Glory and the Lightning (69 page)

Polites said, “Who made this dossier?”

“It is not pertinent. In mercy, I do not advise you to challenge it. If you do, other accusations will be brought against you—I promise—and this time you would not escape justice as you escaped it before.”

Almost beside himself, Polites quickly named several men who were his enemies, execrating them, but the name of Pericles was not among them, a fact which made the old face of the King Archon ironic. He merely kept shaking his head, and repeating, “I shall not tell you.” He dismissed Polites, who left him with an almost staggering gait, and he then summoned each of the other three in turn.

In every case guilt appeared on their countenances though they protested their innocence, even vowing the most sacred of oaths, that of Castor and Pollux. The King Archon closed his eyes in weariness and lifted his hand. “Let that oath not condemn you before the gods,” he said. “If you wish to withdraw it, do so now.”

After some hesitation the oath was withdrawn and the King Archon, who had prayed that at least one of the men had been falsely accused, was sickened. They had always declared their deep love for Pericles; they were his comrades in arms. They had voted with him almost invariably. Men of family, and proud of their city, they had approved of the Parthenon and other costly temples on the acropolis. They had frequently dined, and with pleasure and accord, with Pericles, and he had visited their own houses often. Two were of his own tribe. Why, then, had they attempted to kill his son and cast him into sorrow and misery? Malice and envy, the ancient human crimes, the old Archon thought. A man, even the best of friends, will forgive anything but that a friend rise above him and attain fame. Pericles had understood that, and the King Archon reflected on Pericles’ own sorrow that his friends had betrayed him, had tried to plunge his heart into grief, and by no justification except that he had proved himself their natural superior. We are a wicked and incorrigible race, thought the old Archon, and why the gods endure us is a great mystery.

He contemplated the paradox of love and hatred lodging simultaneously in the minds of these men. They loved Pericles; they also hated him. Had he fought on the battlefield with them they would have given their lives for him, as heroes. But when it was a matter of public acclaim and power, they would destroy him, not as their friend, Pericles, but as the symbol of their jealousy. Their love for him had kept them from murdering him, themselves. Their hatred had chosen a lesser object but whose loss would devastate Pericles. Over and over the King Archon shook his head, sad but with wonder. As their friend, with whom they were in entire agreement in matters of policy, they would preserve Pericles’ life with diligence. As his enemies, they would rejoice in his suffering. They would even regard it as retribution. The manifold intricacies of the human soul! the old Archon thought. Not even Penelope could unravel the threads and the designs of a single human mind. The pattern of that most diligent weaver could never encompass the spirit of a man, and portray it.

The King Archon, even more discreet than Pericles himself, did not send word of the results of his accusations to the Head of State. The news would reach Pericles soon enough. One man had said he would leave Athens soon to manage his estates in Cyprus; another claimed the air of Athens had injured his lungs—he must flee for his health’s sake; another had said he was weary of public office, and would retire to the country; still another said his beloved wife wished to be with her family in Cos. Not one hinted that his absence was exile, forced upon him under threat. The King Archon, hearing all this, was deeply depressed, knowing now, beyond all doubt, that they were guilty.

Each of the four men went, weeping, to Pericles, to announce his imminent departure from Athens. They confided to him that they had been forced into exile because of false accusations, “which would endanger the State, if I challenged them.” Pericles, who had trained himself, as a politician, to be somewhat of an actor, against all his principles, said in apparent wonder and concern, “But, if you are innocent, why not seek to prove it?” Their silence, their dolorous sighs, filled him with hate and he could scarce restrain himself. “Let me help you,” he said, and none heard the iron under his words. They replied, “It would imperil you, yourself, dearest of friends.” He heard sincerity in their voices, and marvelled. They truly meant it. Pericles, and now with sour humor, suspected that the King Archon had never mentioned his name.

He almost pitied them, and he especially pitied Polites who had been a valiant lieutenant under Pericles’ command, and who had proved his loyalty and love under dire circumstances. But Pericles had only to look at the sunken right eye of his handsome son, Paralus, to feel the return of his furious hatred. Paralus said to him, “I live. I can see, if only in a flattened state. I am fortunate to be alive, and to have some sight. For a time my other eye was threatened, but Helena saved both my life and my vision. Alas, though, I shall never be a soldier as you were, my father.”

