"The Land of Foam" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yefremov Ivan)
I. THE SCULPTOR’S APPRENTICE
 |
The flat rock jutted far out into the sea. It had retained the warmth of day and the youth sitting there was not in the least disturbed by the fresh gusts of wind that found their way between the cliffs. The sea, invisible in the darkness of night, splashed faintly against the foot of the rock.
The young man stared into the distance, contemplating the point at which the end of that silver band called the Milky Way disappeared into the darkness. He was watching the falling stars; a cluster of them had flashed up to pierce the sky with their fiery needles, and disappear behind the horizon, fading like burning arrows falling into the water. Again the fiery arrows flashed across the heavens, flying into the unknown, to the fabled lands that lay beyond the sea on the very borders of Oicumene.
“I will ask grandad where they fall,” decided the youth and thought how wonderful it would be to fly like that through the sky direct to some unknown destination.
But then he was no longer a youth — a few more days and he would attain the age of a warrior. He would never be a warrior, however, but would become a famous artist, a sculptor of renown. His innate ability to see true forms in nature, to sense and remember them, made him different from most people… Or so his teacher, the sculptor Agenor, had told him. And so it was, for there, where others passed indifferently by, he would halt in sheer amazement, seeing that which he could neither comprehend nor explain. The countless manifestations of nature charmed him by their constant mutations. Later his vision grew clearer and he learned to distinguish the beautiful and retain it in his memory. There was elusive beauty in all things, in the curve of the crest of a running wave, in the locks of Thessa’s hair when the wind played in them, in the stately columns of the pine trunks and in the menacing rocks that rose proudly over the seashore. From the moment he first became conscious of this he had made the creation of beautiful forms his aim in life. He wanted to show beauty to those unable to perceive it for themselves. And what could be more beautiful than the human body! To mould it, however, was the most difficult of all the arts…
This told him why the living features he retained in his memory were not to be found in the statues of the gods and heroes he saw all round him and which he was being taught to make. Even the most skilled sculptors of Oeniadae
The youth felt instinctively that certain features expressing joy, will power, wrath or tenderness were crudely exaggerated, and to give this artificial prominence to certain forcefully expressed features the artist had sacrificed all else. But he must learn to depict life! Only then would he become the greatest sculptor in his country and people would acclaim him and admire the things he would create. His would be the first works of art to perpetuate the beauty of life in bronze or stone!
The youth had been carried far away into the land of dreams when he was aroused by a bigger wave crashing against the rock. A few drops of water fell on the youth’s face. He shivered, opened his eyes and smiled, embarrassed, in the darkness. Oh, Gods! That dream was probably still far away in the future… In the meantime his teacher Agenor was constantly upbraiding him for his clumsy work and for some reason or another the teacher was always right… And there was his grandfather… Grandad showed little interest in Pandion’s progress as an artist, he was training his grandson with a view to making him a famous wrestler. As though an artist needed strength! Still, it was a good thing grandad had trained him like that, had made him more than ordinarily strong and hardy; Pandion liked to show his strength and prowess at the evening contests in the village, when Thessa, his teacher’s daughter, was present, and to note the gleam of approbation in the girl’s eyes.
With burning cheeks the youth jumped to his feet, every muscle in his body tensed. He thrust out his chest as if to challenge the wind and raised his face to the stars; suddenly he laughed softly.
He walked slowly to the edge, peered into the seemingly bottomless gloom, gave a loud cry and sprang from the rock. The calm, silent night immediately came to life. Below the rock there was the sea whose waters wrapped his hot skin in a cooling embrace, sparkling with tiny dots of fire around his arms and shoulders.
The waves, in their play, forced the youth upwards, striving to throw him back. As he swam in the darkness he estimated the undulations of the waves and confidently threw himself at the high crests that appeared suddenly before him. It seemed to Pandion that the sea was bottomless and boundless, that it merged with the dark sky in a single whole.
A big wave lifted the youth high above the sea and he saw a red light far away along the coast. An easy stroke and the wave obediently carried the youth to the shore, towards a scarcely visible grey patch of sand.
Shivering slightly from the cold he again climbed on to the flat rock, took up his coarse woollen cloak, rolled it up, and set off at a run along the beach towards the light of the fire.
The aromatic smoke of burning brushwood curled through the adjacent thickets. The feeble light of the flames lit up the wall of a small hut built of rough-hewn stones with the eaves of a thatched roof projecting over it. The wide spreading branches of a single plane-tree protected the hut from inclement weather. An old man in a grey cloak sat by the fire, deep in thought. On hearing the approaching footsteps he turned towards them his smiling wrinkled face the tan of which showed darker in the frame of a grey curling beard. “Where have you been so long, Pandion?” asked the old man reproachfully. “I’ve been back a long time and wanted to talk to you.”
“I didn’t think you’d come so soon,” answered the youth. “I went to bathe. And now I’m ready to listen to you all night, if you like.” The old man shook his head in refusal. “No, the talk will be a long one and you have to be up early in the morning. I want to give you a trial tomorrow and you will need all your strength. Here are some fresh cakes — I brought a new stock of them with me — and here is the honey. It’s a festive supper tonight: you may eat as becomes a warrior — little and without greed.”
The young man contentedly broke a cake and dipped the white, broken edge into an earthen pot of honey. As he ate he kept his eyes fixed on his grandfather who sat silently watching his grandson with a fond look. The eyes of both, the old man and the youth, were alike and unusual; they gleamed golden like the concentrated light of a sun-ray. There was a popular belief that people with such eyes were descended from the earthly lovers of the “Son of the Heights,” Hyperion, the sun god.
