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diff --git a/36378-h/36378-h.htm b/36378-h/36378-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b60edc --- /dev/null +++ b/36378-h/36378-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12309 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>Ancient Manners, by Pierre Louÿs</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 175%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} +h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ancient Manners, by Pierre Louÿs + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: Ancient Manners + Also Known As Aphrodite + +Author: Pierre Louÿs + +Illustrator: Ed Zier + +Release Date: June 11, 2011 [EBook #36378] +Last updated: September 22, 2019 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANCIENT MANNERS *** + + + + +Produced by James D. Simmons + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>Ancient Manners</h1> + +<h4>COMPLETE AND INTEGRAL TRANSLATION<br /> +INTO ENGLISH</h4> + +<h2>by Pierre Louÿs</h2> + +<h4> +<i>Illustrated by ED. ZIER</i> +</h4> + +<p class="center"> +Privately printed for Subscribers only +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<b>PARIS</b> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +This<br /> +Translation of<br /> +Ancient Manners<br /> +was executed on the<br /> +Printing Presses of CHARLES<br /> +HERISSEY, at Evreux, (France),<br /> +for Mr. CHARLES CARRINGTON,<br/> +Paris, Bookseller et Publisher,<br/> +and is the only<br /> +complete English<br /> +version<br /> +extant.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +This Edition on Large Paper,<br /> +is limited to 1000 copies of<br /> +which this is<br /> +No . . . . . . . . +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Contents</h3> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#pref01">PREFACE</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#book01"><b>BOOK I</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. Chrysis</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. On the Quay at Alexandria</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. Demetrios</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. The Passer-by</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. The Mirror, the Comb, and the Necklace</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. The Virgins</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. Chrysis’s Hair</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#book02"><b>BOOK II</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">I. The Garden of the Goddess</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">II. Melitta</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">III. Love and Death</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">IV. Moonlight</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">V. The Invitation</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">VI. Chrysis’s Rose</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">VII. The Tale of the Enchanted Lyre</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#book03"><b>BOOK III</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">I. The Arrival</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">II. The Dinner</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">III. Rhacotis</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">IV. The Orgie at Bacchis’s</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">V. The Crucified One</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">VI. Enthusiasm</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">VII. Cleopatra</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#book04"><b>BOOK IV</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">I. Demetrios Dreams a Dream</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">II. The Panic</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">III. The Crowd</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">IV. The Response</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">V. The Garden of Hermanubis</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">VI. The Walls Of Purple</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#book05"><b>BOOK V</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">I. The Supreme Night</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">II. Dust Returns to Earth</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">III. Chrysis Immortal</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">IV. Pity</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">V. Piety</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="pref01"></a>PREFACE</h3> + +<p class="right"> +The very ruins of the Greek<br/> +world instruct us how our<br/> +modern life might be made<br/> +supportable. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +RICHARD WAGNER +</p> + +<p> +The learned Prodicos of Ceos, who flourished towards the end of the fifth +century before our era, is the author of the celebrated apologue that Saint +Basil recommended to the meditations of the Christians: <i>Heracles between +Virtue and Pleasure</i>. We know that Heracles chose the former and was +therefore permitted to commit a certain number of crimes against the Arcadian +Stag, the Amazons, the Golden Apples, and the Giants. +</p> + +<p> +Had Prodicos gone no further than this, he would simply have written a fable +marked by a certain cheap Symbolism; but he was a good philosopher, and his +collection of tales, <i>The Hours</i>, in three parts, presented the moral +truths under the various aspects that befit them, according to the three ages +of life. To little children he complacently held up the example of the austere +choice of Heracles; to young men, doubtless, he related the voluptuous choice +of Paris, and I imagine that to full-grown men he addressed himself somewhat as +follows: +</p> + +<p> +“One day Odysseus was roaming about the foot of the mountains of Delphi, +hunting, when he fell in with two maidens holding one another by the hand. One +of them had glossy, black hair, clear eyes, and a grave look. She said to him: +‘I am Arete.’ The other had drooping eyelids, delicate hands, and +tender breasts. She said: ‘I am ‘Tryphe.’ And both exclaimed: +‘Choose between us.’ But the subtile Odysseus answered sagely. +‘How should I choose? You are inseparable. The eyes that have seen you +pass by separately have witnessed but a barren shadow. Just as sincere virtue +does not repel the eternal joys that pleasure offers it, in like manner +self-indulgence would be in evil plight without a certain nobility of spirit. I +will follow both of you. Show me the way.’ No sooner had he finished +speaking than the two visions were merged in one another, and Odysseus knew +that he had been talking with the great golden Aphrodite.” +</p> + +<p> +The principal character of the novel which the reader is about to have under +his eyes is a woman, a courtesan of antiquity; but let him take heart of grace: +she will not be converted in the end. +</p> + +<p> +She will be loved neither by a saint, nor by a prophet, nor by a god. In the +literature of to-day this is a novelty. +</p> + +<p> +A courtesan, she will be a courtesan with the frankness, the ardour, and also +the conscious pride of every human being who has a vocation and has freely +chosen the place he occupies in society; she will aspire to rise to the highest +point; the idea that her life demands excuse or mystery will not even cross her +mind. This point requires elucidation. +</p> + +<p> +Hitherto, the modern writers who have appealed to a public less prejudiced than +that of young girls and upper-form boys have resorted to a laborious stratagem +the hypocrisy of which is displeasing to me. “I have painted pleasure as +it really is,” they say, “in order to exalt virtue.” In +commencing a novel which has Alexandria for its scene, I refuse absolutely to +perpetuate this anachronism. +</p> + +<p> +Love, with all that it implies, was, for the Greeks, the most virtuous of +sentiments and the most prolific in greatness. They never attached to it the +ideas of lewdness and immodesty which the Jewish tradition has handed down to +us with the Christian doctrine. Herodotos (I. 10) tells us in the most natural +manner possible, “Amongst certain barbarous peoples it is considered +disgraceful to appear in public naked.” When the Greeks or the Latins +wished to insult a man who frequented women of pleasure, they called him +μοἴχος or <i>mœchus</i>, which simply means +adulterer. A man and a woman who, without being bound by any tie, formed a +union with one another, whether it were in public or not, and whatever their +youth might be, were regarded as injuring no one and were left in peace. +</p> + +<p> +It is obvious that the life of the ancients cannot be judged according to the +ideas of morality which we owe to Geneva. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I have written this book with the same simplicity as an Athenian +narrating the same adventures. I hope that it will be read in the same spirit. +</p> + +<p> +In order to continue to judge of the ancient Greeks according to ideas at +present in vogue, it is necessary that <i>not a single</i> exact translation of +their great writers should fall in the hands of a fifth-form schoolboy. If M. +Mounet—Sully were to play his part of Œdipus without making any +omissions, the police would suspend the performance. Had not M. Leconte de +Lisle expurgated Theocritos, from prudent motives, his book would have been +seized the very day it was put on sale. Aristophanes is regarded as +exceptional! But we possess important fragments of fourteen hundred and forty +comedies, due to one hundred and thirty-two Greek poets, some of whom, such as +Alexis, Philetairos, Strattis, Euboulos, Cratinos, have left us admirable +lines, and nobody has yet dared to translate this immodest and charming +collection. +</p> + +<p> +With the object of defending Greek morals, it is the custom to quote the +teaching of certain philosophers who reproved sexual pleasures. But there +exists a confusion in this matter. These rare moralists blamed the excesses of +all the senses without distinction, without setting up any difference between +the debauch of the bed and that of the table. A man who orders a solitary +dinner which costs him six louis, at a modern Paris restaurant, would have been +judged by them to be as guilty, and no less guilty, than a man who should make +a rendez-vous of too intimate a nature in the public street and should be +condemned therefore to a year’s imprisonment by the existing laws. +Moreover, these austere philosophers were generally regarded by ancient society +as dangerous madmen; they were scoffed at in every theatre; they received +thrashings in the street; the tyrants chose them for their court jesters, and +the citizens of free States sent them into exile, when they did not deem them +worthy of capital punishment. +</p> + +<p> +It is, then, by a conscious and voluntary fraud, that modern educators, from +the Renaissance to the present day, have represented the ancient code of +morality as the inspiring source of their narrow virtues. If this code was +great, if it deserves to be chosen for a model and to be obeyed, it is +precisely because none other has more successfully distinguished the just from +the unjust according to a criterion of beauty; proclaimed the right of all men +to find their individual happiness within the bounds to which it is limited by +the corresponding right of others, and declared that there is nothing under +heaven more sacred than physical love, nothing more beautiful than the human +body. +</p> + +<p> +Such were the ethics of the nation that built the Acropolis; and if I add that +they are still those of all great minds, I shall merely attest the value of a +common-place. It is abundantly proved that the higher intelligences of artists, +writers, warriors, or statesmen have never regarded the majestic toleration of +ancient morals as illegitimate. Aristotle began life by wasting his patrimony +in the society of riotous women; Sappho has given her name to a special vice; +Cæsar was the <i>mœchus calvus</i>; nor can we imagine Racine shunning the +stage-women nor Napoleon practicing abstinence. Mirabeau’s novels, +Chénier’s Greek verses, Diderot’s correspondence, and +Montesquieu’s minor works are as daring as the writings of Catullus +himself. And the most austere, saintly, and laborious of all French authors, +Button, would you know his maxim of advice in the case of sentimental +intrigues? “Love! why art thou the happiness of all beings and +man’s misfortune? Because only the <i>physical part</i> of this passion +is good, and the rest is worth nothing.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Whence is this? And how comes it that in spite of the ruin of the ancient +system of thought, the grand sensuality of the Greeks has remained like a ray +of light upon the foreheads of the highest? +</p> + +<p> +It is because sensuality is the mysterious but necessary and creative condition +of intellectual development. Those who have not felt the exigencies of the +flesh to the uttermost, whether for love or hatred, are incapable of +understanding the full range of the exigencies of the mind. Just as the beauty +of the soul illumines the whole face, in like manner virility of the body is an +indispensable condition of a fruitful brain. The worst insult that Delacroix +could address to men, the insult that he hurled without distinction against the +decriers of Rubens and the detractors of Ingres, was the terrible word: +eunuchs. +</p> + +<p> +But furthermore, it would seem that the genius of peoples, like that of +individuals, is above all sensual. All the cities that have reigned over the +world, Babylon, Alexandria, Athens, Rome, Venice, Paris, have by a general law +been as licentious as they were powerful, as if their dissoluteness was +necessary to their splendour. The cities where the legislator has attempted to +implant a narrow, unproductive, and artificial virtue have seen themselves +condemned to utter death from the very first day. It was so with Lacedæmon, +which, in the centre of the most prodigious intellectual development that the +human spirit has ever witnessed, between Corinth and Alexandria, between +Syracuse and Miletus, has bequeathed us neither a poet, nor a painter, nor a +philosopher, nor an historian, nor a savant, barely the popular renown of a +sort of Bobillot who got killed in a mountain defile with three hundred men +without even succeeding in gaining the victory. And it is for this reason that +after two thousand years we are able to gauge the nothingness of Spartan +virtue, and declare, following Renan’s exhortation, that we “curse +the soil that bred this mistress of sombre errors, and insult it because it +exists no longer.” +</p> + +<p> +Shall we see the return of the days of Ephesus and Cyrene? Alas! the modern +world is succumbing to an invasion of ugliness. Civilization is marching to the +north, is entering into mist, cold, mud. What night! A people clothed in black +fills the mean streets. What is it thinking of? We know not, but our +twenty-five years shiver at being banished to a land of old men. +</p> + +<p> +But let those who will ever regret not to have known that rapturous youth of +the earth which we call ancient life, be allowed to live again, by a fecund +illusion, in the days when human nudity, the most perfect form that we can know +and even conceive of, since we believe it to be in God’s image, could +unveil itself under the features of a sacred courtesan, before the twenty +thousand pilgrims who covered the strands of Eleusis; when the most sensual +love, the divine love of which we are born, was without sin: let them be +allowed to forget eighteen barbarous, hypocritical, and hideous centuries. +</p> + +<p> +Leave the quagmire for the pure spring, piously return to original beauty, +rebuild the great temple to the sound of enchanted flutes, and consecrate with +enthusiasm their hearts, ever charmed by the immortal Aphrodite, to the +sanctuaries of the true faith. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Pierre Louÿs. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-001.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-001" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="book01"></a>BOOK I</h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap01"></a>I<br/> +CHRYSIS</h3> + +<p> +She lay upon her bosom, with her elbows in front of her, her legs wide apart +and her cheek resting on her hand, pricking, with a long golden pin, small +symmetrical holes in a pillow of green linen. +</p> + +<p> +Languid with too much sleep, she had remained alone upon the disordered bed +ever since she had awakened, two hours after mid-day. +</p> + +<p> +The great waves of her hair, her only garment, covered one of her sides. +</p> + +<p> +This hair was resplendently opaque, soft as fur, longer than a bird’s +wing, supple, uncountable, full of life and warmth. It covered half her back, +flowed under her naked belly, glittered under her knees in thick, curling +clusters. The young woman was enwrapped in this precious fleece. It glinted +with a russet sheen, almost metallic, and had procured her the name of Chrysis, +given her by the courtesans of Alexandria. +</p> + +<p> +It was not the sleek hair of the court-woman from Syria, or the dyed hair of +the Asiatics, or the black and brown hair of the daughters of Egypt. It was the +hair of an Aryan race, the Galilæans across the sands. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis. She loved the name. The young men who came to see her called her +Chryse like Aphrodite, in the verses they laid at her door, with rose-garlands, +in the morning. She did not believe in Aphrodite, but she liked to be compared +to the goddess, and she went to the temple sometimes, in order to give her, as +to a friend, boxes of perfumes and blue veils. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She was born upon the borders of Lake Gennesaret, in a country of sun and +shade, overgrown by laurel roses. Her mother used to go out in the evening upon +the Jerusalem road, and wait for the travelers and merchants. She gave herself +to them in the grass, in the midst of the silence of the fields. This woman was +greatly loved in Galilee. The priests did not turn aside from her door, for she +was charitable and pious. She always paid for the sacrificial lambs, and the +blessing of the Eternal abode upon her house. Now when she became with child, +her pregnancy being a scandal (for she had no husband), a man celebrated for +his gift of prophecy told her that she would give birth to a maiden who should +one day carry “the riches and faith of a people” around her neck. +She did not well understand how that might be, but she named the child Sarah, +that is to say princess in Hebrew. And that closed the mouth of slander. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis had always remained in ignorance of this incident, the seer having told +her mother how dangerous it is to reveal to people the prophecies of which they +are the object. She knew nothing of her future. That is why she often thought +about it. She remembered her childhood but little, and did not like to speak +about it. The only vivid sensation she had retained was the fear and disgust +caused her by the anxious surveillance of her mother, who, on the approach of +her time for going forth upon the road, shut her up alone in her chamber for +interminable hours. She also remembered the round window through which she saw +the waters of the lake, the blue-tinted fields, the transparent sky, the blithe +air of Galilee. The house was covered with tamarisks and rose-coloured flax. +Thorny caper-bushes reared their green heads in wild confusion, over-topping +the fine mist of the grasses. The little girls bathed in a limpid brook, where +they found red shells under the tufts of flowering laurels; and there were +flowers upon the water and flowers over all the mead and great lilies upon the +mountains. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She was twelve years old when she escaped from home to follow a troop of young +horsemen who were on their way to Tyre to sell ivory. She fell in with them +before a cistern. They were adorning their long-tailed horses with +multi-coloured tufts. She well remembered how she was carried off, pale with +joy upon their horses, and how they stopped a second time during the night, a +night so clear that the stars were invisible. +</p> + +<p> +Neither had she forgotten how they entered Tyre: she in front, seated upon the +panniers of a pack-horse, holding on to its mane with her fists, and proudly +dangling her naked calves, to show the women of the town that she had pure +blood coursing in her well-shaped legs. They left for Egypt that same evening. +She followed the ivory-sellers as far as the market of Alexandria. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-002.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-002" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Greek harlots from the isles told her the +legend of Iphis.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And it was there, in a little white house with a terrace and tapering columns, +that they left her two months afterwards, with her bronze mirror, carpets, new +cushions, and a beautiful Hindoo slave who was learned in the dressing of +courtesans’ hair. Others came on the evening of their departure, and +others on the morrow. +</p> + +<p> +As she lived at the extreme east of the town, a quarter disdained by the young +Greeks of Brouchion, she was long before she made the acquaintance of aught but +travellers and merchants, like her mother. Yet she inspired interminable +passions. Caravan-masters were known to sell their merchandise dirt cheap in +order to stay with her, and ruin themselves in a few nights. With these +men’s fortune she bought jewels, bed-cushions, rare perfumes, flowered +robes, and four slaves. +</p> + +<p> +She gained a knowledge of many foreign languages, and knew the tales of all +countries. Assyrians told her the loves of Douzi and Ishtar; Phœnicians those +of Ashtaroth and Adonis. Greek harlots from the isles told her the legend of +Iphis, and taught her strange caresses which surprised her at first, but +afterwards enchanted her so much that she could not do without them for a whole +day. She also knew the loves of Atalanta, and how, like her, flute-girls, while +yet virgins, may tire out the strongest men. Finally, her Hindoo slave had +taught her patiently, during seven years, the minutest details of the complex +and voluptuous art of the courtesans of Palibothra. +</p> + +<p> +For love is an art, like music. It gives emotions of the same order, equally +delicate, equally thrilling, sometimes perhaps more intense; and Chrysis, who +knew all its rhythms and all its subtilities, regarded herself, with good +reason, as a greater artist than Plango herself. Yet Plango was a musician of +the temple. +</p> + +<p> +Seven years she lived thus, without dreaming of a life happier or more varied. +But shortly before her twentieth year, when she emerged from girlhood to +womanhood and saw the first charming line of nascent maturity take form under +her breasts, she suddenly conceived other ambitions. +</p> + +<p> +And one morning, waking up two hours after mid-day, languid with too much +sleep, she turned over upon her breast, threw out her legs, leaned her cheek +upon her hand, and with a long golden pin, pricked little symmetrical holes +upon her pillow of green linen. +</p> + +<p> +Her reflexions were profound. +</p> + +<p> +First it was four little pricks which made a square, with a prick in the +centre. Then four other pricks to make a bigger square. Then she tried to make +a circle. But it was a little difficult. Then, she pricked away aimlessly and +began to call: +</p> + +<p> +“Djala! Djala!” +</p> + +<p> +Djala was her Hindoo slave, and was called Djalantachtchandratchapala, which +means: “Mobile as the image of the moon upon the water.” Chrysis +was too lazy to say the whole name. +</p> + +<p> +The slave entered and stood near the door, without entirely closing it. +</p> + +<p> +“Who came yesterday, Djala?” +</p> + +<p> +“You do not know?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I did not look. He was handsome? I think I slept all the time; I was +tired. I remember nothing at all about it. At what time did he go away? This +morning early?” +</p> + +<p> +“At sunrise, he said—” +</p> + +<p> +“What did he leave me? Is it much? No, don’t tell me. It’s +all the same to me. What did he say? Has no one been since? Will he come back +again? Give me my bracelets.” +</p> + +<p> +The slave brought a casket, but Chrysis did not look at it, and, raising her +arm as high as she could: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Djala,” she said, “ah! Djala! I long for extraordinary +adventures.” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything is extraordinary,” said Djala, “or nought. The +days resemble one another.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. Formerly it was not like that. In all the countries of the world +gods came down to earth and loved mortal women. Ah! on what beds await them, in +what forest search for them that are a little more than men? What prayers shall +I put up for the coming of them that will teach me something new or oblivion of +all things? And if the gods will no longer come down, if they are dead or too +old, Djala, shall I too die without seeing a man capable of putting tragic +events into my life?” +</p> + +<p> +She turned over upon her back and interlocked her fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“If somebody adored me, I think it would give me such joy to make him +suffer till he died. Those who come here are not worthy to weep. And then, it +is my fault as well: it is I who summon them; how should they love me?” +</p> + +<p> +“What bracelet to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall put them all on. But leave me. I need no one. Go to the steps +before the door, and if anyone comes, say that I am with my lover, a black +slave whom I pay. Go.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not going out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I shall go out alone. I shall dress myself alone. I shall not +return. Off with you! Off with you!” +</p> + +<p> +She let one leg drop upon the carpet and stretched herself into a standing +posture. Djala had gone away noiselessly. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She walked very slowly about the room, with her hands crossed behind her neck, +entirely absorbed in the luxury of cooling the sweat of her naked feet by +stepping about on the tiles. Then she entered her bath. +</p> + +<p> +It was a delight to her to look at herself through the water. She saw herself +like a great pearl-shell lying open on a rock. Her skin became smooth and +perfect; the lines of her legs tapered away into blue light; her whole form was +more supple; her hands were transfigured. The lightness of her body was such +that she raised herself on two fingers and allowed herself to float for a +little and fall gently back on the marble, causing the water to ripple softly +against her chin. The water entered her ears with the provocation of a kiss. +</p> + +<p> +It was when taking her bath that Chrysis began to adore herself. Every part of +her body became separately the object of tender admiration and the motive of a +caress. She played a thousand charming pranks with her hair and her breasts. +Sometimes, even, she accorded a more direct satisfaction to her perpetual +desires, and no place of repose seemed to her more propitious for the minute +slowness of this delicate solace. +</p> + +<p> +The day was waning. She sat up in the piscina, stepped out of the water, and +walked to the door. Her foot-marks shone upon the stones. Tottering, and as if +exhausted, she opened the door wide and stopped, holding the latch at +arm’s length; then entered, and, standing upright near her bed, and +dripping with water, said to the slave: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Dry me.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The Malabar woman took a large sponge and passed it over Chrysis’s golden +hair, which, being heavily charged with water, dripped streams down her back. +She dried it, smoothed it out, waved it gently to and fro, and, dipping the +sponge into a jar of oil, she caressed her mistress with it even to the neck. +She then rubbed her down with a rough towel which brought the colour to her +supple skin. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis sank quivering into the coolness of a marble chair and murmured: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Dress my hair.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +In the level rays of evening her hair, still heavy and humid, shone like rain +illuminated by the sun: The slave took it in handfuls and entwined it. She +rolled it into a spiral and picked it out with slim golden pins, like a great +metal serpent bristling with arrows. She wound the whole around a triple fillet +of green in order that its reflections might be heightened by the silk. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis held a mirror of polished copper at arm’s length. She watched the +slave’s darting hands with a distracted eye, as she passed them through +the heavy hair, rounded off the clusters, captured the stray locks, and built +up her head-dress like a spiral rhytium of clay. When all was finished, Djala +knelt down on her knees before her mistress and shaved her rounded flesh to the +skin, in order that she might have the nudity of a statue in her lovers’ +eyes. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-003.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-003" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Chrysis became graver and said in a low voice: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Paint me.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A little pink box from the island of Dioscoris contained cosmetics of all +colours. With a camel-hair brush, the slave took a little of a certain black +paste which she laid upon the long curves of the beautiful eye-lashes, in order +to heighten the blueness of the eyes. Two firm lines put on with a pencil +imparted increased length and softness to them; a bluish powder tinted the +eye-lids the colour of lead; two touches of bright vermilion accentuated the +tear-corners. In order to fix the cosmetics, it was necessary to anoint the +face and breast with fresh cerate. With a soft feather dipped in ceruse, Djala +painted trails of white along the arms and on the neck; with a little brush +swollen with carmine she reddened the mouth and touched up the nipples of the +breasts; with her fingers she spread a fine layer of red powder over the +cheeks, marked three deep lines between the waist and the belly, and in the +rounded haunches two dimples that sometimes moved; then with a plug of leather +dipped in cosmetics she gave a indefinable tint to the elbows and polished up +the ten nails. The toilette was finished. +</p> + +<p> +The Chrysis began to smile, and said to the Hindoo woman: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Sing to me.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She sat erect in her marble chair. Her pins gleamed with a golden glint behind +her head. Her painted finger-nails, pressed to her neck from shoulder to +shoulder, broke the red line of her necklace, and her white feet rested close +together upon the stone. +</p> + +<p> +Huddled against the wall, Djala bethought her of the love-songs of India. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Chrysis . . .” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She sang in a monotonous chant. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Chrysis, thy hair is like a swarm of bees hanging on a tree. The hot +wind of the south penetrates it with the dew of love-battles and the wet +perfume of night-flowers.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The young woman alternated, in a softer, lower voice: +</p> + +<p> +“My hair is like an endless river in the plain when the flame-lit evening +fades.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And they sang, one after the other: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Thine eyes are like blue water-lilies without stalks, motionless upon +the pools.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mine eyes rest in the shadow of my lashes like deep lakes under dark +branches.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Thy lips are two delicate flowers stained with the blood of a +roe.” +</p> + +<p> +“My lips are the edges of a burning wound.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Thy tongue is the bloody dagger that has made the wound of thy +mouth.” +</p> + +<p> +“My tongue is inlaid with precious stones. It is red with the sheen of my +lips.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Thine arms are tapering as two ivory tusks, and thy armpits are two +mouths.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mine arms are tapering as two lily-stalks and my fingers hang therefrom +like five petals.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thy thighs are two white elephants’ trunks. They bear thy feet +like two red flowers.” +</p> + +<p> +“My feet are two nenuphar-leaves upon the water: My thighs are two +bursting nenuphar buds.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Thy breasts are two silver bucklers with cusps steeped in blood.” +</p> + +<p> +“My breasts are the moon and the reflection of the moon and the +water.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-004.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-004" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Huddled against the wall, Djala bethought +herself of the love-songs of India.</i> +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Thy navel is a deep pit in a desert of red sand, and thy belly a young +kid lying on its mother’s breast.” +</p> + +<p> +“My navel is a round pearl on an inverted cup, and the curve of my belly +is the clear crescent of Phœbe in the forests.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +There was a silence. The slave raised her hands and bowed to the ground. +</p> + +<p> +The courtesan proceeded: +</p> + +<p> +“It is like a purple flower, full of perfumes and honey.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is like a sea-serpent, soft and living, open at night.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the humid grotto, the ever-warm lodging, the Refuge where man +reposes from his march to death.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The prostrate one murmured very low: “It is appalling. It is the face of +Medusa.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis planted her foot upon the slave’s neck and said with trembling: +</p> + +<p> +“Djala.” +</p> + +<p> +The night had come on little by little, but the moon was so luminous that the +room was filled with blue light. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis looked at the motionless reflections of her naked body where the +shadows fell very black. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She rose brusquely: +</p> + +<p> +“Djala, what are we thinking of? It is night, and I have not yet gone +out. There will be nothing left upon the heptastadion but sleeping sailors. +Tell me, Djala, I am beautiful? +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, Djala, I am more beautiful than ever to-night? I am the most +beautiful of the Alexandrian women, and you know it? Will not he who shall +presently pass within the sidelong glance of my eyes follow me like a dog? +Shall I not perform my pleasure upon him, and make a slave of him according to +my whim, and can I not expect the most abject obedience from the first man whom +I shall meet? Dress me, Djala.” +</p> + +<p> +Djala twined two silver serpents about her arms. On her feet she fixed sandals +and attached them to her brown legs with crossed leather straps. Over her warm +belly Chrysis herself buckled a maiden’s girdle, which sloped down from +the upper part of the loins along the hollow line of the groins; in her ears +she hung great circular rings, on her neck three golden phallus-bracelets +enchased at Paphos by the hierodules. She contemplated herself for some time, +standing naked in her jewels; then, drawing from the coffer in which she had +folded it, a vast transparent stuff of yellow linen, she twisted it about her +and draped herself in it to the ground. Diagonal folds intersected the little +that one saw of her body through the light tissue; one of her elbows stood out +under the light tunic, and the other arm, which she had left bare, carried the +long train high out of reach of the dust. +</p> + +<p> +She took her feather fan in her hand, and carelessly sauntered forth. +</p> + +<p> +Standing upon the steps of the threshold, with her hand leaning on the white +wall, Djala watched the courtesan’s retreating form. +</p> + +<p> +She walked slowly past the houses, in the deserted street bathed in moonlight. +A little flickering shadow danced behind her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap02"></a>II<br/> +THE QUAY AT ALEXANDRIA</h3> + +<p> +On the quay at Alexandria a singing-girl was standing singing. By her side were +two flute-girls, seated on the white parapet. +</p> + +<h4>I</h4> + +<p class="poem"> +The satyrs pursue in the woods<br/> + The light-footed oreads.<br/> +They chase the nymphs upon the mountains,<br/> + They fill their eyes with affright,<br/> +They seize their hair in the wind,<br/> + They grasp their breasts in the chase,<br/> +And throw their warm bodies backwards<br/> + Upon the green dew-covered moss,<br/> +And the beautiful bodies, their beautiful bodies half divine,<br/> + Writhe with the agony . . .<br/> +O women! Eros makes your lips cry aloud<br/> + With dolorous, sweet Desire.<br/> +</p> + +<hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" /> + +<p> +The flute-players repeated +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Eros<br/> +Eros!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and wailed in their twin reeds. +</p> + +<h4>II</h4> + +<p class="poem"> +Cybele pursues across the plain<br/> + Attys, beautiful as Apollo.<br/> +Eros has smitten her to the heart, and for him,<br/> + O Totoi! but not him for her,<br/> +Instead of love, cruel god, wicked Eros,<br/> + Thou counsellest but hatred . . .<br/> +Across the meads, the vast distant plains,<br/> + Cybele chases Attys;<br/> +And because she adores the scorned,<br/> + She infuses into his veins<br/> +The great cold breath, the breath of death.<br/> + O dolorous, sweet Desire! +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Eros!<br/> +Eros!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Shrill wailings poured from the flutes. +</p> + +<h4>III</h4> + +<p class="poem"> +The Goat-foot pursues to the river<br/> + Syrinx, the daughter of the fountain;<br/> +Pale Eros, that loves the taste of tears,<br/> + Kissed her as she ran, cheek to cheek;<br/> +And the frail shadow of the drowned maiden<br/> + Shivers, reeds, upon the waters.<br/> +But Eros kings it over the world and the gods.<br/> + He kings it over death itself.<br/> +On the watery tomb he gathered for us<br/> + All the reeds, and with them made the flute,<br/> +’Tis a dead soul that weeps here, women,<br/> + Dolorous, sweet Desire. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Whilst the flute prolonged the slow chant of the last line, the singer held out +her hand to the passers-by standing around her in a circle, and collected four +obols, which she slipped into her shoe. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-005.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-005" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Groups formed in places, and women wandered amongst them</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The crowd gradually melted away, innumerable, curious of itself and watching +its own movements. The noise of footsteps and voices drowned even the sound of +the sea. Sailors hauled their boats upon the quay with bowed shoulders. +Fruit-sellers passed to and fro with teeming baskets upon their arms. Beggars +begged for alms with trembling hand. Asses, laden with leathern bottles, +trotted in front of the goads of their drivers. But it was the hour of sunset; +and the crowd of idlers, more numerous than the crowd bent on affairs, covered +the quay. Groups formed in places, and women wandered amongst them. The names +of well-known characters passed from mouth to mouth. The young men looked at +the philosophers, and the philosophers looked at the courtesans. +</p> + +<p> +The latter were of every kind and condition, from the most celebrated, dressed +in fine silks and wearing shoes of gilded leather, to the most miserable, who +walked barefooted. The poor ones were no less beautiful than the others, but +less fortunate only, and the attention of the sages was fixed by preference +upon those whose natural grace was not disfigured by the artifice of girdles +and weighty jewels. As it was the day before the Aphrodisiæ, these women had +every license to choose the dress which suited them the best, and some of the +youngest had even ventured to wear nothing at all. But their nudity shocked +nobody, for they would not thus have exposed all the details of their bodies to +the sun if they had possessed the slightest defect which might have rendered +them the laughing-stock of the married women. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Tryphera! Tryphera!” +</p> + +<p> +And a young courtesan of joyful mien elbowed her way through the crowd to join +a friend of whom she had just caught sight. +</p> + +<p> +“Tryphera! are you invited?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where, Seso?” +</p> + +<p> +“To Bacchis’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. She is giving a dinner?” +</p> + +<p> +“A dinner? A banquet, my dear. She is to liberate her most beautiful +slave, Aphrodisia, on the second day of the feast.” +</p> + +<p> +“At last! She has perceived at last that people came to see her only for +the sake of her slave.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she has seen nothing. It is a whim of old Cheres, the ship-owner +on the quay. He wanted to buy the girl for ten minæ. Bacchis refused. Twenty +minæ; she refused again.” +</p> + +<p> +“She must be crazy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, pray? It was her ambition to have a freed-woman. Besides, she was +quite right to bargain. Cheres will give thirty-five minæ, and at that price +the girl becomes a freed-woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-five minæ? Three thousand five hundred drachmæ? Three thousand +five hundred drachmæ for a negress?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is a white man’s daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“But her mother is black.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bacchis declared that she would not part with her for less, and old +Cheres is so amorous that he consented.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope he is invited at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +“No! Aphrodisia is to be served up at the banquet as the last dish, after +the fruit. Everybody will taste of it at pleasure, and it is only on the morrow +that she is to be handed over to Cheres; but I am much afraid she will be tired +. . .” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t pity her. With him she will have time to recover. I know +him, Seso. I have watched him sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +They laughed together at Cheres. Then they complimented one another. “You +have a pretty robe,” said Seso. “Did you have it trimmed at +home?” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-006.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-006" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Tryphera’s robe was of fine sea-green stuff entirely trimmed with +flowering iris. A carbuncle set in gold gathered it up into a spindle-shaped +pleat over the left shoulder; the robe fell slantingly between the two breasts, +leaving the entire right side of her body naked down to the metal girdle; a +narrow slit, that opened and closed at every step, alone revealed the whiteness +of the leg. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Seso!” said another voice. “Seso and Tryphera, come with me +if you don’t know what to do. I am going to the Ceramic Wall to see +whether my name is written up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mousarion! Where have you come from, my dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“From Pharos. There is nobody there.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean? There is nothing to do but fish, it is so full.” +</p> + +<p> +“No turbots for me. I am off to the wall. Come.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On the way, Seso told them about the projected banquet at Bacchis’s over +again. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! at Bacchis’s!” cried Mousarion. “You remember the +last dinner, Tryphera, and all the stories about Chrysis?” +</p> + +<p> +“You must not repeat them. Seso is her friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Mousarion bit her lips; but Seso had already taken the alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“What did they say about her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! various ill-natured things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let people talk,” declared Seso. “We three together are not +worth Chrysis. The day she decides to leave her quarter and shew herself at +Brouchion, I know of some of our lovers whom we shall never see again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. I would commit any folly for that woman. Be sure that there +is none here more beautiful than she.” +</p> + +<p> +The three girls had now arrived in front of the Ceramic Wall. Inscriptions +written in black succeeded one another along the whole length of its immense +white surface. When a lover desired to present himself to a courtesan, he had +merely to write up their two names, with the price he offered; if the man and +the money were approved of, the woman remained standing under the notice until +the lover re-appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Look, Seso,” said Tryphera, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is the practical joker who has written that?” +</p> + +<p> +And they read in huge letters: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +BACCHIS<br/> +THERSIES<br/> +2 OBOLS +</p> + +<p> +“It ought not to be allowed to make fun of the women like that. If I were +the rhymarch, I should already have held an enquiry.” +</p> + +<p> +But further on, Seso stopped before an inscription more to the point: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +SESO OF CNIDOS<br/> +TIMON THE SON OF LYSIAS<br/> +1 MINA +</p> + +<p> +She turned slightly pale. +</p> + +<p> +“I stay,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +And she leaned her back against the wall under the envious glances of the women +that passed by. +</p> + +<p> +A few steps further on Mousarion found an acceptable offer, if not as generous +an one. Tryphera returned to the quay alone. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +As the hour was advanced, the crowd had become less compact. But the three +musicians were still singing and playing the flute. +</p> + +<p> +Catching sight of a stranger whose clothes and rotundity were slightly +ridiculous, Tryphera tapped him on the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“I say! Papa! I wager that you are not an Alexandrian, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“No indeed, my girl,” answered the honest fellow. “And you +have guessed rightly. I am quite astounded at the town and the people.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are from Boubastis?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. From Cabasa. I came here to sell grain, and I am going back again +to-morrow, richer by fifty-two minæ. Thanks be to the gods! it has been a good +year.” +</p> + +<p> +Tryphera suddenly began to take an great interest in this merchant. +</p> + +<p> +“My child,” he resumed timidly, “you can give me a great joy. +I don’t want to return to Cabasa to-morrow without being able to tell my +wife and three daughters that I have seen some celebrated men, You probably +know some celebrated men?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some few,” she said, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Good. Name them to me when they pass. I am sure that during the last two +days I have met the most influential functionaries. I am in despair at not +knowing them by sight.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-007.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-007" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“You shall have your wish. This is Naucrates.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Naucrates?” +</p> + +<p> +“A philosopher.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what does he teach?” +</p> + +<p> +“Silence.” +</p> + +<p> +“By Zeus, that is a doctrine that does not require much genius, and this +philosopher does not please me at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is Phrasilas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Phrasilas?” +</p> + +<p> +“A fool.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do you mention him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because others consider him to be eminent.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what does he say?” +</p> + +<p> +“He says everything with a smile, and that enables him to pass off his +errors as international and common-places as subtile. He has all the advantage. +People have allowed themselves to be duped.” +</p> + +<p> +“All this is beyond me, and I don’t quite understand. Besides, the +face of this Phrasilas is marked by hypocrisy.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is Philodemos.” +</p> + +<p> +“The strategist?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. A Latin poet who writes in Greek.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear, he is an enemy. I am sorry to have seen him.” +</p> + +<p> +At this point a flutter of excitement ran through the crowd and a murmur of +voices pronounced the same name: +</p> + +<p> +“Demetrios . . . Demetrios . . .” +</p> + +<p> +Tryphera mounted upon a street post, and she too said to the merchant: +</p> + +<p> +“Demetrios . . . That is Demetrios. You were anxious to see celebrated +men.