Produced by James D. Simmons










Ancient Manners


COMPLETE AND INTEGRAL TRANSLATION
INTO ENGLISH

by Pierre Louÿs


_Illustrated by ED. ZIER_

Privately printed for Subscribers only


PARIS


This
Translation of
Ancient Manners
was executed on the
Printing Presses of CHARLES
HERISSEY, at Evreux, (France),
for Mr. CHARLES CARRINGTON,
Paris, Bookseller et Publisher,
and is the only
complete English
version
extant.



This Edition on Large Paper,
is limited to 1000 copies of
which this is
No . . . . . . . . 



Contents


 PREFACE

 BOOK I
 I. Chrysis
 II. On the Quay at Alexandria
 III. Demetrios
 IV. The Passer-by
 V. The Mirror, the Comb, and the Necklace
 VI. The Virgins
 VII. Chrysis’s Hair

 BOOK II
 I. The Garden of the Goddess
 II. Melitta
 III. Love and Death
 IV. Moonlight
 V. The Invitation
 VI. Chrysis’s Rose
 VII. The Tale of the Enchanted Lyre

 BOOK III
 I. The Arrival
 II. The Dinner
 III. Rhacotis
 IV. The Orgie at Bacchis’s
 V. The Crucified One
 VI. Enthusiasm
 VII. Cleopatra

 BOOK IV
 I. Demetrios Dreams a Dream
 II. The Panic
 III. The Crowd
 IV. The Response
 V. The Garden of Hermanubis
 VI. The Walls Of Purple

 BOOK V
 I. The Supreme Night
 II. Dust Returns to Earth
 III. Chrysis Immortal
 IV. Pity
 V. Piety


PREFACE

The very ruins of the Greek
world instruct us how our
modern life might be made
supportable.


RICHARD WAGNER


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:
_Heracles between Virtue and Pleasure_. 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.

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, _The Hours_, 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:

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 _mœchus_, 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.

It is obvious that the life of the ancients cannot be judged according
to the ideas of morality which we owe to Geneva.

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.

In order to continue to judge of the ancient Greeks according to ideas
at present in vogue, it is necessary that _not a single_ 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.

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.

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.

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
_mœchus calvus_; 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 _physical part_ of this passion is good, and the rest is worth
nothing.”

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?

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

Pierre Louÿs.


ill-001




BOOK I



I
CHRYSIS

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.

Languid with too much sleep, she had remained alone upon the disordered
bed ever since she had awakened, two hours after mid-day.

The great waves of her hair, her only garment, covered one of her
sides.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

ill-002


_Greek harlots from the isles told her the legend of Iphis._

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Her reflexions were profound.

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:

“Djala! Djala!”

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.

The slave entered and stood near the door, without entirely closing it.

“Who came yesterday, Djala?”

“You do not know?”

“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?”

“At sunrise, he said—”

“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.”

The slave brought a casket, but Chrysis did not look at it, and,
raising her arm as high as she could:

“Ah! Djala,” she said, “ah! Djala! I long for extraordinary
adventures.”

“Everything is extraordinary,” said Djala, “or nought. The days
resemble one another.”

“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?”

She turned over upon her back and interlocked her fingers.

“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?”

“What bracelet to-day?”

“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.”

“You are not going out?”

“Yes, I shall go out alone. I shall dress myself alone. I shall not
return. Off with you! Off with you!”

She let one leg drop upon the carpet and stretched herself into a
standing posture. Djala had gone away noiselessly.

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.

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.

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.

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:

“Dry me.”

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.

Chrysis sank quivering into the coolness of a marble chair and
murmured:

“Dress my hair.”

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.

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.

ill-003


Chrysis became graver and said in a low voice:

“Paint me.”

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.

The Chrysis began to smile, and said to the Hindoo woman:

“Sing to me.”

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.

Huddled against the wall, Djala bethought her of the love-songs of
India.

“Chrysis . . .”

She sang in a monotonous chant.

“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.”

The young woman alternated, in a softer, lower voice:

“My hair is like an endless river in the plain when the flame-lit
evening fades.”

And they sang, one after the other:

“Thine eyes are like blue water-lilies without stalks, motionless upon
the pools.”

“Mine eyes rest in the shadow of my lashes like deep lakes under dark
branches.”



“Thy lips are two delicate flowers stained with the blood of a roe.”

“My lips are the edges of a burning wound.”



“Thy tongue is the bloody dagger that has made the wound of thy mouth.”

“My tongue is inlaid with precious stones. It is red with the sheen of
my lips.”



“Thine arms are tapering as two ivory tusks, and thy armpits are two
mouths.”

“Mine arms are tapering as two lily-stalks and my fingers hang
therefrom like five petals.”

“Thy thighs are two white elephants’ trunks. They bear thy feet like
two red flowers.”

“My feet are two nenuphar-leaves upon the water: My thighs are two
bursting nenuphar buds.”



“Thy breasts are two silver bucklers with cusps steeped in blood.”

“My breasts are the moon and the reflection of the moon and the water.”

ill-004


_Huddled against the wall, Djala bethought herself of the love-songs of
India._



“Thy navel is a deep pit in a desert of red sand, and thy belly a young
kid lying on its mother’s breast.”

“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.”



There was a silence. The slave raised her hands and bowed to the
ground.

The courtesan proceeded:

“It is like a purple flower, full of perfumes and honey.”

“It is like a sea-serpent, soft and living, open at night.”

“It is the humid grotto, the ever-warm lodging, the Refuge where man
reposes from his march to death.”

The prostrate one murmured very low: “It is appalling. It is the face
of Medusa.”



Chrysis planted her foot upon the slave’s neck and said with trembling:

“Djala.”

The night had come on little by little, but the moon was so luminous
that the room was filled with blue light.

Chrysis looked at the motionless reflections of her naked body where
the shadows fell very black.

She rose brusquely:

“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?

“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.”

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.

She took her feather fan in her hand, and carelessly sauntered forth.

Standing upon the steps of the threshold, with her hand leaning on the
white wall, Djala watched the courtesan’s retreating form.

She walked slowly past the houses, in the deserted street bathed in
moonlight. A little flickering shadow danced behind her.



II
THE QUAY AT ALEXANDRIA

On the quay at Alexandria a singing-girl was standing singing. By her
side were two flute-girls, seated on the white parapet.

I

The satyrs pursue in the woods
    The light-footed oreads.
They chase the nymphs upon the mountains,
    They fill their eyes with affright,
They seize their hair in the wind,
    They grasp their breasts in the chase,
And throw their warm bodies backwards
    Upon the green dew-covered moss,
And the beautiful bodies, their beautiful bodies half divine,
    Writhe with the agony . . .
O women! Eros makes your lips cry aloud
    With dolorous, sweet Desire.



The flute-players repeated

“Eros
Eros!”

and wailed in their twin reeds.

II

Cybele pursues across the plain
    Attys, beautiful as Apollo.
Eros has smitten her to the heart, and for him,
    O Totoi! but not him for her,
Instead of love, cruel god, wicked Eros,
    Thou counsellest but hatred . . .
Across the meads, the vast distant plains,
    Cybele chases Attys;
And because she adores the scorned,
    She infuses into his veins
The great cold breath, the breath of death.
    O dolorous, sweet Desire!




“Eros!
Eros!”

Shrill wailings poured from the flutes.

III

The Goat-foot pursues to the river
    Syrinx, the daughter of the fountain;
Pale Eros, that loves the taste of tears,
    Kissed her as she ran, cheek to cheek;
And the frail shadow of the drowned maiden
    Shivers, reeds, upon the waters.
But Eros kings it over the world and the gods.
    He kings it over death itself.
On the watery tomb he gathered for us
    All the reeds, and with them made the flute,
’Tis a dead soul that weeps here, women,
    Dolorous, sweet Desire.




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.

ill-005


_Groups formed in places, and women wandered amongst them_


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.

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.

“Tryphera! Tryphera!”

And a young courtesan of joyful mien elbowed her way through the crowd
to join a friend of whom she had just caught sight.

“Tryphera! are you invited?”

“Where, Seso?”

“To Bacchis’s.”

“Not yet. She is giving a dinner?”

“A dinner? A banquet, my dear. She is to liberate her most beautiful
slave, Aphrodisia, on the second day of the feast.”

“At last! She has perceived at last that people came to see her only
for the sake of her slave.”

“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.”

“She must be crazy.”

“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.”

“Thirty-five minæ? Three thousand five hundred drachmæ? Three thousand
five hundred drachmæ for a negress?”

“She is a white man’s daughter.”

“But her mother is black.”

“Bacchis declared that she would not part with her for less, and old
Cheres is so amorous that he consented.”

“I hope he is invited at any rate.”

“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 . . .”

“Don’t pity her. With him she will have time to recover. I know him,
Seso. I have watched him sleep.”

They laughed together at Cheres. Then they complimented one another.
“You have a pretty robe,” said Seso. “Did you have it trimmed at home?”

ill-006


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.

“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.”

“Mousarion! Where have you come from, my dear?”

