The Last of the Wine (12 page)

I knew his modesty; but having resolved to deal with Polymedes at once, I did not feel eager to spend the rest of the morning being improved by Protagoras or some other venerable Sophist; so I assured Sokrates that he himself had done me as much good as anyone could, except a god. “Oh?” he said. “Yet I believe you don’t consider me infallible; I noticed just now that you thought more of Pistias’ opinion than of mine.”—“Only about armour, Sokrates. Pistias is an armourer, after all.”—“Just so. Wait, then, while I fetch my friend. He is usually wrestling here about this time.”—“Wrestling?” I said staring; Protagoras was reckoned to be at least eighty years old. “Who is this friend, Sokrates? I thought …”—“Wait in the garden,” he said; and then just as he was turning to go, “We will try Lysis, son of Demokrates.”

I believe that I gasped aloud, as if he had emptied a water-jar over me. Without regard for my manners, I caught him by the mantle, and held him back. “Sokrates, I beg of you. What do you mean? Lysis hardly knows me. He will be exercising, or talking to his friends. Do not disturb him for such a trifle. He will be annoyed, and disgusted; he will simply think me a fool not to have managed for myself. I should never be able to look him in the face again.”

“Why, what is this?” he said, his eyes standing forth in his head so that I was half afraid he was really angry. “If a man is too prejudiced to take an informed opinion, what can be done for him? We are wasting the day in trifling; I really must get on.”—“Sokrates! Pray come back, I ask it in kindness. I ought to have told you before: Lysis dislikes me, and goes out of his way to avoid me. Haven’t you noticed how …” But I had forgotten to keep hold of him, and found myself talking to the air.

I saw him go through to the inner court, and vanish under the colonnade. For a moment I was tempted to run away; but I knew I could not forgive myself after, if I treated him with disrespect. So I waited, in the little walled garden where the well is for drinking, standing under the plane-tree that grows just inside the gate. A few old men, athletes of Perikles’ day, were sitting in the shelter of the eaves; nearer, around the stone benches in the centre which are usually left for them, some of the crowned victors were resting, sitting upon the seats if they were dressed, or stretched on the grass to sun themselves after the bath; for though late in autumn the day was quite warm. My own presence there was something of an impertinence; I wished Sokrates would make haste, and then again I wanted him to delay.

After quite a short time I saw him returning, speaking over his shoulder to someone behind. I knew Lysis while he was still in the dark shadow, by his height, and the way he held his head. Having been bathing or scraping-down he had come out as he was, with his towel hanging on his left shoulder. Just inside the porch he stood still for some moments, as if in thought, looking before him. I said to myself, “He has seen who it is that Sokrates has brought, and is displeased, as I expected.” But presently he walked forward. Autolykos, who was lying on the grass, called out something to him, and he turned to answer; but he did not pause, and came up to me leaving Sokrates outdistanced. I saw that his right shoulder, which one always leaves to the last in cleaning-off, still had dust and oil on it. He was at this time about twenty-five years old.

He stood looking down at me, without saying anything, and I looked up silently at him. I knew I ought to speak first, and apologise for troubling him; but an ox seemed to be treading down my tongue. Then Sokrates caught him up, saying cheerfully, “Well, Alexias, I have told Lysis about your difficulty.” Just as I was going to speak Lysis said, “Yes. Anything I can do …” He did not go on, and I sought for something to say before he lost patience with me. “I am sorry, Lysis, for troubling you, when you were with your friends.”—“Not at all,” he said.—“If you would rather see me some other time …?”—“No,” he said, and smiled at me suddenly. “Sokrates thinks this is the proper time. Come, let us sit down.”

He went over to the stone coping round the well, and threw his towel over it to sit on. When he invited me to be seated too, I looked round for Sokrates, expecting him to share our conversation. But I could not see him anywhere. So I sat down on the grass.

“Well,” Lysis said, “so Polymedes is still giving trouble? He has staying-power at least.” I thought the talk in the City must have exceeded my fears, for even Lysis to have heard it. “Indeed, Lysis,” I said, “he never had anything to stay for. But now it seems that either I must speak to him, and give him the public scene he wants, or get him turned off by the slaves.”—“No, by Herakles,” he said, “that wouldn’t do; it would get everyone on his side. Extremes people would think disgusting in a man mourning his father, or his only son, get tolerated in cases like this, as if …” He broke off frowning, then looked up and said, “But if I insult the power of the god, he will make me suffer for it.” He smiled at me, looking into my eyes. I thought, “He is trying to put me at ease, as he did once before; it could be nothing else.” I looked down, and pulled at a piece of grass, too shy to return his smile or to answer at all. His feet, which I found myself looking at, were big but very well-shaped, and as strongly arched as a runner’s.

