The Implacable Hunter by Gerald Kersh Read Free Book Online Page A

sacrifices of chickens, or whatever your god prefers, and so persuaded him out of the curse. The point is, that Paulus cursed Lucius without a god at all! He caught him with the right word and the right gesture at the exactly critical moment –’
    ‘I, too, can tell a man to be sick or well, and sick or well he will be,’ said Melanion.
    ‘But you are a great physician, and a kind of god in yourself , since so many have faith in you,’ I said. ‘Paulus is the son of a merchant manufacturer of tents and, to Lucius, nobody. Your curse, therefore, would be different from Paulus’s, Melanion.’
    ‘Oh, idle speculation, idle speculation,’ growled Melanion. ‘I am forbidden by oath, and by ethic, to curse, or to hurt except to heal. Diomed, invite us in and give us all cold fruit-juices and water.’
    The sun had risen, and it was pleasant on my shady terrace. Not forgetting that in Tarsus, in times like these, even the most absurd occasion for a mob to gather might have grave consequences, I excused myself and went to speak to Sergius, my sergeant.
    ‘Nothing, Pugnax?’ I called him, affectionately, by his nickname.
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘You know Hylas.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘He’s at Soxias’s house. In the course of the morning he will be pursued by a negro dwarf who will scream that he is the father of her child. It will be very funny.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Have her put in a sack and delivered to Soxias’s secretarywith my compliments.’
    ‘Yes, sir. Any special kind of sack, sir?’
    ‘A large sack, old friend.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    Then I joined my guests, who were sipping the cool drinks. Only the writer of history, Tibullus, seemed slightly ill at ease: he was sleepy, but would not go home for fear of missing something. Missing what? Tibullus did not know.
    His plump face always wore an expression of mild irritation , as of one who, in the middle of a long journey, suddenly feels that he has left something behind; he cannot recall what it is he may have forgotten; it is on the tip of his memory, and when at last he does remember, it will be too late. In any case, it is of no consequence.
    To cheer him I said: ‘Ah, Tibullus, the difficulties encountered by the historian are numerous, are they not?’
    Brightening at once, he replied: ‘Sometimes I fear, Diomed, that they may be almost insuperable.’
    ‘More than “almost”, I imagine,’ said Afranius. ‘I have read the historians, right up to Livy, and it still seems to me that history is only a matter of opinion. The fables and the poems and the old wives’ tales have taught me more.’
    ‘If a hundred Livys wrote for a hundred years they could never write the true history of one man, let alone a people,’ said Melanion.
    ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that is because it is easier to know what ten thousand people have done as a body than what one man has done as an individual.’
    ‘And it is the individual who makes the history of the ten thousand,’ said Melanion.
    ‘But it is also argued that the circumstances bring forth that individual,’ said Tibullus.
    ‘The individual having brought forth the circumstances,’ said Afranius.
    ‘Not in the beginning,’ said Tibullus, somewhat weakly.
    ‘How do you know? Were you there?’ asked Afranius.
    ‘Unfair, Afranius!’ I cried. ‘I have taken part in two or three battles, and my account of them would be quite valueless . Interesting to someone whom such matters interest, perhaps; but poor pickings for a searcher after truth as a whole –’
    ‘Which can never possibly be uncovered,’ muttered Melanion. ‘In such a discussion you end with your head down your throat.’
    ‘And I have heard men who had fought at my right hand and at my left discussing these self-same actions,’ I continued , ‘and if I had not known beforehand what they were talking about, I should have had to ask them in what battles they had been engaged. He’s a poor historian who starts by saying: “I was there at