I

“Charitas sent her husband to complain of the way you spoke to her, Eteoneus,” said Menelaus. “I’m sorry to say it’s not the only criticism of you that has come to my attention in the last few days. At this crisis, when you know how heavily burdened I am already, it does seem as though you might refrain from questionable ventures in deportment. I said I wanted to speak with you, but now that you are here, I don’t know what to say. You’ve been my servant for many years. You were the one person in the household I used to count on for absolute propriety. But in recent months your tongue has been getting you into trouble. You yourself reported some high words with Orestes, and I had to object to your disposition to discuss my wife. Now our best neighbour comes in and it’s his wife you’ve discussed. What has happened, Eteoneus? And what ought I to do with you?”

“Nothing has happened to me, Menelaus,” said the gate-keeper; “nothing but old age. I believe age has not essentially altered my character, but if you think it has, perhaps you ought to retire me. In the days when my conduct gave satisfaction, only the common run of travellers stood outside your door, and only normal events happened inside of it. Now, as you’ll admit, we have strange visitors, and we receive strange messages, and what goes on inside this house is new, or ought to be new, to my experience. I doubt if my speech has become less guarded; I should probably have made the same comments forty years ago, if the same events had happened then.”

“I don’t like you to mention your age,” said Menelaus, “and I don’t care to consider your retiring. I know perfectly well I couldn’t replace you in your present office. The younger servants are only servants now—they feel no family ties. But no matter how much I need you, and how much I think of you, you must see what a difficulty I’m in when complaints are made. People have criticised my house too much already. My brother’s death will make more talk. If I didn’t esteem you so highly, I’d send you off without a moment’s hesitation. Instead, I ask you, man to man, what you’d do if you were in my place.”

“Well, if I were in your place,” said Eteoneus, “I’d begin by stating the precise nature of the complaint Charitas made to you.”

“Her husband, not Charitas,” said Menelaus.

“Oh, I understand,” said the gate-keeper.

“He says you insulted his wife when she came to call on Helen. First, you wouldn’t let her in. Then you answered her questions rather sarcastically. For a climax, you told her she was the meanest woman you had ever met, and you thought you had met the extreme examples.”

“That’s nearer the truth than you’d expect from an angry woman,” said Eteoneus, “especially getting it from you, who had it from her husband, who knew nothing about it, except what she told him. She asked if Helen was at home. I said she wasn’t. That’s what she means by my not letting her in. She’s right, practically. Helen told me to say she was not at home, if anyone called, but she also told me to see that Charitas didn’t get across the threshold, and Charitas suspects something of the kind. She said Helen’s consistent absence was beginning to seem pointed. I was doing what I was commanded to do, Menelaus, and I did it all the more conscientiously because I’m no great admirer of your wife, and her orders give no pleasure.”

“If Helen didn’t wish to see Charitas,” said Menelaus, “you certainly should not be blamed. But why didn’t Helen want to see her—did she give a reason?”

“Yes,” said Eteoneus, “she said she couldn’t bear to discuss the death of your brother, and her sister’s part in it, with curious neighbours, and she was sure Charitas would call promptly as soon as the rumour spread.”

“H’m!” said Menelaus. “Her feelings of reticence do her credit. She seems to know Charitas.”

“She knows her sex. I doubt if she’d see Charitas, anyway,” said Eteoneus. “My opinion is, she looks on the murder as the most plausible excuse she’s had in a long time for keeping Charitas out. She has given me the same orders before, with other reasons. This one’s by far the best.”

“I wonder what has happened between them,” said Menelaus. “They used to be friends, and Charitas is the kind of woman I like to have Helen associated with—very steady, sensible, thoroughly reliable.”

“She never told me her opinion of Charitas,” said the gate-keeper, “but I doubt if she thinks her either sensible or reliable.”

“What does she think her?”

“She said once that Charitas was respectable.”

“At least!” said Menelaus.

“She meant it as no compliment,” said Eteoneus. “She meant that Charitas sticks to the conventions.”

“That’s compliment enough, these days,” said Menelaus. “What on earth possesses that woman!”

“Which one?”

“My wife.”

