Free The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault Page A

place. I hated him for it, though I knew it was impiety towards the gods. Better, I thought, that the Spartans had not come down on the day of my birth, and that long ago, in some such place as this, foxes had picked my bones and the wind scattered them.
    In time my tears were spent; the little flowers threw long shadows and I felt the evening chill. It put me in mind of how I climbed the roof on my father’s wedding day, to see the bride brought home. I had supposed in my simplicity, being only seven years old, that I should be allowed to come to the feast. My father had said that he was bringing me a mother; and as if he had promised me a dog or bird of my own, I thought she belonged already to me.
    It was not till the time of the lamp-lighting that I left my memories and came down from Lykabettos. I was hungry, for it was a sharp evening now the sun was down. I remembered that I had been gone some hours without my tutor, and wondered whether by good luck my father might be out. When I got in, however, he was in the living-room waiting for me.
    He was alone; and instead of begging his pardon, I said before he had time to speak, “Where is Mother?” for I was suddenly afraid that she was really sick. He got up from his chair saying, “All in good time, Alexias. Where have you been?”
    When he spoke as if I had no right to ask, anger rose in me. I stared him in the face with my mouth shut. I saw his colour rise, as no doubt mine had risen. At length he said, “Very well. If you have done what you are ashamed of, you have cause to be silent. But I warn you it will pay you better to tell me now, than to wait like a coward till I find it out.” At this a fire burned in my head, and I said, “I have been in the men’s palaestra, hearing the sophists, and meeting my friends.”
    Being now very angry, he paused before he spoke; then without raising his voice he said, “With whom, then, were you there?”—“With no one more than another,” I said; “though your friend Kritias asked me to go home with him.”
    I tried to keep my anger between me and fear. He was a very big man. I set my teeth and resolved that if he killed me, he should not see me flinch. But he only said in a low voice, “Go to your room, and wait for me there.”
    The evening was cold and I was hungry. My little room was dark at evening, for it looked upon the fig-tree. I walked to and fro, trying to get warm. At last he came in, with his riding-whip in his hand. “I have waited,” he said, “because I would not lay my hand to you while I was in anger. Rather than please myself, I wanted to do what was just. If you grow up to be worth anything, you will have me to thank for correcting your insolence. Strip.”
    I doubt if I gained as much as he did by his self-command, for that was the worst beating of my life. Towards the end I could not quite keep silent; but I kept from crying out aloud, or asking him to stop. After he had done I kept my back to him, wanting for him to go. “Alexias,” he said. I turned then, lest he thought I dared not show my face. “Well,” he said, “I am glad to see you not so wanting in courage as in sense. But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant. Don’t forget it.” I was feeling very sick, and if I was going to faint now in his presence I would as soon have died outright, so to get rid of him I said, “I’m sorry, Father.”—“Very well,” he said, “that is the end of it then; goodnight.”
    When I was alone I lay on my bed and felt, as one does when young, that my present misery would last without relief as long as my life. I determined that I would go to the shore, and throw myself from a rock into the sea. I lay resting, only waiting to get back enough of my strength to go, and seeing in my mind the streets I should pass through as I left the City. Then I remembered Lysis meeting me in the road and saying, “Where are you going so fast, son of Myron?” I tried to imagine