‘Thank you, Perikles! Thou art so busy all day long I can scarcely ever speak of these things to thee. And then there is that funny-looking man who always stares at me with his great eyes whenever I come near him; and sometimes nearly all day long he follows me about, but never speaks to me, and if I look at him Zopyros hurries me away. May I not talk to him? Other boys do, and they say, though he looks so ugly, with his small snub nose and big mouth, and his red face, if you hear him talk you forget how ugly he is; and he tells them everything they want to know, and they love to hear him talk.’ ‘Dost thou mean Sokrates, the wisest man in Greece?—at least, so the Oracle at Delphi said he was.’ ‘Yes, it is Sokrates I mean. When I was wrestling yesterday with Antiochos he sat and watched us all the time, but when I went to sit upon the bench by him, he got up and went away. Zopyros calls him a corrupter of the Grecian youths, and an evil-minded sophist, and I know not what besides. Something tells me I should love to talk to him.’ ‘Oh son of Kleinias! that Sokrates can tell thee more than I have ever dreamt of, and when Perikles shall be no more, and all his care for Athens, and all the battles he has fought and won, forgotten, that strange philosopher will still be known, through all the ages that shall come—not here in Greece alone, but far away in other lands which he, and you, and I, know nothing of.’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II ‘Chè in la mente m’è fitta, ... La cara e buona imagine paterna Di voi, quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora M’ insegnavate come l’uom s’eterna.’ DANTE: _Inferno_, xv. ‘For in my mind is fixed ... your dear and good paternal form, when in the world from time to time you taught me how man can make himself eternal.’ A YEAR and a month have passed away. On a warm June afternoon, escaping from Zopyros, the boy we attempted to describe in the last chapter had wandered by himself a short way out of Athens. He was altered somewhat since we saw him last. The high forehead had a more thoughtful air, the look was more disdainful. The face, which had given one joy to look at from its perfect purity, now, if very slightly, had become a little sensual. But the wonder in the eyes was still the same—intensified. The questioning and baffled look was there. The desire, the determination to know, the strong will, shone out through them—‘If I don’t know now I will some day.’ Wrapt in admiration as he lay upon the grass, gazing up to heaven and the white clouds which passed slowly across the sky, half lulled to sleep by the gentle gurgling of the Ilissos, in a waking dream, a voice of deep and tender earnestness came suddenly upon his ears.