“Heliope, go and tell your sister that she will find a woman at the door and that she is to drive her away with a stick. Off you go!” She turned and looked round: “Has not Phrasilas come yet?” II THE DINNER At these words, a sickly little man, with a grey forehead, grey eyes, and a small, grey beard, advanced with little steps and said smiling: “I was there.” Phrasilas was a polygraph of repute of whom it would have been difficult to say exactly whether he was a philosopher, a grammarian, a historian, or a mythologist. He undertook the most weighty studies with timid ardour and ephemeral curiosity. Write a treatise he dare not. Construct a drama he could not. His style had something hypocritical, finniking, and vain. For thinkers he was a poet; for poets he was a sage: for society he was a great man. “Come! to table!” said Bacchis. And she lay down with her lover upon the bed which stood at the head of the banqueting board. On her right, reclined Philodemos and Faustina with Phrasilas. On Naukrates’s left, Seso, then Chrysis and young Timon. Each one of the guests reclined in a diagonal position, leaning upon silken cushions and wearing wreaths of flowers upon their heads. A slave-girl brought the garlands of red roses and blue lotus-flowers, then the banquet began. Timon felt that his freak had chilled the women. He therefore did not speak to them at first, but, addressing Philodemos, said gravely: “They say you are the devoted friend of Cicero. What do you think of him, Philodemos? Is he an enlightened philosopher or a mere compiler, without discernment and without taste? for I have heard both opinions put forward.” “It is precisely because I am his friend that I cannot answer your question,” said Philodemos. “I know him too well; consequently I know him ill. Ask Phrasilas, who, having read him but little, will judge him without error.” “Well, what does Phrasilas think about it?” “He is an admirable writer,” said the little man. “In what sense?” ill-046 “In the sense that all writers, Timon, are admirable in something, like all landscapes and all souls. I cannot prefer the spectacle of the sea itself to the most monotonous plain. And so I am unable to classify in the order of my sympathies a treatise by Cicero, an ode of Pindar, and a letter written by Chrysis, even if I knew the style of our excellent little friend. When I put down a book, I am content if I carry away in my memory a single line which has given me food for thought. Hitherto, all the books I have opened have contained that line: but no book has ever given me a second. Perhaps each of us has only one thing to say in his life, and those who have attempted to speak at greater length have done so because they were inflated by ambition. How much more do I regret the irreparable silence of the millions of souls who have said nothing.”