Mask of Silenus: A Novel about Socrates by Deutsch Babette

Author:Deutsch, Babette
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Modern Times Publishing
Published: 2022-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

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THE tanner leaned back on the couch, his face in shadow, watching the two men who had done his dinner more honor than had been possible for himself. The only sound in the room was Lycon’s asthmatic breathing, the crack of the nut-shells he was breaking in his great fist, and an occasional soft cough from Meletus.

There was nothing in Lycon’s large flushed face to show how he had received the story his host had just finished telling. He kept on cracking nuts and chewing them, steadily, imperturbably. The tanner half expected him to raise his head and moo. But he was not so placid always: fill him with enough wine, prod him only a little, and he was a very bull for rage. Anytus counted on rousing the brute before the night was over. As for the other, Meletus the poet, he fingered his thin beard and looked grave. Would he show the peculiar fierceness of the timid?

Meletus is no fool, thought the tanner, though his plays don’t win prizes. He will feel it his duty to speak out in the name of morality and religion. Let him only come into the public eye: he may yet see his name inscribed in the Street of Tripods.

A slave came in then with a wine-cooler, but as soon as the cups were filled, Anytus dismissed him, saying that they would need no further service. As soon as they were left alone he rose from his couch and bolted the door. Lycon looked up at that, and then looked down again, reaching for another handful of nuts.

“Too much like the old days, eh, Lycon?” asked the tanner with a grim smile. “I don’t think there are any of Critias’ crew in hiding here, but we want no interruptions.”

Lycon shrugged, and dusted the nut-shells from his fingers. His voice creaked a little, not with years, for he was just past fifty, but with having dined too well:

“If it weren’t for you, my friend, where would we be now? Where would we be?”

“In exile,” murmured Meletus.

“In our graves, more likely,” said the tanner. “The Thirty understood that dead men don’t lead revolutions. But I take no credit for driving them out. Suppose I was crowned for it! Did you fight with me or not?”

“By Zeus, I did!” panted Lycon.

“Gods, but it was cold work!” and Meletus drank, as though the battle in the snows of Phyle chilled his thin frame in remembrance.

They were quiet a little, living over the past. Then the tanner recalled them harshly to the present:

“Perhaps you think we have won the fight, and can rest on our oars. Critias is dead, but I tell you there are plenty left who honor his memory and are only waiting for a chance to revive the dictatorship. And poor as we are, there are still rich men in Athens ready to support a movement against the democracy.”

“It’s a sad thing,” muttered Lycon, “a sad thing!”

“It’s sadder when a man doesn’t know the enemies in his own household,” said the tanner.

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