Free The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault

white house faced outward; its terrace hugged the edge of the bluff; beyond was space and the red sky. It was half dusk; on the terrace a torch in a gilded sconce burned with an upright flame. There were urns of trailing flowers, sweet-scented shrubs between the flagstones, a trellis with a vine. A young boy was singing somewhere to a kithara. The music ceased; my host rose from the shadows and came to meet me, his tall head brushing the vine above.
    “Welcome, Nikeratos.” On his own ground, not stared at, he seemed ten years younger. The faded light showed him smiling; he touched my arm to lead me in. “I am glad to see you. We are out here to catch the last of the day. But we will go in when the cold begins.” It was a mild evening; I remembered he came from Sicily.
    The terrace was paved with colored marbles. The low rush couches had cushions of white linen, whose embroidery looked like Egypt. There was no sign of a party; it was a good thing I had turned down Anthemion’s robe. Only one other guest was there, a man of about sixty, gray-bearded, with a heavy brow and deep-set eyes. He was squarely built, but not fleshy with it, in good hard shape for his years, like an old athlete from those days of the gentleman amateur they talk about. There were white battle-scars on his left arm. Hoplites with shields don’t get wounded there; he must have been a knight. Indeed, even standing by Dion he still looked quite distinguished. Not a Sicilian—Athens was written all over him. Not a politician—he looked too honest, and was too graceful when Dion presented me. But by accident both spoke at once, so I missed his name, and did not like to ask.
    “We saw the play together,” Dion said. “Do you know that neither of us had ever seen it performed before? But we had read it … of course.”
    He looked across, smiling. One could not miss it. I suppose The Myrmidons is least acted and most read of all great plays. Lovers meet at it, as if it were a shrine like that tomb in Thebes. However long ago that had been, something of it hung about them still.
    “Indeed, we have,” said the other. I understood this must be a thing the whole world knew about them; there is a certain air which tells one so; but it seemed to me, too, that it had surprised him to see Dion so unbend. As if to hide this, he added, “And then the mind hears an ideal rendering, which reality seldom equals. But you, on the contrary, enriched the play for me. I shall be many times your debtor.”
    We walked over to the terrace balustrade. The sunset was rusting away, but Delphi seemed still to glow from the light it had drunk before.
    “I have been making Dion envious,” he went on, “by telling him how I saw you as Alkestis, last year at the Piraeus. The death scene was very fine. Her steadfastness, her loneliness … a voice receding, it seemed, with every line, as if already on her journey—that was memorable, far beyond the pathos most actors aim at.”
    I was pleased, yet for some reason answered, “Who wouldn’t be lonely, dying for a wet stick like Admetos? I’m always glad to change masks for Herakles and the drunk scene, even though I do have to play it on three-inch lifts.” He made me nervous. I don’t think he meant to; some men are used to distance. It had not stopped him from giving me, once, a certain glance which said that if I had been five years younger it might have been a serious matter. I don’t think he meant to do that either. He had the nature he was born with, though he might never slip its leash.
    I could tell my answer had disappointed him. But Dion smiled. One seldom saw him laugh aloud; but he had a certain smile, with the head thrown back a little, which was a laugh for him. There are men hard to be at ease with, whose walls one breaks by some stroke of chance; this was my good fortune here. And it comes, I thought, through a man who tried to kill me. Somewhere a god is working.
    After more talk about the play, we