Glory and the Lightning

by Taylor Caldwell

  Still, she consoled herself with the thought that Pericles might listen to wise counsel for the sake of his sons if not for her sake. There was also his mother, who would be in deadly peril.

  Dejanira paused, the glittering and jeweled mirror in her hand, and stared into space. Agariste. Much as she disliked the older woman and much as she had tried to relegate her to an inferior position, Agariste, at the last, might be a formidable ally. Waddling fast and ponderously, she went to Agariste’s quarters.

  Agariste had not surrendered her own exquisite and tasteful rooms to the new mistress of the house. After dining at night she would retire to her chamber and go to bed, for she was increasingly infirm and physicians spoke of her heart. She could not forget her husband, Xanthippus, and found him enlarging in stature and virtues through the years. She often accused herself of stupidity in not understanding him, and her pride, for upbraiding him. He had loved her even if he had disliked her. He had seen her at a distance and so theirs had not been an arranged marriage in the true meaning of the word. He had, himself, gone to her father and beseeched him to consent to the marriage, declaring his love. In his way he had honored her for several years and had not resorted to a hetaira or any other woman. It was I who drove him from me, she would say in the sleepless midnights, with my presumptions and my vanity. I was too insistent that he admire me for my intelligence. I did not know until after he died that he did so admire me for it, even if he never confessed that to me.

  It came to her, sadly, that one never gained wisdom until it was too late. The gods were malign.

  She very seldom slept deeply but only drowsed, to awaken to gaspings for breath and a piercing pain in her heart. She had fallen into a sick doze when a slave entered her chamber softly and said, “Lady, the Lady Dejanira would speak to you for a moment on a matter of the most extreme importance.”

  Agariste, blinking in the soft light of the lamps, forced herself to sit upright. Her breath was loud and struggling in the fine chamber. A warm night wind scented with roses blew into the room through the open window. She stared at the slave. What would Dejanira have with her, she who had never entered these rooms and had never been invited? The two women avoided each other as much as possible. Dejanira had never asked her advice except on a few occasions. Whenever they did speak together Dejanira would gaze at Agariste with sullen resentment and, as always, would try to impose her authority as mistress of the household on Agariste. She was invariably and coldly rejected by the older woman, but still she persisted in her stubborn way. Only yesterday they had had a quarrel, Agariste disdainful and aloof, Dejanira stammering with surly anger and insistence. At last Agariste had said, “You may be the daughter of my brother, the Archon, but to me you have the manners of a kitchen wench, and an insolent one. Your father is my brother, and so is descended from a noble house, but your mother is as vulgar as you and had only money to distinguish herself. She has taught you well and you are as insufferable as she.” Dejanira had heavily stamped away, muttering and helpless.

  Agariste said to the slave woman, “The Lady Dejanira wishes to speak to me? Is one of my grandsons ill?” She pushed herself even higher on the bed and was frightened, for her son’s children were very dear to her.

  “I do not know, Lady,” said the slave woman. “But the Lady Dejanira implores you to receive and listen to her.”

  Only a great emergency could have driven Dejanira to her, and Agariste sipped at the cup of medicine at her bedside, and trembled inwardly as she awaited the coming of her daughter-in-law. She pulled her shift more easily over her still beautiful breasts, but her face was haggard and lined with pain and very white, and her golden hair had long lost its lustre and was dull and streaked with gray. An agonizing pang shot through her heart and she gasped and leaned back on her cushions, and a cold sweat of apprehension and mortality bathed her whole body. It seemed to her that an icy wind swept through the warm chamber. Her colorless lips dried and she thought she tasted blood.

  Dejanira entered the chamber, sobbing. But she had the shallowness of mind of the stupid and was easily distracted by trifles even when in great distress. She glanced about her curiously while the tears ran down her fat cheeks. She almost forgot, at least for a moment or two, the mission which had brought her here, as her swollen black eyes darted disapprovingly about the room and noted the costly lemonwood tables with their delicate lamps of gold and Egyptian glass, and the Damascene brocades at the window, the chairs of ivory and ebony inlaid with enamels, the painted walls depicting Pan and fauns in woodland settings, the flowers in tall and graceful vases of inestimable value, the thick Persian rugs on the marble floor. The bed was not the plain bed of the usual Greek chamber, but opulent with silk, and wool of such fine weave that the coverings appeared woven of air and gossamer. There were many small marble statues about in niches, all of incomparable workmanship. There are several fortunes here, thought Dejanira, fortunes which should be invested in ships and cargoes and banks, and she was filled with vexation and umbrage. Then she sank, unasked, onto a fragile chair—which creaked ominously with her weight—and began to wail loudly.

