Читать книгу Demophon, a Traveller's Tale - Forrest Reid - Страница 7

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But alas! when he woke up again, Pholos was gone. Gone without a word. Demophon did not understand it; but so ended his plan for riding home, and so ended his trust in centaurs. Here he was, left stranded, miles away from Eleusis, with not a living creature in sight, not a house, not so much as a ploughed field, but only a stretch of rocky heather, and behind him the bare mountain. He felt uncommonly hungry, too. He had had no supper on the previous night, and, as he surveyed the barren country all around him, he could see small likelihood of breakfast either.

In the stream he washed himself, and then stood perfectly still, trying, like Pholos, to “feel” the direction of home. The effort was unsuccessful. The only thing of which he could be quite sure was that they had not crossed the mountain, so he set out at a venture, and in an hour or two struck a rough path, which presently led him to a road with well-marked wagon ruts. The land was becoming more promising; there were silvery poplars by the wayside; but as yet he had met nobody and seen no house nor flocks nor any signs of cultivation. The morning was far advanced when he reached a spot where his road was bisected by another, narrower road. Here, at the crossing of the ways, stood a shrine dedicated to the Triple Hekate. There were some round cakes upon the altar, left there either for a passing wayfarer like himself, or in honour of the Goddess; and, though they were far from fresh, he swallowed them to the last crumb before sitting down in the shade to consider what he should do next.

High overhead burned the afternoon sun. The entire landscape, and even the sky, had acquired a hard enamelled brilliance. The two white roads ran on perfectly straight as far as the eye could reach, but not a speck was visible on either of them, nor was there any sound to be heard except the shrill singing of the grasshoppers. Demophon took off his cloak and rolled it into a pillow. It was pleasant to lie here, even though it might be wiser to push on—at least till he should have reached a house where he could get proper directions, food, and perhaps a lodging for the night....

And then a quite new thought entered his mind. Now that he was at last come out into this world he had so often longed to visit, would it not be foolish to turn back? The summer months lay before him, and had he actually planned to run away he could not have chosen a better time....

Only, he must send word to his parents.... Otherwise he would be no better than Linos—who had run away, and sent no messages, and never returned. Demophon did not want to be like that.... But he would be sure to meet somebody—somebody travelling to Eleusis—who would carry a message to the old people, tell them all was well. He would keep a sharp look-out for such a traveller, and for a day or two at least there was no hurry....

The sunshine was making him a little sleepy.... Still, he must not go to sleep; for if he did, it might be dark when he awakened, and in the darkness he would be more lost than he was at present....

He wondered if he had been dozing! Surely the sun was much lower than it ought to be? At that moment he heard a voice—quite near—and also the squeaking and rumbling and bumping of a cart. Noisy as the cart was, it was not so noisy as its driver. Demophon jumped up to look. It was a mule cart, driven by a young man who was singing at the top of his voice, but who, on catching sight of Demophon, suddenly broke off his song and pulled up.

He was a countryman, with an honest, pleasant, good-humoured face. But he looked flushed, as if he had been drinking, and evidently he was rejoiced to find a companion with whom he could drink still more, for he immediately produced a wooden cup, which he waved in the air while he shouted to Demophon to approach.

The boy obeyed, but drank only a few mouthfuls of the dark wine poured out for him. Seeing, however, that the cart was laden with provisions, he mentioned that he was hungry. The driver was perhaps in a generous mood, or perhaps it was that he had grown hungry himself: at any rate, he at once began to rummage among his baskets, and very soon had set out by the roadside enough food for half a dozen people. While Demophon ate, he himself drank, and listened to an account of the adventure with Pholos. He appeared to have some difficulty in grasping what actually had happened, but this did not prevent him from expressing the warmest approval of Demophon’s conduct, and the sternest condemnation of the faithless Pholos. As for directions and advice, he overflowed with them. “Take what food you want; it all belongs to my father, and you will need it. The first thing you have to do is to cross the mountains. Your way lies on the other side of them. Then you’ll be a little nearer home—though not very much.” And he began to troll out in a baritone voice of wonderful power and melodiousness:—

“Over the mountains,

Sacred to Pan,

There you must journey,

My little man.”

“Only they’re not sacred to Pan, but to Dionysos,” he added, stopping abruptly. Then he drank another cup of wine, and asked, “Do you know any songs?”

“I know some that Pittakos taught me,” Demophon answered.

“Pittakos—Pittakos—who might he be, now?”

“He is a poet of Eleusis. I went to his school.”