“From Pharos. There is nobody there.”

“What do you mean? There is nothing to do but fish, it is so full.”

“No turbots for me. I am off to the wall. Come.”

On the way, Seso told them about the projected banquet at Bacchis’s
over again.

“Ah! at Bacchis’s!” cried Mousarion. “You remember the last dinner,
Tryphera, and all the stories about Chrysis?”

“You must not repeat them. Seso is her friend.”

Mousarion bit her lips; but Seso had already taken the alarm.

“What did they say about her?”

“Oh! various ill-natured things.”

“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.”

“Oh! Oh!”

“Certainly. I would commit any folly for that woman. Be sure that there
is none here more beautiful than she.”

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.

“Look, Seso,” said Tryphera, laughing.

“Who is the practical joker who has written that?”

And they read in huge letters:

BACCHIS
THERSIES
2 OBOLS


“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.”

But further on, Seso stopped before an inscription more to the point:

SESO OF CNIDOS
TIMON THE SON OF LYSIAS
1 MINA


She turned slightly pale.

“I stay,” she said.

And she leaned her back against the wall under the envious glances of
the women that passed by.

A few steps further on Mousarion found an acceptable offer, if not as
generous an one. Tryphera returned to the quay alone.

As the hour was advanced, the crowd had become less compact. But the
three musicians were still singing and playing the flute.

Catching sight of a stranger whose clothes and rotundity were slightly
ridiculous, Tryphera tapped him on the shoulder.

“I say! Papa! I wager that you are not an Alexandrian, eh?”

“No indeed, my girl,” answered the honest fellow. “And you have guessed
rightly. I am quite astounded at the town and the people.”

“You are from Boubastis?”

“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.”

Tryphera suddenly began to take an great interest in this merchant.

“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?”

“Some few,” she said, laughing.

“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.”

ill-007


“You shall have your wish. This is Naucrates.”

“Who is Naucrates?”

“A philosopher.”

“And what does he teach?”

“Silence.”

“By Zeus, that is a doctrine that does not require much genius, and
this philosopher does not please me at all.”

“That is Phrasilas.”

“Who is Phrasilas?”

“A fool.”

“Then why do you mention him?”

“Because others consider him to be eminent.”

“And what does he say?”

“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.”

“All this is beyond me, and I don’t quite understand. Besides, the face
of this Phrasilas is marked by hypocrisy.”

“This is Philodemos.”

“The strategist?”

“No. A Latin poet who writes in Greek.”

“My dear, he is an enemy. I am sorry to have seen him.”

At this point a flutter of excitement ran through the crowd and a
murmur of voices pronounced the same name:

“Demetrios . . . Demetrios . . .”

Tryphera mounted upon a street post, and she too said to the merchant:

“Demetrios . . . That is Demetrios. You were anxious to see celebrated
men.”

ill-008


_Tryphera mounted upon a street post._


“Demetrios? the Queen’s lover? Is it possible?”

“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.”

“Where is he?”

“That’s he, bending over to look at the harbour.”

“There are two men leaning over.”

“It is the one in blue.”

“I cannot see him very well. His back is turned to me.”

“Know you not? he is the sculptor to whom the queen offered herself for
a model when he carved the Aphrodite in the temple.”

“They say he is the royal lover. They say he is the master of Egypt.”

“And he is as beautiful as Apollo.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

The last girl who passed softly cast her yellow flowers at him, and
laughed.

Night fell upon the quays.



III
DEMETRIOS

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.

The town was illumined by a dazzling little cloud which lingered upon
the moon, and the sky was bathed in soft light.

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.

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.

There were only these words:

Myrtis Loves Rhodocleia


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.

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.

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.

He was wearied. The queen was tedious.

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.

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.

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.

Then she rose.

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.

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.”

ill-009


_“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.”_


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.

“You are right.”

Thus was why he became insupportable, and his best friends left him;
but he ravished the hearts of all women.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When freed from the embrace of their religious arms, he mounted the
temple steps and fell to an ecstatic contemplation of the statue.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

ill-010


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.

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.

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.

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!

Now, he turned his head towards the quays, and, in the distance, saw
the yellow shimmer of a woman’s veil.



IV
THE PASSER-BY

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.

Demetrios watched her as she drew near.

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.

He recognised by her jewels that she was a courtesan. In order to avoid
her salutation he crossed the road rapidly.

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.

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.

Demetrios did not take his eyes off her, and fell into a singular
astonishment.

She continued to walk like a yellow shadow in the distance, nonchalant,
and preceded by the little black shadow.

He heard at each step the slight creak of her shoe in the dust.

She walked on as far as the island of Pharos and went up into the
rocks.

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.

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.

ill-011


Then, suddenly, all his thoughts became confused, and a crowd of
anxious questions surged up into his mind about this woman in yellow.

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?

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.



V
THE MIRROR, THE COMB, AND THE NECKLACE

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.

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.

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.

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.

“I salute you,” said he.

ill-012


_“I salute you,” said he. “I salute you also,” answered the woman_


“I salute you also,” answered the woman.

Demetrios continued:

“Where are you going to in so leisurely a fashion?”

“I am going home.”

“Alone?”

“Alone.”

And she made a movement as if to resume her walk.

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:

“To your husband?”

She put her two hands to her sides and began to laugh.

“I haven’t one this evening.”

Demetrios bit his lip and suggested, almost timidly:

“Don’t look for one. You have set to work too late. There is no one
about now.”

“Who told you that I was looking for one? I am taking a walk by myself,
and am looking for nothing.”

“Where have you come from then? You certainly have not put on all those
jewels for your own pleasure, and that silken veil. . .”

“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. . . .
.”

“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.”

“No, I am not a Jewess. I am a Galilæn.”

“What is your name, Miriam or Noëmi?”

“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.”

He put his hand on her arm.

“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.”

Bending down, she took her foot in her hand:

ill-013


_Bending down, she took her foot in her hand._


“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.”

Demetrios passed his hand over his forehead; then, with the careless
air of a man who condescends to make his choice, he murmured:

“Show me the way.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Chrysis with a stupefied air.
“You do not even ask me whether it is my pleasure.

“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!”

“You do not know who I am.”

“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.”

She came a little nearer to him, and went on in a caressing voice:

“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 . . .”

ill-014


Demetrios gazed at her without understanding.

“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.”

Demetrios quietly took her by the two arms, and, without answering a
word, bent her backwards with violence.

She had a moment’s anguish; but suddenly she stiffened her knees,
stiffened her elbows, backed a little, and said in a low voice:

“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.”

They were silent for a few minutes; then Demetrios answered:

“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.”

Chrysis still kept silence. He continued more gently:

“What are you afraid of?”

“You are accustomed to the love of others. Do you know what ought to be
given to a courtesan who does not love?”

He became impatient.

“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.”

“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?”

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:

“I want a silver mirror to gaze at my eyes within my eyes.”

“You shall have it. What else do you want? Quickly.”

“I want a carved ivory comb to plunge into my hair like a net into
water that sparkles in the sun.”

“And then?”

“You will give me my comb?”

“Yes, yes. Go on.”

“I want a pearl necklace to hang on my breast, when I dance you the
nuptial dances of my country in my chamber.”

He raised his eyebrows;

“Is that all?”

“You will give me my necklace?”

“Any you please.”

Her voice became very tender.

“Any I please? Ah! that is exactly what I wanted to ask you. Will you
let me choose my presents?”

“Of course.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

“What oath will you swear?”

“Dictate it to me.”

“By the Aphrodite you carved.”

“I swear by the Aphrodite. But why these precautions?”

“Ah! . . . I was uneasy; but now I am reassured”.

She raised her head.

“I have chosen my presents.”

Demetrios suddenly became anxious and asked:

“Already?”

“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.”

“This is pure madness,” cried Demetrios. “Do you expect me to steal?”

“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.”

He understood that she was ruining him, but he yielded without a
struggle, almost willingly.

“I will do what you say,” he answered.

“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.”

She toyed a moment with the peacock feathers of her round fan, and
suddenly:

“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.”

“And how am I to get it?” asked Demetrios.

“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.”

She pouted at Demetrios, who was looking on the ground. Then she
concluded very quickly:

“I have chosen my necklace also. I want the seven-stringed pearl
necklace on the neck of Aphrodite.”

Demetrios started violently.

“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.”

But she closed his mouth with her hand and resumed her caressing tone:

ill-015


_But she closed his mouth with her hand._


“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!”

Demetrios looked at her with a frenzied eye.

She continued tenderly:

“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?”

Demetrios tried to touch it . . . She recoiled and said:

“To-morrow!”

“You shall have it,” he murmured.

“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?”

He tried to stroke them. She drew them behind her back and repeated:
“To-morrow!”

“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!”

ill-016


Demetrios held out his head, supplicatingly.

She shot him a brilliant glance and gave him her sensual lips . . .

When he opened his eyes she was already afar off. A little pale shadow
danced before her floating veil.

He returned vaguely towards the town, with his forehead bent under the
weight of an inexpressible shame.



VI
THE VIRGINS

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.

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.

