MENA READS A LETTER
"They have gone," said Ariston, on his return home one evening.
"Who have gone?" his wife inquired.
"Clearchus and his two friends, Chares and the Spartan," the old man replied. "They set out for Pella this afternoon to join the Macedonian army. Fortune has smiled upon us once more and I think there will be a turn in our affairs."
Ariston made no attempt to hide his satisfaction. His shoulders no longer stooped, and his step was light. A hundred schemes were running through his head for repairing the disasters that had brought him so low. For all practical purposes he was again the richest man in Athens, and with the gold at his command he imagined that it would be easy for him to regain his feet.
"You must be cautious," Xanthe said anxiously. "You know that at any time Clearchus may demand an account."
"Yes, but he will not," Ariston replied, pinching her withered cheek. "He will never return to trouble us. I have news of what the Great King is doing and unless the Gods themselves interfere to save Alexander, he will be crushed as soon as he has crossed the Hellespont. The Persians will meet him there in such numbers that there can be no escape for him. None who follow him will return. By Hermes, I feel almost young again!"
He entered his workroom briskly and sat down at the table. Producing a roll of papyrus, he broke the seal, slipped off the wrapping, and spread the document out before him.
"Iphicrates to Ariston," he read. "Greeting: I have obeyed your instructions. Syphax brought me the girl. I dismissed him with promises after she had told me that she had no complaint to make against him. I am convinced that he is a rogue and that he will live to be crucified. For Artemisia, she remains in my household. I have told her that I am awaiting a suitable opportunity to send her back to Athens; but I have put her off from time to time with excuses. She has lost flesh since she came hither, and if she is to be sold, I think it would be best not to delay too long, as her value will be less than if she were offered now. She has written many letters, which I promised to forward for her. One of these I send you with this; the others have been destroyed.
"It is expensive for me to maintain her as you directed. It has cost me already one talent and twenty drachmæ, which leaves me in your debt six talents, eleven drachmæ, and thirty minæ. Please make this correction in our account.
"There is talk here that Alexander, the Macedonian, is preparing to lead an army against this city. Nobody doubts that he will be defeated, since Parmenio could accomplish nothing. Memnon, the Rhodian, has been here, strengthening the fortifications and exercising the soldiers, but of this there is no need; for all the armies of Greece could not take this place, even though they should invest it by land and sea. May the Gods keep you in good health! Farewell."
"He has cheated me out of a talent, at least!" Ariston muttered. "The old skinflint!"
He turned his attention to a second roll of papyrus, which had been enclosed in the first.
"My Beloved," it ran. "Why hast thou not answered the letters I have sent thee, or come thyself to take me home? Clearchus, my Life, I know thou hast not forgotten me, although it seems ages since I last saw thee. Each day I watch and wait for a word from thee, only one little word, but none has come. I try to keep up my courage, thinking that perhaps thou art seeking me elsewhere and that thou hast not received my letters. I do not doubt thee, Clearchus, but I am weary of waiting for thee and my heart is sick. When shall I hear thy voice and see thy face again? I pray each night and morning to Artemis to give thee back to me. My love, my love, may the Gods, who know all things, keep thee safe! While I live, I am thine. Farewell."
A smile played about the corners of Ariston's thin lips as he thrust the papyrus into the flame of the lamp and held it over the brazier until it was consumed. He did the same with the epistle that Iphicrates had sent to him, and then plunged into his accounts.
Xanthe had never been quick-witted, and the monotonous round of her labors had dulled even her natural perceptions. At the bottom of her heart she believed her husband to be the cleverest man in the world. She did not pretend to fathom his schemes. The twistings and windings of his subtle mind confused and bewildered her, and she had no thread by which to trace the labyrinth. While she had long ago ceased to try to follow him, the fact that she did not know all that he was doing tended to make her suspicious, and her distrust, as is usual with women of limited intelligence, took the form of jealousy.
In their forty years of married life Ariston had never given her the slightest cause for such an emotion. Among his few weaknesses there was none for women, whom he despised as mere machines or treated as commodities. But notwithstanding its lack of result, Xanthe, year after year, maintained her vigil, ever seeking what she most dreaded to find.
Of late her husband's cares and advancing age had given her a feeling of security, but the revival of his spirits at the departure of his nephew sent her mind back again to the well-worn track. Could it be that he was deceiving her after all?
This idea laid siege to her thoughts with recurrent insistence. What had she to attract so brilliant a man? Her mirror showed her a wrinkled brow and hollow cheeks. She turned away from it with bitterness in her heart. The wonder was that he had ever loved her; but that was years ago. She could not blame him if he sought a younger and fairer companion for his hours of relaxation. Other men did the same, and men were all alike.
Tormenting herself with these thoughts, the unfortunate woman passed a sleepless night, and rose determined to know the worst. As soon as Ariston had gone out, she entered his workroom. Her search brought her at last to the brazier, where she found the charred fragments of the letters from Halicarnassus. Unluckily one corner of Artemisia's missive to Clearchus had not been wholly burned. She bore it in triumph to her own apartments and set herself to the task of deciphering its contents. The very fact that her husband had sought to burn the letter was enough in her excited frame of mind to convince her that her suspicions were correct. It remained only to establish the proof.