“Nor will you have comrades-in-arms,” said Pericles, and Paralus, who thought he knew his father better than did even Aspasia, was puzzled at the profound bitterness in his father’s voice, and the look of terrible anger. When he said those words he would turn away from his son and stare blindly into space.

Xanthippus, the acute, said to his brother, “Our father knows something we do not know, and never will he tell us.” But Paralus shook his head. “There is nothing to know. My attackers will never be found.”

Xanthippus, now healed, proclaimed his discontent that he would have to serve his two years in the army. He did this to spare Paralus, who longed to be a soldier, and Paralus said, soothingly, “The time will pass soon, and I will think of you as taking my place, for you must have the strength of two men.” His brother was now espoused to the young girl whom he had met in Aspasia’s house, and the marriage would take place soon. Xanthippus was very happy. He sighed, and said, “I would prefer not to marry, but it is my duty. I am like a virgin heifer led to sacrifice.” His dark face beamed.

Helena informed Pericles that the time for the birth of his child had arrived. He insisted, against her advice, in being in that remote farmhouse with Aspasia, and so she left one morning alone, except for two young physicians who would aid her, and he, Pericles, left the next day. He took with him only Iphis and a subaltern who was devoted to Iphis, for it was not his wish that he attract attention. The farm, though secluded, was but a four-hour journey on horseback. The roads were very poor, the Athenians declaring that good roads were not necessary outside the city. “We do not travel,” they said, grandly, “for where is there a spot more beautiful and important or renowned than Athens? If we wish to see the world and engage in commerce with other nations, the sea is our road.” So a land journey that should, on horseback, have taken but an hour or so took far more than that, over cattle paths, and over deer trails climbing hills and sometimes wandering into thickets of thistles and choked forests. The spring sun was hot and burning, ablaze with incandescent blue skies and clouds of silver dust catching the light. The little poppy grew on field and hill, a thrown carpet of vivid scarlet, moving gently with the wind. The brown and withered shards of the palm trees were falling, and new fronds were appearing, brilliantly green, and flowering, and the sycamores stood in a haze of emerald and the blossoms of the myrtle were a shower of soft purple and the fruit trees had burst into fountains of pink and white in the orchards. Little goats and new lambs romped innocently and unafraid in the brightening meadows, and young colts ran to the sides of the deplorable roads and raced with the horsemen, tossing their delicate manes and neighing. The olive trees were burnished with a fresh silver, and corn was thrusting moist green tips out of the earth and into the sun. Children played outside of the small square and white cubes of their houses, and the grapevines which grew up the sides of the houses were exploding with new tendrils, the garlands of Dionysius. The red mud ran with mercurial brooks, reflecting the sky. The ponds teemed with fish, and so did the rivers.

It is a goodly season in which to be born, thought Pericles, whose fair skin had begun to smart with the heat and the sun. It is a promise. He hoped for another son, but even a daughter would be welcome, a daughter who resembled Aspasia. Now he had reached his own fields and meadows and he knew the pride of owning land and thought that every man should possess a little measure of it for the sake of his nature. No man should be landless, as so many of the urban Athenians were. As Socrates had said, small villages and the land bred noble men, but cities bred effete creatures, criminals and merchants, and, alas, necessary commerce. But a man should have a retreat from that which was artificial and fevered and vehement so that he could contemplate his soul in silence and sunlight and moonlight and not be distracted by the claims and uproar of the cities. “Who looks at the stars in the city?” Socrates had asked Pericles. “In the country, at night, there is nowhere else to look, and awe comes to man and he knows his littleness and feels an inclination to worship that which is greater than he. In the understanding of his smallness and insignificance comes wisdom and clarity of thought.”

Peace, now known so seldom by Pericles, came to him. He saw his white farmhouse in the distance, surrounded by cypresses and sycamores; he saw his olive groves and his sheep and lambs and goats and cattle and horses, and he felt more pride than when he addressed the Assembly, which rose in a rustle of garments at his entry, and bowed before him. He could even forget hatred here and the hot sickness that often assailed him. Above all, politicians needed a retreat where they could observe their unimportance, and feel, however vaguely, the Presence of God, not the dutiful gesture to the Godhead which was expected of them in public, but the immanent Presence which touched the heart and the spirit with verity, and only in solitude.

