by Jack Lindsay
He withdrew his head hurriedly, pursed his lips, and stood in thought. But he was never a man for intemperate action. If he faced the wicked pair, they would probably assault him, kill him, and say that a burglar had done it. The youth would go in the morning, to avoid Nicias, and then would come Simon’s turn.
Stealthily Simon tiptoed to his own cupboard of a room, opened the door slowly to prevent creaking, and shut himself in the darkness. He didn’t dare to light a tallow-candle. Besides, he knew his way about the flat as well in the dark as in the daylight. Without undressing, he stretched himself out on the pallet-bed, thinking. Slowly a malicious smile crept across his face, and he clenched his bony hands, raising and lowering his eyelids as he stared into the pleasant darkness.
*
Simon did not stir from his position till he heard the lovers stamp from their room in the dawn, to invade the pantry and snatch at the food there, laughing in mock quarrels. They had no right to be in the pantry; Simon felt indignant and licked his lips at the thought of the food they were eating, disordering his neat shelves. Then there was a silence, but Simon was sure that the youth hadn’t gone. No, he hadn’t gone; for there were more noises, a chair knocked over, and laughter, and the sound of scampering feet, as the lovers chased themselves through the rooms. Then a brief silence. Then the clump of steps on the stairs. Simon shifted slightly, and his smile returned.
He heard Daphne returning up the stairs, humming a tune. She went into the study and began tidying things, thumping pillows and tugging at coverlets. Then she came into the main room and set the fallen chair upright, went into her own room and came out again. Simon was now quite sure that the youth had gone. He rose silently and slowly lifted the latch of his door.
Daphne was standing in the middle of the room, her hands behind her back, yawning luxuriously. She even belched, secure in her solitude; the breakfast had been eaten so hastily and given no time to digest. Then, drawn by the slight noise, she saw the latch lifting.
Horror struck her, the greatest horror she had ever known. Breath left her as if sucked by some death-kiss from every chink of her body, and her blood seemed changed to water; her heart beat with faint tumultuous strokes. She felt herself sinking floorwards as if her limbs were dissolving, from the soles of her feet upward; and she stared with fixed eyes at the moving latch. The door creaked, began to open. She did not think of Simon, she did not think of anyone. She knew only that she was alone in the flat with an enemy, the silent ambusher of her dream, the lurking murderer of fear. She put her hand to her mouth and tried to call out, but her breath was gone. Then the grinning face of Simon appeared.
She recovered sufficiently not to faint, all fears obliterated by the relief of having given a face to the enemy of dream. She pointed at Simon wildly, trying to speak. “You...you...” she managed to say.
He nodded maliciously. “I came back early last night. My brother couldn’t put me up.”
He went across to the head of the stairs, took a stool, and seated himself there, making it quite clear by his grin and widely planted feet that he did not mean to let her escape. Daphne could not believe that he had been present all the night; it was impossible that she could have been so happy if his poisonous presence had been so near...he wanted to ask what he knew; but his grin told her everything. She crimsoned and fled away into her room. There she lay on the bed and tried to think, but rose at once. She went back into the main room and made to pass down the stairs. She had nowhere to go, but she wanted to test Simon’s intentions.
“You can’t go out,” he said sullenly, scared but obdurate. “Why not?”
“Wait till master comes back.”
It was no use keeping up pretences. She dropped on her knees before him.
“Please, Simon, don’t say anything. It was the first time, and I’d never do it again. I don’t know how it happened. Please. You can’t think I’m that kind of girl. You know me too well. Please. I’m sorry if I ever scolded you...”
Simon shook his head stolidly and she saw that he was unmoved. She changed her tactics:
“Simon, I’ll give you everything I’ve got.” But she had nothing to give, only some cheap jewelry, and Simon knew it. “I’ll give you everything I’ll ever get. I’ll get you ten gold pieces.” She swallowed with difficulty. “He he’ll get them for you.”
