Glycera had asked him, at the beginning of the banquet, to tell her about the attack in Tennis.  Now he yielded to her wish that he should repeat the captivating tale to the others, and the spirits of the wine helped him to perform the task with such animation that his hearers listened to his description in breathless suspense, and many eyes rested on the handsome face of the great blind artist as if spellbound.

When he paused, loud applause rewarded him, and as it reached him from every part of the spacious room, his deep, resonant voice put him in communication even with the more distant guests, and he might have been taken for the symposiarch or director of the banquet.

This conspicuous position of the feted artist did not please every one, and a rhetorician, famed for his sharp tongue, whispered to his neighbour, one of Hermon’s older fellow-artists, “What his eyes have lost seems to benefit his tongue.”  The sculptor answered:  “At any rate, the impetuous young artist might succeed better in proving himself, by its assistance, a good entertainer, than in creating more mediocre masterpieces like the Demeter.”

Similar remarks were made on other cushions; but when the philosopher Hegesias asked the famous sculptor Euphranor what he thought of Hermon’s Demeter, the kindly old man answered, “I should laud this noble work as a memorable event, even if it did not mark the end, as well as the beginning, of its highly gifted creator’s new career.”

Nothing of this kind was uttered near Hermon.  Everything that reached him expressed delight, admiration, sympathy, and hope.  At dessert the beautiful Glycera divided her apple, whispering as she gave him one half, “Let the fruit tell you what the eyes can no longer reveal, you poor and yet so abundantly rich darling of the gods.”

He murmured in reply that his happiness would awake the envy of the immortals if, in addition, he were permitted to feast upon the sight of her beauty.

Had he been able to see himself, Hermon, who, as a genuine Greek, was accustomed to moderate his feelings in intercourse with others, would have endeavoured to express the emotions of joy which filled his heart with more reserve, and to excel his companions at the festival less recklessly.

His enthusiastic delight carried many away with him; others, especially Daphne, were filled with anxious forebodings by his conduct, and others still with grave displeasure.

Among the latter was the famous leech Erasistratus, who shared Archias’s cushions, and had been solicited by the latter to try to restore his blind nephew’s sight.  But the kindly physician, who gladly aided even the poorest sufferer, curtly and positively refused.  To devote his time and skill to a blind man who, under the severest of visitations, lulled himself so contentedly in happiness, he considered unjust to others who desired recovery more ardently.