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-008.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-008" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Tryphera mounted upon a street post.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Demetrios? the Queen’s lover? Is it possible?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are in luck. He never leaves his house. This is the first time +I have seen him on the quay since I have been at Alexandria.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s he, bending over to look at the harbour.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are two men leaning over.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the one in blue.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot see him very well. His back is turned to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Know you not? he is the sculptor to whom the queen offered herself for a +model when he carved the Aphrodite in the temple.” +</p> + +<p> +“They say he is the royal lover. They say he is the master of +Egypt.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he is as beautiful as Apollo.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! he has turned round. I am very glad that I came. I shall say that I +have seen him. I have heard so much about him. It seems that no woman has ever +resisted him. He has had many love adventures, has he not? How is it that the +queen has not heard of them?” +</p> + +<p> +“The queen knows of them as well as we do. She loves him too much to +speak of them. She is afraid of his returning to Rhodes, to his master, +Pherecrates. He is as powerful as she is, and it is she who desired him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He does not look happy. Why does he look so sad? I think I should be +happy if I were in his place. I should like to be he, were it only for an +evening.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The sun had set. The women gazed at this man, their common dream. He, without +appearing to be conscious of the stir he created, remained leaning over the +parapet, listening to the flute-girls. +</p> + +<p> +The little musicians made another collection; then, they softly threw their +light flutes over their backs. The singing-girl placed her arms round their +necks and all three returned to the town. +</p> + +<p> +At night-fall, the other women went back into immense Alexandria in little +groups, and the herd of men followed them; but all turned round as they walked, +and looked at Demetrios. +</p> + +<p> +The last girl who passed softly cast her yellow flowers at him, and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +Night fell upon the quays. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap03"></a>III<br/> +DEMETRIOS</h3> + +<p> +Demetrios remained alone, leaning on his elbow, at the spot vacated by the +flute-girls. He listened to the murmur of the sea, to the slow creaking of the +ships, to the wind passing beneath the stars. +</p> + +<p> +The town was illumined by a dazzling little cloud which lingered upon the moon, +and the sky was bathed in soft light. +</p> + +<p> +The young man looked around him. The flute-girls’ tunics had left two +marks in the dust. He remembered their faces: they were two Ephesians. He had +thought the elder one pretty; but the younger was without charm, and, as +ugliness was a torture to him, he avoided thinking about her. +</p> + +<p> +An ivory object gleamed at his feet. He picked it up: it was a writing-tablet, +with a silver style attached to it. The wax was almost worn away and it had +been necessary to go over the words several times in order to make them +legible. They were even scratched into the ivory. +</p> + +<p> +There were only these words: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Myrtis Loves Rhodocleia +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and he did not know to which of the two women this belonged, and whether the +other was the loved one, or whether it was some unknown girl left behind in +Ephesos. Then he thought for a moment of overtaking the two musicians in order +to restore them what was perhaps the souvenir of a cherished dead friend; but +he could not have found them without difficulty, and as he was already +beginning to lose interest in them, he turned round languidly and threw the +little object into the sea. +</p> + +<p> +It fell rapidly, with a gliding motion like a white bird, and he heard the +splash it made away out in the black water. This little noise enhanced the +immense silence of the harbour. Leaning against the cold parapet, he tried to +drive away all thought, and began to look at the things around him. +</p> + +<p> +He had a horror of life. He only left his house when the life of the day was +dying down, and he returned home when the dawn began to draw the fishermen and +market-gardeners to the town. The pleasure of seeing nought in the world but +the ghost of the town and his own stature had become a voluptuous passion with +him, and he did not remember having seen the mid-day sun for months. +</p> + +<p> +He was wearied. The queen was tedious. +</p> + +<p> +He could hardly understand, that night, the joy and pride that had possessed +him three years before, when the queen, bewitched perhaps by the stories of his +beauty and genius, had sent for him to the palace, and had heralded him to the +Evening Gate with the sound of the silver salpinx. +</p> + +<p> +His arrival at the palace sometimes lighted up his memory with one of those +souvenirs which, through excess of sweetness, become gradually embittered in +the soul and then intolerable . . . The queen had received him alone, in her +private apartments, consisting of three rooms of incomparable luxury, where +every sound was muffled by cushions. She lay upon her left side, embedded, at +it were, in a litter of greenish silks which, by reflection, bathed the black +locks of her hair in purple. Her youthful body was arrayed in a daring +open-worked costume which she had had made before her eyes by a Phrygian +courtesan, and which exposed the twenty-two places where caresses are +irresistible. One had no need to take off that costume during a whole night, +even though one exhausted one’s amorous imagination beyond the most +extravagant dreams. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios fell respectfully on his knees, and took Queen Berenice’s naked +little foot in his hand, in order to kiss it, as one kisses an object delicate +and rare. +</p> + +<p> +Then she rose. +</p> + +<p> +Simply, like a beautiful slave posing, she undid her corselet, her bandelettes, +her open drawers, took off the very bracelets from her arms, the rings from her +ankles, and stood up erect, with her hands open before her shoulders, her head +slightly thrown back, and her coral coif trembling upon her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +She was the daughter of a Ptolemy and a Syrian princess descended from all the +gods, through Astarte, whom the Greeks call Aphrodite. Demetrios knew this, and +that she was proud of her Olympian lineage. Accordingly he was not disconcerted +when the queen said to him without moving: “I am Astarte. Take a block of +marble and your chisel and reveal me to the men of Egypt. I desire them to +worship my image.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-009.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-009" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“I am Astarte. Take a block of marble and your chisel and<br/> +reveal me to the men of Egypt. I desire them to worship my image.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios looked at her, and divined, unerringly, the artless, novel sensuality +with which this young girl’s body was animated. He said, “I am the +first to worship it,” and he took her in his arms. The queen was not +angry at this brusquerie, but stepped back a pace and asked, “You think +yourself Adonis, that you dare to lay hands on the goddess?” He answered, +“Yes.” She looked at him, smiled a little, and concluded. +</p> + +<p> +“You are right.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus was why he became insupportable, and his best friends left him; but he +ravished the hearts of all women. +</p> + +<p> +When he entered one of the apartments of the palace, the women of the court +ceased talking, and the other women listened to him too, for the sound of his +voice was an ecstasy. If he took refuge with the queen, their persecution +followed him even there, under pretexts ever new. Did he wander through the +streets, the folds of his tunic became filled with little papyri on which the +women wrote their names with words of anguish. But he crumpled them up without +reading them. He was tired of all that. When his handiwork was set up in the +temple of Aphrodite, the sacred enclosure was invaded at every hour of the +night by the crowd of his feminine adorers, who came to read his name chiselled +in the stone and offer a wealth of doves and roses to their living god. +</p> + +<p> +His house was soon encumbered with gifts, which he accepted at first out of +negligence, but ended by refusing all, when he understood what was desired of +him, and that he was being treated like a prostitute. His very slave-women +offered themselves. He had them whipped, and sold them to the little porneion +at Rhacotis. Then his men-slaves, seduced by presents, opened his door to +unknown women whom he found at his bed-side when he came home, and whose +attitude left no doubt as to their passionate intentions. The trinkets of his +toilet-table disappeared one after the other; more than one of the women of the +town had a sandal or a belt of his, a cup from which he had drunk, even the +stones of the fruit he had eaten. If he dropped a flower as he walked, he did +not find it again. The women would have picked up the very dust upon which his +shoes had trampled. +</p> + +<p> +In addition to the fact that this persecution was becoming dangerous and +threatened to kill all his sensibility, he had reached the stage of manhood at +which a thinking man perceives the urgency of dividing his life into two parts, +and of ceasing to confound the things of the intellect with the exigencies of +the senses. The statue of Aphrodite was for him the sublime pretext of this +moral conversion. The highest realization of the queen’s beauty, all the +idealism it was possible to read into the supple lines of her body, Demetrios +had evoked it all from the marble, and from that day onward he imagined that no +other woman on earth would ever attain to the level of his dream. His statue +became the object of his passion. He adored it only, and madly divorced from +the flesh the supreme idea of the goddess, all the more immaterial because he +had attached it to life. +</p> + +<p> +When he again saw the queen herself, she seemed to him destitute of everything +which had constituted her charm. She served for a certain time to hoodwink his +aimless desires, but she was at once too different from the Other, and too like +her. When she sank down in exhaustion after his embraces, and incontinently +went to sleep, he looked at her as if she were an intruder who had adopted the +semblance of the beloved one and usurped her place in his bed. The arms of the +Other were more slender, her breast more finely cut, her hips narrower than +those of the Real one. The latter did not possess the three furrows of the +groins, thin as lines, that he had graved upon the marble. He finally wearied +of her. +</p> + +<p> +His feminine adorers were aware of it, and though he continued his daily visits +it was known that he ceased to be amorous of Berenice. And the enthusiasm on +his account doubled. He paid no attention to it. In point of fact, he had need +of a change of quite other importance. +</p> + +<p> +It often happens that in the interval between two mistresses a man is tempted +and satisfied by vulgar dissipation. Demetrios succumbed to it. When the +necessity of going to the palace was more distasteful to him than usual, he +went off at night to the garden of the sacred courtesans. This garden +surrounded the temple on every side. +</p> + +<p> +The women who frequented it did not know him. Moreover, they were so wearied by +the superfluity of their loves that they had neither exclamations nor tears, +and the satisfaction he was in search of was not dashed, in that quarter at +least, by those frenzied cat-cries with which the queen exasperated him. +</p> + +<p> +His conversation with these fair, self-possessed ladies was idle and +unaffected. The day’s visitors, the probable weather on the morrow, the +softness of the grass, the mildness of the night—these were the charming +topics. They did not beg him to express his theories in statuary, and they did +not give their opinion upon the Achilleus of Scopas. If it befell that they +dismissed the lover who had chosen them, and that they thought him handsome and +told him so, he was quite at liberty not to believe in their disinterestedness. +</p> + +<p> +When freed from the embrace of their religious arms, he mounted the temple +steps and fell to an ecstatic contemplation of the statue. +</p> + +<p> +Between the slim columns crowned with Ionian volutes, the goddess stood +instinct with life upon a pedestal of rose-coloured stone laden with rich +votive offerings. She was naked and fully sexed, tinted vaguely and like a +woman. In one hand she held her mirror, the handle of which was a priapus, and +with the other she adorned her beauty with a pearl necklace of seven strings. A +pearl larger than the others, long and silvery, gleamed between her two +breasts, like the moon’s crescent between two round clouds. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios contemplated her tenderly, and would fain have believed, like the +common people, that they were real sacred pearls, born of the drops of water +which had rolled in the shell of Anadyomene. +</p> + +<p> +“O divine sister!” he would say. “O flowered one! O +transfigured one! You are no longer the little Asiatic woman whom I made your +unworthy model. You are her immortal Idea, the terrestrial soul of Astarte, the +mother of her race. You shone in her blazing eyes, you burned in her sombre +lips, you swooned in her soft hands, you gaped in her great breasts, you +strained in entwining legs, long ago, before your birth; and the food which the +daughter of a sinner hungers for is your tyrant also, you, a goddess, the +mother of gods and men, the joy and anguish of the world. But I have seen you, +evolved you, caught you, O marvelous Cytherea! It is not to your image, it is +to yourself that I have given your mirror, and yourself that I have covered +with pearls, as on the day when you were born of the fiery heaven and the +laughing foam of the sea, like the dew-steeped dawn, and escorted with +acclamations by blue tritons to the shores of Cyprus.” +</p> + +<p> +He had been adoring her after this fashion when he entered the quay, at the +hour when the crowd was melting away, and he heard the anguish and tears of the +flute-girls’ chant. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-010.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-010" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +But he had spurned the courtesans of the temple that evening, because a glimpse +of a couple beneath the branches had stirred him with disgust and revolted him +to the soul. +</p> + +<p> +The kindly influence of the night penetrated him little by little. He turned +his face of the wind, the wind that had passed over the sea and seemed to carry +to Egypt the lingering scent of the sweet-smelling roses of Amathus. +</p> + +<p> +Beautiful feminine forms took shape in his brain. He had been asked for a group +of the three Charites, enclasping one another, for the garden of the goddess, +but it was distasteful to his youthful genius to copy conventions, and he +dreamed of bringing together on the same block of marble the three graceful +motions of woman. Two of the Charites were to be dressed, one holding a fan and +half closing her eyelids to the gently-swaying feathers; the other dancing in +the folds of her robe. The third should be standing naked behind her sisters, +and, with her uplifted arms, would be twisting the thick mass of her hair upon +her neck. +</p> + +<p> +His mind conceived still other projects, as, for example, to erect, upon the +rocks of Pharos, an Andromeda of black marble confronting the tumultuous +monster of the sea, or to enclose the agora of Brouchion between the four +horses of the rising sun, like wrathful Pegasi; and what was not his exultant +rapture at the idea, which began to germinate within him, of a Zagreus +terror-stricken by the approaching Titans? Ah! how beauty had once more taken +him for its own! how he was escaping from the clutches of love! how he was +separating from the flesh the supreme idea of the goddess! In a word, how free +he felt! +</p> + +<p> +Now, he turned his head towards the quays, and, in the distance, saw the yellow +shimmer of a woman’s veil. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap04"></a>IV<br/> +THE PASSER-BY</h3> + +<p> +She carried slowly along the deserted quay, which was bathed in moonlight. Her +head leaned over one shoulder. A little shadow danced and flickered before her +footsteps. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios watched her as she drew near. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Diagonal folds intersected the little one saw of her body through the thin +tissue; one of her elbows stood out in relief under the tight tunic, and the +other arm, which she had left bare, carried the long train, holding it high out +of the dust. +</p> + +<p> +He recognised by her jewels that she was a courtesan. In order to avoid her +salutation he crossed the road rapidly. +</p> + +<p> +He did not want to look at her. He obstinately centered his thoughts upon the +rough plan of his Zagreus. Nevertheless his eyes turned in the direction of the +passer-by. +</p> + +<p> +Then he saw that she did not stop, that she paid no attention to him, that she +did not even affect to look at the sea, or to raise the front of her veil, or +to absorb herself in her reflections; but that she was merely taking a walk by +herself and was in search of nothing but the freshness of the breeze, solitude, +abandonment, the subtle thrill of silence. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios did not take his eyes off her, and fell into a singular astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +She continued to walk like a yellow shadow in the distance, nonchalant, and +preceded by the little black shadow. +</p> + +<p> +He heard at each step the slight creak of her shoe in the dust. +</p> + +<p> +She walked on as far as the island of Pharos and went up into the rocks. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, and as if he had loved this unknown woman for a long time, Demetrios +ran after her, then stopped, retraced his steps, trembled, got angry with +himself, tried to leave the quay; but he had never utilised his will except in +the service of his pleasure, and when it was time to set it in motion for the +salvation of his character and the ordering of his life, he felt completely +powerless and nailed to the spot on which he stood. +</p> + +<p> +As he could not throw off the thought of this woman, he tried to find excuses +in his own eyes for the preoccupation which was so violently distracting him. +He imagined that his admiration for the graceful apparition was due to a purely +æsthetic sentiment, and he said to himself that she would make a perfect model +for the Charis with the fan which he intended to design on the morrow. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-011.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-011" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Then, suddenly, all his thoughts became confused, and a crowd of anxious +questions surged up into his mind about this woman in yellow. +</p> + +<p> +What was she doing in the island at this hour of the night? Why, for whom had +she left home so late? Why had she not addressed him? She had seen him, +certainly she had seen him while he was crossing the quay. Why had she gone her +way without a word of salutation? It was rumoured that certain women sometimes +chose the fresh hours before the dawn to bathe in the sea. But there was no +bathing at Pharos. The sea was too deep. Besides, how unlikely that a woman +would be covered with all those jewels for no other object than to go bathing! +Then what took her so far from Rhacotis? A rendezvous perhaps? Some young rake, +avid of variety, who had chosen for a temporary bed the great rocks polished by +the waves? +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios wished to be certain. But the young woman was already returning, with +the same calm and indolent step. The sluggish radiance of the moon shone full +upon her face as she advanced, brushing the dust of the parapet with the end of +her fan. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap05"></a>V<br/> +THE MIRROR, THE COMB, AND THE NECKLACE</h3> + +<p> +She had a special beauty of her own. Her hair seemed two masses of gold, but it +was too abundant, and it padded her low forehead with two heavy waves charged +with amber, which swallowed up the ears and twisted themselves into a +seven-fold coil upon the nape of the neck. The nose was delicate, with +expressive nostrils which palpitated sometimes, surmounting a thick and painted +mouth, with rounded mobile corners. The supple line of the body undulated at +every stop, receiving animation from the harmonious motion of her unfettered +breasts, or from the swing of the beautiful hips that supported her lissom +waist. +</p> + +<p> +When she was within ten paces of the young man, she turned her eyes upon him. +Demetrios was seized with trembling. They were extraordinary eyes; blue, but +deep and brilliant at the same time, humid, weary, bathed in tears and flashing +fire, almost closed under the weight of the eyelids and eyelashes. The glance +of these eyes was like the siren’s song. Whosoever crossed their path was +inevitably a captive. She knew it well, and cunningly she used their virtue; +but she counted still more upon affected indifference as a weapon of attack +against the man whom so much sincere love had been incapable of touching +deeply. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The navigators who have sailed over the purple seas, beyond the Ganges, relate +that they have seen, beneath the water, rocks of magnetic stone. When ships +pass near them, the nails and iron fittings are wrenched down to the submarine +cliff and remain fixed to it for ever. And what was once a swift craft, a +habitation, a living being, becomes nought but a flotsam of planks, scattered +by the winds, tossed by the waves. Thus did Demetrios, in the presence of the +spell of two great eyes, lose his very self, and all his strength ebbed away. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She lowered her eyes and passed by close to him. He could have shouted with +impatience. He clenched his fists. He was afraid of not being able to recover a +calm attitude, for speak to her he must. Nevertheless he approached her with +the formula of convention. +</p> + +<p> +“I salute you,” said he. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-012.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-012" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“I salute you,” said he. “I salute you also,” +answered the woman</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I salute you also,” answered the woman. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios continued: +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going to in so leisurely a fashion?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alone.” +</p> + +<p> +And she made a movement as if to resume her walk. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Then Demetrios thought that perhaps he had made a mistake in taking her for a +courtesan. For some time past, the wives of the magistrates and functionaries +had taken to dressing and painting themselves like the women of pleasure. She +was probably a woman of honourable reputation, and it was not without irony +that he finished his question thus: +</p> + +<p> +“To your husband?” +</p> + +<p> +She put her two hands to her sides and began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t one this evening.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios bit his lip and suggested, almost timidly: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t look for one. You have set to work too late. There is no one +about now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who told you that I was looking for one? I am taking a walk by myself, +and am looking for nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where have you come from then? You certainly have not put on all those +jewels for your own pleasure, and that silken veil. . .” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you have me go out naked, or dressed in wool like a slave-woman? I +dress for my own benefit. I like to know that I am beautiful, and I look at my +fingers as I walk in order to recognise all my rings. . . . .” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to have a mirror in your hand and look at nothing but your +eyes. Those eyes did not see the light at Alexandria. You are a Jewess. I +recognise it by your voice, which is softer than ours.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I am not a Jewess. I am a Galilæn.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is your name, Miriam or Noëmi?” +</p> + +<p> +“My Syriac name you shall not know. It is a royal name which is not home +here. My friends call me Chrysis, and it is a compliment that you might have +paid me.” +</p> + +<p> +He put his hand on her arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! no, no,” she said mockingly. “It is much too late for +this kind of trifling. Let me go home quickly. I have been up for nearly three +hours. I am dying of hunger.” +</p> + +<p> +Bending down, she took her foot in her hand: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-013.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-013" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Bending down, she took her foot in her hand.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“See how my little thongs hurt me. They are too tightly strapped. If I do +not loose them in a moment, I shall have a mark on my foot, and that will be a +pretty object to kiss. Leave me quickly. Ah! what an ado! If I had known, I +would not have stopped. My yellow veil is all crumpled at the waist, +look.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios passed his hand over his forehead; then, with the careless air of a +man who condescends to make his choice, he murmured: +</p> + +<p> +“Show me the way.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Chrysis with a stupefied +air. “You do not even ask me whether it is my pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +“Show me the way! Listen to him! Do you take me for a porneion-girl, who +puts herself on her back for three obols without looking to see who is +possessing her? Do you even know whether I am free? Do you know what +appointments I may have? Have you followed me in the street? Have you noted the +doors that open for me? Have you counted the men who think they are loved by +Chrysis? Show me the way! I shall not show it you, if you please. Stay here or +go away, but you shall not go home with me!” +</p> + +<p> +“You do not know who I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“You? Of course I do! You are Demetrios of Saïs; you made the statue of +my goddess; you are the lover of my queen and the lord of my town. But for me +you are nothing but a handsome slave, because you have seen me and you love +me.” +</p> + +<p> +She came a little nearer to him, and went on in a caressing voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you love me. Oh! don’t interrupt me. I know what you are +going to say: you love no one, you are loved. You are the Well-beloved, the +Darling, the Idol. You refused Glycera, who had refused Antiochus. Demonassa +the Lesbian, who had sworn to die a virgin, entered your bed during your sleep, +and would have taken you by force if your two Lybian slaves had not put her +naked into the street. Callistion, the well-named, despairing of approaching +you, has bought the house opposite yours, and shows herself at the open window +in the morning, as scantily dressed as Artemis in the bath. You think that I do +not know all that? But we courtesans hear of everything. I heard of you the +night of your arrival at Alexandria; and since then not a single day has passed +without your name being mentioned. I even know things you have forgotten. I +even know things that you do not yet know yourself. Poor little Phyllis hanged +herself the day before yesterday on your door-post, did she not? well, the +fashion is catching. Lyde has done like Phyllis: I saw her this evening as I +passed, she was quite blue, but the tears were not yet dry upon her cheeks. You +don’t know who Lyde is? a child, a little fifteen-year-old courtesan whom +her mother sold last month to a Samian shipwright who was passing the night at +Alexandria before going up the river to Thebes. She came to see me. I gave her +some advice; she knew absolutely nothing, not even how to play at dice. I often +took her in my bed, because, when she had no lover, she did not know where to +sleep. And she loved you! If you had seen her hug me to her and call me by your +name. She wanted to write to you. Do you understand? I told her it was not +worth while . . .” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-014.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-014" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Demetrios gazed at her without understanding. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Yes, all that is a pure matter of indifference to you, is it not?” +continued Chrysis. “You did not love her. It is I that you love. You have +not even listened to what I have just told you. I am sure you could not repeat +a single word. You are absorbed in wondering how my eyelids are made up, +speculating on the sweetness of my mouth, on the softness of my hair. Ah! how +many others know all this! All who have desired me have had their pleasure upon +me: men, young men, old men, children, women, young girls. I have refused +nobody, do you understand? For seven years, Demetrios, I have only slept alone +three nights. Count how many lovers that makes. Two thousand five hundred and +more. I do not include those that came in the daytime. Last year I danced naked +before twenty thousand persons, and I know that you were not one of them. Do +you think that I hide myself? Ah! for what, pray? All the women have seen me in +the bath. All the men have seen me in bed. You alone, you shall never see me. I +refuse you. I refuse you. You shall never know anything of what I am, of what I +feel, of my beauty, of my love! You are an abominable man, fatuous, cruel, +insensible, cowardly! I don’t know why one of us has not had enough +hatred to kill you both in one another’s arms, first you, and afterwards +the queen.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios quietly took her by the two arms, and, without answering a word, bent +her backwards with violence. +</p> + +<p> +She had a moment’s anguish; but suddenly she stiffened her knees, +stiffened her elbows, backed a little, and said in a low voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! I am not afraid of that, Demetrios! you shall never take me by +force, were I as feeble as an amorous virgin and you as strong as a son of +Atlas. You desire not only the satisfaction of your own senses, but chiefly of +mine. Moreover, you want to see me from head to foot, because you believe that +I am beautiful, and I am beautiful indeed. Now the moon gives less light than +my twelve waxen torches. It is almost dark here. And then it is not customary +to undress upon the quay. I could not dress myself again without the help of my +slave. Let me free, you hurt my arms.” +</p> + +<p> +They were silent for a few minutes; then Demetrios answered: +</p> + +<p> +“We must have done with this, Chrysis. You know well that I shall not +force you. But let me follow you. However proud you are, you would pay dearly +for the glory of refusing Demetrios.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis still kept silence. He continued more gently: +</p> + +<p> +“What are you afraid of?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are accustomed to the love of others. Do you know what ought to be +given to a courtesan who does not love?” +</p> + +<p> +He became impatient. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not ask you to love me. I am tired of being loved. I do not want to +be loved. I ask you to abandon yourself. For that, I will give you all the gold +in the world. I have it in Egypt.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have it in my hair. I am tired of gold. I don’t want gold. I +want but three things. Will you give them to me?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios felt that she was going to ask for the impossible. He looked at her +anxiously. But she began to smile, and said in slow tones: +</p> + +<p> +“I want a silver mirror to gaze at my eyes within my eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have it. What else do you want? Quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want a carved ivory comb to plunge into my hair like a net into water +that sparkles in the sun.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will give me my comb?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want a pearl necklace to hang on my breast, when I dance you the +nuptial dances of my country in my chamber.” +</p> + +<p> +He raised his eyebrows; +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will give me my necklace?” +</p> + +<p> +“Any you please.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice became very tender. +</p> + +<p> +“Any I please? Ah! that is exactly what I wanted to ask you. Will you let +me choose my presents?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“You swear?” +</p> + +<p> +“I swear.” +</p> + +<p> +“What oath will you swear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dictate it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“By the Aphrodite you carved.” +</p> + +<p> +“I swear by the Aphrodite. But why these precautions?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! . . . I was uneasy; but now I am reassured”. +</p> + +<p> +She raised her head. +</p> + +<p> +“I have chosen my presents.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios suddenly became anxious and asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Already?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Do you think I shall accept any sort of silver mirror, bought of a +merchant of Smyrna, or some stray courtesan. I want the mirror of my friend +Bacchis, who stole a lover from me last week and jeered at me spitefully in a +little orgie she had with Tryphera, Mousarion, and some young fools who +repeated everything to me. It is a mirror she prizes greatly because it +belonged to Ithodopis, who was fellow-slave with æsop and was redeemed by +Sappho’s brother. You know that she is a very celebrated courtesan. Her +mirror is magnificent. It is said that Sappho used it, and it is for this +reason that Bacchis lays store on it. She has nothing more precious in the +world; but I know where you will find it. She told me one night, when she was +intoxicated. It is under the third stone of the altar. She puts it there every +evening when she leaves her house at sunset. Go to-morrow to her house at that +hour and fear nothing: she takes her slaves with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is pure madness,” cried Demetrios. “Do you expect me to +steal?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you not love me? I thought that you loved me. And then, have you not +sworn? I thought you had sworn. If I am mistaken, let us say no more about +it.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He understood that she was ruining him, but he yielded without a struggle, +almost willingly. +</p> + +<p> +“I will do what you say,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I know well that you will. But you hesitate at first. I understand +that. It is not an ordinary present. I would not ask it of a philosopher. I ask +you for it. I know well that you will give it me.” +</p> + +<p> +She toyed a moment with the peacock feathers of her round fan, and suddenly: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! . . . Neither do I wish for a common ivory comb bought at a +tradesman’s in the town. You told me I might choose, did you not? Well, I +want . . . I want the carved ivory comb in the hair of the wife of the high +priest. It is much more valuable than the mirror of Rhodopis. It came from a +queen of Egypt who lived a long time ago, and whose name is so difficult that I +cannot pronounce it. Consequently the ivory is very old, and as yellow as if it +were gilded. It has a carved figure of a young girl walking in a lotus-marsh. +The lotus is higher than she is, and she is stepping on tiptoe in order not to +get wet. . . . . It is really a beautiful comb. I am glad you are going to give +it to me. I have also some little grievances against its present possessor. I +had offered a blue veil to Aphrodite last month; I saw it on this woman’s +head next day. It was a little hasty, and I bore her a grudge for it. Her comb +will avenge me for my veil.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how am I to get it?” asked Demetrios. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! that will be a little more difficult. She is an Egyptian, you know, +and she makes up her two hundred plaits only once a year, like the other women +of her race. But I want my comb to-morrow, and you must kill her to get it. You +have sworn an oath.” +</p> + +<p> +She pouted at Demetrios, who was looking on the ground. Then she concluded very +quickly: +</p> + +<p> +“I have chosen my necklace also. I want the seven-stringed pearl necklace +on the neck of Aphrodite.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios started violently. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Ah! this time, it is too much! You shall not have the laugh of me to the +end! Nothing, do you understand? neither the mirror, nor the comb, nor the +collar.” +</p> + +<p> +But she closed his mouth with her hand and resumed her caressing tone: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-015.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-015" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>But she closed his mouth with her hand.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Don’t say that. You know well that you will give me this too. I am +sure of it. I shall have the three gifts. You will come to see me to-morrow +evening, and the day after to-morrow if you like, and every evening. I shall be +at home at any hour, in the costume you prefer, painted according to your +taste, with my hair dressed after your pleasure, ready for your most +extravagant caprices. If you desire but tender love, I will cherish you like a +child. If you thirst after rare sensations, I will not refuse you the most +agonising. If you wish for silence, I will hold my peace, when you want me to +sing, ah! you will see, Well-Beloved! I know songs of all countries. I know +some that are soft as the murmur of springs, others that are terrible as the +coming of thunder. I know some so simple and fresh that a young girl might sing +them to her mother; and I know some that could not be sung at Lampsacos. I know +some that Elephantis would have blushed to hear, and that I dare not sing above +a whisper. The nights you want me to dance, I will dance till morning. I will +dance fully dressed, with my trailing tunic, or in a transparent veil, or in +open drawers and a corselet with two openings to allow the breasts to peep +through. But have I promised you to dance naked? I will dance naked if you +prefer. Naked and with flowers on my head, or naked with my hair loose, painted +like a divine image. I can balance my hands, circle my arms, vibrate my breast, +heave my belly, contort my croup, you will see! I dance on the tips of my toes +or lying down in the carpets. I know all the dances of Aphrodite, that are +danced before Ourania, and those that are danced before Astarte. I even know +some they dare not dance. I will dance you all the loves. When this is finished +we shall be only at the beginning. You will see! The queen is richer than I am, +but there is not in all the palace a chamber as amorous as mine. I don’t +tell you what you will find there. There are things too beautiful for me to be +able to give you an idea of them, and others so strange that I do not know the +words to describe them. And then, do you know what you will see, something +which transcends all the rest? You will see Chrysis whom you love, and whom you +do not yet know. Yes, you have only seen my face, you do not know how beautiful +I am. Ah! Ah! . . . Ah! Ah! You will have surprises. Ah! how you will play with +my nipples, how you will bend my little waist as it lies upon your arm, how you +will tremble in the grasp of my knees, how you will faint away on my moving +body! And how excellent my mouth! Ah! my kisses!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios looked at her with a frenzied eye. +</p> + +<p> +She continued tenderly: +</p> + +<p> +“What! You will not give me a poor old silver mirror when you may have +all my hair like a golden forest in your hands?” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios tried to touch it . . . She recoiled and said: +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow!” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have it,” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“And you will not take for me a little ivory comb which pleases me, when +you can have my two arms like two branches of ivory around your neck?” +</p> + +<p> +He tried to stroke them. She drew them behind her back and repeated: +“To-morrow!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will bring it,” he said very low. “Ah! I knew it!” +cried the courtesan; “and you will also give me the seven-stringed +necklace of pearls on the neck of Aphrodite, and for that I will sell you all +my body, which is like a half-opened shell of mother-of-pearl, and more kisses +in your mouth than there are pearls in the sea!” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-016.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-016" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Demetrios held out his head, supplicatingly. +</p> + +<p> +She shot him a brilliant glance and gave him her sensual lips . . . +</p> + +<p> +When he opened his eyes she was already afar off. A little pale shadow danced +before her floating veil. +</p> + +<p> +He returned vaguely towards the town, with his forehead bent under the weight +of an inexpressible shame. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap06"></a>VI<br/> +THE VIRGINS</h3> + +<p> +The dim dawn rose on the sea. All things were tinted with lilac. The furnace +blazing on the summit of the tower of Pharos died down with the moon. Fugitive +yellow gleams appeared in the violet waves like sirens’ faces under the +hair of purple sea-weed. Daylight came all at once. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The quay was deserted. The town was dead. It was the grey light before the +first day blush that illumines the world’s sleep and brings the feverish +dreams of morning. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing existed, except silence. +</p> + +<p> +The long boats anchored in line near the quays, with their rows of parallel +oars hanging in the water, looked like sleeping birds. The perspective of the +architectural line of the streets was unbroken by vehicle, horse, or slave. +Alexandria was but a solitude, the unreal phantom of some antique city +abandoned for centuries. +</p> + +<p> +But the sound of light footsteps fell tremulously upon the ground, and two +young girls appeared, one dressed in yellow, the other in blue. +</p> + +<p> +They both wore maidens’ girdles, which circled round the hips and buckled +low down upon the body below the navel. They were the musicians of the night, +the singing-girl and one of the flute-girls. +</p> + +<p> +The flute-girl was younger and prettier than her friend. Her eyes smiled +faintly, pale as the blue of her robe, half hidden under her eyelids. Her two +slender flutes hung dangling from her flowered shoulder-knot along her back. A +double iris-garland, fastened to the ankles by two silver anklets, undulated +beneath the gauzy robe and encircled the rounded legs. +</p> + +<p> +She said: +</p> + +<p> +“Myrtocleia, do not be sad because you have lost our tablets. Would you +ever have forgotten that you possess the love of Rhodis, and can you think, +naughty girl, you would ever have read in solitude the line written by my hand? +Am I one of those faithless friends who engrave their bed-sister’s name +upon their nail and unite themselves to another girl as soon as the nail has +grown to the limit? Do you need a souvenir of me when you have my living body? +I am barely of nubile age, and yet I was not half so old on the day I saw you +for the first time. You remember it well. It was at the bath. Our mothers took +us in their arms and held us towards one another. We played for a long time on +the marble before putting on our clothes again. We have never left one another +since that day, and, five years afterward, we loved each other.” +</p> + +<p> +Myrtocleia answered: +</p> + +<p> +“There is another first day, Rhodis, and you know it. It is the day you +linked our two names together in writing upon the tablets. That was the first +day! It will never come back again. But never mind. Each day is new for me, and +when you awake towards evening, it is as if I saw you for the first time, You +are not a girl at all: you are a little Arcadian nymph that has left her +forests because Phoibos has dried up her fountain. Your body is supple as an +olive branch, your skin is soft as water in summer, the iris circles about your +legs, and you wear the lotus-flower like Astarte the open fig. In what wood +haunted by immortals did your mother betake her to sleep before your +thrice-blessed birth? and what roaming ægipan, or what river-god united himself +with her in the grass? When we have left this terrible African soil, you shall +take me to your fountain, far beyond Psophis and Phenens, to vast shady forests +where, upon the soft earth, one may see the double footprints of satyrs and +light-treading nymphs. There you shall search out a smooth rock, and you shall +engrave upon the stone the words you wrote upon the wax: the words that are our +joy. Listen, listen, Rhodis! By the girdle of Aphrodite upon which all desires +are embroidered, all desires are unknown to me; for you are more than my dream! +By the horn of Amaltheia whence flow all the good things of the world, the +world is a matter of indifference to me; for you are the only good I have found +in it! When I look at you and when I see myself, I know not why you love me in +return. Your hair is as fair as ears of corn; mine is black as a ram’s +fleece. Your skin is as white as shepherd’s cheese; mine is brown as the +sand upon the beach. Your tender breast is as flowered as the orange tree in +autumn; mine is meagre and barren as the rock pine. If my face has gained in +beauty, it is because I have loved you. O Rhodis! well you know that my +singular virginity is like the lips of Pan eating a sprig of myrtle; yours is +the colour of roses, and dainty as the mouth of a little child. I do not know +why you love me; but if you ceased to love me for a day; if, like your sister +Theano who plays the flute by your side, you ever stayed to sleep in the houses +that employ us, then I should never even think of sleeping alone in our bed, +and when you came in you would find me strangled with my girdle.” +</p> + +<p> +The very idea was so wild and cruel that Rhodis’s long eyes filled with +smiles and tears. She placed her foot upon a street-post: +</p> + +<p> +“My flowers between my legs hamper me. Undo them, adored Myrto. I have +finished dancing for to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +The singing-girl started. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-017.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-017" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“Oh! it is true. I had already forgotten them, those men and women. They +made both of you dance, you in this Cossian robe, transparent as water, and +your sister naked with you. If I had not protected you, they would have +possessed you like a prostitute, as they did your sister before our eyes in the +same room. Oh, what an abomination! Did you hear her cries and wailings? How +dolorous is the love of man!” +</p> + +<p> +She knelt down beside Rhodis and unclasped the two garlands, and then the three +higher up, imprinting a kiss on the place of each. When she rose to her feet, +the child took her by the neck and swooned under her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Myrto, you are not jealous of all those debauchees? What does it matter +that they should have seen me? Theano suffices them, and I have relinquished +her to them. They shall not have me, darling Myrto. Do not be jealous of +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jealous! I am jealous of everything that approaches you. In order that +your robes may not have you alone, I put them on when you have worn them. In +order that the flowers in your hair may not remain amorous of you, I give them +to mean courtesans who will defile them in their orgies. I have given you +nothing, in order that nothing may possess you. I am afraid of everything you +touch, and I hate everything you look at. I should like to pass my whole life +between the four walls of a prison alone with myself and you, and unite myself +with you so profoundly, hide you so well between my arms, that no eye would +suspect your presence. I would I were the fruit that you eat, the perfume that +delights you, the sleep that glides beneath your eyelids, the love that strains +your limbs. I am jealous of the happiness I give you, and I would I could give +you the very happiness I derive from you. That is what I am jealous of; but I +do not fear your mistresses of a night when they help me to satisfy your +girlish desires. As for lovers, I know well that you will never be theirs; I +know well that you cannot love man, intermittent and brutal man.” +</p> + +<p> +Rhodis exclaimed with conviction: +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather go, like Nausithoe, and sacrifice my virginity to the god +Priapos adored at Thasos. But not this morning, darling. I have danced a long +time, and I am very tired. I wish I were at home, sleeping on your arm.” +</p> + +<p> +She smiled, and continued: +</p> + +<p> +“We must tell Theano that our bed is no longer hers. We will make her up +another one beside the door. After what I have seen this night I cannot embrace +her again. Myrto, it is really horrible. Is it possible to love like that? Is +that what they call love?