Simon deigned to answer, with a phrase of infinite contempt. “He’s a slave.”
She wanted to say: But so are you, that ought to make you sympathise with him (and at the same time she wanted to add: He isn’t a slave like you, he isn’t a slave at all). But with a chill of recognition she saw that Simon could never forgive her for having taken a slave as lover; he despised her. If Victor had been one of the rich young students, she might have won Simon over, frightened him, silenced him. Now she had no hope. And the contempt of an old slave, whom she had always considered as having no more right to emotions than the mere furniture, weighed her down.
She rose from her knees and went back to her room, paced round, and then scribbled a note: “For Victor Simon saw us he’s going to tell father please.” She screwed the note up small and put it in a little ointment-box. Then she returned to Simon.
“Go out and get me some bay-ointment. It’s the only thing that stops my headaches.”
He shook his head, and she went on, “Then let me go. The shop’s only two doors down.”
He shook his head again, and she made another suggestion, “You can lock the door so that I can’t run away.”
He shook his head again, and she made her last attempt, “Then go to the door and hand the box to one of the street boys to take. I’ll find you a copper to give him for the errand.”
Simon could find no objection to this proposal. Daphne found a copper, gave it to him with the box, and watched him descend the stairs. He opened the front door, called a boy, and gave him the box and message.
Daphne felt easier. At least Victor would learn what had happened; he must be able to find some way of rescuing her, if he loved her—and if he didn’t love her, she didn’t care if she died.
She retired to her room, and, as soon as she lay on the bed, felt horribly ill. The smell of bacon attacked her, nauseating, forcing itself into her nose, her mouth, her throat, a corruption of dead flesh. She drew herself up with a great effort, for her strength was once more ebbing, and leaned out over the bed, but was too late, vomiting on the floor. She didn’t care. It was such a pleasure to ease her overloaded stomach, to grow weaker and weaker till she died, to hang with loose head, cool, staring under the bed at the unswept spider’s web, the dust, the wool-fluff; then the blood began rushing to her head, burning her scalp, and she felt less at ease. With another effort she dragged herself back and lay flatly on the bed, flat as a dead woman, hardly able to breathe, sour-mouthed.
*
It was afternoon before Nicias arrived back, depressed as usual after contact with the world. The more he saw of the world, the less he was able to understand how Tragedy had been able to distil its essences from such unpromising material. Life was a mere smudge on the luminous forms of poetry. Did the worms hold inquest on the corpse they devoured? Yet men talked, matching their miserable little schemes against the terrific pattern of moral law that dwarfed them like a mountain beside a pebble. Where were the supreme virtue and the supreme sinfulness that would save the world by shocking it into significance?
Broodingly he climbed the stairs of the flat, thinking that there was something in the remarks of Olympos. He would get Daphne married off to one of the young students, and then remove to an apartment in the Museion, never emerging to look on a world that insulted the seeker after values.
“What are you doing?” he asked angrily, finding Simon straddling the top of the stairs.
Simon leaped back and pointed with quivering finger at Daphne’s room. He did not know what words to use, and was overcome by an emotion of worship for Nicias, his old master, whose name had been smutched. He wanted to prove what
a good servant he was, to kiss the hand of Nicias.
“Is she ill? “ asked Nicias harshly.
“She...” began Simon, his throat drying. “She...” He pointed again at the room, and shrank from the threatening glance of Nicias. “Listen to me.”
“Speak up! “ shouted Nicias.
Simon’s eyes were starting from his head as he pleaded with Nicias for belief, striving to convey to Nicias the image of guilt which had been imprinted on his own eyeballs.
“She was with a man last night. Here. I came back. My brother couldn’t put me up. She—she had sent me away. I came back. They didn’t hear me. They were in your bed.”
He slavered with fear and sank to the floor, his hands over his ears.
Nicias paused, unable to understand. What was the man saying. Simon jabbered on, repeating the same phrases over and over, till Nicias at last comprehended what was being said. But he couldn’t believe it. He kicked Simon aside.
