I felt for him; but just then I was more concerned for his son. Lysis’ bones had mended well; except for the scar on his brow, the fight with Sostratos had left no mark on his body. But he had ceased to practise the pankration. For some time he kept this from me; he took enough exercise to keep in condition; but often he would tell me he was going to the palaestra, and I would find him in the colonnade; or sometimes I could not find him at all. When I saw how things were, I don’t think it came as any great surprise to me. I remembered how, when Polymedes and the rest had taken me up, he had withdrawn; he could never stoop to base antagonists. He had said nothing to me, lest he should seem to slight my crown. He was as honourable as always, but less open than he had been. He would fall into silences; and when I asked him his thoughts, he would be short with me.
We were less hard-pressed in the Guard, the war being fought so much at sea. I found a freeman who would do something on the farm for a small wage and a share of the crop; we only put in quick-growing things.
One fine summer morning in the City, I had just put the last touches on our house, which I had been fresh-whitening. I had been doing it each daybreak till people were about; for though everyone knew nowadays that his neighbour was putting his hand to slaves’ work, no one cared to have it noticed. Still, now it was done I was well pleased with it; so was my mother, especially with the courtyard, where I had painted the tops of the columns red and blue. I had had a bath, dressed my hair, and put a clean mantle on; I was carrying the walking-staff I used in the City, a good black-wood one that had been my father’s. After the dirty work, I felt the pleasure of trimness, as I paused in the porch to take a last look at my handiwork. When I turned my face to the street, I saw a stranger approaching the house.
He was a raw-boned old man, who had been tall when he was straight; he walked halting, and leaning on a stick cut from the thicket, one of his feet being hurt and wrapped in a dirty rag. His white hair was ragged, as if he had trimmed it himself with a knife, and he wore a short tunic of some drab stuff, such as poor workmen wear, or slaves. He was dirty enough for either of these, yet bore himself like neither. He was looking at our house, making straight for it; and seeing this, I felt the sinking of some unknown fear; he seemed to me like the messenger of bad news. I stepped forward from the porch, waiting for him to speak; but when he saw me, he only stared. His drawn and bony face with its month-old stubble was weathered nearly black; his eyes, being grey, showed in it piercingly. I had been about to hail him, and ask him whom he was looking for. At first I did not know what it was that kept me from asking. I only knew I must not ask.
His eyes moved past me to dwell on the courtyard. Then he looked again at me. I felt before his silent expectation a creeping in my flesh. He said, “Alexias.” Then my feet carried me down into the street; and my voice said, “Father.”
I don’t know how long we stood there; I daresay not many moments. I said, “Come in, sir,” scarcely knowing what I did; then collecting myself a little, praised the gods for his preservation. On the threshold he stumbled with his lame foot; I reached out to help him, but he righted himself quickly.
He stood in the courtyard, looking about him. I remembered Lysikles, and it seemed strange to me now that I should have taken his word without any doubts, seeing how broken the man had been and how his tale had wandered. What had put me in mind of him was the sight of my father’s hand, calloused and knotted, with dirt sealed into the cracks and scars. My mind was at a stop. I groped for words to say to him. I have felt this painful dumbness in war, at the sight of a brave enemy flung down before me in the dust; but in youth one does not recognise such thoughts, nor indeed ought one to understand them. I made again, in different words, the speech about the gods I had made before. I said we had despaired of this happiness. Then, beginning to come to myself, I said, “I will go before you, sir, and tell Mother.”
“I will tell her myself,” he said, and limped towards the door. He moved quite fast. In the doorway he turned and looked at me again. “I did not think you would grow so tall.” I made him some answer. I had grown a good deal; but it was the bowing of his back that had brought us eye to eye.
I reached the doorway behind him, and then paused. My heart was pounding, my knees felt like water and my bowels were loosened within me. I heard him go into the women’s rooms, but I could not hear anyone speak. I went away; at last, after what I thought must be a proper time, I went through to the living-room. My father was sitting in the master’s chair, with his foot in a bowl of water whose steam smelled of herbs and of a putrid wound. Before him knelt my mother, with a cloth in her hands, cleaning the place. She was weeping; the tears were running down, her hands not being free to dry them. It came into my mind for the first time that I ought to have embraced him.
The walking-stick was still in my hand. I remembered the corner where I had found it first, and put it back there.
Drawing near them, I asked him how he had come. He said from Italy, in a Phoenician ship. His foot was puffed up to twice its size, and green matter came from it. When my mother asked if the shipmaster had trusted him for the fare, he said, “They were short of a rower.”
“Alexias,” said my mother, “see if your father’s bath is ready, and that Sostias has not forgotten anything.” I was going, when I heard a sound come near, and the breath stopped in my throat; it was I who had forgotten something.
The child Charis came in, singing and chattering. She was holding a painted clay doll I had brought her from Corinth, which she was talking to; so she had come into the middle of the room before she looked up. Then she must have noticed the smell, for she stared with round eyes, like a bird. I thought, “Now he sees how pretty she is, surely he will take pleasure in what he made.” He leaned forward in his chair; my mother said, “Here is our little Charis, who has heard so many tales of you.” My father drew down his brows; but he did not seem very angry or surprised, and my breath came easier. He held out his hand and said, “Come here, Charis.” The child stood still; so I came forward, to lead her up to him. But as soon as I tried to move her, her face grew red, and her mouth turned downward; she hid herself in the skirt of my mantle, wailing with fright. When I tried to carry her to him, she clung to my neck and screamed. I dared not look at him. Then I heard my mother say the child was timid, and cried at any strange face; the first lie I had ever heard her tell.
I took my sister away, and went to look at the bathroom. Poor old Sostias, in his confusion, had made a bad job there; I found razors and comb and pumice, and carried in the clean towels and mantle my mother had laid out. She said, “I will come with you, Myron; Sostias is too clumsy for today”; but he said he would manage for himself. I had seen already that his head was lousy. He went off, using the stick I had laid by. As my mother cleared away the cloths and bowl, she talked quickly to me of how sick he was and what he should eat, and which doctor to get for his foot. I thought of the miseries he had endured, and it seemed to me that my heart must be made of stone, that I had not wept for him as she had done. I said, “At least he will let me trim his hair and beard for him. He won’t want a barber to see them as they are.”
When I entered he looked ready to order me out again; but after all he thanked me, and told me to close-crop his head, for nothing else would get it clean. Taking the razor I went behind him; then I saw his back. Eumastas the Spartan would have been humbled before it, and owned himself a beginner. I don’t know what they had used on him; it must have had lead or iron tied into it. The scars went right round his sides.