Pagan Passions Part 3

"Good for you," the figure said. "A little wine for your Stomach's sake, as good old Bacchus always says. Only we make it a lot, eh?" He winked and nudged Forrester in the ribs.

"Sure, sure," Forrester said. He wished desperately that he could take the gross fool and tear him into tastefully arranged pieces. But there was always Gerda. And since this particular idiot happened to be her younger brother, Ed Symes, anything in the nature of violence was unthinkable.

Gerda's opinion of her brother was touching, reverent, and--Forrester thought savagely--not in the least borne out by any discoverable facts.

And a wors.h.i.+pper of Bacchus! Not that Forrester had anything against the orgiastic rites indulged in by the Dionysians, the Panites, the Apollones or even the worst and wildest of them all, the Venerans. If that was how the G.o.ds wanted to be wors.h.i.+pped, then that was how they should be wors.h.i.+pped.

And, as a matter of fact, it sounded like fun--if, Forrester considered, entirely too public for his taste.

If he preferred the quieter rites of Athena, or of Juno, Diana or Ceres--and even Ceresians became a little wild during the spring fertility rites, especially in the country, where the farmers depended on her for successful crops--well, that was no more than a personal preference.

But the idea of Ed Symes involved in a Bacchic orgy was just a little too much for the normal mind, or the normal stomach.

"Hey," Ed said suddenly. "Where's Gerda? Still in the Temple?"

"I didn't see her," Forrester said. There _had_ been a woman who'd looked like her. But that hadn't been Gerda. _She'd_ have waited for him here.

And--

"Funny," Ed said.

"Why?" Forrester said. "I didn't see her. I don't think she attended the service this morning, that's all."

He wanted very badly to hit Symes. Just once. But he knew he couldn't.

First of all, there was Gerda. And then, as an acolyte, he was proscribed by law from brawling. No one would hit an acolyte; and if the acolyte were built like Forrester, striking another man might be the equivalent of murder. One good blow from Forrester's fist might break the average man's jaw.

That was, he discovered, a surprisingly pleasant thought. But he made himself keep still as the fat fool went on.

"Funny she didn't attend," Symes said. "But maybe she's gotten wise to herself. There was a celebration up at the Temple of Pan in Central Park, starting at midnight, and going on through the morning. Spring Rites. Maybe she went there."

"I doubt it," Forrester said instantly. "That's hardly her type of wors.h.i.+p."

"Isn't it?" Symes said.

"It doesn't fit her. That kind of--"

"I know. Gerda's like you. A little stuffy."

"It's not being stuffy," Forrester started to explain. "It's--"

"Sure," Symes said. "Only she's not as much of a prude as you are. I couldn't stand her if she were."

"On the other hand, she's not a--"

"Not an Owl-boy of Owl-boys like you."

"Not a drunken blockhead," Forrester finished triumphantly. "At least she's got a decent respect for wisdom and learning."

Symes stepped back, a movement for which Forrester felt grateful. No matter how far away Ed Symes was, he was still too close.

"Who you calling a blockhead, buster?" Symes said. His eyes narrowed to piggish little slits.

Forrester took a deep breath and reminded himself not to hit the other man. "You," he said, almost mildly. "If brains were radium, you couldn't make a flicker on a scintillation counter."

It was just a little doubtful that Symes understood the insult. But he obviously knew it had been one. His face changed color to a kind of grayish purple, and his hands clenched slowly at his sides. Forrester stood watching him quietly.

Symes made a sound like _Rrr_ and took a breath. "If you weren't an acolyte, I'd take a poke at you just to see you bounce."

"Sure you would," Forrester agreed politely.

Symes went _Rrr_ again and there was a longer silence. Then he said: "Not that I'd hit you anyhow, buster. It'd go against my grain. Not the acolyte business--if you didn't look so much like Bacchus, I'd take the chance."

Forrester's jaw ached. In a second he realized why; he was clenching his teeth tightly. Perhaps it was true that he did look a little like Bacchus, but not enough for Ed Symes to kid about it.

Symes grinned at him. Symes undoubtedly thought the grin gave him a pleasant and carefree expression. It didn't. "Suppose I go have a look for Gerda myself," he said casually, heading up the stairs toward the temple entrance. "After all, you're so busy looking at books, you might have missed her."

And what, Forrester asked himself, was the answer to that--except a punch in the mouth?

It really didn't matter, anyhow. Symes was on his way into the temple, and Forrester could just ignore him.

But, d.a.m.n it, why did he let the young idiot get his goat that way?

Didn't he have enough self-control just to ignore Symes and his oafish insults?

Forrester supposed sadly that he didn't. Oh, well, it just made another quality he had to pray to Athena for.

Then he glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch and stopped thinking about Symes entirely.

It was twelve-forty-five. He had to be at work at thirteen hundred.

Still angry, underneath the sudden need for speed, he turned and sprinted toward the subway.

"And thus," Forrester said tiredly, "having attempted to make himself the equal of the G.o.ds, Man was given a punishment befitting such arrogance." He paused and took a breath, surveying the twenty-odd students in the cla.s.sroom (and some, he told himself wryly, _very_ odd) with a sort of benign boredom.

History I, Introductory Survey of World History, was a simple enough course to teach, but its very simplicity was its undoing, Forrester thought. The deadly dullness of the day-after-day routine was enough to wear out the strongest soul.

Freshmen, too, seemed to get stupider every year. Certainly, when _he'd_ been seventeen, he'd been different altogether. Studious, earnest, questioning ...

Then he stopped himself and grinned. He'd probably seemed even worse to his own instructors.

Where had he been? Slowly, he picked up the thread. There was a young blonde girl watching him eagerly from a front seat. What was her name?

Forrester tried to recall it and couldn't. Well, this was only the first day of term. He'd get to know them all soon enough--well enough, anyhow, to dislike most of them.

But the eager expression on the girl's face unnerved him a little. The rest of the cla.s.s wasn't paying anything like such strict attention. As a matter of fact, Forrester suspected two young boys in the back of being in a trance.

Well, he could stop that. But ...