“Where is she?”
Simon again pointed to the door of her room. Nicias went to it, opened it without calling, and looked in. There lay Daphne dishevelled on her bed, her hair loose on the pillow, her dress up over her knees. On the floor lay the souring pieces of her rejected breakfast.
Nicias recoiled, shut the door and leant against it, mopping his brow with his sleeve. He knew now that Simon had been speaking the truth, but couldn’t grasp yet what the truth meant. Suddenly he saw it all. He turned and hammered on the door.
“Let me in. Let me in.”
“Open it,” said Simon timidly. “You opened it before.”
“Father,” called Daphne feebly.
At the sound of her voice something snapped within Nicias. He turned on Simon, struck him a blow that sent him sprawling, tore open the door, and rushed into the room. He caught Daphne by the shoulders and dragged her up.
“What have you done? Answer me!” He shook her ferociously. “Where’s the man?”
“He was a slave,” said Simon, who had hobbled to the door, determined to vindicate himself, whatever blows he earned. “A palace slave.”
“Get out!” roared Nicias and flung a stool at him. Then he turned to Daphne and stroked her tenderly. “It isn’t true. Say it isn’t true.” But as he spoke, he knew again the worthlessness of his appeal; yet still he couldn’t believe what Simon had said. Why had Simon told him? why couldn’t Daphne stand up for herself, lie if need be?
“It isn’t true,” she said tonelessly.
“You filthy lying slut!”
He flung her from him. Her head hit the edge of the bed and she moaned. A warm mist swam before his eyes.
“I’ll teach you,” he cried, and looked round for anything with which he could beat her. His hand found a sandal on the floor. “I’ll teach you,” he repeated between his set teeth, and grasped her, the room redly swimming.
The world was evil. That was sufficiently demonstrated. But an evil unbalanced. That was wrong. Could there be sin without redemption? There was purification for all evil. Let the world grow more evil then. It was the only way out. Let the slut sin and let her pay for her sin. A vast incoherent joy struggled in the blood of Nicias as he beat his daughter; a joy of grappled evil, of power. Life had meaning as it had never had before. If he was to kill her, the mercy would be perfected; the sin would pass from her into him, and the Furies would turn to flog him across the world, into the place of judgment on the high hill. Only by killing his child could he save her, take her sin as his own, resume all good and evil in his blood.
His hand shook and he dropped the sandal. Daphne turned to and fro, moaning. He sat stone-still, shuddering, fighting down the wish to kill, to save; the furious joy that stormed in his blood. With his hand over his eyes, he rose abruptly and tottered from the room, brushing aside the unnoticed Simon, seeking his own room, his desecrated bed.
*
Next day Daphne did not arrive for a tryst in the park; and when she failed on the following morning also, Victor decided to visit the shop where they had arranged to leave notes in emergency. The girl in charge was friendly with Daphne and delighted to be a go-between for lovers. She was a tall girl with plump kindly face and a small retreating chin, and she spoke with a lisp. When Victor called after a fruitless glance at the closed door of Daphne’s home, the perfume-girl produced at once the note.
“I found it in a box that she sent to be filled.”
Victor read the note and knew that he had always expected the discovery to come. It had to come, and all that he could realise about it was that there was pathos in the wording of Daphne’s message. The ending “please.” But why hadn’t she given more details. Besides he couldn’t find out what he felt while the shop-girl was waiting for him to show misery. He sank down on to a chair, glad to find that he really felt weak, while the girl looked for some reviving flower-waters. She insisted on scenting his brows and the place behind his ears, and asked him sympathetically if he didn’t feel better.
“I’m so sorry. I saw what was written. Can’t we do something?”
He was too aware of her admiring sympathy to give way to the weakness which had gripped him in the belly, too concerned to show his misery to know how miserable he was. For he was miserable; he would die.
