I lay down (the first man’s room there has every luxury) and let my dresser sponge me. He talked away, as they do, and I was glad of it. My mind was filled with darkness. I had done my best, for Dion, and the god, and my own honor; but one can’t enact a living man’s death without horror, when one cares for him. What he himself must feel, I could only try not to think of. I had borne enough.
Menekrates came in, a towel flung round him, his dark body gleaming with sweat. “Niko. What can I say? That cursed mask came with the call boy. What could I do?”
“Do?” I said. “I never had such support from another artist in all my life. I was coming to say so. Has the sponsor come behind?”
“Not that I know.” He dipped his towel in the basin and rubbed it through his hair. “But I’ve not been out looking.”
“I doubt he’ll come carrying garlands. But that’s the theater.”
As I spoke the door opened, and the usual crowd came in, poets and gentlemen and courtesans and merchants and young bloods, with their attendant sycophants, and, nosing among them, like rats when the cargo shifts, government informers and spies of various factions, mentioning the mask and asking clever questions. Menekrates and I kept saying, “Thank you, thank you,” and looking stupid. As long as we kept quiet, nothing could be charged against Menekrates. The protagonist directs; they were not to know how we had rehearsed it. As for the choregos, there was still no sign of him.
At last they all went. I was alone, putting on my street clothes, when someone came to the door. It was Speusippos.
There was only one man I had dreaded more to see. He looked worn and ill. I greeted him, and waited to suffer what must be. He was a man who could make his anger bite.
“Niko—I saw the crowd leaving, and thought you would be here.” Then he saw my blank face, and said with tired courtesy, “I am sorry to have missed the play. I have been with Plato. I was passing, and stopped to tell you. Dion has been exiled.”
No other man, I suppose, is so full of himself as an actor just off stage. For a moment I thought he was blaming me for it. I expect no one to credit this, except another actor.
“Come,” said Speusippos, “it could be worse, he is not dead. We shall see him in Athens.” He looked about; I told him my dresser had gone. “You know how it’s been, like dry brush waiting a spark. It happened through the Carthaginians.”
I gaped as if hearing of this race for the first time. I don’t know how he kept his patience.
“I told you, he’s been in touch with their envoys; he’s the only man they are used to treating with, or fear in war. He was sure they would push forward if they knew he was out of power. He wrote to the envoys, men he knew, asking them to let him see their terms first in private. Someone played him false, and gave his letter to Dionysios.”
I said nothing. One needed to know no more.
“I imagine his vanity was hurt,” Speusippos said impatiently. “But it was Philistos persuaded him that it was treason. We knew nothing of this. On the contrary, Dionysios made Dion a great show of friendship, said he regretted their late estrangement, and persuaded him to an evening stroll by the water stairs, to talk things over. Our authority for the rest is Dionysios himself, who, as you may suppose, has never stopped talking since. He spent hours with Plato, trying to justify himself. I had to leave, it was so disgusting. He wept, laid his head in Plato’s lap … I thought that I should vomit.”
“But where’s Dion?”
“Gone. During the seaside walk, it seems Dionysios suddenly pulled out the letter and faced him with it. He says Dion could give no proper explanation. No doubt he gave one which stuck in Dionysios’ craw; it’s the truth that vexes. In any case, everything was arranged beforehand, the ship at anchor, the boat at hand. I daresay it was done in less time than I’ve taken to tell you. You can imagine what Plato has been suffering, not knowing what orders had really been given, and whether Dion hadn’t in fact been dropped overboard with a stone tied to his feet. But of course he guessed our fears; as soon as he was in Italy, he sent a courier over. He is safe enough. But the cause, Niko—the cause!”
I had no time yet for the cause. I said, “A courier? From Italy? Then how long has he been gone?”
“Since yesterday. Of course it has been kept from the people. That’s why he was sent off so quietly.”
We talked on, I suppose. He went. I stood in the empty dressing room, hearing the shouts of the cleaners who were sweeping down the benches, calling across the theater. No echo of us, no footfall left. So short a time since I had wrestled with the god, with twenty thousand people, with Dion, with Philistos, with my own soul. Dion had been gone, knowing nothing of it. Philistos had not stayed away in anger; he had serious business. I sat like a grain of sand in a scraped-out bowl, listening to the grasshoppers on the hillside.
Someone coughed hoarsely. An old man stood in the doorway. I thought he had come to clean, and told him I was just going. He paused, and shuffled his feet. I saw he had a basket with him; he had been selling figs, or sesame cakes, or some such thing. He cleared his rusty throat again.
“Pardon me, sir. But when I was a chorus boy, I heard Kallippides in that role. He was the best of my young day, not a doubt of that. But to my mind, you put more into it.”
After he too had gone, Menekrates came hurrying. “Niko, I waited, I thought your Athenian friend was with you. What’s the matter?”
I should be starting to laugh soon. I answered:
In vain man’s expectation;
God brings the unthought to be,
As here we see.
“But never mind. I have had an oracle from Dionysos.”
Menekrates looked at the lynx-eyed mask on its stand.
“Won’t it wait till we feel stronger?”
“No, my dear, it won’t wait. Never keep a god waiting. He said, ‘Get drunk.’”
12
NEXT DAY PHILISTOS SENT FOR ME TO BE PAID. I had lain awake half the night, thinking what I would say to him. I kept improving it, till I wished I had written the best parts down. Then I slept; and in the morning I saw I could forget all I had thought of. Menekrates’ home and kin were in Syracuse. Dion, in exile, might need a messenger who was not suspect, and could come or go.
Philistos received me in his business room. His desk was heaped with state papers, just like Dion’s’ before. His red pouchy face, with hard little eyes in smiling folds of flesh, made me queasy, like pork when one is seasick. He greeted me as someone he had discreetly shared a joke with. As I knew, he had not been at the play, but he commended my performance. His Egyptian accountant came at his hand-clap, with a big heavy leather bag. I waited for it to be opened, but Philistos just pushed it over. It had the silver talent mark.
In recent years, I have been paid as much for one performance; once, indeed, a rival sponsor offered me even a little more to go sick and not to play. But in those days it was a sum beyond belief. No actor got such money. I paused, to make sure there was no mistake. I have never been so glad in my life that a fee was big.
“Thank you,” I said, “on behalf of the company, and myself.”
“My dear Nikeratos,” he answered, breezy as a sailor, “your company is provided for. This is your own fee.”
This saved me the trouble of doing sums. I pushed the bag back again. “Will you offer it, please, at the temple of Dionysos, for some dedication in my name?”