The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene Read Online Free PDF Page B

the heads of kings if she wished. But I place her happiness above everything else and so I hesitate to take her away from Magdala. . . . What would you do, Joseph?” he asked suddenly.
    Joseph’s first thought was that cities were wicked and sinful. Therefore Mary would be better off away from them, perhaps married to a good and serious young man, instead, who would love her for her beauty and charm and provide for her wants and make her happy. Such a man, he thought with quickening pulse, as a young and successful physician. But his own ambition had sensed a kindred spirit within Mary of Magdala, the same determination for success in the world of music and the theater that he felt for knowledge in the field of medicine.
    “One of the proverbs of my people says, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’” he told the Greek. “I doubt if Mary will be truly happy until she has done the things upon which her heart is set.”
    “You have a wise head upon such young shoulders,” Demetrius said approvingly. “I have been trying to avoid the same conclusion for many months. But since we have no money for traveling, we must stay here, for the time being at least.” He picked up the cithara from the bench beside him. “Listen closely to the tones of this instrument.” When he touched the strings, the air throbbed with a melody as soft as old linen.
    Joseph recognized the touch of a master, even though the fingers of the lyre maker were pudgy and short. Mary had learned her lessons well, he thought, for she, too, possessed the same loving touch upon the strings. “I am not a musician,” he confessed. “But the tones have a fullness and a resonance I never heard before.”
    “Exactly. And do you know why?”
    “No. I know nothing of music.”
    “Plato warned against trying to separate the soul from the body,” Demetrius told him. “Music is food for the soul, and when the soul is healthy, so usually is the body.”
    “I have noticed how grief and sadness can bring on sickness,” Joseph admitted. “Some believe that the same demons—”
    “Demons! Bah!” Demetrius spat eloquently into the grass at his feet. “The demons that possess man are born within himself, children of his own desires. Me, I drink too much wine when I can get it, which isn’t often. And I eat too much when I can afford it, which is practically never. But I am happy, and so this blubber-fat body of mine runs as smoothly as a water clock. Can you say as much?”
    Joseph smiled and shook his head. “Do you think I should put down the izmel, as we Jews call the scalpel, for the lyre and the trumpet?”
    “You might do as much good,” Demetrius acknowledged. “But we were speaking of citharas.” He plucked the strings again and a profusion of melody filled the garden. “The answer to the rich tone of this instrument lies in the body,” he explained. “See how beautifully arched the sounding boards are, and the workmanship in these thin pieces forming the sides of the sound chest. The stupid musicians of Rome think of nothing save the size of the instrument and the loudness of the noise it makes. They even have citharas as large as carriages—that probably sound like carriage wheels, too.” He laid down the instrument. “But I weary you with this talk of music. It is one of the penalties of growing old. Soon I shall be like Aristoxenus of Taras, who said some three or four hundred years ago, ‘Since the theaters have become completely barbarized, and since music has become utterly ruined and vulgar—we, being but a few, will recall to our minds, sitting by ourselves, what music used to be.’
    “We who look to the past are not always out of step with the present, though,” Demetrius continued his lecture. “It was this same Aristoxenus who gave us our knowledge of harmony.” He plucked a string, stopped its vibration by thrusting his fingers between the strings, then plucked another exactly an octave lower. “Listen well,