Becoming serious, he said, “No, Alexias, this is a matter that a friend should take up for you. Have you someone in mind to ask?” And he looked attentively at my face. Raising my head I replied, “Well, I did think of Xenophon. He usually has a plan of some sort. But he would never let me hear the last of it.”—“Xenophon?” he said, frowning this time much more deeply; “whose son is that?” When I told him, he said, “I see,” and looked less severe, so that I almost thought he was going to laugh. “I don’t think we need trouble Xenophon for this. Polymedes is a man in years, if in nothing else. If you are willing, I will see to it for you, shall I? And to anything else of the kind that turns up, if you want me to. Now, or at any time.”

I could scarcely find words to thank him with, but managed to say something. He answered, “Good; then if we go now, with luck we shall have him out of the way before your uncle calls. Wait while I get my clothes; I will be back directly.”

While I was waiting, one or two of the men who had been cooling-off came over to get a drink. I drew up the water for them, and they thanked me very civilly. No one made advances to me, or asked why I was there. I thought, “Perhaps they suppose that Lysis invited me in.” Just then he came back bathed and dressed and said, “Let us go.” I remembered he had been wrestling, and said, “Shall I draw you some water first, Lysis? I expect you are cool enough to drink now?”

He paused by the well and said laughing, “Do you think I need to wash the dust out of my mouth? You should give water to Ephisthenes, whom I wrestled with.” Then seeing me look uncertain, he said, “But you are right, I am rather thirsty. Thank you.” So I drew water, and filled with the dipper the bronze cup that stood there, and gave it to him, putting my hand under it and offering him the handles, as I had been taught in serving wine. He stood for a moment with the cup in his hands, then held it up and poured a libation before he drank. When he offered it to me to drink from, wishing to omit nothing that was proper I did the same. He began to speak, but paused again. “Come, then,” he said, and we went out into the streets.

As we walked he said to me. “Don’t have Polymedes too much on your mind, even if one or two people do turn out to have seen him. It will all be forgotten in a week. Anything he has the wit to think of, you may be sure has been done before. I once heard of a man …” His tale was so comical that shy as I was of him, I could not help laughing. I almost asked the name of the youth, till I remembered how he himself must have been run after, even before he left school.

As soon as we turned the corner of our street, I saw that Polymedes was still there. I advanced reluctantly; I felt sure that as soon as he saw he had an audience, he would fall to his sighing and groaning again, or sing one of his bad poems; for his lyre was beside him on the steps. “I’m afraid, Lysis …” I began; but Polymedes must have heard my voice, for he turned his head. Instead of behaving as I had expected, he leaped to his feet as if a scorpion had bitten him, and without greeting me or even looking at me, shouted in a passion of anger, “No, by the Mother, this is too much! You could teach a Cretan to cheat, Lysis, and a Spartan to steal! Do you think I shall lie down under your insolence?” Lysis looked him over, and without raising his voice answered that he had lain down long enough already, and had indeed obliged everyone by getting up.

But Polymedes called out louder than ever, “A blind man could have seen what you were at! Oh, yes, I had my eye on you when you thought me far away. I have seen you looking, standing apart with that insufferable pride of yours, which the gods will take down, if there are any gods. You would not have deceived a child, let alone a lover. So this is what you were after, is it? Waiting like a horse-thief by the paddock while a better man breaks in the colt, then slipping through in the dark to steal him when the trainer sleeps.” Lysis made no answer to all this. I could not tell if he was angry. As for me, I was so overcome with shame at hearing such language used to him, that I should have liked to hide myself. He did not move, but stood gravely watching Polymedes; who, now that he was up, looked uncertainly about him. I thought, “I suppose he is wondering whether it will look well to be down immediately on the steps again. But if he stands, he must pick up his lyre.”

Turning my head, I saw the corner of Lysis’ mouth move; and suddenly laughter clutched at my belly. Yet I hardened my body to smother it, though an hour ago I should have been glad to laugh. I suppose I knew already, though still not daring to presume on what I knew, that the gods had a precious gift for me, and that it would be base to insult a poorer man. Lysis too had quenched his laughter. But we could not keep from catching each other’s eye. Polymedes looked from one to the other of us, hitching his mantle at the shoulder as if it were his dignity he was trying to gather up; then suddenly turned his back and went off down the street, leaving his lyre where it was upon the steps.

