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Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. The Private Life of Helen of Troy
  3. Contents
  4. NOTE
  5. PART I
  6. I
  7. II
  8. III
  9. IV
  10. V
  11. VI
  12. VII
  13. PART II
  14. I
  15. II
  16. III
  17. IV
  18. V
  19. VI
  20. PART III
  21. I
  22. II
  23. III
  24. IV
  25. V
  26. PART IV
  27. I
  28. II
  29. III
  30. IV
  31. V
  32. PART V
  33. I
  34. II
  35. III
  36. IV
  37. V
  38. VI
  39. VII

“I suppose that depends on what I ask him to do, and that, of course, depends on what you decide to do … Oh, Menelaus, what’s the use of this half-hearted quarrelling? You won’t do anything unkind to Adraste, I know perfectly well, and I understand the embarrassment her plight causes you. I’m sorry! If I let such things bother me, I should be embarrassed too, for people will say my bad example led her to do wrong. As things have turned out, I’m sorry I asked you to have Pyrrhus; you invited him because I wanted it, and now I own it was a mistake on my part. But wouldn’t you say all this is a small matter, in comparison with what you and I have on our hearts? When I think of my sister, of our girlhood, of what she has done, Adraste’s predicament seems far from the worst of tragedies. Meanness and treachery are the tragic thing, aren’t they? And seeing life out of proportion. Let’s be friends, dear husband! Why should it be unpleasant to remember that once we were lovers?”

III

III

“Is mother here?” said Hermione. “Oh, there you are! Father, the most terrible thing has happened, and I want to tell you of it in mother’s presence. Adraste, that girl, is going to have a child!”

“I know it,” said Menelaus.

“You know it? And you can let such a thing happen in your house, and be so calm about it? I was blaming mother in my thoughts as I hurried home—but you knew about it all the time!”

“Hermione, you shouldn’t speak so to your father,” said Helen. “This is not the first occasion I have had to object to your manner.”

“There are worse things in this house than my manner,” said Hermione, “and even if you and father don’t feel outraged by them, I do. If that girl is to remain with us, after this disclosure, I decline to live here.”

“Where will you go?” asked Helen.

“I don’t know—perhaps to Orestes, as my duty seems to call me. I may be of use to him—I can be of no use here. I’ve tried to be loyal and respectful to both my parents, but we are comparative strangers, and our relation is essentially false. Your affairs are more and more tangled and, I should say, hopeless, but they seem to be what you want. The honest thing for me to do is to marry Orestes at once, and begin over again, in the simple and usual way of sane people.”