The Last of the Wine: A Novel

  Already before this we had sold Kydilla. My father had bought her for my mother when they married; we would have freed her when we could feed her no longer, but it would only have been turning her off to starve. A mantle-maker bought her, for a quarter what she had cost when raw and untaught. She wept not only for herself, but at leaving my mother within a month or two of her time.

  All this while there were the walls to man, lest the Spartans grow impatient and try a surprise. At about this time, one of Lysis’ men accused another of stealing food, and their swords came out. Lysis running in to part them got a cut in front of the thigh, nearly to the bone. When I called, it was always getting better, and did not hurt, and he would walk tomorrow. He was getting no more rent for his father’s house, it being outside the walls; now he was losing his army pay, and I thought he looked ill. But he said he had sold the great brooch of Agamemnon before the bottom fell out of the market, and that his brother-in-law had sent him something, and that little Thalia was proving a splendid manager, and that they did as well as the next.

  The only thing the City was not short of was citizens; we had plenty of spare time between watches. One day I came upon my sister Charis with her dolls about her, giving them a meal of pebbles and beads. “Be good,” she was saying, “and eat up your soup, or you shan’t have any roast kid, or honey fritters.” Children grow fast at eight years old; there seemed nothing of her but legs and eyes. Next morning I said to my father, “I am going out to look for work.”

  We were having breakfast at the time, a gill or two of wine in four parts of water. He put down his cup and said, “Work? What work?”—“Any work. Tanning, or mixing mortar, for all I care.” It was a frosty morning, and the cold made my temper short. “What do you mean?” he said. “A Eupatrid, of the seed of Erechtheus and of Ion child of Apollo, touting the tradesmen like a metic, asking for work? Before the day is out, some informer will be saying we are not citizens; it always happens. Let us keep some dignity at least.”—“Well, Father,” I said, “if our line is so good, we had better see it doesn’t end with us.”

  In the end he let me go. Well begun is half done, they say. But at most of the shops I went to, I did not get as far as asking. Each had a waiting knot of men who had been master craftsmen themselves, in Sestos or Byzantium; ready, if they could not get journeyman’s work, to sweep the floors. They stood huddled in the cold, stamping their feet and slapping their arms, waiting for the shop to open; looking resentfully at one another, but never at me, because they took me for a customer.

  In the Street of the Armourers, every shop with a forge going was full of stray people crowding in for warmth, and to get working-room they were turning them away. Each potter seemed to have a vase-painter mixing his clay for him. The tradesmen who had lost their slaves had all the help they needed, now they were doing no trade.

  I passed through the Street of the Herm-Makers, and began to grow weary, yet was in no haste to go home. So I walked on into the quarter of the statuaries, hearing, as I passed the workshops, how many were silent. But presently catching the tap of mallet on chisel, I went in to watch, and be out of the cold wind.

  It was the shop of Polykleitos the Younger, which used to be full in the mornings. Now there was only Polykleitos himself, and an apprentice carving the inscription on a pedestal. Polykleitos had set up on a wooden block the armature for a standing figure, and was bending it about. I greeted him, and congratulated him on being still able to work in bronze. A man had to be doing well to afford fuel for casting.

  He was never talkative at work, and I was surprised that he seemed so pleased to see me. “Even in these days,” he said, “people who have vowed something to a god know better than to forget it. This is for a choragic trophy; Hermes inventing the lyre.” He put the armature aside, and reached for his drawing-board and crayon. “How would you stand to string a lyre, Alexias?”—“I’d sit to it,” I said, “like everyone else. But I suppose a god can do anything.” There was a lyre hanging on the wall; I reached for it, and, for something to do, began to put it in tune. “Won’t you sit down?” he said, and threw a blanket upon a block of Paros marble, to take off the chill. “If you care to play something it’s a pleasure.” I played a verse or two of some skolion or other; my fingers were too cold to make much of it. Glancing up I saw him busy with his crayon. One can tell when someone is looking through one’s clothes. I laughed and said, “Oh, no, Polykleitos, I’m not stripping for anyone this weather. Wait for your model, whom you pay to do it.”

