The Corn King and the Spring Queen. Naomi Mitchison

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СКАЧАТЬ but—’ said Berris again, and then suddenly, ‘Oh, it’s more than that! Whatever I did, you wouldn’t like it! I can’t make my things right, I never shall!’ He looked down at the shape on the anvil; he hated his little horse now.

      Epigethes sat down on the bench; still he had not seen Erif Der. ‘Berris,’ he said, ‘I’ll make you an offer. I can teach you, I know I can teach you! You have the hands and eyes—everything but the spirit. There—forgive me, Berris!—you are still a barbarian. No fault of yours: but I can cure it. Come and work with me for six months, and no one will know that you are not a Hellene born.’ But Berris Der was getting more and more gloomy; all the joy had faded out of his horse; he saw nothing but its faults, its weaknesses; he lost all pride and assertion, could not hope to be anything but a failure; he shook his head. ‘No, but I promise you!’ said Epigethes. ‘I swear by Apollo himself! And all I ask is what you can give me easily, this pure northern gold of yours, the weight of a loaf of bread, no more. And not coined, not to spend on foolishness, but to use as an artist, to make into beauty! Like this, Berris’—he put his hand into the breast fold of his mantle—‘and I am sure you could do as good if once you had the spirit.’

      Berris bent over to look. It was a gold plaque in low relief, a woman’s head bowered in grape tendrils, with heavy, flowing lines of throat and chin, female even in the gold, and exquisite, minutely perfect work on the grapes—those vines that had been worked on over and over again by generations of Greek artists, till they knew for certain which way every tiniest branchlet should go. But it all meant something different to Berris Der, something worshipful, the impacted art tradition of Hellas: for a poor barbarian to stare at and admire, but never to criticize, oh no, not criticize. He took it in his hands; how different it was from his horse, how well Epigethes must have known just what it was he wanted, and exactly how to get it! And he would be able to make things like this, if once he gave himself up to the Greek, gave his hands and powers as tools for the other to work with. He would make—as one should, one clearly should!—soft, lucid shapes, nature beautified, life in little, sane, unfantastic.

      He went to the chest again and took out something else, half of a gold buckle, beaten into a gorgon’s head, full face, with staring eyes. He passed it to Epigethes, rather roughly. ‘Is that better?’ ‘But of course!’ said the Greek, surprised, holding it up to the light. ‘No one need be ashamed of this. The style is coming; why, it is like a boss on the big vase I am making now. You will be an artist yet! When did you make it?’ Berris Der looked at the ground. ‘I went to your house a week ago,’ he said, ‘when you were with the Chief. I saw your vase; I measured the heads on it. This is a copy.’ And he snatched it back and shoved it into the chest, trembling a little.

      ‘Why not?’ said Epigethes, ‘between friends? You cannot do better than copy me for the next half-year. It will train your eye, and everything else will follow. Come again when I’m there: any time. I doubt if your Chief wants to see me again!’

      ‘Tarrik! Why not?’

      ‘Oh,’ Epigethes smiled, a little self-consciously, ‘I’m afraid he does not care for my work. I thought he might, having some Hellene blood himself. But no: you, the pure Scythian, you are more nearly Athenian than he.’

      Berris was sad, he wanted to justify the Chief—and yet—‘I wish he liked them; but perhaps he will some day. Me more Athenian … Oh, do tell me about Athens again!’

      Epigethes laughed. ‘Some day you shall come there with me and see all the temples and theatres and pictures and everything! You shall fall in love with all the goddesses and try to pick the painted roses, and you will forget that you once twisted iron into ugly shapes.’

      ‘Oh, I wish I could come!’ said Berris, ‘I do so long for Hellas!’ And he coloured and looked out of the window, thinking what a barbarian he must seem. But about Tarrik—‘Why did the Chief not like your work, Epigethes? How could he help it? What did he say?’

      ‘Oh, he said a great many things, foolish mostly. But it makes difficulties for me. I had hoped, if he cared for my things, laid out some of his treasures on these—perhaps!—more lasting treasures, I might have been able to stay here for a long time, teaching you some of it. But now—well, I am not a rich man.’

      The Greek glanced at his plaque again, then folded it up in a square of linen and put it back. Berris Der went over to the wall and unlocked a tiny metal door, heavily hinged, that opened with a certain difficulty. Epigethes turned his head tactfully away. Berris took out a solid lump of gold, about the size of an apple. ‘I meant to work on it,’ he said, ‘but you—you are worthier. Take it. Oh please, take it!’

      The Greek shook his head. ‘How can I? My dear boy, I can’t take your gold like this.’

      But Berris held it out to him imploringly. ‘Oh, I do want you to stay! It’s mine, my very own, do take it!’

      Epigethes seemed to make up his mind. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘if you will come and take lessons from me.’

      ‘Oh I will!’ cried Berris, ‘and you shall teach me to be a Hellene!’

      ‘If your Chief will let me!’ said Epigethes, feeling the golden lump with his finger-tips.

      ‘I’m sorry about that.’ And then Berris had a brilliant thought: ‘Oh, Epigethes, you must go to my father. He’ll buy your things—after I’ve spoken to him. And my brother, down in the marshes, I’ll take you there. Will you start teaching me soon?’

      ‘Tomorrow if you like. Walk with me to the corner of the street, won’t you? Let me see your keys, Berris; you made them, I expect? Still crude, you see.’

      They walked out together. When they were quite gone, Erif Der got up and went over to the anvil; the horse was nearly cold; she stared at him with lips pursed, poked him here and there, turned him over. Then she shrugged her shoulders and went back to her corner. She had a handful of little metal scraps, bronze and copper and iron; she arranged them on the floor in patterns. Or perhaps they arranged themselves, while she sang to them, a tiny, thin song in the back of her throat.

      Berris Der came back to his forge looking very grown up and determined. He took up his tongs. ‘Blow the fire!’ he told his sister. She began, then stopped, one hand on the bellows. ‘You aren’t going to change your horse?’ she asked. But, ‘Blow!’ he half shouted at her, ‘I want it hot, melting hot!’ And he threw on more wood. She started blowing, with long, steady strokes from the shoulder; twice she spoke to him, but he did not answer. He took his biggest hammer, a great, heavy, broad-headed thing, and propped it against the anvil. The logs flared and glowed and crumbled into white heat; the little iron horse lay there till he was red all over, and the girl’s back ached from the bellows. ‘So!’ said Berris, and she stopped, and straightened herself with a sigh of relief.

      He took the horse and laid it on the anvil; he looked at it with cold anger, and then began to smash it with the big hammer, all over. The red-hot sparks flew round him, thick and low, scorching his leather apron and shoes; he hit anyhow, with a blind, horrible passion of hate against his own work, grunting at his efforts sometimes, but saying no word. He did not stop till the iron was black again, and shapeless. Then he took it up with the tongs and threw it clanging into a corner of old cast-off scraps. Erif Der watched it go; she was back again in her old place on the floor.

      Her brother went to his chest and stood beside it, taking out one thing after another, mostly half finished; he handled them and frowned or muttered at them, and put them back again. At last he unwrapped the Gorgon’s head buckle, and found a piece of gold, roughly beaten out, and compared the two; he was copying the head exactly on to the other half of the buckle. He took them both over to his bench, СКАЧАТЬ