“I thought about you after you’d gone today, Grandad,” said the youth. “Why is it that other bards live in good houses and eat their fill although they know nothing but their songs? But you, Grandad, who know so much, who make such wonderful songs, have to toil on the sea. The boat’s too heavy for you now and I’m your only helper. We haven’t got a single slave.”
The old man smiled and placed his gnarled hand on Pandion’s curly head.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about tomorrow. Only one thing will I say tonight: many different songs may be composed about the gods and about people. If you are honest with yourself, if your eyes are open, your songs will not sound pleasant to the lordly owners of the land and the warrior chiefs. And you will have neither rich gifts, nor slaves, nor fame, you will not be known in the great houses and you will not gain a livelihood by your songs… Time for bed,” the old man broke off. “Look, the Chariot of the Night
The old man awakened Pandion early next morning. The cold autumn was drawing near; the sky was overcast with heavy clouds, a cutting wind rustled in the dry reeds and in the few remaining leaves of the plane-tree. Under his grandfather’s stern and exacting guidance Pandion went through his gymnastic exercises. Thousands and thousands of times, from early boyhood, he had repeated them every day at sunrise and sunset, but today grandad selected the most difficult exercises and increased their number.
Pandion hurled a heavy javelin, threw stones and jumped over obstacles with a sack of sand on his shoulders. At last grandad fastened a heavy piece of walnut wood to his left hand, placed a gnarled wooden club in his right and tied a piece of a broken stone vase to his head. Restraining his laughter for fear of wasting his breath, Pandion awaited a sign from his grandfather and then set out at a run northwards, where the path from the littoral ran round a steep, stony slope. He raced along the path like lightning, scrambled up to the first ledge of a cliff, turned and came down even faster. The old man met his grandson at the hut, relieved him of his burden and then pressed his cheek to the lad’s face to determine the degree of tiredness from the rate of his breathing.
After a few seconds the youth said:
“I could run there and back many times before I would ask for a rest.”
“Yes, I think you could,” answered the old man slowly, and proudly straightened his back. “You’re fit to be a warrior, capable of fighting tirelessly in battle and carrying heavy bronze accoutrements. My son, your father, gave you health and strength, I have developed them in you and made you bold and enduring.” The old man cast a glance over the youth’s figure, allowing his eyes to rest on his broad, powerful chest and on the mighty muscles that rippled under a skin without a single blemish. “I’m the only relative you have,” he continued, “and I’m old and weak; we’ve neither wealth nor servants and our entire phralry (
Grandfather and grandson made their way along the patches of sedge grass and reeds towards a narrow spit of land that reached far out into the sea like a long wall.
Two thick oaks with wide spreading branches grew at the end of the spit. Between them stood an altar built of rude limestone blocks behind which was a blackened wooden post, crudely carved in the shape of a human figure. This was an ancient temple dedicated to the local deity, the River Achelous, which joined the sea there.
The mouth of the river was hidden in the green reeds and bushes swarming with migratory birds from the north.
Before them stretched the mist-covered sea. Waves raced with a crash against the point of a spit resembling the neck of some gigantic animal holding its head under water.
The solemn roar of the waves, the shrill cries of the birds, the whistling of the wind in the reeds and the rustling foliage of the oaks — all these sounds merged into an uneasy, rumbling melody.
The old man lit a fire on the rude altar and threw a piece of meat and a cake into the flames. When the sacrifice had been made, the old man led Pandion to a big stone at the foot of a steep mossy cliff and bade him push the stone aside. The youth did so with ease and then, following his grandfather’s instructions, thrust his hand into a deep crevice between two strata of limestone. There was a rattle of metal and Pandion drew out a bronze sword, a helmet and a wide belt of square copper plates serving as armour for the lower part of the body — all of them dulled with patches of verdigris.
“These are the arms of your father, who died young,” said the grandfather in a low voice. “A shield and bow you must acquire yourself.”
The youth bent excitedly over the accoutrements and began carefully cleaning off the verdigris.
The old man sat down on the stone, leaned his back against the cliff and fell to watching his grandson and trying to hide his sorrow from him.
Pandion left his armour and in a burst of ecstasy threw himself on the old man and embraced him. The old man placed an arm round the youth, feeling the knots of his mighty muscles. It seemed to the grandfather that his long-dead son was reborn in this youthful body, designed to overcome obstacles.
The old man turned the youth’s face towards himself and stared long into the frank, golden eyes.
“Now you have to decide, Pandion: will you go at once to the chief of our phratry to serve him as a warrior, or will you remain Agenor’s apprentice?”
“I shall remain with Agenor,” answered Pandion without giving the matter a second thought. “If I go
“No, Pandion, we must part company,” said the old man, firmly but with an effort.
The youth jumped back in astonishment but the old man’s hand held him.
“I have fulfilled the promise I made my son, your father, Pandion,” continued the old man. “Now you must, make your own way in life. You must start on your life’s road free, not burdened by the care of a helpless old man. I am leaving our Oeniadae for fertile Elis, where my daughters live with their husbands. When you become a famous sculptor you will be able to find me…”
The youth’s heated protests only made the old man shake his head. Pandion had said many tender, imploring and discontented words before he finally realized that the old man had for years carried in his mind this unalterable decision and that his experience of life made him implacable.
