fully prophesied. Aspasia was taller than the other girls, which had first made Thargelia apprehensive, and then she remembered the greeting recorded by Homer: “Daughter of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair!” Aspasia was certainly divinely fair, and Thargelia could not recall any of her earlier maidens who could compare with her, nor even her present companions. Amidst all that loveliness of black and brown and russet and fair locks, of brilliant eyes and rosy cheeks and white throats and young creamy bosoms, of dimples and curved red lips and alabaster chins and springlike bodies, Aspasia was a girlish Aphrodite among mere mortals. They diminished, for all their loveliness, in her presence, as bronze dims before gold, and they became, despite their choice and unusual grace and sensuous charms, mere milkmaids before a queen. They all wore the plain white peplos which announced their virginity, and with silver girdles of modest design, but the peplos became radiant upon Aspasia’s perfect body, hinting of sensuality and incomparable delights. There was a translucence about her flesh, so that strong sunlight seemed to strike through it, rendering it almost transparent in its tints of rose. Her golden hair was, as her mother had said, a web of light, floating in the slightest wind, and falling to her knees when it was unbound, a gilded cloak which she loved to gather about her after her bath. Thargelia, the pragmatic and the shrewd, felt poetic when she gazed at the girl’s countenance, the oval of the cheeks ending in a dimpled chin of tender roundness, and the whole head set upon a long slender neck as flexible as a serpent’s and as pale as milk. Her nose was of the classic Grecian shape, worshipped by sculptors, and her mouth, deep red and velvety soft, was without flaw, neither too generous nor too small, and when she smiled dimples twinkled about it, enchantingly. Her eyes were unusually large, set in fine pale violet shadows and surrounded by thick golden lashes, and were of an arresting color, like light brown wine and luminous.

All this, at the age of fourteen, and a virgin, was enough to drive men out of their senses, Thargelia would think with pleasure, but beautiful though Aspasia was her intellect surpassed it. Thargelia had sometimes regretfully observed that unusual beauty was sometimes accompanied by lesser intelligence, but this was not so with Aspasia. She was not only accomplished in music, and had a voice of strong sweetness and range and feeling, but she was a superb dancer whose movements were at once carnal and innocent. Her conversation was not by rote or mere memory from her teacher’s lessons, and sparkling and witty, but excelled in subtlety and intimations and a naughty impudence which aroused laughter even among the sullen and the most grave. She observed everything and her comments were inventive and full of perception, and often startlingly wise and deeply thoughtful. She outwitted her teachers in an exercise in rhetoric, and could declaim movingly on almost any subject, and she had a gaiety which aroused gaiety where sadness lived before. Thargelia feared that at times that there was a power not of the flesh but of the mind in Aspasia, and that Aspasia’s thoughts were not always feminine. Alluring beyond description though she was, and an ecstasy to the eye, her remarks were sometimes too sharp and pungent, too scornful of pretense. For this reason Aspasia’s teachers endeavored to teach her self-control more than they taught the other girls, and though she was acquiescent and listened carefully there would appear a shining and shifting glint in her eyes, humorously defiant.

This glint had been particularly present this warm and scented evening in the outdoor portico, as if something had aroused Aspasia’s latent bent for rebellion, and so Thargelia’s remarks had been pointed as she glanced frequently at the girl. Did not the maiden realize that she had the appearance of an empress and a mind which could command respect even from the most learned men, and that these gifts must never be threatened by overt contempt and hasty repudiations and an air of impatience? Men did not like forward women, and Aspasia, for all her charm and grace and beguiling ways, could be ruthless and forward, and could reveal her disdain for fools. Sometimes her beauteous eyes and wonderful face would glitter or darken with temper or resentment, and passion would leap over her features like lightning, not the passion of a sensual woman but the passion of an angry one or one who found the present conversation distasteful.

“You wished to speak, Aspasia?” asked Thargelia, seeing that the maiden’s countenance was changeful with seething thoughts.

“Yes, Lady,” said the girl at once, with a promptness more like a youth’s than a girl’s, and her entrancing voice was clear and forceful. “Am I not a woman, with flesh and blood and mind and emotions and opinions? Yet I am to suppress all these, make all these subservient, in the service of a man, who may be inferior to me despite his wealth and position! Am I to pretend that before him I am only a mere female, though lettered and excelling in learning and have the passions of a human creature who has observed much and thought even more? Yes, Lady, this you have taught me. I find myself in revolt against such a fate.”

Thargelia smiled faintly, though she was somewhat frightened. “Did we women make this world? Was it we who ordained that the female be subject to the male, even when he is less intelligent than ourselves, and coarser and more stupid? Nevertheless, we can rule men as no man can rule them, and enslave them at our will. We are a mystery to these grosser creatures and in our mystery lies our power. They both fear and adore us, for we are more subtle and far more clever and have the strength of earth in our flesh and in our spirits. We are unsurpassed at gentle and deliberate deceit, and we laugh in our hearts. The goddesses are swifter than the gods, and more wily, and you will observe that Athene and Aphrodite and Hera are revered by the gods as well as loved, and that they can strike terror even into the soul of Zeus, the king of them all. Let us cherish these thoughts, and think of our resplendent futures.”