Nothing existed, except silence.

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.

But the sound of light footsteps fell tremulously upon the ground, and
two young girls appeared, one dressed in yellow, the other in blue.

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.

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.

She said:

“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.”

Myrtocleia answered:

“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.”

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:

“My flowers between my legs hamper me. Undo them, adored Myrto. I have
finished dancing for to-night.”

The singing-girl started.

ill-017


“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!”

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.

“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.”

“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.”

Rhodis exclaimed with conviction:

“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.”

She smiled, and continued:

“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?”

“Yes, it is that.”

“They deceive themselves, Myrto. They do not know.”

Myrtocleia took her in her arms, and both kept silence together.

The wind mingled their hair.



VII
CHRYSIS’S HAIR

“Look,” said Rhodis, “look! I see some one.”

The singing-girl looked. A woman, in the distance, was walking rapidly
along the quay.

“I recognise her.” resumed the child.

“It is Chrysis. She is wearing her yellow robe.”

“What! is she dressed already?”

“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.”

They advanced to meet her, and said:

“Hail, Chrysis.”

“Hail. How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know. It was daylight when we arrived.”

“There was nobody on the quay?”

ill-018


_“It is Chrysis. She is wearing her yellow robe.”_


“Nobody.”

“Not a man! are you sure?”

“Oh, quite sure. Why do you ask?”

Chrysis did not answer. Rhodis went on:

“You wanted to see somebody?”

“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.”

“But what is the matter? Do tell us, Chrysis.”

“Oh, no.”

“Not even us? Not even us, your little friends?”

“You shall know later on, together with the whole town.”

“It is very amiable of you.”

“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.”

“Oh, Chrysis, Chrysidion, we are so tired! We are going home certainly,
but to have a good sleep.”

“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.”

She put her arms round their waists, and closing her caressing hands
upon their little half naked breasts, bore them hurriedly off.

Rhodis, however, remained preoccupied.

“And when we are in your bed,” she said, “will you not tell us what is
happening; what you expect?”

“I will tell you many things, everything you please; but about that
subject I shall say nothing.”

“Even when we are in your arms, naked, with the lamp extinguished?”

“Do not insist, Rhodis: you shall know to-morrow. Wait till to-morrow.”

“You are going to be very happy? or very powerful?”

“Very powerful.”

Rhodis opened her eyes wide and exclaimed:

“You are going to sleep with the queen!”

“No,” said Chrysis laughing; “but I am going to be as powerful as she
is. Do you desire anything?”

“Oh, yes.”

And the little girl became thoughtful.

“Well, what is it?” asked Chrysis.

“It is something impossible. Why should I ask?”

Myrtocleia spoke for her:

“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.”

“We will change the law,” said Chrysis.

“But leave it to me, you shall marry one another.”

“Oh, is it true?” cried the little girl, flushing with joy.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

She asked for her mirror.

ill-019


_She was not conscious of the presence of Djala, who silently
untied and unwound her long saffron veil._


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?

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.

ill-020


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.



BOOK II



I
THE GARDENS OF THE GODDESS

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.

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.

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.

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:

Ω.Ξ.Ε.
ΚΟΧΛΙΣ
Π.Π.Π


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.

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.

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.

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.

Some came from a still greater distance: dainty, deliberate little
beings, whose language nobody understood, and who resembled yellow
monkeys.

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.

ill-021


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.

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.

They were fourteen hundred.

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.

ill-022


_The poorer tradesman . . . preferred to address themselves
to the women who slept thus in the open air._


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.

Those who had no girl friends offered themselves of their own accord as
slaves to their more prosperous colleagues.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Far different was the discipline of the temple.

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.

ill-023


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.

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.



II
MELITTA

“Purify thyself, stranger.”

“I shall enter pure,” said Demetrios.

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.

And then he pressed forward into the wood of Aphrodite.

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.

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?

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 . . .

ill-024


_The young gate-keeper moistened first his eyelids._


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.

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.

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.

The courtesans were on show in their “chambres exposées” like flowers
in a shop window.

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.

ill-025


_Demetrios passed slowly before them._


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.

“Friend,” said a voice, “you don’t recognise me?”

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.

“Clonarion!

Gnatene!

Plango!

Mnaïs!

Crobyle!

Ioessa.”

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:

“Is it quite out of the question?”

The novelty of this mode of address made him smile. He stopped.

“Open the door,” he said. “I choose you.”

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.

“Gorgo,” said the little girl, “I have got somebody; quickly, get some
cakes and Cretan wine, and make the bed.”

She turned round to Demetrios.

“You don’t want any satyrion?”

“No,” said the young man laughing. “You have some?”

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“But you are not a woman!” he exclaimed.

“I am not a woman! By the two goddesses, what am I, then? A Thracian, a
porter, or an old philosopher?”

“How old are you?”


ill-026


“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.”

“You have been to the Didascalion?”

“I am still there in the sixth class. I shall have finished next year;
and not too soon either.”

“Aren’t you happy?”

“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!”

“I know it. It is longer and no better than the other way. I see that
you are a good pupil.”

“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.”

“You have many lovers?”

“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.”

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.

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.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Melitta. Did you not see my name upon the door?”

“I did not look.”

“You can see it in my room. They have written it all over the walls. I
shall soon be forced to have them repainted.”

Demetrios raised his head: the four panels of the chamber were covered
with inscriptions.

“That is very curious, indeed.” said he. “May one read?”

“Oh, if you like. I have no secrets.”

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.

“What is that? What is that? Speak!”

“Who? What? Where?” said the child. “What is the matter with you?”

“Here. That name. Who wrote that?”

And his finger stopped under this double line.

ΜΕΛΙΤΤΑ .Λ. ΧΡΥΣΙΔΑ
ΧΡΥΣΙΣ .Λ. ΜΕΛΙΤΤΑΝ


“Ah!” she answered, “that’s me. I wrote that.”

“Who is she, Chrysis?”

“My great friend.”

“I dare say. That is not what I ask you. Which Chrysis? There are
many.”

“Mine, the most beautiful. Chrysis of Galilee.”

“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!”

He sat down upon the couch and took the little girl upon his knees.

“You are in love, then?” she said.

“That matters little to you. Tell me what you know; I am in a hurry to
hear everything.”

“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.”

“How is she made?”

“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.”

ill-027


And she put her arm round the neck of Demetrios.

“Don’t you know anything about her?” he began again.

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“You don’t know whether she has any other _amie_ in the gardens?
Nobody?”

“Yes, one of her countrywomen, Chimairis. She is very poor.”

“Where does she live? I must see her.”

“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?”

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.



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.

ill-028


_“My little girl! my little love! how are you?”_


It was not yet dusk. The intense light of summer days has something
permanent about it which lingers vaguely in the slow twilight.

The faint, humid stars, hardly brighter than the body of the sky,
twinkled and throbbed gently, and the shadows of the branches remained
indecisive.

“Mamma! There’s mamma,” cried Melitta suddenly.

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.

“My little girl! my little love! how are you?”

“I am guiding somebody who wants to see Chimairis. And you? Are you out
for a walk?”

“Corinna is _accouchée_. I have been to see her. I have dined by her
bedside.”

“And what has she given birth to? A boy?”

“Two twin girls, my dear, as pink as wax dolls. You can go and see them
tonight; she will show them to you.”

“Oh! how lovely! Two little courtesans. What are their names?”

“They are both called Pannychis, because they were born on the day
before the Aphrodisiæ. It is a divine presage. They will be pretty.”

She replaced the child upon her feet, and turning to Demetrios:

“What do you think of my daughter? Have I the right to be proud of
her?”

“You have the right to be satisfied with one another,” he answered
gravely.

“Kiss mamma,” said Melitta.

He silently imprinted a kiss between her breasts. Pythias returned it
to him upon the mouth, and they separated.

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:

“It is here.”

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.

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.

“Chimairis,” said Melitta, “get up. Here is somebody who wishes to
speak to you.”

The Jewess looked, but did not move.

Demetrios advanced.

“Do you know Chrysis?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Do you see her often?”

“Yes.”

“Will you talk to me about her?”

“No.”

“What? No? What? you cannot?”

“No.”

Melitta was stupefied.

“Speak to him,” she said. “Have confidence. He loves her, he wishes her
well.”

“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.”

Demetrios tingled with rage, but said nothing.

“Give me your hand,” said the Jewess. “It will tell me whether I am
mistaken.”

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.

“What do you see?” said Demetrios.

“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 . . .”

“In my blood?”

“In a woman’s blood. And then the blood of another woman. And then
yours, a little later on.”

Demetrios shrugged his shoulders, and when he turned, he perceived
Melitta fleeing down the alley at full speed.

“It has given her a fright,” said Chimairis.

“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.



III
LOVE AND DEATH

“A woman’s blood. Afterwards another woman’s blood. Afterwards yours,
but a little later on.”

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.

In his turn, he examined the palm of his left hand, on which his life
was summed up in secret and indelible signs.

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.

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.

Of the three presents she had asked for, one was already in his
possession. Remained the other two: the comb and the necklace.