“What can I do?” he asked plaintively. “I can’t resist her father. He’d only have me whipped.”
He thought with panic of what would happen if Daphne gave his name away. Nicias would use all the influence of the University against him...
“I’d better go.” He rose with a vague hope of proving an alibi if he remained at the Palace.
The girl pressed his hand. “I’d do anything for Daphne...and you.”
Victor was angered. The girl seemed to be feeling more than he, and the blow was his, not this stranger’s. He hesitated, and the girl enfolded him in her arms.
“I love you so much for loving my dear poor friend so dearly,” she said with a sigh. “I think that you’re a perfect lover. I’d do anything to help you. Are you sure there’s nothing I could do?”
Victor disliked her embraces. She was taller than he was, and seemed longer even than he’d suspected, when felt so close. She overshadowed him, physically and emotionally; and he wanted only to think of Daphne. He must do something.
There came the sound of someone trying the street-door, and the girl let him go, after asking him to be sure to return and tell her all that happened.
As soon as he had escaped into the open grounds of the park, he knew what had befallen him. Tears flooded into his eyes, and the knife of loss turned agonisedly in his bowels. Daphne was gone; he would never see her again; and the world was desolate. Whenever he heard a bird sing, he would hear her name and the sound of the silence that came when she had finished speaking; whenever the wind passed over the grass, he would see the blades straightening themselves in the spot where she had been lying. The sudden beauty of a flower was her body on the edge of vision. She was gone. At last the nightmare had come true, blackly, in full daylight, in a few scribbled words. “Please.” It was fantastic, but there it was. Please, come back. Daphne his beloved, whose flesh was as much his possession as his own flesh. Daphne in whom his blood had come to new life. She was torn from his life like a flower torn from the unresisting earth. Ah, the infinite fertile earth could spare her flowers; but he had only Daphne.
The world was blinded with tears.
As he wept, he felt himself in the consoling arms of the scent-girl, and that made his bitterness worse; for he loathed to think of the scent-girl, who could never be Daphne; whose whole body was less real than a whisper uttered by Daphne in her deepest sleep. But his tears seemed to be aimed at the consoling scent-girl. See how sad I am. What a perfect lover. There were birds singing. He wouldn’t die; he knew he wouldn’t die. But the knife would turn agonisedly in his bowels; he would look round with a smile on his lips, and suddenly there would be nothing. No birds, no earth, no consolation.
O his tears were real.
&
nbsp; *
He must ask Antonius to free him. But even then, how could he face Nicias? And he was frightened of choosing the wrong moment to ask. Again and again he went to Antonius with the exact words of his petition rehearsed, but said nothing. Things were getting worse and worse in the Palace. Octavianus was encamped before Pelusion. Antonius and Cleopatra no longer made any attempt to hide from one another that they were daily sending him messages. Once when they passed in a corridor, Antonius said: “It’s no use painting your face, woman. He looks lower than that, and so he can’t tell one from another. He’s the only wise man. You’ll have no third chance.” She replied nothing. Eros had heard Charmion saying to Eiras that Octavianus swore he was in love with Cleopatra. Everyone was sure that both Cleopatra and Antonius had each offered to betray the other. Then, to the general surprise, they became friendly again and slept together. Antonius had been heard weeping. He and Cleopatra planned to hold Octavianus in Egypt, if he broke through the frontiers; to make a naval sortie against his lines of supply after defeating his fleet. Or to flee to Spain or Ethiopia. Nobody knew for certain.
Victor determined to ask Antonius for his freedom that night. There was a small dinner-party of the Fellows-in-Death; the floor was ankle-deep in violets and other dark flowers, and naked negresses served the dinners. Antonius had given the cook several pieces of gold plates for inventing black sauces to go suitably with the different dishes. He drank more wine than usual and began to talk once more of his godship.
“The god has to die,” he said, “or he’s no god. Isn’t that so?” He turned to the Roman Senator who ran the state-mills.