“Well, that’s about the same thing as I asked you when you came home,” said Eteoneus, “and you were angry with me. Now, if you will tell me how to—”

“We’ve wandered from the subject,” said Menelaus. “You’ve answered the first complaint against you. How about those sarcastic remarks?”

“I made them,” said Eteoneus. “The woman refused to go away. She wanted to get at the scandal, from me if nobody else would talk to her. I said good day several times, in several fairly polite forms, but she stuck like a leach, and what with trying not to give information, and what with the annoyance of being questioned, I dare say I answered her a bit sharply.”

“Do you remember anything you said?”

“I don’t know that I do. I admit I felt snappish … Oh, yes, she wanted to know whether Agamemnon didn’t attack Clytemnestra and whether Clytemnestra didn’t kill him in self-defence. I remember I said I’d submit the question to Helen as soon as she came in; she would know if her sister’s husband tried to kill her and couldn’t, or if the lady just killed her husband spontaneously. Something like that. I recall how annoyed Charitas looked.”

“It does sound impertinent, and I’m sure it’s softer than what you actually said.”

“Menelaus, would you think better of my behaviour if I gossiped with the neighbours about you and your relatives? What I think of Clytemnestra and what I think of your wife, is my private opinion—I believe you suggested as much; to talk of such things to Charitas is strictly none of my business. She wanted gossip; I couldn’t get rid of her. Of course she’d be dissatisfied with my most diplomatic replies. I could have avoided her displeasure only by giving her the news. I hope you told her husband that his wife had little to do, inquiring into your affairs through your servants? I begin to think Helen was generous when she called her respectable!”

“Now, about the third complaint,” said Menelaus. “I’d like to get on with this—there’s something else we must talk of. Did you call her the meanest woman you’d met?”

“I dare say she is,” said Eteoneus, “but I left her a loop-hole of escape. She said she would send her boy away, where he wouldn’t be contaminated by the bad customs of this house, and I replied that if she separated him from Adraste now, she’d be the meanest woman I ever met, and I added that my experience was wide.”

“But why does she speak of getting him away from my house?” said Menelaus. “He doesn’t live here.”

“Doesn’t he! It’s the only place he lives.”

“You mean he’s here?”

“Every minute he can be,” said Eteoneus. “Helen told me not to let him come in, but you couldn’t keep him out if there were a fifty-foot wall round the estate.”

“This is the most complicated affair I’ve ever heard of!” said Menelaus. “My home appears to be in a condition of seige. Our one ambition, it seems, is to repel the Charitas family. Why did Helen wish to keep out the boy?”

“Adraste, of course.”

“What are you talking about? … Oh, now I remember! … Helen was afraid the girl might fall in love with him.”

“There was some danger of it,” said Eteoneus.

“You think the danger is past?” said Menelaus.

“Why, no!” said the gate-keeper; “it has happened—she’s going to have a child by him.”

“Merciful gods!” cried Menelaus; “in my house? a child? … I call that an outrage! … Is there a soul on the premises who isn’t a disgrace to society? I call that downright immoral! Couldn’t Helen stop it?”

“She wanted to—that was her purpose in trying to keep the boy out,” said Eteoneus, “but you know how it is, Menelaus, when two young people are in love. You were young once yourself.”

“Never!” said Menelaus, “never in that sense. I don’t understand the point of view, though I know people who hold it. If that’s right, I say, what is wrong?”

“Why, if they were married and the wife ran off with another man, I’d call that wrong,” said Eteoneus. “And if the husband forgave her and took her back, or took her back without forgiving her, I’d call that wrong, or at least a grave error. But these young people are in love, and neither of them is of much importance out of love. I worried over Orestes and Hermione for fear they might do this very thing; in fact, I don’t think much of Orestes for not justifying my fears. With a girl so important as Hermione, and you told me to take care of her, it would have been serious, but I’d like to know what’s the harm if these two have done the natural thing? Helen doesn’t like it because she thinks Damastor isn’t good enough for the girl. Charitas is angry because she thinks the girl isn’t good enough for Damastor. Between the two I rather side with Helen, but really they are both wrong.”

“And the girl is going to have a child—in my house!”

“Yes, and Charitas is sending her boy away, so that he may not marry the girl, nor even see his own child occasionally,” said Eteoneus. “I call that unnecessarily mean.”