With a sad and heavy heart the youth spent the whole day with his grandfather helping him prepare for his journey.
In the evening they sat down together on an upturned, newly caulked boat, and the grandfather got out a lyre that had seen much in its time. The strong, youthful voice of the aged bard carried along the beach, dying out in the distance.
He sang a song filled with sadness, that recalled the regular beating of the waves against the shore.
At Pandion’s request the old man sang him the lays of the origin of their race, and about neighbouring lands and peoples.
Aware of the fact that he was hearing the words for the last time, the youth tried to catch every single one of them, striving to remember songs that from earliest childhood had been closely bound up with the image of his grandfather. Pandion pictured in his mind the ancient heroes who had united the tribes.
The old bard sang of the stern beauties of his native land where all things in nature are gods incarnate; he sang of the greatness of those who loved life and conquered nature, instead of hiding from her in the temples and turning their backs on the present day.
And the youth’s heart beat furiously — it was as though he ‘stood at the beginning of roads leading into the unknown distance where every turn opened up new and unexpected vistas.
That morning it seemed that the hot summer had returned. The clear blue of the sky breathed heat, the still air was filled with the song of the grasshoppers and the white cliffs and boulders gave off a dazzling reflection of the sun. The sea had turned transparent and rippled idly along the shore, for all the world like old wine in a giant cup.
When his grandfather’s boat was lost to sight in the distance sorrow gripped Pandion’s breast like an iron band. He fell to the ground, resting his head on his crossed arms. He felt himself a small boy, alone and abandoned, who with the departure of his grandfather had lost part of his own heart. Tears poured over Pandion’s arms, but these were not the tears of a child, they came in huge, separate drops that brought no relief.
His dreams of great deeds had receded far into the background. There was nothing that could console him, he wanted to stay with his grandfather.
Slowly but surely came the realization that the loss was irreparable, and Pandion made an effort to set his feelings under control. Ashamed of his tears, he bit his lip, raised his head and gazed for a long time into the distant sea, until his confused thoughts again began to flow smoothly and consistently. He rose to his feet, his eyes swept over the sun-warmed shore and the hut under the plane-tree, and again he was overcome by unutterable sorrow. He realized that the carefree days of his youth were past, never again to return with their semi-childish dreams.
Pandion plodded his way slowly to the hut. Here he buckled on his sword and wrapped his other possessions in his cloak. He fastened the door securely so that storms might not enter the hut and went off along a stony path swept clean by the sea winds, the harsh dry grass swishing mournfully under his feet. The path led to a hill covered with dark green bushes whose sun-warmed leaves gave off the strong odour of pressed olives. At the foot of the hill the path branched into two — the right-hand path leading to a group of fishermen’s huts on the seashore, the other continuing along the river-bank to the town. Pandion took the left-hand path and passed the hill; his feet sank into hot white dust and the singing of myriads of grasshoppers drowned the noise of the sea. The stony slope of the hill disappeared in a wealth of trees where its foot reached the river. The long narrow leaves of the oleanders and the heavy green of the bay-trees were overshadowed by the dense foliage of huge walnut-trees, the whole merging into a curling mass that seemed almost black against the white background of limestone. Pandion’s path led him through the forest shade and after a few turns brought him to an’ open glade on which stood a number of small houses clustered at the foot of the gently sloping terraces of the vineyards. The youth quickened his pace and hastened towards a low, white house visible behind the angular trunks of an olive grove. He entered an open shed and a middle-aged, black-bearded man of medium height rose to meet him; this was Agenor, the master sculptor.
“So you’ve come at last,” exclaimed the sculptor in some elation. “I was thinking of sending for you… And what’s this?” Agenor noticed that Pandion was armed. “Let me embrace you, my boy. Thessa, Thessa!” he shouted, “come and look at our warrior!”
Pandion turned quickly round. Out of the inner door peeped a girl in a dark red himation thrown carelessly over a chiton
“See, Thessa’s angry with you; for two whole days you haven’t been able to find time to come here and tell us you were not going to work,” said the sculptor, reproachfully.
The youth stood silent with drooping head and his eyes shifted stealthily from the girl to his master.
“What’s wrong with you, boy? No, not boy but warrior,” said Agenor. “Why this sadness and what’s that bundle you have brought with you?”
Hesitantly, incoherently, again afflicted by the sorrow of parting, he told of his grandfather’s departure.
Agenor’s wife, the mother of Thessa, approached them. The sculptor laid his hands on the youth’s shoulders. “You have long since earned our love, Pandion. I am glad you have chosen the life of an artist in preference to that of a warrior. The fighting will come, you won’t be able to avoid it, but in the meantime you have much to achieve by hard, persevering labour and meditation.”
Pandion, following the custom, bowed low to Agenor’s wife and she covered his head with the corner of her mantle and then pressed him fondly to her bosom.
The girl gave a little shout of joy and then, with signs of embarrassment, disappeared into the house, followed by her father’s smile.
Agenor sat down by the entrance to his workshop for a quiet rest. A grove of ancient olive-trees grew right outside the house; their huge, angular trunks were intertwined in the most fantastic manner that to the contemplative eye of the artist resembled people and animals. One of the trees was like a kneeling giant whose arms were held wide apart above his head. The rugged irregularities of another tree-trunk formed an ugly body, distorted by suffering. It seemed as though all the trees were bent under the effort to raise upward the heavy weight of their countless branches covered with tiny silvery leaves.