  He coughed and sharpened his pencil. “It’s difficult just now. A week or two ago, I could have got half a dozen models of the build I need. But today …” He shrugged his shoulders. “Sound anatomy’s the tradition in this shop. My father made his name on Olympic victors. It goes against the grain, to work without flesh and bone in front of me. But one finds nothing now by walking about the streets; only hard trained muscle keeps its shape these days; and when a gentleman looks in, well, one’s afraid to suggest any arrangement, for fear of giving offence.”

  I nearly laughed aloud. I suppose I had usually happened to come and look on with Xenophon or someone well-off. I relieved his fears, trying not to sound too eager. “The most one can offer,” he said, “is a little hospitality.” But it was a good deal; he was going to pay me with a meal, which was worth more than money. It would mean that as long as the job lasted, I need take nothing from home. I soon learned that every sculptor still working did this, to make sure the model did not lose flesh too quickly.

  Polykleitos treated me very well. He even had a little pan of charcoal brought in to warm me. But I had to stand after all, leaning on one foot with a hip curved outward, for this pose had just come in and was all the rage. I stood holding out in one hand something supposed to be the shell of the lyre, and pointing at it with the other; a simpering pose, as I still think; he was a gentleman for a craftsman, but not the artist his father was.

  The pose looked soft, but it was hard work to hold it, especially the first day, for last night’s supper had been dog-tail soup and a few olives. Once I felt a sinking in the belly, and a web of darkness spun before my eyes; but Polykleitos gave me a rest just then, and I was better. The supper was more than we had at home. I thought I might get a chance to save something, but though he conversed very civilly, he kept his eye on me.

  I hoped that Sokrates would not turn up to watch the work. Man or god, he liked to see a statue planted firmly on both feet, as they were made when he served his time. My father took my employment very quietly. He himself bore all the hardship without complaint, as one who has known worse. He was not as lean yet as when he got home from Sicily.

  Time passed, and no word from Theramenes. When a month was through, we signalled the Spartans and asked if he was dead. But they said the terms were still being debated. One could not buy oil any more, except by barter. The corn was a quarter-pint a head, if you were early. I had arranged to collect Lysis’ for him, while he was laid up. It was all I had to give him, to save him from limping out in the black of the winter night; if his wound mortified he would be finished. When my father and I got home, my mother used to make a little fire, and give us our wine in hot water, to warm us up. Then I would stand my watch on the walls, or pose for Polykleitos.

  The clay model for the Hermes took him three weeks. Still nothing from Theramenes. When the work was finished and ready for casting, Polykleitos gave me cheese with my supper as an extra, and bade me goodbye. I had half hoped someone might have given him another commission, but of course no one had. At the door he called me back. “Chremon was asking about you the other day. I think he is still working.” He spoke without looking at me. He knew I had heard the talk of the workshops by this time. I said, “So I hear. Day and night work. No, thank you, Polykleitos.”—“I am sorry,” he said. “But sometimes people are glad to know.”

  I went out next morning without telling them at home my work was over. I thought if I searched the City, there must surely be
something that would bring a few obols in. The last of our tenants had stopped paying rent now, and the store was nearly bare. There were still a few things to be bought for money; olives, a wild bird, a marten-cat, or even fish if you walked to Piraeus. There was meat too, but it cost a stater a pound. I could go home for once and say I had eaten out, if it came to the worst; but much of that would finish my chance with the sculptors. Polykleitos had been flattering me as it was, towards the end.

  I was not attending much to the people around me, and I don’t know what made me look up, especially at a woman. It was in one of the streets where the Kerameikos runs into the Agora. At first I was not sure, for she had grown half a span since the wedding; soon she would be tall. Then I thought, “She is too young to know what she is about. Someone must tell her.” So I overtook her, and, speaking gently so as not to alarm her, said, “Wife of Lysis, are you out alone?”