She added, with a wider smile and an uplifted admonishing finger: “Who really rules gods and men? Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, the unashamed voluptuary. Even Athene, wiser than gods and goddesses, or Hera herself, is not worshipped with such total devotion, nor does she move worlds as does Aphrodite. The loins of the goddess of love are more powerful than the brow of Athene, and Aphrodite is not a virgin, and has breasts.”

The girls laughed happily and even the dissenting Aspasia was forced to smile.

Then Thargelia said, and she was suddenly serious, “What is it that you wish from this life, Aspasia?”

The girl shrugged and bent her head. “Something more than my intended fate, but what it is I do not know.”

Thargelia stood up and said, “Find it in the arms of a man, for there only will you find it and nowhere else.” When rebellion flashed in Aspasia’s eyes the older woman added, “For men have what we want, no matter what it is we want, and they can give it to us.”

Thargelia saw that Aspasia’s eyes welled and darkened and increased with thought, and she nodded with satisfaction.

The tutors for the maidens were usually erudite females, some of them former courtesans themselves, and learned, but Thargelia also employed male teachers who were of a respectable age and of no prepossessing appearance, for one must guard virgins.

A year ago the tutors had solemnly approached Thargelia, saying, “The maiden, Aspasia, is of an intricate mind, and excessively talented. She desires to know all things, and not superficially. Discourses on medicine, mathematics, and art engross her, and her questions are incisive and controversial, and she will not be satisfied with idle answers. In short, she will demand to know all that we know, and will not accept cursory instructions. She has the mind of a man, which may be unfortunate.”

“I have suspected this,” said Thargelia, not without pride. “But what human brain can contain all knowledge? Still, if one is talented one is gifted freely by the gods, who pour down upon the chosen one a full lavishness of mental treasures, just as when a beautiful woman is created she is perfection in all ways. Truly, Aspasia is formidable in talent as well as in loveliness. She wishes to encompass all things. But in what is she most proficient?”

An elderly sage said, stroking his gray beard, “She is fascinated with Solon, the founder of democracy, and all his laws.” He hesitated and then continued, “She wishes to know why Greece does not follow the laws of Solon, as laid down over a hundred years ago. We have explained that the Athenians were too capricious and too inconstant a people to demand that their rulers obey an unchangeable Constitution, for they suspected what they considered inflexibility, even in perfect laws.”

“Our Aspasia, then, is a politician as well as an artist and a mathematician,” said Thargelia, smiling.

“Lady,” said a woman tutor, “is it not our custom to discover the talent of each maiden, and train her therein, that she may be the perfect companion of a man of that bent and occupation?”

“True,” said Thargelia. “But our Aspasia is protean, and her talents are equally enormous. She has myriad eyes, all developed. Would you say, then, that she is most proficient in politics, mathematics, art, science?”

“She is also engrossed with medicine,” said the physician, “and is most dexterous and inventive in potions. She is constantly in the infirmia and often I conjecture if Apollo was not her father.”

Thargelia laughed. “I am assured that that is not so. But it is a pretty concept, for does she not shine like the sun? What a maiden this is! Only a mighty Persian satrap would be worthy of her. Do not discourage her. Answer her deeply and with candor, respecting her intelligence. She was born in Miletus, and not in Greece, where women and their intelligence are despised. It is true that we are now under Grecian dominance but she is a daughter of Asia Minor.”

She smiled at the uneasy tutors. “The gods must indeed be her guardians, for had she been born in Greece she would have been confined to the gynaikeia (women’s quarters) and would have been forbidden the meanest learning. Give to Aspasia all that is in your power, and do not fear that you will fatigue her. The mind has no boundaries.”

She contemplated the price that Aspasia would bring, but still she was as proud as if she, herself, had been Aspasia’s mother. The damsel was a prodigious gem, deserving of polishing and of a setting that would reveal all her colors and her glory. A jewel like this, and a virgin in addition, was worthy of even more than a Persian satrap. An emperor was more to be desired. Still, the Persians were very rich and powerful and, it must be admitted, somewhat more subtle than the Greeks, even the antic Athenians with their philosophers. They had an ancient and cynical wisdom, incomprehensible to the westerners. They were less muscular and direct, though they were terrible warriors when aroused. Thargelia was fascinated by mankind in all its manifestations. Man was created by the gods either in a fit of utter madness or they were commanded by something superior even to themselves. That was a subject for philosophers who pretended to understand the nature of man and were as ignorant as the lowest peasant. Thargelia considered one of the superstitions of the Greeks: the Unknown God, Whose altar was still bare, but Whom they reverenced. Did not the Persians hint of Him also? Thargelia shrugged. Men pursued the gods, but women pursued life, and perhaps they were the same. But it was a woman’s womb which produced both gods and men, and therein lay women’s power and their wisdom. Zeus was the king of gods and men, but Zeus was ruled by his wife, Hera, and he lived in terror of her. Thargelia laughed. It was a great comedy. It was no wonder that men were afraid of women, both gods and men. Women had a mysterious power. They could raise men to Parnassus or deliver them to Hades.

The teacher of science said to Aspasia, “There is no verity except when an experiment can be repeated time after time with the same result, with no deviations. That is reality, and reality is all we can know.”

“What is reality?” asked Aspasia.

“Reality,” said the teacher, “is what can be proved, can be discerned by our five senses, and can be, as I have said, repeated over and over at all times in the same experiment. All else is metaphysics and conjecture and fable and the dreams of madmen, and drunken poets.”