The figure of a woman in a bright blue holiday himation with gold ornaments slipped out of the other side of the house. As she disappeared behind the slope of the hill the sculptor recognized his daughter. Treading softly with her bare feet, Agenor’s wife came and sat down beside her husband.
“Thessa has gone to Pandion in the pine grove again,” said the sculptor and then added: “The children think we don’t know their little secret!”
His wife laughed gaily but turned suddenly serious as she asked: -
“What do you think of Pandion now that he’s been with us a year?”
“I like him more than ever,” answered Agenor and his wife nodded her head in agreement. “But…” The artist paused before choosing his next words.
“He wants too much,” his wife finished the sentence for him.
“Yes, he wants a lot and much has been granted him by the gods. There is nobody to teach him, I cannot give him what he’s seeking,” said the old artist with a note of sorrow in his voice.
“It seems to me that he’s too uncertain, he can’t find his own vocation; he’s not like other lads,” the woman said in a low voice. “I can’t imagine what he wants and sometimes I feel sorry for him.”
“You’re right, my dear; no happiness will be his if he strives to achieve that which nobody else has ever been able to. You are worried… And I know why, you’re afraid for Thessa, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not afraid, my daughter is proud and brave. Still I feel that her love for Pandion may bring her sorrow. It’s a bad thing for a man to be afflicted, like Pandion, with the passion of the seeker — not even love will heal his eternal yearning…”
“As it healed me.” The sculptor smiled fondly at his wife. “I suppose I was like Pandion, once…”
“Oh, no, you were always stronger and more balanced,” said his wife, stroking Agenor’s greying head.
The artist gazed into the distance beyond the pines amidst which Thessa had disappeared.
The girl hurried on to the sea, frequently glancing back, although she knew that so early on the morning of a holiday nobody would go to the sacred grove.
Waves of heat were already surging from the white stones of the barren hills. At first the path led across flat land covered with thorn bushes and Thessa walked warily so as not to tear the skirts of her best chiton of fine, almost transparent material brought from overseas. Farther on, the ground rose in a low, rounded hill covered with brilliant red flowers, blazing in the bright sunlight like a mass of dark flames. Here there were no thorns and the girl took up the folds of her chiton, lifted it high and ran on.
Thessa passed quickly by the isolated trees and soon found herself in the grove. The straight trunks of the pines shone like purple wax, their wide crowns rustled noisily in the wind and their spreading branches, bristling with needles as long as a man’s hand, were turned to golden dust in the sun’s rays.
An odour of hot resin and pine needles mingled with the breath of the sea filled the whole grove.
The girl slackened her pace, unconsciously submitting to the solemn calm of the grove.
To her right a grey rock sprinkled with fallen pine needles rose up amongst the trees.
A shaft of sunlight slanted down into a small glade turning the surrounding trees into columns of red gold. Here the rumbling roar of the sea could be more clearly heard; although it could not be seen the sea made its presence felt by the low, measured chords of its music.
Pandion ran out from behind the rock to meet Thessa, caught her by her outstretched arms and pulled her towards him, then, pushing her a little way back, gazed intently at her as though he were trying to absorb her image to the full.
Locks of her shining black hair quivered on her smooth forehead, her thin eyebrows, slightly arched, rose towards her temples; the shape of her brows gave her big dark blue eyes an elusive expression of mocking pride.
With a gentle movement Thessa escaped the youth.
“Make haste, people will be coming here soon!’’ she said, looking fondly at Pandion.
“I’m ready,” he said, going towards the rock in which was a narrow vertical crevice.
On a block of limestone stood an unfinished statue of kneaded clay about three feet high. Beside it the sculptor’s wooden tools were laid out — curved saws, knives and trowels.
The girl threw off her himation and slowly raised her hands to the brooch which fastened the folds of the flimsy chiton on her shoulder.
Pandion watched her, smiling and selecting his tools, but when he turned towards the statue the triumphant smile gradually vanished. That crude figure was still far from possessing Thessa’s ravishing beauty. Still the clay had already assumed the proportions of her body. Today must decide everything. At long last he would give the piece of dead clay the charm of living lines.
With a frown of determination Pandion turned towards Thessa. She glanced sideways at him and nodded her head. With downcast eyes the girl leaned against the trunk of a pine-tree with one arm behind her head. Immersed in his work Pandion did not speak. The youth’s penetrating gaze shifted from the body of his model to the clay and back again, changing, measuring, comparing. This struggle between the dead clay, indifferent to the form it was given, and the creative hands of the artist who strove to give it the beauty of the living girl, had been going on for many days.
Time passed and the youth’s attentive ear had on several occasions caught the suppressed sighs of the tired girl.
Pandion stopped work, stepped back from the statue and Thessa gave an involuntary shudder as she heard the bitter groan of disappointment that escaped him. The clay figure had grown much worse. There had been life in it, hinted at by scarcely perceptible lines, but now that these had been made prominent the statue was dead. It had become nothing more than a crude semblance of Thessa’s swarthy body standing before the trunk of a huge pine-tree the colour of old gold.
Biting his lips the youth compared the statue with Thessa, making a desperate effort to find out what was wrong. Actually there was nothing that could be called wrong, it was simply his failure to breathe life into his work, to catch the changing forms of the living body. He had thought that the strength of his love, his frank admiration of Thessa’s beauty would enable him to rise to great heights, to a tremendous feat of creation that would give the world a statue such as it had never before seen… He had thought so yesterday, half an hour ago, even!… But he could not, he had not the ability, it was beyond his powers… Not even for Thessa, whom he loved so well! What should he do? The whole world had grown dark to Pandion, the tools fell from his hands, the blood rushed to his head. In despair at the realization of his impotence, the youth rushed to the girl and fell on his knees before her.
