The Corn King and the Spring Queen Read Online Free PDF

walls of the forge. But Berris wanted his gold heated again; he called her to blow the fire, angrily, because he was working badly and because he hated Tarrik to tell him so. She went back, her head in the air, pretending to herself and every one else that she knew exactly what she wanted. But while she blew she got fuller of panic every moment. If she could not run, at any rate something must happen!
    Tarrik was talking to Berris Der very gently, spinning his bow on its end or playing a sort of knuckle-bones with oddpieces of wood. Most of the time he was abusing Epigethes, quite thoroughly, with maddeningly convincing proofs of everything he said. Sometimes Berris wanted not to hear, to be too deep in what he was doing, and sometimes he answered back, violently, trying to stop it. ‘He’s the first Greek artist who’s ever had the goodness to come here,’ he said, ‘and this is all the welcome he gets! You—you who should have some feeling for Hellas—you haven’t even the common decency to be civil to him the first time you meet. And you don’t even manage to frighten him, you just make a fool of yourself—and a fool of Marob in all the cities of the world.’
    â€˜Not if the corn we send them stays good,’ said Tarrik, rather irritatingly.
    â€˜Corn! You used to care for beauty. But when beauty comes to us you won’t even look.’
    â€˜And you won’t look beyond a pretty tunic and a Greek name. Well, I’ve got a Greek name too, call me by it and see if you don’t pay more attention to what I say.’
    â€˜You fool, Tarrik!’
    â€˜Charmantides.’
    â€˜You—God, I’m over-heating it!’ He snatched the buckle out of the fire and back to the window.
    Tarrik followed him: ‘But if you do—isn’t it bad and getting worse? Berris, look at it, look at it fresh, what’s all this nonsense here, all this scratching, what is it about? There’s no strength in it—oh, it is a bad little buckle! What else have you made?’
    â€˜Nothing, nothing—I never have! All the beauty goes, the beauty goes between my eye and my hand! Oh, it’s no use!’ And suddenly he saw how bad it really was and dropped the hammer, let go of everything, and sat with his hands fallen at his sides and his forehead on the edge of the bench.
    â€˜Stop!’ said Tarrik. ‘Get up! Listen to me. I’m being Charmantides now. I’m just as good a Greek as Epigethes and I don’t want to be paid for my lesson. I’m good Greek enough to know it’s not something—something magic,’ he said, looking round, a little startled, as if that had not been quite the thing he meant to say. ‘There’s no use our copying Hellas; we haven’t the hills and the sun. You know, Berris, that I’ve been there, I’ve seen these citiesof yours, and I would see them again gladly if I could, if I were not Chief here. And they are not so very wonderful; they are not alive as we are, and always I thought they were in bond. They pretend all the time, they even think they are free, but truly they are little and poor and peeping from side to side at their masters, Macedonia on one side, Egypt and Syria the other. Hellas is old, living on memories—no food for us. Turn away from it, Berris.’
    â€˜Then you think my buckle is as bad as all that?’ asked Berris mournfully, bringing it all, of course, to bear on his own work.
    â€˜Look for yourself,’ said Tarrik. ‘Take it as a whole. You don’t know what you want. Is it a copy of life, less real, or a buckle for a belt? Which did you think of while you were making it?’
    And so they might go on talking for hours and nothing would happen. Erif Der stood at the side of the forge, hands gripping elbows, her eyes full of reflected flames. ‘Tarrik!’ she said, loud and suddenly, ‘is that all you have to say?’ Both