“The comb first,” he said to himself.

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.

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.

ill-029


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.

Demetrios, noiselessly, sat down on the bench, by her side.

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.

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.

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.

With the same stealthy tenderness, Demetrios withdrew his hot hand, to
let it be refreshed by the light breeze.

ill-030



_She was asleep.... dreaming peacefully._


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.

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.

Touni still slumbered, her head leaning backwards, her body well-nigh
naked, enshrouded in tinted muslin folds.

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.

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.

“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?”

Demetrios made as if to retreat. With one bound, she was close to him
again.

“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.”

Demetrios did not open his lips.

“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.”

Demetrios, more steadfastly serious than before, pierced her with his
glance.

“Wretched creature, what do you suppose emanates from the Gods, if it
be not. — ”

“Love!”

“Or Death!”

“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?”

“Death this very night!” he said quietly.

She laughed outright, in sheer fright.

“Tonight? No, no! Who says so? Why should I die? Answer me! Speak! What
means this vile mockery?”

“You are condemned.”

“By whom?”

“By your destiny.”

“How know you that?”

“Because my destiny is interwoven with yours, Touni.”

“Is it my fate to die now?”

“It is your lot to die by my hand, on that bench.”

He seized her wrist.

“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!”

Staggering from stone to stone, she led him away in the dark night of
the woods.

“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.”

There was no reply in the vague look he gave her, but she thought she
read the “Yes” he had not uttered.

Transfigured a second time, she lifted towards him a new face, where
desire, born again, drove, with the strength of desperation, all terror
away.

ill-031


_“Demetrios!” she stammered, affrighted._


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.

ill-032


Nevertheless, she gained this supreme victory.

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:

“Ah! Kill me! Kill me, I say, Demetrios! Why do you tarry?”

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.



IV
MOONLIGHT

Nevertheless, this woman would have given him her comb and her hair
also, for love’s sake.

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.

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 _ensemble_. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The exceeding freshness of the deep earth calmed him little by little.

In a few minutes he arrived at the limit.

He mounted the stairs, and pushed open the trap-door.



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.

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.

ill-033


_Demetrios lost himself in ineffable adoration._


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Demetrios resolved to fly.

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.

The two golden doors swung heavily open. Then the procession entered.



V
THE INVITATION

Towards the middle of the night, Chrysis was awakened by three knocks
at the door.

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.

A sound of voices was heard in the entrance.

Chrysis disengaged herself with great care, stepping over her
companions, and getting down from the couch, held the door ajar.

“Who is it, Djala? Who is it?” she asked.

“It is Naukrates who wants to see you. I have told him you are not at
liberty.”

“What nonsense! Certainly I am at liberty! Enter, Naukrates, I am in my
room.”

And she went back to bed.

ill-034


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.

“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?”

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.

“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.”

“A fête? A propos of what?”

“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.”

“Oh! it is true,” cried Rhodis, “we had forgotten about it. Get up,
Myrto, we are very late.”

But Chrysis protested.

“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!”

“Our robes are not complicated,” said the child. “And we are not
beautiful enough to spend much time in dressing.”

“I shall see you at the temple, of course?”

“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.”

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:

“Good. Your behaviour is charming.”

“What do you mean?”

“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
_amies_, 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 . . .”

“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.”

“And what difference do you see?”

“It is not a question of difference. There is no connection between the
one and the other: that’s clear!”

“I do not say you are wrong. I want to know your reasons.”

“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. _She alone knows how to
love. She alone knows how to be loved._ 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.”

“You are hard on Plato, my girl.”

“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.”

The philosopher made a gesture.

ill-035


_“I can tell Bacchis that she may count on you?” he said._


“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.”

“Excellent,” said Chrysis in astonishment. “But then what have you to
reproach me with?”

“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.”

At this point Naukrates considered that the conversation had lasted
long enough, and he rose to his feet, simply.

“I can tell Bacchis that she may count on you?” he said.

“I will go,” answered Chrysis.

The philosopher kissed her knees and slowly went out.



Then she joined her hands together and spoke aloud though she was
alone.

“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!”

The slave-woman entered.

“Give me my knuckle-bones,” said Chrysis. “I want to tell my own
fortune.”

She tossed the four little bones into the air.

“Oh . . . Oh . . . Djala, look! the Aphrodite throw!”

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.

Djala remarked coldly:

“What did you ask for?”

“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?”

“I think not; you must begin again.”

Chrysis cast the bones again.

ill-036


“The Midas throw, this time. What do you think of that?”

“One cannot tell. Good or bad. It is a throw which is interpreted by
the next one. Now start with a single bone.”

Chrysis consulted the game a third time; but as soon as the bone fell,
she stammered:

“The . . . the Chian ace!”

And she burst into sobs.

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.

“Why did you make me begin again? I am sure the first throw counted.”

“If you wished, yes. If not, no. You alone know,” said Djala.

“Besides, the bones prove nothing. It is a Greek game. I don’t believe
in it. I shall try something else.”

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.

“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.”

She cast the twenty-two counters into the slave’s tunic, repeating
mentally:

“Shall I wear Aphrodite’s necklace? Shall I wear Aphrodite’s necklace?
Shall I wear Aphrodite’s necklace?”

And she drew the tenth arcanam, and this signified plainly:

“Yes.”

ill-037


_An old white-bearded priest preceded the youthful band._



VI
CHRYSIS’S ROSE

It was a procession, white and blue and yellow and pink and green.

Thirty courtesans advanced, bearing baskets of flowers, snow-white
doves with red feet, veils of the most fragile azure, and precious
ornaments.

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.

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.



One of them advanced and said:

“Tryphera, O beloved Cypris, offers thee this blue veil which she has
woven herself, that thou mayest continue to deal gently with her.”



Another:

“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.”



Yet another:

“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.”



Myrtocleia and Rhodis advanced, holding one another by the hand.

“Here are two doves of Smyrna, with wings white as caresses, with feet
red as kisses.

“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.”



A very young courtesan followed:

“Aphrodite Peribasia, receive my virginity with this blood-stained
tunic. I am Pannychis of Pharos: I have dedicated myself to thee since
last night.”



Another:

“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.”



Another:

“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.”



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.

She said:

“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
. . .”

She unbuckled the clasps of her tunic; the tissue slipped down to the
ground and she stood revealed quite naked.

. . . “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.”



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.

ill-038


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.

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 . . .

The priest turned towards her, waiting for her to speak.

She said:



“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.”

She held out her hands gilded with rings, and bent low with her legs
close together.

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.

ill-039


_“To thee, O Hetaira! . . . Chrysis consecrates her necklace.”_


She drew herself up slowly to her full height and offered a bronze
mirror which hung from her girdle.



“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.”



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.

“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!”



She gave the comb to the old man and inclined her head to the right in
order to take off her emerald necklace.



“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.”



ill-040


She made a last and more prolonged reverence, put the collar into the
priest’s hand and took a step as if to depart.

The priest stayed her:

“What do you ask of the goddess for these precious offerings?”

She shook her head, smiled, and said:

“I ask nothing.”

Then she passed along the procession, stole a rose from a basket, and
put it in her mouth as she went out.

One by one all the women followed. The door closed upon the empty
temple.



Demetrios remained alone, concealed in the bronze pedestal.

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.

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.

But he had counted without her.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Demetrios waited until he was left alone in the temple; then he issued
forth from his retreat.

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.

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.



VII
THE TALE OF THE ENCHANTED LYRE

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.

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:

“Well-beloved, how glad I am!”

He raised his head: it was Queen Berenice leaning on her elbow in her
litter.

She gave the order:

“Stop, porters!”

And held out her arms to her lover.

Demetrios was greatly put out, but he could not refuse, and he got in
sulkily.

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.

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.

She beckoned the young sculptor to her side with her eyes, and
repeated:

“Well-beloved, I am happy!” She stroked his cheek.

“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.”

She turned round to him and kissed him on the mouth.

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.

ill-041


_But Demetrios did not answer._


She said:

“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.”

She gathered her feet under her and leaned upon her hand.

“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.

“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!”

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:

“You have not understood?”

He leaned carelessly upon his elbow and said quietly and unmovedly:

“I have thought of a tale.



“Long ago, long before the conquest of Thrace by your father’s
ancestors, it was inhabited by wild beasts and a few timorous men.

“The animals were very beautiful: there were lions tawny as the sun,
tigers striped like the evening, and bears black as night.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

ill-042


“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.

“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.

“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.

“For one hour he played before her: but afterwards he broke his lyre
and lived as if he were dead.”

The queen sighed:

“I never understand allegories. Explain it to me, Well-beloved. What
does it mean?”

He rose.

“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.”

She began to weep.

“I was sure of it! I was sure of it!”

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.



BOOK III



I
THE ARRIVAL

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

ill-043


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.



That evening Chrysis was the first arrival.

She was dressed in a green robe worked with enormous rose-branches
which flowered over her breasts.

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.

At last, when Chrysis was ready:

“Where are the _shades?”_ she said to the slave.

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.

