John Gardner - The Wreckage of Agathon

My jailer merely looked off to the north for a long time, saying nothing, solemn, tight-jawed, and, I had a feeling, disheartened. From the instant time began, it has been too late. I clown and rage and lecture the stone-eared universe, but my noise comes too late. As for him, he gazes across the valley, observes the smoke of the impossible ideal, then at last looks down, reflects on his duties, and moves away without a word to attend to whatever prisoner or dreary task he takes into his mind when he puts me out of it. Call him Atlas. His work has no meaning, perhaps, but it has its dignity.

Agathon is sinking fast

While standing still.

The travel of the Universe

Is all downhill.

How was it? Dorkis was dead, yes. And Iona…

It’s all escaped me. I did something for them, something generous, even brave, perhaps.

Gone.

Incredible! This once fine mind, well, decent mind…I could commit long speeches to memory on a single hearing. I could read ten pages and remember them for years. Gone.

Poor Agathon has lost his wits

And is too sick to dance;

But still he has his dignity,

He hides his dirty pants.

Dorkis was dead.

I was in a room: the palace, I think. It was night, because when I looked up — I remember now, yes — the tops of the columns were in darkness like a heavy black fog. Footsteps — guards — and then lighter, slower footsteps: the feebleminded, prematurely old man, Kharilaus, the King. He raises his arm, a signal for me to approach, and I…

I’ve lost it

Tuka said, “Do you want her? You can have her now, you know.”

“You know who I want for my wife.”

“Not really. I know you love me, and I know you have a sort of investment in me — twenty years of your life.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s nothing at all. I wouldn’t have believed it, but it’s true. I even understand. I might have felt the same, if I’d met the right man.”

“Not Dorkis?” I asked.

She looked out the window, with one hand on the sill, as if for balance. “Almost,” she said. “If he’d been what he was that last few minutes—

A troop marched by outside, clicking their heels out. After they’d passed I said, “What was it that changed him?”

“Certainty,” she said. She bent forward a little, as if from some pain, then half turned her face to look at me. She said, “Death.”

I thought: I love you, Tuka. Come back. Wake up.

Wait. Yes.

Dorkis was dead.

The King raised his hand, and I went to him. I knelt I said, formal and sober as Solon with Kroesos, “Whatever this woman’s husband may have been guilty of, the woman and her children were not involved. Dorkis was a loyal and faithful servant for many years, and a loyal freeman after that. He was given concessions — a good house, provisions, the freedom to come and go as he pleased — and he valued them, as his family did. I speak as a friend who knew him well. Toward the last, he must have gone mad. Why would a sane man turn on all who had been good to him? Your majesty saw the execution. The man was not himself. He was admirable, perhaps, in a certain sense. Even noble. But I give you my solemn word he was not himself. If your majesty’s favorite dog went mad, would you punish the bitch and whelps?”

Both Iona and Tuka were white with rage at my degradation of his martyrdom. I could have mocked them. I remained solemn.

The King waved at me feebly, or waved in my general direction. His eyes were bad. “What is it you ask us?”

I bowed lower. “Let them keep their house. Let them live as they’ve lived in the past, honored by the community. They’ve done Sparta no wrong.”

The Joy of the People looked over to Lykourgos for help.

Lykourgos said nothing, watching me.

Kharilaus said, “Is this man, here…” His mind wandered.

Lykourgos showed no emotion. “As far as we know,” he said, “the man is trustworthy.”

Kharilaus was not exactly satisfied. Also, he was uncomfortable standing up, and clearly I was to blame for his having to put up with it. “He has gall, this man,” he said. “He has his gall making us listen to pleas about Helots!”

Lykourgos said nothing.

Kharilaus scowled and closed his eyes. “Very well, let him have what he asks for, whatever it is.”

Lykourgos nodded again. “As your majesty wishes.”

Though the King’s judgment was not binding, the ephors assented.

Kharilaus retired.

When Lykourgos turned to go, I said, “Thank you, horse.”

He paused, brooding. “You played it well,” he said. Then left.

Tuka said, “Do you want her? You can have her now, you know.”

“You know who I want for my wife,” I said.

“Not really,” she said. “I know you love me, and I know you have a sort of investment in me — twenty years of your life.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Let us say I am riding an elephant,” Kleon said. “I have chosen a goal, the riding of an elephant, and simultaneously I have chosen a means.” He smiled, gentle, infinitely distant.

For some reason we are in our room. There’s a terrible fight. Tuka is violently angry, but whatever it is that bothers her is a matter of indifference to me. She throws things. I dodge them like the coward I am, but this time I do not leave in scorn, because the last time I did she went into shock. We are naked, and I think, for all my anger or boredom or whatever, I love you, Tuka. Come back. She hurls herself at me and scratches my face, trying to reach my eyes. “Stop it!” I yell. “If you make me lose my temper, I could kill you.” I push her, to show her the absurdity of her pitting her woman’s strength against mine. But she’s there again, and I can feel the cool blood running down my chest, washing down my cheek like tears, though she still hasn’t reached my eyes. I seize her in a lover’s embrace, and while I hold her with my left hand I pull punches into her back with my right. She gasps, falls away, and I hit her in the face, then the stomach. She lies still, her nose bleeding.

“I told you!” I yell at her. “I warned you!”

She lies still. I hold her, move my hands on her back as I used to do when she went rigid with anger, but she’s not rigid now, merely unconscious, beaten. I tell her of my love.

The following morning, Tuka and the children were gone.

I have lost track of time completely. It may have been yesterday that I last worked on this sordid tale. It may have been last week. In any case, I’m feeling splendid this afternoon, relatively speaking. My friendly jailer’s physician does not look optimistic, but a man knows how he feels. And God knows it must be physical. It can’t be what’s been happening.

Iona came. Her grandson had told her I was deathly sick and recalcitrant about accepting their version of liberty; and though she long ago gave up love of me for love of war, she had to come see for herself, try her arts of persuasion. She walked up to my cell door in broad daylight. She shouldn’t do that, for more reasons than one. War has made her ugly. The jailer must certainly have seen her, but no one was around to force him to the duty he has no respect for, and so he allowed the visit. Or else he’s dead.

No. It’s not true that war has made her ugly. It’s changed her, merely; moved her toward the universal wreckage. Her slanted eyes, once charming, seductive, have grown cunning, smoldering like lava pits. Her language, once stumbling, girlish, self-conscious, has become professional, incisive, the language of one who has grown accustomed to giving cruel orders. In her presence, I become poor old Kronos. I understand her, love her, pity her, and pretend not to notice that she looks on me as a kindly, once potent and beneficent old god, now half dead.