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is that.” +</p> + +<p> +“They deceive themselves, Myrto. They do not know.” +</p> + +<p> +Myrtocleia took her in her arms, and both kept silence together. +</p> + +<p> +The wind mingled their hair. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap07"></a>VII<br/> +CHRYSIS’S HAIR</h3> + +<p> +“Look,” said Rhodis, “look! I see some one.” +</p> + +<p> +The singing-girl looked. A woman, in the distance, was walking rapidly along +the quay. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I recognise her.” resumed the child. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Chrysis. She is wearing her yellow robe.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! is she dressed already?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t understand it. Usually she does not go out before mid-day, +and the sun is hardly up. Something must have happened to her: something +fortunate no doubt: she is so lucky.” +</p> + +<p> +They advanced to meet her, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Hail, Chrysis.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hail. How long have you been here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. It was daylight when we arrived.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was nobody on the quay?” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-018.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-018" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“It is Chrysis. She is wearing her yellow robe.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Nobody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a man! are you sure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite sure. Why do you ask?” +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis did not answer. Rhodis went on: +</p> + +<p> +“You wanted to see somebody?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes . . . perhaps . . . I think perhaps it is as well I have not seen +him. Yes, it is as well. I was wrong to come back; I could not restrain +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what is the matter? Do tell us, Chrysis.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not even us? Not even us, your little friends?” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall know later on, together with the whole town.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very amiable of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall know a little before, if you really want to; but this morning +it is impossible. Extraordinary things are happening, my dears. I am dying to +tell you, but I must hold my tongue. You were going home? Come and sleep with +me, I am quite alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Chrysis, Chrysidion, we are so tired! We are going home certainly, +but to have a good sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you can sleep afterwards. To-day is the eve of the Aphrodisiæ. Is +it a day for rest? If you want the goddess to protect you and to make you happy +next year you must enter her temple with eyelids dark as violets and cheeks +white as lilies. We will see to that; come with me.” +</p> + +<p> +She put her arms round their waists, and closing her caressing hands upon their +little half naked breasts, bore them hurriedly off. +</p> + +<p> +Rhodis, however, remained preoccupied. +</p> + +<p> +“And when we are in your bed,” she said, “will you not tell +us what is happening; what you expect?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will tell you many things, everything you please; but about that +subject I shall say nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Even when we are in your arms, naked, with the lamp extinguished?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do not insist, Rhodis: you shall know to-morrow. Wait till +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are going to be very happy? or very powerful?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very powerful.” +</p> + +<p> +Rhodis opened her eyes wide and exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“You are going to sleep with the queen!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Chrysis laughing; “but I am going to be as +powerful as she is. Do you desire anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +And the little girl became thoughtful. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what is it?” asked Chrysis. +</p> + +<p> +“It is something impossible. Why should I ask?” +</p> + +<p> +Myrtocleia spoke for her: +</p> + +<p> +“At Ephesos, in our country, when two virgins of nubile age like Rhodis +and me love one another, the law allows them to be united in marriage. They +both go to the temple of Athena and sacrifice their double girdle; thence to +the sanctuary of Iphinoë, where they offer a lock of their hair, +interwined; and finally to the peristyle of Dionysios, where the more male of +the two receives a little knife of sharp-edged gold, and a white linen cloth to +stanch the blood. In the evening, the “fiancee” is conducted to her +new home in a flowered chariot between her husband and the paranymph, escorted +by torch-bearers and flute-girls. And thenceforth they have the rights of +married people; they may adopt little girls and associate them in their +intimate life. They are respected. They have a family. That is the dream of +Rhodis. But it is not the custom here.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will change the law,” said Chrysis. +</p> + +<p> +“But leave it to me, you shall marry one another.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, is it true?” cried the little girl, flushing with joy. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and I don’t ask which of you is to be the husband. I know +that Myrto possesses everything necessary to create that illusion. You are +fortunate, Rhodis, to have such a friend. They are rare, whatever people +say.” +</p> + +<p> +They reached the door, where Djala was sitting on the steps weaving a towel of +flax. The slave-woman rose to allow them to pass, and then followed them. +</p> + +<p> +The two flute-girls took off their simple clothing in an instant. They +performed minute ablutions upon each other in a green marble bowl communicating +with the bath. Then they rolled upon the bed. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis looked at them without seeing them. The words spoken by Demetrios, even +the most trivial, ran in her memory unceasingly. She was not conscious of the +presence of Djala, who silently untied and unwound her long saffron veil, +unbuckled the girdle, took off the rings, the seals, the armlets, the silver +serpents, the golden pins; but the gentle titillation of her hair falling over +her shoulders woke her vaguely. +</p> + +<p> +She asked for her mirror. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-019.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-019" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>She was not conscious of the presence of Djala, who silently<br/> +untied and unwound her long saffron veil.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Was she beginning to feel afraid that she was not beautiful enough to keep this +new lover—for keep him she must—after the mad exploits she had +demanded of him? Or was it that, by a detailed examination of each one of her +physical beauties, she wanted to calm her alarms and justify her confidence? +</p> + +<p> +She brought the mirror close to every part of her body, touching each in +succession. She appraised the whiteness of her skin, estimated its softness by +long caresses, its warmth by embraces. She tested the fullness of her breasts, +the firmness of her belly, the tension of her flesh. She measured her hair and +considered its glossiness. She tried the strength of her regard, the expression +of her mouth, the fire of her breath; and she bestowed a long, slow kiss along +her naked arm from the region of the armpit down to the bend of the elbow. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-020.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-020" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +An extraordinary emotion, compounded of astonishment and pride, of certainty +and impatience, took possession of her at this contact with her own lips. She +turned round as if she were looking for somebody; but catching sight of the two +forgotten Ephesian girls upon her bed, she leaped into their midst, separated +them, hugged them with a sort of amorous fury, and her long golden hair +enveloped the three young heads. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="book02"></a>BOOK II</h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap08"></a>I<br/> +THE GARDENS OF THE GODDESS</h3> + +<p> +The temple of Aphrodite-Astarte stood outside the gates of the town, in an +immense park, full of flowers and shade. The Nile water, conveyed by seven +aqueducts, induced an extraordinary verdure all the year round. +</p> + +<p> +This flowering forest on the sea’s verge, these deep streams, these +lakes, these darkling meadows, had been created in the desert more than two +centuries previously by the first of the Ptolemies. Since then, the sycamores +planted by his orders had grown to gigantic size; under the influence of the +fertilising waters, the lawns had grown into meads, the basins had widened into +ponds, nature had turned a park into a champaign. +</p> + +<p> +The gardens were more than a valley, more than a country; they were a complete +world enclosed by bounds of stone and governed by a goddess, the soul and +centre of this universe. All around it stood a circular terrace, eighty stades +long and thirty-two feet high. This was not a wall, it was a colossal +“cité,” composed of fourteen hundred houses. A corresponding number +of prostitutes inhabited this sacred town, and in this unique spot were +represented seventy different nationalities. +</p> + +<p> +The plan of the sacred houses was uniform and as follows: the door, of red +copper (a metal consecrated to the goddess), bore a phallos-shaped knocker +which fell upon a receiving-plate in relief, the image of the cteis; and +beneath was graved the courtesan’s name, with the initials of the usual +formula: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Ω.Ξ.Ε.<br/> +ΚΟΧΛΙΣ<br/> +Π.Π.Π +</p> + +<p> +Two rooms contrived like shops opened out on either side of the door, that is +to say, there was no wall on the side facing the gardens. The one on the right, +the “chambre exposée,” was the place where the courtesan sat +bedecked with her adornments upon a lofty cathedra at the hour when the men +arrived. The one on the left was at the disposal of suitors who wished to pass +the night in the open air, without, however, sleeping on the grass. +</p> + +<p> +When the door was opened, a corridor gave access to a vast court-yard paved +with marble, the centre of which was occupied by an oval basin. A peristyle +cast a circle of shadow round this patch of light, and interposed a zone of +coolness between it and the entries to the seven chambers of the house. At the +further end rose the altar of red granite. +</p> + +<p> +Each woman had brought a little idol of the goddess from her native country, +and each adored it in her own tongue, as it stood upon the altar, without +understanding the other women. Lachmi, Ashtaroth, Venus, Ischtar, Freia, +Mylitta, Cypris, such were the religious names of their deified VOLUPTAS. Some +venerated her under a symbolic form: a red pebble, a conical stone, a great +knotted shell. Most of them had a little statuette on a pedestal of green wood, +usually a rudely-carved figure with thin arms, heavy breasts, and excessive +hips. The hand pointed to the delta-shaped locks of the belly. They laid a +myrtle-branch at its feet, scattered the altar with rose leaves, and burned a +little grain of incense for every prayer granted. It was the confidant of all +their troubles, the witness of all their undertakings, the supposed cause of +all their pleasures. At their death, it was placed in their fragile little +coffin, to watch over their sepulture. +</p> + +<p> +The most beautiful of these women came from the kingdoms of Asia. Every year, +the vessels which carried the presents of the tributaries or allies to +Alexandria landed, together with the bales and leathern bottles, a cargo of a +hundred virgins chosen by the priests for the service of the sacred garden. +They were Mysians and Jewesses, Phrygians and Cretans, daughters of Ecbatana +and Babylon, maidens from the Bay of Pearls and from the sacred banks of the +Ganges. Some were white-skinned with medallion-like faces and inflexible +bosoms; others, brown as the earth under rain, wore silver rings in their +noses. Their hair fell short and dark upon their shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +Some came from a still greater distance: dainty, deliberate little beings, +whose language nobody understood, and who resembled yellow monkeys. +</p> + +<p> +Their long eyes pointed towards their temples; they dressed their straight +black hair in the quaintest fashion. These girls remained all their lives as +timid as strayed animals. They knew the movements of love, but refused the kiss +upon the mouth. Between two passing unions they were to be seen sitting on +their little feet, and playing with one another, and amusing themselves like +infants. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-021.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-021" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +In a solitary meadow, the pink and pale daughters of the North lived together, +lying upon the grass. They were Sarmatians with triple tresses, robust legs, +square shoulders, who made garlands for themselves with the branches of trees, +and wrestled for a pastime. There were big-breasted, flat-nosed, hairy +Scythians, who paired in the attitude of beasts; gigantic Teutons who terrified +the Egyptians with their hair pale as that of old men and their flesh softer +than that of children; Gauls, sandy-hued like cows, and who laughed without a +motive; young Celts with sea-green eyes, who never went out naked. +</p> + +<p> +Elsewhere, the brown-breasted Iberians assembled together during the day. They +had heavy hair that they dressed with extreme care, and nervous bellies which +they did not depilate. Their firm skins and powerful croups were held in great +esteem by the Alexandrians. They were chosen for dancing-girls as often as for +mistresses. Under the large shadow of the palm-trees lived the daughters of +Africa: Numidians veiled in white, Carthaginians apparelled in black gauze, +Negresses enveloped in many-coloured costumes. +</p> + +<p> +They were fourteen hundred. +</p> + +<p> +When once a woman had entered the garden, she never left it till the first day +of her old age. She gave the half of her gains to the temple, and the remainder +went to defray the cost of her meals and perfumes. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-022.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-022" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>The poorer tradesman . . . preferred to address themselves<br/> +to the women who slept thus in the open air.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +They were not slaves, and each was the real owner of one of the houses of the +Terrace; but all were not equally beloved, and the most fortunate often found +the opportunity of buying the neighbouring houses, which their owners were +willing to sell in order to escape the ravages of hunger. These girls carried +off their obscene statuettes to the park and searched out a flat stone to serve +as an altar, in a corner which henceforth they did not leave. The poorer +tradesmen were aware of this. and preferred to address themselves to the women +who slept thus in the open air upon the moss near their sanctuaries; but +occasionally even these suitors were not forthcoming, and then the poor +creatures took to themselves a partner in distress. These passionate +friendships developed almost into conjugal love. The couple shared everything +down to the last scrap of wool. They consoled one another for their long +periods of chastity by alternate complaisances. +</p> + +<p> +Those who had no girl friends offered themselves of their own accord as slaves +to their more prosperous colleagues. +</p> + +<p> +The latter were forbidden to have more than a dozen of these poor creatures in +their service; but twenty-two courtesans were quoted as having attained the +maximum. These had chosen a motley staff of domestics from all the +nationalities. +</p> + +<p> +If, in the course of their stray amours, they conceived a son, he was brought +up in the temple-enclosure in the contemplation of the perfect form and in the +service of its divinity. If they were brought to bed of a daughter, the child +was consecrated to the goddess. +</p> + +<p> +On the first day of its life, they celebrated its symbolic marriage with the +son of Dionysos, and the Hierophant deflowered it herself with a little golden +knife; for virginity is displeasing to Aphrodite. Later on, the little girl +entered the Didascalion, a great monumental school situated behind the temple, +and where the theory and practice of all the erotic arts were taught in seven +stages: the use of the eyes, the embrace, the motions of the body, the secrets +of the bite, of the kiss, and of glottism. +</p> + +<p> +The pupil chose the day of her first experiment at her own good pleasure, +because desire is ordained by the goddess, whose will must be obeyed. On that +day, she was allotted one of the houses of the Terrace, and some of these +children, who were not even nubile, counted amongst the most zealous and the +most esteemed. +</p> + +<p> +The interior of the Didascalion, the seven class-rooms, the little theatre, and +the peristyle of the court, were decorated with ninety-two frescoes designed to +sum up the whole of amatory teaching. It was the life-work of one man. +Cleochares of Alexandria, the natural son and disciple of Apelles, had +terminated them on the eve of his death. Recently, Queen Berenice, who was +greatly interested in the celebrated school and sent her young sisters to it, +had ordered a series of marble groups from Demetrios in order to complete the +decoration; but as yet only one of them had been erected, in the +children’s class-room. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of each year, in the presence of the entire body of courtesans, a +great competition took place, which excited an extraordinary emulation amongst +this crowd of women, for the twelve prizes which were offered conferred the +right to the most exalted glory it was possible to dream of: the right to enter +the Cotytteion. +</p> + +<p> +This last monument was shrouded in so much mystery, that it is impossible for +us to give a detailed description of it. We know merely that it was comprised +in the peribola and that it had the form of a triangle of which the base was a +temple of the goddess Cotytto, in whose name fearful unknown debauches took +place. The other two sides of the monument were composed of eighteen houses; +they were inhabited by thirty-six courtesans, so sought after by rich lovers +that they did not give themselves for less than two minæ: they were the Baptes +of Alexandria. Once a month, at full moon, they assembled in the temple +enclosure, maddened by aphrodisiacs, and girt with the canonical phallos. The +oldest of the thirty-six was required to take a mortal dose of the terrible +erotogenous philter. The certainty of a speedy death impelled her to attempt +without hesitation all the dangerous feats of sensual passion before which the +living recoil. Her body, covered with foam, became the centre and model of the +whirling orgie; in the midst of prolonged shriekings, cries, tears, and dances, +the other naked women embraced her with frenzy, bathed their hair in her sweat, +fastened on her burning flesh, and drew fresh ardors from the uninterrupted +spasm of this furious agony. Three years these women lived thus, and such was +the wild madness of their end at the close of the thirty-sixth month. +</p> + +<p> +Other less venerated sanctuaries had been erected by the women, in honour of +the other names of the multiform Aphrodite. There was an altar sacred to the +Ouranian Aphrodite, which received the chaste vows of sentimental courtesans: +another to the Apostrophian Aphrodite, who granted forgetfulness of unrequited +loves; another to the Chrysean Aphrodite, who attracted rich lovers; another to +Genetyllis, the patron goddess of women in child-birth; another to Aphrodite of +Colias, who presided over gross passions, for everything which related to love +fell within the pious cult of the goddess. But these special altars possessed +no efficacy or virtue except in the case of unimportant desires. Their service +was haphazard, their favours were a matter of daily occurrence, and their +votaries were on terms of familiarity with them. Suppliants whose prayers had +been granted made simple offerings of flowers; those who were not content +defiled them with their excrements. They were neither consecrated nor kept up +by the priests, and their profanation incurred no punishment. +</p> + +<p> +Far different was the discipline of the temple. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The temple, the Great Temple of the Great Goddess, the most sacred spot in all +Egypt, the inviolable Astarteïon, was a colossal edifice one hundred and thirty +six feet in length, standing on the summit of the gardens and approached on all +sides by seventeen steps. The golden gates were guarded by twelve hermaphrodite +hierodules, symbolising the two objects of love and the twelve hours of the +night. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-023.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-023" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +The entrance did not face towards the east, but in the direction of Paphos, +that is to say, towards the north-east. The sun’s rays never penetrated +directly into the sanctuary of the Great Goddess of the Night. Eighty-six +columns upheld the architrave: they were tinted purple as far as their +mid-height, and all the upper part stood out from these gaudy trappings with an +unspeakable whiteness, like the busts of standing women. +</p> + +<p> +Between the epistyle and the coronis, the long belt-shaped Zophora unfolded its +bestial sculptures, erotic and fabulous. There were centauresses mounted by +stallions, goats tumbled by meagre satyrs, virgins served by monstrous bulls, +naïads covered by stags, bacchantes loved by tigers, lionesses seized by +griffins. All this great wallowing multitude of beings was exalted by the +irresistible divine passion. The male strained, the female opened, and the +fusion of the creative forces produced the first thrill of life. The crowd of +obscure couples sometimes, by chance, left a clear space round some immortal +scene: Europa on hands and knees bearing the weight of the glorious Olympian +beast; Leda guiding the hardy swan between her beautiful arched thighs. Farther +on, the insatiable Siren exhausting expiring Glaucos; the god Pan standing +upright and possessing an hamadryad with flying hair; the Sphinx raising her +croup to the level of the horse Pegasos. At the end of the frieze, the sculptor +had carved a figure of himself facing the goddess Aphrodite. He stood there +modelling the contours of a perfect cteis in soft wax, with the goddess herself +as his model, as if his whole ideal of beauty, joy, and virtue had long since +taken refuge in this precious fragile flower. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap09"></a>II<br/> +MELITTA</h3> + +<p> +“Purify thyself, stranger.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall enter pure,” said Demetrios. +</p> + +<p> +Dipping the end of her hair in water, the young gate-keeper moistened first his +eyelids, then his lips and fingers, in order that his glance might be +sanctified, as also the kiss of his mouth and the caress of his hands. +</p> + +<p> +And then he pressed forward into the wood of Aphrodite. +</p> + +<p> +Through the dark branches, he perceived a setting sun of sombre purple, +powerless to dazzle the eyes. It was the evening of the day on which his life +had been convulsed by the meeting with Chrysis. +</p> + +<p> +The feminine soul is of a simplicity incredible to men. Where there is nothing +but a straight line, they obstinately search for the complexity of a web; they +find emptiness and go astray in it. Thus it was that the soul of Chrysis, +limpid as a little child’s, appeared to Demetrios more mysterious than a +problem in metaphysics. After leaving this woman upon the quay, he went back to +his house like a man in a dream, incapable of answering all the questions which +tormented him. What did she want with these three gifts? It was impossible for +her either to wear or to sell a celebrated mirror, acquired by theft, the comb +of an assassinated woman, the pearl necklace of the goddess. If she kept them +at home, she would expose herself every day to the possibility of a fatal +discovery. Then why ask for them? To destroy them? He knew only too well that +women are incapable of enjoying things in secret and that good fortune brings +them happiness only as soon as it is noised abroad. And then, what divination, +what profound clairvoyance had led her to judge him capable of accomplishing +three such extraordinary actions for her sake? +</p> + +<p> +Assuredly, if he had liked, he might have carried off Chrysis from her home, +held her at his mercy, and made her his mistress, his wife, or his slave, at +choice. He had even the right to do away with her, simply. Former revolutions +had accustomed the citizens to violent deaths, and no one would have troubled +about the disappearance of a courtesan. Chrysis must know this, and yet she had +dared . . . +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-024.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-024" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>The young gate-keeper moistened first his eyelids.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The more he thought about her, the more grateful he was to her for having +varied the usual routine of bargaining in so charming a manner. How many women +of equal worth with Chrysis had offered themselves clumsily! But what did this +one ask for? Neither love, nor gold, nor jewels, but three unheard-of crimes! +She interested him keenly. He had offered her all the treasures of Egypt: he +felt distinctly, now, that if she had accepted them she would not have received +two obols, and that he would have tired of her even before knowing her. Three +crimes were certainly an unusual salary; but she was worthy to receive it since +she was a woman capable of exacting it, and he promised himself to go on with +the adventure. +</p> + +<p> +In order not to give himself the time to repent of his firm resolve, he went +the very same day to the house of Bacchis, found the house empty, took the +silver mirror and went off to the gardens. +</p> + +<p> +Was it necessary to make a direct call on Chrysis’s second victim? +Demetrios thought not. The priestess Touni, who owned the famous ivory comb, +was so charming and so weak that he was afraid of repenting if he went straight +to her house without any preliminary precautions. He retraced his steps and +went along the Grand Terrace. +</p> + +<p> +The courtesans were on show in their “chambres exposées” like +flowers in a shop window. +</p> + +<p> +Their attitudes and their costumes had no less diversity than their ages, +types, and races. The most beautiful, according to the tradition of Phryne, +leaving exposed nothing but the oval of their faces, sat enveloped from head to +foot in their great garment of fine wool. Others had adopted the fashion of +transparent robes, under which one distinguished their beauties mysteriously, +just as, through limpid water, one discerns the green mosses lying in splashes +of shade upon the bottom. Those whose sole charm consisted in their +youthfulness sat naked to the waist, stiffening out their busts in order to +display to the best advantage the firmness of their breasts. But the most +mature, knowing that the features of the feminine visage age more quickly than +the skin of the body, sat quite naked, holding their breasts in their hands, +and stretching their clumsy thighs apart, as if they wished to prove that they +were still women. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-025.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-025" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Demetrios passed slowly before them.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios passed slowly before them, with unflagging admiration. He had never +yet succeeded in contemplating a woman’s nudity without intense emotion. +He understood neither disgust before the corpse of a young woman nor +insensibility to the body of a little girl. That evening any woman could have +charmed him. Provided she remained silent and did not display more ardour than +the minimum required by the etiquette of the bed, he was quite ready to forgive +her for her lack of beauty. And what is more, he even preferred that she should +have a coarse body, for the more his intelligence considered faultless forms, +the less room was there for his sensual desires. The agitation which he felt +upon contact with living beauty was due to a sensualism exclusively cerebral, +which annihilated mere sexual excitation. He remembered with anguish having +remained all night as impotent as an old man, by the side of the most admirable +woman he had ever held in his arms. And since that night he had learnt to +choose mistresses of less purity. +</p> + +<p> +“Friend,” said a voice, “you don’t recognise me?” +</p> + +<p> +He turned round with a negative sign, and went on his way, for he never +undressed the same woman twice. It was the principle that guided his visits to +the gardens. A woman one has not yet possessed retains something of the virgin; +but what good result, what surprise can one expect from a second rendez-vous? +It is almost marriage. Demetrios did not expose himself to the illusions of the +second night. Queen Berenice sufficed for his rare conjugal impulses, and with +that exception he was careful to choose a new accomplice for every +evening’s indispensable adultery. +</p> + +<p> +“Clonarion! +</p> + +<p> +Gnatene! +</p> + +<p> +Plango! +</p> + +<p> +Mnaïs! +</p> + +<p> +Crobyle! +</p> + +<p> +Ioessa.” +</p> + +<p> +They cried their names as he passed, and some added protestations of their +ardent natures or proposed an abnormal vice. Demetrios followed the road. He +was preparing to choose at a venture, according to his habit, when a little +girl entirely dressed in blue leaned her head upon her shoulder and said to him +softly, without rising: +</p> + +<p> +“Is it quite out of the question?” +</p> + +<p> +The novelty of this mode of address made him smile. He stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Open the door,” he said. “I choose you.” +</p> + +<p> +The little girl gleefully jumped to her feet and gave two raps with the +phallus-shaped knocker. The door was opened by an old slave woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Gorgo,” said the little girl, “I have got somebody; quickly, +get some cakes and Cretan wine, and make the bed.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned round to Demetrios. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want any satyrion?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the young man laughing. “You have some?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have to keep it,” said the child. “I am asked for it +oftener than you think. Come this way; be careful of the steps, one of them is +worn. Go into my room. I shall be back in a moment.” +</p> + +<p> +The room was quite simple, like those of the novices. A great bed, a couch, a +few seats and carpets composed all the scanty furniture; but through a large +open bay there was a view over the gardens, the sea, the double harbour of +Alexandria. Demetrios remained standing and looked at the distant city. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Suns setting behind harbours! Incomparable glories of maritime cities, calm +skies, purple waters! Upon what soul vociferous with joy or sorrow would you +not cast a shroud of silence? What feet have not halted, what passions have not +withered, what voices have not died away before you? . . . Demetrios looked; a +swell of torrential flame seemed to issue from the sun, half dipping into the +sea, and to flow straight to the left bend of the wood of Aphrodite. From +horizon to horizon, the Mediterranean was flooded by the sumptuous purple +spectrum which lay in sharply-defined bands of colour, golden red and dull +violet side by side. Between this ever-shifting splendour and the peaty mirror +of Lake Mareotis, stood the white mass of the town, bathed in red and violet +reflexions. Its twenty thousand flat houses spreading in different directions +picked it out marvellously with twenty thousand dashes of colour that underwent +a perpetual metamorphosis according to the various phases of the setting +luminary. The flaming sun shot forth rapid shafts, then was swallowed up, +almost suddenly, in the sea, and with the first reflux of the night, there +floated over the whole earth a thrill, a muffled breeze, uniform and +transparent. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Here are figs, cakes, a piece of honeycomb, wine, a woman. Eat the figs +while it is daylight and the woman when it is dark.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the little girl, laughing as she entered. She bade the young man sit +down, mounted astride on his knees, and stretching her two arms behind her +head, made fast a rose which was on the point of slipping down from her auburn +hair. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of himself Demetrios could not restrain an exclamation of surprise. +She was completely naked, and when divested of her ample robe, her little body +was seen to be so young, so infantine in the breast, so narrow at the hips, so +visibly immature, that Demetrios felt a sense of pity, like a horseman on the +point of throwing his man’s weight upon an over-delicate mare. +</p> + +<p> +“But you are not a woman!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not a woman! By the two goddesses, what am I, then? A Thracian, a +porter, or an old philosopher?” +</p> + +<p> +“How old are you?”<br/> +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-026.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-026" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“Ten and a half. Eleven. One may say eleven. I was born in the gardens. +My mother is a Milesian. She is called Pythias, but she goes by the name of +‘The Goat.’ Shall I send for her, if you think me too little? Her +house is not far from mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been to the Didascalion?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am still there in the sixth class. I shall have finished next year; +and not too soon either.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you happy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! if only you knew how difficult the mistresses are to please! They +make you recommence the same lesson twenty times! Things perfectly useless that +men never ask for. And then one is tired out, all for nothing. I don’t +like that at all. Come, take a fig; not that one, it is not ripe. I will show +you a new way to eat. Look!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it. It is longer and no better than the other way. I see that you +are a good pupil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I have learnt everything I know by myself. The mistresses would have +us believe that they are cleverer than we are. They have more style, that may +be, but they have invented nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have many lovers?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are all too old: it is inevitable. Young men are so foolish! They +only like women forty years old. Now and again I see young men pretty as Eros +pass by, and if you were to see what they choose! Hippopotami! It is enough to +make one turn pale. I hope sincerely that I shall never reach these +women’s age: I should be too ashamed to undress. I am so glad to be still +quite young. The breasts always develop too soon. I think that the first month +I see my blood flow I shall feel ready to die. Let me give you a kiss. I like +you very much.” +</p> + +<p> +Here the conversation took a less serious if not a more silent turn, and +Demetrios rapidly perceived that his scruples were beside the mark in the case +of so expert a young lady. She seemed to realise that she was somewhat meagre +pasturage for a young man’s appetite, and she battled her lover by a +prodigious activity of furtive finger-touches, which he could neither foresee +nor elude, nor direct, and which never left him the leisure for a loving +embrace. She multiplied her agile, firm little body around him, offered +herself, refused herself, slipped and turned and struggled. Finally they +grasped one another. But this half hour was merely a long game. +</p> + +<p> +She jumped out of bed the first, dipped her finger in the honey-bowl and +moistened her lips; then, making a thousand efforts not to laugh, she bent over +Demetrios and rubbed her mouth against his. Her round curls danced on either +side of their cheeks. The young man smiled and leaned upon his elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“What is your name?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Melitta. Did you not see my name upon the door?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not look.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can see it in my room. They have written it all over the walls. I +shall soon be forced to have them repainted.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios raised his head: the four panels of the chamber were covered with +inscriptions. +</p> + +<p> +“That is very curious, indeed.” said he. “May one +read?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if you like. I have no secrets.” +</p> + +<p> +He read. Melitta’s name was there several times repeated, coupled with +various men’s names and barbaric drawings. Tender, obscene, or comic +sentences jostled oddly with one another. Lovers boasted of their vigour, or +detailed the charms of the little courtesan, or poked fun at her girl-friends. +All this was interesting merely as a written proof of a general degradation. +But, looking towards the bottom of the right-hand panel, Demetrios gave a +start. +</p> + +<p> +“What is that? What is that? Speak!” +</p> + +<p> +“Who? What? Where?” said the child. “What is the matter with +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Here. That name. Who wrote that?” +</p> + +<p> +And his finger stopped under this double line. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ΜΕΛΙΤΤΑ .Λ. ΧΡΥΣΙΔΑ<br/> +ΧΡΥΣΙΣ .Λ. ΜΕΛΙΤΤΑΝ<br/> +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” she answered, “that’s me. I wrote that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is she, Chrysis?” +</p> + +<p> +“My great friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say. That is not what I ask you. Which Chrysis? There are +many.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mine, the most beautiful. Chrysis of Galilee.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know her! you know her! But speak, speak! Where does she come from? +where does she live? who is her lover? tell me everything!” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down upon the couch and took the little girl upon his knees. +</p> + +<p> +“You are in love, then?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“That matters little to you. Tell me what you know; I am in a hurry to +hear everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I know nothing at all. It is quite short. She has been to see me +twice, and you may imagine that I have not asked her for details about her +family. I was too happy to have her, and I did not lose time in +conversation.” +</p> + +<p> +“How is she made?” +</p> + +<p> +“Like a pretty girl, what do you expect me to say? Do you want me to name +all the parts of her body, adding that everything is beautiful? And then, she +is a woman, a real woman . . . Every time I think about her I desire +somebody.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-027.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-027" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +And she put her arm round the neck of Demetrios. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know anything about her?” he began again. +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I know that she comes from Galilee, that she is nearly +twenty years old, and that she lives in the Jews’ quarter, in the east +end, near the gardens. But that is all.” +</p> + +<p> +“And about her life, her tastes? can you tell me nothing? She is fond of +women, since she came to see you. But is she altogether Lesbian?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not. The first night she passed here, she brought a lover, and +I swear to you there was no make-believe about her. When a woman is sincere, I +can see it by her eyes. That did not prevent her from returning once quite +alone. And she has promised me a third night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know whether she has any other <i>amie</i> in the +gardens? Nobody?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, one of her countrywomen, Chimairis. She is very poor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where does she live? I must see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She has slept in the wood for upwards of a year. She has sold her house. +But I know where her den is. I can take you to it if you wish. Put on my +sandals, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios rapidly buckled the plaited leather straps round Melitta’s +slender ankles. Then he handed her her short robe, which she merely threw over +her arm, and they departed in haste. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +They walked far. The park was immense. From time to time, a girl under a tree +proffered her name and opened her robe, then lay down again and leaned her face +upon her hand. Melitta knew some of them: they embraced her without stopping +her. Passing before a rustic altar, she gathered three great flowers and placed +them upon the stone. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-028.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-028" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“My little girl! my little love! how are you?”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was not yet dusk. The intense light of summer days has something permanent +about it which lingers vaguely in the slow twilight. +</p> + +<p> +The faint, humid stars, hardly brighter than the body of the sky, twinkled and +throbbed gently, and the shadows of the branches remained indecisive. +</p> + +<p> +“Mamma! There’s mamma,” cried Melitta suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +A woman, dressed in a garment of triple muslin striped with blue, was seen +advancing with a tranquil step, alone. As soon as she caught sight of the child +she ran up to her, raised her off the ground, lifted her up in her arms, and +kissed her energetically on the cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“My little girl! my little love! how are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am guiding somebody who wants to see Chimairis. And you? Are you out +for a walk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Corinna is <i>accouchée</i>. I have been to see her. I have dined by her +bedside.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what has she given birth to? A boy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two twin girls, my dear, as pink as wax dolls. You can go and see them +tonight; she will show them to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! how lovely! Two little courtesans. What are their names?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are both called Pannychis, because they were born on the day before +the Aphrodisiæ. It is a divine presage. They will be pretty.” +</p> + +<p> +She replaced the child upon her feet, and turning to Demetrios: +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of my daughter? Have I the right to be proud of +her?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have the right to be satisfied with one another,” he answered +gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Kiss mamma,” said Melitta. +</p> + +<p> +He silently imprinted a kiss between her breasts. Pythias returned it to him +upon the mouth, and they separated. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios and the child advanced a few more paces beneath the trees, whilst the +courtesan receded into the distance, turning her head as she walked. At last +they reached their goal, and Melitta said: +</p> + +<p> +“It is here.” +</p> + +<p> +Chimairis was sitting crouching upon her left heel, on a little grass-plot +between two trees and a bust. A sort of red rag, her last remaining day +garment, lay spread out beneath her. At night, she slept upon it naked, at the +hour the men passed. Demetrios contemplated her with growing interest. She had +the feverish aspect of certain emaciated dark women whose tawny bodies seem +consumed by an ever-throbbing ardour. Her powerful lips, the excessive +brilliancy of her glance, her livid eyelids combined to produce a double +expression of sensual lustfulness and physical exhaustion. The curve of her +hollow belly and her nervous thighs formed a natural cavity, designed as if to +receive; and as she had sold everything, even her combs and pins, even her +depilatory tweezers, her hair was tangled together in inextricable disorder. A +black pubescence invested her nudity with a certain savage and shaggy +effrontery. +</p> + +<p> +A great he-goat stood stiffly on its four legs beside her. It was tethered to a +tree by a gold chain which had formerly glittered in a quadruple coil upon its +mistress’s breast. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Chimairis,” said Melitta, “get up. Here is somebody who +wishes to speak to you.” +</p> + +<p> +The Jewess looked, but did not move. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios advanced. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know Chrysis?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you see her often?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you talk to me about her?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“What? No? What? you cannot?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +Melitta was stupefied. +</p> + +<p> +“Speak to him,” she said. “Have confidence. He loves her, he +wishes her well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see clearly that he loves her.” answered Chimairis. “If he +loves her, he wishes her ill. If he loves her, I shall not speak.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios tingled with rage, but said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me your hand,” said the Jewess. “It will tell me +whether I am mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +She took the young man’s left hand and turned it towards the moonlight. +Melitta leaned forward to see, although she could not read the mysterious +lines, but their fatality attracted her. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you see?” said Demetrios. +</p> + +<p> +“I see . . . Can I tell what I see? will you be obliged to me? First I +see happiness, but it is all in the past. I also see love, but it is drowned in +blood . . .” +</p> + +<p> +“In my blood?” +</p> + +<p> +“In a woman’s blood. And then the blood of another woman. And then +yours, a little later on.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios shrugged his shoulders, and when he turned, he perceived Melitta +fleeing down the alley at full speed. +</p> + +<p> +“It has given her a fright,” said Chimairis. +</p> + +<p> +“But there is no question of Melitta or of me. Let things take their +course, since nothing can be prevented. Your destiny was certain even before +your birth. Go. I shall say no more.” And she dropped his hand. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap10"></a>III<br/> +LOVE AND DEATH</h3> + +<p> +“A woman’s blood. Afterwards another woman’s blood. +Afterwards yours, but a little later on.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios repeated these words to himself as he walked, and in spite of +himself, his belief in them weighed upon him. He had never had any faith in +oracles drawn from the bodies of victims or the movements of planets. These +affinities seemed too problematical. But the complex lines of the hand have, in +themselves, an exclusively personal horoscopic aspect which he considered with +uneasiness. The fortune-teller’s prediction haunted his mind. +</p> + +<p> +In his turn, he examined the palm of his left hand, on which his life was +summed up in secret and indelible signs. +</p> + +<p> +In the first place he saw, at the summit, a sort of regular crescent, the ends +of which pointed towards the base of the fingers. Below this, a deep quadruple +line, knotted and roseale, marked in two places by very red spots. Another +line, but thinner, ran parallel to this at first, and then swerved brusquely +round towards the wrist. Finally, a third line, short and clear, turned round +the base of the thumb, which was entirely covered with thread-like markings. He +saw all that; but, not being able to read the hidden symbol, he passed his hand +over his eyes and changed the subject of his meditations. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis! Chrysis! Chrysis! This name throbbed within him like a fever. Satisfy +her, vanquish her, clasp her in his arms, fly with her elsewhere, to Syria, to +Greece, to Rome, no matter where, provided it was a place where he had no +mistress and she no lovers: that was the thing, and immediately, immediately. +</p> + +<p> +Of the three presents she had asked for, one was already in his possession. +Remained the other two: the comb and the necklace. +</p> + +<p> +“The comb first,” he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +Every evening at sunset, the high priest’s wife went forth and sat upon a +marble seat, with her back turned to the forest and her face set to the great +expanse of sea in front of her. Demetrios knew this well, for this woman, like +so many others, had been in love with him, and she had told him that the day he +chose to possess her it was there he would find her. +</p> + +<p> +It was to that spot, then, that he directed his steps. And there indeed she +was; but she did not see him coming. She was sitting with her eyes shut, with +her body thrown back upon the seat, and her arms hanging negligently by her +sides. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-029.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-029" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="p2"> +She was an Egyptian. Her name was Touni. She wore a light tunic of bright +purple, without clasp or girdle, and without other adornments than two black +stars to mark the points of her breasts. The thin tissue, ironed into pleats, +terminated at the curve of the delicate knees, and little shoes of blue +leather, fitting like gloves, covered her dainty round feet. Her skin was very +swarthy, her lips very thick, her shoulders very small, and her fragile, supple +waist seemed to bend under the weight of her full throat. She was asleep with +her mouth open, dreaming peacefully. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios, noiselessly, sat down on the bench, by her side. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He slowly drew nearer and nearer, leaning over her, appreciating the delicate +lines of her smooth, dark-skinned shoulders, slender at the summit, muscular +near the armpit and joined to the bust by the shading of the bush beneath. +</p> + +<p> +Lower down, the long, loose slit of the purple muslin tunic was open as far as +the hips. Through the gaping drapery, Demetrios slowly passed his hand, and his +united finger-tips touched the curves of her left breast, damp with +perspiration. Its nipple rose erect in the palm of his hand. Notwithstanding, +Touni slept on. +</p> + +<p> +Her dream gradually changed, but did not fade. Her breath came quicker through +her half open lips and she murmured a long, unintelligible sentence, as her +fevered head fell back once more. +</p> + +<p> +With the same stealthy tenderness, Demetrios withdrew his hot hand, to let it +be refreshed by the light breeze. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-030.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-030" /><br/><br/> +</div> + + +<p class="center"> +<i>She was asleep.... dreaming peacefully.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +From the vague outline of the blue garden slopes as far as the immense +scintillation of the night, shuddered the eternal sea. Like unto another bosom +of some fresh priestess, its undulations were swelling heavenwards, uplifted by +the dreams of antiquity that still cause it to thrill in the sight of our +belated glances. When the end of all things is nigh, the last living beings +will try before they disappear to fathom the mysteries of the moving ocean. +</p> + +<p> +The moon inclined her great goblet of blood over the waters. Far away, in the +purest atmosphere that had ever united heaven and earth, a slight red trail, +where black veins meandered, trembled on the surface of the waves beneath the +rising orb of night, as when the agitation of a caress on a rounded breast, in +the dead of night, remains long after the hand that caused it has been lifted. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Touni still slumbered, her head leaning backwards, her body well-nigh naked, +enshrouded in tinted muslin folds. +</p> + +<p> +The purple glare of the moon, as yet on the horizon, came over the sea towards +the sleeping woman. The fatal, vivid rays lit her up with a flame that seemed +immobile. Little by little, their brilliancy mounted, encircling the Egyptian +girl. Her black curls appeared one by one, and finally the Comb flashed out of +the darkness: the royal Comb that Chrysis coveted. The ivory diadem was now +bathed in the glory of the crimson moonbeams. +</p> + +<p> +It was then that the sculptor took Touni’s sweet face in both his hands, +turning her features towards his own. Her eyes opened and became dilated. +</p> + +<p> +“Demetrios! Demetrios! Is it you? Oh! You have come at last! You are +here!” she murmured, clasping him in her arms, as her voice rang with the +accents of happiness. “Is it really you, Demetrios, whose hands awake me? +Is it you, son of my goddess; God of my body and my life?” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios made as if to retreat. With one bound, she was close to him again. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you fear?” she said. “For you I am not the woman +before whom all tremble, because she is surrounded by the might of the High +Priest. Forget my name, Demetrios. In their lovers’ arms, women have no +name. I am no longer what you think. I am nothing but a woman who loves and +whose yearning for you fills her frame as far as the points of her +breasts.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios did not open his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to me a little while longer,” she went on. “I know +who enthrals you. I will not even be your mistress, nor make the least attempt +to rival the queen. No, Demetrios. Do with me as you will. Take me like some +little slave-wench that a man possesses for a few minutes, leaving her +afterwards with a remembrance that becomes oblivion. Take me like the lowest +poverty-stricken harlot who, crouching by the roadside, awaits the charity of +some furtive and brutal attack of lust. After all, what am I to place myself +above those women? Have the Immortals given me anything more than that with +which they have endowed the most servile of all my slaves? You, at least, are +Beauty incarnate, with its out spreading emanations of the Gods.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios, more steadfastly serious than before, pierced her with his glance. +</p> + +<p> +“Wretched creature, what do you suppose emanates from the Gods, if it be +not. — ” +</p> + +<p> +“Love!” +</p> + +<p> +“Or Death!” +</p> + +<p> +“What mean you?” she exclaimed, starting to her feet. “Death! +Yes, Death indeed! But it is so far off for me! In sixty years’ time, +I’ll think of my end. Why speak to me of Death, Demetrios?” +</p> + +<p> +“Death this very night!” he said quietly. +</p> + +<p> +She laughed outright, in sheer fright. +</p> + +<p> +“Tonight? No, no! Who says so? Why should I die? Answer me! Speak! What +means this vile mockery?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are condemned.” +</p> + +<p> +“By whom?” +</p> + +<p> +“By your destiny.” +</p> + +<p> +“How know you that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because my destiny is interwoven with yours, Touni.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it my fate to die now?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is your lot to die by my hand, on that bench.” +</p> + +<p> +He seized her wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“Demetrios!” she stammered, affrighted. “I’ll not +shriek! I’ll not call for aid! Only let me speak first!” She wiped +the sweat from her brow. “If death—should come from you—death +will be sweet—for me. I accept it; I desire it, but hearken!” +</p> + +<p> +Staggering from stone to stone, she led him away in the dark night of the +woods. +</p> + +<p> +“Since in your hands are all the gifts of the Gods,” she continued, +“the first thrill of life and the final throb of agony, let both your +palms, bestowing all they hold, be opened to my eyes, Demetrios. Give me the +hand of Love as well as that of Death. If you do this, I die without +regret.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no reply in the vague look he gave her, but she thought she read the +“Yes” he had not uttered. +</p> + +<p> +Transfigured a second time, she lifted towards him a new face, where desire, +born again, drove, with the strength of desperation, all terror away. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-031.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-031" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“Demetrios!” she stammered, affrighted.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She spoke no more, but already between her lips that were never to close again, +each breath she drew sang a soft song, as if she was beginning to feel the +deepest voluptuousness of love before even being gripped in the conjunction she +craved. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-032.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-032" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Nevertheless, she gained this supreme victory. +</p> + +<p> +With one movement, she tore off her light tunic and rolled it up into a ball of +muslin that she threw behind her, smiling with scarce a vestige of sadness. Her +young and slender body was outstretched in such great and lively felicity that +it was impossible for it not to be eternal, and as her preoccupied lover, who +perhaps was merely anxiously hesitating, terminated the work of Love without +beginning that of Death, she suddenly exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Kill me! Kill me, I say, Demetrios! Why do you tarry?” +</p> + +<p> +He rose up a little, resting on his hands; looked once more at Touni, whose +great eyes peered ecstatically in his face, from beneath him, and drawing out +one of the long, golden hairpins that glittered behind her ears, he drove it +deliberately home under her left breast. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap11"></a>IV<br/> +MOONLIGHT</h3> + +<p> +Nevertheless, this woman would have given him her comb and her hair also, for +love’s sake. +</p> + +<p> +If he did not ask for it, it was because he had scruples. Chrysis had very +categorically demanded a crime, and not such or such old jewel stuck in a young +woman’s hair. That is why he considered it his duty to consent to +bloodshed. +</p> + +<p> +He might have reflected, too, that the vows one makes to women during the first +heat of passion may be forgotten in the interval without any great detriment to +the moral worth of the lover who has sworn them, and that if ever this +involuntary forgetfulness deserved to be excused it was certainly in a case +where the life of another woman, assuredly innocent, was also in the scales. +But Demetrios did not trouble himself with this method of reasoning. The +adventure upon which he was engaged seemed to him too curious to allow of his +juggling away its violent incidents. He was afraid that, later on, he might +regret having cut out of the plot a scene which, though short, was +indispensable for the beauty of the <i>ensemble</i>. A feeble truckling to +virtue is often all that is required to reduce a tragedy to the common-places +of everyday existence. The death of Cassandra, he mused, is not absolutely +necessary for the development of Agamemnon; but if it had not taken place, the +whole Orestes Trilogy would have been spoilt. +</p> + +<p> +And so, after cutting the storied comb out of Touni’s hair, he stowed it +away in his garments, and, without further reflection thereon, undertook the +third of the labours ordained by Chrysis: the seizing of Aphrodite’s +necklace. +</p> + +<p> +It was useless to dream of entering the temple by the main door. The twelve +hermaphrodites who guarded the entrance would certainly have allowed Demetrios +to pass, in spite of the order directing the exclusion of every profane person +in the absence of the priests; but he had no need to prove his future guilt in +this ingenuous manner, since a secret entrance led to the sanctuary. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios betook himself to a part of the wood which sheltered the Necropolis +of the high priests of the goddess. He counted the first tombs, opened the door +of the seventh, and closed it again behind him. +</p> + +<p> +With great difficulty, for the stone was heavy, he raised the burial-slab under +which a marble staircase plunged down into the earth, and he descended step by +step. +</p> + +<p> +He knew that sixty paces were to be made in a straight line, and that +afterwards it would be necessary to feel one’s way along the wall in +order not to knock against the subterranean staircase of the temple. +</p> + +<p> +The exceeding freshness of the deep earth calmed him little by little. +</p> + +<p> +In a few minutes he arrived at the limit. +</p> + +<p> +He mounted the stairs, and pushed open the trap-door. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +The night was clear without, and pitch dark within the divine enclosure. When +he had softly and carefully closed the resounding door, a chill fell upon him, +and he felt as though hemmed in by the coldness of the stones. He dared not +raise his eyes. This black silence terrified him: the darkness became alive +with the unknown. He put his hand to his forehead like a man who does not want +to awake for fear of finding himself among the living. At last he looked. +</p> + +<p> +He saw, in a glory of moonbeams, the dazzling figure of the goddess. She stood +upon a pedestal of pink stone laden with pendent treasures. She was naked and +fully sexed, vaguely tinted with the natural colours of woman. With one hand, +she held a mirror with a priapus handle, and with the other she adorned her +beauty with a seven-stringed pearl necklace. One pearl larger than the others, +long and silvery, shone between her two nipples like a nocturnal crescent +between two rounded clouds. And they were the real sacred pearls born of the +water-drops which had rolled into the shell of Anadyomene. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-033.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-033" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Demetrios lost himself in ineffable adoration.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios lost himself in ineffable adoration. He believed in very truth that +Aphrodite herself was there. He did not recognise his handiwork, for the abyss +between what he had been and what he had become was profound. He stretched out +his arms and murmured the mysterious words of prayer which are used in the +Phrygian ceremonies. +</p> + +<p> +Supernatural, luminous, impalpable, naked, and pure, the vision floated upon +the stone, palpitated gently. He fixed his eyes upon it, dreading lest the +caress of his glance should cause this frail hallucination to dissolve into +thin air. He advanced very softly, touched the pink heel with his finger, as if +to make sure of the statue’s existence, and, incapable of resisting the +powerful attraction it exercised upon him, mounted to its side, laid his hands +upon the white shoulders, and gazed into its eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He trembled, he grew faint, he began to laugh with joy. His hands wandered over +the naked arms, pressed the hard, cold bust, descended along the legs, caressed +the globe of the belly. He hugged this immortality to his breast with all his +might. He looked at himself in the mirror, he lifted up the pearl necklace, he +took it off, he made it glitter in the moonlight, and put it back again, +fearfully. He kissed the bended hand, the round neck, the wave-like throat, the +parted marble lips. Then he stepped back to the edge of the pedestal, and, +taking the divine arms in his hands, tenderly gazed at the adorable head. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The hair was dressed in the Oriental style, and veiled the forehead slightly. +The half-closed eyes prolonged themselves in a smile. The lips were parted, as +in the swoon of a kiss. He silently arranged the seven rows of pearls upon the +glittering breast, and descended to the ground to contemplate the idol at a +distance. +</p> + +<p> +Then he became conscious of an awakening. He remembered what he had come to do, +what he had wished to accomplish, what he had barely escaped accomplishing: a +monstrous deed. He flushed to the temples. +</p> + +<p> +The recollection of Chrysis passed before his memory like a vision of +grossness. He enumerated all the flaws in her beauty: the thick lips, the heavy +knees, the loose gait. He had forgotten what her hands were like; but he +imagined them large, to add an odious detail to the image he abhorred. His +mental state became similar to that of a man surprised at dawn by his mistress +in the bed of an ignoble prostitute, and unable to explain to himself how he +had allowed himself to be tempted the night before. He could find neither an +excuse nor a serious reason. Evidently, throughout one day, he had been the +victim of a sort of temporary madness, a physical perturbation, a disease. He +felt that he was cured, though still drunk with giddiness. +</p> + +<p> +In order to complete his recovery, he planted himself against the temple wall +and remained standing for a long time before the statue. The light of the moon +continued to descend through the square opening in the roof; Aphrodite was +resplendent; and, as the eyes were veiled in shade, he sought to meet their +glance. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The whole night passed thus. Then daylight came and the statue took on in +succession the rosy lividness of the dawn and the gilded reflection of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios had ceased to think. The ivory comb and the silver mirror which he +carried in his tunic had slipped from his memory. He abandoned himself +voluptuously to serene contemplation. +</p> + +<p> +Outside, a tempest of bird-songs twittered, whistled, sang in the garden. +Women’s voices were heard, talking and laughing at the foot of the walls. +The bustle of the early morning arose from the awakened earth. Demetrios +experienced nothing but feelings of bliss. +</p> + +<p> +The sun was already high, and the shadow of the roof had already shifted when +he heard a confused sound of light feet upon the outer flight of steps. +</p> + +<p> +It was doubtless a sacrifice to be offered to the goddess, a procession of +young women coming to carry out or utter vows before the statue, for the first +day of the Aphrodisiæ. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios resolved to fly. +</p> + +<p> +The sacred pedestal opened at the back, in a way known only to the priests and +the sculptor. It was there that the hierophant stood to dictate to a young girl +whose voice was clear and high the miraculous discourses which issued from the +statue on the third day of the fête. Thence one might reach the gardens. +Demetrios entered, and stopped before the bronze-plated openings which pierced +the massive stone. +</p> + +<p> +The two golden doors swung heavily open. Then the procession entered. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap12"></a>V<br/> +THE INVITATION</h3> + +<p> +Towards the middle of the night, Chrysis was awakened by three knocks at the +door. +</p> + +<p> +She had slept all day between the two Ephesians, and, but for the disorder of +their bed, they might have been taken for three sisters together. The +Galilæan’s thigh, bathed in perspiration, rested heavily upon Rhodis +nestling up against her hostess. Myrtocleia was asleep upon her breast, with +her face in her arm and her back uncovered. +</p> + +<p> +A sound of voices was heard in the entrance. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis disengaged herself with great care, stepping over her companions, and +getting down from the couch, held the door ajar. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it, Djala? Who is it?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Naukrates who wants to see you. I have told him you are not at +liberty.” +</p> + +<p> +“What nonsense! Certainly I am at liberty! Enter, Naukrates, I am in my +room.” +</p> + +<p> +And she went back to bed. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-034.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-034" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="p2"> +Naukrates remained for some time on the threshold, as if fearing to commit an +indiscretion. The two music-girls opened their sleep-laden eyes and made +efforts to tear themselves away from their dreams. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down,” said Chrysis. “There is no need for coquetry +between us. I know that you do not come for me. What do you want of me?” +</p> + +<p> +Naukrates was a philosopher of repute, who had been Bacchis’s lover for +more than twenty years, and did not deceive her, more from indolence than +fidelity. His grey hair was cut short, his beard pointed à la Demosthenes, and +his moustache cropped so as not to hide his lips. He wore a large white garment +made of simple wool with a plain stripe. +</p> + +<p> +“I am the bearer of an invitation,” he said. “Bacchis is +giving a dinner to-morrow, to be followed by a fête. We shall be seven, with +you. Don’t fail to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“A fête? A propos of what?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is to liberate her most beautiful slave, Aphrodisia. There will be +dancing-girls and flute-girls. I think that your two friends are engaged to be +there, and, as a matter of fact, they ought not to be here now. The rehearsal +is going on at Bacchis’s at this very moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! it is true,” cried Rhodis, “we had forgotten about it. +Get up, Myrto, we are very late.” +</p> + +<p> +But Chrysis protested. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not yet! how disagreeable of you to steal away my women. If I had +suspected that, I would not have let you in. Why, they are actually +ready!” +</p> + +<p> +“Our robes are not complicated,” said the child. “And we are +not beautiful enough to spend much time in dressing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall see you at the temple, of course?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to-morrow morning, we are going to offer doves. I am taking a +drachma out of your purse, Chrysis, otherwise we should have nothing to buy +them with. Good-bye till to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +They ran out. Naucrates considered for a short time the door that had just +closed upon them; then he folded his arms and, turning round to Chrysis, said +in a low voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Good. Your behaviour is charming.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“One woman is not enough for you. You must have two, now. You even pick +them up in the street. It is a noble example you are setting. But kindly tell +me what is to become of us men? You have all got little <i>amies</i>, and after +quitting their insatiable arms, you have just as much passion to offer as they +are willing to leave you. Do you think this can go on indefinitely? If things +continue like this, we shall be forced to apply to Bathyllos . . .” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! no!” cried Chrysis. “You will never get me to admit +that! I know well that people make the comparison, but it is entirely absurd; +and I am astonished that you, who pretend to be a thinker, do not understand +how ridiculous it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what difference do you see?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not a question of difference. There is no connection between the +one and the other: that’s clear!” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not say you are wrong. I want to know your reasons.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I can tell them you in two words: listen carefully. From the point +of view of love, woman is a perfect instrument. From head to foot she is +constructed, solely, marvellously, for love. <i>She alone knows how to love. +She alone knows how to be loved.</i> Consequently, if a couple of lovers is +composed of two women, it is perfect; if there is only one woman, it is only +half as good; if there is no woman at all, it is purely idiotic. That is all I +have to say.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are hard on Plato, my girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great men are not, any more than the gods, great under all +circumstances. Pallas understands nothing about painting; Plato did not know +how to love. Philosophers, poets, or rhetoricians, all who follow him, are as +worthless as their master, and however admirable they may be in their art, in +love they are devoid of knowledge. Believe me, Naukrates, I feel that I am +right.” +</p> + +<p> +The philosopher made a gesture. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-035.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-035" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“I can tell Bacchis that she may count on you?” he said.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“You are somewhat wanting in reverence,” he said; “but I do +not by any means think you are wrong. My indignation was not real. There is +something charming in the union of two young women, on condition that they both +consent to remain feminine, keep their hair long, uncover their breasts, and +refrain from arming themselves with adventitious instruments, as if they were +illogically envious of the gross sex for which they profess such a pretty +contempt. Yes, their liaison is remarkable because their caresses are entirely +superficial, and the quality of their sensual satisfaction is all the more +refined. They do not clasp one another in a violent embrace, they touch one +another lightly in order to taste of the supreme joy. Their wedding-night is +not defiled with blood. They are virgins, Chrysis. They are ignorant of the +brutal action; this constitutes their superiority over Bathyllos, who maintains +that he offers the equivalent, forgetting that you also, even in this sorry +respect, could enter into competition with him. Human love is to be +distinguished from the rut of animals only by two divine functions: the caress +and the kiss. Now these are the only two functions known to the women in +question. They have even brought them to perfection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent,” said Chrysis in astonishment. “But then what +have you to reproach me with?” +</p> + +<p> +“My grievance is that there are a hundred thousand of you. Already a +great number of women only derive perfect pleasure from their own sex. Soon you +will refuse to receive us altogether, even as a makeshift. It is from jealousy +that I blame you.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At this point Naukrates considered that the conversation had lasted long +enough, and he rose to his feet, simply. +</p> + +<p> +“I can tell Bacchis that she may count on you?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I will go,” answered Chrysis. +</p> + +<p> +The philosopher kissed her knees and slowly went out. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Then she joined her hands together and spoke aloud though she was alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Bacchis . . . Bacchis . . . he comes from her house and he does not +know! The mirror is still there, then! . . . Demetrios has forgotten me . . . +If he has hesitated the first day, I am lost, he will do nothing. But is it +possible that all is finished? Bacchis has other mirrors which she uses more +often. Doubtless she does not know yet. Gods! Gods! no means of having news, +and perhaps . . . Ah! Djala! Djala!” +</p> + +<p> +The slave-woman entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me my knuckle-bones,” said Chrysis. “I want to tell my +own fortune.” +</p> + +<p> +She tossed the four little bones into the air. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Oh . . . Oh . . . Djala, look! the Aphrodite throw!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +This was the name given to a very rare throw whereby all the knuckle-bones +presented a different face. The odds against this combination were exactly +thirty-five to one. It was the best throw in the game. +</p> + +<p> +Djala remarked coldly: +</p> + +<p> +“What did you ask for?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is true,” said Chrysis, disappointed. “I forgot to wish. +I certainly had something in my mind, but I said nothing. Does that count all +the same?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I think not; you must begin again.” +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis cast the bones again. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-036.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-036" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“The Midas throw, this time. What do you think of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“One cannot tell. Good or bad. It is a throw which is interpreted by the +next one. Now start with a single bone.” +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis consulted the game a third time; but as soon as the bone fell, she +stammered: +</p> + +<p> +“The . . . the Chian ace!” +</p> + +<p> +And she burst into sobs. +</p> + +<p> +Djala too was uneasy, and said nothing. Chrysis wept upon the bed, with her +hair lying in confusion about her head. At last she turned round angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you make me begin again? I am sure the first throw +counted.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you wished, yes. If not, no. You alone know,” said Djala. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides, the bones prove nothing. It is a Greek game. I don’t +believe in it. I shall try something else.” +</p> + +<p> +She dried her tears and crossed the room. She took a box of white counters from +a shelf, counted out twenty-two, then with the point of a pearl clasp, engraved +in succession the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They were the +arcana of the Cabbala she had learnt in Galilee. +</p> + +<p> +“I have confidence in this. This does not deceive”, she said. +“Lift up the skirt of your robe; I will use it as a bag.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She cast the twenty-two counters into the slave’s tunic, repeating +mentally: +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I wear Aphrodite’s necklace? Shall I wear Aphrodite’s +necklace? Shall I wear Aphrodite’s necklace?” +</p> + +<p> +And she drew the tenth arcanam, and this signified plainly: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-037.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-037" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>An old white-bearded priest preceded the youthful band.</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap13"></a>VI<br/> +CHRYSIS’S ROSE</h3> + +<p> +It was a procession, white and blue and yellow and pink and green. +</p> + +<p> +Thirty courtesans advanced, bearing baskets of flowers, snow-white doves with +red feet, veils of the most fragile azure, and precious ornaments. +</p> + +<p> +An old white-bearded priest, swathed to the head in stiff unbleached cloth, +preceded the youthful band and guided the line of bending worshippers to the +altar of stone. +</p> + +<p> +They sang, and their song languished like the sea, sighed like a southern +breeze, panted like an amorous mouth. The first two carried harps which they +rested upon the hollow of their left hand and which curved forward like sickles +of slender wood. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +One of them advanced and said: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Tryphera, O beloved Cypris, offers thee this blue veil which she has +woven herself, that thou mayest continue to deal gently with her.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Another: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Mousarion places at thy feet, O goddess of the beautiful coronal, these +wreaths of wall-flowers and this bouquet of drooping daffodils. She has borne +them in the orgie and has invoked thy name in the wild ecstasy of their +perfumes, O! victorious one! have respect to these spoils of love.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Yet another: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“As an offering to thee, golden Cytherea, Timo consecrates this spiral +bracelet. Mayest thou entwine vengeance round the throat of her thou wottest +of, even as this silver serpent entwined itself around her naked arms.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Myrtocleia and Rhodis advanced, holding one another by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Here are two doves of Smyrna, with wings white as caresses, with feet +red as kisses. +</p> + +<p> +“O! double goddess of Amathontis, accept them of our joined hands, if it +be true that the tender Adonis is not alone sufficient for thee and that +sometimes thy sleep is retarded by a yet sweeter embrace.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +A very young courtesan followed: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Aphrodite Peribasia, receive my virginity with this blood-stained tunic. +I am Pannychis of Pharos: I have dedicated myself to thee since last +night.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p> +Another: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Dorothea conjures thee, O charitable Epistrophia to remove far from her +spirit the desire that Eros has implanted in it, or else to inflame for her the +eyes of him that says her nay. She offers thee this branch of myrtle, because +it is the tree thou lovest best.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Another: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“On thine altar, O Paphia, Callistion places sixty silver drachmæ, the +balance of four minæ she received from Cleomenos. Give her a lover still more +generous if thou thinkest it a goodly offering.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +There remained before the altar only a blushing little child who had occupied +the last place in the procession. She held nothing in her hand but a little +crocus wreath, and the priest scorned her for the poverty of her offering. +</p> + +<p> +She said: +</p> + +<p> +“I am not rich enough to give you silver coins, O glittering Olympian +goddess. Besides, what could I give thee that thou lackest? Here are flowers, +yellow and green, pleated into a wreath for thy feet. And now . . .” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She unbuckled the clasps of her tunic; the tissue slipped down to the ground +and she stood revealed quite naked. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +. . . “I dedicate myself to thee body and soul, beloved goddess. I desire +to enter thy gardens and die a courtesan of the temple. I swear to desire +naught but love, I swear to love but to love, I renounce the world and I shut +myself up in thee.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Then the priest covered her with perfumes and enveloped her nudity in the veil +woven by Tryphera. They left the nave together by the door opening into the +gardens. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-038.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-038" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +The procession seemed at an end, and the other courtesans were about to retrace +their steps when another woman, a belated arrival, was seen upon the threshold. +She had nothing in her hand, and it seemed as if she also had naught but her +beauty to offer. Her hair appeared as two streams of gold, two deep waves full +of shade, which engulfed the ears and were twisted in seven rolls over the back +of the neck. The nose was delicate, with expressive nostrils which palpitated +at times over a thick painted mouth, the corners rounded and throbbing. The +flexible line of the body undulated at every step, animated by the rolling of +the hips or the oscillation of the breasts, under which bent the supple waist. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes were extraordinary: blue but dark and bright at the same time, +changing and glinting like moonstones, half closed under drooping lashes. Those +eyes looked, as sirens sing . . . +</p> + +<p> +The priest turned towards her, waiting for her to speak. +</p> + +<p> +She said: +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Chrysis, O Chryseia, supplicates thee. Accept the poor gifts she lays at +thy feet. Hear, love, and solace her that lives after thine example and for the +cult of thy name, and grant her her prayers.” +</p> + +<p> +She held out her hands gilded with rings, and bent low with her legs close +together. +</p> + +<p> +The vague canticle began again. The murmur of the harps rose up towards the +statue with the swirling fumes of crackling incense from the priest’s +censer. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-039.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-039" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“To thee, O Hetaira! . . . Chrysis consecrates her +necklace.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +She drew herself up slowly to her full height and offered a bronze mirror which +hung from her girdle. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“To thee, Astarte of the Night, that joinest hand to hand and lip to lip, +and whose symbol is like to the footprint of the deer upon the pale soil of +Syria, Chrysis consecrates her mirror. It has seen the haggard darkness of the +eyelids and the glitter of the eyes after love, the hair glued to the temples +by the sweat of thy battles, O! warrior-queen of ruthless hand, thou that +joinest body to body and mouth to mouth.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +The priest laid the mirror at the feet of the statue. Chrysis drew from her +golden hair a long comb of red copper, the planetary metal of the goddess. +</p> + +<p> +“To thee,” she said, “Anadyomene, born of the rosy dawn and +the sea-foam’s smile; to thee. O nudity shimmering with tremulous pearls, +that didst bind thy dripping hair with ribbons of green seaweed, Chrysis +consecrates her comb. It has plunged into her hair tossed by thy convulsions, O +furiously-panting mistress of Adonis, that furrowest the camber of the loins +and racks the stiffening knee!” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +She gave the comb to the old man and inclined her head to the right in order to +take off her emerald necklace. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“To thee”, she said, “O! Hetaira, that drivest away the +blushes of shamefaced maidens and promptest the lewd laugh, for whom we sell +the love that streams from our entrails, Chrysis consecrates her necklace. It +was given to her for her fee by a man whose name she knows not, and each +emerald is a kiss on which thou hast lived an instant.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-040.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-040" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +She made a last and more prolonged reverence, put the collar into the +priest’s hand and took a step as if to depart. +</p> + +<p> +The priest stayed her: +</p> + +<p> +“What do you ask of the goddess for these precious offerings?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, smiled, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“I ask nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she passed along the procession, stole a rose from a basket, and put it in +her mouth as she went out. +</p> + +<p> +One by one all the women followed. The door closed upon the empty temple. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios remained alone, concealed in the bronze pedestal. +</p> + +<p> +He had not lost a gesture or a word of all this scene, and when everything was +over, he remained motionless for a long time, harassed by new torments, +passionate, irresolute. +</p> + +<p> +He had thought himself quite cured of his madness of the night before, and had +believed that henceforth nothing could throw him a second time into the ardent +shadow of this strange woman. +</p> + +<p> +But he had counted without her. +</p> + +<p> +Women! O women! if you wish to be loved, show yourselves, return, present +yourselves! The emotion he had felt on her entrance was so entire and +overwhelming that it was out of the question to dream of struggling against it +by a violent effort of the will. Demetrios was bound like a barbarian slave to +a triumphal car. The idea of escape was an illusion. Without knowing it, and +quite naturally, she had made him her captive. +</p> + +<p> +He had seen her coming in the distance, for she wore the same yellow robe she +had had on the quay. She walked with low, supple steps and with languid +undulations of the hips. She had come straight to him, as if she had divined +him behind the stone. +</p> + +<p> +He realised from the first instant that he was ready once more to fall at her +feet. When she drew the mirror of polished bronze from her girdle, she looked +at herself in it for the last time before giving it to the priest, and the +brilliancy of her eyes became stupefying. When, in order to take her copper +comb, she laid her hand upon her hair and raised her bended arm, in conformity +with the gesture of the Graces, the beautiful line of her body revealed itself +under the tissue, and the sun illumined a tiny dew of brilliant sweat under her +armpit. Finally, when, in order to lift up and unbuckle her necklace of heavy +emeralds, she parted the pleated silk that veiled her double bosom down to the +sweet shade-hidden place that admits of nothing more than a bouquet being +slipped into it, Demetrios was seized with such a frenzied desire to put his +lips upon it and tear off the whole dress that . . . But Chrysis began to +speak. +</p> + +<p> +She spoke, and every one of her words was torture to him. She seemed wantonly +to insist and enlarge upon the prostitution of the vase of beauty that she was, +white as the statue itself, and full of overflowing gold streaming down in a +shower of hair. She told how her door was open to the lounging passer-by, how +her body was delivered over to the contemplation of the unworthy, how the task +of firing her cheeks with the flush of passion was committed to clumsy +children. She spoke of the venal fatigue of her eyes, of her lips hired by the +night, of her hair entrusted to brutal hands, of her divinity crucified. +</p> + +<p> +Even the exceeding facility of her access was a charm in Demetrios’s +eyes, though he was resolved to use it solely for his own benefit and to close +the door behind him. For it is profoundly true that a woman only reaches the +utmost limit of her seductiveness when she gives occasion for jealousy. +</p> + +<p> +And so, having given the goddess her green necklace in exchange for the one she +hoped for. Chrysis returned to the town carrying a human will in her mouth, +like the little stolen rose whose stalk she was nibbling. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios waited until he was left alone in the temple; then he issued forth +from his retreat. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at the statue apprehensively, expecting an infernal inward struggle. +But, being incapable of renewing a violent emotion at so short an interval of +time, he once more became astonishingly calm, without premature remorse. +</p> + +<p> +Negligently, tranquilly, he climbed close up to the statue, took the necklace +of true pearls from off Anadyomene’s neck, and slipped it into his +raiment. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap14"></a>VII<br/> +THE TALE OF THE ENCHANTED LYRE</h3> + +<p> +He walked very rapidly, hoping to overtake Chrysis in the road which led to the +town. He was afraid that if he delayed any further he might once again lose his +courage and his power of will. +</p> + +<p> +The white, hot road was so luminous that Demetrios closed his eyes as if the +midday sun was shining. He was walking in this way without looking in front of +him, when he narrowly escaped colliding with four black slaves who were +marching at the head of a fresh procession. Suddenly a musical little voice +said softly: +</p> + +<p> +“Well-beloved, how glad I am!” +</p> + +<p> +He raised his head: it was Queen Berenice leaning on her elbow in her litter. +</p> + +<p> +She gave the order: +</p> + +<p> +“Stop, porters!” +</p> + +<p> +And held out her arms to her lover. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios was greatly put out, but he could not refuse, and he got in sulkily. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Then Queen Berenice, beside herself with joy, crawled on her hands and knees to +the far end, and rolled in the cushions like a playful kitten. +</p> + +<p> +For this litter was a chamber carried by four and twenty slaves. It afforded +ample room for twelve women to recline in it at random, upon a thick blue +carpet strewn with stuffs and cushions; and its height was so great that one +could not touch the roof, even with the tip of one’s fan. Its length was +greater than its width, and it was closed in front and on the three sides by +very fine yellow curtains which scintillated with light. The back was of +cedar-wood, draped in a long veil of orange-coloured silk. At the top of this +splendid wall, the great golden hawk of Egypt hung grimly with its two wings +extended to their full extent. Lower down, carved in ivory and silver, the +antique symbol of Astarte gaped above a lighted lamp whose rays strove with the +daylight in elusive reflections. Underneath, lay Queen Berenice, fanned on +either side by two Persian slave women, waving two tufts of peacock’s +feathers. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She beckoned the young sculptor to her side with her eyes, and repeated: +</p> + +<p> +“Well-beloved, I am happy!” She stroked his cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“I was looking for you, Well-beloved. Where were you? I have not seen you +since the day before yesterday. If I had not met you I should soon have died of +grief. I was so unhappy all alone in this great litter. I have thrown all my +jewels over the bridge of Hermes, to make circles in the water. You see I have +neither rings nor necklace. I look like a little pauper at your feet.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She turned round to him and kissed him on the mouth. +</p> + +<p> +The two fan-bearers sat down upon their haunches a little further off, and when +Queen Berenice began to speak in a low tone, they put their fingers close to +their ears in order to make a semblance of not hearing. But Demetrios did not +answer, barely listened, remained like one bewildered. He saw of the young +queen nothing but the red smile of her mouth and the black cushion of her hair +which she always wore loosely bound in order to be able to rest her weary head +upon it. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-041.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-041" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>But Demetrios did not answer.</i> +</p> + +<p> +She said: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Well-beloved, I have wept during the night. My bed was cold. When I +awoke, I stretched my naked arms to my two sides and I did not find you, and my +hand nowhere met the hand I embrace to-day. I waited for you in the morning, +and you had not been since the full moon. I sent slaves into all the quarters +of the town and I had them executed when they came back without you. Where were +you? were you at the temple? you were not in the garden with those strange +women? No, I see by your eyes that you have not loved. Then what were you doing +far away from me? You were before the statue? Yes, I am sure you were there. +You love it more than me now. It is exactly like me, it has my eyes, my mouth, +my breasts, but it is the statue that you treasure. I am a poor deserted woman. +I weary you, and I see it well. You think of your marble and your ugly statues +as if I were not more beautiful than all of them, and, in addition, alive, +amorous, and tender, ready to grant you whatever you are willing to accept, +resigned whenever you refuse. But you want nothing. You have refused to be a +king, you have refused to be a god and be adored in a temple of your own. You +almost refuse to love me now.” +</p> + +<p> +She gathered her feet under her and leaned upon her hand. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I would do anything to see you at the palace, Well-beloved. If you do +not want me any longer, tell me who it is that attracts you, she shall be my +friend. The . . . the women of my court . . . are beautiful. I have a dozen +also who have been kept in ignorance of the very existence of men. They shall +all be your mistresses if you will come to see me after them. . . And I have +others with me who have had more lovers than the sacred courtesans and are +expert in love. Choose which you will, I have also a thousand foreign +slave-women; you shall have any of them you please. I will dress them like +myself, in yellow silk and silver. +</p> + +<p> +“But no, you are the most beautiful and the coldest of men. You love no +one, you suffer yourself to be loved, you lend yourself, out of charity, to +those who are captured by your eyes. You permit me to have my pleasure of you, +but as an animal allows itself to be milked, looking somewhere else all the +time. Ah! Gods! Ah! Gods! I shall end by being able to do without you, young +coxcomb that the whole town adores, and from whom no woman can draw tears. I +have other than women at the palace; I have sturdy Ethiopians with chests of +bronze and arms bulging out with muscles. In their embrace, I shall soon forget +your womanish legs and your pretty beard. The spectacle of their passion will +doubtless be a new one for me, and I shall give my amorousness a rest. But the +day I am certain that your eyes have ceased to trouble me by their absence, and +that I can replace your mouth, then I shall despatch you from the top of the +bridge of Hermes to join my necklace and my rings like a jewel I have worn too +long. Ah! what it is to be a queen!” +</p> + +<p> +She sat up and seemed as if waiting. But Demetrios remained impassive, and did +not move a muscle, as if he had not heard her. She resumed angrily: +</p> + +<p> +“You have not understood?” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned carelessly upon his elbow and said quietly and unmovedly: +</p> + +<p> +“I have thought of a tale. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Long ago, long before the conquest of Thrace by your father’s +ancestors, it was inhabited by wild beasts and a few timorous men. +</p> + +<p> +“The animals were very beautiful: there were lions tawny as the sun, +tigers striped like the evening, and bears black as night. +</p> + +<p> +“The men were little and flat-nosed, covered with old, worn skins, armed +with rude lances and bows without beauty. They shut themselves up in mountain +holes, behind huge stones which they moved with difficulty. They passed their +lives at the chase. There was blood in the forests. +</p> + +<p> +“The country was so forlorn that the gods had deserted it. When Artemis +left Olympus in the whiteness of the morning, she never took the path which +would have led her to the North. The wars which were waged there did not +disturb Ares. The absence of pipes and flutes repelled Apollo. The triple +Hecate alone shone in solitude, like the face of a Medusa upon a petrified +land. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, there came to live in that country a man of more favoured race, one +who did not dress in skin like the mountain savages. +</p> + +<p> +“He wore a long white robe which trailed behind him a little. He loved to +wander at night in the calm forest-glades by the light of the moon, holding in +his hand a little tortoise-shell in which were fixed two auroch-horns. Between +these horns were stretched three silver strings. +</p> + +<p> +“When his fingers touched the strings, delicious music passed over them, +much sweeter than the sound of fountains, or the murmur of the wind in the +trees, or the swaying of the barley. The first time he played, three sleepy +tigers awoke, so prodigiously charmed that they did him no harm, but approached +as near as they could and retired when he ceased. On the morrow there were many +more, and wolves also, and hyenas, and snakes poised upright on their tails. +</p> + +<p> +“After a very short time the animals came of their own accord, and begged +him to play to them. A bear would often come quite alone to him and go away +enchanted on hearing three marvellous chords. In return for his favours, the +wild beasts provided him with food and protected him against the men. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-042.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-042" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“But he tired of this tedious life. He became so certain of his genius, +and of the pleasure he afforded to the beasts, that he ceased to care to play +well. The animals were always satisfied, so long as it was he who played. Soon +he refused even to give them this satisfaction, and stopped playing altogether, +from indifference. The whole forest mourned, but for all that the +musician’s threshold did not lack savoury meats and fruits. They +continued to nourish him, and loved him all the more. The hearts of beasts are +so constructed. +</p> + +<p> +“Now one day, he was leaning against his open door, looking at the sunset +behind the motionless trees, when a lioness happened to pass by. He took a step +inside as if he feared tiresome solicitations. The lioness did not trouble +about him, and simply passed by. +</p> + +<p> +“Then he asked her in astonishment; ‘Why do you not beg me to +play?’ She answered that she cared nothing about it. He said to her: +‘Do you not know me?’ She answered: ‘You are Orpheus.’ +He answered: ‘And you don’t want to hear Me?’ She repeated, +‘No.’ ‘Oh!’ he cried, ‘oh! how I am to be pitied! +It is just for you that I should have liked to play. You are much more +beautiful than the others, and you must understand so much better. If you will +listen to me one little hour, I will give you everything you can dream +of.’ She answered: ‘Steal the fresh meats that belong to the men of +the plain. Assassinate the first person you meet. Take the victims they have +offered to your gods, and lay all at my feet.’ He thanked her for the +moderation of her demands, and did what she required. +</p> + +<p> +“For one hour he played before her: but afterwards he broke his lyre and +lived as if he were dead.” +</p> + +<p> +The queen sighed: +</p> + +<p> +“I never understand allegories. Explain it to me, Well-beloved. What does +it mean?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He rose. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I do not tell you this in order that you may understand. I have told you +a tale to calm you a little. It is late. Good-bye, Berenice.” +</p> + +<p> +She began to weep. +</p> + +<p> +“I was sure of it! I was sure of it!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He laid her like a child upon her soft bed of luxurious stuffs, imprinted a +smiling kiss upon her unhappy eyes, and tranquilly descended from the great +litter without stopping it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="book03"></a>BOOK III</h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap15"></a>I<br/> +THE ARRIVAL</h3> + +<p> +Bacchis had been a courtesan for more than twenty-five years. That is +equivalent to saying that she was nearly forty, and that her beauty had changed +its character several times. +</p> + +<p> +Her mother, who had long been the directress of the house and her general +adviser, had given her principles of conduct and economy which had enabled her +gradually to acquire a great fortune, which she was in a position to spend +freely, at an age when the magnificence of the bed supplies the place of +physical splendour. +</p> + +<p> +Thus it was that instead of buying adult slaves at the market at a high rate, +an expense which so many others considered necessary, and which ruined the +young courtesans, she had been content for ten years with a single negress, and +had provided for the future by making her beget a child every year, in order to +create for herself, for nothing, a numerous staff of domestics who should be a +source of riches later on. +</p> + +<p> +As she had chosen the father with care, seven very beautiful mulatto girls had +been born of her slave, and also three boys whom she had killed, because male +slaves give useless suspicions to jealous lovers. She had named the seven +daughters after the seven planets, and had chosen them diverse functions, in +harmony, as far as possible, with the names they bore. Heliope was the slave +for the day-time, Selene for the night, Aretias guarded the door, Aphrodisia +tended the bed, Hermione did the buying, and Cronomagira, the cooking. Finally, +Diomeda, the housekeeper, kept the books and superintended the staff. +</p> + +<p> +Aphrodisia was the favourite slave, the prettiest and best-loved. She often +shared her mistress’s bed at the request of lovers who took a fancy to +her. Consequently, she was dispensed from all servile work in order that her +arms might be kept delicate and her hands soft. By an exceptional favour, her +hair was not covered, so that she was often taken for a free woman, and that +very night she was to be freed in reality at the enormous price of thirty-five +minæ. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-043.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-043" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Bacchis’s seven slaves, all tall and admirably trained, were such a +source of pride to her that she never went out without having them in her +train, at the risk of leaving her house empty. Thanks to this imprudence, +Demetrios had been able to enter her house without difficulty; but when she +gave the festival to which Chrysis was invited she was still in ignorance of +the calamity. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +That evening Chrysis was the first arrival. +</p> + +<p> +She was dressed in a green robe worked with enormous rose-branches which +flowered over her breasts. +</p> + +<p> +Aretias opened the door for her without her having to knock, and, according to +the Greek custom, took her aside into a little room, untied her red shoes, and +gently washed her naked feet. Then, raising the robe, or parting it, according +to the place, she perfumed wherever there was necessity for it: for the guests +were spared every kind of trouble, even that of making their toilette before +going in to dinner. Then she offered a comb and pins to restore the lines of +her head-dress, together with cosmetics, both dry and moist, for her lips and +cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +At last, when Chrysis was ready: +</p> + +<p> +“Where are the <i>shades?”</i> she said to the slave. +</p> + +<p> +This was the term applied to all the diners, except to one alone, the guest par +excellence. The guest in honour of whom the dinner was given brought whomsoever +he pleased with him, and the “shades” had nothing to do but to +bring their bed-cushions and prove themselves people of breeding. +</p> + +<p> +Aretias answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Naukrates has invited Philodemos with his mistress, Faustina, whom he +has brought back from Italy. He has also invited Phrasilas and Timon, and your +friend Seso of Cuidos.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-044.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-044" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Aretias opened the door for her.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Seso entered at this precise moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Chrysis!” +</p> + +<p> +“My darling!” +</p> + +<p> +The two women embraced, and enlarged with many an exclamation upon the happy +chance which had brought them together. +</p> + +<p> +“I was afraid of being late,” said Seso. “That poor Archytas +has kept me. . .” +</p> + +<p> +“What, Archytas again?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is always the same thing. Whenever I go out to dine, he imagines that +my body is to be at everybody’s disposal in turn. Then he insists on +having his revenge beforehand, and that takes such a time! Ah! my dear, if he +knew me better! I am far from wanting to deceive my lovers. I have quite enough +of them as it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the baby that is coming? It does not show yet, however.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope not indeed. It is the third month. It is growing, the little +wretch. But it does not bother me yet. In six weeks I shall begin to dance. I +hope that will prove very unpleasant to it, and that it will disappear +quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” said Chrysis. “Don’t let your shape +get disfigured. I saw Philemation yesterday, our former little friend, who +lived three years at Boubaste with a grain merchant. Do you know the first +thing she said to me? ‘Ah! if you saw my breasts!’ and she had +tears in her eyes. I told her she was still pretty, but she repeated: ‘If +you saw my breasts! ah! ah! if you saw my breasts!’ weeping like a +Byblis. Then I saw that she was almost anxious to show them, and I asked to see +them. My dear, two empty bags! And you know what beauties she had. They were so +white that the points were invisible. Don’t spoil yours, my Seso. Leave +them fresh and firm as they are. A courtesan’s two breasts are worth more +than her necklace.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +During this conversation, the two women were making their toilette. Finally +they entered the banqueting-room together, where Bacchis was standing waiting, +with her waist encircled by breast-bands and her neck loaded with rows of gold +necklaces reaching up to the chin. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my pretty dears, what a good idea on the part of Naukrates to invite +you both together this evening!” +</p> + +<p> +“We congratulate ourselves on its being to your house that we are +invited,” answered Chrysis without appearing to understand the innuendo. +And, in order to say something venomous immediately, she added: +</p> + +<p> +“How is Doryclos?” +</p> + +<p> +Doryclos was a young and extremely rich lover who had just deserted Bacchis to +marry a Sicilian woman. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-045.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-045" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“Ah, my pretty dears, what a good idea . . .”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“I . . . I have turned him away,” said Bacchis, brazenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it possible?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; they say he is going to marry out of spite. But I expect him the +day after his marriage. He is madly in love with me.” +</p> + +<p> +While asking: “How is Doryclos?” Chrysis had thought: “Where +is your mirror?” But Bacchis did not look one in the face, and the only +expression to be read in her eyes was a vague embarrassment devoid of meaning. +Besides, there was time for Chrysis to elucidate this question, and, in spite +of her impatience, she knew how to wait with resignation for a more favourable +opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +She was about to continue the conversation, when she was prevented by the +arrival of Philodemos, Faustina, and Naukrates, which involved Bacchis in fresh +interchanges of politeness. They fell into ecstasies over the poet’s +embroidered garment and the diaphanous robe of his mistress. This young girl, +being unfamiliar with Alexandrian usage, had thought to Hellenize herself in +this manner, not knowing that a dress of the kind was inadmissible at a +festival where hired dancing-women, similarly unclothed, were to appear. +</p> + +<p> +Bacchis affected not to notice this error, and in a few amiable phrases +complimented Faustina on her heavy blue hair swimming in brilliant perfumes. +She wore her hair raised high above the neck in order to avoid staining her +light silken stuffs with myrrh. +</p> + +<p> +They were about to sit down to table when the seventh guest arrived; it was +Timon, a young man whose want of principle was a natural gift, but who had +discovered in the teaching of the philosophers of his time some superior +reasons for self-satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“I have brought someone with me,” he said laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Whom?” asked Bacchis. +</p> + +<p> +“A certain Demo, a girl from Mendes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Demo! What can you be thinking of, my dear fellow? She is a street girl. +She can be had for a fig.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good, good. We won’t insist on it.” said the young man. +“I have just made her acquaintance at the corner of the Canopic way. She +asked me to give her a dinner, and I brought her to you. If you don’t +want her. . .” +</p> + +<p> +“Timon is really extraordinary,” declared Bacchis. +</p> + +<p> +She called a slave: +</p> + +<p> +“Heliope, go and tell your sister that she will find a woman at the door +and that she is to drive her away with a stick. Off you go!” +</p> + +<p> +She turned and looked round: +</p> + +<p> +“Has not Phrasilas come yet?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap16"></a>II<br/> +THE DINNER</h3> + +<p> +At these words, a sickly little man, with a grey forehead, grey eyes, and a +small, grey beard, advanced with little steps and said smiling: +</p> + +<p> +“I was there.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Phrasilas was a polygraph of repute of whom it would have been difficult to say +exactly whether he was a philosopher, a grammarian, a historian, or a +mythologist. He undertook the most weighty studies with timid ardour and +ephemeral curiosity. Write a treatise he dare not. Construct a drama he could +not. His style had something hypocritical, finniking, and vain. For thinkers he +was a poet; for poets he was a sage: for society he was a great man. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Come! to table!” said Bacchis. And she lay down with her lover +upon the bed which stood at the head of the banqueting board. On her right, +reclined Philodemos and Faustina with Phrasilas. On Naukrates’s left, +Seso, then Chrysis and young Timon. Each one of the guests reclined in a +diagonal position, leaning upon silken cushions and wearing wreaths of flowers +upon their heads. A slave-girl brought the garlands of red roses and blue +lotus-flowers, then the banquet began. +</p> + +<p> +Timon felt that his freak had chilled the women. He therefore did not speak to +them at first, but, addressing Philodemos, said gravely: +</p> + +<p> +“They say you are the devoted friend of Cicero. What do you think of him, +Philodemos? Is he an enlightened philosopher or a mere compiler, without +discernment and without taste? for I have heard both opinions put +forward.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is precisely because I am his friend that I cannot answer your +question,” said Philodemos. “I know him too well; consequently I +know him ill. Ask Phrasilas, who, having read him but little, will judge him +without error.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what does Phrasilas think about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is an admirable writer,” said the little man. +</p> + +<p> +“In what sense?” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-046.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-046" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“In the sense that all writers, Timon, are admirable in something, like +all landscapes and all souls. I cannot prefer the spectacle of the sea itself +to the most monotonous plain. And so I am unable to classify in the order of my +sympathies a treatise by Cicero, an ode of Pindar, and a letter written by +Chrysis, even if I knew the style of our excellent little friend. When I put +down a book, I am content if I carry away in my memory a single line which has +given me food for thought. Hitherto, all the books I have opened have contained +that line: but no book has ever given me a second. Perhaps each of us has only +one thing to say in his life, and those who have attempted to speak at greater +length have done so because they were inflated by ambition. How much more do I +regret the irreparable silence of the millions of souls who have said +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not of your opinion,” said Naukrates, without lifting his +eyes. “The universe was created for the expression of three verities, and +to our misfortune, their certitude was proved five centuries before this +evening. Heraclitos has solved the riddle of the world; Parmenides has unmasked +the soul; Pythagoras has measured God; we have nothing left us but to hold our +tongues. I consider the chickpea very rash.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Seso lightly tapped the table with the handle of her fan. +</p> + +<p> +“Timon, my friend,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you propound questions without any interest either for me who am +ignorant of Latin, or for yourself who want to forget it? Do you fancy you can +dazzle Faustina with your foreign erudition? My poor fellow, I am not the woman +to be duped by your words. I undressed your great soul last night under my +bed-clothes, and I know the chickpea it concerns itself with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so?” said the young man, simply. +</p> + +<p> +But Phrasilas began a second little couplet, with a suave, ironical intonation. +</p> + +<p> +“Seso, when you think fit to give us the pleasure of judging Timon, +whether to applaud him, as he deserves, or to blame him, unjustly in my +opinion, remember that he is an invisible being and that the nature of his soul +is hidden from us. It has no existence in itself, or at least we cannot know +it; but it reflects the souls of those that mirror themselves in it, and +changes its aspect when it changes its place. Last night it resembled you +exactly; I am not astonished you were pleased with it. Just now it took the +image of Philodemos; that is why you have just said it belied itself. Now it +certainly does not belie itself, because it does not affirm itself. You see my +dear, that we ought to beware of rash judgments.” +</p> + +<p> +Timon shot a glance of irritation at Phrasilas, but he reserved his reply. +</p> + +<p> +“However that may be,” answered Seso, “there are four of us +courtesans here, and we intend to direct the conversation, in order that we may +not resemble pink children who only open their mouths to drink milk. Faustina, +you arrived the last, please begin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” said Naukrates. “Choose for us, Faustina. What +shall we talk about?” +</p> + +<p> +The young Italian woman turned her head, raised her eyes, blushed, and with an +undulation of her whole body, sighed: +</p> + +<p> +“Love.” +</p> + +<p> +“A very pretty subject,” said Seso, trying not to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +But no one took it up. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +The table was covered with wreaths, flowers, tankards, and jugs. Slaves brought +wicker baskets, containing bread as light as snow. On terra-cotta plates were +to be seen fat eels sprinkled with seasoning, wax-coloured alphests, and sacred +beauty-fish. +</p> + +<p> +There was also a pompilus, a purple fish which was supposed to have sprung from +the same foam as Aphrodite, bebradons, a grey mullet served up with calmars, +multi-coloured scorpenas. Some were brought in their little sauce-pans, in +order that they might be eaten foaming hot; fat tunnyfish, hot devil-fish with +tender tentacles, slices of lamprey; finally the belly of a white electric eel, +round as that of a beautiful woman. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the first course. The guests chose little tit-bits from each fish, and +left the rest to the slaves. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Love,” began Phrasilas, “is a word which has no meaning, or +rather too much, for it designates in turn two irreconcilable feelings: sensual +gratification and passion. I do not know in what sense Faustina takes +it.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-047.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-047" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“I like to have the sensual gratification.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“For my part,” interrupted Chrysis, “I like to have the +sensual gratification, and to leave passion to my lovers. We must speak both of +one and the other, or my interest will only be partial.” +</p> + +<p> +“Love,” murmured Philodemos, “is neither passion nor sensual +gratification. Love is something quite different.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” exclaimed Timon, “let us have +a banquet for once without philosophies. We are aware, Phrasilas, that you can +uphold with graceful eloquence and honeyed persuasiveness the superiority of +multiple pleasure over exclusive passion. We are aware also that after having +spoken for a full hour on such a thorny question, you would be ready, during +the next hour, with the same graceful eloquence and the same honeyed +persuasiveness, to defend the arguments of your adversary. I do not. . . . +.” +</p> + +<p> +“Allow me . . .” said Phrasilas. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not deny,” continued Timon, “the charm of this little +sport, or even the wit you bring to bear on it. I have my doubts as to its +difficulty, and consequently as to its interest. The <i>Banquet</i> you +published some time ago and incorporated in a story of lighter tone, and also +the reflexions you placed recently in the mouth of a mythical personage who +resembles your ideal, seemed new and rare in the reign of Ptolemy Auletes. But +for three years we have been living under the young Queen Berenice, and I know +not by what transformation the method of thought you had adopted, that of an +illustrious exegetical critic, harmonious and smiling, has suddenly grown a +century older under your pen, like the fashion of tight sleeves and yellow +hair. Excellent master, I deplore it, for if your stories lack fire, if your +experience of the female heart is not worth serious consideration, on the other +hand you are gifted with the comic spirit, and I am grateful to you for having +made me smile.” +</p> + +<p> +“Timon!” cried Bacchis in indignation. +</p> + +<p> +Phrasilas motioned to her to be silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Let him alone, my dear. Unlike most men, I retain only the eulogistic +portion of the judgments people pass upon me. Timon has given me his; others +will praise me on other points. It would be impossible to live in the midst of +unanimous approbation, and I regard the very variety of the sentiments I +provoke as a charming flower-bed in which I desire to breathe the scent of the +roses without tearing up the spurge.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis moved her lips in a way which showed clearly how slight was the value +she set on this man and his cleverness at terminating disputes. She turned +towards Timon, who shared her bed with her, and put her hand on his neck. +“What is the aim of life?” she asked him. +</p> + +<p> +It was the question she usually asked when she was at a loss what to say to a +philosopher; but this time she introduced a tender note into her voice, and +Timon fancied he detected a declaration of love. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-048.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-048" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Nevertheless he answered with a certain calm: +</p> + +<p> +“Each one has his own object in life, my Chrysis. There is no object +universal and common to all beings. For my part, I am the son of a banker whose +clientèle is composed of all the great courtesans of Egypt, and, my father +having amassed an enormous fortune by ingenious methods, I restore it +honourably to the victims of his favours by sleeping with them as often as the +strength the Gods have given me allows me to do so. I have decided that my +energy is only susceptible of performing one duty in life. I have chosen this +duty because it combines the exigencies of the rarest virtue with contrary +satisfactions that another ideal would support less easily.” +</p> + +<p> +During this speech he had slipped his right leg behind those of Chrysis, who +was lying on her side, and he tried to part the closed knees of the courtesan +as if to give a precise object to existence for that evening. But Chrysis did +not humour him. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +There was a silence for several minutes; then Seso began to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Timon, it is very annoying of you to interrupt at the very beginning the +only serious conversation of which the subject is capable of interesting us. At +any rate, let Naukretes speak, since you are so spiteful.” +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I say about love?” answered the Guest par excellence. +“It is the name given to sorrow to console those who suffer. There are +only two ways of being unhappy: either we desire what we have not, or we +possess what we desired. Love begins with the first, and comes to an end with +the second, in the most lamentable state, that is to say, as soon as it +succeeds. May the gods preserve us from love!” +</p> + +<p> +“But to possess unexpectedly,” said Philodemos, smiling; “is +not that true felicity?” +</p> + +<p> +“What a rarity!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, if one is careful. Listen to me, Naukrates: not to desire, +but to act in such a way that the opportunity offers itself; not to love, but +to cherish from a distance certain well-chosen women for whom one feels one +might have a taste in the long run, if chance and circumstances combined to +throw them into one’s arms; never to adorn a woman with qualities one +wants her to have, or with beauties of which she makes a mystery, but always to +take the insipid for granted in order to be astonished by the exquisite. Is not +this the best advice a sage can give to lovers? They only have lived happily +who, in the course of their dear existences, have been wise enough occasionally +to reserve for themselves the priceless purity of unforeseen joys.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +The second course was drawing to a close. There had been pheasants, attagas, a +magnificent blue and red porphyris, and a swan with all its feathers, the +cooking of which had been spread over forty-eight hours so as not to burn its +wings. Upon curved plates one saw phlexids, pelicans, a white peacock which +seemed to be sitting on a dozen and a half of roast and stuffed spermologues; +in a word, enough food to feed a hundred persons on the fragments left behind +after the choice pieces had been set aside. But all this was nothing compared +with the last dish. +</p> + +<p> +This chef-d’œuvre (such a work of art had not been seen for many a long +day at Alexandria) was a young pig, of which one half had been roasted and the +other boiled. It was impossible to distinguish the wound which had provoked its +death, or by what means its belly had been stuffed with everything it +contained. It was stuffed with round quails, chicken breasts, field-larks, +succulent sauces, and slices of vulva and mince-meat. The presence of all these +things in an animal apparently intact seemed inexplicable. +</p> + +<p> +The guests uttered an unanimous cry of admiration, and Faustina asked for the +recipe. Phrasilas smilingly delivered himself of sententious metaphorical +maxims; Philodemos improvised a distich in which the word +χοῖρος was taken alternately in both senses. +This made Seso, already drunk, laugh till the tears flowed, but Bacchis having +given the order to pour seven rare wines into seven cups for the use of each +guest, the conversation strayed. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Timon turned to Bacchis: +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” he asked, “should you have been so hard on the poor +girl I wanted to bring with me? She was a colleague, nevertheless. If I were in +your place, I should respect a poor courtesan more highly than a rich +matron.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are mad,” said Bacchis, without discussing the question. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have often noticed that those who, once in a way, venture to +utter striking truths, are taken for lunatics. Paradoxes find everybody +agreed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, my friend; ask your neighbours, where is the man of birth who +would choose a girl without jewels as his mistress.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have done it,” said Philodemos with simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +And the women despised him. +</p> + +<p> +“Last year,” he went on, “at the end of spring, +Cicero’s exile gave me good reason to fear for my own safety, and I took +a little journey. I retired lo the foot of the Alps, to a charming place named +Orobia, on the borders of the little lake Clisius. It was a simple village with +barely three hundred women, and one of them had become a courtesan in order to +protect the virtue of the others. Her house was to be recognised by a bouquet +of flowers hanging over the door, but she herself was indistinguishable from +her sisters or cousins. She was ignorant of the very existence of paint, +perfumes, cosmetics, transparent veils and curling-tongs. She did not know how +to preserve her beauty, and depilitated herself with pitchy resin just as one +pulls up weeds from a courtyard of white marble. One shudders at the thought +that she walked without boots, so that it was impossible to kiss her naked feet +as one kisses Faustina’s, softer than one’s hand. And yet I +discovered so many charms in her that beside her brown body I forgot Rome for a +whole month and blessed Tyre and Alexandria.” +</p> + +<p> +Naukrates nodded approval, took a draught of wine, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“The great event in love is the instant when nudity is revealed. +Courtesans should know this and spare us surprises. Now, it would seem on the +contrary that they devote all their efforts to disillusioning us. Is there +anything more painful than a mass of hair bearing traces of the curling irons? +Is there anything more disagreeable than painted cheeks that leave the marks of +the cosmetics on the mouth that kisses them! Is there anything more pitiable +than a pencilled eye with the charcoal half rubbed off? Strictly speaking, I +can understand chaste women using these illusory devices: every woman likes to +surround herself with a circle of male adorers, and the chaste ones amongst +them do not run the risk of familiarities which would unmask the secrets of +their physique. But that courtesans whose end and resource is the bed, should +venture to show themselves less beautiful in it than in the street is really +inconceivable.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know nothing about it, Naukrates,” said Chrysis with a smile. +“I know that one does not keep one lover out of twenty; but one does not +seduce one man out of five hundred, and before pleasing in the bed one must +please in the street. No one would notice us if we did not rouge our faces and +darken our eyes. The little peasant-girl Philodemos speaks of, attracted him +without difficulty because she was alone in her village. There are fifteen +thousand courtesans here. The competition is quite another thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know that pure beauty has no need of adornment, and +suffices for itself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Well, institute a competition between a pure beauty, as you say, +and Gnathène, who is old and plain. Dress the former in a tunic covered with +holes and set her in the last row at the theatre, and put the latter in her +star-embroidered robe in the places reserved by her slaves, and note their +prices at the end of the performance: the pure beauty will get eight obols and +Gnathène two minæ.” +</p> + +<p> +“Men are stupid,” Seso concluded. +</p> + +<p> +“No, simply lazy. They do not take the trouble to choose their +mistresses. The best-loved women are the most mendacious.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if,” suggested Phrasilas, “but if, on the one hand, I +should willingly applaud . . .” +</p> + +<p> +And he delivered himself, with great charm, of two set discourses entirely +devoid of interest. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +One by one, twelve dancing girls appeared, the two first playing the flute and +the last the timbrel, the others manipulating castanets. They arranged their +bandelets, rubbed their little sandals with white resin, and waited with +extended arms for the music to begin . . . A note . . . two notes . . . a +Lydian scale, and the twelve young girls shot forward to the accompaniment of a +light rhythm. +</p> + +<p> +Their dance was voluptuous, languorous, and without apparent order, although +all the figures had been settled beforehand. They confined their evolutions to +a small space: they intermingled like waves. Soon they formed in couples, and +without interrupting the step, unfastened their girdles and let their pink +tunics glide to the ground. An odour of naked women spread about the men, +dominating the perfume of the flowers and the steam of the gaping viands. They +threw themselves backwards with brusque movements, with their bellies tightly +drawn, and their arms over their eyes. Then they straightened themselves up +again and hollowed their loins, and touched one another, as they passed, with +the points of their dancing breasts. Timon’s hand received the fugitive +caress of a hot thigh. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-049.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-049" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Soon they formed in couples.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“What does our friend think about it?” said Phrasilas with his +piping voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel perfectly happy,” answered Timon. “I have never +before so clearly understood the supreme mission of women.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Prostitution, either with or without art.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is only an opinion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Phrasilas, once again, we know that nothing can be proved: worse still, +we know that nothing exists, and that even that is not certain. This being +conceded and in order to satisfy your celebrated mania, permit me to hold a +theory at once contestable and antiquated, as all of them are, but interesting +to me, who affirm it, and to the majority of men, who deny it. In the ease of +thought, originality is an ideal still more chimerical than certitude. You are +aware of that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me some Lesbian wine,” said Seso to the slave. “It is +stronger than the other.” +</p> + +<p> +“I maintain,” Timon went on, “that the married woman, by +devoting herself to a man who deceives her, by refusing herself to all others +(or by committing adultery very rarely, which comes to the same thing), by +giving birth to children who deform her before they see the light and +monopolise her when they are born,—I maintain that by living thus a woman +destroys her life without merit, and that on her wedding-day a young girl +concludes a dupe’s bargain.” +</p> + +<p> +“She acts in fancied obedience to a duty,” said Naukrates without +conviction. +</p> + +<p> +“A duty? and to whom? Is she not free to settle a question which concerns +nobody but herself? She is a woman, and in virtue of her sex is generally +insensible to the pleasures of the intellect; and not content with remaining a +stranger to one half of human joys, she excludes herself, by her marriage, from +the other aspect of pleasure. Thus a young girl can say to herself, at the age +when she is all passion: ‘I shall know my husband, and in addition, ten +lovers, perhaps twelve’, and believe that she will die without having +regretted anything? Three thousand women will not be enough for me on the day I +take my leave of life.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are ambitious,” said Chrysis. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-050.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-050" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“But with what incense, with what golden poesy,” exclaimed the +gentle Philodemos, “should we not praise to eternity the beneficent +courtesans! Thanks to them, we escape all the complicated precautions, the +jealousies, the stratagems, the throbbings of the heart that accompany +adultery. It is they who spare us hours of waiting in the rain, rickety +ladders, secret doors, interrupted meetings, and intercepted letters and +misunderstood signals. O! dear creatures, how I love you! With you there are no +sieges to be undertaken: for a few little coins you give us what another would +hardly be capable of granting us as a condescension, after three weeks of +coldness. For your enlightened souls, love is not a sacrifice, it is an equal +favour exchanged by two lovers, and so the sums we confide to you do not serve +to compensate you for your priceless caresses, but to pay at its proper price +for the multiple and charming luxury with which, by a supreme complaisance, you +pacify nightly our ravenous passions. As you are innumerable, we always find +amongst you both the dream of our lives and our fancy for the evening, all +women at a day’s notice, hair of every shade, eyes of every colour, lips +of every savour. There is no love under heaven so pure that you cannot feign +it, nor so revolting that you dare not propose it. You are tender to the +disreputable, consolatory to the afflicted, hospitable to all, and beautiful! +That is why I tell you, Chrysis, Bacchis, Seso, Faustina, that it is a just law +of the gods which decrees that courtesans shall be the eternal desire of lovers +and the eternal envy of virtuous spouses.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The dancing-girls had ceased dancing. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A young girl-acrobat had just entered, who juggled with daggers and walked on +her hands between the upright blades. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +As the attention of the guest was entirely absorbed by the lassie’s +dangerous sport, Timon looked at Chrysis, and gradually, without being seen, +manoevered so that he lay behind her at full length and touched her with his +feet and mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Chrysis in a low voice, “no, my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +But he had slipped his arm around her through the large slit in her robe and +was carefully caressing the reclining courtesan’s delicate, burning skin. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait,” she implored. “We shall be seen. Bacchis will be +angry.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-051.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-051" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>She let herself slip down from the bed.</i> +</p> + +<p> +A glance convinced the young man that he was not being watched. He ventured +upon a caress after which women rarely resist when once they have allowed +things to go so far. Then, in order to quench by a decisive argument the last +scruples of expiring modesty, he put his purse in her hand, which happened by +chance to be open. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis resisted no longer. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Meanwhile the young acrobat continued her subtle and dangerous tricks. She +walked upon her hands, with her skirt reversed, with her feet dangling in front +of her head, between sharp swords and long keen blades. The effort occasioned +by this critical posture, and perhaps also the fear of wounds, flooded her +cheeks with dark warm blood, which heightened still further the glitter of her +wide-open eyes. Her waist bent and straightened itself again. Her legs parted +like the arms of a dancing girl. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A violent respiration agitated her naked breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Enough,” said Chrysis briefly: “you have only excited me a +little. Let us have no more of it. Leave me. Leave me.” +</p> + +<p> +And at the moment when the two Ephesians rose, according to the tradition, to +play <i>The Fable of Hermaphroditus</i>, she let herself slip down from the bed +and went out feverishly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap17"></a>III<br/> +RHACOTIS</h3> + +<p> +Hardly had the door closed upon her than Chrysis pressed the inflamed centre of +her desire with her hand as one presses a sore spot to relieve shooting pains. +Then she leaned up against a column and twisted her fingers, groaning with +anguish. +</p> + +<p> +She would never know anything, then! +</p> + +<p> +As the hours passed, the improbability of her success increased, became +flagrant. Brusquely to ask for the mirror was a very risky method of +discovering the truth. In case it should have been taken, she would attract the +suspicions of all to herself, and would be lost. On the other hand, she had +left the banqueting hall out of sheer impatience. +</p> + +<p> +Timon’s clumsinesses had merely served to exasperate her dumb rage. A +trembling fit due to over-excitement compelled her to apply her whole body to +the freshness of the smooth, monstrous column. She felt an attack coming on and +was afraid. +</p> + +<p> +She called the slave Aretias: +</p> + +<p> +“Keep my jewels for me: I am going out.” +</p> + +<p> +And she descended the seven stone steps. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The night was hot. Not a breath of wind to fan the heavy beads of sweat upon +her forehead. The disappointment increased her discomfort and made her reel. +</p> + +<p> +She walked along down the street. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Bacchis’s house was situated at the extremity of Brouchion, on the limits +of the native town, an enormous slum inhabited by sailors and Egyptian women. +The fishermen, who slept upon their vessels anchored during the crippling heat +of the day, came to pass their nights there till the break of dawn, and in +return for a double intoxication left the harlots and the wine-sellers the +price of the evening’s catch. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis entered the narrow streets of this Alexandrian Suburra, full of sound, +movement and barbarous music. She cast furtive glances through open doors into +rooms reeking with lamp smoke, where naked couples lay enlaced together. At the +cross-roads, on low trestles erected in front of the houses, multi-coloured +mattresses creaked and tumbled in the shadow, under a double human load. +Chrysis walked along with embarrassment. A woman without a lover solicited her. +An old man caressed her breasts. A mother offered her her daughter. A gaping +peasant kissed the back of her neck. She fled, in a sort of hot terror. +</p> + +<p> +This foreign town within the Greek town was, for Chrysis, full of night and +dangers. She was ill acquainted with the strange labyrinth, the intricacy of +the streets, the secrets of certain houses. When, at rare intervals, she +ventured to set foot in it, she always followed the same direct road towards a +little red door; and there she forgot her usual lovers in the indefatigable +arms of a young ass-driver with strong muscles, whom she had the joy of paying +in her turn. +</p> + +<p> +But this evening, she felt even without turning her head that she was being +followed by a double footstep. +</p> + +<p> +She increased her pace. The double footstep did likewise. She began to run; the +footsteps behind her ran also; then beside herself with terror, she took +another alley, and then another in the opposite direction, and then a long +street which stretched away in an unknown direction. +</p> + +<p> +With dry throat and swollen temples, but sustained by Bacchis’s wine, she +pursued her flight, turned from right to left, pale, panic-stricken. +</p> + +<p> +Finally, a wall blocked farther progress: she was in a blind alley. She tried +hastily to double, but two sailors with brown hands barred the narrow passage. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going to, my little wisp of gold?” said one of them +laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me pass.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh? you are lost, young lady, you don’t know Rhacotis well, eh? We +are going to show you the town.” +</p> + +<p> +And they both took her by the waist. She shouted, and struggled, struck out +with her fist, but the second sailor seized both her hands in his left hand and +simply said: +</p> + +<p> +“A little calm, please. You know that the Greeks are not loved here: +nobody will come to your assistance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not Greek! +</p> + +<p> +“You lie, you have a white skin and a straight nose. Unless you want the +stick, submit quietly.” +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis looked at the speaker, and suddenly fell on his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“I love you, I will follow you,” she said. “You will follow +both of us. My friend shall have his share. Walk with us: it will not be +dull.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Where were they taking her to? She had not the least idea, but this second +sailor’s very rudeness, his brutish head pleased her. She considered him +with the imperturbable glance that young bitches have in the presence of meat. +She bent her body towards him, to touch him as she walked. +</p> + +<p> +With rapid steps they traversed strange quarters, without life, without lights. +Chrysis could not understand how they threaded their way through this nocturnal +maze out of which she never could have got alone on account of the curious +intricacy of the streets. The closed doors, the deserted windows, the +motionless shadows terrified her. Above her head, between the houses, that +almost met, ran a pale ribbon of sky, flooded with moonlight. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Finally, they entered life once more. At a turning of the street, suddenly, +eight, ten, eleven lights appeared, illuminated doorways occupied by Nabatæan +women squatting between two red lamps which cast a gleam from below upon their +heads hooded with gold. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-052.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-052" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>She shouted and struggled.</i> +</p> + +<p> +In the distance, they heard first a swelling murmur, and then a confused roar +of chariots, tumbling bales, asses’ footsteps, and human voices. It was +the square of Rhacotis where, during the Alexandrian summer, all the provisions +for nine hundred thousand mouths a day were collected and stacked up. +</p> + +<p> +They passed the houses of the square, between green piles, vegetables, lotus +roots, smooth beans, baskets of olives. Chrysis took a handful of mulberries +out of a violet heap, and ate them without stopping. Finally, they arrived +before a low door and the sailors entered with her for whom had been stolen the +True Pearls of Anadyomene. +</p> + +<p> +There was an immense hall there. Five hundred men of the people sat waiting for +the day, drinking cups of yellow beer, eating figs, lentils, sesame cakes, +olyra bread. In their midst, swarmed a herd of yelping women, a whole field of +black hair and multicoloured flowers in an atmosphere of fire. They were poor +homeless girls who were the property of all. They came there to beg for scraps, +bare-footed, bare-breasted, with a scanty red or blue rag tied round their +bellies, carrying, for the most part, a tattered infant on their left arm. +There were also dancing-girls, six Egyptians on a dais, with an orchestra of +three musicians, the first two of whom smote ox-hide timbrels with drum-sticks, +whilst the third wielded a great sistrum of sonorous brass. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! myxaira sweets!” said Chrysis gleefully. +</p> + +<p> +And she bought two sous’ worth of the little girl who hawked them. +</p> + +<p> +But suddenly she swooned, overcome by the insupportable stink of this den, and +the sailors carried her out in their arms. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The fresh air brought her round a little. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are we going to?” she implored. “Let us be quick: I +can walk no more. You see that I don’t resist, I am nice to you. But let +us find a bed as soon as possible, otherwise I shall drop down in the +street.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap18"></a>IV<br/> +THE ORGIE AT BACCHIS’S</h3> + +<p> +When she once more found herself at Bacchis’s door, she was penetrated by +the delicious sensation produced by the respite from desire and the silence of +the flesh. Her forehead no longer ached. Her mouth no longer twitched. She felt +nothing but an intermittent pain which seized her from time to time in the +small of the back. She mounted the steps and crossed the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as Chrysis had left the room the orgie had developed like a flame. +</p> + +<p> +Other friends entered, to whom the twelve dancing girls fell an easy prey. +Forty tattered wreaths strewed the ground with flowers. A leathern bottle of +Syracusan wine had burst in a corner, and its golden flood flowed under and +around the table. +</p> + +<p> +Philodemos was by the side of Faustina. +</p> + +<p> +He had torn her robe and was singing her the verses he had made in her honour. +</p> + +<p> +“O feet,” he said, “O sweet thighs, deep reins, round croup, +cloven fig, hips, shoulders, breasts, mobile neck; O all ye things that charm +me, warm hands, expert movements, active tongue! You are a Roman, you are a +Roman, you are too dark and you do not sing the poems of Sappho; but Perseus +was the lover of the Indian Andromeda.” [<a +name="chapIII_IVfn1text"></a><a href="#chapIII_IVfn1">1</a>] +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Seso lay flat upon her belly on the table in a pile of crushed +fruit. She was completely overpowered by the fumes of Egyptian wine, and as she +lay dipping the nipple of her right breast in a pond of snow-cooled wine, she +kept repeating with a comical pathos: +</p> + +<p> +“Drink, my little darling. You are thirsty. Drink, my little darling. +Drink. Drink. Drink.” +</p> + +<p> +Aphrodisia, still a slave, triumphed in the midst of a circle of men, and was +celebrating her last night of servitude by an extravagant debauch. In obedience +to the tradition of all Alexandrian orgies, she had begun by giving herself to +three lovers at once; but her task did not end there, and according to the law +of slaves who became courtesans, she was expected to prove by an incessant +zeal, lasting all night, that she had not usurped her new dignity. +</p> + +<p> +Standing alone behind a curtain, Naukrates and Phrasilas discussed courteously +the respective value of Arcesilas and Carneades. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the hall, Myrtocleia protected Rhodis against the over-zealous +enterprises of one of the guests. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-054.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-054" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +As soon as the two Ephesians saw Chrysis enter, they rose to meet her. +</p> + +<p> +“Come away, my Chryse. Theano stays: but we are going. +</p> + +<p> +“I stay too,” said the courtesan. And she lay down on her back upon +a great bed covered with roses. +</p> + +<p> +A din of voices and the clattering of money falling on the floor attracted her +attention. It was Theano who, in order to parody her sister, had bethought her +to caricature the “Fable of Danaë,” simulating a mad ecstasy +of voluptuous delight every time a golden coin penetrated her. The +child’s daring impiety amused all the guests, for they were no longer in +the days when the thunderbolt would have exterminated those who scoffed at the +Immortal One. But the sport degenerated, as might have been foreseen. A clumsy +fellow hurt the poor little thing, and she fell to weeping noisily. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was necessary to invent a new amusement to console her. Two dancing-girls +pushed into the centre of the room an immense silver-gilt bowl filled to the +top with wine. Then somebody seized Theano by the feet, and made her drink with +her head downwards. This convulsed her with a fit of laughter which she was +unable to master. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +This idea was such a success that everybody crowded around, and when the +flute-girl was set on her feet again, the sight of her little face purple with +congestion and dripping with wine, produced such a general hilarity that +Bacchis said to Selene: +</p> + +<p> +“A mirror! a mirror! let her see herself!” +</p> + +<p> +The slave brought a bronze mirror. “No, not that one. The mirror of +Rhodopis. She merits it.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-055.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-055" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis sprang up with a bound. The blood spurted to her cheeks, then retired +again, and she remained perfectly pale, with the beatings of her heart +battering her breast, and her eyes fixed on the door through which the slave +had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +That instant was to decide her whole life. Her last hope was either to vanish +or be realised. The fête continued all around her. +</p> + +<p> +An iris wreath, thrown from somewhere or other, fell upon her lips. A man broke +a little phial of perfume over her hair. It ran down too quickly and wetted her +shoulders. The splashes of wine from a full tankard into which somebody had +thrown a pomegranate spotted her silk tunic and penetrated to the skin. She +bore all the traces of the orgie magnificently. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The slave who had gone out did not return. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis remained stone-pale, motionless as a sculptured goddess. The rhythmic +and monotonous wail of a woman in travail of love not far away marked the +passage of time for her. It seemed to her that this woman had been moaning thus +since the night before. She could have twisted something, broken her fingers, +shouted. +</p> + +<p> +At last Selene came back, empty-handed. +</p> + +<p> +“The mirror?” asked Bacchis. +</p> + +<p> +“It . . . It has gone . . . it . . . has been . . . stolen,” +stammered the servant. +</p> + +<p> +Bacchis uttered a cry so piercing that all ceased speaking, and a frightful +silence brusquely interrupted the tumult. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Men and women crowded round her from all parts of the vast chamber, leaving a +little space in the centre which was occupied by the distracted Bacchis and the +kneeling slave. +</p> + +<p> +“What! What!” she shrieked. +</p> + +<p> +And as Selene did not answer, she seized her violently by the neck: +</p> + +<p> +“You have stolen it yourself! You have stolen it yourself! Answer, +answer! I will loosen your tongue with the whip, miserable little bitch!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Then a terrible thing happened. Beside herself with fear, the fear of +suffering, the fear of death, the most instant terror she had ever known, the +child exclaimed hurriedly: +</p> + +<p> +“It is Aphrodisia! It is not I! it is not I!” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sister!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” said the mulatto woman; “it is Aphrodisia who has +taken it.” +</p> + +<p> +And they dragged their sister, who had just fallen into a fainting fit, before +Bacchis. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="chapIII_IVfn1"></a> [<a href="#chapIII_IVfn1text">1</a>] Philodème AP. +V. 132. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap19"></a>V<br/> +THE CRUCIFIED ONE</h3> + +<p> +They all repeated together: +</p> + +<p> +“It is Aphrodisia who has taken it! Bitch! Bitch! Filthy thief!” +</p> + +<p> +Their hatred of the favourite sister was reinforced by their fear for +themselves. +</p> + +<p> +Aretias gave her a kick in the breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is it?” asked Bacchis. “Where have you put it?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has given it to her lover.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“An Opian sailor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is his ship?” +</p> + +<p> +“It sailed this evening for Rome. You will never see your mirror again. +Let us crucify the bitch, the bloody animal!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Gods! Gods!” sobbed Bacchis. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly her sorrow changed into a frenzy of rage. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-056.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-056" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Bacchis seized her by the hair.</i> +</p> + +<p> +Aphrodisia had come to herself again; but, paralysed by terror, and unable to +understand what was happening, she remained speechless and tearless. +</p> + +<p> +Bacchis seized her by the hair, dragged her over the soiled floor, through the +flowers and pools of wine, and cried: +</p> + +<p> +“The cross! the cross! bring the nails! bring the hammer!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Seso to her neighbour; “I have never seen that. +Let us follow them.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +All pressed forward to follow. And Chrysis, who alone knew the guilty one, and +was alone the cause of everything, Chrysis followed too. +</p> + +<p> +Bacchis went straight into the slaves’ chamber, a square apartment +furnished with three mattresses on which they slept in couples when the nights +were over. At the lower end, like an ever-present menace, stood a T-shaped +cross which had never yet been used. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of the confused murmur of the young men and women, four slaves +hoisted the martyr to the level of the branches of the cross. +</p> + +<p> +Not a sound had yet left her lips; but when she felt the touch of the cold +rough beam on her naked back, her long eyes dilated, and she was seized with a +convulsive fit of groaning which lasted till the end. +</p> + +<p> +They put her astride on a wooden peg driven into the centre of the upright. +This served to support the body and obviate the tearing of the hands. +</p> + +<p> +Then they opened out her arms. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis looked on and held her peace. What could she say? She could only have +exonerated the slave by incriminating Demetrios, who was beyond reach of all +attack, and who would have taken a cruel revenge. Besides, a slave was a source +of riches, and it was a satisfaction to the long-standing grudge that Chrysis +bore her enemy to think that she was destroying in this way with her own hands +the value of three thousand drachmæ as completely as if she had thrown the +money into the Eunostis. And then, was the life of a minion worth troubling +about? +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Heliope handed Bacchis the first nail and the hammer, and the torture began. +Intoxication, rancour, anger, all the passions together, even the instinct of +cruelty which lurks in a woman’s heart, animated the soul of Bacchis at +the moment she struck, and she uttered a shriek almost as piercing as that of +Aphrodisia when the nail bent in the open palm. +</p> + +<p> +She nailed up the second hand. She nailed the feet one upon the other. Then, +excited by the sight of the blood spurting from the three wounds, she cried: +</p> + +<p> +“It is not enough! Thief! Sow! Sailors’ strumpet!” +</p> + +<p> +She took the long pins out of her hair, and dug them violently into the flesh +of her breasts, the belly, and the thighs. When she had no more weapons left in +her hands, she smacked the poor wretch and spat upon her. +</p> + +<p> +She contemplated this work of vengeance for some time; then she returned into +the banqueting-hall with all the guests. +</p> + +<p> +Phrasilas and Timon alone did not follow her. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +After a moment’s silent meditation, Phrasilas coughed slightly, put his +right hand into his left, raised his head, lifted his eyebrows, and drew near +the crucified one, whose body shook with a continuous, horrible trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“Although I am,” he said to her, “in divers circumstances, +opposed to absolute theories so-called, yet I cannot blind myself to the fact +that, in the conjuncture which has overtaken you, you would gain by being +familiarised in more solid fashion with the maxims of the Stoics. Zeno, who +does not seem to have had a spirit completely exempt from error, has left us +several sophistries of no great general import, but, at the same time, you +might derive profit from them to the particular end of calming your last +moments. +</p> + +<p> +“Pain”, he said, “is a word void of meaning, since our will +transcends the imperfections of our perishable body. It is true that Zeno died +at the age of ninety-eight, without ever having had, according to his +biographers, any illness, however slight; but this circumstance cannot be used +as an argument against him, for from the mere fact that he succeeded in +maintaining an unimpaired good health, we cannot logically conclude that he +would have been lacking in force of character had he fallen ill. Besides, it +would be an abuse to compel the philosophers to practise in their persons the +rules of conduct they profess, and to cultivate without respite the virtues +they deem superior. In a word, not to prolong inordinately a discourse which +might last longer than yourself, endeavour to lift up your soul, my dear, as +far as possible, above your physical sufferings. However melancholy, however +cruel they may appear to you, I beg you to believe that I have a real part in +them. They are drawing to a close: be patient, forget. Between the various +doctrines which attribute immortality to us, this is the moment for choosing +the one most fitted to alleviate your regrets at having to disappear. If these +doctrines are true, you will have lightened the bitter agony of the passage. If +they lie, what does it matter? You will never know that you were +mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +Having spoken thus, Phrasilas re-adjusted the folds of his garment over his +shoulder and vanished with an unsteady gait. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Timon remained alone in the room with the woman hanging in the throes of death +upon the cross. +</p> + +<p> +The memory of a night passed on the poor wretch’s breast haunted his +brain, and confounded itself with the atrocious vision of the imminent +rottenness into which this splendid body that had burned in his arms was about +to fall. +</p> + +<p> +He pressed his hand over his eyes in order not to see her torture, but he +<i>heard</i> the unceasing trembling of the body upon the cross. +</p> + +<p> +Finally, he looked. Great threads of blood formed a network on the skin from +the pins in the breast down to the curled-up heels. The head turned +perpetually. All the hair, matted with blood, sweat, and perfume, hung over the +left side. +</p> + +<p> +“Aphrodisia! do you hear me! do you recognise me? It is I, Timon; +Timon.” +</p> + +<p> +Her glance, almost blind, rested on him for a second. But the head turned +incessantly. The body trembled continually. +</p> + +<p> +Softly, as if he feared the sound of his foot-steps would hurt her, the young +man advanced to the foot of the cross. He stretched out his arms, he carefully +took her strengthless and ever-turning head between his two fraternal hands, +piously smoothed away her tear-drenched hair from her cheeks, and imprinted on +the hot lips a kiss of infinite tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +Aphrodisia closed her eyes. Did she recognise him who had charmed her horrible +end by this impulse of affectionate pity? An inexpressible smile distended her +blue eyelids, and with a sigh she gave up the ghost. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-057.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-057" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>A kiss of infinite tenderness.</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap20"></a>VI<br/> +ENTHUSIASM</h3> + +<p> +So, the deed was accomplished. Chrysis had the proof. +</p> + +<p> +If Demetrios had brought himself to commit the first crime, the two others had +probably followed without delay. A man of his rank would consider murder, and +even sacrilege, as less dishonourable than theft. +</p> + +<p> +He had obeyed, consequently he was a captive. This man, free, impassive, and +cold as he was, had submitted to the yoke of slavery like the others, and his +mistress, his tamer, it was she, Chrysis, Sarah of Gennesaret. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! to think of it, to repeat it, to say it out aloud, alone! +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis rushed out of the noisy house and ran quickly, straight before her, +with the fresh breeze of morning bathing her face. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She went as far as the Agora along the road which led to the sea, at the end of +which the masts of eight hundred ships stood huddled together like gigantic +stalks of corn. Then she turned to the right, before the immense avenue of the +Dromos where the house of Demetrios was. A thrill of pride came over her when +she passed in front of the windows of her future lover; but she did not commit +the indiscretion of attempting to see him the first. She followed the long road +as far as the Canopic Gate, and cast herself upon the ground between two aloes. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He had done it. He had done everything for her, certainly more than any lover +had ever done for any woman. She repeated it unceasingly and reiterated her +triumph again and again. Demetrios, the Well-Beloved, the impossible and +hopeless dream of so many feminine hearts, had run every sort of peril for her, +every kind of shame, of willing remorse. He had even abjured the ideal of his +thought, he had despoiled his handiwork of the miraculous necklace, and that +day which was just dawning would see the lover of the goddess at the feet of +his new idol. +</p> + +<p> +“Take me! take me!” she cried. She adored him now. She called out +for him. She longed for him. The three crimes became metamorphosed in her mind +into three heroic actions, in return for which she would never be able to give +enough affection, enough passion. With what an incomparable flame would their +love burn—this unique love of two beings equally young, equally +beautiful, equally loved by one another and united for ever after the conquest +of so many obstacles. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-058.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-058" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>She extended her arms.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +They would go away together, they would set sail for mysterious countries, for +Amaronthis, for Epidauros, or even for that unknown Rome which was the second +town in the world after immense Alexandria, and which had undertaken the +subjugation of the earth. What would they not do, wherever they might be? What +joy would be a stranger to them, what human felicity would not envy them +theirs, and pale before their enchanted passage? +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis rose from the ground, dazzled, She extended her arms, set back her +shoulders, threw out her bust. A sensation of languor and mounting joy +stiffened her firm breasts. She set out for home . . . +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On opening the door of her chamber, she started with surprise to see that +nothing had changed under her roof since the night before. The little objects +on her toilet-table, on the stands, on the shelves, appeared to her an +inadequate setting for her new life. +</p> + +<p> +She broke some that reminded her too directly of bygone useless lovers, for +whom she now conceived a sudden hatred. If she spared others, it was not that +she valued them more, but she was afraid of dismantling her chamber in case +Demetrios had formed the design of passing the night there. +</p> + +<p> +She undressed slowly. Vestiges of the orgie fell from her tunic, crumbs of +cake, hairs, rose-leaves. +</p> + +<p> +When her waist was relieved of the pressure of her girdle, she smoothed the +skin and plunged her fingers into her hair to lighten its weight. +</p> + +<p> +But before going to bed a longing came over her to rest an instant on the rugs +of the terrace, where the coolness of the air was so delicious. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She mounted. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The sun had barely risen. It lay on the horizon line like a vast swollen +orange. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A great gnarled palm-tree stood with its thicket of green leaves hanging over +the balustrade. Chrysis ensconced her tingling nudity in its shade, and +shivered, with her breasts in her hands. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Her eyes wandered over the gradually whitening town. The violet vapours of the +dawn rose from the silent streets and disappeared in the pellucid air. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-059.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-059" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Suddenly, an idea burst upon her mind, grew upon her, took possession of her. +Demetrios, who had already done so much, why should he not kill the Queen, +Demetrios who might be the king? +</p> + +<p> +And then? +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +And then, that monumental ocean of houses, palaces, temples, porticoes, +colonnades, that swam before her eyes from the Necropolis of the west to the +gardens of the Goddess: Brouchion, the Egyptian town, in front of which the +gleaming Paneion reared itself aloft like a mountain acropolis; the Great +Temple of Serapis, from the facade of which arose, horn-like, two long pink +obelisks; the Great Temple of Aphrodite engirded by the rustling of three +hundred thousand palm-trees and countless waves; the Temple of Persephone and +the Temple of Arsinoë, the two sanctuaries of Poseidon, the three towers of +Isis Lochias, and the theatre, and the Hippodrome, and the Stadium where +Pittacos had run in competition with Nicosthenes, and the tomb of Stratonice, +and the tomb of the god Alexander—Alexandria! Alexandria! the sea, the +men, the colossal marble Pharos whose mirror saved men from the sea! +Alexandria! the city of the eleven Ptolemies, Physcon, Philometor, Epiphanes, +Philadelphos; Alexandria, the climax of all dreams, the diadem of all the +glories conquered during three thousand years in Memphis, Thebes, Athens, +Corinth, by the chisel, the pen, the compass, and the sword! Still farther +away, the Delta, cloven by the seven tongues of Nile, Saïs, Boubastis, +Heliopolis; then, travelling towards the South, that ribbon of fertile land, +the Heptanomos with the long array of its twelve hundred riverside temples +dedicated to all the gods, and further still, Thebaïs. Diospolis, the Isle +of Elephants, the impassable cataracts, the Isle of Argo . . . Meroë . . . +the unknown; and even, if it was permitted to believe the traditions of the +Egyptians, the country of the fabulous lakes, whence escapes the antique Nile, +lakes so vast that one loses sight of the horizon when crossing their purple +flood, and perched so high upon the mountains that the stars are reflected in +them like golden apples.—all this, all, should be the kingdom, the +domain, the possession of Chrysis, the courtesan. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She almost choked, and threw her arms on high as if she thought to touch the +heavens. +</p> + +<p> +And simultaneously, she watched on her left the slow flight towards the open +sea of a great bird with black wings. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap21"></a>VII<br/> +CLEOPATRA</h3> + +<p> +Queen Berenice had a young sister called Cleopatra. Many other Egyptian +princesses had borne the same name, but this girl became in later years the +great Cleopatra who destroyed her kingdom, and killed herself, as one might +say, on the corpse of her dead empire. +</p> + +<p> +About this time, she was twelve years of age, and no one could tell what her +beauty would be. Her body, tall and thin, seemed out of place in a family where +all the females were plump. She was ripening like some badly-grafted, bastard +fruit of foreign, obscure origin. Some of her lineaments were hard and bold, as +seen in Macedonia; other traits appeared as if inherited from the depths of +Nubia, where womankind is tender and swarthy, for her mother had been a female +of inferior race whose pedigree was doubtful. It was surprising to see +Cleopatra’s lips, almost thick, under an aquiline nose of rather delicate +shape. Her young breasts, very round, small, and widely separated, were crowned +with a swelling aureola, thereby showing she was a daughter of the Nile. +</p> + +<p> +The little Princess lived in a spacious room, opening on to the vast sea and +joined to the Queen’s apartment by a vestibule under a colonnade. +</p> + +<p> +Cleopatra passed the hours of the night on a bed of bluish silk, where the skin +of her young limbs, already of a dark hue, took on still deeper tints. +</p> + +<p> +It came to pass that in the night when—far from her and her +thoughts—the events already chronicled in these pages look place, +Cleopatra rose long before dawn. She had slept but little and badly, being +anxious about her troubles of puberty which she had just experienced, and +disturbed by the extreme heat of the atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +Without waking the woman who watched over her slumbers, she softly put her feet +to the ground, slipped her golden bangles round her ankles, girded her little +brown belly with a row of enormous pearls, and thus accoutred, left her +chamber. +</p> + +<p> +In the monumental corridor, armed guards were also sound asleep, except one who +stood sentinel at the door of the Queen’s room. +</p> + +<p> +He fell on his knees and whispered in dire terror, as if he had never before +found himself thus struggling in such a conflict of duty and danger: +</p> + +<p> +“Princess Cleopatra, I crave thy pardon! I cannot let thee pass!” +</p> + +<p> +The lass drew herself up to her full height, knitted her brows violently, and +dealt a dull blow on the soldier’s forehead with her clenched fist. +</p> + +<p> +“As for thee,” she said in smothered accents, but with ferocious +meaning, “I’ll raise a cry of rape, and have thee quartered!” +</p> + +<p> +Then, in silence, she entered the Queens chamber. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Berenice was asleep, her head pillowed on her arm, her hand hanging down. +</p> + +<p> +Over the great crimson couch, a hanging lamp mingled its feeble glare with that +of the moon, reflected by the whiteness of the walls. The vague, luminous +outlines of the slumbering woman’s supple nudity were thus enwrapped in +misty shadow, between these two contrasting lights. +</p> + +<p> +Slender Cleopatra sat straight up on the edge of the bed. She took her +sister’s face in her two little hands, waking Berenice up by touch and +speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Why is your lover not with you?” asked Cleopatra. +</p> + +<p> +Berenice, startled, opened her lovely eyes. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-060.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-060" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“Cleopatra! What are you doing here? What do you want of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why is your lover not with you?” repeated the girl, insisting. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he not with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not! You know that well enough!” +</p> + +<p> +“True! He’s never here. Oh, Cleopatra, how cruel of you to wake me, +to tell me so!” +</p> + +<p> +“But why is he always away?” +</p> + +<p> +“I see him when he chooses,” sighed Berenice, in grief. +“During the day— for a minute or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you not see him yesterday?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I met him by the roadside. I was in my litter. He got in with +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“As far as the Palace?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—not quite. He was still in sight nearly as far as the +gates.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you tell him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I was furious! I said most wicked things. Yes, darling, I +did!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed?” rejoined the young girl, ironically. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps too wicked, for he never answered me. Just when I felt myself +scarlet with rage, he recited a long fable for my benefit. As I did not quite +understand it, I did not know how to reply. He slipped out of the litter, just +as I thought of keeping him by my side. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not have called him back?” +</p> + +<p> +“I feared to displease him.” +</p> + +<p> +Cleopatra, swelling with indignation, took her sister by the shoulders, and +looking her full in the face, spoke thus to her: +</p> + +<p> +“How now! You are the Queen, the people’s goddess! Half the world +belongs to you; all that Rome does not rule is yours; you reign over the Nile +and the entire ocean. You even reign over the heavens, since you are nearer to +the ear of the Gods than anyone, and yet you cannot reign over the man you +love!” +</p> + +<p> +“Reign . . . reign!” said Berenice, hanging her head. +“That’s easy to say, but, look you, one does not reign over a lover +as if dominating a slave.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why not, pray?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because . . . But you cannot understand! To love, is to prefer the +happiness of another to that which we formerly selfishly desired before meeting +the loved one. Should Demetrios be content, so likewise would I be, even +weeping and far from his side. I wish for no delight that is not his, and all I +bestow on him gives me great joy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know not how to love,” said the young lass. +</p> + +<p> +Berenice smiled sadly, then she stretched her two arms stiffly on either side +of her couch, as she jutted out her breasts and arched her loins. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, little presumptuous virgin!” she sighed. “When for the +first time you’ll swoon in loving conjunction, then only will you +understand why one is never the queen of a man who causes you thus to lose your +senses.” +</p> + +<p> +“A woman can always be a queen should she so will it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she has no longer any power of will.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have! Why should you not be the same? You are my elder!” +</p> + +<p> +Berenice smiled again. +</p> + +<p> +“My little girl, upon whom do you exercise your strength of will? On +which one of your dolls?” +</p> + +<p> +“On my lover!” said Cleopatra. +</p> + +<p> +Without allowing her sister time to find words to express her stupefaction, the +damsel went on talking with growing vivacity. +</p> + +<p> +“I have got a lover! Yes, I’ve a lover! Why should I not have a +sweetheart like everybody else, the same as you and my mother, and my aunt, and +the lowest woman in Egypt? A lover? Of a surety! And why not, prithee, seeing +that for six months past, I am a woman, and you have not yet found me a +husband? Aye, Berenice, I have a lover. I’m no longer a little girl. I +know now! I know! Be silent—say nothing, for I know more than you. I, +too, have clasped my arms till they were fit to snap, over the naked back of a +man who thought he was my master. I, too, have crooked my toes in the empty +air, feeling as if life was leaving me, and I’ve died a hundred times +over in the same way as you have swooned, but immediately afterwards, Berenice, +I was on my feet, upstanding, erect! Say naught to me, for I am ashamed to +claim you as my Sovereign—you, who are someone’s slave!” +</p> + +<p> +Little Cleopatra drew herself up to her full height, endeavouring to appear as +tall as possible. She took her head in her hands, like an Asiatic queen trying +on a tiara. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-061.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-061" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Seated on the bed, her feet tucked under her, the elder sister listened, and +then knelt, so she could come near to the young lass and place her hands on +Cleopatra’s sloping, slender shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’ve a lover?” Berenice now spoke timidly, almost +respectfully. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t believe me, you can look,” replied the girl, +curtly. +</p> + +<p> +“When do you see him?” sighed Berenice. +</p> + +<p> +“Three times a day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want me to tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“How comes it that you do not know this?” interrogated Cleopatra in +her turn. +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing, not even what goes on at the Palace. Demetrios is the +only subject of conversation I care about. I have not watched over you as I +should have done, my child. All this is my fault.” +</p> + +<p> +“Watch me if you like. When I can no longer have my own way, I’ll +kill myself. Therefore, little care I, whatever happens!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are free,” replied Berenice, shaking her head. “At any +rate, it is too late to restrain you. But, answer me, darling. You have a lover +and—you manage to keep him to yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have my way of holding him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who taught you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I taught myself all alone. Such knowledge comes instinctively or never. +When I was but six years old, I knew how I meant to hold my sweetheart later on +in life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you not tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Follow me.” +</p> + +<p> +Berenice rose slowly, put on a tunic and a mantle, shook out her heavy tresses, +adhering together by the sweat of the bed, and both the sisters left the room. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-062.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-062" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Cleopatra crossed a courtyard.</i> +</p> + +<p> +First went the youngest, straight along the vestibule, back to her bed. Under +the mattress of fresh, dry byssos, she took a newly-cut key. +</p> + +<p> +“Follow me. It’s rather far,” she said, turning to her +sister. +</p> + +<p> +In the middle of the passage was a staircase which she ascended. Then she +glided along a never-ending colonnade, opened several doors, walking on +carpets, white marble slabs and the mosaic floors of a score of empty, silent +apartments. +</p> + +<p> +She descended a stone stairway, and stepped over the dark thresholds of +clanging doors. Now and again, the two women came upon soldiers, resting on +mats in couples, their spears close to their hands. Some long time afterwards, +Cleopatra crossed a courtyard lit up by the rays of the full moon, and the +shadow of a palm-tree caressed her hips. Berenice, wrapped in her blue mantle, +still followed her. +</p> + +<p> +At last, they reached a massive door, clamped with iron like a warrior’s +breastplate. In the lock, Cleopatra slipped her key, turning it twice. Then, +pushing open the portal, a man—a very giant in the darkness—rose to +his full height out of the depths of his dungeon. +</p> + +<p> +Berenice stirred with emotion, looked in, and with drooping head, said very +softly: +</p> + +<p> +“Tis you, my child, who know not how to love. At least—not yet. I +was quite right when I told you that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Love for love, I prefer mine,” said the girl. “He gives me +naught but joy, at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, erect on the prison threshold, and without making a step forward, +she said to the man who stood in the shadow: +</p> + +<p> +“Come hither, and kiss my foot, son of a cur!” +</p> + +<p> +When he had done so, she pressed her mouth to his lips. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="book04"></a>BOOK IV</h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap22"></a>I<br/> +DEMETRIOS DREAMS A DREAM</h3> + +<p> +Now, with the mirror, the necklace, and the collar, Demetrios having returned +home, a dream visited him in his slumber, and this was his dream: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He is going towards the quay, mingled with the crowd, on a strange moonless +night, cloudless, but shedding a peculiar brilliance of its own. +</p> + +<p> +Without knowing why, or what it is that draws him, he is in a hurry to arrive, +to be <i>there</i> as soon as he can, but he walks with effort, and the air +opposes an inexplicable resistance to his legs, as deep water hampers +footsteps. +</p> + +<p> +He trembles, he thinks he will never reach the goal, that he will never know +towards whom, in this bright obscurity, he is walking thus, panting and +troubled. +</p> + +<p> +At times, the crowd disappears entirely, whether it be that it really fades +away, or that he ceases to be conscious of its presence. Then it jostles more +importunately than ever, and all press, on, on, on, with a quick and sonorous +step, more quickly than he . . . +</p> + +<p> +Then the human mass closes in upon him; Demetrios pales; a man pushes him with +his shoulder; a woman’s buckle tears his tunic; a young girl is wedged +against him, so tightly that he feels the pressure of her nipples against his +chest, and she pushes his face away with two terrified hands. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he is alone, the first, upon the quay. And as he turns to look behind +him, he perceives in the distance the white swarm of the crowd which has all at +once receded to the Agora. +</p> + +<p> +And he realises that it will advance no further. +</p> + +<p> +The quay lies white and straight like the first stage of an unfinished road +which has undertaken to cross the sea. +</p> + +<p> +He wants to go to Pharos, and he walks. His legs have suddenly become light. +The wind blowing in the sandy deserts drives him headlong towards the watery +solitudes into which the quay plunges venturesomely. But in proportion as he +advances, Pharos retreats before him; the quay is immeasurably prolonged. Soon +the high marble tower on which blazes a purple wood-pile touches the livid +horizon, flickers, dies down, wanes, and sets like another moon. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios walks ever onwards. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-063.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-063" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +Days and nights seem to have passed since he left the great quay of Alexandria +far behind him, and he dare not turn his head, for fear of seeing nothing but +the road he has travelled along: a white line stretching to infinity—and +the sea. +</p> + +<p> +And still he turns round. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +An island is behind him, covered with great trees whence droop enormous +blossoms. +</p> + +<p> +Has he crossed it like a blind man, or does it spring into sight at the same +instant and become mysteriously visible? He does not think of conjecturing: he +accepts the impossible as a natural event . . . +</p> + +<p> +A woman is in the isle. She is standing before the door of its one house, with +her eyes half closed and her face bending over a monstrous iris-flower that +reaches to the level of her lips. She has heavy hair, the colour of dull gold, +and of a length one may surmise to be marvellous, judging by the mass of the +great coil that lies on her drooping neck. A black tunic envelopes this woman, +and a robe blacker still is draped upon the tunic, and the iris whose perfume +she breathes with downcast eyelids is of the same hue as night. +</p> + +<p> +In all this mourning garb, Demetrios sees but the hair, like a golden vase on +an ebony column. He recognises Chrysis. +</p> + +<p> +The recollection of the mirror and of the necklace and of the comb recurs to +him vaguely; but he does not believe in it, and in this singular vision reality +alone seems to him a dream . . . +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” says Chrysis. “Follow me.” +</p> + +<p> +He follows her. She slowly mounts a staircase strewn with white skins. Her arm +rests upon the rail. Her naked heels float in and out from under her robe. +</p> + +<p> +The house has but one storey. Chrysis halts at the topmost step. +</p> + +<p> +“There are four chambers,” she says. +</p> + +<p> +“When you have seen them, you will never leave them. Will you follow me? +Have you confidence?” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-064.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-064" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>A monstrous iris-flower reaches to the level of her lips.</i> +</p> + +<p> +But he will follow her everywhere. She opens the first door and closes it +behind him. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +This room is long and narrow. It is lighted by a single window, through which +is seen enframed the great expanse of sea. On the right and left are two small +tables and on them a dozen book-rolls. +</p> + +<p> +“Here are the books you love,” says Chrysis. “There are no +others.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios opens them: they are <i>The Oineus</i> of Chæremon, <i>The Return</i> +of Alexis, <i>The Mirror of Lais</i> of Aristippos, <i>The Enchantress</i>, +<i>The Cyclops</i>, the <i>Bucolics</i> of Theocritos, <i>Œdipus at +Colonos</i>, the <i>Odes</i> of Sappho, and several other little works. Upon a +pile of cushions, in the midst of this ideal library, there is a naked girl who +utters no word. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” murmurs Chrysis, drawing from a long golden coder a +manuscript consisting of a single leaf, “here is the page of antique +poesy that you never read alone without weeping.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man reads at a venture: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +[Greek: Hoi men ar’ ethrêneon, epi de stenachonto gynaikes.<br/> +Têsin d’Andromachê leukôlenos êrche gooio,<br/> +Hektoros androphonoio karê meta chersin echousa;<br/> +Aner, ap’ aiônos neos ôleo, kadde me chêrên<br/> +Leipeis en megaroisi; pais d’eti nêpios autôs,<br/> +Hon tekomen sy t’egô te dysammoroi. . .] +</p> + +<p> +He stops, casting upon Chrysis a look of surprise and tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +“You?” he says. “You show me this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! you have not seen everything. Follow me. Follow me quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +They open another door. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The second chamber is square. It is lighted by a single window, through which +is seen enframed all nature. In the midst, stands a wooden trestle bearing a +lump of red clay, and in a corner, a naked girl lies upon a curved chair, and +utters no word. +</p> + +<p> +“Here you will model Andromeda and Zagreus and the Horses of the Sun. As +you will create them for yourself alone, you will break them in pieces before +your death.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the House of Felicity,” says Demetrios in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +And he lets his forehead sink into his hands. +</p> + +<p> +But Chrysis opens another door. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The third chamber is vast and round. It is lighted by a single window, through +which is seen enframed the great expanse of blue sky. Its walls consist of +gratings of bronze bars so disposed as to form lozenge-shaped interstices. +Through them glides a music of flutes and pipes played to a doleful measure by +invisible musicians. And against the far wall, upon a throne of green marble, +sits a naked girl who utters no word. +</p> + +<p> +“Come! Come!” repeats Chrysis. +</p> + +<p> +They open another door. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-065.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-065" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="p2"> +The fourth chamber is low, sombre, hermetically closed, and triangular. Thick +carpets and rugs array it so luxuriously from floor to roof that nudity is not +astonished in it. Lovers can easily imagine that they have cast off their +garments upon the walls in all directions. When the door is closed again, it is +impossible to guess where it was. There is no window. It is a narrow world, +outside the world. A few wisps of black hair hanging to the cushions shed +tear-drops of perfumes. And this chamber is lighted by seven little myrrhine +panes which colour diversely the incomprehensible light of seven subterranean +lamps. +</p> + +<p> +“See,” explains the woman in an affectionate and tranquil tone, +“there are three different beds in the three corners of <i>our</i> +chamber.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios does not answer. And he asks within himself: +</p> + +<p> +“Is it really a last term? Is it truly a goal of human existence? Have I +then passed through the other three chambers only to stop in this one? And +shall I, shall I ever be able to leave it if I lie in it a whole night in the +attitude of love which is the prostration of the tomb.” +</p> + +<p> +But Chrysis speaks. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Well-Beloved, you asked for me; I am come, look at me well . . .” +</p> + +<p> +She raises her two arms together, lays her hands upon her hair, and, with her +elbows projecting in front of her, smiles. +</p> + +<p> +“Well-Beloved, I am yours . . . Oh! not immediately . . . I promised you +to sing, I will sing first . . .” +</p> + +<p> +And he thinks of her no more, and lays him down at her feet. She has little +black sandals. Four threads of blue pearls pass between the dainty toes, on the +nails of which has been painted a carmine lunar crescent. +</p> + +<p> +With her head reposing on her shoulder, she taps on the palm of her left hand +with her right, and undulates her hips almost imperceptibly. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“By night, on my bed,<br/> +I sought him whom my soul loveth:<br/> +I sought him, but I found him not. . . . .<br/> +I charge ye, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,<br/> +If ye find my beloved,<br/> +Tell him<br/> +That I am sick of love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! it is the Song of Songs, Demetrios. It is the nuptial canticle of +the women of my country.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I sleep, but my heart waketh:<br/> +It is the voice of my beloved . . .<br/> +That knocketh at my door,<br/> +The voice of my beloved!<br/> +He cometh,<br/> +Leaping upon the mountains<br/> +Like a roe<br/> +Or a young hart.” + +</p> <p class="poem"> +“My beloved speaks, and says unto me:<br/> +Open unto me, my sister, my fair one:<br/> +My head is filled with dew,<br/> +And my locks with the drops of the night.<br/> +Rise up, my love, my fair one,<br/> +And come away.<br/> +For lo, the winter is past,<br/> +The rain is over and gone,<br/> +The flowers appear on the earth.<br/> +The time of the singing of birds is come,<br/> +The voice of the turtle-dove is heard in the land.<br/> +Rise up, my love, my fair one,<br/> +And come away.” +</p> + +<p> +She casts her veil away, and stands up arrayed in some tight-fitting stuff +wound closely round the legs and hips. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I have put off my coat;<br/> +How shall I put it on?<br/> +I have washed my feet:<br/> +How shall I defile them?<br/> +My well-beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door,<br/> +And my bowels were moved for him.<br/> +I rose up to open to my beloved,<br/> +And my hands dropped with myrrh,<br/> +And my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh,<br/> +Upon the handles of the lock.<br/> +Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! +</p> + +<p> +She throws her head back and half closes her eyelids. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Stay me, comfort me,<br/> +For I am sick of love.<br/> +Let his left hand be under my head<br/> +And his right hand embrace me.<br/> +Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, with<br/> +one of thine eyes,<br/> +With one chain of thy neck.<br/> +How fair is thy love!<br/> +How fair are thy caresses!<br/> +How much better than wine!<br/> +The smell of thee pleaseth me more than all spices.<br/> +Thy lips drop as the honeycomb:<br/> +Honey and milk are under thy tongue.<br/> +The smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.”<br/> +<br/> +“A garden enclosed is my sister,<br/> +A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. + +</p> <p class="poem"> +“Awake, O north wind!<br/> +Blow, thou south!<br/> +Blow upon my garden,<br/> +That the spices thereof may flow out.” +</p> + +<p> +She rounds her arms, and holds out her mouth. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Let my beloved come into his garden<br/> +And eat of his pleasant fruits.<br/> +Yes, I come into my garden,<br/> +O! my sister, my spouse,<br/> +I gather my myrrh with my spice,<br/> +I eat my honeycomb with my honey.<br/> +I drink my wine with my milk.