The Secret History - Donna Tartt [17]
“The Furies,” said Bunny, his eyes dazzled and lost beneath the bang of hair.
“Exactly. And how did they drive people mad? They turned up the volume of the inner monologue, magnified qualities already present to great excess, made people so much themselves that they couldn’t stand it.
“And how can we lose this maddening self, lose it entirely? Love? Yes, but as old Cephalus once heard Sophocles say, the least of us know that love is a cruel and terrible master. One loses oneself for the sake of the other, but in doing so becomes enslaved and miserable to the most capricious of all the gods. War? One can lose oneself in the joy of battle, in fighting for a glorious cause, but there are not a great many glorious causes for which to fight these days.” He laughed. “Though after all your Xenophon and Thucydides I dare say there are not many young people better versed in military tactics. I’m sure, if you wanted to, you’d be quite capable of marching on Hampden town and taking it over by yourselves.”
Henry laughed. “We could do it this afternoon, with six men,” he said.
“How?” said everyone at once.
“One person to cut the phone and power lines, one at the bridge over the Battenkill, one at the main road out, to the north. The rest of us could advance from the south and west. There aren’t many of us, but if we scattered we’d be able to close off all other points of entry”—here he held out his hand, fingers spread wide—“and advance to the center from all points.” The fingers closed into a fist. “Of course, we’d have the advantage of surprise,” he said, and I felt an unexpected thrill at the coldness of his voice.
Julian laughed. “And how many years has it been since the gods have intervened in human wars? I expect Apollo and Athena Nike would come down to fight at your side, ‘invited or uninvited,’ as the oracle at Delphi said to the Spartans. Imagine what heroes you’d be.”
“Demigods,” said Francis, laughing. “We could sit on thrones in the town square.”
“While the local merchants paid you tribute.”
“Gold. Peacocks and ivory.”
“Cheddar cheese and common crackers more like it,” Bunny said.
“Bloodshed is a terrible thing,” said Julian hastily—the remark about the common crackers had displeased him—“but the bloodiest parts of Homer and Aeschylus are often the most magnificent—for example, that glorious speech of Klytemnestra’s in the Agamemnon that I love so much—Camilla, you were our Klytemnestra when we did the Oresteia; do you remember any of it?”
The light from the window was streaming directly into her face; in such strong light most people look somewhat washed out, but her clear, fine features were only illuminated until it was a shock to look at her, at her pale and radiant eyes with their sooty lashes, at the gold glimmer at her temple that blended gradually into her glossy hair, warm as honey. “I remember a little,” she said.
Looking at a spot on the wall above my head, she began to recite the lines. I stared at her. Did she have a boyfriend, Francis maybe? He and she were fairly chummy, but Francis didn’t look like the sort who would be too interested in girls. Not that I stood much of a chance, surrounded as she was by all these clever rich boys in dark suits; me, with my clumsy hands and suburban ways.
Her voice in Greek was harsh and low and lovely.
Thus he died, and all the life struggled out of him;
and as he died he spattered me with the dark red
and violent-driven rain of bitter-savored blood
to make me glad, as gardens stand among the showers
of God in glory at the birthtime of the buds.
There was a brief silence after she had finished; rather to my surprise, Henry winked solemnly at her from across the table.
Julian smiled. “What a beautiful passage,” he said. “I never tire of it. But how is it that such a ghastly thing, a queen stabbing her husband in his bath, is so lovely to us?”
“It’s the meter,” said Francis. “Iambic trimeter. Those really hideous parts of Inferno, for instance, Pier de Medicina with his nose hacked off and talking through a bloody slit in his windpipe—”
“I can think