“Good-night, Lycon. I’d walk along a little farther with you, but I feel inclined to hang around here for a while to see if anything exciting develops.”
Leaving Acron in the marketplace, Lycon walked alone through the streets to his house. He went directly to his chambers and sat for a while in darkness, thinking about what had happened and was likely to happen, and he became more and more dejected and certain that nothing would ever be acceptable again, and after a long time he decided that he might feel a little better if he had a bath. Getting up, he stripped and went out to the paved bathroom and filled the basin and bathed, but as a consequence he did not feel any better after all. Back in his room, he wondered if he should go get some wine and fill a bowl and drink it by himself, but this did not seem like a particularly good idea, or anything that he really wanted to do. Then, all of a sudden, he felt a compulsion to go to Lysistrata’s room and sit for a while on a bench there. So he went down the passage and into the room, and to his surprise the flat terra-cotta lamp was burning brightly beside the bed, and in the bed was Lysistrata in a transparent purple gown, and she was looking at him quite pleasantly, and even with a kind of eagerness.
“Hello, Lycon,” she said. “Theoris has been to tell me that you had arrived. I did not expect you home from Pylos for quite some time.”
“I simply came back,” he said. “I was made to feel miserable by my fellows and could not stand it any longer.”
“At any rate, I am happy to see you.”
“Are you? Somehow I felt that you might not be.”
“Whatever could possibly give you such an absurd idea?”
“Well, you were not happy to see me the last time I came home, and besides, you are now famous for having accomplished exceptional things and might not wish to devote yourself to a simple fellow like me who has done little or nothing to excite admiration. Do you know what I was told? I was told tonight by an old rogue in the marketplace that you are one of the most remarkable women in the history of Hellas.”
“Oh, well. You must not be excessively influenced by the opinions of others, no matter how correct they may be.”
“I understand you had a feast in the Acropolis to celebrate the peace.”
“Yes, we did. It was required as a courtesy to the embassies.”
“I suppose it is unnecessary to ask if you enjoyed yourself.”
“It was quite entertaining for a while, besides being satisfying as a symbol of our victory, but later it became dull.”
“It is a quality of exceptional people, I understand, to become bored with what they are doing and wish to be doing something a little more exceptional. If I am allowed to ask, now that you are famous, what do you intend doing next?”
“That’s entirely up to you.”
“To me? I don’t understand, I’m sure. Would you mind explaining?”
“Well, in the natural order of things, I must do almost immediately whatever I do next, and it might be to eat a grape, or paint my toes, or go to sleep, or do something else of your choosing.”
Lycon, having been made somewhat timid by misfortune, was hesitant to understand this as he was clearly meant to. Such an abrupt reversal of an established attitude was rather confusing and suspicious, to say the least, and he was naturally reluctant to expose himself to further humiliation and rejection after having suffered them sufficiently. On the other hand, things could hardly become any worse, whereas they could certainly become a great deal better, and he decided that it would be no less than cowardly if he failed to assert himself in the hope of achieving something.
“Lysistrata,” he said, stepping close to the bed,” I have asked you and asked you to make ready, and you have refused to do it, and now I am asking you again, and it will surely be the last time if you do not do it.”
“Why, it is entirely unnecessary for you to be so aggressive about it,” Lysistrata said. “Not only am I prepared to do my clear duty as a wife, I am even prepared to take pleasure in it.”
19
“As things are going,” said Theoris, “we are not likely to be disturbed for a long time.”
The cook leered at her and shook his head with a kind of reluctant admiration.
“Have you been peeping and listening again?” he said. “It’s absolutely astonishing, the risks you take and get away with.”
“The necessity to reconnoiter should be apparent even to a stupid lout like you. At any rate, the household has returned to normalcy in all its parts, including my lady’s boudoir.”
“I’m not so certain that it pleases me to hear it. The Master will now begin dragging his cronies home to dinner again, and it will make a good deal of additional work.”
“If you don’t like being a cook, you should quit. It does no good whatever to be forever complaining.”
“One of the unfortunate aspects of slavery, goose, is that one is not permitted to resign whenever one chooses.”
“It doesn’t matter. You have no talent for anything but cooking, anyhow.”
“Not for anything?”
“Please don’t presume to make improper allusions simply because I have been generous with you a time or two out of compassion.”
“Never mind. You must maintain the fiction that you are something you are not, I suppose. I’ll get out the wine, and we can continue our celebration of the peace which was interrupted by the return of the Mistress and Master.”
“I’m not at all sure that I wish to continue it.”
“Nonsense. Your tongue is hanging out of your head.”
“It’s true that I am quite fond of wine, and perhaps somewhat fonder than is good for me, but nevertheless I think that I have had enough at this time, for I have reached the point at which I am inclined to relax excessively.”
“I can’t see why that should deter you. You haven’t yet been made miserable as a consequence of relaxing, have you?”
“I admit that I haven’t. You’re a vulgar promiscuous fellow, but you have kept your word strictly with regard to assuming all necessary remorse.”
“To tell the truth, I have found very little necessary.”
“Really? That being the case, I’ll not hesitate to share another bowl with you. Let us have some of the choice vintage from the Cyclades, if you please.”