VII.
Two days after, just as Lycon had breakfasted with the master of the house, Carion, the old slave, entered. Lycon was going to rise and leave the room, but Simonides took him by the arm and made him keep his place on the edge of the couch.
“Master,” said old Carion, “I have come to ask for myself and the rest of the slaves that you will forgive and forget. If you only will not sell us to the mines, we will obey you in everything and, as a token of our submission, we bring you the household implements of punishment, all of them, and in good condition.”
Simonides could scarcely believe his ears, and turned to his guest in speechless surprise. Lycon laughed in his sleeve.
At a sign from Carion, two young slaves entered and laid at their master’s feet large and small whips, iron collars, fetters, stocks, branding irons, neck-wheels, and the so-called “tree,” which served as a pillory and at the same time inflicted the torture of sitting in a doubled up position. Bringing in all these articles consumed time enough to enable Simonides to regain his composure.
Without showing his satisfaction in the presence of the slaves, he replied that he would grant their petition and forgive what had happened. No one should suffer oppression, but if any one did wrong he would be punished. Carion, the first who had given an example of obedience, would be made overseer of the others, and in token that he himself was ready to forget what had happened, each of them would be received that evening as if he were entering his master’s house for the first time. He should be led to the hearth by the overseer and there receive figs, dried grapes, nuts, and small pastry cakes, in token that there was an abundance in the house and he would lack nothing.
Simonides then ordered the slaves to carry the instruments of punishment to the room intended for them.
Scarcely was he alone with Lycon ere, with overflowing affection, he pressed him to his breast.
“By all the gods of friendship!” he exclaimed, “tell me by what magic you have accomplished this?”
Lycon now mentioned the chastisement he had given Conops, and the demand he had made of the slaves in their master’s name under the penalty of labor in the mines.
Simonides grasped Lycon’s hand and pressed it in both his own.
“Though a stranger,” he said, “you have fulfilled my dearest wish and restored order to my household. May the gods bless you for it! To my dying day I shall remember this time as a happy hour. But tell me, my son, is there nothing you desire, nothing I can do for you?”
Lycon averted his face. Now, in this decisive moment, which he had anticipated during so many days and nights, he could not force himself to utter a single word.
“My son,” persisted Simonides, “there is something that weighs upon your heart. Do not deny it. By Zeus, I want to see only happy faces to-day. So, tell me what it is.”
Lycon sprang from the couch and threw himself at Simonides’ feet.
“Pardon, Master!” he faltered, “I am not worthy to be your guest.”
“What fire-brand are you casting into my bosom,” cried Simonides, half-raising himself on the couch as, seized by a dark foreboding, he gazed with dilated eyes at the kneeling figure.
Lycon turned deadly pale. Grasping a fold of Simonides’ robe, he said in a voice almost choked with emotion:
“Master ... don’t you know me?... I am your slave Zenon.”
“Wonder-working Gods!” exclaimed Simonides doubtfully, “what am I compelled to hear!”
“Mercy, Master, mercy!”
Simonides, uttering a fierce cry, kicked Lycon away with his foot.
“Thief,” he shouted, trembling with rage, “miserable thief, you have stolen my money and my health, what do you seek in my house? Have you come here to rob me a second time?... For two years I have not suffered your name to be spoken in my hearing.... Begone, begone from my sight, you source of my misery—you destroyer of the happiness of my life!”
And as Lycon still lingered, Simonides pointed to the door of the peristyle, shouting imperatively: “Go, go, I command you!”
Lycon left the room with drooping head, without casting a glance behind. He no longer had a hope.
At the same moment the curtain at the door of a side-chamber stirred slightly, and soon after Myrtale entered and silently seated herself on the edge of the couch at her father’s feet. She was very pale, and through the folds of her thin dress the rapid rising and falling of her bosom showed that she was struggling for breath. Simonides scarcely seemed to notice her and, without moving or looking up, she waited patiently for him to speak.
At last he broke the silence.
“Do you know who Lycon is?” he asked.
“Yes, I know.”
“And you did not tell me?”
“It was his business to confess, not mine.”
“What do you advise, Myrtale?”
“To wait until to-morrow.”
“Why?”
“To let Lycon sentence himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of two things will happen—either he will run away during the night and then his solicitude for himself will be greater than his repentance, or he will stay, and then his repentance will be deep enough to make him prefer to suffer everything rather than not obtain your forgiveness.”
Simonides drew Myrtale towards him and stroked her pretty brown hair.
“Polycles is right,” he said, “your name ought to have been Metis[U] and not Myrtale.... But will not Lycon take advantage of the night to steal from me again?”
[U] Prudence, ingenuity.
Myrtale made no reply, but the lines around her mouth expressed so much wrath and scorn that Simonides in surprise looked at her more closely. A glittering streak ran from her eyes down over her cheeks.
“So you trust him?” he asked.
“I do trust him,” replied Myrtale so earnestly that her father remained silent a long time.
“Was I too severe?” he said at last.
Myrtale did not answer.
“Remember, child, that the service he has rendered to me is nothing in comparison to the crime he committed. If his own sin had not made me ill, I should never have needed his assistance.”
The next morning, while Lycon was uncertain whether he ought to go to Simonides or wait for the latter’s orders, a boy entered and said:
“Simonides asks Lycon to come to him.”
This message showed he was not to be treated as a slave.
“I will come,” Lycon hastily replied, and when the lad had gone he fairly leaped into the air in his delight.
Before he had left the guest-room he remembered that during his restless sleep he had had a dream. In his childhood he had often seen a little boy, the son of poor parents, known by the name of unlucky Knemon, because he looked so doleful that everybody slapped and pushed him because he really seemed to invite cuffs. This boy had appeared to him in the dream. Lycon tried to push him aside—but at the same moment the lad was transformed and Eros himself stood smiling before him, a garland of roses on his hair. Gazing intently at Lycon he shook his finger at him. Lycon thought of Myrtale and murmured: “I accept the omen.”
This dream now returned to his mind.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, “yesterday I was a doleful, unlucky Lycon; I invited a beating—so Simonides kicked me.... Would a dog get so many blows if it did not crouch before its master? Well, I will be braver to-day.”
With these words he took up the two bundles he had brought with him from Athens.
“What have you there?” asked Simonides, as he saw Lycon enter with a package under each arm.
“Not my property, but yours,” replied Lycon.
Simonides understood that the parcels contained the ready money and articles of value Lycon had brought with him from Athens.
“Put them there,” he said, pointing to a small cabinet.
Lycon laid the bundles down.
“Tell me,” Simonides continued, “what did you think about your position in the city?”
“Nothing—by Zeus!” said Lycon, as though amused by his own freedom from anxiety. “I had so much to do in becoming acquainted with people and things in Athens, that I forgot both past and future and, when I heard Phorion speak of your illness and your servants’ laziness and negligence, I was so busy in selling my house and slaves to hasten to your assistance that not until during the journey here did I find an opportunity to think of scourges, fetters, and branding-irons—in short of all that might await me.”
“Did it not occur to you to run away during the night?”
“Certainly,” replied Lycon; “but I said to myself: ‘Then it would have been better not to come at all.’ So I stayed.”
“Were you not afraid of being enslaved again?”
“No,” said Lycon quietly; “you would not do that. You know that a man who has lived for years as a free citizen cannot become a bondsman.”
“Well, by Hera!” exclaimed Simonides laughing, “you are a strange mortal. Yesterday you were all humility, and to-day you dictate what I am to do. Yet I like Lycon better to-day than yesterday! Take one of my slaves with you, look about the city and return at dinner time; by that time I shall have considered what will serve you best.”