Pagan Passions | Page 6

really didn't matter. The effect was always just the same.
Forrester went on out the front portals of the Temple of Wisdom and down the long, wide steps onto Fifth Avenue. He paid homage with a passing glance to the great Owls flanking the entrance. Symbolic of Athena, they had replaced the stone lions which had formerly stood there.
The street was busy with hurrying crowds, enlivened here and there by Temple Myrmidons--from the All-Father, from Bacchus, from Venus--even one from Pallas Athena herself, a broad-beamed swaggerer whom Forrester knew and disliked. The man came striding up the steps, greeted Forrester with a bare nod, and disappeared at top speed into the Temple.
Forrester sighed and glanced south, down toward 34th Street, where the huge Tower of Zeus, a hundred and four stories high, loomed over all the other buildings in the city.
At eighteen hundred he would be in that tower--for what purpose, he had no idea.
Well, that was in the future, and he ...
A voice said: "Well! Hello, Bill!"
Forrester turned, knowing exactly what to expect, and disliking it in advance. The bluff over-heartiness of the voice was matched by the gross and hairy figure that confronted him. In some disarray, and managing to look as if he needed simultaneously a bath, a shave, a disinfecting and a purgative, the figure approached Forrester with a rolling walk that was too flat-footed for anything except an elephant.
"How's the Owl-boy today?" said the voice, and the body stuck out a flabby, hairy white hand.
Forrester winced. "I'm fine," he said evenly. "And how's the winebibber?"
"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 worshipper 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 Gods wanted to be worshipped, then that was how they should be worshipped.
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 worship."
"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