  “In the name of the gods, tell me!” cried Agariste and turned even paler. Dejanira was stolid and without much emotion, so Agariste assumed that the news she brought was appalling. She wanted to strike that shapeless woman in her anxiety.

  Dejanira said, “We are ruined, we are destroyed, and all with us!” Her voice was hoarse and harsh and she rocked on her massive buttocks and her tears streamed. “Pericles has brought the Furies down upon us, and we are lost!”

  Agariste regarded her incredulously. Her impassive son, so remote and self-disciplined and laconic in speech except when addressing the Assembly, could hardly have been so impetuous and reckless as Dejanira indicated. She sank back on her cushions and said in a cold and peremptory voice, “Tell me.”

  It was almost impossible for Dejanira to tell a coherent story for her thoughts invariably flittered onto irrelevances. So Agariste was forced to strain her attention upon the flood of stammering words which poured from that thick wet mouth. Loud sobs interrupted the flow; Dejanira spoke of the honor of her parents, the delinquencies of the slaves in her husband’s house, the depredations of the cooks on the larder and the money, the fate of her sons, her threatened self, her father’s fear and offer, his importunities that she talk with Pericles, her general dissatisfaction with the ordering of the household, her fright, impending bankruptcy, her premonitions of disaster which had haunted her for many months, Pericles’ indiscretion and his mistresses, her unfortunate fate which marriage had brought upon her, the failure of Pericles’ last investment in ships to Egypt, her meekness and virtue under insufferable trials in this house, the lack of appreciation she received for all her scrupulousness and thrift, and sundry other things.

  Agariste wanted to scream. She reached out her thin hand and clutched Dejanira’s enormous wrist. “Tell me!” she almost shouted. “You fool! Can you not bring your feeble wits to order and enlighten me? What has all this to do with the disaster you spoke of?”

  The flood of meaningless complaints came to an abrupt halt, and Dejanira was outraged by her aunt’s voice and the fierce seizing of her wrist. She strove for dignity. “Have I not been telling you, Agariste?” she said. “But you will never listen to me! We are undone.”

  But Agariste’s eyes were quelling and enlarged, so Dejanira dropped her head and her moist face became sullen. She could hardly remember her father’s specific denunciations of Pericles, for she was always confused by rapid speech, which she could not follow. But Agariste, sitting stiffly upright on her bed, was finally able to grasp a little of what Daedalus had imparted to his daughter. At last she dropped the wrist she had been clutching and lay back on her pillows, panting. She stared at the gilded and painted ceiling for a long time after that whining and sniveling voice had ceased and broken sobs had replaced it.

  The lamplight, golden and soft, fluttered over the walls and the furniture and
a nightingale began to sing in the gardens in sad and poignant music. Agariste thought rapidly. Surely Pericles was not insensible to the peril and jeopardy into which he was hurling his family. He was not volatile or heedless. His emotions, however stirred, did not rush him into fatalities. His friendships were temperate if strong. Anaxagoras had taught him that; but he was innately prudent. Agariste was again incredulous, though she knew that Dejanira had so little imagination that it was impossible for her to be inventive, and exaggerate.

  She broke into Dejanira’s sobbing and said, “I can hardly believe this of my son. I will go with you to his chambers, for your slave woman has announced that he will see you.” She glanced at Dejanira contemptuously and rose with difficulty and threw a white toga over her nightdress. Her heart was painfully thumping but her countenance was composed. “Come,” she said, and led the way from her chamber, and Dejanira followed her like a servant, moaning over and over. Agariste walked like a goddess, proudly suppressing her pain, and thinking, and Dejanira trailed after her like an obese shadow, sniffling.

  Pericles was sitting in his library, but he was not reading. His face was closed and intent. He looked up at the two women and frowned, but he directed his attention at once on his mother. He saw her translucent pallor and requested her to seat herself, but he did not invite his wife to do likewise.

