“Not at all, it’s only natural. Don’t misunderstand me, Orestes; what you have done seems to me inexpressibly horrible. You’ll pay a heavy penalty for it, in the treatment most people will give you, and still more in your own thoughts. I can’t say how sorry I am for you. I should have done anything to prevent you from such a course, just as I tried to prevent Hermione from marrying you. But what’s done is done, and we are now free to enjoy each other’s friendship, and to sympathise with each other in the consequences of our mistakes. On my own behalf I grieve over what you have done; for your sake too. The better friends we are, the more I shall regret your actions. I didn’t want Hermione to assume a share in your misery.”

“I did not wish to lay any of it upon her, but she would have it so,” said Orestes. “There is a kind of justice in it, since she is your child, for if we are talking of our wrongdoing, I may as well say that I blame you for the whole tragedy. My father presented his brother’s plea for your hand, and he always felt an obligation to see Menelaus safely through the dangers of his brilliant marriage. That’s how it all began—with your beauty. Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter to get the fleet started. I think my mother was justified in leaving him, after that. She felt she ought to avenge her child by killing him, if he should return. She wasn’t clear as to her duty—for that reason she did not pursue him, but if he came back she was resolved to punish him. She was wrong, I am sure, but I respect her motives. That is why I found it so terribly hard to avenge my father—but of course I had no choice. Now I have quarrelled fatally with your guest. Iphigeneia—Agamemnon—Clytemnestra—Pyrrhus. That is the sanguinary logic of your behaviour. My mother felt you were to blame. She said you were inordinately beautiful. You are. But she said also that wherever you came, people began to do wrong. I can see that would be so. Can you sleep soundly? I can’t. But what I have done seems, I suppose, amateurish and unimportant to you. That’s why you can greet me so cheerfully. You have caused so many men to do awful things, who except for you would have led uneventful and innocent lives. All those men dead at Troy—their children slain or starved—the women captured and disgraced! We can never be very good friends; I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy the sight of your loveliness while I knew the evil effects it had produced.”