Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (easy books to read TXT) 📗

be good.

“Now, boy, you know that a square is a thing like this?”

“Yes.”

“It has all four sides equal?”

“Yes.”

He drew a cross in the square.

“And the lines that go through the middle are also equal?”

“Yes.”

He asked me how many of the little squares there were,

and he pointed with the stick, giving me time.

I started to feel better. My mother taught me numbers,

and I thought, maybe he was going to stick to easy things,

like two and two making four. I glanced up.

There wasn’t any malice in his face.

“Now, could you draw a square double the size of this,

with all sides equal?”

“Yes.”

“If the first square has four small squares inside it,

how many will the second square have?”

“Eight.”

“How long will each side be?”

“They’ll be twice as long, Sokrates. Obviously.”

I used his name.

It’s polite for a slave to speak the master’s name.

He handed me the stick. Here’s the thing that scares me,

that makes me laugh:

I almost drew a horse. It was just for a moment

when my hand closed around the stick,

but I wanted to draw a horse. I felt a horse gallop down

from my thoughts

to my arm

to my fingers

to the stick.

Instead, I drew the square:

I saw I’d got it wrong.

If you make the lines twice as long,

you get something that’s four times bigger, not two.

And I didn’t have eight little squares. I had sixteen.

I was ashamed. I mumbled:

“It’s not right.”

I don’t know if Sokrates heard me,

but he asked me to try again.

He asked how I could get a square that was twice as big,

not four times. Already I had a new idea —

I said yes, I thought I could.

He answered, “Right! Always answer what you think.”

I started over;

this time I made the lines only one and a half times as long —

but it still wasn’t right. I could see it.

I wanted eight small squares, but I had nine.

Sokrates asked me again: how could I make a square

twice as big as the first one?

I stared at the marks in the dirt.

“It’s no use, Sokrates. I honestly don’t know.”

That’s when I expected everyone to laugh,

but they didn’t. I lifted my eyes, just a minute,

and saw Sokrates beaming at me

as if I’d said something astonishing

and good. It was as if he were proud of me.

I couldn’t remember anyone

ever

looking at me that way. He said to Menon,

“Look how far he’s come on the path of remembering!

At the beginning, he didn’t know how to draw the square,

— and he still doesn’t. But he thought he knew,

and he answered boldly, as he should have;

he felt no confusion.

Now he feels confusion!”

Menon said, “That’s true.”

“But isn’t he better off? We’ve helped him!

Before he thought he knew the answer,

but he was wrong.

Now he knows he doesn’t know, and he’s eager to find out!

Now he will seek the truth in our company.

Let’s give him another try. I won’t tell him the answer.

If you catch me instructing him, stop me.

I will only ask him questions.”

He showed me the square again,

and this time he divided it

corner to corner.

They were halves, but they were triangles.

He told me those slanty lines were called diagonals.

He was asking me questions,

and I was answering them,

but the fact is, once I saw them

— those diagonals —

the whole answer came in a rush.

I could imagine

having four triangles

and moving them around —

They’d spin like the fourths of a chariot wheel

— a wheel isn’t square —

but at the hub of a wheel,

where the four spokes meet . . . ?

there are triangles, four triangles —

If I took half that square

and made it somersault

back

to back

to back

to back

I’d have a square twice as big.

Four halves make two!

I reached for the stick.

Sokrates gave it to me right away.

I drew another square, made of triangles,

and counted the triangles,

poking each one with a stick.

I rubbed out the extra markings with my foot.

I looked up. Several of the men were nodding,

and one burly fellow —

his name was Aristokles —

raised his eyebrows

as if to say Well done!

Sokrates was grinning. “Is it your personal opinion

that the square on the diagonal

is double the size of the original square?”

I couldn’t keep from grinning back.

“Yes.”

Sokrates spoke to Menon. “What do you think?

Only a few minutes ago, he didn’t know!”

Menon said, “True.”

“Has anyone taught him geometry?

You would know. He was brought up in your household.”

“No one ever taught him anything.”

It flashed through my head:

I was taught to pick up turds.

“All the same, those opinions were inside him.

Because I questioned him, he was able to remember.

He found the answer by himself.

He must have formed his ideas before this life,

when he was not in human shape.

He remembered like someone remembering a dream.”

I stood there with the stick in my hand,

my mind whirling

swift as a chariot wheel

in the course of a race.

Like the discus

leaving the hand of the thrower

my mind spun free —

I raised my eyes to the sky

and saw an omen: a hawk

scything the blue,

a blessing from Apollo.

I almost interrupted. I almost shouted,

I remembered the chariot wheel!

— then for a moment I wondered

if that was cheating: remembering one thing

that reminds you of another.

But then I thought,

my memory gave me the chariot wheel

at just the right time.

Any way you worked it out,

I wasn’t stupid. And if learning was remembering,

I could remember more things

just by thinking.

I wouldn’t need anyone to teach me,

and I wouldn’t have to be stupid all my life.

Then Sokrates was saying

that since nobody taught me geometry

(because that’s what it’s called,

those problems with squares and lines: geometry)

I must have understood it in my soul

before I was born.

Before I was even human.

He said, “If the truth is always in our soul

the soul must be immortal. One must take courage

and try to discover —

that is, to remember —

what one doesn’t happen to know.

One thing I’m ready to fight for —

that we shall be better, braver, and more active men

if we try to find out what we don’t know.”

I was on fire, thinking about my soul.

I hadn’t known I had one,

because of being a slave. But Sokrates seemed to think