Aretias answered:

“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.”

ill-044


_Aretias opened the door for her._


Seso entered at this precise moment.

“Chrysis!”

“My darling!”

The two women embraced, and enlarged with many an exclamation upon the
happy chance which had brought them together.

“I was afraid of being late,” said Seso. “That poor Archytas has kept
me. . .”

“What, Archytas again?”

“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.”

“And the baby that is coming? It does not show yet, however.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

“Ah, my pretty dears, what a good idea on the part of Naukrates to
invite you both together this evening!”

“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:

“How is Doryclos?”

Doryclos was a young and extremely rich lover who had just deserted
Bacchis to marry a Sicilian woman.

ill-045


_“Ah, my pretty dears, what a good idea . . .”_


“I . . . I have turned him away,” said Bacchis, brazenly.

“Is it possible?”

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

“I have brought someone with me,” he said laughing.

“Whom?” asked Bacchis.

“A certain Demo, a girl from Mendes.”

“Demo! What can you be thinking of, my dear fellow? She is a street
girl. She can be had for a fig.”

“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. .
.”

“Timon is really extraordinary,” declared Bacchis.

She called a slave:

“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!”

She turned and looked round:

“Has not Phrasilas come yet?”



II
THE DINNER

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:

“I was there.”

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.

“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.

Timon felt that his freak had chilled the women. He therefore did not
speak to them at first, but, addressing Philodemos, said gravely:

“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.”

“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.”

“Well, what does Phrasilas think about it?”

“He is an admirable writer,” said the little man.

“In what sense?”

ill-046


“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.”

“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.”

Seso lightly tapped the table with the handle of her fan.

“Timon, my friend,” she said.

“What is it?”

“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.”

“Do you think so?” said the young man, simply.

But Phrasilas began a second little couplet, with a suave, ironical
intonation.

“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.”

Timon shot a glance of irritation at Phrasilas, but he reserved his
reply.

“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.”

“Very good,” said Naukrates. “Choose for us, Faustina. What shall we
talk about?”

The young Italian woman turned her head, raised her eyes, blushed, and
with an undulation of her whole body, sighed:

“Love.”

“A very pretty subject,” said Seso, trying not to laugh.

But no one took it up.



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.

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.

Such was the first course. The guests chose little tit-bits from each
fish, and left the rest to the slaves.

“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.”

ill-047


_“I like to have the sensual gratification.”_


“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.”

“Love,” murmured Philodemos, “is neither passion nor sensual
gratification. Love is something quite different.”

“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. . . . .”

“Allow me . . .” said Phrasilas.

“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 _Banquet_ 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.”

“Timon!” cried Bacchis in indignation.

Phrasilas motioned to her to be silent.

“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.”

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.

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.

ill-048


Nevertheless he answered with a certain calm:

“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.”

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.

There was a silence for several minutes; then Seso began to speak.

“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.”

“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!”

“But to possess unexpectedly,” said Philodemos, smiling; “is not that
true felicity?”

“What a rarity!”

“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.”



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.

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.

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.

Timon turned to Bacchis:

“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.”

“You are mad,” said Bacchis, without discussing the question.

“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.”

“Nonsense, my friend; ask your neighbours, where is the man of birth
who would choose a girl without jewels as his mistress.”

“I have done it,” said Philodemos with simplicity.

And the women despised him.

“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.”

Naukrates nodded approval, took a draught of wine, and said:

“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.”

“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.”

“Don’t you know that pure beauty has no need of adornment, and suffices
for itself?”

“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.”

“Men are stupid,” Seso concluded.

“No, simply lazy. They do not take the trouble to choose their
mistresses. The best-loved women are the most mendacious.”

“But if,” suggested Phrasilas, “but if, on the one hand, I should
willingly applaud . . .”

And he delivered himself, with great charm, of two set discourses
entirely devoid of interest.

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.

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.

ill-049


_Soon they formed in couples._


“What does our friend think about it?” said Phrasilas with his piping
voice.

“I feel perfectly happy,” answered Timon. “I have never before so
clearly understood the supreme mission of women.”

“And what is it?”

“Prostitution, either with or without art.”

“That is only an opinion.”

“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.”

“Give me some Lesbian wine,” said Seso to the slave. “It is stronger
than the other.”

“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.”

“She acts in fancied obedience to a duty,” said Naukrates without
conviction.

“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.”

“You are ambitious,” said Chrysis.

ill-050


“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.”

The dancing-girls had ceased dancing.

A young girl-acrobat had just entered, who juggled with daggers and
walked on her hands between the upright blades.

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.

“No,” said Chrysis in a low voice, “no, my friend.”

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.

“Wait,” she implored. “We shall be seen. Bacchis will be angry.”

ill-051


_She let herself slip down from the bed._


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.

Chrysis resisted no longer.

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.

A violent respiration agitated her naked breast.

“Enough,” said Chrysis briefly: “you have only excited me a little. Let
us have no more of it. Leave me. Leave me.”

And at the moment when the two Ephesians rose, according to the
tradition, to play _The Fable of Hermaphroditus_, she let herself slip
down from the bed and went out feverishly.



III
RHACOTIS

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.

She would never know anything, then!

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.

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.

She called the slave Aretias:

“Keep my jewels for me: I am going out.”

And she descended the seven stone steps.

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.

She walked along down the street.

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.

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.

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.

But this evening, she felt even without turning her head that she was
being followed by a double footstep.

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.

With dry throat and swollen temples, but sustained by Bacchis’s wine,
she pursued her flight, turned from right to left, pale,
panic-stricken.

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.

“Where are you going to, my little wisp of gold?” said one of them
laughing.

“Let me pass.”

“Eh? you are lost, young lady, you don’t know Rhacotis well, eh? We are
going to show you the town.”

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:

“A little calm, please. You know that the Greeks are not loved here:
nobody will come to your assistance.”

“I am not Greek!

“You lie, you have a white skin and a straight nose. Unless you want
the stick, submit quietly.”

Chrysis looked at the speaker, and suddenly fell on his neck.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

ill-052


_She shouted and struggled._


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.

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.

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.

“Oh! myxaira sweets!” said Chrysis gleefully.

And she bought two sous’ worth of the little girl who hawked them.

But suddenly she swooned, overcome by the insupportable stink of this
den, and the sailors carried her out in their arms.

The fresh air brought her round a little.

“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.”



IV
THE ORGIE AT BACCHIS’S

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.

As soon as Chrysis had left the room the orgie had developed like a
flame.

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.

Philodemos was by the side of Faustina.

He had torn her robe and was singing her the verses he had made in her
honour.

“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.” [1]

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:

“Drink, my little darling. You are thirsty. Drink, my little darling.
Drink. Drink. Drink.”

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.

Standing alone behind a curtain, Naukrates and Phrasilas discussed
courteously the respective value of Arcesilas and Carneades.

At the end of the hall, Myrtocleia protected Rhodis against the
over-zealous enterprises of one of the guests.

ill-054


As soon as the two Ephesians saw Chrysis enter, they rose to meet her.

“Come away, my Chryse. Theano stays: but we are going.

“I stay too,” said the courtesan. And she lay down on her back upon a
great bed covered with roses.

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.

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.

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:

“A mirror! a mirror! let her see herself!”

The slave brought a bronze mirror. “No, not that one. The mirror of
Rhodopis. She merits it.”

ill-055


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.

That instant was to decide her whole life. Her last hope was either to
vanish or be realised. The fête continued all around her.

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.

The slave who had gone out did not return.

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.

At last Selene came back, empty-handed.

“The mirror?” asked Bacchis.

“It . . . It has gone . . . it . . . has been . . . stolen,” stammered
the servant.

Bacchis uttered a cry so piercing that all ceased speaking, and a
frightful silence brusquely interrupted the tumult.

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.

“What! What!” she shrieked.

And as Selene did not answer, she seized her violently by the neck:

“You have stolen it yourself! You have stolen it yourself! Answer,
answer! I will loosen your tongue with the whip, miserable little
bitch!”

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:

“It is Aphrodisia! It is not I! it is not I!”

“Your sister!”

“Yes, yes,” said the mulatto woman; “it is Aphrodisia who has taken
it.”

And they dragged their sister, who had just fallen into a fainting fit,
before Bacchis.

 [1] Philodème AP. V. 132.



V
THE CRUCIFIED ONE

They all repeated together:

“It is Aphrodisia who has taken it! Bitch! Bitch! Filthy thief!”

Their hatred of the favourite sister was reinforced by their fear for
themselves.

Aretias gave her a kick in the breast.

“Where is it?” asked Bacchis. “Where have you put it?”

“She has given it to her lover.”

“Who is he?”

“An Opian sailor.”

“Where is his ship?”

“It sailed this evening for Rome. You will never see your mirror again.
Let us crucify the bitch, the bloody animal!”

“Ah! Gods! Gods!” sobbed Bacchis.

Then suddenly her sorrow changed into a frenzy of rage.

ill-056


_Bacchis seized her by the hair._


Aphrodisia had come to herself again; but, paralysed by terror, and
unable to understand what was happening, she remained speechless and
tearless.