Lysis and I looked after him with serious faces. The lyre seemed to both of us like the sword a dead man leaves on the field. Perhaps we should have known that open laughter would be less cruel to him than our pity. But we were young.

N
EXT DAY WE HAD
great trouble in meeting; for Lysis had not asked me to fix any time or place, not wishing, as he told me later, to seem like a man who does a small service and asks at once for a return. So he and I spent half the morning wandering about in different places; and no one knew enough yet to say, “Lysis was here just now, looking for you, and went that way.” But at last, when I had given up hope of him, and had gone to exercise, as I turned the post of the running-track I saw him watching at the other end. It was as if a great wind blew at my back and my heels grew wings. I scarcely knew that I touched the ground, and I finished so far ahead of the rest that everyone cheered me. I heard Lysis’ voice; and being breathless already, from running and from suddenly seeing him, now I felt as if my heart would burst my breast, and saw black in the sky. But it passed and I was able to speak when he greeted me.

When I was dressed we walked into the streets together. He asked if it was true my grandfather had been a runner, and we talked about that, and about our parents, and such things. Presently I recognised across the street his brother-in-law Menexenos; who, when he saw us, lifted his brows, smiled broadly, and made to cross over. I saw Lysis shake his head at him; at which he raised his hand in greeting and passed on. Though Lysis quickly took up the conversation, I saw he had gone a little red. It had not come into my mind till then that he could possibly feel shyness too. We went walking from one street to another, pausing sometimes to watch, or seem to watch, a potter or a goldsmith working. At last he stopped and said, “But where were you going, Alexias?”—“I don’t know, Lysis,” I said. “I thought you were going somewhere.” At this we both laughed. He said, “Shall we walk to the Academy, then?” So we went there, talking all the way, for we were not yet easy enough to be silent together.

On a grassy slope by the Kephissos, we sat down under a willow tree. The water smelled as it does in autumn, of black leaves. We had come to the end of our words, and waited for an omen, or I know not what. Just then I saw coming through the yellow poplars Charmides with a couple of friends. His salute we both returned; my heart sank when I saw him still approaching, for though he had always behaved like a gentleman, one cannot count on people at such times. Here I flattered myself absurdly; it must have been seldom he had less than two love-affairs on hand, to say nothing of women. At all events he came up smiling, and said in the pleasantest way, “This is too bad of you, Lysis; you are like the horse they bring in from the country after the bets are laid. Have you held off so long just for the pleasure of seeing all the rest of us make fools of ourselves? I don’t know how long it is now since I was doing my homage along with the other victims, and getting as usual only, ‘Thank you, Charmides, for your verses; I am sure they are excellent, if I were any judge of such things,’ when you passed along the colonnade without, it seemed, even looking over your shoulder. I don’t think Alexias stood watching you for more than a moment; but I, being one not quite blind to the signals of Eros, said to myself at once, ‘There goes the winner, if he would only enter the race.’”

This was worse than Polymedes; I went hot and cold; but Lysis answered smiling with hardly a pause, “I see it’s I, Charmides, who you want to watch making a fool of myself. Thanks for the invitation, but the tumbler begs to be excused. Tell me, while we are talking of horses, is your black going to win next week or not?”

Although Charmides had behaved better than I had thought was in him, he had left me dreading his departure more than I had his approach. He left with his friends almost immediately after. I picked up a handful of little stones, and began skimming them at the water. I can still remember their colours and shapes. “They won’t go far,” Lysis said, “this bank is too high.”—“I usually get them further.”—“I expect,” he said, “Menexenos is talking by this time, too.” I threw another stone, which went straight to the bottom. “Well,” he said, “we know now what they are saying. If it were displeasing to either of us, I think we should not be here together as we are. Or am I only speaking for myself?” I shook my head; then, taking courage from him, turned to him and said, “No.” He was silent for a moment; then he said, “As the gods hear me, Alexias, your good shall be mine, and your honour shall be like my own to me; and I will stand to it with my life.” I felt more than myself, and answered, “Don’t be afraid, Lysis, that while you are my friend I shall ever come to dishonour; for rather than be a shame to you I will die.” He put his right hand on mine and his left about my shoulders and said, “May it never be less than this with us.” With these words we kissed. The sun was sinking, and the shadows of the poplars were longer than the trees. After talking a little longer, we walked back to the City.