The Woman Who Vowed (The Demetrian)Harding, Ellison
Science
The Woman Who Vowed (The Demetrian)
Harding, Ellison
Science fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
It was late in the afternoon before the examination was closed. We found
Chairo resting after his bath. He told us that he had seen Arkles, shown
him a copy of the letter Ariston had drawn, and agreed with Arkles that
a similar letter be written by Lydia.
Ariston told Chairo that we had not been idle, but that we judged it
wiser for the present not to disclose to him what we had done. It would
be advantageous later to be able to say that we had acted upon our own
responsibility. We took Chairo after dinner to hear some music, and
tried to make him forget the dreadful incidents of the day, suspecting,
as we did, that a still more bitter dose was awaiting him next morning.
And the editor did not disappoint us. We breakfasted earlier than usual
in order to receive the papers in our rooms. "Sacrifice" contained
Chairo's letter just as Ariston had submitted it. Next came a shorter
letter from Lydia to the following effect:
"SIR: It is not true that I have met Chairo since his release,
clandestinely or otherwise, whether at Masters's rooms between ten
and eleven day before yesterday, or at any other time or place.
"LYDIA SECOND."
But an editorial carried out the editor's threat of the day before. It
stated that in compliance with the law, letters signed by Chairo and
Lydia respectively had been that day published denying the truth of the
charge made against them on the previous day, but that a sense of the
duty which the paper owed to the public made it impossible to comply
with Chairo's order to refrain from further comment on the matter. It
was not of a private nature. On the contrary, it was a matter of the
gravest public concern. "No one," it went on to say, "is less interested
in Chairo's private affairs than ourselves, and we fully appreciate the
reasons why he should prefer that his private affairs be not at this
moment, or any other, exposed to public scrutiny; but he is charged with
having violated the sanctity of the cloister, with having outraged a
Demetrian, and with having, in violation of his oath, sought to
consummate the crime, the perpetration of which had been prevented by
the vigilance of the Demetrian cult. Is this a matter of purely private
concern?"
The editorial then proceeded to explain the carefulness with which it
had verified the truth of the statement published, compared the
circumstantial evidence produced by themselves with the bareness of the
denial published by the parties incriminated, and closed with the
following words:
"We have always stood, and we stand to-day, for peace, purity, and
cleanliness of life. Chairo stands for violence, lust, and turpitude. We
shall not allow ourselves to be intimidated by him or diverted from our
plain duty to brand his contradiction as a lie."
It was a paper containing this outrageous attack on Chairo that Ariston
brought into our room, flourishing it over his head with an air of
triumph, and crying:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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