The girl, embarrassed and perplexed, placed her hands on Pandion’s hot, upturned face.
With the intuition of a woman she suddenly realized the struggle that was going on in the soul of the artist. With maternal love she bent over the youth, whispered consoling words to him, pressed his head to her bosom and ran her fingers through his short curls.
The youth’s burst of despair was slowly ebbing away.
Voices came from the distance. Pandion looked round; his passion had gone and with it went his proud hopes. He felt that his youthful dreams would never come true. The sculptor went up to his statue and stood before it wrapped in thought. Thessa laid her tiny hand on the crook of his arm.
“Don’t you dare, you foolish boy,” whispered the girl.
“I can’t, I dare not, Thessa,” agreed Pandion, never once taking his eyes off the statue. “If that. .” the youth stammered, “if that had not been modelled from you, if it were not you, I would destroy it on the spot. The thing is so crude-and ugly that it has no right to exist and somehow resemble you.” With those words the youth pushed the block of stone together with the statue back into the crevice in the rock and closed the narrow entrance with stones and a few handfuls of dry pine needles.
Pandion and Thessa set off in the direction of the sea. For a long time they walked on in silence. Then Pandion spoke, he wanted his beloved to share his grief and disappointment. The girl tried to persuade Pandion not to give up trying, she told him how confident she was of him and of his ability to carry out his plans. Pandion, however, was implacable. For the first time that day he had realized how far he was from real virtuosity, that the road to real art lay through many years of dogged toil.
“No, Thessa, only now have I at last understood that I can’t embody you in a statue!’’’ he exclaimed passionately. “I’m too poor here and here,” he touched his heart and his eyes, “to be able to depict your beauty.”
“Is it not all yours, Pandion?” The girl threw her arms impetuously round the artist’s neck.
“Yes, Thessa, but how I sometimes suffer on account of it! I’ll never cease to adore you, Thessa, and at the same time I can’t make a statue of you. I must embody you in clay, in stone. I must understand why it’s so difficult to depict life; if I cannot understand this myself how can I ever hope to make my creations live?”
Thessa was all attention as she listened to the youth, feeling that now Pandion was opening up his heart to her in full although the realization that she was unable to help him made her sad. The artist’s grief was hers, too, and there arose in her heart a still unformed alarm.
Pandion suddenly smiled and before Thessa could realize what was happening his strong arms lifted her off her feet. Pandion ran lightly to the beach, sat the girl down on the sand and disappeared behind a round hill.
A second later the girl saw Pandion’s head rise above the crest of an incoming wave. Soon the youth returned to her. Muscles that played and flexed shook the drops of water from his skin and not a trace of his recent sorrow was left. It seemed to Thessa that nothing serious had happened in the grove. She laughed softly as she recalled her pitiful clay image and the woeful countenance of its creator.
Pandion also made fun of himself and boasted boyishly of his strength and prowess before the girl. Then slowly and with frequent halts on the way, they returned to the house. But deep down at the bottom of Thessa’s heart the faint alarm still made itself felt.
Agenor placed his hand on Pandion’s knee.
“Our people are still young and poor, my son. Hundreds of years must we live in plenty before a few hundred people will be able to devote themselves to the lofty calling of the artist, before hundreds of people will be able to devote themselves to the study of the beauty of man and of the world. The time is not long past when we depicted our gods by hewing them from a stone or a tree trunk. But I can tell you, who are striving to penetrate the laws of beauty, that our people will go further and will transcend all others in depicting the beautiful. Today, however, the artists of the older and richer lands are more skilled than ours…”
The old artist got up and brought from the corner of the room a box of yellow wood from which he took something wrapped in red cloth. He removed the wrapper and with great care placed before Pandion a statuette of ivory, about a cubit
The carving depicted a woman holding snakes in her outstretched hands, with the reptiles coiled round her arms as far as the elbow joints. A tight belt with raised edges encircled her slender waist, supporting a long skirt that reached to her heels and was ornamented by five transverse stripes of gold. The back, shoulders, sides and upper parts of the arms were covered by a light veil leaving the breast undraped.
The heavy tresses of waving hair were not caught up in a knot on the nape of the neck as was the custom with the women of Hellas, but were gathered on the crown. From this knot heavy locks fell on the neck and back of the woman.
Pandion had never seen anything like it. He could feel that the statuette was the work of a great master. His attention was focussed on the strangely listless face; it was flat and broad, the cheek-bones very well defined with the lower jaw slightly protruding.
The straight, thick brows augmented the impression of listlessness on the woman’s face, but the bosom was heaving as though with a sigh of impatience.
Pandion was dumbfounded. If only he had the skill of the unknown artist! If only his chisel could depict with such precision and beauty the form that lived under the rosy-yellow surface of that old ivory!
Agenor was pleased with the impression he had produced; he watched the youth closely, stroking his cheek with the tips of his fingers.
At last Pandion broke off his silent meditation and placed the carving at some distance from him. He did not take his eyes off the dully gleaming work of the old master.
“Is that from the ancient eastern cities?” the youth asked his teacher in a low, sad voice.