“A good poet and a bad schoolmaster; or perhaps a good schoolmaster and a bad poet. We’ll hear him at any rate—Pittakos of Eleusis—and if he’s not utterly impossible I’ll drink his health and the health of all poets and all schoolmasters. Now, pupil, the Muses are gathering round us, and this wooden cup shall be the prize.”

Demophon thought for a while, his bright dark eyes fixed on the mule-driver’s face. Then he opened his mouth and began to chant in a piercing and monotonous sing-song, just as Pittakos had taught him to do, a poem with this auspicious opening:—

“First honour the Gods, and then thy parents.”

The mule-driver’s jaw dropped. As the poem proceeded his expression became more and more that of a man suffering from some acute internal discomfort. He stared at Demophon, and Demophon stared at him—across the remains of their picnic—but the poem went on. Every single word of it was a word of wisdom; every line showed Pittakos to be a learned and virtuous person; it was only this graceless young mule-driver who was vile. For when he had listened to two hundred of Pittakos’s hexameters the mule-driver rebelled. Two hundred sufficed, and he put an end to the performance by the simple means of leaning forward and clapping a large hand over Demophon’s mouth. After which he took a deeper draught than any yet.

But he said nothing, though over the top of the swaying cup he eyed Demophon reproachfully, and it was quite three minutes before his countenance cleared. Then all at once he recovered his cheerfulness, and at the same time announced his intention of remaining in this spot till morning. The companionship of Demophon was dearer to him than aught else in the world; they would never more be parted; and in pledge of this they would drink just one further drink together. Pittakos was an old driveller who deserved mutilation; his pupil’s singing was deplorable; nevertheless not even this should be allowed to cast a shadow on their friendship....

Demophon, who after all had only sung because he had been asked to sing, felt offended by this criticism. In silence he collected what would be sufficient for a couple of good meals, while the young wagoner regarded him benevolently. He had reached the stage when a hiccup now and then interrupted his flow of lively and affectionate conversation; but nothing else did; and the mule, with the reins hanging loose on its back, patiently cropped the grass.

Evening was approaching. The boy, having packed up his provisions, stood by the docile animal, stroking its long soft nose and saying good-bye. The mule-driver too said good-bye. He said it again and again, but always found something else to say, of the utmost importance, immediately afterwards. In the end, seeing that their parting was likely to be prolonged as the night of Zeus and Alkmena, Demophon walked away.

When he had gone a hundred yards or so, he stopped and looked round. The young wagoner had clambered back into his cart and the mule had started. Even as Demophon watched, however, the cart gave a sudden bump and the driver disappeared from view. He had fallen back among his packages, but made no attempt to recover his position, and the boy was on the point of returning to see if all was well when a burst of song reassured him. The song continued, though all but the singer’s feet remained invisible. The mule plodded on, apparently needing no guidance, and Demophon turned his face once more to the mountains.

They were a considerable distance off—at least an hour’s walk, he thought—but he had had a good long rest, and his journey with Pholos had given him a taste for nocturnal rambles. The sun was already setting, and the hills he was approaching seemed very thickly wooded. But when he reached them he found the ascent was easy, and it would have been easier still had it not been for the darkness which closed down upon him the moment he got among the trees. Now indeed he had to proceed cautiously, because there were many loose fragments of rock lying about; and as he slowly advanced he became aware of a secret movement all around him. He could see nothing, he could hear very little, and yet he knew a great many creatures of various sizes, furred or feathered, were scurrying past him through the brushwood. It puzzled him, because there seemed to be no cause for this commotion. Not a breath of wind was stirring, the only intruder was himself, and the fugitives, if they were fugitives, were running not away from, but towards him. He stopped to listen. Yes, there were countless little rustlings and clawings, though never a squeak nor a call.

Demophon climbed on, being obliged to pick his steps more and more carefully as the way became rougher; and when the trees at last began to widen out again, and he knew he had reached the wood’s edge, the stars and the moon were bright in the sky.

Suddenly he started in fear, for a human face hung there a yard or two in front of him—hung there in the darkness, without a visible body, directly in his path. Next moment he recognised the painted mask of Dionysos, which had been attached to a pine tree; and while he stood gazing at it he heard the sound of distant music—a far-off tuneless wood-note, broken ever and again by a faint, shivering crash. It must be very distant, he thought, for it reached him only fitfully; and a long time elapsed before he made out that human voices were mixed with it. But there was not a trace of the singers, and though he had now passed well beyond the wood’s fringe, a dark bare tract still stretched up between him and the topmost line of the mountain, from the other side of which the music must be coming.

