The Last of the Wine: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  I bowed my head, honouring his wisdom. Yet he had not reached my grief; and to this day, though I have read many books, I have found no words for it.

  All that day I rested there, and the next, and the night following; for my strength was slow in returning. On the last evening, when the lamp was lit and the old woman was cooking supper, I told him what I had been accused of, and that I did not know where to go. He told me I must go home, and the god would protect my innocence. Then, seeing my eyes fall, he said, “A certain man went a long journey, leaving his money in the charge of a friend. On returning, he got back all he had left in trust, and was satisfied. If it were found that the friend, while the money was in his house, had been in want, would he be honoured less among men, or more?”—“It is not the same,” I said.—“It is the same to the gods. Believe in your own honour, and men will do so too.”

  So, early next day, I set off for the City. Though a good way, it was not so far as I had come, for I had wandered to and fro on the mountains. I returned at evening, a little before the lighting of the lamps. The priest’s wife had mended the rents in my mantle, and washed it, so that I looked more like myself, though somewhat bruised from the fall. As I came into the courtyard, I saw the lamp begin to shine from indoors. I waited outside for a while; but the dogs knew me, and ran up making a noise; so then I went in.

  My father was seated at the table, reading. As he raised his eyes, my stepmother came in from the kitchen. She looked at him, not at me, and waited. He said, “Come in, Alexias; supper is almost ready, but you have time for a bath first, I daresay.” Then, turning towards her, “Has he time?”—“Yes,” she said, “if he is not too long.”—“Hurry then; but as you go, bid goodnight to your sister. She has been asking for you.”

  So we sat down to eat, and talked of matters in the City; and what had passed was never spoken of again. What he had said to my stepmother while I was gone, or she to him, I never knew. But as time went by, I saw there had been a change. Sometimes I would hear her say to him, “The evening will be cool; your cloak is not thick enough”; or “Don’t let them give you the spiced meat that kept you awake last time.” He would say, “What’s that?” or “Well, well!” but he would obey her. I had not perceived that he always treated her as a girl, till now when I saw him treat her as a woman.

  How this had come about, I never knew; nor, I think, did I wish to know. It was enough that nothing would be again as it was before.

  19

  DURING THE TIME THAT followed this, I was much in the City, and little at home. There was a great emptiness within me; I was always glad to be in company, and did not always wait to find the best.

  I could not speak of what had happened, even to Lysis. But some hint at least I would have given him, if he had not asked me in anger where I had been, and reproached me with leaving no word for him. Natural as this was, yet being still not myself I felt he had failed me at need, and only said shortly that I had been hunting. “Alone?” he asked. I told him yes. Seeing I had lied, I need not have been injured by his disbelief; yet I felt it an injury.

  After this, though needing him more now than ever before, from being thoughtless I grew to be unkind. I often tormented him, well knowing what I did; saying to myself that his baseless jealousy deserved to be punished. Then lonely and wretched, and full of shame, I would return to him, as if this were to undo the past, or as if I had treated lightly a man without pride. At his first coldness I would let fly, and it would all begin again. Sometimes out of longing for his company I would beg his pardon, or set out to get round him in spite of himself, and we would be reconciled. But it was like the clouded gaiety of fever. At parting he would ask me with forced carelessness what I meant to do next day and whom I was seeing. I would laugh, and give him some slight answer; later, alone at night, I would have given anything to have parted friends, and could not think what had possessed me. For often in company, or with the troop about us, I would look at him knowing the world held nothing so dear; if at that moment we could be alone, it seemed, there would be no cloud between us. And I even thought he felt the same.

  While I was with Sokrates, I could always stand aside and see my folly. Yet I did not come to him for counsel. When one day I could bear myself no longer, it was to Phaedo that I turned.

