"A bad thing it is, master, for a young fellow to shut himself up like a dead corpse, and you so handsome and all."
In a rage I fell upon the Kelt with a lath and beat him until he ran out of the studio. Then, feeling utterly ashamed of myself, I sat for hours looking out over the city, which lay under a gray, wet, windy sky. Feeling pressed from all directions—by Kallias, by Genetor, by the Antigonian threat to my city, and by my own lofty ambitions—I felt that, as the saying goes, it is best not to be born, but if one be born, the next best thing is to die forthwith.
At length my guardian spirit—or was it the Bright One himself?—said to me: Come, boy, the deathless gods love not stupidity. So you are in a predicament? That is nought new. Most mortals are, most of the time. As fast as you get out of one, you will fall into another. What of it? That is the difference between being alive and being dead. Only the dead have bo problems, and the shades have a dull time of it. That time will come upon you soon enough; therefore, gather your forces and return to the fray!
So I went back to work on the statue, determined to finish it and let Kallias do his worst. When I heard a stealthy step, I called:
"Kavaros!"
"Yes, sir."
"There's a Persian custom of giving gifts to a man on his birthday. I don't know when your last one was, but here is a tetradrachmon for it."
Kavaros turned the massive coin over and handed it back, saying: "Thank you, master, but if you do not mind I will not be taking it."
"What? Are you crazy?"
"No, sir. It is a matter of honor."
"Honor? You?"
"I do not know if I can make you understand, sir. I know I am just a slave, and if you beat me I have to bear it, lest something worse happen to me—like being sold to a mining contractor, say. But at home I was a gentleman, and a gentleman would not hire himself out to be beaten for money."
I found this quiet rebuke so crushing that for a long time I stood silent. At last I said:
"Well, slave or gentleman, you've been a good friend to me. I know you want to be free, so you shall be—as soon as my great statue is done."
"Is it this one that you mean?" he said, eagerly indicating the half-finished Antigonos.
"No. I mean my colossus; the one I dream of."
"Oh. Well, sir, I will be looking forward to it someday, anyway. And now do we work some more on the one-eyed fellow?"
We pitched in, and in a few ten-days had the Antigonos all up and in place except for the arms and head. I found the work distasteful, as the subject had become revolting to me; but soonest begun, soonest done.
In Anthesterion, during the heaviest rain of the winter, somebody knocked on the outer door of the studio. Although I pretended not to hear, the knocking kept on until I ordered Kavaros to open the door. As the visitor came in, I burst out:
"By the Dog of Egypt! How can a creative artist work if he is constantly interrupted by this fiendish racket?" Then I saw that it was Onas.
"I have orders from Bias to fetch you," said the Egyptian. "We are wanted at the armory. Demetrios is back at Loryma."
In the armory Bias explained the plans of the Board of Generals. New catapults of all sizes would be ordered. Until they were finished, we must be prepared to rush our battery .either to the moles, to repel attack by sea, or to the South Wall, to repulse assault by land.
As I was leaving the armory, who should come puffing up to me but Kallias, with an umbrella hat on his head.
"Chares!" he said. "Get the rest of that statue up, forthwith!"
"Oh?"
"Do not 'oh' me, young man. I know you can finish it in a few days if you wish. And fear not that I shall reject it. The Assembly is about to vote some fancy honors to the kings, and it would not look well to leave their statues unfinished."
Two days later Kavaros and I drove the last rivet holding the statue's head to its trunk, and the Antigonos was complete. When the municipal treasurer paid me off, he said:
"It is good that you finished that statue, Chares. You took so long that there was a move afoot to cancel your contract. The Council might have done it, too, had it not been for your servant."
"Kavaros? Why, what did he do?"
"He came to us and told us the real reason for the delay: how he had gotten drunk and broken your molds."
I turned away, to hide a tear, resolving that the good Kavaros should be freed as soon as I could afford to buy a replacement for him, colossus or no colossus.
Thereafter I had little time for sculpture. My father got a new contract for shield facings, and I put in long hours in the foundry. When not casting and hammering the thin bronze disks or punching the letter rho (for Rhodes) into them, I was drilling with the crew of the Talos. Day and night the streets of beautiful Rhodes resounded to the tramp of infantry marching to drill and back, or of reservists hastening to a practice muster.
I heard that another embassy had been sent to Loryma; then that it had returned without an agreement. I got the true story of the embassy from Damophilos, who, with some other friends of my father, attended a dinner at our house.
"I sometimes think the royalists are right," Damophilos said. "From the craven conduct of our embassy one would indeed infer that democracy has no future."
"What did they do?" asked my father. "I know they refused the king's demands, which doesn't sound cowardly to me. After all, there are men in Rhodes who remember when Queen Artemisia took the city and stacked the heads of Councilmen in the theater like a pile of catapult balls."
Damophilos blew his nose, for he had caught cold on the rainy voyage. "At first they refused the king's demands. Then, when Demetrios threatened utterly to destroy the city, they hastily agreed—that is, to join him against the Ptolemaios.
"But who is given too much wants yet more. Becoming haughty and insulting, Demetrios asked for a hundred of the noblest citizens as hostages and for the right to bring his fleet into our harbors. All our statues and other honors have not softened these royal robbers in the least.
"Once we let him into the harbors, he could do as he liked—raze the city and slay us all if it suited him. In fact, I suspect him of just such a plan. His soldiers grumble because their pay is in arrears. It would be just like him, having failed to loot Egypt, to promise them the sack of Rhodes to soothe them.
"But what really spilt the perfume into the soup was the demand for noble hostages. These would include all the members of the embassy, who, naturally, were not eager to be carried off as pledges for the good behavior of Rhodes, and have their throats cut if some hothead started a patriotic riot at home. So they finally said 'no.'"
"If we must fight, we must," said my father. "When we grow too soft to defend ourselves, we no longer merit our liberty."
"Euge!" said Damophilos. "Though the sight of Demetrios' vast armament at Loryma might dampen that noble sentiment. But there, I should be harkening you on, not sapping your spirit by ill-timed cynicisms." He turned to me. "By the way, the king asked after you."
"How so?" I asked with a hollow feeling.
" 'Where is that pretty young sculptor, whatever his name was?' he said, adding that he wanted you among the hostages. What about it, Chares?"
None would have blamed me much if I had confessed to being Demetrios' catamite. However, I told the true tale of my escape.
"If he want me now," I said, "it is not to make love to me but to kill me."
Damophilos laughed with the rest, albeit grimly. "Had Chares been less finical, it might have been better for Rhodes. But I like the lad's spirit. If all our flabby, money-grubbing, pleasure-loving citizens show the like, Rhodes may—just may —have a chance."