“Oh, no,” answered Agenor. “That statuette is older than the ancient towns of Mycenae, Tirinthus and Orchomenus with all their gold. I took it from Chrisaor to show you. When his father was a young man he sailed to Crete with a raiding party and found this statuette amidst the remains of an ancient palace some twenty stadia from the ruins of Cnossus, the City of the Sea Kings that was destroyed by terrible earthquakes.”
“Father,” said the youth with suppressed excitement, touching the beard of his master as a sign of request, “you know so much. Could you not, if you wanted to, copy the art of the old masters, teach us and take us to those places where these wonderful creations are still stored? Is1 it possible that you have never seen these palaces that the legends tell of? When I listened to my grandfather’s songs I often thought of them!”
Agenor lowered his eyes and a dark shadow marred his calm and pleasant face.
“I can’t explain it to you,” he began after a moment’s thought, “but soon you’ll feel it yourself: that which is dead and gone cannot be brought back. It doesn’t belong to our world, to our souls… it is beautiful but hopeless… it charms but it — doesn’t live.”
“I understand, father!” the youth exclaimed passionately. “We should only be slaves to dead wisdom, even though we imitate it to perfection. We have to become the equals of the old masters or even better than they, and then… Oh, then…” Pandion stopped, unable to find words to express his thoughts.
Agenor’s eyes gleamed as he looked at his apprentice and his hard, old hand pressed the lad’s elbow in approbation.
“You said that well, Pandion, I could not express it so well myself. The art of the ancients must be a measure and an example for us but certainly nothing more. We must go our own way. To make that way shorter we must learn from the ancients and from life… you are clever, Pandion…”
Pandion suddenly dropped to the earthen floor and embraced the knees of the artist.
“My father and teacher, let me go to see the ancient cities… I must, by all the gods, I must see it all for myself. I feel that I have the power to achieve great things… I must learn to know the countries that gave birth to those rare things which are met with amongst our people and which astonish them so greatly. Perhaps I…” The youth stopped, he blushed to his very ears but still his bold, direct glance sought that of Agenor.
With knitted brows the latter stared away from him in concentration but did not speak.
“Get up, Pandion,” said the old man at last. “I’ve been expecting this for a long time. You are no longer a boy and I can’t detain you even though I should like to. You’re free to go wherever you will, but I tell you, as a son and as an apprentice, more than that, I tell you as my friend and equal, that your wish is fatal. It promises you nothing but dire catastrophe.”
“Father, I fear nothing!” Pandion threw back his head, his nostrils dilated.
“Then I was mistaken — you are still a boy,” objected Agenor in calm tones. “Listen to me with an open heart if you really love me.”
Agenor began to tell Pandion his story in a loud, tense voice: “In the eastern cities the old customs are still observed and there are many ancient works of art there. Women dress today as they did a thousand years ago in Crete — in long stiff skirts extremely richly ornamented, with bared breasts and the shoulders and back covered. The men wear short, sleeveless tunics, have long hair and are armed with short bronze swords.
“The city of Tirinthus is surrounded by a gigantic wall fifty cubits in height. The wall is built of huge blocks of dressed stone decorated with bronze and gold ornaments that reflect the sunlight so that from a distance they look like fires dotting the wall.
“Mycenae is still more magnificent. The city is built on the summit of a high hill, gateways made of huge blocks of stone are closed with bronze grilles. The city’s buildings can be seen from a great distance on the surrounding plain.
“Although the colours of the frescoes are still bright and fresh in the palaces of Mycenae, Tirinthus and Orchomenus, although the chariots of the rich landowners still race along smooth roads paved with huge white stones as they did in former times, the grass of oblivion is gaining headway on the roads, in the courtyards of the empty houses and even on the sides of the mighty walls.”
Gone were the days of great wealth, Agenor told his pupil, the days of long journeys to fabulous Aigyptos. (Aigyptos — the Greek name from which the modern word Egypt is derived. It is a Greek distortion of the Egyptian Het-Ka-Ptah, the Palace of the Spirit of Ptah, another name for Memphis, the City of the White Walls.) The environs of these cities were now inhabited by strong phratries with large numbers of warriors. Their chiefs had subordinated very large territories, had made the cities part of their domains, had subjugated the weaker clans and declared themselves the rulers of the lands and the peoples.
In Oeniadae, where they lived, there were no mighty chiefs, just as there were no cities and beautiful temples. But then, in the east there were more slaves, more men and women who had lost their liberty. Amongst them, apart from the captives seized in foreign lands, were members of poorer clans, the fellow-countrymen of their masters. What then would be the fate of a stranger in these lands? If he was not backed by a powerful phratry with whom it was dangerous for even a strong chief to quarrel or if he were not accompanied by a strong armed escort of his own, there were only two ways open to him — slavery or death.
“Remember, Pandion,” the artist took the youth by both hands, “we live in a troubled and dangerous time — clans and phratries are at enmity with each other, there are no common laws and the threat of slavery hangs over the head of all travellers. This beautiful country is no place to travel in. Remember that if you leave us you will be without hearth or rights, anybody can humiliate or kill you without fear of invoking a blood feud or paying blood money. You’re alone and poor, I can’t help you in any way, you can’t gather even a small band of fighting men! Alone you must surely perish unless the gods make you invisible! You see, Pandion, although it seems the simplest thing in the world to you to sail a thousand stadia across the bay from our Cape Achelous to Corinth whence it is but a half day’s journey to Mycenae, a day’s to Tirinthus and three days to Orchomenus, in reality it would be the same to you as a journey beyond the bounds of Oicumene!” Agenor got up and went to the door, drawing the boy with him. “You’re like a son to me and my wife, but I’m not thinking of us… Try to imagine the sufferings of my Thessa if you were to languish in slavery in some foreign land!…”
Pandion flushed a deep red but did not answer.