  “I was informed that only Dejanira wished to see me,” he said, but his tone was gentle towards his mother. “You are ill; why have you risen to visit me this night?”

  Agariste waved her hand in the direction of Dejanira but did not look at her. In a few concise words she repeated what Dejanira had told her, and the threats of Daedalus. She had an orderly mind and could speak shortly and clearly. As she did so she watched Pericles’ face. It had become impassive again, a marble mask which concealed his thoughts. When Agariste had stopped speaking he leaned back in his chair and was silent. His mother waited. Dejanira’s sobs and random exclamations filled the library. Her black hair was disheveled, for she had been running her fingers through it constantly in her distraught state. Her cheeks were blotched, her eyes and nose red. She mumbled over and over about bankruptcy, her father’s position as Archon, ruin, exile, confiscations of estates. But neither Pericles nor Agariste heeded her.

  Then Pericles said to his mother, “It is all true, that I must defend Ichthus, for he is a simple, just and good man, and he speaks the truth. He also, unfortunately, writes it, and broadcasts it.”

  “You understand the consequences if you fail, my son?”

  “I have weighed them. I shall not fail. I must only induce Ichthus to recant and plead for mercy, for he values my opinion and guidance. He is a man of fervor, but tractable. I have been thinking of all this for hours, and I have come to the conclusion that a brief ostracism will be his only punishment.”

  Pericles was not so confident as he appeared, but he wished to allay his mother’s fears and to soothe her.

  Agariste sighed with relief. Her son was the most powerful man in Athens. She thought of Xanthippus, who would defend a man and his principles, however he deplored them. But Xanthippus had been heedless on many occasions, while Pericles was never heedless. Nevertheless, father and son were both exemplary in public virtue and never failed to do their duty. Agariste sighed again, sorrowfully.

  Then Pericles turned to his wife for the first time and his face was even more impassive and hard. “I must inform you, Dejanira, that I am about to divorce you. You have made my house untenable and caused disorder and dissension in it. You must leave my house tomorrow and return to your father, taking your son, Callias, with you, but my own sons must remain.”

  Dejanira’s lumbering thoughts were stirred into disjointed confusion. She was also filled with despair. She broke into loud and hysterical weeping. She attempted to go to her husband but Agariste restrained her. The mother said to her son in a dispassionate voice, “This is for the best. We have been an unhappy household since your marriage, Pericles. Unhappiness is not to be suffered if it can be removed.”

  She stood up and took Dejanira firmly by the arm and forced the younger woman to look at her. “You will have observed that none of us is in danger, and it is all your father’s fevered imagination. Go to your quarters at once, there to prepare to leave this house in the morning.”

  Dejanira straggled with her briefly, while Pericles watched, then subsided. She burst out into a storm of denunciations, complaints, pleas, importunities, incongruous arguments. Pericles closed his eyes wearily. Sweating, Dejanira exuded an offensive smell and the fastidious Pericles drew in his nostrils, as did his mother hers.

  “Come,” said Agariste. But she pitied Dejanira who had been so brutally dismissed and rejected. “There is no use in crying this way. Tomorrow is time for reflection and decision.” Dejanira stared at her with bulging eyes, and licked away the moisture on her upper lip. She thought that Agariste was assuring her that she would not have to leave this house. Her breast heaved and she permitted Agariste to lead her away.

  She said to the silent woman as they walked through the halls, “I love Pericles. He is my life, my love. On our wedding night he called me his sweetness. I have never forgot it. He embraced me not only with passion but with joy.”

  Agariste raised her eyebrows, disbelieving. She was also surprised that Dejanira could love in this manner, and with such vehemence. Again, she pitied the younger woman and her touch on Dejanira’s arm was kind and comforting. Yet she knew that Pericles’ decisions were inexorable.

  CHAPTER 11

  Though Anaxagoras had told Pericles that a man who could not command his body and his emotions to his will was not a full man at all, Pericles found that he could not sleep that night. He had disciplined himself to make firm decisions and then act upon them with no regret and no wistful glances back over his shoulders. A strong decision, which later proved catastrophic, was far better than vacillation, which weakened a man. One was action, the other inaction; one was life, the other a dim death. Pericles had long before decided to divorce his wife. Still, he had not been insensible to her wild grief and protestations of love, and her lamentations. These had not shaken his decision; compassion was often cowardice, which one later regretted. Or, one became hostile and angered, knowing that he had succumbed to artful manipulation, and had been betrayed by maudlin deceit on the part of others.

