I looked round anxiously. Luckily my father was out.
“I myself have seen him in the street,” she said, “when a cat crossed his path, waiting for someone else to pass to take off the bad luck. What kind of man is that for a soldier?”—“No one doubts, Mother,” I said laughing, “that you’d make a better one.” She blushed, and turning to the loom said, “I can’t waste any more time in talking. Your father’s club is coming tonight.”
The club was called the Sunhorses. It was, in those days, moderate in politics, but though it served the usual purposes of that kind, good talk was its chief function, and they never let the number get above eight, to keep the conversation general. All the foundation members, of whom my father was one, had been knights of moderate wealth; but the war had brought a good many changes of fortune. They tried nowadays, as between gentlemen, to overlook the fact that they had become a mixture of rich and poor; the dinner subscriptions had always been moderate, with no costly additions expected from the host. But lately things had reached a point where some men could not afford the extra lamp-oil and condiments for a club supper, and, ashamed to charge them to the common account, had dropped out on some excuse. One man, who was easy in matters of pride but well liked, had more than once had his share paid by a whip-round among the rest.
“Where are you off to?” my mother asked me.—“Only to see Xenophon. His father’s given him a colt to train for himself, to ride when he joins the Guard. I want to see how it’s coming on. He says you must never train a horse with a whip; it’s like beating a dancer and expecting grace, and a horse ought to move well out of pride in itself. Mother, isn’t it time that Father got a new horse? Korax is too old for anything but hacking: what am I going to ride, when I’m ready for the Guard?”—“You?” she cried, “silly child, that’s a world away.”—“Only three years, Mother.”—“It depends on next year’s harvest. Don’t stay late at Xenophon’s. Your father wants you in tonight.”—“Not tonight, Mother; it’s club night.”—“I’m aware of it, Alexias. And your father’s order is that you are to go after supper, and serve the wine.”—“Who, I?” I was much affronted; I had never been asked to serve tables, except at public dinners where lads of good family do it by custom. “Are the slaves sick, or what?”—“Don’t show your father that sulky face; you ought to feel complimented. Run away, I have work to do.”
When I went to the bath that evening I found my father just finishing, with old Sostias rinsing him down. I looked at his fine shoulders, flat and wide without being too heavy, and resolved to spend more time with the disk and javelin. Even now, though the rising generation seems to think nothing of it, I cannot bear to see a runner gone all to legs, looking as if he would be fit for nothing, when off the track, except to get away from a battlefield faster than anyone else.
When Sostias had gone my father said, “You will serve us the wine tonight, Alexias.”—“Yes, Father.”—“Whatever you may hear in the guest-room, nothing goes out. You understand?”—“Yes, Father.” This put another colour on it. I went off to make myself a garland; I chose hyacinths, I believe.
They finished their business concerns early; while they were still eating my father commanded me to fetch my lyre and sing. I gave them the ballad of Harmodios and Aristogeiton. Afterwards my father said, “You must forgive the boy’s hackneyed choice; but it is while these old songs come fresh to them, that they can learn something from them.”—“Don’t beg our pardon, Myron,” Kritias said. “I fancy I am not the only one here who felt, on hearing it tonight, that he understood it for the first time.” The slaves were clearing the tables, which gave me an excuse to pretend I had not heard.
After mixing the wine, I went round the couches, quietly as I had been taught, without drawing attention to myself; but one or two of my father’s old friends held me back for a few words. Theramenes, who had given me my first set of knucklebones, remarked how I was growing, and told me that if I did not idle my time in the bath-house or scent-shop, but remembered the Choice of Herakles, I might be as handsome as my father. One or two other guests had a word for me, but when I got to Kritias, I took care to be as brief as if it were a mess-table in Sparta.
He was not much above thirty then, but already affected the philosopher in mantle and beard. He had a hungry-looking face, with the skin stretched tight on the cheekbones, but was not bad looking apart from his thinness, except that his eyes were too light, the skin being dark around them. He had not belonged to the club very long, and was considered something of a prize to it, for he was extremely well-born, wealthy, and a wit. No one, as you may suppose, had asked for my opinion. As it happened, I had met him rather earlier than my father had. I had noticed him first in Sokrates’ company; which had disposed me so well to him, that when he came up afterwards while Midas’ back was turned, I let him speak to me.
I was old enough to have received some attentions from men, while still young enough to think them rather absurd; as, for that matter, the kind of person who chases young boys usually is. But I had never been inclined to laugh at Kritias.
When I reached him with the wine, he was all graciousness, and remarked, as if we had never spoken before, that he had watched me on the running-track and noticed my style improving; and he named one or two victors my trainer had taught. On my replying as shortly as I knew how, he praised my modesty, saying I had the manners of a better age, and quoting Theognis. I could see my father listening with approval. But as soon as he turned his head away, Kritias moved his cup a little, so that the wine spilled down my clothes. On this he apologised, said he hoped it would leave no stain, and put his hand under the hem of my tunic in such a way that, to everyone but me, he would have seemed to be feeling the cloth.
I don’t know how I refrained from bringing the pitcher down upon his head. He knew I should be ashamed to call attention to him, before my father and his friends. I withdrew at once, though without saying anything, and went over to the mixing-bowl to fill the jug. I thought no one had noticed; but when I got round to Tellis, the man who had been too poor to pay his own subscription, he spoke to me with a certain gentleness which told me that he knew. Looking up, I saw Kritias watching us together.
When the garlands had been brought in and the slaves had shut the door and gone, one or two people invited me to sit beside them; but I sat on the foot of my father’s couch. They had been capping verses, a diversion in which Kritias had shone; but now being alone they glanced round at each other, and there was a pause. Then Theramenes said, “Well, every dog has his day, and today is the demagogues’.”
To this several voices assented. He went on, “They think with their ears, their eyes, their bellies or what else you like, except their minds. If Alkibiades has been insolent to them, he must be guilty. If he has spent money at the shop, and remembered to smile, he could walk the City with a smashed Herm under his arm and still be as innocent as this boy here. But remind them a little of expediency, point out to them that he is a strategist of genius such as Ares sends once in a century; their eyes glaze over; what do they care? They’ve not set foot on a battlefield in three generations; they have no armour, no, but they can give us our marching orders, and choose the generals.” Kritias said, “And we, who carry the burden of the City, are like parents with spoiled children: they break the roof-tiles, we pay.”
“As for justice,” Theramenes said, “they have as much notion of it as the guts of a mullet. I tell you, my dear Myron, this very night I could raise a drunken brawl here, strike you before all these witnesses, wound your slaves; and if you would only come to court looking and behaving like a gentleman, I undertake you would lose your case. I, you see, should put on the old tunic I wear on my farm, and have a speech written for an honest poor fellow, which I should con till it came like nature to me. I should bring my children along, borrowing some little ones as the youngest is ten; and we should all rub our eyes with onion. I assure you, in the end it would be you who would pay the fine, for plying your simple friend with stronger stuff that he could afford at home, and trying to profit by it. They would spit on you as you left.”