CHAPTER XLI
A SCULPTOR’S RESPECTABILITY
Now that abnormal conditions were past, Nikander and his family returned to conventional ways. Theria must not meet nor see Eëtíon. Of course she must not. She must be shut in the women’s court whenever he came to the house.
Nikander gave his formal consent to the marriage. He loved Eëtíon with all his heart. The good youth now would have been his choice for Theria even if Theria had had no wish in the matter. Yet as the days went by Nikander dreaded the marriage. Marriage with a metic was indeed a serious step.
Nikander knew his daughter well. He knew that while she now made the sacrifice gladly that later when she saw her sons excluded from the priesthood, herself excluded from processional rites and perhaps taunted by women of her own class, Theria’s proud spirit would revolt. He even wondered if her love would outlast the strain. Love so burning bright in youth may be strangely quenched by hard conditions.
Nikander’s attitude unconsciously affected Eëtíon. He, too, now that he faced his marriage, realized how sad a sacrifice he was asking of her who had set him free.
He had hoped that Theria would speak to him from her window so that he could ask her of these things face to face. But this Theria was too loyal to do.
She sent her messages by her father.
“So soon will come our life-long happiness,” she said, “we must bear this parting now.”
At last Eëtíon was in serious misery for the trials looming ahead. He sent question to Theria by Nikander.
“Had she thought of all the future? Did she want to decide again?”
Nikander came back laughing.
“Never send me on such an errand again, young man,” he told him. “She was almost as abusive as old Tuchè herself. She said she had not supposed that you would so insult her. That if she were as great a fool as you seem to be she would retaliate by distrusting your love. But that she does not do. She trusts your love, and you by this time should trust hers.”
Eëtíon laughed joyously. “Apollo bless her! she is as lovely in her anger as in everything else!”
Upon which Nikander named him an Eros-infatuated youth.
But the incident cleared the air. From that time Nikander trusted his daughter’s decision. So, Melantho having made ready the linens, garments, and embroideries she considered essential, Theria and Eëtíon were betrothed before witnesses, solemnly in the aula. For a few happy moments they stood together and touched hands, though Theria had to be veiled. The ceremony was more binding than the wedding which was to follow later. Theria returned to her room knowing that now she belonged to Eëtíon as his goods and chattels belonged, but her heart was singing for joy.
It was at the betrothal feast, when it was too late for mending, that Eëtíon revealed his one defect.
They were chatting after the meal, or rather sitting silent while Eëtíon talked. For none of the youths of Delphi had had such adventures as Eëtíon, by storm of ocean, by cruelty of pirates, deceit of merchants in the ports. As a captive he had seen practically all the far ports of the West.
Eëtíon sat upright on his couch, too animated to recline, his dark eyes now brightening with some memory, now filling with terror or triumph. Near him was one of the many small tables of a Greek room.
Upon this table had been left, no doubt by Kairos himself, the god of chance, a double handful of smooth clay. It had been brought that morning by some citizens from far away who wanted to establish a sale for it in Delphi. Nikander had pronounced it the finest in texture he had ever seen. Then it had been left here.
Eëtíon idly picked it up as he talked, working it with his deft fingers.
Gradually it became soft, malleable. Absently he shaped it into a thick pillar, then, as if in sudden decision, began to mould it. He ceased talking, forgot his guests entirely, quite unconscious that they were watching what he did.
Under his swift fingers the clay soon took the form of a youth. “Look, it is beautiful,” whispered Dryas, wondering.
Now Eëtíon looked up impatiently, seized upon a plectrum as a tool, and began to work again in mad haste.
More and more lovely the little youth became, not standing on both feet in the old hieratic attitude, but leaning forward with one leg advanced as if running, head thrown back and both arms outstretched toward an invisible goal. Time passed by, but Eëtíon was unaware of it. Now began the muscle modelling, dry, and at points stylized, yet lovely and alive, the delicate thighs full of strength, the spare abdomen showing the play of running muscles, the chest lifted and full of breath.
“It is Ladas,” they cried, “Ladas, the Argive runner.”
Now Eëtíon began to etch the hair in fine-drawn lines in the old fashion and bind it down with a fillet. Nikander saw at once that this figure was the result of long and intense imagining of the mind. Eëtíon could not otherwise have modelled with such swiftness. The skill, too, was no idle skill, it was the result of long hours of training and toil.
At length it satisfied its creator. Eëtíon breathed deep, looked up and saw all the company gazing at him, and laughed a quick, embarrassed laugh.
“Eëtíon!” spoke Nikander, amazed. “Surely you are not a sculptor!”
Eëtíon hung his head. “I sometimes think I am,” he confessed.
“But your father Euclides was a high-born citizen. He surely would not give you over to the sculptor’s trade.”
“No,” answered Eëtíon. Then on the defensive, “But after all, Nikander, is there any nobler way of honouring the gods than by beautiful sculpture? What would Delphi be without its statues and its songs?”
“Oh, but Eëtíon, this is hand craft. See, your hands are soiled even now. Song is the work of the mind alone.”
“But you use the hand to play the lyre,” said Eëtíon, quickly hiding his dirty hands in his himation.
“Apollo presides over song,” retorted Nikander. “No such god fosters sculptor work.”
“There is Hephæstos.”
“The ugly lame god. By heaven, Eëtíon, you are no Hephæstos.” Everybody laughed. “The beautiful Eëtíon himself with the limping, grizzled one!”
“I am serious,” insisted Nikander; “you must explain this thing. Who taught you?”
“Ageladas,” answered Eëtíon, “but of course my father never knew.”
“Ah, no wonder you model well,” said Nikander, for Ageladas, the Argive, was the greatest teacher of sculpture in Greece.
“My pedagogos was Ageladas’s friend,” went on Eëtíon, “and he used to stop with me at Ageladas’s workshop on our way from school. I—well, I played with the clay as I do now and Ageladas saw and praised me. But oh, it was not the praise, it was the love of making beautiful gods and men which possessed me. All through my school hours I forgot my Homer, longing to be at work with Ageladas. I bribed my pedagogos again and again to bring me there. Myron was in the workshop, too, and I learned at his side. Then one day Ageladas told me he would exhibit one of my statues as his own.” Eëtíon laughed softly and tears came into his eyes.
“Ah, never shall I forget my father stopping by my own statue. ‘This is most beautiful of all,’ he said. ‘This youth pouring the libation. See how he worships, how shyly he supplicates before his god?’ Then such happiness welled up within me that I could not speak. Dear Father, he never guessed that the statue was mine.”
Nikander took Eëtíon’s hand.
“But now, Eëtíon, now that you are a Delphian, a son of my house, surely you will not do this curious thing, which no well-born citizen would do? Delphi will give you large activities.”
“No, dear Nikander,” answered Eëtíon gently. “No.”
He took the little runner and with a single fierce pressure sent him back into the clay whence he had come.
“Oh, don’t, don’t do that,” cried they all at once, for they loved its loveliness.
“It would perish anyway,” said Eëtíon sadly. “The clay would soon crack.”