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‘If only ...’ I began. These words provoked a sudden storm of hysterical weeping, and Philodemus’s mother began to stagger and stamp around the room, beating her breast and head. Her sobs were punctuated with gasping breaths and screams. When she came close to me she beat me too with her hands on my breast, my arms, my face. I stood still. At the commotion, Shaloud had appeared, but I waved him away with a small gesture. At length, the fit of grief subsided. She sat down, bedraggled, and drew some deep breaths. I crouched beside her, took her hands in mine, and kissed them lightly. ‘May I ... may I make myself presentable?’ she asked, after a pause. I showed her to a bathroom. At length she emerged, calm, composed and regal. The beauty she must have had as a young woman seemed to inform her mature expressions and posture. In fact, I thought that her present beauty before me had to be more entrancing than that of her younger self. Her fit of grief was dismissed, if not forgotten.
‘Young man,’ she said, though I was not very much younger than she was, ‘somehow I could not express my grief fully at home, in the presence of my poor husband. He needed all my comfort and support, and what strength and calm I could muster. With you,’ she smiled almost satirically, ‘I could ... I could let my hair down.’ She gave me a smile of thanks, which seemed to transform the whole room. ‘But I came, Crito, to thank you properly. For arranging a proper funeral for our son in Delphi, for going all the way to Egypt and solving the mystery of his death, even ... even for treating so well and so mercifully the poor misguided killer. Many Athenians, as I hear, see you as a sort of hero, having the strength to seek understanding and renewal rather than vengeance, ...’ Again, she seemed close to tears. I paused. Then I took her hand, without saying anything. We looked each other in the eyes, and some tears fell from our eyes, this time gently.
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