So, early next day, I set off for the City. Though a good way, it was not so far as I had come, for I had wandered to and fro on the mountains. I returned at evening, a little before the lighting of the lamps. The priest’s wife had mended the rents in my mantle, and washed it, so that I looked more like myself, though somewhat bruised from the fall. As I came into the courtyard, I saw the lamp begin to shine from indoors. I waited outside for a while; but the dogs knew me, and ran up making a noise; so then I went in.
My father was seated at the table, reading. As he raised his eyes, my stepmother came in from the kitchen. She looked at him, not at me, and waited. He said, “Come in, Alexias; supper is almost ready, but you have time for a bath first, I daresay.” Then, turning towards her, “Has he time?”—“Yes,” she said, “if he is not too long.”—“Hurry then; but as you go, bid goodnight to your sister. She has been asking for you.”
So we sat down to eat, and talked of matters in the City; and what had passed was never spoken of again. What he had said to my stepmother while I was gone, or she to him, I never knew. But as time went by, I saw there had been a change. Sometimes I would hear her say to him, “The evening will be cool; your cloak is not thick enough”; or “Don’t let them give you the spiced meat that kept you awake last time.” He would say, “What’s that?” or “Well, well!” but he would obey her. I had not perceived that he always treated her as a girl, till now when I saw him treat her as a woman.
How this had come about, I never knew; nor, I think, did I wish to know. It was enough that nothing would be again as it was before.
19
DURING THE TIME THAT followed this, I was much in the City, and little at home. There was a great emptiness within me; I was always glad to be in company, and did not always wait to find the best.
I could not speak of what had happened, even to Lysis. But some hint at least I would have given him, if he had not asked me in anger where I had been, and reproached me with leaving no word for him. Natural as this was, yet being still not myself I felt he had failed me at need, and only said shortly that I had been hunting. “Alone?” he asked. I told him yes. Seeing I had lied, I need not have been injured by his disbelief; yet I felt it an injury.
After this, though needing him more now than ever before, from being thoughtless I grew to be unkind. I often tormented him, well knowing what I did; saying to myself that his baseless jealousy deserved to be punished. Then lonely and wretched, and full of shame, I would return to him, as if this were to undo the past, or as if I had treated lightly a man without pride. At his first coldness I would let fly, and it would all begin again. Sometimes out of longing for his company I would beg his pardon, or set out to get round him in spite of himself, and we would be reconciled. But it was like the clouded gaiety of fever. At parting he would ask me with forced carelessness what I meant to do next day and whom I was seeing. I would laugh, and give him some slight answer; later, alone at night, I would have given anything to have parted friends, and could not think what had possessed me. For often in company, or with the troop about us, I would look at him knowing the world held nothing so dear; if at that moment we could be alone, it seemed, there would be no cloud between us. And I even thought he felt the same.
While I was with Sokrates, I could always stand aside and see my folly. Yet I did not come to him for counsel. When one day I could bear myself no longer, it was to Phaedo that I turned.
By chance I found myself lying next him at the hot-bathhouse. It was Kydon’s place, an irreproachable establishment. When the bath-man had done with us, and we were waiting for the masseur, we drew up our couches and talked. It is a place, one finds, for loosening the tongue, and I found my troubles pouring out with my sweat. He listened, lying on his belly, his head on his folded arms, looking round at me through his fair hair. Once he seemed about to interrupt me, but was silent, and heard me out. At the end, he said, “You’re not serious, are you, Alexias, when you say you can’t understand all this?”—“Why, yes; for I don’t think either of us really cares any less for the other. Indeed, I think …” He pushed the hair out of his eyes to look at me, then let it fall back. “Well,” he said, “if you can’t understand it, it must be because you don’t wish to; and for all I know you may be right. No, I can’t tell you what to take for the pain, Alexias; I am not the doctor you are needing; you know I never pretended to know anything of love. Why don’t you ask Sokrates?” I said I would think of it. I did not choose to ask him what he meant.
A short time after, I met Charmides in the palaestra. We watched the wrestling for a while, and fell into talk. Presently glancing through at the dressing-room, I saw Lysis. He had been about to strip for exercise, but seeing me he had paused. I looked away quickly, as if I had not noticed him. It was folly, not malice. I was afraid he would be too angry to return my greeting, and that people would see we were estranged. When I looked again, he was gone. Then too late it came to me what he must think: that I had meant to put an affront on him before Charmides, or even perhaps that Charmides had prompted it.
I was now more than sobered, I was afraid. I left at once, and sought Lysis about the City. At last I went to his home. There I found him sitting at his writing-table, his papers about him. When I came in he went on writing for a few moments, as if a servant were waiting; then he looked up and said, “I am busy; come some other day.”
Never before had it come to this between us. I sank my pride, and excused myself to him. He listened coldly and said, “All this is nothing to me. I am busy, as you see; and I have asked you to go.” He turned to his work again, leaving me to stand there. I began to be desperate; yet I could not abase myself any further, for his contempt would have been too much to bear. So ready to try anything that came into my head, I said, “Very well. I called to ask if you’d come hunting tomorrow; but if you don’t care to, I shall go alone.”—“Yes?” he said. “As you did before?”—“If you choose to come, you can see for yourself. But be there at daybreak; I shan’t wait longer.” And then, determined to make him notice me, “If you come, bring your boar-spears. Or if you are busy, stay away.”
At this, as I had hoped, he sat up and stared at me. “Are you joking,” he said, “or out of your mind, to talk of hunting boar alone?”—“It’s your affair,” I said, “whether I go alone or not. If you’re not there, I shan’t waste the morning looking for someone else.” With that I left him.
Next day I was up in the dark, to make my preparations, such as they were. You may guess how much forethought had gone to my proposal. I had not even boar-spears of my own, and had only been at two hunts in my life; once years before, in the care of Xenophon’s father, who had sent us boys into a tree when he and his friends brought the beast to bay; and once with the Guard, when ten or twelve of us had gone out together. I had borrowed spears, however, from Xenophon; whom, when he assumed I was going with a party, I did not undeceive.
As the stars were fading, I heard horse-hoofs in the empty street. Then the sickle guards of Lysis’ boar-spears stood up black against the sky. Running beside him were his three tall Spartan hounds; behind him on muleback a slave carried the stakes and nets, which I had not even remembered.
He looked down at me grimly, to see how I liked being taken at my word. Since that was the way of it, I greeted him briskly, thanking him for bringing nets, as if I had counted on it. I thought then he would call it quits; but he asked what dogs I was taking. I whistled them up; one big Molossian and two Kastorians, an absurd pack for the work. He glanced at them, raising his brows. Then the Molossian started fighting one of his dogs, which had happened before. We jumped in to part them, and I thought this would thaw him. But he was still cool and sensible, and a mile away. So I said, “Well, let’s be going.”