I understood his words as a farewell and did not wish to disturb his thoughts further, for he was staring at the blank wall and making impatient gestures in the air.
He was probably ashamed of having banished me so abruptly, for he suddenly said, “Well, stranger, those who do not understand are content with everything if it has the traditional lines and colors. That is why the world is full of skilled people and they are successful and life is easy for them. A real artist can compete only with himself. No, I have no competitor in this world. I, Aruns of Tarquinia, compete only with myself. If you wish me well, my friend, leave your clay bottle here as a memento of your visit. I feel that it is still half full and you will tire your fair shoulder if you carry it back to the city in the heat of the day.”
Gladly I left the bottle for that remarkable man since he needed it more than I.
“We shall meet again,” he said.
Not in vain had I noticed the goddess’s sign on the stone wall when I descended into the tomb. It was intended that I should meet that man and see the completion of the painting that he then planned. But I met him also for his own sake, to enable good luck to help him in his work and to rescue him from a human’s greatest despair. That he deserved. Already then I recognized him from his face and eyes. He, Aruns, was one of those who return.
5.
For several weeks I did not meet Aruns nor did I wish to descend again into the tomb for fear of disturbing him at his work. But at vintage time one moonlit night he came toward me with his drinking companions, so fearfully intoxicated that I had never before seen anyone in such a condition because of wine. Nevertheless he recognized me, stopped to embrace me and kissed my cheek with his wet mouth.
“There you are, stranger! I have missed you. Come, my head needs a cleansing from within before I begin working, so let us drink deep so that I may empty my head of all useless thoughts and thereafter vomit my body clean of all earthly filth before undertaking divine matters.
But why are you wandering through the streets at night with a clear head, stranger?”
“I am Turnus from Rome and an Ionian refugee,” I thought it best to explain to his noisy companions. To Aruns I said, “The goddess troubles me at the time of the full moon and drives me from my bed.”
“Join us,” he suggested. “I’ll show you living goddesses, as many as you please.”
He linked his arm with mine and pressed onto my head the vineleaf wreath that drooped from his ear. I accompanied him and his friends to the house that the Velthurus had provided for him. His wife, awakened from her sleep, met us with a yawn, but she did not drive us away as I expected. Instead, she opened the doors, lighted the lamps, brought out fruit, barley bread and a jar of salted fish, and even tried to comb Aruns’ tangled and wine-dampened hair.
As a sober man and a stranger in the city I was ashamed of forcing my way into the house of a casual acquaintance in the middle of the night. And so I mentioned my name and apologized to Aruns’ wife.
“Never before have I seen such a wife as you,” I said courteously. “Any other woman would have boxed her husband’s ears, poured a tubful of water over him and driven away his friends with oaths even though it is vintage time.”
She sighed and explained, “You don’t know my husband, Turnus. I do, having lived with him more than twenty years. It has not been an easy time, I assure you. But year by year I have come to know him better, although some weaker woman would long ago have packed her things and left. He needs me. I have worried about him, for he has not tasted a drop in weeks, merely pondered and sighed, walked to and fro, broken wax tablets and torn expensive paper onto which he had drawn pictures. Now I feel better. This always happens when the pictures begin to take shape in his mind. It may last a few days or a week, but when his head has cleared he will don his work robe and hasten to the tomb even before dawn lest he lose precious moments.”
While we talked Aruns had tottered to the yard and fetched a large wine crock which he had concealed under a heap of straw. He tore open the seal but was unable to remove the stopper. Finally his wife dexterously opened the crock, removed the wax and poured the contents into a large mixing vessel. She did not, however, insult Aruns and his friends by adding water to the wine. Instead, she brought out her best dishes and even filled a cup for herself.
“It is best so,” she said to me with the experienced smile of a knowing woman. “The years have taught me that everything is easier if I also become intoxicated. Then I no longer worry about broken objects, ruined floors and gate posts which guests carry away with them.”
She extended a cup to me. When I had emptied it I noticed that it was of the newest Attic ceramic ware with a picture of a cloven-hoofed satyr and a struggling nymph at the bottom. The picture remained in my memory as a symbol of that night, for soon two dancers appeared and we went into the garden where there was more room.
In Rome I had been told that even at their wildest the Etruscan dances are sacred dances, danced traditionally for the pleasure of the gods. That was not true, however, for when the women had danced awhile with fluttering garments they began to disrobe and with upper bodies bare danced joyously to permit us to enjoy their beauty. One of the guests proved to be a master at the flute and never in east or west have I heard such exciting melodies. They quickened my blood more than did the wine.
Finally those beautiful and ardent women danced on the grass in the moonlight with no clothing whatsoever save beads of pearls which one of the guests had indifferently tossed around their necks as gifts. I was told that he was the young Velthuru although he was dressed as modestly as his companions.
He spoke to me also, drank with me and said, “Don’t despise these drunkards, Turnus. Each of them is a master in his own field and among them I am the youngest and the most insignificant. True, I ride fairly well and can use a sword, but am a master at nothing.”
Carelessly he indicated the dancers, who were mature women. “I presume you have noticed that they also are masters in their own field. Ten and even twenty years of practice every day are required to enable a person to portray gods with his body.”
“I fully appreciate both the sights and the company, you noble,” I said.
Nor was he offended by the fact that I recognized him, for he was still young and vain even though he was of the house of Velthuru and no Velthuru need be vain because he already is what he is. He was of such an old family that he presumably instinctively knew me and hence did not inquire how I had joined the company. But that I realized only much later.
Since Aruns was so overflowingly at peace with the world and himself, I took advantage of the situation to inquire, “Why did you paint the horse blue, master?”
He stared at me with dull eyes. “Because I saw it blue.”
“But,” I insisted, “I have never seen a blue horse.”
Aruns was not hurt. Shaking his head in sorrow he replied, “In that case I pity you, my friend.”
We spoke no more of that matter but his words were a lesson to me. After that I often saw a horse as blue, regardless of its other color.
Hardly a week had elapsed when Aruns’ apprentice breathlessly came to me at my lodgings and shouted with flushed face, “Turnus, Turnus, the work is completed! The master sent me for you so that you might be the first to see it as a reward for having brought him good luck.”
I was so curious that I borrowed a horse and galloped down the valley and up the slope to the necropolis while the apprentice sat behind me clinging to my waist.
“The gods are looking at us,” whispered the bright-eyed youth behind me and his hands tightened around my waist. I was overcome by a strange certainty that he was a herald of the gods.