  By chance I found myself lying next him at the hot-bathhouse. It was Kydon’s place, an irreproachable establishment. When the bath-man had done with us, and we were waiting for the masseur, we drew up our couches and talked. It is a place, one finds, for loosening the tongue, and I found my troubles pouring out with my sweat. He listened, lying on his belly, his head on his folded arms, looking round at me through his fair hair. Once he seemed about to interrupt me, but was silent, and heard me out. At the end, he said, “You’re not serious, are you, Alexias, when you say you can’t understand all this?”—“Why, yes; for I don’t think either of us really cares any less for the other. Indeed, I think …” He pushed the hair out of his eyes to look at me, then let it fall back. “Well,” he said, “if you can’t understand it, it must be because you don’t wish to; and for all I know you may be right. No, I can’t tell you what to take for the pain, Alexias; I am not the doctor you are needing; you know I never pretended to know anything of love. Why don’t you ask Sokrates?” I said I would think of it. I did not choose to ask him what he meant.

  A short time after, I met Charmides in the palaestra. We watched the wrestling for a while, and fell into talk. Presently glancing through at the dressing-room, I saw Lysis. He had been about to strip for exercise, but seeing me he had paused. I looked away quickly, as if I had not noticed him. It was folly, not malice. I was afraid he would be too angry to return my greeting, and that people would see we were estranged. When I looked again, he was gone. Then too late it came to me what he must think: that I had meant to put an affront on him before Charmides, or even perhaps that Charmides had prompted it.

  I was now more than sobered, I was afraid. I left at once, and sought Lysis about the City. At last I went to his home. There I found him sitting at his writing-table, his papers about him. When I came in he went on writing for a few moments, as if a servant were waiting; then he looked up and said, “I am busy; come some other day.”

  Never before had it come to this between us. I sank my pride, and excused myself to him. He listened coldly and said, “All this is nothing to me. I am busy, as you see; and I have asked you to go.” He turned to his work again, leaving me to stand there. I began to be desperate; yet I could not abase myself any further, for his contempt would have been too much to bear. So ready to try anything that came into my head, I said, “Very well. I called to ask if you’d come hunting tomorrow; but if you don’t care to, I shall go alone.”—“Yes?” he said. “As you did before?”—“If you choose to come, you can see for yourself. But be there at daybreak; I shan’t wait longer.” And then, determined to make him notice me, “If you come, bring your boar-spears. Or if you are busy, stay away.”

  At this, as I had hoped, he sat up and stared at me. “Are you joking,” he said, “or out of your mind, to talk of hunting boar alone?”—“It’s your affair,” I said, “whether I go alone or not. If you’re not there, I shan’t waste the morning looking for someone else.” With that I left him.

  Next day I was up in the dark, to make my preparations, such as they were. You may guess how much forethought had gone to my proposal. I had not even boar-spears of my own, and had only been at two hunts in my life; once years before, in the care of Xenophon’s father, who had sent us boys into a tree when he and his friends brought the beast to bay; and once with the Guard, when ten or twelve of us had gone out together. I had borrowed spears, however, from Xenophon; whom, when he assumed I was going with a party, I did not undeceive.

  As the stars were fading, I heard horse-hoofs in the empty street. Then the sickle guards of Lysis’ boar-spears stood up black against the sky. Running beside him were his three tall Spartan hounds; behind him on muleback a slave
carried the stakes and nets, which I had not even remembered.

  He looked down at me grimly, to see how I liked being taken at my word. Since that was the way of it, I greeted him briskly, thanking him for bringing nets, as if I had counted on it. I thought then he would call it quits; but he asked what dogs I was taking. I whistled them up; one big Molossian and two Kastorians, an absurd pack for the work. He glanced at them, raising his brows. Then the Molossian started fighting one of his dogs, which had happened before. We jumped in to part them, and I thought this would thaw him. But he was still cool and sensible, and a mile away. So I said, “Well, let’s be going.”