Agenor felt that he had not convinced Pandion and that the youth was floundering in a sea of indecision between two strong affections, one that chained him to the house and the other that beckoned him from afar, despite the certainty of danger.
Thessa did not know what to do for the best — first she would oppose the journey and then, with noble pride, would tell Pandion to go.
Several months passed, and when the winds of spring blowing across the Gulf of Corinth, brought with them the faint aroma of the flowering hills and mountains of Peloponnesus, Pandion at last chose his life’s road.
He was determined to enter into single combat with a strange and distant world. The half year that he intended to spend in foreign parts seemed like an eternity to him. At times Pandion was dismayed by the thought that he was leaving his native shores for ever… Agenor and other wise men of their clan advised Pandion to go to Crete, the home of the descendants of the Sea People, the home of an ancient civilization. Although the huge island was much farther than the ancient cities of Boeotia and Argolis, the journey would be safer for a single traveller.
The island lay at the junction of several sea routes and was now inhabited by different tribes. Foreigners — merchants, sailors and porters — were constantly to be met on its shores. The multilingual population of Crete engaged in commerce and were more peaceful than the inhabitants of Hellas and, in general, were kinder to strangers. In the interior of the island, behind the mountain barriers, however, there still lived the descendants of ancient tribes who were hostile to all strangers.
Pandion was to cross the Gulf of Calydon to a sharp promontory opposite Lower Achaia where he would hire himself out as a rower on one of the boats carrying wool to Crete after the period of winter storms during which the frail boats of the Greeks avoided long journeys.
On the night of the full moon the youth of the district gathered for dances on the big glade of the sacred grove.
In the little courtyard of Agenor’s house Pandion sat in deepest thought, oppressed by his sorrow. The inevitable must come on the morrow, he must thrust out of his heart everything that was near and dear to him and face an unknown destiny. He must part with his beloved and an uncertain future and loneliness awaited him.
Thessa’s clothing rustled inside the silent house, then she appeared in the dark opening of the doorway, adjusting the folds of a mantle thrown over her shoulders. The girl called softly to Pandion’ who immediately jumped up and went to meet her. Thessa’s hair was folded into a heavy knot on the nape of her neck and three ribbons crossed the top of her head, coming together under the knot.
“You’ve done your hair like an Attic girl today,” exclaimed Pandion. “It’s very pretty.”
Thessa smiled and asked him somewhat sadly:
“Aren’t you going to dance for the last time, Pandion?”
“Do you want to go?”
“Yes,” answered Thessa firmly, “I’m going to dance for Aphrodite and also the crane dance.”
“You’re going to dance the Attic crane dance, so that’s why your hair is done that way! I don’t think we’ve ever danced the crane dance before.”
“Today everything is for you, Pandion!”
“Why is it for me?” asked the astonished youth.
“Surely you haven’t forgotten that in Attica they dance the crane dance in memory,” Thessa’s voice quivered, “of the successful return of Theseus
The sea met them noisily, beckoning and opening up its boundless waters. In the rays of the early morning sun the distant surface of the sea bulged in the convex lines of a gigantic bridge.
The slow, rolling waves, tinged pink in the dawning sun, carried tatters of golden foam from some distant shore, perhaps even from fabled Aigyptos itself. And the sun’s rays danced, broke and rocked on the tireless, ever-moving waters, giving a faint, flickering radiance to the air.
The path, from which the group of houses and Agenor’s family, waving their last greetings, could still be seen, disappeared behind a hill.
The coastal plain was deserted and Pandion was alone with Thessa before the sea and the sky. In front of them, a tiny boat loomed black on the beach — in this Pandion was to sail round the spit at the mouth of the Achelous and cross the Gulf of Calydon.
The youth and the girl walked on in silence. Their slow steps were uncertain: Thessa looked straight at Pandion who could not take his eyes off her face.
Soon, far too soon, they came to the boat. Pandion straightened his back and with a deep sigh expanded his cramped chest. The moment that had lain heavily on him for days and nights had come at last. There was so much he wanted to say to Thessa in that last moment but the words would not come.
Pandion stood still in ‘embarrassment, his head filled with incomplete thoughts, inconsequent and incoherent.
With a sudden, impetuous movement, Thessa threw her arms round his neck and whispered to him hurriedly and brokenly, as though she were afraid they might be overheard:
“Swear to me, Pandion, swear by Hyperion, swear by the awful Hecate, goddess of the moon and sorcery… No, swear by your love and mine that you will not go farther than Crete, that you will not go to distant Aigyptos. . where you’ll be made a slave and be lost to me for ever… Swear that you will return soon…” Thessa’s whispering broke off in a suppressed sob.
Pandion pressed the girl tightly to him and pronounced the oath; before his eyes there passed expanses of sea, rocks, groves, houses and the ruins of unknown cities, everything that was to keep him away from Thessa for six long months, months in which he would know nothing of his beloved or she of him.
Pandion closed his eyes and he could feel Thessa’s heart beating.
The minutes passed, and the inevitable parting drew ever nearer and further anticipation had become unbearable.
“On your way, Pandion, hurry… good-bye…” whispered the girl.
Pandion shuddered, released the girl and ran to the boat.