Bacchis seized her by the hair, dragged her over the soiled floor,
through the flowers and pools of wine, and cried:

“The cross! the cross! bring the nails! bring the hammer!”

“Oh!” said Seso to her neighbour; “I have never seen that. Let us
follow them.”

All pressed forward to follow. And Chrysis, who alone knew the guilty
one, and was alone the cause of everything, Chrysis followed too.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Then they opened out her arms.

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?

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.

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:

“It is not enough! Thief! Sow! Sailors’ strumpet!”

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.

She contemplated this work of vengeance for some time; then she
returned into the banqueting-hall with all the guests.

Phrasilas and Timon alone did not follow her.



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.

“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.

“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.”

Having spoken thus, Phrasilas re-adjusted the folds of his garment over
his shoulder and vanished with an unsteady gait.

Timon remained alone in the room with the woman hanging in the throes
of death upon the cross.

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.

He pressed his hand over his eyes in order not to see her torture, but
he _heard_ the unceasing trembling of the body upon the cross.

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.

“Aphrodisia! do you hear me! do you recognise me? It is I, Timon;
Timon.”

Her glance, almost blind, rested on him for a second. But the head
turned incessantly. The body trembled continually.

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.

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.

ill-057


_A kiss of infinite tenderness._



VI
ENTHUSIASM

So, the deed was accomplished. Chrysis had the proof.

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.

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.

Ah! to think of it, to repeat it, to say it out aloud, alone!

Chrysis rushed out of the noisy house and ran quickly, straight before
her, with the fresh breeze of morning bathing her face.

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.

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.

“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.

ill-058


_She extended her arms._


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?

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 . . .

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.

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.

She undressed slowly. Vestiges of the orgie fell from her tunic, crumbs
of cake, hairs, rose-leaves.

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.

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.

She mounted.

The sun had barely risen. It lay on the horizon line like a vast
swollen orange.

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.

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.

ill-059


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?

And then?



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.

She almost choked, and threw her arms on high as if she thought to
touch the heavens.

And simultaneously, she watched on her left the slow flight towards the
open sea of a great bird with black wings.



VII
CLEOPATRA

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the monumental corridor, armed guards were also sound asleep, except
one who stood sentinel at the door of the Queen’s room.

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:

“Princess Cleopatra, I crave thy pardon! I cannot let thee pass!”

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.

“As for thee,” she said in smothered accents, but with ferocious
meaning, “I’ll raise a cry of rape, and have thee quartered!”

Then, in silence, she entered the Queens chamber.



Berenice was asleep, her head pillowed on her arm, her hand hanging
down.

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.

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.

“Why is your lover not with you?” asked Cleopatra.

Berenice, startled, opened her lovely eyes.

ill-060


“Cleopatra! What are you doing here? What do you want of me?”

“Why is your lover not with you?” repeated the girl, insisting.

“Is he not with me?”

“Certainly not! You know that well enough!”

“True! He’s never here. Oh, Cleopatra, how cruel of you to wake me, to
tell me so!”

“But why is he always away?”

“I see him when he chooses,” sighed Berenice, in grief. “During the
day— for a minute or two.”

“Did you not see him yesterday?”

“Yes. I met him by the roadside. I was in my litter. He got in with
me.”

“As far as the Palace?”

“No—not quite. He was still in sight nearly as far as the gates.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Oh, I was furious! I said most wicked things. Yes, darling, I did!”

“Indeed?” rejoined the young girl, ironically.

“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.

“Why not have called him back?”

“I feared to displease him.”

Cleopatra, swelling with indignation, took her sister by the shoulders,
and looking her full in the face, spoke thus to her:

“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!”

“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.”

“And why not, pray?”

“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.”

“You know not how to love,” said the young lass.

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.

“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.”

“A woman can always be a queen should she so will it.”

“But she has no longer any power of will.”

“I have! Why should you not be the same? You are my elder!”

Berenice smiled again.

“My little girl, upon whom do you exercise your strength of will? On
which one of your dolls?”

“On my lover!” said Cleopatra.

Without allowing her sister time to find words to express her
stupefaction, the damsel went on talking with growing vivacity.

“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!”

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.

ill-061


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.

“So you’ve a lover?” Berenice now spoke timidly, almost respectfully.

“If you don’t believe me, you can look,” replied the girl, curtly.

“When do you see him?” sighed Berenice.

“Three times a day.”

“Where?”

“Do you want me to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“How comes it that you do not know this?” interrogated Cleopatra in her
turn.

“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.”

“Watch me if you like. When I can no longer have my own way, I’ll kill
myself. Therefore, little care I, whatever happens!”

“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?”

“I have my way of holding him.”

“Who taught you?”

“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.”

“Will you not tell me?”

“Follow me.”

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.

ill-062


_Cleopatra crossed a courtyard._


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.

“Follow me. It’s rather far,” she said, turning to her sister.

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.

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.

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.

Berenice stirred with emotion, looked in, and with drooping head, said
very softly:

“Tis you, my child, who know not how to love. At least—not yet. I was
quite right when I told you that.”

“Love for love, I prefer mine,” said the girl. “He gives me naught but
joy, at any rate.”

So saying, erect on the prison threshold, and without making a step
forward, she said to the man who stood in the shadow:

“Come hither, and kiss my foot, son of a cur!”

When he had done so, she pressed her mouth to his lips.



BOOK IV



I
DEMETRIOS DREAMS A DREAM

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:

He is going towards the quay, mingled with the crowd, on a strange
moonless night, cloudless, but shedding a peculiar brilliance of its
own.

Without knowing why, or what it is that draws him, he is in a hurry to
arrive, to be _there_ 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.

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.

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 . . .

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.

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.

And he realises that it will advance no further.

The quay lies white and straight like the first stage of an unfinished
road which has undertaken to cross the sea.

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.

Demetrios walks ever onwards.

ill-063


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.

And still he turns round.

An island is behind him, covered with great trees whence droop enormous
blossoms.

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 . . .

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.

In all this mourning garb, Demetrios sees but the hair, like a golden
vase on an ebony column. He recognises Chrysis.

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 . . .

“Come,” says Chrysis. “Follow me.”

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.

The house has but one storey. Chrysis halts at the topmost step.

“There are four chambers,” she says.

“When you have seen them, you will never leave them. Will you follow
me? Have you confidence?”

ill-064


_A monstrous iris-flower reaches to the level of her lips._


But he will follow her everywhere. She opens the first door and closes
it behind him.

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.

“Here are the books you love,” says Chrysis. “There are no others.”

Demetrios opens them: they are _The Oineus_ of Chæremon, _The Return_
of Alexis, _The Mirror of Lais_ of Aristippos, _The Enchantress_, _The
Cyclops_, the _Bucolics_ of Theocritos, _Œdipus at Colonos_, the _Odes_
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.

“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.”

The young man reads at a venture:

[Greek: Hoi men ar’ ethrêneon, epi de stenachonto gynaikes.
Têsin d’Andromachê leukôlenos êrche gooio,
Hektoros androphonoio karê meta chersin echousa;
Aner, ap’ aiônos neos ôleo, kadde me chêrên
Leipeis en megaroisi; pais d’eti nêpios autôs,
Hon tekomen sy t’egô te dysammoroi. . .]


He stops, casting upon Chrysis a look of surprise and tenderness.

“You?” he says. “You show me this?”

“Ah! you have not seen everything. Follow me. Follow me quickly.”

They open another door.

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.

“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.”

“It is the House of Felicity,” says Demetrios in a low voice.

And he lets his forehead sink into his hands.

But Chrysis opens another door.

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.

“Come! Come!” repeats Chrysis.

They open another door.

ill-065


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.

“See,” explains the woman in an affectionate and tranquil tone, “there
are three different beds in the three corners of _our_ chamber.”

Demetrios does not answer. And he asks within himself:

“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.”

But Chrysis speaks.



“Well-Beloved, you asked for me; I am come, look at me well . . .”

She raises her two arms together, lays her hands upon her hair, and,
with her elbows projecting in front of her, smiles.

“Well-Beloved, I am yours . . . Oh! not immediately . . . I promised
you to sing, I will sing first . . .”

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.

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.

“By night, on my bed,
I sought him whom my soul loveth:
I sought him, but I found him not. . . . .
I charge ye, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
If ye find my beloved,
Tell him
That I am sick of love.”


“Ah! it is the Song of Songs, Demetrios. It is the nuptial canticle of
the women of my country.”

“I sleep, but my heart waketh:
It is the voice of my beloved . . .
That knocketh at my door,
The voice of my beloved!
He cometh,
Leaping upon the mountains
Like a roe
Or a young hart.”


“My beloved speaks, and says unto me:
Open unto me, my sister, my fair one:
My head is filled with dew,
And my locks with the drops of the night.
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.
For lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone,
The flowers appear on the earth.
The time of the singing of birds is come,
The voice of the turtle-dove is heard in the land.
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.”


She casts her veil away, and stands up arrayed in some tight-fitting
stuff wound closely round the legs and hips.