  She caught her breath as if I had stabbed her. Her flesh nearly started from her bones. I said, “Don’t be frightened, wife of Lysis. Have you forgotten Alexias, who was groomsman at your wedding? You know you are safe with me. But you ought not to do this; it would trouble him if he knew.” She did not speak. I heard her teeth knock together, like my father’s when the fever took him.

  “The streets are not safe,” I said, “for a woman alone. You need not look like a hetaira, to be accosted these days. There are too many ready to do anything for a handful of barley meal.”—“We can’t afford,” she said, finding her voice, “to hire a market-girl. And we had to sell the boy. Nobody minds it now.”—“The women go two and three together; look and you will see. Since we sold our girl, my mother does always. Another time, you could go with her. But indeed you mustn’t go alone, or people will talk. Come, I will walk with you, and see you safe home. If you keep your veil drawn, no one will know.”—“No,” she said, “I don’t care to walk with men in the City.” I began to speak, then saw her eyes; like a broke gambler, making the last throw.

  “Wife of Lysis,” I said, “what is it? You can tell me; I am his friend.” She looked up at me sullenly, without hope. “Tell me,” I said, “and I will do anything.” And then, feeling my own folly, “I won’t tell him. As a gentleman, I give you my word.”

  She pressed her veil with both hands over her face, and started weeping. People were passing, jostling us indeed, but no one took notice. Crying women were not so rare in the City. There was an open space near by, full of rubble. I drew her over, and we sat down on a stone that said, “Here stood the house of the traitor Archestratos.”

  She said, “If you are his friend, you must let me go. In the name of all the gods, Alexias. If he doesn’t eat he will die.” I was silent, looking down at the broken stone, and thinking, “Why did I speak to her? It was enough before; must I know of this?” Then presently I said, “Is this the first time?”

  She nodded into her cupped hands, sitting cramped upon the stone. “He has fever, every night now, and his wound doesn’t heal. I dress it three times a day, but it’s no use without food, and he won’t touch anything till he has seen me eat before him. He watches me even, to be sure I swallow it. When I said no, he got up and tried to go out. He thinks he can do anything. He thinks he can live on water.” She wept again. I said, “I can’t take anything from home. My mother is seven months gone. But we’ll find some way.” She went on crying. Her tears made great dark patches in her veil.

  “An old woman came,” she said, “selling clay lamps. She said a rich young man had seen me and … and fallen in love with me, and if I met him at her house, he would give me anything. I was angry and sent her away, and then …”

  “It’s always a rich young man. Some clapped-out old Syrian street-seller. He’ll expect you to do it for a supper, and thank him afterwards.” I felt cruel, as the defeated are. “If you don’t go straight back to Lysis, I shall go.”—“You gave me your word,” she said. As she lifted heir head, her veil slipped down. It showed me Timasion’s daughter, and the sister of his sons.

  “Cover your face. Do you want the City to know you? He will find it out later, and what then?”—“If he is here,” she said, “to know of it later, then my life has been long enough.”

  “Thalia,” I said. She looked round at me, as a child does when the beating is over. I reached out, and took her hand in mine; it was young and cold, and roughened with work. “Go home to Lysis, and leave all this to me. Remember, he gave you charge of his honour. Do you think he would sell it for bread? Then nor must you. Go home, and give me your word not to think of this again, and I’ll send you something tonight. Tonight or first thing tomorrow. Will you give your word for mine?”—“But how can you, Alexias? You can’t take it from your mother.”—“I shan’t do that. There are a dozen things a man can turn his hand to. For a woman it’s different. But you must promise me.” She swore with her hand in mine, and I saw her back to the end of their street.

  I walked on through the City, along the Street of the Armourers, and of the Coppersmiths, and of the Herm-Makers, where each shop had its little crowd of craftsmen lined up for a chance to do the work of slaves. Presently I got to the sculptors’ quarter, and found the workshop of Chremon. The door was ajar, and I went in.