The slope had grown almost precipitous—a towering wall of rock to which he was obliged to cling with his hands. He had the moon’s light, however, and the ground was firm, not slaty, so that he seldom made a false step. The music did not seem to get any louder till he had nearly reached the top, and it was only then that he could distinguish clearly its component elements—the rounded fluting of wind instruments, mingled with the strident clashing of tambourines and cymbals.... Demophon knew it to be the music of the God, and once more, placed at the very summit, he came upon his image—a wooden post without arms, but covered with leafy boughs, and with a mask daubed in bright vermilion to represent the head.

He scrambled over the last ridge and gazed down into the depths below. He could see the red flames of torches darting hither and thither, but they might have been gigantic fireflies, for nothing except these moving flames was visible.

Nevertheless, he knew that the worshippers were there, gathered in that spot to evoke their dark ambiguous God and the fructifying powers of Earth. He could hear their cries distinctly—Evoé! Evoé! Io! Iacchos! Iacchos!—and he paused in doubt, for it might be wiser to make a detour before beginning the descent.

Prudence fought against curiosity. The mysterious noises he had heard in the wood were accounted for. A spirit of fear was in the air, and if the wild creatures had quitted their haunts and sought safety far down on the other side of the mountain, it behoved him, too, to be careful. For he knew how this God filled his worshippers with a mystic passion, which turned sometimes to madness; he knew of deeds of hideous cruelty performed in his name—of victims torn limb from limb, of the drinking of blood. Tales more unpleasant still were told. If the victim was sometimes a goat, it was also whispered that he was sometimes a boy; and Demophon had an idea that the death of that boy would be no easy one. He would undergo at least such sufferings as the Boy-God himself had undergone at the hands of the Titans. Yet there could not be much danger in drawing just a little closer, since he could always run away, and he had great confidence in his fleetness of foot.

He took every precaution as he descended. He avoided the light of the bonfires, keeping in the shadow of rocks and trees, and at last, when he was quite near, creeping on all fours along the ground. He peered through the brushwood into an open glade which was lit by torches and by three or four blazing fires. The clamour was now deafening; it made him want to put his fingers in his ears; and at the same time a peculiar influence began to reach him, so that he had to fight against a desire to leap out from his hiding-place and join in the winding, rhythmic dance. It was a half-hypnotic fascination. The delirious clashing of cymbals, the shrilling of flutes, and that whirling and beating of tambourines rose madly into the night. If there were men present, he did not see any; he saw only women. In the red flare of the torches they moved in a dizzy yet ordered pattern. Their hair was unbound and streamed behind them, their faces were uplifted, their lips were apart, their eyes shone with a dangerous ecstasy, their feet were white on the bruised and trampled grass. They were clothed in dappled fawn skins, in black goat skins, and many carried the ivy-twisted thyrsos that was the emblem of their master. The dance itself was passionate, was curiously like a dance of witches: it had filled their faces with thirst; a cloud of sorcery seemed to trail from tree to tree, creating in the air an unnatural heat, as from the breath of an open furnace.

Through the quivering atmosphere, through the winding pattern of the dance, Demophon presently became aware of a figure coming and going, which he had not seen at first. In the beginning it was shadowy and diaphanous, but as he watched it it grew ever more definite, till at last it was solid flesh beneath whose feet the grass was crushed and bent as beneath the feet of the other dancers. It was the figure of a youth—lithe, delicate, and beautiful with an equivocal beauty. In his hand he held a rod tipped with a pine-cone, and into his long hair a spray of convolvulus was twisted. His face and body were pale, his mouth red, and he moved with a kind of caressing and feline grace.

For a while he moved in the dance and then drew apart under the trees, and Demophon suddenly knew that to the worshippers he had never been visible. But they had felt his nearness, and the music grew wilder and the dance more and more vertiginous, till at last, one by one, exhausted, they dropped out and lay upon the grass where they had fallen, with swimming eyes and panting limbs. And gradually, while they lay there, a cloud seemed to be lifted, the whole atmosphere changed, the night air once more grew cool, a soft breeze awakened, and the dew descended.

The God had disappeared; the dew dropped presently on sleeping figures; and Demophon crept out from his hiding-place. For a minute or two he stood looking down at the scattered slumberers, who lay as if dead. The abandon of their attitudes, the heavy unconsciousness into which they had sunk, suggested something deeper than normal sleep. A feeling of aversion arose in him, and he turned his eyes away as from a sight shameful and degrading. This disgust had awakened suddenly and pitilessly; it was the disgust that follows gratified curiosity; he felt that he hated these women with an almost cruel hatred, as he turned his back on them, and hastened on down to the valley below.