  We rode to Pentelikon, where there was plenty of boar that year, hunting having been much cut down by the war. It was now a fine fresh morning, with a breeze from the sea; from the top of the range, we could see Dekeleia clearly, and half a dozen places where we had fought side by side. I could not keep from pointing, and saying “Do you remember?” It is my nature to flare up hotly, but not to hold it long. Lysis was a man slow to anger; but once being moved to it, he did not easily put it by. He answered me shortly, and pointing to a wooded fold of the mountain, said we would try there.

  On the way we met a farm-boy with some goats, and I asked him if there were boar in the wood. “Yes,” he said, “there’s a very big one. He drove out another boar who lived near here. Only yesterday I heard him rooting.” When he had gone, Lysis turned to me. I could see from his eyes that he thought things had gone far enough. But the words came hard to him; and now I was angry in my turn, because he had been cold to my signs of peace. So I said, “Do you think I’ll turn back now, so that you can throw it for ever in my face? If you came for that, you came for nothing.” On that he answered me coolly, “Save your wit for your work, Alexias.”

  We dismounted in silence, and sat down to eat, each with his own food and his dogs about him, not speaking. Presently looking up he said, “Since we are doing men’s work, shall we do it like men and not like children?” He told me what we should do, shortly and clearly, as if giving orders in the field. Then he leashed the bitch-hound he used for tracking, and leaving the other dogs and the horses with the slave, led towards the thicket.

  After the bright day it seemed dark and tangled within. The sun came through the trees in round coins of gold; the black damp earth smelled of rotten oak-leaves. Soon we began to find boar-droppings and tracks. They looked very big. I stole a quick glance at Lysis’ face, which told me nothing, for he now looked just as he did in war.

  Presently we came to an oak-tree whose bark was all ploughed and torn with the tusks of the boar. The bitch tugged at Lysis’ arm, and bristled along her back, and growled. Ahead was a dark covert, with tracks coming out. Lysis said, “That is his run. We will net it here.”

  We took back the bitch and tied her up with the others, and set up the nets in a bay before the lair, fixing them to strong stakes and to trees. A little way behind, there was a steep rock; on this, where he was safe, we posted the slave with a pile of stones, to keep the boar from breaking the wrong way. Then we got our spears. Lysis said, “Stand at the ready, and don’t take your eyes off the covert for a moment. Boar are fast.” So we fetched the dogs, which were in clamour already at the hated scent, and slipped them in the thicket. Lysis stood to the right of the nets, I to the left. In a proper hunt you will see four or five men in each of these places, with spears, and some further back with javelins to throw; to make up for numbers, we came closer in. At our signal the slave began shouting, and throwing stones. Then between two black bushes I saw the boar.

  I thought, “He’s not so big after all.” He stood with the hounds in cry about him, his head low, his tusks yellow against his hairy black snout. His little eyes looked round, and I saw at once he was not going to rush blindly into the net. He was an old cunning one. Lysis and I stood in our places, our spears pointed forward and downward, gripped in the right hand, guided with the left. Then Phlegon, Lysis’ biggest dog, ran in. The boar’s head jerked once; Phlegon flew kicking in the air, fell and lay still. When I saw him die, and Lysis standing there, I came to myself at last. His dogs were better than mine; they would work the game his way, and he had known it. So I shouted at the boar to make it look, and stepped towards it. At once Lysis shouted too, louder than I. But the boar had seen me first. Before I could think, “Here he comes,” he was on my spear.

  I never knew before what strength meant. With his red eyes flaming he thrust towards me, squealing and trampling, trying to run himself up the spear to reach me. His weight felt more than my own. I set my teeth and leaned on the shaft; for moments that seemed hours I looked along it at his tusks and his wrinkled snout. Then quick as lightning he gave, and twisted aside. The spear turned like a live thing, and left my hands.

  I felt a great astonishment, in which all was still and it seemed I could easily take back my spear again. Just in time Lysis’ voice reached me shouting, “Down! Lie down!” Used to obeying him in battle I flung myself down quite blindly; then I remembered why, and clutched the roots and small growth below me, to anchor me fast. A boar’s tusks curve upward; he must get them under before he can gore.