  He had just finished a marble; and was watching the painter colour it; an Apollo, with long hair dressed in a knot like a woman’s, playing with a snake made of enamelled bronze. Chremon had made quite a name for himself among the ultra-modern schools. It was the thing to say of him that his marble breathed. I could have sworn that if I pinched Apollo’s backside, it would make him jump.

  The shelf round the wall was full of sketches in wax or clay; if Chremon had sold as many statues, he had done pretty well. They were all of young men, or youths near manhood; leaning, lounging, crouching, lying, and doing everything but stand on their heads. Just then he half glanced over his shoulder and said, “Not today.”

  “Good,” I said, “that was all I needed to know.” At that he turned round, and I added, “I only called because I promised you first.”—“Wait a moment,” he said. He was a pale squat man, with a bald head, a reddish beard, and great flat ends to his fingers. There was still a good deal of flesh on him. I was glad to see he could afford to eat so well. “I took you for someone else,” he said. “Come in.” Then he said to the painter, “You can finish tomorrow.”

  I came in, and he walked round me two or three times. “Take off,” he said, “and let me see.” I stripped, and he walked round again. “H’m, yes. Take a pose for me. Sitting on your heels, and reaching forward, as if you were putting down a cock to fight. No, no, no, my dear. Like this.” He took my waist between his thick hands. I gave him a moment or two, and then said, “I charge two drachmas a day.”

  He stood back from me, crying out, “You must be mad. Two drachmas! Come, come. A good supper at my own table; no one pays more.” He added, “I give my models wine.”—“That’s good. But I charge two drachmas.” I looked at him over my shoulder. “No one else has complained.”

  He shook his head from side to side, clicking his tongue. “What are young men coming to nowadays? No feeling, no sense of the grace of life … Ankles of wing-footed Hermes, face of Hyakinthos, a body for Hylas at the pool; and ‘I charge two drachmas,’ like the rap of a mallet. It’s a terrible thing, this war; nothing will ever be the same. Well, well, yes. But you must work for that. Here, hold this pot; that’s your fighting-cock. The left knee down, touching the floor, and out a little. No, no, like this.”

  After a time he got a lump of beeswax off the shelf, and began working it up with his flat fingers. Beside me pink-cheeked Apollo, the Double Talker, smiled down sidelong at his thick green snake.

  25

  THE SECOND MONTH DREW into the third, and Theramenes did not come.

  Chremon made six studies of me, in wax or clay: holding a fighting-cock; tying my sandal; binding my hair with a ribbon; as Hylas, kneeling at the pool; as Hyakinthos slain by the disk; and as Dionysos sleeping. The Diony
sos was a quick one, done without my knowledge. He kept his word about the wine; we had it every evening, half-and-half or stronger. They say any human state has some good in it if you look; and in those days one could be drunk on very little.

  I believe he kept me longer than anyone; for I could not count on the shelf more than four sketches from any one model. He fed me better than Polykleitos had, and he paid me my two drachmas every day. I used to meet Thalia at the ruins of the traitor’s house, and give her anything I could get for the money, telling her not always to say it came from me, lest Lysis should wonder how I got it. When I came to see him he looked a little better, but strange, with deep eyes and a very clear skin like a boy’s. This, I think, came from his drinking much water to kill his hunger; a physician once told me this is good for an unhealed wound, washing the morbid humours from the body; I daresay it was what kept him alive.

  It was hard to account to my family for my staying out so late, when, if any man had been seen using oil to burn, his house would have been stoned. If I was gone all night, I said I was on guard duty. Sometimes I saw my father look at me. But there was not much left in the cupboard, and my mother was getting near her time; if he thought it better not to ask questions, I do not blame him.

  When she was far gone with child she never looked very well; and she moved slowly now about the house for one whose habit was as brisk as a bird’s. Little Charis helped her, and once, getting home at dawn, I found my father sweeping the courtyard, as smartly as if he had done it for years. Then I remembered. I took the broom from him; but we said nothing.