How modestly the boy questioned. His respect toward her was something new in Theria’s experience. Both her brothers were brotherly contemptuous. But this stranger was talking with her! To Theria this experience was nothing short of an adventure. She felt it so. Mind and soul sprang up vivid and intense. She began to ask her usual eager questions.
“How did you come to Delphi? Was it a long journey? Oh, was it by sea?”
“No, lady, by land—through Bœotia and over the mountains.”
“How many days?”
“Three days—we did not hurry. Yesterday at sunset we came to the Triple Way.”
“Where Œdipus met his father.”
“Yes,” he answered, “where he killed his father. Of course you know the story. Oh, lady, such a lovely place it is. Up there where the mountains pierce the sky; the road runs among the clouds. Where the clouds broke I could catch glimpses far beneath of the blue valley and the sun setting. Far down I heard the tinkle of goat bells—the herds hidden below the clouds. I seemed to be in the home of the gods. And do you know what I did? I let the others walk onward and I stood there alone. The three roads went this way and that from the place of my feet. Then I seemed to see approaching along one road old Laius and his men, and by the other road Œdipus, young and proud, fulfilling his curse. But before they met I fled. Oh, I could not bear to think that he would kill his father all unknowing! What if it had been my own dear father and myself? The curse of Œdipus, that terrible curse, swept down over me with whirlwind wings.”
The boy put up his hand to his head with a whimsical yet solemn smile.
“It touched me,” he said, “and when I ran up to my dear father and clasped his hand I was weeping. I would not tell them why. Yet I am telling you.”
“I wish I had been there,” breathed Theria.