She succeeded in making out a few words, but she could derive no meaning from them. Study them as she would, her skill failed her. The tantalizing thought that knowledge was within her grasp and eluding her filled her with rage. She was still puzzling over the fragment when she was interrupted by a knocking at the door. On the threshold stood the sharp-faced Egyptian whom she had so often seen with her husband.
"Is Ariston here?" he demanded.
She told him that her husband was away from home.
"Then I will wait for him," Mena returned coolly, pushing past her into the house. "He told me to see him without fail and he will soon be here."
There was no help for it now that he was inside the house. Xanthe led him to a bench beside the cistern and gave him fruit and wine. The thought occurred to her that he might be able to read the riddle that had baffled her. There could be no harm in showing him the fragment, she reasoned, since it could tell him nothing, although to her it could reveal so much. The temptation was strong, and after all the opportunity was too good to be lost.
"Can you read this for me?" she asked, placing the blackened papyrus before him.
He took it up and studied it curiously.
"Where did you find it?" he demanded, shifting his beadlike eyes quickly to hers.
"The wind blew it into the court, here," she stammered, taken aback by the question. "I wondered what it might be."
His glance continued to rest upon her face for an instant before it went back to the fragment. It was easy enough for him to read them both, and a malicious smile twitched his mouth as he understood that Ariston had a jealous wife. The idea struck him as distinctly ridiculous. More in idleness than with any direct purpose, excepting that of making mischief, he determined to humor her mood.
"It is difficult to understand," he said, looking carefully at the papyrus, "as it seems to have been burned. But here it says: 'When shall I hear thy voice and see thy face?' and here: 'While I live, I am thine.' It sounds like a poet, but the writing is that of a woman. You seem to have surprised some romantic love affair. You probably have some amorous youth among your neighbors whom a girl is foolish enough to adore."
Xanthe's forebodings had suddenly become realities. Ariston, then, was deceiving her, and she had not been mistaken in him. Of that, she was now certain. He had probably always deceived her and she had been a fool ever to believe him. Her world seemed coming to an end.
"Why do you say that the letter was sent to a young man?" she asked. "Might it not have been an old one?"
"I dare say," the Egyptian replied carelessly. "Old men are often the worst in these matters."
"This girl, whoever she may be, seems very much in love with him," Xanthe remarked.
"No doubt," Mena said, watching her with increasing amusement, "and probably he has a wife of his own. Why else should he burn the letter?"
Xanthe winced at this thrust, although she had no idea that Mena had fathomed what was in her mind. "At any rate, he cannot marry her," she said, as though thinking aloud.
"The old one might die, you know," Mena suggested. "Such things have been known to happen at the right moment."
These words were accompanied by a look so full of meaning that poor Xanthe felt a chill of apprehension. She did not trust herself to say more, but carried away the fragment to her own room, where she concealed it.
Mena's hint had fallen upon fertile ground. She went over the situation again and again in her mind, coming always to the same conclusion. That Ariston was carrying on an intrigue with some girl was now certain; for it never occurred to her that the letter might not have been intended for him. It seemed certain to her also that her husband would seek to rid himself of her so that he might marry her rival. Mena was right. Such things had happened more than once and poison was the easiest way. If she should die, who was there to ask what had caused her death? Nobody. She began to take infinite precautions regarding her food, tasting nothing that she had not herself prepared; yet she felt that she was in hourly danger in spite of all she could do. When nothing happened to her, she concluded that her husband's failure to attempt her life was due solely to the fact that his plans were not yet ripe. When all was ready, he would kill her and flee with Clearchus' fortune to some distant land, where he could meet the abandoned creature upon whom his affections had fallen. She knew only too well that he was capable of anything in the furtherance of his selfish schemes. Thus her folly led her on until at last she came to regard her imaginings as truth confirmed. But if she was to be murdered, she thought, at least she would prevent him from enjoying the fruit of his wickedness. She would write to Clearchus and tell him all.
When she had reached this conclusion, she lost no time in carrying it into execution. But it was long since she had used the stylus and she was forced to confine herself to the barest outline of what she wished to say. After many failures, she finally produced the following:—
"Clearchus: Iphicrates has Artemisia in Halicamassus. My husband is a beast who wants to poison me. If you hear that I am dead, you will know why, and I hope you will see that he is punished. Go to Halicamassus, and when you get her, keep her safe. Iphicrates is a wicked man and he should be killed. If my husband does not poison me, make no accusation against him."
Xanthe sealed this letter and hid it away until a chance should offer to send it to her nephew. She felt much easier, as though the fact that she had written it were in some way surety for her safety. Several weeks passed before she found the opportunity for which she had been looking. At last she learned that Callias, son of a widow of her acquaintance, had joined a mercenary troop that was being raised in Athens. She gave the letter to his mother to be delivered to Clearchus in Pella, but Callias, having received part of his pay in advance, could not tear himself away from his friends in Athens until the gold was spent. Consequently the letter was not delivered until after Macedon and Persia had met at the Granicus.