“I must see what can be done about it,” said Menelaus.

“Nothing to do now but wait,” said Eteoneus.

“Oh, yes, there is!” said Menelaus. “The child can be born somewhere else. My house can do very well without another scandal for a while, and I hate to think of the effect of such an episode upon my daughter. But to return to you, Eteoneus. There’s another complaint against you, and your free ideas about Adraste fit in with it all too closely. You had a conversation with Hermione recently. I can’t believe you said the things she reports, yet I trust her absolutely if she says so. About sex, of all subjects. You told her the lawless attitude men take toward women, and the sort of response women make to their advances, and to prove you knew what you were talking about, you told her of your own escapades in your youth. Hermione says it was the most suggestive talk she has heard, and she is profoundly shocked.”

“I told her how we used to treat the women in war,” said Eteoneus, “and I implied very delicately that the women rather liked it. Not a word that wasn’t perfectly delicate, nor a syllable that wasn’t true.”

“But we don’t tell that sort of truth to young girls now-a-days, Eteoneus. Hermione has led a sheltered life, and I want her to keep the innocence of youth as long as possible.”

“Oh, come now, Menelaus, that’s rather strong! Didn’t I tell you when you came home that Hermione was full of new ideas, and didn’t you pretend that you liked new ideas yourself? That was Hermione’s last chance for the sheltered life, and it was probably too late then. Your notion of her mind is a generation behind time. I grew up in the rough days, which you can remember too, if you try. You think Hermione belongs to the next period, when the children were found in cabbages. She doesn’t. Her generation are approaching the roughness again from the intellectual and moral point of view, and with a sense of duty. It’s not healthy and I don’t like it. A healthy person would know what sex is for; it’s not a subject for meditation. Do you realise how I came to be discussing such matters with your sheltered daughter? She brought it on herself, speaking of Pyrrhus—she said he was a perfect brute with women, and she proved it by saying that he was living with Andromache. You see, she’d been interested to find that out. She was quite sure that men usually are bad at heart and seduce women. She evidently had given a lot of thought to the problem, and believed all the modern fictions. Wherever she got those ideas, she certainly did not get them from me. I might have told her much more than I did; far from being conscious of any indiscretion, I now admire my restraint. I spoke only about the brutality, as she called it, of men in war—the Ajax-Cassandra sort of thing, which you yourself thought not so bad. I never mentioned the way women behave in times of peace. I never told her that if the normally attractive man accepted all the invitations he gets from ladies, he’d have very little time to himself. I merely said that the only people who could testify as to the brutality of Pyrrhus were the women involved, and that probably, unless human nature is changing, they were devoted to him. That’s about all I said—along with testimony from my own experience.”

“This is very strange,” said Menelaus. “Helen was telling her the same thing one day when I happened to interrupt her. I wonder if my wife has been putting these ideas into the child’s head!”

“I don’t think your wife would tell her that Pyrrhus is a brute,” said Eteoneus. “If she told her what I’ve just said to you, she’s almost the first woman I ever heard of who could be honest on that subject. But Hermione and I had talks about Orestes, as you remember, before you came home, and she was beginning to have these ideas then. It’s too late in the world for the kind of innocence you’re wishing for, Menelaus. Everybody wants to know everything—to talk about it, anyway. Besides, if Hermione didn’t pick up the tendency for herself, she’d get it from Orestes. I told you he was a bad influence.”

“I detect a flaw in your logic,” said Menelaus. “If it’s all right for you to talk frankly to a young girl, why isn’t it correct for Orestes to be just as frank on the same themes? You ought to be like Orestes—he’s a man after your own heart.”

“I don’t like him at all,” said Eteoneus. “When I talk to Hermione or to anyone else, I try to say what I’ve learned from experience. There’s an element of life in it, I hope. That’s what shocked Hermione. If I talk about women, because I’ve been pretty intimate with a lot of them, Hermione thinks me wicked, but if Orestes with no experience at all goes over the same ground, Hermione thinks him wise. Humbug! Mark my words, Menelaus, Orestes has a dirty mind, and he’s a dangerous character. I admit he’s strait-laced—it comes to the same thing. His kind want to talk about everything but not to know about it. If a man is living like a saint, and has the thoughts of a saint, I’ll say he’s a saint. But if he’s brooding on ideas which have no connection with his life, I don’t trust his life, in the long run. The great thing is to be all of a piece. I’m suspicious of Orestes, and of Charitas, and I might as well say, of your daughter.”