  My fingers dug into the ground, my teeth met on bitter stalks and leaves. I felt the snout of the boar thrust at my side, and smelt his hot stink. Close by me Lysis shouted; the boar was gone. I lay with my wits scattered, then looked round. Lysis with the boar on his spearhead was fighting for his life. It was thrashing about like a demon, bearing him here and there in the tangled ground, full of hazards for the foot. My mind seemed at leisure and very clear. I thought, “If he falls, I have killed him. But I will not live to carry it in my heart.”

  My spear still trailed from the boar’s shoulder. I leaped to my feet and dragged it out and, as he turned towards me, thrust it in lower, at the base of the neck. There was a great surge against my arms; I could hear Lysis pant as we thrust together. Then the boar settled, like a boulder after hurtling down a hill. His mouth opened; he grunted and was dead.

  Lysis set his foot on him, drew out his spear, and drove it upright into the earth. I did the same. We stood and looked at each other across the boar. In a while he came round and took me by the shoulders. What we first said is nothing to set down. Presently we went to look at the killed dog; he lay bravely, his teeth still bared for battle, the slash of the boar on his broken neck. “Poor Phlegon,” said Lysis, “he is the sacrifice of our pride. May the gods accept him and be appeased.” Then we called the slave down from his refuge. He was in great agitation, having thought, I believe, that when we were both dead the boar would sit down to besiege him. Being now rather light-headed, we laughed at his fears; then we broke the boar, and cut off the gods’ portion, and sacrificed to Artemis and Apollo. Afterwards we sent home our spoils, with the mule and the slave.

  All afternoon we sat on the hill-side, on a slope beside a spring. Below us the blue bay of Marathon washed its sea-wrack shore, with the ridges of Euboea wine-dark and clear beyond. When we had exchanged forgiveness and could scarcely believe in our former discord, I told him in part why I had gone to the mountains, saying my father had charged me with an impiety too shameful to name. He stared for a moment; then caught his breath quickly, and took my hand, and said no more. After that he was so good to me, you might have supposed I had done something wonderful, instead of hazarding his life.

  The blue of the sea grew dark, the light deep and golden; shadows leaned down the eastward slopes. I said to Lysis, “Today has not run away from us, like days that are filled with nothing. They are wrong who say that only misery lengthens time.”—“Yes,” he said. “Yet the day is ending, and still too soon.”—“At the end of life do you think it is the same?”—“I suppose the man does not live who has not said in his heart, ‘Give me this, or that, and I can go content.’”—“What would you ask for, Lysis?”—“Some days one thing, and some another. When Sophokles grew old, he said the escape from love was like a slave’s from a tyrannous master.”—“How o
ld is he?”—“Eighty years or so. We ought to be calling the dogs in; they’re all over the hill.”—“Lysis, must we go back to the City? We’ve enough meat left here; let’s cook it, and stay in the hills. Then the day will last as long as we choose.”—“See,” he said, “how near Euboea looks. It will rain tonight.” Then, as I had hoped he would, he asked me to have supper with him at home.

  On reaching the City, I went in to shed my hunting leathers, and get clean. I dressed my hair, and put on my best mantle, with my worked sandals; coming to his house I found he had done the same. Soon after we had begun supper, the summer rain came down upon the City. It pattered on the terrace vine, and drummed the roof. The air grew soft, with scents of slaked dust and freshened leaves, and of drenched flowers from the market-fields beyond. We said we could hear the scorched hills we had come from, drinking their fill, and raised our cups in company. When the slave who waited had gone, we set the bronze bowl for kottabos, and threw for each other, calling toasts as we threw. Lysis made a better score and laughed at me; so I declared I would not accept the omen, and re-filled my cup to challenge him. This time I won; but he would not yield the victory; and so on, till the more my effort the worse my aim, and Lysis reaching to take my cup away, said, “My dear, you have had enough.”