<br/> +SET ME AS A SEAL UPON THINE HEART<br/> +AS A SEAL UPON THINE ARM<br/> +FOR LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH.” [<a name="chapIV_Ifn1text"></a><a +href="#chapIV_Ifn1">1</a>] +</p> + +<p> +Without moving her feet, without bending her tightly-pressed knees, she slowly +turns her body upon her motionless hips. Her face and her two breasts, above +her tightly-swathed legs, seem three great pink flowers in a flower-holder made +of stuffs. +</p> + +<p> +She dances gravely, with her shoulders and her head and the intermingling of +her beautiful arms. She seems to suffer in her sheath and to reveal ever and +ever more the whiteness of her half imprisoned body. Her breathing inflates her +breast. Her mouth cannot close. Her eyelids cannot open. A heightening flame +flushes her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +Now her ten interlocked fingers join before her face. Now she raises her arms. +She strains voluptuously. A long fugitive groove separates her shoulders as +they rise and fall. Finally, with a single movement of her body, enveloping her +panting visage in her hair as with a bridal veil, she tremblingly unfastens the +sculptured clasp which retained her garment about her loins, and allows all the +mystery of her grace to slip down upon the ground. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios and Chrysis . . . +</p> + +<p> +Their first embracement before love is immediately so perfect, so harmonious, +that they keep it immobile, in order fully to know its multiple voluptuousness. +One of her breasts stands out erect and round, from under the strong encircling +arm of Demetrios. One of her burning thighs is rivetted between his two legs, +and the other lies with all its heavy weight thrown upon them. They remain +thus, motionless, clasped together but not penetrated, in the rising exaltation +of an inflexible desire which they are loth to satisfy. At first, they catch +at one another with their mouths alone. They intoxicate each other with the +contact of their aching and ungated virginities. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-066.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-066" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>She dances gravely with her shoulders and her head.</i> +</p> + +<p> +We look at nothing so minutely as the face of the woman we love. Seen at the +excessively close range of the kiss, Chrysis’s eyes seem enormous. When +she closes them, two parallel creases remain on each eyelid, and a leaden-hued +patch extends from the brilliant eyebrows to the verge of the cheeks. When she +opens them, a green ring, fine as a silken thread, illumines with a coloured +coronal the fathomless black eyeball immeasurably distended under the long +curved lashes. The little pellet of red flesh whence the tears flow has sudden +palpitations. +</p> + +<p> +Their kiss is endless. Chrysis would seem to have under her tongue, not milk +and honey, as in Holy Writ, but living, mobile, enchanted water. And this +multiform tongue itself, now incurved like an arch, now rolled up like a +spiral, now shrinking into its hiding-place, now darting forth like a flame, +more caressing than the hand, more expressive than the eyes, circling, +flower-like, into a pistil, or thinning away into a petal, this ribbon of flesh +that hardens when it quivers and softens when it licks, Chrysis animates it +with all the resources of her endearing and passionate fantasy . . . Then she +showers on him a series of prolonged caresses that twist and turn. Her nervous +finger-tips suffice to grasp him tightly, and to produce convulsive tremblings +along his sides. She is happy only when palpitating with desire or enervated by +exhaustion: the transition terrifies her like a torture. As soon as her lover +summons her, she thrusts him away with rigid arms: she presses her knees close +together, she supplicates him dumbly with her lips. Demetrios constrains her by +force. +</p> + +<p> +...No spectacle of nature, neither the blazing glory of the setting sun, nor the +tempest in the palm-trees, nor the mirage, nor the mighty upheavals of the +waters, seem worthy of astonishment to those who have witnessed the +transfiguration of a woman in their arms. Chrysis becomes extraordinary. +Arching her body upwards, and sinking back again in turns, with her bent elbow +resting on the cushions, she seizes the corner of a pillow, clutches at it like +a dying woman, and gasps for breath, with her head thrown back. Her eyes, +brilliant with gratitude, fix the madness of their glance at the corner of the +eyelids. Her cheeks are resplendent. The curve of her swaying hair is +disconcerting. Two admirable, muscular lines, descending from the ear and the +shoulder, meet under the right breast and bear it like a fruit. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios contemplates this divine madness in the feminine body with a sort of +religious awe—this transport of a whole being, this superhuman convulsion +of which he is the direct cause, which he exalts or represses at will, and +which confounds him for the thousandth time. +</p> + +<p> +Under his very eyes all the mighty forces of life strain in the effort to +create. The breasts have already assumed, up to their very tips, maternal +majesty. And these wails, these lamentable wails that prematurely weep over the +labour of childbirth! . . . +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="chapIV_Ifn1"></a> [<a href="#chapIV_Ifn1text">1</a>] Song of Songs. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap23"></a>II<br/> +THE PANIC</h3> + +<p> +Far above the sea and the Gardens of the Goddess, the moon poured down torrents +of light. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Melitta—that little damsel, so delicate and slender, possessed by +Demetrios for a fleeting moment, and who had offered to take him to Chimairis, +learned in chiromancy—had remained behind alone with the fortune-teller, +crouching, and still fierce. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not follow that man,” Chimairis had said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I will! I’ve not even asked him if I am ever to see him +again. Let me run after him to kiss him, and I’ll come back—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you’ll not see him ever more. And so much the better, my girl. +Women who meet him once, learn to knew pain. Women who meet him twice, trifle +with death.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-067.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-067" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“Oh, prophetess of evil! Take back what you’ve said!</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Why say it? I’ve just met him, and I’ve only trifled with +pleasure in his arms.” +</p> + +<p> +“You owe your pleasure to him because you do not know what voluptuousness +means, my tiniest of tiny girls. Forget him as you would a playmate and +congratulate yourself on being only twelve years old.” +</p> + +<p> +“So one is very unhappy when grown up?” asked the child. “All +the women here chatter unceasingly of their troubles, and I, who never hardly +cry, see so many weeping!” +</p> + +<p> +Chimairis dug her two hands into her hair and uttered a groan. Her goat shook +its gold collar and turned its head in her direction, but she did not bestow a +glance on the animal. +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, I know one happy woman,” continued Melitta, +significantly. “She’s my great friend, Chrysis. I’m certain +she never sheds a tear.” +</p> + +<p> +“She will,” said Chimairis. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, prophetess of evil! Take back what you’ve said, distraught old +woman, or I shall hate you!” +</p> + +<p> +Seeing the young girl’s threatening gestures, the black goat reared up +erect, its front legs bent under; its horns thrust forward. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Melitta fled without looking where she went. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty paces farther on, she burst out laughing, as she caught sight of a +ridiculous couple hidden between two bushes. That sufficed to change the +current of her young thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +She took the longest road before returning to her hut, and then decided not to +go home at all. It was a magnificent, warm, moonlight night. The gardens were +full of many voices and songs. Satisfied with what she had earned through the +visit of Demetrios, she was seized with a sudden fancy to play the part of a +vagrant girl of roads and ditches, in the depths of the wood, with pauper +passers-by. In this way, she was enjoyed twice or three against a tree, a stone +pillar, or on a bench, and found amusement as if the game was new, because the +scene kept changing. A soldier, standing in the middle of a pathway, lifted her +bodily up in his robust arms and identified himself with the God of the Gardens +who joins himself to the wenches who tend the rose-trees without needing to let +the hussies feet touch the ground. At this, Melitta uttered a cry of triumph. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Escaping again, she continued her flight through an avenue of palms, where she +met a lad, named Mikyllos, seemingly lost in the forest. She offered to be his +guide, but led him astray designedly, so as to keep him with her for her own +purposes. Mikyllos was not long in fathoming Melitta’s intentions, as +well as her tiny talents and capabilities. Soon becoming companions, rather +than lovers, they ran along side by side in solitude that grew more and more +silent. Suddenly, they came in front of the sea. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The spot where they found themselves was far distant from the parts where the +courtesans generally celebrated the rites of their religious profession. Why +they chose other trysting-places in preference to this—the most admirable +of all—they could not have told you. The part of the wood where the crowd +gathered soon became a notorious central alley, surrounded by a network of +bypaths and starry glades. On the outskirts, despite the charm or the beauty of +the sites, there reigned eternal solitude where luxuriant vegetation flourished +peacefully. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Thus strolling, hand in hand, Mikyllos and Melitta reached the limit of the +public park, a low hedge of aloes, forming a useless dividing line between the +gardens of Aphrodite and those of her High Priest. +</p> + +<p> +Encouraged by the hushed solitude of this flowery wilderness, the young couple +easily climbed over the irregular wall formed by the quaint twisted plants. The +Mediterranean, at their feet, slowly swept the shore, with wavelets like the +fringes of a river. The two children waded in breast-high and chased each +other, laughing meanwhile, as they tried to effect difficult conjunctions in +the water. They soon put an end to these sports, which failed like games +insufficiently rehearsed. After that, luminous and dripping wet, wriggling +their frog-like legs in the moonlight, they sprang upon the dark edge of the +sea. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Traces of footprints on the sand urged the boy and girl onwards. They walked, +ran, and struggled, pulling each other by the hand; their black, well-defined +shadows sketching bold outlines of their two figures. How far were they to go +in this wise? They saw no other living things on the immense azure horizon. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Look!” exclaimed Melitta, all of a sudden. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“A courtesan! Oh, the shameless thing! She has fallen asleep in the +open.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” rejoined Melitta, shaking her head. “I dare not go +near her, Mikyllos. She’s no courtesan.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought she was. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I say, Mikyllos, she’s not one of us. It’s Touni, wife +of the High Priest. Look well at her. She is not asleep. Oh, I’m afraid +to approach her. Her eyes are wide open! Let us go away! I’m +afraid—oh, so afraid!” +</p> + +<p> +Mikyllos made three steps forward on tip-toe. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re right, Melitta. She is not sleeping, poor woman! She is +dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a pin in her heart.” +</p> + +<p> +He stretched out his hand to draw it from her breast, but Melitta was +terrified. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-068.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-068" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +“No, no! Touch her not! She is sacred! Remain by her side, watch over +her, protect her. I’ll call for help. I’ll tell the others.” +</p> + +<p> +She fled with all the strength of her legs into the deep shadow of the black +trees. +</p> + +<p> +Alone and trembling, Mikyllos wandered round the corpse of the young woman. He +touched the pierced breast with his finger. Then, either scared by death, or +more likely fearing to be taken for an accomplice of the murder, he suddenly +took to his heels, resolved to apprise no one. +</p> + +<p> +The icy nakedness of Touni remained as before, abandoned in the bright light of +the moon. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +A long time afterwards, the woods near where she lay became filled with murmurs +which were frightful because almost imperceptible. +</p> + +<p> +On all sides, between tree-trunks and bushes, a thousand courtesans, huddled +together like frightened sheep, advanced slowly, their masses quivering with a +unanimous shudder. +</p> + +<p> +By a movement as regular as that of the sea striking the sandy foreshore, the +front rank of this army made way for those following behind. It seemed as if +nobody wanted to be the first to find the dead woman. +</p> + +<p> +A great cry, taken up by a thousand mouths and dying away at a distance, arose +to salute the poor corpse when it was perceived stretched out at the foot of a +tree. +</p> + +<p> +A thousand naked arms were first uplifted and then as many others. +</p> + +<p> +“Goddess! Not on us!” now sobbed many voices. “Goddess, not +on us! If thou wreakest vengeance, Goddess, spare our lives!” +</p> + +<p> +“To the Temple!” was the rallying-cry arising from one despairing +throat. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-069.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-069" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“Open the gates for us!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“To the Temple! To the Temple!” repeated all the other women. +</p> + +<p> +At this juncture, a new eddy convulsed the surging multitude. Without daring to +cast another look at the dead woman, stretched out on her back on the ground, +her eyes upturned and her arms thrown back, all the courtesans in one great +mob, black women and white, those of the East and the West, some in sumptuous +robes and others in vague nudity, scampered through the trees, rushing across +glades, paths, and roads; swarming into the vast open spaces in front of the +houses, until they mounted the gigantic pink marble staircase that gleamed +deeply red in the light of coming day. With their weak clenched fists, they +battered the lofty bronze doors, squalling childishly: +</p> + +<p> +“Open the gates for us! Open! Let us in!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap24"></a>III<br/> +THE CROWD</h3> + +<p> +The morning the orgie at Bacchis’s came to an end an event took place at +Alexandria: rain fell. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately, contrarily to what usually happens in countries less African, +everybody went out to welcome the shower. +</p> + +<p> +The phenomenon was neither torrent-like nor stormy. Large warm drops fell from +a violet cloud and traversed the air. The men looked at the sky with interest. +The little children roared with laughter, and went about splashing their tiny +naked feet in the surface-mud. +</p> + +<p> +Then the cloud faded away in the light, the sky remained implacably pure, and a +short time after midday the mud had once more turned into dust under the sun. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +But this momentary shower had sufficed. It filled the town with gaiety. The men +congregated on the pavement of the Agora, and the women thronged together in +groups, intermingling their shrill voices. +</p> + +<p> +Only the courtesans were there, for the third day of the Aphrodisæ being +reserved for the exclusive devotions of the married women, the latter had just +started for the Astarteïon in a great procession, and there was nothing in the +square but flowered robes and eyes blackened with paint. +</p> + +<p> +As Myrtocleia passed by, a young girl called Philotis, who was talking with +many others, pulled her by the sleeve knot. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho, my little lass! you played at Bacchis’s yesterday? What +happened? What took place there? Did Bacchis put on a new necklace to hide the +cavities in her neck? Has she got wooden breasts or copper ones? Did she forget +to dye the little white hairs on her temples before putting on her wig? Come, +speak, fried fish!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose I looked at her? I arrived after the banquet, I played my +piece, I received my payment, and I ran off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know you don’t dissipate!” +</p> + +<p> +“To stain my robe and receive blows? No, Philotis. Only rich women can +afford to indulge in orgies. Little flute-girls get nothing but tears.” +</p> + +<p> +“When one doesn’t want to stain one’s robe, one leaves it in +the ante-chamber. When one receives blows, one insists on being paid double. It +is quite elementary. So you have nothing to tell us? not an adventure, not a +joke, not a scandal? We are yawning like storks. Invent something if you know +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“My friend Theano stayed after me. When I awoke a few minutes ago, she +had not yet come. The fête is perhaps still going on.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is finished,” said another woman. “Theano is down there, +by the ceramic wall.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The courtesans started off at a run, but presently stopped with a smile of +pity. +</p> + +<p> +Theano, in a naive fit of drunkenness, was obstinately pulling at a rose +stripped of its leaves, the thorns of which were caught in her hair. Her yellow +tunic was soiled with red and white stains as if she had borne the brunt of the +whole orgie. The bronze clasp, which kept up up the converging folds of the +stuff upon her left shoulder, dangled below the waist, and revealed the mobile +globe of a young breast already too mature, and which was stained with two +spots of purple. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she saw Myrtocleia, she brusquely went off into a peal of singular +laughter. Everybody knew it at Alexandria, and it had procured her the nickname +of the “Fowl.” It was an interminable cluck-cluck, a torrent of +gaiety which commenced in a very low key and took her breath away, then shot up +again into a shrill cry, and so forth, rhythmically, like the joy of a +triumphant hen. +</p> + +<p> +“An egg! an egg!” said Philotis. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-070.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-070" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +But Myrtocleia made a gesture: +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Theano, come to bed. You are not well. Come with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! . . . ha! . . . Ah! . . . ha!” laughed the child. And she took +her breast in her little hand, crying in a hoarse voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! . . . Ha! . . . the mirror . . .” +</p> + +<p> +“Come along!” repeated Myrto, losing patience. +</p> + +<p> +“The mirror . . . it is stolen, stolen! Ah! haaa! I shall never laugh so +much again if I live to be as old as Chronos. Stolen, stolen, the silver +mirror!” +</p> + +<p> +The singing-girl tried to drag her away, but Philotis had understood. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi!” she cried to the others, waving her two arms. “Come +here quickly! There is news! Bacchis’s mirror has been stolen!” +</p> + +<p> +And all exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Papaië! Bacchis’s mirror!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +In an instant, thirty women crowded round the flute-girl: +</p> + +<p> +“What is happening?” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bacchis has had her mirror stolen: Theano has just said so.” +</p> + +<p> +“But when?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who has taken it?” +</p> + +<p> +The child shrugged her shoulders: +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know?” +</p> + +<p> +“You passed the night there. You must know. It is not possible. Who +entered her house? You have certainly been told. Try to collect yourself, +Theano.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-071.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-071" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Thirty women crowded round the flute-girl.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“What do I know about it? There were more than twenty of them in the +banqueting room. +</p> + +<p> +“They had hired me to play the flute, but they prevented me from playing +because they do not like music. They asked me to mimic the figure of Danaë +and they threw gold coins at me, and Bacchis took them all away from me . . . +It was a band of madmen. They made me drink head downwards out of a bowl +overflowing with wine. They had poured seven tankards in it because there were +seven wines upon the table. My face was all dripping. Even my hair was soaked, +and my roses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” interrupted Myrto, “you are an awful fright. But the +mirror? Who took it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly! when they put me on my feet again, my head was suffused with +blood, and I was covered with wine up to the ears. Ha! Ha! they all began to +laugh . . . Bacchis sent for the mirror . . . Ha! ha! it had disappeared. +Somebody had taken it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who? That is what we want to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not I, that is all I know. It was no use searching me: I was +quite naked. I cannot hide a mirror under my eyelid, like a drachma. It was not +I, that is all I know. She crucified a slave, perhaps on account of that. When +I saw that they were not looking at me, I picked up the Danaë coins. See, +Myrto, I have five: you shall buy robes for the three of us.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +The news of the theft spread gradually over the whole square. The courtesans +did not hide their envious satisfaction. A noisy curiosity animated the moving +groups. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a woman,” said Philotis; “it is a woman who is +responsible for this piece of work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, the mirror was well hidden. A thief could have carried off +everything in the room and upset everything without finding the stone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bacchis had enemies, especially her former friends. They knew all her +secrets. One of them has probably enticed her away somewhere, and then entered +her house at the hour when the sun is hot and the streets are almost +deserted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! she has perhaps sold the mirror to pay her debts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Supposing it were one of her lovers? They say she takes porters +now!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it is a woman, I am sure of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“By the two goddesses! it serves her right.” +</p> + +<p> + </p>Suddenly, a still more excited mob rushed towards a point of the Agora, + followed by a rising rumour which drew all the passers-by after it. + +<p> +“What is the matter? what is the matter?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And a shrill voice dominating the tumult shouted over all their heads: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“The High-Priest’s wife has been killed!” +</p> + +<p> +Violent consternation took possession of the crowd. It was incredible. People +refuse to believe that so atrocious a murder could have been committed at the +very height of the Aphrodisisæ, bringing down the wrath of the gods upon the +town. But the same sentence passed from mouth to mouth in all directions: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“The wife of the High-Priest has been killed! The festival at the Temple +is put off.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +News arrived rapidly. The body had been found, lying on a pink marble seat, in +a lonely place, at the summit of the gardens. +</p> + +<p> +A long golden pin penetrated her left breast; the wound had not bled; but the +assassin had cut off all the young woman’s hair, and had carried away the +antique comb of Queen Nitaoucrit. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +After the first exclamations of anguish, a profound stupor gained the +uppermost. The whole multitude grew every minute. The whole town was there: it +was a sea of bare heads and women’s hats, an immense herd pouring +simultaneously from the streets bathed in blue shade into the dazzling +brilliance of the Alexandrian Agora. Such a throng had never been seen since +the day when Ptolemy Auleter had been driven from the throne by the partisans +of Berenice. And even political revolutions seemed less terrible than this +piece of sacrilege, on which the safety of the whole city might depend. +</p> + +<p> +The men pushed their way close to the witnesses. They clamoured for further +details. They put forth conjectures. Women informed the new arrivals of the +theft of the celebrated mirror. The wiseacres swore that these two simultaneous +crimes had been committed by the same hand. +</p> + +<p> +But who could it be? Courtesans, who had made their offerings the night before +for the ensuing year, were fearful lest the goddess should pay no attention to +them, and sat sobbing, with their heads buried in their robes. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +An ancient superstition had it that two such events would be followed by a +third and still graver one. The crowd awaited the third. After the mirror and +the comb, what had the mysterious robber taken? A stifling atmosphere, inflamed +by the south wind and filled with sand dust, weighed upon the motionless crowd. +</p> + +<p> +Gradually, as if this human mass were a single being, it was seized with a +shivering which grew little by little until it became a panic, and all eyes +were turned towards the same point on the horizon. +</p> + +<p> +It was at the distant extremity of the long straight avenue which traversed +Alexandria from the Canopic gate and led from the Temple to the Agora. There, +on the top of the gentle incline, where the road opened upon the sky, a second +terror-stricken multitude had just made its appearance and was running down the +hill to join the first one. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“The courtesans, the sacred courtesans!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Nobody stirred. Nobody dared to go and meet them, for fear of hearing of a new +disaster. They arrived like a living flood, preceded by the dull noise of their +footsteps on the ground. They waved their arms, they jostled one another, they +seemed to be in flight before an army. They were to be recognised now. One +could distinguish their robes, their girdles, their hair. Rays of light gleamed +on their golden jewels. They were quite near. They opened their mouths. There +was a silence. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“The necklace of the Goddess has been stolen, the True Pearls of +Anadyomene are gone!” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-072.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-072" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="p2"> +A clamour of despair arose at the fatal utterance. The crowd retreated at first +like a wave, then poured headlong forward, beating the walls, filling the road, +thrusting back the frightened women, in the long avenue of the Dromos, towards +the desecrated immortal saint. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap25"></a>IV<br/> +THE RESPONSE</h3> + +<p> +And the Agora was left empty, like a beach after the tide. +</p> + +<p> +Empty, but not completely: a man and a woman stayed behind, the only two +mortals who knew the secret of the great public emotion, the two beings who +were the cause of it: Chrysis and Demetrios. +</p> + +<p> +The young man was seated on a block of marble near the port. The young woman +stood at the opposite end of the square. They could not recognise one another; +but they divined one another mutually: Chrysis, drunk with pride and finally +with desire, ran in the full glare of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“You have done it!” she cried; “you have done it, +then!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the young man simply. “You are obeyed.” +</p> + +<p> +She quickly sat herself on his knees and embraced him deliriously: +</p> + +<p> +“I love you! I love you! I have never before felt what I feel now! Gods! +At last I know what it is to be in love! You see, my beloved, I give you more +than I promised you the day before yesterday. I, who have never denied anyone, +I could not dream that should change so quickly. I had only sold you my body +upon the bed, now I give you all my excellence, all my purity, my sincerity, my +passion, my virgin soul, Demetrios. Come with me; let us leave this town for a +time; let us go into a hidden place, where there are only you and I. We will +spend days such as the world has never seen. Never did a lover do what you have +done for me. Never did a woman love as I love: it is not possible! it is not +possible! I can hardly speak. I am choking. You see, I weep. I know now what it +is to weep: it is through excess of happiness. But you do not answer! You say +nothing? Kiss me!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios stretched out his right leg to ease his knee, which was a little +cramped. Then he raised the young woman, stood up, shook the creases out of his +garments, and said softly with an enigmatic smile: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“No . . . Adieu . . .” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-073.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-073" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>“You say nothing! Kiss me!</i> +</p> + +<p> +And he tranquilly turned away. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis stood rooted to the ground with stupefaction, her mouth open and her +head dangling. +</p> + +<p> +“What? What . . . what . . . what do you say?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say adieu,” he said, without raising his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“But . . . but it cannot be you who . . .” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I had promised.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then . . . I fail to understand . . .” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear, whether you understand or not is a matter of indifference to +me. I leave this little mystery to your meditations. If what you have told me +is true, they are likely to be prolonged. This affair occurs most conveniently +to give them occupation. Adieu.” +</p> + +<p> +“Demetrios! What do I hear? . . . what is the meaning of this tone? Is it +really you who speak? Explain! I conjure you! What has happened between us? It +is enough to make one dash one’s head against the wall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I to repeat the same thing a hundred times? Yes, I have taken the +mirror; yes, I have killed the priestess Touni in order to get the peerless +comb; yes, I have stolen the great seven-stringed necklace of the goddess. I +was to hand you over the presents in exchange for a single sacrifice on your +part. It was putting it at a high value, was it not? Now, I have ceased to +estimate it at this extraordinary value, and I have nothing more to ask of you. +Act in the same way, and let us part. I wonder you do not understand a +situation the simplicity of which is so evident.” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your presents! Do you suppose I care about them? It is yourself +that I want, you, you alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know. But once again, I am not willing, and, as the consent of +both the parties is necessary for a rendez-vous, I am very much afraid it will +not take place, if I persist in my present views. This is what I am trying to +impress upon you with all the clearness of diction of which I am capable. I see +it is inadequate; but as I cannot improve it, I beg you to kindly accept the +accomplished fact with a good grace, without prying into what you consider +obscure about it, since you do not admit that it is within the limits of +probability. I am most anxious to bring this discussion to an end. It can lead +to no result, and might perhaps force me to be impolite.” +</p> + +<p> +“People have been tittle-tattling about me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I guess as much! People have been talking about me, don’t +deny it. They have said things about me behind my back! I have terrible +enemies, Demetrios! You must not listen to them: I swear to you by the gods, +they lie!” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Believe me! Believe me, Well-beloved! What interest could I have in +deceiving you, since I desire nothing from you except yourself? You are the +first person I have ever spoken to like this . . .” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-074.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-074" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios looked her in the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“It is too late,” he said. “I have possessed you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are raving . . . When? Where? How?” +</p> + +<p> +“I speak the truth. I have possessed you in spite of yourself. What I +hoped from your complaisance you have given me without your knowledge. You took +me to the country you want to go to, in a dream, last night, and you were +beautiful . . . ah! you were beautiful, Chrysis! I have returned from that +country. No human will shall force me to see it again. The same event never +brings happiness twice. I am not so mad as to ruin a happy souvenir. I am +indebted for this to you, you will say; but as I have only loved your shadow, +you will dispense me, dear creature, from thanking your reality.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis pressed her hands to her temples. +</p> + +<p> +“It is abominable, abominable! And he dares to say this! And he makes a +boast of it!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“You jump to definite conclusions very quickly. I have told you that I +have had a dream: are you sure that I was asleep? I have told you that I was +happy: does happiness, according to you, consist in the gross physical thrill +which you say you are so expert in producing, but which you cannot diversify, +since it is much the same with all women who give themselves! No, it is +yourself that you belittle by taking this most unbecoming point of view. I +think you do not quite realise all the felicities which spring from under your +footsteps. What differentiates mistresses from one another is that they have +each a fashion, personal to themselves, of preparing and terminating an +incident which, as a matter of fact, is as monstrous as it is necessary, and +the quest of which, supposing we had only it in view, would not be worth all +the trouble we take to find a perfect mistress. In this preparation and in this +termination you excel beyond all women. At least, it has been a pleasure to me +to think so, and perhaps you will grant me that after having produced the +Aphrodite of the Temple my imagination has had no great difficulty in divining +the manner of woman you are. Once again, I will not tell you whether it is a +question of a night dream or a waking error. It is enough for you to know that, +whether dreamed or conceived, your image has appeared to me in an extraordinary +frame. Illusion; but, in all things I shall prevent you, Chrysis, from +disillusioning me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And me, what do you mean to do with me, who loves you still in spite of +all the horrors that proceed from your mouth? Have I had the consciousness of +your odious dream? Have I had my share in this happiness of which you speak, +and which you have stolen, stolen from me! Has one ever heard of a lover so +amazingly selfish as to take his pleasure of the woman who loves him without +allowing her to share it! . . . This confounds all thought. It will drive me +mad.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At this point, Demetrios dropped his tone of mockery, and said, in a voice that +trembled slightly: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you trouble yourself about me when you took advantage of my sudden +passion to extort from me, in a moment of folly, three actions which might have +destroyed my existence, and which will always leave behind them the remembrance +of a triple shame?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I asked this, it was to attach you to me. I should not have got you +if I had given myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. You have been satisfied. You have held me, not for long, but you +have held me, nevertheless, in the serfdom you desired. Today, you must allow +me to free myself!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am the only slave, Demetrios.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-075.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-075" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>He freed himself from both her arms.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you or I, but one of us two if he loves the other. Slavery! +Slavery! that is the real name of passion. You have all of you only one dream, +one idea in your heads; to break men’s strength with your feebleness and +govern his intelligence with your futility. As soon as your breasts take form, +you desire neither to love nor to be loved, but to bind a man to your ankles, +to lower him, to bow his head and put your sandals upon it. Then, in conformity +with your ambition, you can dash the sword, the chisel, or the compass out of +our hands, break everything which transcends you, emasculate everything which +frightens you, tweak Hercules by the nose and set him a-spinning wool. But when +you have been able neither to bow his head nor weaken his character, you adore +the fist that beats you, the knee that strikes you to the ground, the very +mouth that insults you. The man who has refused to kiss your naked feet +satisfies your dearest wish if he violates you. The man who has not wept when +you left his house, can drag you there by the hair: your love will spring up +again from your tears, for there is but one thing that consoles you when you +are unable to impose slavery, amorous women! and that is to submit to +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, beat me, if you like! but love me afterwards!” +</p> + +<p> +And she hugged him so brusquely that he had not time to turn away his lips. He +freed himself from both her arms. +</p> + +<p> +“I detest you! Adieu,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +But Chrysis clung to his mantle. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not lie. You adore me. Your soul is full of me: but you are ashamed +at having yielded. Listen, listen, Well-beloved! If that is all that is needed +to console your pride, I am ready to give you, in order to have you, still more +than I asked of you. Whatever sacrifice I make you, I will not complain of life +after our union.” +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios looked at her curiously, and, like her, the night before upon the +quay, he said to her: +</p> + +<p> +“What oath do you swear me?” +</p> + +<p> +“By Aphrodite also.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do not believe in Aphrodite. Swear by Jehovah Sabaoth.” +</p> + +<p> +The Galilæan woman paled. +</p> + +<p> +“We do not swear by Jehovah.” +</p> + +<p> +“You refuse?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a terrible oath.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must have it.” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated, then said in a low voice: “I swear by Jehovah. What do you +want of me, Demetrios?” +</p> + +<p> +The young man kept silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Speak quickly, I am afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! very little.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not ask you to give me three presents, were they as simple as the +first three were rare. It would be contrary to the usages. But I can ask you to +accept some, can I not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Assuredly,” said Chrysis joyously. +</p> + +<p> +“This mirror, this necklace, this comb, which you made me steal for you, +you did not expect to use them, I suppose? A stolen mirror, the comb of a +victim, and the goddess’s necklace are not jewels one can make a display +of.” +</p> + +<p> +“What an idea!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I thought so. It is therefore out of pure cruelty that you incited +me to ravish them at the price of the three crimes with which the whole town +resounds to-day. Well, you are going to wear them.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“You must go into the little enclosed garden where the statue of the +Stygian Hermes is. This place is always deserted, and you will run no risk of +being disturbed. You will take off the god’s left heel. The stone is +broken, you will see. Then, in the interior of the pedestal, you will find +Bacchis’s mirror, and you will place it in your hand; you will find the +great comb of Nitaoucrit, and will place it in your hair; you will find the +seven pearl necklaces of the goddess Aphrodite, and you will put them on your +neck. Thus adorned, beautiful Chrysis, you will go about the town. The crowd +will deliver you to the Queen’s soldiers, but you will have what you +desired, and I will go and see you in your prison before sunrise.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap26"></a>V<br/> +THE GARDEN OF HERMANUBIS</h3> + +<p> +Chrysis’s first impulse was to shrug her shoulders. She would not be so +ingenuous as to keep her word. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The second was to go and see. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A rising curiosity impelled her toward the mysterious place where Demetrios had +hidden the three criminal trophies. She wanted to take them, to touch them with +her hands, to make them gleam in the sunlight, to possess them for an instant. +It seemed to her that her victory would not be quite complete so long as she +should not have seized the booty of her ambitions. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-076.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-076" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +As for Demetrios: she would find the means of recapturing him ultimately. How +was it possible to believe that he had emancipated himself from her for ever? +The passion she attributed to him was not one of those that die out in a +man’s heart irrevocably. The women one has once greatly loved form a +family of election in a man’s heart and the meeting with a former +mistress, even though hated or forgotten, excites an unexpected disorder of the +soul whence the new love may burst forth. Chrysis was not ignorant of this. +However ardent she might be herself, however anxious to conquer the first man +she had ever loved, she was not mad enough to buy him at the cost of her life +when she saw so many other methods of seducing him more simply. +</p> + +<p> +And yet . . . what a blessed end he had proposed to her! +</p> + +<p> +Under the eyes of an innumerable crowd, bear the antique mirror into which +Sappho had gazed, the comb which had held in place the royal hair of +Nitaoucrit, the necklace of marine pearls that had rolled in the shell of the +goddess Anadyomene . . . Then, from the evening till the morning drink madly of +all the sensations with which the wildest love can inspire a woman . . . and +towards the middle of the day, die without effort . . . what an incomparable +destiny! +</p> + +<p> +She closed her eyes . . . +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +But no: she would not allow herself to be tempted. +</p> + +<p> +She crossed Rhacotis and mounted the street which led in a straight line to the +Great Serapeion. This road, constructed by the Greeks, seemed incongruous in +this quarter of angular alleys. The two populations mingled oddly, in a +promiscuity from which hatred was not absent. Amongst the blue-shirted +Egyptians, the unbleached tunics of the Hellenes made splashes of white. +Chrysis mounted rapidly, without listening to the conversations in which the +people discoursed of the crimes committed for her sake. +</p> + +<p> +Before the steps of the monument, she turned to the right, took an obscure +street, then another, the houses of which almost touched, crossed a little +star-shaped square where two swarthy little girls were playing in a sunny +fountain, and finally she stopped. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +The garden of Hermes Anubis was a little necropolis long ago abandoned, a sort +of no man’s land to which parents no longer brought the libations to the +dead, and that the passers-by avoided. In the midst of the crumbling tombs, +Chrysis advanced in the greatest silence, quaking with fear at every stone that +clattered under her feet. The wind, always charged with fine sand, blew her +hair over her temples and sent her veil of scarlet silk floating towards the +white leaves of the sycamores. +</p> + +<p> +She discovered the statue between three monuments that hid it on all sides and +enclosed it in a triangle. The spot was well chosen for the concealment of a +mortal secret. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis forced her way as best she could through the narrow, stony passage; on +seeing the statue she paled slightly. +</p> + +<p> +The jackal-headed god was in a standing attitude, with his right leg advanced, +and with his hair falling on his shoulders. This hair was pierced by two holes +for the arms. +</p> + +<p> +The head on the top of the rigid body was bent downwards and contemplated the +movement of the hands as they performed the characteristic gesture of the +embalmer. The left foot was loose. +</p> + +<p> +Looking round slowly and fearfully, Chrysis made sure that she was quite alone. +A little noise behind her made her start; but it was only a green lizard +slipping away into a marble fissure. +</p> + +<p> +Then she ventured at last to lay hold of the broken foot of the statue. She +lifted it obliquely, and not without difficulty, for it was attached to a loose +fragment of the hollow pedestal. And under the stone she suddenly saw the gleam +of the enormous pearls. +</p> + +<p> +She withdrew the necklace altogether. How heavy it was! She would never have +imagined that unmounted pearls could weigh with such a weight upon the hand. +The pearl globes were all marvellously round and of an almost lunar water. The +seven strings succeeded one another in ever-widening circles, like circular +clouds on a star-studded lake. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She put it round her neck. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-077.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-077" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>On seeing the statue she paled slightly.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She arranged it in tiers with one hand, closing her eyes in order the better to +feel the coldness of the pearls on her skin. She disposed the seven tiers +regularly along her naked breast, and thrust the last one into the warm channel +between her breasts. +</p> + +<p> +Then she took the ivory comb, considered it for a time, caressed the white +figurine carved in the dainty coronal, and plunged the jewel into her hair +several times before fixing it exactly as she wished. +</p> + +<p> +Then she drew the silver mirror from the pedestal, looked at herself in it, saw +her triumph in it, her eyes gleaming with pride, her shoulders adorned with the +spoils of the gods . . . +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And enveloping herself to the hair in her great purple cyclas, she left the +necropolis, taking with her the terrible jewels. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap27"></a>VI<br/> +THE WALLS OF PURPLE</h3> + +<p> +Then, out of the mouth of the hierodules, the people had learnt the certainty +of the sacrilege for the second time, they gradually melted away through the +gardens. +</p> + +<p> +The courtesans of the temple crowded by hundreds along the paths of black olive +trees. Some scattered ashes on their heads. Others beat their foreheads on the +ground, or pulled out their hair, or tore their breasts, as a sign of calamity. +Many sobbed, with their heads in their hands. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The crowd descended into the town in silence, along the Dromos and along the +quay. Universal mourning spread consternation throughout the streets. The +shopkeepers had hastily taken in their multicoloured stands, from fear, and +wooden shutters kept in place by iron bars succeeded one another like a +monotonous palisade on the ground-floor of windowless houses. +</p> + +<p> +The life of the harbour had come to a stand-still. The sailors sat motionless +on the street-posts, with their cheeks in their hands. The ships ready to leave +had taken in their long oars and clewed up their pointed sails along the masts +rocking in the wind. Those who wished to enter the harbour waited for the +signals out in the open, and some of their passengers, who had relatives at the +queen’s palace, believing a bloody revolution was in progress, sacrificed +to the infernal gods. