Glory and the Lightning by Taylor Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page A

him with disgust. “Here is one who not only devours to the full the excellent and abundant food given him in this house but pilfers tidbits from the kitchen, especially those redundant in oils and spices and rich flavorings. He has been seen to snatch, slyly, the very food from the plates of his fellow diners at the table, thus depriving them of their necessities, which they have dutifully earned. He sips, unseen, from their glasses and not even the threats of the overseer are heeded, nor is he restrained by punishment. What is left on the plates of the mistress of this house, and her teachers and pupils, is devoured by him before they reach the kitchen. Look upon his belly! Observe the saffron of his thief’s countenance, the yellow in his sullen greedy eyes! Consider his many chins! Hunger does not drive him. He is a slave to his stomach, which is his god. Is there wonder that he has stones in his liver and gall bladder? No! He has been in this infirmia many times, suffering agony as the stones moved. Has that halted him? No!”
    He glared at the sick man, then flicked his strong fingers painfully on the slave’s cheek. The man winced, then groaned. Echion nodded fiercely and smiled a most unamused smile. “When first he would appear here I would give him a draught of opium to relieve his anguish, for indeed the anguish is even more painful than a difficult birth. But, no more! He writhes upon his bed and calls upon the gods to give him death, when he is in torture. But he shall have no opium until he has learned that judicious eating is the only answer to his affliction. Then, of a certainty, he will suffer no more nor need opium.”
    Aspasia said in a subdued voice: “What is it that compels him to eat so disastrously, to steal food?”
    “Greed,” replied the physician. He glanced at the girl formidably and then was pleased to see her face devoid of mockery, and respectful. He said, “He was born in this house and was never deprived of plenteous food since his birth. He was given enough to satisfy the hunger of any man, and more.”
    “Then why,” asked Aspasia, “is he not content, but must force food upon himself to his disaster?”
    “Ask him yourself,” replied the physician with contempt.
    Aspasia bent over the sick man whose oily and icteroid face swam with sweat and whose eyes and mouth were twisted with the pity of self. His expression implored Aspasia’s compassion, and he whimpered. She frowned.
    “You are fat,” she said, “and you have heard the physician’s condemnation of your greed and your enormous appetite. You have known that such indulgence leads to suffering, and may cause your death, but you do not refrain. Why is this?”
    The slave muttered, “I am hungry.”
    “For what do you hunger?”
    The man was silent. He looked up at Aspasia’s smooth and impassive face and thought he saw reflected there a tender and youthful pity. He licked his thick and greasy lips, dropped his eyes and murmured, “For freedom.”
    Aspasia considered. Her wonderful hair fell about her cheeks as she bent over him. A great disgust filled her, but she revealed none of this. Then she said in a grave tone, “That is easily remedied. The Lady Thargelia is of a merciful and kindly character, and I am her favorite. I will persuade her to give you your freedom so that you may depart at once from this house and live and die as freemen do, working for what stipends you can gather and feeding and clothing yourself and finding your own shelter. As the stipends will be small and the labor arduous you will be forced to refrain from lusting for luxurious food, sleeping when you will in a soft bed, and amusing yourself with the slave girls. The wine of the country will be your portion. Then shall your fat disappear and your pain be abolished. That is freedom and I congratulate you that you should prefer poverty to richness of living, and a random shelter instead of a sound roof above you.”
    The slave’s eyes