Solar Wind. Book one - страница 9

Grammar exercises awakened the imagination, seemed to Marcus interesting, but Diognetus ridiculed them.

This tall, with a large forehead, sinewy artist, in general turned out to be a great skeptic. Marcus suspected that in Greece Diognetus attended a school of cynics21 and therefore wore a long uncombed beard, a simple squalid cloak. Laughing, he said of himself that he lived like a dog and that he was free from possessing useless things. “I am a true dog,” he grinned.

From him, Marcus learned that only strong personalities, heroes who were not afraid of anything but the gods could trust people. That's why the less you trust, the stronger you become. That's the paradox. Especially it is impossible to rely on magicians, on all sorts of fortune-tellers and broadcasters, who are the real charlatans, because they have appropriated the right of predictions belonging only to the Parks.22 “Their spells are a pittance,” Diognetus said of them harshly and mockingly, “they should be driven away like dirty and smelly dogs, plagued sick.”

Learning about Marcus's long-standing addiction to quail breeding, the free artist-philosopher ruthlessly ridiculed this boyish fascination. The harmless birds made him laugh contemptuously. “Philosophers,” he said morally, “don't breed birds, they eat them.”

Yes, Diognetus taught him a lot besides painting. Because of him, Marcus began to eat only bread and sleep on the floor, on hard skins, because his teacher went through it, and so were real Hellenics brought up.

Perhaps the fascination with cynics had gone too far. Like all boys his age, Marcus was too trusting and malleable to someone else's influence. He turned into soft clay in the hands of a Greek sculptor. It would be nice if these hands were worthy, noble, but not the hands of a cynic philosopher.

No, the strict and attentive Domitia Lucilla did not want her child to become a dog. Into a senator, consul, worthy son of Rome—yes. But into a dog—absolutely not! Diognetus's influence on Marcus seemed too aggressive, premature, and ultimately unnecessary.

She turned to Regin, who recognized her arguments quite fairly, and the artist-philosopher was dismissed from training. However, Marcus took the news quite calmly. By that time, he had already gained a youthful fascination with poverty, when the real world, nature looks like the antipode of patrician life and its inherent luxury, when it seems that rational simplicity is a certain meaning, and material poverty does not mean spiritual poverty.

However, the philosophy of the dog Diognetus was not in vain. Somewhere in the back of his mind this philosophy firmly sat, languished, raising difficult questions. She, this philosophy, could be an antidote to the life surrounding him. Just as King Bosporus Mithridates took poison in small doses not to be poisoned, Diognetus's views could relieve the feeling of the hardships and injustices of being.

But not now—the mother decided. Someday in the future, perhaps he would remember the words of the rebel.

Bored, Hadrian sometimes sent for Marcus. When this happened, the young man would be brought to a villa near the Tempe Valley in Tibur. Of course, he would always travel with Domitia Lucilla. Masculinity was already awakening in the young man: the first hairs had begun to appear on his face, so far, a barely noticeable fluff, but quite visible on the cheeks. The voice began to grow rougher, and youthful alto sonority gave way to adult male bass. Hands and feet began to pour force, to strengthen, to develop. He cast curious glances in the direction of young girls—slaves and freedwomen, which did not hide from the watchful eye of Hadrian, but caught the secretive interest of Marcus to boy-slaves, and there were many of them in Tibur.