The boat lay deep in the sand but his strong arms moved it and the keel grated over the sand. Pandion went knee-deep into the water and then turned to look round. The boat, rocked by a wave, struck him on the leg.
Thessa, motionless as a statue, stood with her eyes fixed on the spot behind which Pandion’s boat would soon disappear.
Something snapped in the youth’s breast. He pushed the boat off the sand-bank, jumped into it and seized the oars. Thessa turned her head sharply and the westerly breeze caught her hair that she had loosened as a sign of mourning.
Under mighty strokes of the oars the boat drew rapidly away from the shore but Pandion never once took his eyes off the girl, standing with her face lifted high above her bare shoulder.
The wind blew Thessa’s shining black tresses over her face but the girl made no move to brush them back. Through the hair Pandion could see her shining eyes, her dilated nostrils and the bright red lips of her half-open mouth. Her hair, fluttering in the wind, fell in heavy masses on her neck, its curling ends lying in countless ringlets on her cheeks, temples and high bosom. The girl stood motionless until the boat was far from the shore and had turned its bows to the south-east.
It seemed to Thessa that the boat was not turning round the spit but that the spit, dark and forbidding in the shadow of the sun’s low rays, was moving out into the sea, gradually drawing nearer to the boat. Now it had reached a tiny black spot in the glistening sea — now the spot was concealed behind it.
Thessa, conscious of nothing more, sank on to the damp sand.
Pandion’s boat was lost amidst the countless waves. Cape Achelous had long since been lost to view but Pandion continued to row with all his strength as though he were afraid that sorrow would force him to return. He thought of nothing at all, he only tried to tire himself out by hard work.
The sun was soon astern of the boat and the slow-moving waves took on the colour of dark honey. Pandion dropped his oars on to the bottom of the boat and, balancing on one leg so as not to overturn the boat, sprang into the sea. The water refreshed him and he swam for a while pushing the boat before him; then he climbed back and stood up at full height.
Ahead of him lay a sharp-pointed cape while away to the left he could see the longish island that closed the harbour of Calydon — the object of his journey — from the south. Pandion again set to work with his oars and the island began to grow in size as it rose from the sea. Soon the line of its summit broke up into separate pointed tree-tops which in turn became rows of stately cypress-trees looking like gigantic, dark spearheads. The curved, rocky- end of a promontory protected the cypresses from the wind and on its southern side they grew in profusion, striving ever upwards into the clear blue sky. The youth steered his boat carefully between rocks fringed with rust-coloured seaweed. Through the greenish gold of the water the clean sandy seabed could be clearly seen. Pandion went ashore, found a glade of soft young grass in the vicinity of an old, moss-grown altar and there drank up the last of the fresh water he had brought with him. He did not feel like eating. It was no more than twenty stadia to the harbour which lay on the far side of the island.
Pandion decided that he would approach the ship’s master fresh and in full strength and so lay down to rest awhile.
A picture of yesterday’s festival dances arose with extraordinary clarity before Pandion’s closed eyes…
Pandion and the other youths from the district were lying on the grass waiting until the girls had finished their dance in honour of Aphrodite. The girls, dressed in light garments caught in at the waist with ribbons of many colours, were dancing in pairs, back to back. Linking their hands each of them looked back over her shoulder as though she were admiring the beauty of her partner.
The wide folds of the white tunics rose and fell like waves of silver in the moonlight, the golden, sun-tanned bodies of the dancers bent like slender reeds to the strains of the flutes — at the same time soft and attenuated, doleful and joyful.;
Then the youths mingled with the girls in the crane dance, rising on to the tips of their toes and extending their arms like wings. Pandion danced beside Thessa whose troubled eyes never left his face.
The youth of the district were more attentive to Pandion than usual. There was only one young man, Eurymachus, who was in love with Thessa, whose face showed that he was glad of his rival’s departure; and there was the tantalizing Aenoia who could not help teasing him. Pandion noticed that the others did not joke with him in their usual way, there were fewer sarcastic remarks at his expense — it seemed as though a line had been drawn between the one who was leaving and those who were to remain.
The moon sank slowly behind the trees. A heavy curtain of darkness fell over the glade.
The dances were over. Thessa and her friends sang the Hirasiona — the song of the swallow and spring — a song that Pandion loved to hear. At last the young people made their way in pairs to their houses. Pandion and Thessa were the last, deliberately slowing down to be alone. No sooner had they reached the ridge of the hill overlooking the village than Thessa shuddered, stopped and pressed close to Pandion.
The sheer wall of white limestone behind the vine-yards reflected the moon like a mirror. A transparent curtain of silver light veiled the houses, the littoral and the dark sea, a light that was permeated with deadly charm and silent sorrow.
“I’m terribly afraid, Pandion,” whispered Thessa. “Oh, how great is the power of Hecate, goddess of the moonlight, and you are going to the country where she rules…”
Pandion, too, caught Thessa’s excitement.
“No, no, Thessa, Hecate rules in Caria, but I am not going there, my way lies towards Crete,” exclaimed the youth, urging the girl towards their house…
Pandion awoke from his dream. It was time to eat and continue his journey. He made sacrifice to the God of the Sea, walked down to the beach, measured his shadow to judge the time, found that it measured nineteen feet and realized that he would have to hurry to reach the ship before evening.
Rounding the island Pandion saw a white post standing in the: sea — the sign of a harbour — and redoubled his efforts at the oars.
| © 2025 Библиотека RealLib.org (support [a t] reallib.org) |