  To him, the situation of Ichthus was far more grave. Unable to sleep, unable to reach a decision—he was innately a prudent man for all his resolution and character—he rose long before dawn and sent a message to the barracks that he would be leaving immediately. A sleepy slave brought him a cool melon, a delicately broiled fish, light bread and wine for his breakfast. He ate, brooding, and tapped the table with his fingers. At moments he was furious with his endangered friend for his indiscretion; Ichthus had also placed his few friends in jeopardy, and his widowed mother and his relatives. But in the next moment Pericles would say to himself: He is a brave man, and courage is more to be desired than any other virtue. He did what he must. That is all a man can do.

  Pericles stared at the smoking lamp on the table, which flickered in the darkness of the small dining hall, and he cursed the government of which he was a part for its oppressiveness. He cursed the Archons and the Assembly and the Ecclesia. Though Daedalus had accused him of pampering and wheedling the market rabble, no aristocrat in Athens despised that rabble more than Pericles, himself. He had not been reluctant to express his detestation, and he had admitted his fear of the rabble, which was incontinent, vociferous, irrationally passionate, stupid, the prey of sly demagogues, greedy, demanding, thinking with the area below the navel and never from the chin up. To Pericles, they were the peril of any nation, for they lacked heroism and patriotic fervor and the spirit of self-denial. The immediate was their only concern, and their base animal appetites. By the very weight of their overwhelming numbers they were dangerous to the State and to law and order. They invited chaos. The athlete or the Statesman they fa
wned on today they would render apart tomorrow and with the same lack of discrimination, and with the same absence of considered judgment. That which displeased other men but slightly, stirred anarchy among the rabble, and destruction, and the lust for murder. Yes, it was well to fear them.

  The aristocrats, in the main, did not distinguish between the rabble and those whom Cyrus the Great had so extolled: The sturdy peasantry, the small merchants, the industrious manufacturers, the shopkeepers, the artisans, the builders and the conscientious workers, the scribes and the clerks, the officers of the army and the navies, the cooks, the innkeepers, the weavers and the blacksmiths, the prudent little investors, the winemakers, the shipbuilders and the mill owners, and many others on whom the very existence of a nation depended. But Pericles distinguished between them and the rabble. It was his hope that the rising middle class between the rabble and the aristocrats would grow in strength and influence, and so he cultivated it. To him they were the heart of a country and their judgments, though often simple and rarely complex, were usually sound and sensible. They also had a profound mistrust of government and their elected officials, which Pericles considered very perspicacious. Unlike the rabble, which adored power, the middle class suspected it. They paid their enforced taxes ruefully—the rabble usually paid no taxes—and grumbled loudly. They voted glumly but with care. The rabble voted for any pretty face or eloquent liar.

  To his fellow aristocrats Pericles was ambiguous; some of them hinted he was a traitor to his ancestors. To the rabble he was accursed, an oppressor. But the middle class admired and revered him. They knew he was concerned with them and admired them in turn. He had been able to relieve them of many customs duties when they engaged in trade and imported or exported. It was no secret in Athens that he desired to make of his city a place of beauty and glory for the joy of the multitude and honor abroad. But his enemies—and they were a multitude in themselves—condemned him for removing the common treasury of Greece from the island of Delos into Athens, herself, where it could be available for the construction of temples and beautiful public buildings, and theatres and the extirpation of noisome alleys and houses and stinking old streets. He wished to encourage all the arts and all learning, and his rich enemies hated him for this, for was not their money more valuable than all the music and the paintings and the statues and the murals and the theatres in the world? The middle class rejoiced in his plans. The aristocrats and the powerful and miserly stirred up the rabble against him. He was taking bread from the mouths of the poor and driving them from their “modest” habitations. What were art and gracious buildings compared with the belly? The middle class, though not quite understanding the grandeur he proposed, had a vague vision of majesty and they were proud and they trusted him. In truth, he was the only man in government they did not fear and suspect.