“If it weren’t for certain differences in voice and features,” said Menelaus, “I might think it was Helen talking to me. I never dreamed you shared her theories of life.”

“I hope I don’t,” said Eteoneus. “Your wife isn’t my ideal at all. I blame her for most of the trouble that’s come on us.”

“Whether you like her or not,” said Menelaus, “you talk much the same way. That is, it sounds like part of her conversations. She’s all for sincerity, you know, and her life has been mixed up in love-affairs. You’re for sincerity too, it seems, and the revelation of your amorous past distressed my daughter. I begin to see what sincerity comes to.”

“That’s very well so far as I’m concerned,” said Eteoneus, “but you don’t understand your wife. I’m sorry to say it, but she’s too smart for you. The way she kept you from going off to help Orestes was one of the neatest things I’ve seen. Just an insinuation or two about Clytemnestra, and the awkwardness of arranging the marriage if you were implicated in the execution of her lover, and you actually gave up the impulse to have a share in avenging your brother! Then another hint or two about your brother’s murderess at your daughter’s wedding, and you decided against the wedding. That woman can get anything she wants. As long as you both live, she will turn you round her little finger. What I object to most is her knack of making people feel they’re wrong and she’s right. Most women have the gift, but with her it’s an art. I dare say she made Priam think she came to Troy at considerable personal sacrifice, and the city owed her something. She says nothing to me—I suppose she can guess I don’t like her; but when she turns on me that extraordinary look of hers, I feel sure she’s ready to forgive me, any time I ask it.”

“Forgive you what?” said Menelaus.

“Exactly! What?” said Eteoneus. “I’ve done nothing amiss, so far as I know. But that’s your wife’s attitude. The rest of us are always wrong, and there’s no system in it. She is very indignant with Clytemnestra, who wasn’t proper enough, and she objects to Charitas because she’s too conventional!”

“Yes,” said Menelaus, “and she doesn’t like Orestes because of his family, but she has that girl Adraste with her all the time, and now Adraste has disgraced herself.”

“I must admit I agree with Helen on the last two counts,” said Eteoneus. “I don’t care for Orestes myself, and Adraste’s a very fine girl—one of the finest women you are likely to meet.”

“I’m not likely to meet her,” said Menelaus. “I’ve noticed her about the house, but I never pay much attention to the women servants. Now I’ll send her away, and protect my home as completely as I can from this latest scandal. Where had I better send her, Eteoneus?”

“I’d leave it to Helen,” said Eteoneus; “she’ll know the best place.”

“But Helen won’t wish her to go,” said Menelaus. “It would be just like her to keep the girl and make a heroine of her!”

“Very probably,” said Eteoneus. “In my youth men had a firm way with women, especially with their wives; they just told them what to do or what not to, and disobedience meant a beating. If Hermione would give her consent, you might try that method on Helen. I wouldn’t advise you to do anything about Adraste without your wife’s permission, unless you really are prepared to revive that old-fashioned kind of argument.”

“I’ll see Helen about it, and I’ll send the girl away,” said Menelaus. “Thank you for your anxiety, Eteoneus, but I can still manage my own home. I don’t need your advice as to disciplining my wife. You’ll see, Adraste will go.”

“I doubt if you need me in any way,” said Eteoneus. “I’d like to retire as soon as you can find another gate-keeper.”

“Do you mean that?” said Menelaus.

“I do.”

“I can’t let you go till this Orestes affair is well over,” said Menelaus. “Don’t be hasty in making up your mind. I’ll tell Charitas’ husband you’ve made an apology which satisfies me, and I’ll guarantee your courtesy in the future. I’ll try to see that Hermione does not hold private conversations with you. When Orestes returns, let me know your final decision about the gate-keeping. I’d be glad to have you stay on. I should miss our occasional differences of opinion—we’ve had them for many years. You’re almost the only person now with whom I can—well, never mind!”