Part 15 (2/2)
Pertinax nodded, but there was still a question in hishis back toward Galen Marcia whispered:
”Be a man now, Pertinax! If we should lose this s”
”There was a falling star last night,” said Pertinax ”Whose was it?”
Marcia studied his face asun tomorrow!” she retorted ”Whose will it be?
Yours! Play the man!”
XI GALEN
Galen's house was one he rented fro favor at the palace Landlords having influence were careful to protect good tenants Furthermore, whoever rented, rather than possessed, escaped more easily from persecution Galen, like Tyanan Apollonius, reduced his private needs,that philosophy went hand in hand with medicine, but wealth with neither
It was a pleasant little house, not far away from Cornificia's, within a precinct that was rebuilt after all that part of Roaze The street was crescent-shaped, not often crowded, though a score of passages like wheel-spokes led to it; and to the rear of Galen's house was a veritable ates to the house: one wide, with decorated posts, that faced the crescent street, where Galen's oldest slave sat on a stool and blinked at passers-by; the other narrow, leading froh-walled courtyard at the rear into an alley between stables in which milch-asses were kept That alley led into another where a dozen midwives had their names and claims to excellency painted on the doors-an alley carefully to be avoided, because women of that trade, like barbers, vied for custoe running parallel to that one, leading betorkshops where the burial-urn raved untruthful epitaphs in baked clay or inlaid theold-leaf (since a gilded lie, though costlier, is no worse than the sanal with his knuckles on the panel of a narrow door of olive-wood, set deep into the wall under a projecting arch An overleaning tree increased the shadow, and a visitor could ithout attracting notice A slave nearly as old as Galen presently admitted him into a paved yard in which a fish-pond had been built around an ancient well A few old fruit-trees grew against the wall, and there were potted shrubs, but little evidence of gardening,too old for that kind of work There were a dozen of the in the yard; soe that they resembled skeletons There was a rumor that the fatness and the thinness were accounted for by Galen's fondness for experiments Old Galen had a hundred jealous rivals and they even said he fed the dead slaves to the fish; but it was Roive no man credit for humaneness if an unclean accusation could be made to stick
Another fat old slave led sextus to a porch behind the house and through that to a library extremely bare of furniture but lined with shelves on which rolled ed and numbered order; they were dusty, as if Galen used them very little nowadays There were two doors in addition to the one that opened on the porch; the old slave pointed to the s sidewise because of the narrowness between the posts, went down a step and entered without knocking
For a moment he could not see Galen, there was such confusion of shadow and light High shelves around the walls of a long, shed-like room were croith retorts and phials An enormous, dusty human skeleton, articulated on concealed wire, moved as if annoyed by the intrusion There were many kinds of skulls of animals and men on brackets fastened to the wall, and there were jars containing dead things soaked in spirit So once held olive oil On a table down thechemicals, some measures and a charcoal furnace with a blow-pipe; and across the whole of one end of the rooeon-holes, stacked with chemicals and herbs, for thethrough narros aover a crucible with an unrolled parchuishable until he ain, and sextus had to go and stand where he could touch him, to believe that he was really there
”You told me you had ceased experiments”
”I lied The universe is an experiment,” said Galen ”Such Gods as there are perhaps are looking to evolve a decent man, or possibly a woman, from the mess we see around us Let us hope they fail”
”Why?”
”There appears to be hope in failure Should the Gods fail, they will still be Gods and go on trying If they ever made a decent man or woman all the rest of us would turn on their creation and destroy it Then the Gods would turn into devils and destroy us”
”What has happened to you, Galen? Why the bitter mood?”
”I discover I ae such a discovery makes for bitterness” For apowder from the crucible, then suddenly he looked up at sextus, stepping backward so as to see the young ht
”Did you send that Christian into the tunnel to kill Commodus?” he asked
”I? You know me better than that, Galen! When the time comes to slay Co at me!
Speak, man!”
Galen appeared satisfied
”No, not Commodus The blow miscarried Somebody slew Nasor A mistake A coward's blow If you had been responsible-”
”When-if-I slay, it shall be openly with my own hand,” said sextus ”Not I alone, but Rome herself must vomit out that monster Why are you vexed?”
”That wanton blow that missed its mark has stripped some friends of mine too naked It has also strippedstar-a ht and vanished”