“I have put off my coat;
How shall I put it on?
I have washed my feet:
How shall I defile them?
My well-beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door,
And my bowels were moved for him.
I rose up to open to my beloved,
And my hands dropped with myrrh,
And my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh,
Upon the handles of the lock.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!


She throws her head back and half closes her eyelids.

“Stay me, comfort me,
For I am sick of love.
Let his left hand be under my head
And his right hand embrace me.
Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, with
one of thine eyes,
With one chain of thy neck.
How fair is thy love!
How fair are thy caresses!
How much better than wine!
The smell of thee pleaseth me more than all spices.
Thy lips drop as the honeycomb:
Honey and milk are under thy tongue.
The smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.”

“A garden enclosed is my sister,
A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.


“Awake, O north wind!
Blow, thou south!
Blow upon my garden,
That the spices thereof may flow out.”


She rounds her arms, and holds out her mouth.

“Let my beloved come into his garden
And eat of his pleasant fruits.
Yes, I come into my garden,
O! my sister, my spouse,
I gather my myrrh with my spice,
I eat my honeycomb with my honey.
I drink my wine with my milk.
SET ME AS A SEAL UPON THINE HEART
AS A SEAL UPON THINE ARM
FOR LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH.” [1]


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.

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.

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.

Demetrios and Chrysis . . .

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.

ill-066


_She dances gravely with her shoulders and her head._


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.

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.

...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.

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.

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! . . .

 [1] Song of Songs.



II
THE PANIC

Far above the sea and the Gardens of the Goddess, the moon poured down
torrents of light.

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.

“Do not follow that man,” Chimairis had said.

“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—”

“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.”

ill-067


_“Oh, prophetess of evil! Take back what you’ve said!_


“Why say it? I’ve just met him, and I’ve only trifled with pleasure in
his arms.”

“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.”

“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!”

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.

“Nevertheless, I know one happy woman,” continued Melitta,
significantly. “She’s my great friend, Chrysis. I’m certain she never
sheds a tear.”

“She will,” said Chimairis.

“Oh, prophetess of evil! Take back what you’ve said, distraught old
woman, or I shall hate you!”

Seeing the young girl’s threatening gestures, the black goat reared up
erect, its front legs bent under; its horns thrust forward.

Melitta fled without looking where she went.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Ah! Look!” exclaimed Melitta, all of a sudden.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s a woman!”

“A courtesan! Oh, the shameless thing! She has fallen asleep in the
open.”

“No, no!” rejoined Melitta, shaking her head. “I dare not go near her,
Mikyllos. She’s no courtesan.”

“I should have thought she was.

“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!”

Mikyllos made three steps forward on tip-toe.

“You’re right, Melitta. She is not sleeping, poor woman! She is dead.”

“Dead?”

“There is a pin in her heart.”

He stretched out his hand to draw it from her breast, but Melitta was
terrified.

ill-068


“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.”

She fled with all the strength of her legs into the deep shadow of the
black trees.

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.

The icy nakedness of Touni remained as before, abandoned in the bright
light of the moon.



A long time afterwards, the woods near where she lay became filled with
murmurs which were frightful because almost imperceptible.

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.

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.

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.

A thousand naked arms were first uplifted and then as many others.

“Goddess! Not on us!” now sobbed many voices. “Goddess, not on us! If
thou wreakest vengeance, Goddess, spare our lives!”

“To the Temple!” was the rallying-cry arising from one despairing
throat.

ill-069


_“Open the gates for us!”_


“To the Temple! To the Temple!” repeated all the other women.

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:

“Open the gates for us! Open! Let us in!”



III
THE CROWD

The morning the orgie at Bacchis’s came to an end an event took place
at Alexandria: rain fell.

Immediately, contrarily to what usually happens in countries less
African, everybody went out to welcome the shower.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As Myrtocleia passed by, a young girl called Philotis, who was talking
with many others, pulled her by the sleeve knot.

“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!”

“Do you suppose I looked at her? I arrived after the banquet, I played
my piece, I received my payment, and I ran off.”

“Oh, I know you don’t dissipate!”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It is finished,” said another woman. “Theano is down there, by the
ceramic wall.”

The courtesans started off at a run, but presently stopped with a smile
of pity.

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.

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.

“An egg! an egg!” said Philotis.

ill-070


But Myrtocleia made a gesture:

“Come, Theano, come to bed. You are not well. Come with me.”

“Ah! . . . ha! . . . Ah! . . . ha!” laughed the child. And she took her
breast in her little hand, crying in a hoarse voice:

“Ah! . . . Ha! . . . the mirror . . .”

“Come along!” repeated Myrto, losing patience.

“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!”

The singing-girl tried to drag her away, but Philotis had understood.

“Hi!” she cried to the others, waving her two arms. “Come here quickly!
There is news! Bacchis’s mirror has been stolen!”

And all exclaimed:

“Papaië! Bacchis’s mirror!”

In an instant, thirty women crowded round the flute-girl:

“What is happening?”

“What?”

“Bacchis has had her mirror stolen: Theano has just said so.”

“But when?”

“Who has taken it?”

The child shrugged her shoulders:

“How do I know?”

“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.”

ill-071


_Thirty women crowded round the flute-girl._


“What do I know about it? There were more than twenty of them in the
banqueting room.

“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.”

“Yes,” interrupted Myrto, “you are an awful fright. But the mirror? Who
took it?”

“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.”

“Who? That is what we want to know.”

“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.”



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.

“It is a woman,” said Philotis; “it is a woman who is responsible for
this piece of work.”

“Yes, the mirror was well hidden. A thief could have carried off
everything in the room and upset everything without finding the stone.”

“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.”

“Oh! she has perhaps sold the mirror to pay her debts.”

“Supposing it were one of her lovers? They say she takes porters now!”

“No, it is a woman, I am sure of it.”

“By the two goddesses! it serves her right.”


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.

“What is the matter? what is the matter?”

And a shrill voice dominating the tumult shouted over all their heads:

“The High-Priest’s wife has been killed!”

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:

“The wife of the High-Priest has been killed! The festival at the
Temple is put off.”

News arrived rapidly. The body had been found, lying on a pink marble
seat, in a lonely place, at the summit of the gardens.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“The courtesans, the sacred courtesans!”

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.

“The necklace of the Goddess has been stolen, the True Pearls of
Anadyomene are gone!”

ill-072


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.



IV
THE RESPONSE

And the Agora was left empty, like a beach after the tide.

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.

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.

“You have done it!” she cried; “you have done it, then!”

“Yes,” said the young man simply. “You are obeyed.”

She quickly sat herself on his knees and embraced him deliriously:

“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!”

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:

“No . . . Adieu . . .”

ill-073


_“You say nothing! Kiss me!_


And he tranquilly turned away.

Chrysis stood rooted to the ground with stupefaction, her mouth open
and her head dangling.

“What? What . . . what . . . what do you say?”

“I say adieu,” he said, without raising his voice.

“But . . . but it cannot be you who . . .”

“Yes. I had promised.”

“Then . . . I fail to understand . . .”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Keep your presents! Do you suppose I care about them? It is yourself
that I want, you, you alone.”

“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.”

“People have been tittle-tattling about me?”

“No!”

“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!”

“I do not know them.”

“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 . . .”

ill-074


Demetrios looked her in the eyes.

“It is too late,” he said. “I have possessed you.”

“You are raving . . . When? Where? How?”

“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.”

Chrysis pressed her hands to her temples.

“It is abominable, abominable! And he dares to say this! And he makes a
boast of it!”

“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.”

“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.”

At this point, Demetrios dropped his tone of mockery, and said, in a
voice that trembled slightly:

“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?”

“If I asked this, it was to attach you to me. I should not have got you
if I had given myself.”

“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!”

“I am the only slave, Demetrios.”

ill-075


_He freed himself from both her arms._


“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.”

“Ah, beat me, if you like! but love me afterwards!”

And she hugged him so brusquely that he had not time to turn away his
lips. He freed himself from both her arms.

“I detest you! Adieu,” he said.

But Chrysis clung to his mantle.

“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.”

Demetrios looked at her curiously, and, like her, the night before upon
the quay, he said to her:

“What oath do you swear me?”

“By Aphrodite also.”

“You do not believe in Aphrodite. Swear by Jehovah Sabaoth.”

The Galilæan woman paled.

“We do not swear by Jehovah.”

“You refuse?”

“It is a terrible oath.”

“I must have it.”

She hesitated, then said in a low voice: “I swear by Jehovah. What do
you want of me, Demetrios?”

The young man kept silence.

“Speak quickly, I am afraid.”

“Oh! very little.”

“But what is it?”

“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?”

“Assuredly,” said Chrysis joyously.

“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.”

“What an idea!”

“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.”

“What?”

“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.”



V
THE GARDEN OF HERMANUBIS

Chrysis’s first impulse was to shrug her shoulders. She would not be so
ingenuous as to keep her word.

The second was to go and see.

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.

ill-076


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.

And yet . . . what a blessed end he had proposed to her!

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!

She closed her eyes . . .