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At the corner of the island of Pharos and the quay, Rhodis recognised Chrysis +standing near her in the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Chrysis! take me under your care! I am afraid! Myrto is here! but +the crowd is so great . . . I am afraid that we shall be separated. Take us by +the hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know,” said Myrtocleia, “you know what is happening? Do +they know the culprit? Is he being tortured? Nothing like it has ever been seen +since Hierostratos. The Olympians are deserting us. What is going to become of +us?” +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“We had given doves,” said the little flute-player; “will the +goddess remember? The goddess must be very angry. And you, my poor Chryse! you +who were to be very happy to-day or very powerful . . .” +</p> + +<p> +“All is accomplished,” said the courtesan. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis took two steps backwards and lifted her right hand to her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Look well, Rhodis; look, Myrtocleia. Human eyes have never beheld what +you are to behold to-day, since the day, when the goddess descended upon Ida. +And such a sight will never be seen again upon the earth.” +</p> + +<p> +The two friends, believing her to be mad, recoiled in stupefaction. But +Chrysis, lost in her dream, walked to the monstrous Pharos, a mountain of +gleaming marble in eight hexagonal tiers. Taking advantage of the public +inattention, she pushed open the bronze door and closed it on the inside by +letting drop the sonorous bars. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A few minutes elapsed. +</p> + +<p> +The crowd surged perpetually. The living tide added its clamour to the regular +upheavals of the waters. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly a cry arose upon the air, repeated by a hundred thousand voices. +</p> + +<p> +“Aphrodite!” +</p> + +<p> +“Aphrodite!!” +</p> + +<p> +A thunder of cries burst forth. The joy, the enthusiasm of a whole people sang +in an indescribable tumult of ecstasy at the walls of Pharos. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<img style="width: 600px; height: 863px;" alt="" src= "images/ill-000.jpg" /> +</p> + +<p> +The rout that covered the quay surged violently forward into the island, took +possession of the rocks, mounted on the houses, on the signal masts, on the +fortified towers. The isle was full, more than full, and the crowd arrived ever +more compact, like the onrush of a swollen river hurling long rows of human +beings into the sea from the top of the precipitous cliff. +</p> + +<p> +This flood of men was interminable. From the palace of the Ptolemies to the +wall of the Canal, the banks of the Royal Port, of the Great Port, and of +Euroste were alive with a dense mass of human beings that received continual +reinforcements from the side streets. Above this ocean, agitated by immense +eddies, a foaming mass of arms and faces, floated like a barque in peril the +yellow sails of Queen Berenice’s litter. The tumult gathered force every +moment and became formidable. +</p> + +<p> +Neither Helen on the Scain Gates, nor Phryne in the waves of Eleusis, nor +Thaïs setting fire to Persepolis have known what triumph means. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis had appeared by the western Gate, on the first terrace of the red +monument. +</p> + +<p> +She was naked like the goddess, she held in her two hands the ends of her +scarlet veil which floated with the wind upon the evening sky, and in her right +hand the mirror, in which was reflected the setting sun. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-078.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-078" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>She went on her way towards the sky.</i> +</p> + +<p> +Slowly, with bended head, moving with infinite grace and majesty, she mounted +the outer staircase which wound around the high vermilion tower like a spiral. +Her veil flickered like a flame. The rosy sunset reddened the pearl necklace +like a river of rubies. +</p> + +<p> +She mounted, and in this glory, her gleaming skin took on all the magnificence +of flesh, blood, fire, blue carmine, velvety red, bright pink, and revolving +upwards with the great purple walls, she went on her way towards the sky. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="book05"></a>BOOK V</h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap28"></a>I<br/> +THE SUPREME NIGHT</h3> + +<p> +“You are loved of the gods,” said the old gaoler. “If I, a +poor slave, had committed the hundredth part of your crimes, I should have been +bound upon the rack, hung up by the feet, lashed with thongs, burnt with +pincers. They would have poured vinegar into my nostrils, overwhelmed and +crushed me with bricks, and if I had died under the agony, my body would +already be food for the jackals of the burning plains. But you who have stolen, +assassinated, profaned, you may expect nothing more than the gentle hemlock, +and in the meanwhile you enjoy a good room. May Zeus blast me with his +thunderbolt if I can tell why! You probably know somebody at the palace.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me figs,” said Chrysis; “my mouth is dry.” +</p> + +<p> +The old slave brought her a dozen ripe figs in a green basket. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis was left alone. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She sat down and got up again, she walked round the room, she struck the walls +with the palms of her hands without thinking of anything whatever. She let down +her hair to cool it, and then put it up again almost immediately. +</p> + +<p> +They had dressed her in a long garment of white wool. The stuff was hot. +Chrysis was bathed in perspiration. She stretched her arms, yawned, and leaned +herself against the lofty window. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Outside, the silvery moon shone in a sky of liquid purity, a sky so pale and +clear that not a star was visible. +</p> + +<p> +It was on just such a night that, seven years before, Chrysis had left the land +of Gennesaret. +</p> + +<p> +She remembered . . . They were five. They were sellers of ivory. Their +long-tailed horses were adorned with parti-coloured tufts. They had met the +child at the edge of a round cistern . . . +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And before that, the blue lake, the transparent sky, the light air of the land +of Galilee. . . . . +</p> + +<p> +The house was environed with pink flax-plants and tamarisks. Thorny +caper-bushes pricked one’s fingers when one went a-catching butterflies . +. . One could almost see the wind in the undulations of the pine grasses . . . +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-079.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-079" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +The little girls bathed in a limpid brook where one found red shells under the +flowering laurels: and there were flowers upon the water, and flowers all over +the mead, and great lilacs upon the mountains, and the line of the mountain was +that of a young breast . . .<br/> +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis closed her eyes with a faint smile which suddenly died away. The idea +of death had just occurred to her. And she felt that, until the last, she would +be incapable of ceasing to think. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” she said to herself, “what have I done? Why did I meet +that man? Why did he listen to me? Why did I let myself be caught in the trap? +How is it that, even now, I regret nothing? +</p> + +<p> +“Not to love or to die: that is the choice God has given me. What have I +done to deserve punishment?” +</p> + +<p> +And fragments of sacred verses occurred to her that she had heard quoted in her +childhood. She had not thought of them for seven years. But they returned, one +after the other, with an implacable precision, to apply to her life and predict +her penalty. +</p> + +<p> +She murmured: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“It is written: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I remember thy love when thou wast young.<br/> +For of old thou hast broken thy yoke.<br/> +And burst thy bonds;<br/> +And thou hast said: I will no longer serve.<br/> +But upon every high hill,<br/> +And under every green tree,<br/> +Thou hast wandered, playing the harlot. [<a name="chapV_Ifn1text"></a><a +href="#chapV_Ifn1">1</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“It is written: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I will follow after my lovers,<br/> +Who give me my bread and my wine,<br/> +And my wool and my flax,<br/> +And my oil and my wine. [<a name="chapV_Ifn2text"></a><a +href="#chapV_Ifn2">2</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“It is written: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +How canst thou say: I am not polluted?<br/> +See thy way in the valley,<br/> +Know what thou hast done,<br/> +O thou dromedary traversing her ways,<br/> +O thou wild ass,<br/> +Panting and ever lustful,<br/> +Who could prevent thee from satisfying thy desire? [<a +name="chapV_Ifn3text"></a><a href="#chapV_Ifn3">3</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“It is written: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>She has played the harlot in the land of Egypt.</i><br/> +She has doted upon paramours<br/> +Whose flesh is as the flesh of asses,<br/> +And whose issue is like the issue of horses.<br/> +Thus thou callest to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth,<br/> +In bruising thy teats by the Egyptians<br/> +For the paps of thy youth.” [<a name="chapV_Ifn4text"></a><a +href="#chapV_Ifn4">4</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Oh!” she cried. “It is I! It is I!” +</p> + +<p> +“And it is written again: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers,<br/> +And thou wouldst return again to me! saith the Lord. [<a +name="chapV_Ifn5text"></a><a href="#chapV_Ifn5">5</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“But my chastisement also is written: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Behold: I raise up thy lovers against thee:<br/> +They shall judge thee according to their judgments.<br/> +They shall take away thy nose and thine ears,<br/> +And thy remnant shall fall by the sword. [<a name="chapV_Ifn6text"></a><a +href="#chapV_Ifn6">6</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“And again: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +She is undone: she is stripped naked, she is led away captive<br/> +Her servants wail like doves<br/> +And taber upon their breasts. [<a name="chapV_Ifn7text"></a><a +href="#chapV_Ifn7">7</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“But does one know what the Scripture says?” she added to console +herself. “Is it not written elsewhere: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom. [<a +name="chapV_Ifn8text"></a><a href="#chapV_Ifn8">8</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“And elsewhere does not Scripture give this advice: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart: for +God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white, and let thy head +lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of +the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun; for there is no +work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest. +[<a name="chapV_Ifn9text"></a><a href="#chapV_Ifn9">9</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She shivered, and repeated in a low voice: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +For there is no work, nor device nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, +<i>whither thou goest!</i> Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is +to see the sun. [<a name="chapV_Ifn10text"></a><a href="#chapV_Ifn10">10</a>] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of +thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes, or +ever thou goest to thy long home and the mourners go about the streets: or ever +the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken or the pitcher be +broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, or the dust return +to the earth as it was. [<a name="chapV_Ifn11text"></a><a +href="#chapV_Ifn11">11</a>] +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Shivering once more, she repeated slowly: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Or the dust return to the earth as it was. +</p> + +<p> +And as she took her head in her hands in order to stifle her thoughts, she +suddenly felt, without having foreseen it, the mortuary form of her cranium +through the living skin: the empty temples, the enormous orbits, the flat nose +under the cartilage, and the protruding jaws. +</p> + +<p> +Horror! this it was, then, that she was about to become! With frightful +lucidity, she had the vision of her corpse, and she passed her hands over her +whole body in order to probe to the bottom an idea which, though simple, had +never yet occurred to her—that she bore <i>her skeleton within her</i>, +that it was not a result of death, a metamorphosis, a culmination, but a thing +one carries about, a spectre inseparable from the human form, and that the +framework of life is already the symbol of the tomb. +</p> + +<p> +A furious desire to live, to see everything again, to begin everything again, +to do everything again, suddenly came over her. It was a revolt in the presence +of death: the impossibility of admitting that she would never see the evening +of the dawning day: the impossibility of understanding how this beauty, this +body, this active thought, this opulent life of the flesh could cease to be, in +its zenith, and go to rottenness. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios entered. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<small> <a name="chapV_Ifn1"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn1text">1</a>] +<i>Jeremiah</i> II, 2, 20.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn2"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn2text">2</a>] <i>Hosea</i> II, +5.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn3"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn3text">3</a>] <i>Jeremiah</i> II, +23, 24.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn4"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn4text">4</a>] <i>Ezekiel</i> +XXIII, 20, 21.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn5"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn5text">5</a>] <i>Jeremiah</i> +III, 1.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn6"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn6text">6</a>] <i>Ezekiel</i> +XXIII, 22, 25.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn7"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn7text">7</a>] <i>Nahum</i> II, +7.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn8"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn8text">8</a>] <i>Hosea</i> IV, +14.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn9"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn9text">9</a>] <i>Ecclesiastes</i> +IX, 7, 10.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn10"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn10text">10</a>] +<i>Ecclesiastes</i> XI, 7.<br/><br/> +<a name="chapV_Ifn11"></a> [<a href="#chapV_Ifn11text">11</a>] +<i>Ecclesiastes</i> XII, 1, 5-7. </small> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap29"></a>II<br/> +DUST RETURNS TO EARTH</h3> + +<p> +“Demetrios!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +And she rushed forward. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +But after carefully dropping the wooden bolt, the young man remained +motionless, and his glance betrayed such profound tranquility that Chrysis was +suddenly stricken with a cold chill. +</p> + +<p> +She had hoped for an impulse of generosity, a movement of the arms, the lips, +anything, an outstretched hand . . . +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios did not move. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He waited in silence for an instant, in an extremely correct attitude, as if he +wished clearly to disavow all responsibility in the case. +</p> + +<p> +Then, seeing that nothing was asked of him, he strode towards the window and +planted himself in the embrasure to contemplate the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysis sat upon the low bed, with a fixed look in her dulled eyes. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Then Demetrios began to commune with himself. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“It is better thus,” he said to himself. “Such trivial +amusements on the very eve of death would, as a matter of fact, be most +lugubrious. I wonder, however, that she should not have had a presentiment of +it from the very beginning, and I marvel that she should have received me so +enthusiastically. As for me, it is an adventure terminated. I regret somewhat +this denouement, for all things considered, the only crime of which Chrysis is +guilty is to have expressed very frankly an ambition which might have been +shared by most women, without doubt, and if it were not necessary to cast a +victim to the public indignation, I should be satisfied with the banishment of +this too-ardent young woman, in order to get rid of her and at the same time +leave her the joys of life. But there has been a scandal, and none can stop the +course of events. Such are the effects of passion. Thoughtless sensuality, or +its contrary, the idea without the reality, do not involve these fatal +consequences. We ought to have many mistresses, but to beware, with the help of +the gods, of forgetting that all mouths resemble one another.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-080.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-080" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Chrysis sat upon the low bed.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Having thus, in an audacious aphorism, summed up one of his moral theories, he +lightly resumed the normal course of his ideas. +</p> + +<p> +He remembered vaguely an invitation to dine that he had accepted for the night +before and then forgotten in the whirl of events, and he resolved to send an +apology. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He considered whether he should put his slave-tailor up for sale, an old man +who had remained attached to the fashionable cut of the former regime, and who +succeeded very imperfectly with the new puckered tunics. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +His mind was even so free from all preoccupation that he stumped out upon the +wall a rough study of his group of <i>Zagreus and the Titans</i>, a variant +which modified the position of the principal character’s right arm. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Hardly had he finished, when a gentle knock was heard at the door. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios opened without haste. The old executioner entered, followed by two +helmeted hoplites. +</p> + +<p> +“I bring the little cup,” he said, smiling obsequiously at the +royal lover. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios kept silence. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis, half beside herself, raised her head. “Come, my girl,” +continued the gaoler, “the hour has come. The hemlock is crushed. There +is really nothing left but to take it. Do not be afraid. There is no +pain.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis looked at Demetrios, who did not turn away his eyes. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Still continuing to regard him with her great black eyes that were rimmed with +green light, Chrysis stretched out her hand, took the cup, and slowly raised it +to her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +She dipped her lips in it. The bitterness of the poison and also the pangs of +the poisoning had been tempered with honey and narcotics. +</p> + +<p> +She drank half the contents of the cup, then, whether it was that she had seen +this gesture at the Theatre, in the <i>Thyestes</i> of Agathon, or whether it +was really the outcome of a spontaneous sentiment, she handed the poison to +Demetrios. But the young man waved away this indiscreet suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +Then the Galilæan drank the rest of the beverage even to the green slime at the +bottom. An agonising smile overspread her cheeks, a smile in which there was +certainly a little contempt. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-081.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-081" /><br/><br/> +</div> + + +<p> +“What must I do?” she said to the gaoler. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Walk about the room, my girl, until you feel a heaviness in the legs. +Then lie down on your back, and the poison will do the rest.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis walked to the window, leaned her head against the wall, with her +temples in her hand, and cast a last look of vanished youth upon the violet +dawn. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The orient was bathed in a sea of colour. A long band, livid as a water leaf, +enveloped the horizon with an olive-coloured girdle. Higher up, several tints +sprang out of one another, liquid sheets of blue-green sky, irisated, or +lilac-coloured, melting insensibly into the leaden azure of the upper heavens. +Then, these tiers of colour rose slowly, a line of gold appeared, mounted, +expanded: a thin thread of purple illumined this melancholic dawn, and, in a +flood of blood, the sun was born. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It is written: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +"The light is sweet . . .” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She remained thus, standing, so long as her legs could sustain her. When she +showed signs of reeling, the hoplites carried her to the bed. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +There, the old man disposed the white folds of the robe along the rigid limbs. +Then he touched her feet and asked her: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Do you feel anything?” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-082.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-082" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>The hoplites carried her to the bed.</i> +</p> + +<p> +She answered: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“No.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He touched her knees and asked her: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Do you feel anything?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She made a sign to him that she felt nothing, and suddenly, with a movement of +her mouth and shoulders (for her very hands were dead), seized with a supreme +frenzy of passion, and perhaps with regret, at this sterile hour, she raised +herself towards Demetrios, but before he could answer she fell back lifeless, +with the light for ever gone from out of her eyes. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Then the executioner covered her face with the upper folds of her garment: and +one of the assistant soldiers, supposing that a more tender past had once +united this young man and woman, severed with his sword the uttermost lock of +her hair, and it fell down upon the paving-stones. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios took it in his hand, and in truth it was Chrysis in her entirety, the +gold that survived her beauty, the very pretext of her name . . . +</p> + +<p> +He took the warm lock between his thumb and his fingers, severed the strands +slowly, dropped them to the earth, and ground them into the dust under the sole +of his shoe. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap30"></a>III<br/> +CHRYSIS IMMORTAL</h3> + +<p> +When Demetrios found himself alone in his red studio, littered with marble +statuary, rough models, trestles, and scaffoldings, he endeavoured to apply +himself once more to his work. +</p> + +<p> +With his chisel in his left hand and his mallet in his right, he resumed, but +without ardour, an interrupted rough study. It was the breast and shoulders of +a gigantic horse intended for the temple of Poseidon. Under the close-cropped +mane, the skin of the neck, puckered by a movement of the head, curved in +geometrically like an undulating marine basin. +</p> + +<p> +Three days before, the details of this regular muscular arrangement had +entirely absorbed all Demetrios’s interest; but on the morning of the +death of Chrysis, the aspect of things seemed changed. Less calm than he could +have wished, Demetrios could not succeed in fixing his preoccupied thoughts. A +sort of veil which he could not lift interposed itself between him and the +marble. He throw down his mallet and began to pace about amongst the dusty +pedestals. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Suddenly he crossed the court, called a slave, and said to her: +</p> + +<p> +“Prepare the piscina and the aromatics. Bathe me and perfume me, give me +my white garments, and light the round perfume-pans.” +</p> + +<p> +When he had finished his toilette, he summoned two other slaves. +</p> + +<p> +“Go,” said he, “to the Queen’s prison; hand the gaoler +this lump of potter’s earth, and tell him to place it in the +death-chamber of Chrysis the courtesan. If the body has not already been thrown +into the dungeon, charge him to take no action until he receives my orders. Go +quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +He put a roughing-chisel into the fold of his girdle and opened the principal +door which gave upon the deserted avenue of the Dromos. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Suddenly he halted on the threshold, stupefied by the immense midday light of +Africa. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-083.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-083" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +The street was certainly white and the houses white too, but the flame of the +perpendicular sunbeams bathed the gleaming surfaces with such a fury of +reflections that the limestone walls and the pavements danced with prodigious +incandescence in dark blue, red, green, raw ochre, and hyacinth. Great +palpitating pillars of colour seemed to hang in the air and to be superimposed +in transparent masses over the shimmering, flaming facades. The very lines of +the houses lost their shape behind this dazzling magnificence; the right wall +of the street rounded off dimly into space, floated like a piece of drapery, +and in certain places became invisible. A dog lying near a street-post was +literally bathed in crimson. +</p> + +<p> +Lost in admiration, Demetrios saw a symbol of his new existence in this +spectacle. He had lived long enough in solitary night, in silence, and in +peace. Long enough had he taken moon-beams for light, and, for his ideal, the +languid line of a too delicate pose, His work was not virile. There was an icy +shiver on the skin of his statues. +</p> + +<p> +During the tragic adventure which had just convulsed his intelligence, he had, +for the first time, felt the great living breath of life inflate his breast. If +he feared a second ordeal; if, victorious in the struggle, he swore above all +things not to run the risk of flinching from the beautiful attitude he had +adopted in the face of the world, at any rate he had just realised that that +only is worthy of being imagined which penetrates by means of marble, colour or +speech to one of the profundities of human emotion—and that formal beauty +is merely so much uncertain matter, ever capable of being transfigured by the +expression of sorrow or joy. +</p> + +<p> +Just as he was finishing this line of thought, he arrived before the door of +the criminal prison. +</p> + +<p> +His two slaves were waiting for him. +</p> + +<p> +“We have brought the lump of red clay,” they said. “The body +is on the bed. It has not been touched. The gaoler salutes you and hopes you +will not forget him.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The young man entered in silence, followed the long corridor, mounted some +steps, and penetrated into the death-chamber. He carefully closed the door +after him. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The body lay upon the bed, with the head covered with a veil, the fingers +extended, and the feet close together. The fingers were laden with rings: two +silver bangles encircled the pale ankles, and the nails of each toe were still +red with powder. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios laid his hand on the veil in order to raise it; but he had no sooner +touched it than a dozen flies rapidly escaped from the opening. +</p> + +<p> +He shivered from head to foot. Nevertheless he removed the tissue of white wool +and wound it round the hair. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Chrysis’ face had little by little become illumined with the expression +of eternity that death dispenses to the eyelids and hair of corpses. In the +bluish whiteness of the cheeks, the azure veinlets gave the immobile head the +appearance of cold marble. The diaphanous nostrils were distended above the +fine lips. The fragile ears had something immaterial about them. Never, in any +light, even in his dreams, had Demetrios seen such superhuman beauty and such a +brilliancy of fading skin. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +And then he remembered the words uttered by Chrysis during their first +interview: “You only know my face. You do not know how beautiful I +am!” An intense emotion suddenly stifles him. He wishes to know. He has +the power. +</p> + +<p> +Of his three days of passion he wishes to keep a souvenir which shall last +longer than himself.—to lay bare the admirable body, to pose it as a +model in the violent attitude in which he saw it in his dreams, and to create, +from the corpse, the statue of Immortal Life. +</p> + +<p> +He unclasps the buckle and unties the knot. He throws back the draperies. The +body is heavy. He raises it. The head falls backwards. The breasts tremble. The +arms drop pendent. He withdraws the robe entirely and casts it into the middle +of the chamber. Heavily, the body falls back again. +</p> + +<p> +Placing his two hands under the icy armpits, Demetrios pulls the dead woman to +the upper end of the bed. He turns the head over on to the left cheek, collects +and arranges the hair splendidly under the back. Then he raises the right arm, +bends the forearm over the forehead, closes the still soft fingers over the +stuff of a cushion: two admirable muscular lines, descending from the ear and +elbow, meet under the right breast and bear it like a fruit. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-084.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-084" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>The rough figure takes life and precision.</i> +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards, he arranges the legs, one stretched out stiffly on one side, the +other with the knee raised and the heel almost touching the croup. He rectifies +a few details, turns over the waist a little to the left, straightens out the +right foot and takes off the bracelets, the necklaces and the rings, in order +not to mar by a single dissonance the pure and complete harmony of feminine +nudity. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The Model has taken the pose. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Demetrios casts the dark lump of clay upon the table. He presses it, kneads it, +lengthens it out into human form: a sort of barbarous monster takes shape under +his burning fingers: he looks. +</p> + +<p> +The motionless corpse preserves its attitude of passion. But a thin thread of +blood trickles from the right nostril, flows upon the lip, and falls, drop by +drop, under the half-opened mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Demetrios continues. The rough figure takes life and precision. A prodigious +left arm circles over the body as if it were clasping someone in a tight +embrace. The muscles of the thigh stand out violently. The heels are bent +upwards. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +When night mounted from the earth and darkened the low chamber, Demetrios had +finished the statue. +</p> + +<p> +He had it carried to his studio by four slaves. That very evening, by +lamplight, he had a block of Parian marble rough-hewed, and a year after that +day he was still working at the marble. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap31"></a>IV<br/> +PITY</h3> + +<p> +“Gaoler, open! Gaoler, open!” +</p> + +<p> +Rhodis and Myrtocleia knocked at the closed door. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened half way. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want?” +</p> + +<p> +“To see our friend,” said Myrto. “To see Chrysis, poor +Chrysis, who died this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not allowed; go away!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, let us enter. No one will know. We will tell no one. She was our +friend, let us see her once more. We will go out again. We will go out again +quickly. We will make no noise.” +</p> + +<p> +“And supposing I am caught, my little girls? Supposing I am punished on +your account? You will not pay the fine?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not be caught. You are alone here. There are no other inmates +of the prison. You have sent away the soldiers. We know this. Let us +enter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well! Do not stay too long. Here is the key. It is the third door. +Tell me when you go away. It is late and I want to go to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +The kindly old man handed them a key of beaten iron which hung from his girdle, +and the two little virgins ran immediately, on their noiseless sandals, along +the obscure corridors. +</p> + +<p> +Then the gaoler re-entered his lodge, and did not insist any further upon a +useless surveillance. The penalty of imprisonment was not applied in Greek +Egypt, and the little white house that was placed under the care of the gentle +old man served merely for the reception of culprits condemned to death. In the +interval between executions it remained almost deserted. +</p> + +<p> +The moment the great key entered the lock, Rhodis arrested her friend’s +hand: +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know whether I dare see her,” she said. “I loved +her well, Myrto . . . I am afraid . . . Go in first, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +Myrtocleia pushed open the door; but as soon as she had cast a glance into the +chamber she cried: +</p> + +<p> +“Do not enter, Rhodis! Wait for me here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! What is there? You are afraid too . . . What is there on the bed? Is +she not dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, wait for me . . . I will tell you . . . Stay in the corridor and do +not look.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The body was still in the ecstatic attitude in which Demetrius had arranged it +for his Statue of Immortal Life. But the transports of extreme joy confine upon +the convulsions of extreme pain, and Myrtocleia asked herself what atrocious +sufferings, what agonies had produced such an upheaval in the corpse. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-085.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-085" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +She approached the bed on tiptoe. +</p> + +<p> +The thread of blood continued to flow from the diaphanous nostril. The skin of +the body was perfectly white; the pale tips of the breasts receded like +delicate navels; not a single rose-coloured reflection gave life to the +ephemeral recumbent statue; but some emerald-coloured spots that tinted the +smooth belly signified that millions of new lives were germinating in the +scarcely-cold flesh, and were demanding “the right of succession!” +</p> + +<p> +Myrtocleia took the dead arm and laid it flat along the hip. She tried also to +pull out the left leg; but the knee was almost rigid, and she did not succeed +in pulling it out completely. +</p> + +<p> +“Rhodis,” she said, in a troubled voice, “come; you can enter +now.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The trembling child penetrated into the chamber. Her features contracted, her +eyes opened wide. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as they felt that there were two of them, they fell into one +another’s arms and burst into long-drawn sobs. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Chrysis! Poor Chrysis!” repeated the child. +</p> + +<p> +They kissed one another on the cheek with a desperate affection from which all +sensuality had disappeared and the taste of the tears upon their lips filled +their forlorn little souls with bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +They wept, and wailed, they looked at one another other with anguish, and +sometimes they spoke both together in a hoarse voice of agony, and their words +ended in sobs. +</p> + +<p> +“How we loved her! She was not a friend for us. She was a little mother +for both of us . . .” +</p> + +<p> +Rhodis repeated: +</p> + +<p> +“Like a little mother . . .” +</p> + +<p> +And Myrto, dragging her to the side of the dead woman, said in a low voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Kiss her.” +</p> + +<p> +They both bent down, and placed their hands upon the bed, as, with fresh sobs, +they touched the icy forehead with their lips. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And Myrto took the head between her two hands, buried them in the hair, and +spoke to her thus: +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Chrysis, my Chrysis, you who were the most beautiful and the most adored +of women, who were so like the goddess that the people took you for her, where +are you now, what have they done with you? You lived to impart beneficent joy. +No fruit was ever sweeter than your mouth, no light brighter than your eyes; +your skin was a glorious robe that you would not veil; voluptuousness floated +upon it like a perpetual odour; and when you unclasped your hair, all desires +flowed from it; and when you clasped your naked arms, one implored the gods for +permission to die.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +Rhodis sat huddled up on the ground, sobbing. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Chrysis, my Chrysis.” pursued Myrtocleia, “but yesterday you +were living, and young, and hoping for length of days, and now you are dead, +and no power on earth can induce you to speak a word to us. You have closed +your eyes, and we were not there. You have suffered and you did not know that +we wept for you behind the walls. Your dying eyes looked for someone and did +not meet our eyes stricken with sorrow and pity.” +</p> + +<p> +The flute-girl wept continually. The singing girl took her by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +“Chrysis, my Chrysis, you once told us that one day, thanks to you, we +should marry. Our union is one of tears, and sad is the betrothal of Rhodis and +Myrtocleia. But sorrow, rather than love, welds together two enclasped hands. +Those who have once wept together will never desert one another. We are going +to lay your dear body under the ground, Chrysidion, and we will both of us cut +off our hair upon your tomb.” +</p> + +<p> +</p> <hr style="color:#000000;background-color:#000000;width: 5%; height: 5px;" +/> + +<p class="p2"> +She enveloped the beautiful body and then she said to Rhodis: +</p> + +<p> +“Help me.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-086.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-086" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p> +They lifted her up gently; but the burden was a heavy one for the little +musicians, and they laid it down upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us take off our sandals,” said Myrto. “Let us walk +bare-footed in the corridors. The gaoler is surely asleep. If we do not wake +him we shall pass, but if he sees us he will prevent us . . . To-morrow matters +not: when he sees the empty bed, he will say to the Queen’s soldiers that +he has thrown the body into a ditch, according to the law. Let us fear nothing, +Rhodis! . . . Put your sandals in your girdle, like me. And come! Take the body +under the knees. Let the feet hang behind. Walk without noise, slowly, slowly . +. .” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap32"></a>V<br/> +PIETY</h3> + +<p> +After the turning of the second street, they laid the body down a second time +in order in put on their sandals. Rhodis’s feet, too delicate to walk +naked, were torn and bleeding. +</p> + +<p> +The night was full of brilliancy. The town was full of silence. The +iron-coloured shadows lay in square blocks in the middle of the streets, +according to the profile of the houses. +</p> + +<p> +The little virgins resumed their load. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are we going to?” asked the child. “Where are we going +to bury it?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the cemetery of Hermanubis. It is always deserted, it will be in +peace there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Chrysis! Could I ever have thought that on her last day, I should +bear her body without torches and without funeral car, secretly, like a thing +stolen.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Then both began to talk volubly as if they were afraid of the silence, cheek by +jowl with the corpse. The last day of Chrysis’s life filled them with +astonishment. Where had she got the mirror, the necklace and the comb? She +could not have taken the pearls of the goddess herself. The temple was too well +guarded for a courtesan to be able to enter it. Then somebody must have acted +for her? But who? She was not known to possess any lover amongst the Stolists +to whom the guard of the divine statue was entrusted. And then, if someone had +acted for her, why had she not denounced him? And, in any case, why these three +crimes? Of what had they availed her, except to deliver her over to punishment? +A woman does not commit such follies without an object, unless she be in love? +Was Chrysis in love? and who could it be? +</p> + +<p> +“We shall never know”, concluded the flute-player. “She has +taken her secret with her, and even if she had an accomplice he would be the +last to enlighten us.” +</p> + +<p> +At this point, Rhodis, who had been resting for several instants, sighed: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-087.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-087" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>The little virgins resumed their load</i> +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot carry her any longer, Myrto. I shall fall down on my knees, I +am broken with fatigue and grief.” +</p> + +<p> +Myrtocleia took her by the neck: +</p> + +<p> +“Try again, my darling. We <i>must</i> carry her. Her nether life is at +stake. If she has no sepulture and no obol in her hand, she will roam eternally +on the banks of the river of hell, and when we in our turn, Rhodis, go down to +the dead, she will reproach us with our impiety, and we shall not know what to +answer her.” +</p> + +<p> +But the child, overcome with weakness, burst into tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Quickly, quickly!” exclaimed Myrtocleia. +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody is coming along the end of the street. Place yourself in front +of the body with me. Let us hide it behind our tunics . . . If it is seen, all +is lost . . .” +</p> + +<p> +She stooped short. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Timon. I recognise him. Timon with four women. Ah, gods! what is +going to happen? He laughs at everything and will mock us . . . But no, stay +here, Rhodis; I will speak to him.” +</p> + +<p> +And, inspired by a sudden thought, she ran down the street to meet the little +group. +</p> + +<p> +“Timon,” she said, and her voice was full of supplication; +“Timon, stop. I have grave words to utter to you alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“My poor little thing,” said the young man, “how excited you +are! Have you lost your shoulder-knot or have you dropped your doll and broken +its nose? This would be an irreparable disaster.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl threw him a look of anguish; but the four women, Philotis, Seso of +Cnidos, Callistion, and Tryphera, were already clamouring round her with +impatience. +</p> + +<p> +“Get away, little idiot!” said Tryphera, “if you have dried +up your nurse’s teats, we cannot help it, we have no milk. It is almost +daylight, you ought to be in bed; what business have children to roam about in +the moonlight?” +</p> + +<p> +“Her nurse?” said Philotis. “She wants to steal away +Timon.” +</p> + +<p> +“The whip! She deserves the whip!” said Callistion, who put one arm +round Myrto’s waist, lifting her off the ground and raising her little +blue tunic, But Seso interposed: +</p> + +<p> +“You are mad,” she cried. “Myrto has never known a man. If +she calls Timon, it is not to sleep with him. Let her alone, and let us have +done with it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said Timon, “what do you want with me? Come here. +Whisper in my ear. Is it really serious?” +</p> + +<p> +“The body of Chrysis is there, in the street,” said the young girl +tremblingly. “We are carrying into the cemetary, my little friend and I, +but it is heavy, and we ask you if you will help us. It will not take long. +Immediately afterwards you can rejoin your women . . .” +</p> + +<p> +Timon’s look reassured her. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor girls! To think that I laughed! You are better than we are . . . +Certainly I will help you. Go and join your friend and wait for me, I am +coming.” +</p> + +<p> +Turning to the four women . . . +</p> + +<p> +“Go to my house,” he said, “by the street of the Potters. I +shall be there in a short time. Do not follow me.” +</p> + +<p> +Rhodis was still sitting in front of the corpse. When she saw Timon coming, she +implored him: +</p> + +<p> +“Do not tell! We have stolen it to save her shade. Keep our secret, we +will love you, Timon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have no fears,” said the young man. +</p> + +<p> +He took the body under the shoulders and Myrto took it under the knees, and +they walked on in silence, with Rhodis tottering along behind. +</p> + +<p> +Timon said not a word. For the second time in two days, human passion had +carried off one of the transitory guests of his bed, and he marvelled at the +unreason that drove people out of the enchanted road that leads to perfect +happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Impassivity,” he thought, “indifference, quietude, +voluptuous serenity! who amongst men will appreciate you? We fight, we +struggle, we hope, when one thing only is worth having: namely, to extract from +the fleeting moment all the joys it is capable of affording, and to leave +one’s bed as little as possible.” +</p> + +<p> +They reached the gate of the ruined necropolis. +</p> + +<p> +“Where shall we put it?” said Myrto. +</p> + +<p> +“Near the god.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the statue? I have never been in here before. I was afraid of +the tombs and the inscriptions. I do not know the Hermanubis. It is probably in +the centre of the little garden. Let us look for it. I once came here before +when I was a child, in quest of a lost gazelle. Let us follow the alley of +white sycamores. We cannot fail to discern it.” +</p> + +<p> +Nor did they fail to find it. +</p> + +<p> +Dawn mingled its delicate violets with the moonbeams on the monuments. A vague +and distant harmony floated in the cypress branches. The regular rustling of +the palms, so similar to tiny drops of falling rain, cast an illusion of +freshness. +</p> + +<p> +Timon opened with difficulty a pink stone imbedded in the earth. The sepulture +was excavated beneath the hands of the funerary god, whose attitude was that of +the embalmer. It must have contained a body, formerly; but at present nothing +was to be found but a handful of brownish dust. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-088.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-881" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>They passed the limp body to Timon.</i> +</p> + +<p> +The young man jumped into the grave, as far as his waist, and held out his +arms: +</p> + +<p> +“Give it to me,” he said to Myrto. “I am going to lay it at +the far end, and we will close up the tomb again.” +</p> + +<p> +But Rhodis threw herself on the body. +</p> + +<p> +“No, do not bury her so quickly! I want to see her again! One last time! +One last time! Chrysis! My poor Chrysis! Ah! the horror of it . . . How she has +changed! . . .” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Myrtocleia had just disarranged the blanket which covered the dead woman, and +the sight of the sudden change the face had undergone made the two girls +recoil. The cheeks had become square, the eyelids and lips were puffed out like +half-a-dozen white pads. Nothing was left of all that superhuman beauty. They +drew the thick winding-sheet over her again: but Myrto slipped her hand under +the stuff and placed an obol for Charon in her fingers. +</p> + +<p> +Then, shaken by interminable sobs, they passed the limp inert body to Timon. +</p> + +<p> +And when Chrysis was laid in the bottom of the sandy tomb, Timon opened the +winding-sheet again. He fixed the silver obol tightly in the nerveless hand; he +propped up the head with a flat stone; he spread the long deep-gold hair over +her body from the forehead to the knees. +</p> + +<p> +Then he left the tomb, and the musicians, kneeling before the yawning opening, +cut off their young hair, bound it together in one sheaf, and buried it with +the dead. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ΤΟΙΝΔΕ ΠΕΡΑΣ ΕΣΧΕ +ΤΟ ΣΥΝΤΑΓΜΑ<br/> +ΤΩΝ ΠΕΡΙ ΧΡΥΣΙΔΑ +ΚΑΙ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΝ <br/> +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/ill-089.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="ill-089" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ancient Manners, by Pierre Louys + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANCIENT MANNERS *** + +***** This file should be named 36378-h.htm or 36378-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/3/7/36378/ + +Produced by James D. 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