Aspasia, with Helena at her side, greeted Pericles joyfully. He embraced her with hunger and delight, careful of her swollen body. Her face shone like the moon; never had he seen her so beautiful, so young, so radiant. She took his hand and kissed it, and pressed it to her breast. She gazed at him adoringly. She was in transports. She threw back her pale golden hair and laughed, and there were tears in her brown eyes. She even babbled incoherently, and never had he heard this before, and he held her again as one more precious to him than his own life. Helena watched them with indulgent affection and humor. One was a trained and experienced courtesan; the other was the most powerful man in Greece. Yet they were as bride and groom, awaiting their first child, parents as simple as peasants, and as innocent and unknown.

The food of the farm was theirs, as the three dined together: new cheese, dark rich bread, little carrots and lettuce drenched with oil and vinegar, young roasted lamb, broiled fresh fish from the river nearby, fowl fried in olive oil and tender as butter, soup of green peas with pork—and, always, the wine from his autumn hillsides. The food had a taste not to be found in cities, though it was coarse and had no pungent sauces. It was like life, itself, fragrant and satisfying and poignant, yet hearty. Pericles thought, It is well I sent her here where life is, and health, and simplicity. He could even forget that he was Head of State in this tranquil and pellucid spot, and he felt like a robust peasant who had worked with his brown hands in the earth and had produced this warm bounty. He looked at the bowl of poppies and apple blossoms on the bare wooden table, and at the last sunlight illuminating everything with rosy gold, and he heard the sweet silence about him, and forgot he was a politician. He was a country man, under his white roof. A nightingale began to sing, and in the zenith Jupiter rode in sparkling majesty. A horse neighed; cows passing into paddocks let their bells tinkle. A melancholy dulcitude came to Pericles. He had removed his helmet. In his brown tunic he was only a farmer, but he had his land and that made him a king. I should come here more often, he thought, to escape the hot breaths of men and their shrill exigencies.

He was accustomed to talk politics and affairs of State with Aspasia. Now with ease he spoke as a countryman, of crops and orchards and farm animals and weather, and she smiled at him like a farm wife glad to have her husband home from the fields and partaking of the fruits of his own land. Contentment welled between them, and peace. Helena’s firm cheeks were reddened; Aspasia’s face bloomed like a flower, vermillion and white. She told Pericles she had picked the vegetables herself, and the blossoms. She showed him her lovely hands with pride, because the pink nails held the honest earth which she had been unable to remove. When Pericles had poured the libation to the gods her eyes had glittered with reverent tears. “God is close to us on His land,” she said. “It is hard to discern Him in the city.”

“He is drowned out in the voices of men,” said Helena, the skeptic. “Pheidias tells me he has to retire to his garden in order to evoke majesty, and to think, and see glory. He cannot do that in the Agora. Philosophy, it is apparent, and the arts, grow with the pace of turnips in the field.” She laughed. They looked at her affectionately, their hands clasped together.

Later, they retired to their rough chamber, where the walls were of unpolished wood, and pale gold. The floor was of stone; it was covered by no carpets, and was cool to the foot. The blankets were coarse, the linen prickling, and it was not bleached. Pericles held Aspasia in his arms; he would put his hand on her belly, to feel the kicking of his child. It was as if he had no other wife, no other children. The uncurtained windows were bare and open and they could smell the carnal passion of the warming earth and could hear nothing but the nightingales, the shrilling of insect voices and the night wind. Pericles had blown out the lamp. Stars gazed through the windows.

Aspasia slept, her head on his shoulder, her hands entwined with his, her round limbs seeking him, her breasts full and warm and preparing milk. Her hair was fragrant with the aroma of grass and sun. Her shift was of linen, and simple. She wore no scent. He felt her soft silken hair against his chin, and he kissed it. She sighed happily in her sleep, and murmured like a maiden awakened to love. Athens became unreal to him; his problems and his distresses were of no significance. He held the whole world in his arms, the world of life and labor and veritable joy. A dog barked sleepily; a cow lowed in the barns. A horse stamped. The only discordant note was the voice of a guard speaking to another guard. The wedge of the rising moon peered in the window. Pericles slept.