But no: she would not allow herself to be tempted.

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.

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.



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.

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.

Chrysis forced her way as best she could through the narrow, stony
passage; on seeing the statue she paled slightly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

She put it round her neck.

ill-077


_On seeing the statue she paled slightly._


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.

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.

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 . . .

And enveloping herself to the hair in her great purple cyclas, she left
the necropolis, taking with her the terrible jewels.



VI
THE WALLS OF PURPLE

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.

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.

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.

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.

At the corner of the island of Pharos and the quay, Rhodis recognised
Chrysis standing near her in the crowd.

“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.”

“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?”

Chrysis did not answer.

“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 . . .”

“All is accomplished,” said the courtesan.

“What do you mean?”

Chrysis took two steps backwards and lifted her right hand to her
mouth.

“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.”

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.

A few minutes elapsed.

The crowd surged perpetually. The living tide added its clamour to the
regular upheavals of the waters.

Suddenly a cry arose upon the air, repeated by a hundred thousand
voices.

“Aphrodite!”

“Aphrodite!!”

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.




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.

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.

Neither Helen on the Scain Gates, nor Phryne in the waves of Eleusis,
nor Thaïs setting fire to Persepolis have known what triumph means.



Chrysis had appeared by the western Gate, on the first terrace of the
red monument.

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.

ill-078


_She went on her way towards the sky._


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.

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.



BOOK V



I
THE SUPREME NIGHT

“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.”

“Give me figs,” said Chrysis; “my mouth is dry.”

The old slave brought her a dozen ripe figs in a green basket.

Chrysis was left alone.

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.

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.

Outside, the silvery moon shone in a sky of liquid purity, a sky so
pale and clear that not a star was visible.

It was on just such a night that, seven years before, Chrysis had left
the land of Gennesaret.

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 . . .

And before that, the blue lake, the transparent sky, the light air of
the land of Galilee. . . . .

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 . . .

ill-079


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 . . .


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.

“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?

“Not to love or to die: that is the choice God has given me. What have
I done to deserve punishment?”

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.

She murmured:

“It is written:

I remember thy love when thou wast young.
For of old thou hast broken thy yoke.
And burst thy bonds;
And thou hast said: I will no longer serve.
But upon every high hill,
And under every green tree,
Thou hast wandered, playing the harlot. [1]


“It is written:

I will follow after my lovers,
Who give me my bread and my wine,
And my wool and my flax,
And my oil and my wine. [2]


“It is written:

How canst thou say: I am not polluted?
See thy way in the valley,
Know what thou hast done,
O thou dromedary traversing her ways,
O thou wild ass,
Panting and ever lustful,
Who could prevent thee from satisfying thy desire? [3]


“It is written:

_She has played the harlot in the land of Egypt._
She has doted upon paramours
Whose flesh is as the flesh of asses,
And whose issue is like the issue of horses.
Thus thou callest to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth,
In bruising thy teats by the Egyptians
For the paps of thy youth.” [4]


“Oh!” she cried. “It is I! It is I!”

“And it is written again:

Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers,
And thou wouldst return again to me! saith the Lord. [5]


“But my chastisement also is written:

Behold: I raise up thy lovers against thee:
They shall judge thee according to their judgments.
They shall take away thy nose and thine ears,
And thy remnant shall fall by the sword. [6]


“And again:

She is undone: she is stripped naked, she is led away captive
Her servants wail like doves
And taber upon their breasts. [7]


“But does one know what the Scripture says?” she added to console
herself. “Is it not written elsewhere:

I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom. [8]


“And elsewhere does not Scripture give this advice:

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. [9]


She shivered, and repeated in a low voice:

For there is no work, nor device nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the
grave, _whither thou goest!_ Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant
thing it is to see the sun. [10]


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. [11]


Shivering once more, she repeated slowly:

Or the dust return to the earth as it was.


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.

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 _her
skeleton within her_, 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.

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.

The door opened quietly.

Demetrios entered.

  [1] _Jeremiah_ II, 2, 20.

 [2] _Hosea_ II, 5.

 [3] _Jeremiah_ II, 23, 24.

 [4] _Ezekiel_ XXIII, 20, 21.

 [5] _Jeremiah_ III, 1.

 [6] _Ezekiel_ XXIII, 22, 25.

 [7] _Nahum_ II, 7.

 [8] _Hosea_ IV, 14.

 [9] _Ecclesiastes_ IX, 7, 10.

 [10] _Ecclesiastes_ XI, 7.

 [11] _Ecclesiastes_ XII, 1, 5-7.



II
DUST RETURNS TO EARTH

“Demetrios!” she cried.

And she rushed forward.

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.

She had hoped for an impulse of generosity, a movement of the arms, the
lips, anything, an outstretched hand . . .

Demetrios did not move.

He waited in silence for an instant, in an extremely correct attitude,
as if he wished clearly to disavow all responsibility in the case.

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.

Chrysis sat upon the low bed, with a fixed look in her dulled eyes.

Then Demetrios began to commune with himself.

“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.”

ill-080


_Chrysis sat upon the low bed._


Having thus, in an audacious aphorism, summed up one of his moral
theories, he lightly resumed the normal course of his ideas.

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.

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.

His mind was even so free from all preoccupation that he stumped out
upon the wall a rough study of his group of _Zagreus and the Titans_, a
variant which modified the position of the principal character’s right
arm.

Hardly had he finished, when a gentle knock was heard at the door.

Demetrios opened without haste. The old executioner entered, followed
by two helmeted hoplites.

“I bring the little cup,” he said, smiling obsequiously at the royal
lover.

Demetrios kept silence.

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.”

Chrysis looked at Demetrios, who did not turn away his eyes.

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.

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.

She drank half the contents of the cup, then, whether it was that she
had seen this gesture at the Theatre, in the _Thyestes_ 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.

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.

ill-081



“What must I do?” she said to the gaoler.

“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.”

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.

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.

It is written:

"The light is sweet . . .”


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.

There, the old man disposed the white folds of the robe along the rigid
limbs. Then he touched her feet and asked her:

“Do you feel anything?”

ill-082


_The hoplites carried her to the bed._


She answered:

“No.”

He touched her knees and asked her:

“Do you feel anything?”

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.

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.

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 . . .

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.



III
CHRYSIS IMMORTAL

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.

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.

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.

Suddenly he crossed the court, called a slave, and said to her:

“Prepare the piscina and the aromatics. Bathe me and perfume me, give
me my white garments, and light the round perfume-pans.”

When he had finished his toilette, he summoned two other slaves.

“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.”

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.

Suddenly he halted on the threshold, stupefied by the immense midday
light of Africa.

ill-083


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.

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.

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.

Just as he was finishing this line of thought, he arrived before the
door of the criminal prison.

His two slaves were waiting for him.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

He shivered from head to foot. Nevertheless he removed the tissue of
white wool and wound it round the hair.

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.



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.

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.

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.

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.

ill-084


_The rough figure takes life and precision._


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.

The Model has taken the pose.

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.

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.

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.



When night mounted from the earth and darkened the low chamber,
Demetrios had finished the statue.

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.



IV
PITY

“Gaoler, open! Gaoler, open!”

Rhodis and Myrtocleia knocked at the closed door.

The door opened half way.

“What do you want?”

“To see our friend,” said Myrto. “To see Chrysis, poor Chrysis, who
died this morning.”

“It is not allowed; go away!”

“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.”

“And supposing I am caught, my little girls? Supposing I am punished on
your account? You will not pay the fine?”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.

The moment the great key entered the lock, Rhodis arrested her friend’s
hand:

“I do not know whether I dare see her,” she said. “I loved her well,
Myrto . . . I am afraid . . . Go in first, will you?”

Myrtocleia pushed open the door; but as soon as she had cast a glance
into the chamber she cried:

“Do not enter, Rhodis! Wait for me here.”

“Oh! What is there? You are afraid too . . . What is there on the bed?
Is she not dead?”

“Yes, wait for me . . . I will tell you . . . Stay in the corridor and
do not look.”

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.

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She approached the bed on tiptoe.

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!”

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.

“Rhodis,” she said, in a troubled voice, “come; you can enter now.”

The trembling child penetrated into the chamber. Her features
contracted, her eyes opened wide.

As soon as they felt that there were two of them, they fell into one
another’s arms and burst into long-drawn sobs.

“Poor Chrysis! Poor Chrysis!” repeated the child.

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.

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.

“How we loved her! She was not a friend for us. She was a little mother
for both of us . . .”

Rhodis repeated:

“Like a little mother . . .”

And Myrto, dragging her to the side of the dead woman, said in a low
voice:

“Kiss her.”

They both bent down, and placed their hands upon the bed, as, with
fresh sobs, they touched the icy forehead with their lips.

And Myrto took the head between her two hands, buried them in the hair,
and spoke to her thus:



“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.”



Rhodis sat huddled up on the ground, sobbing.



“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.”

The flute-girl wept continually. The singing girl took her by the hand.



“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.”



She enveloped the beautiful body and then she said to Rhodis:

“Help me.”

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They lifted her up gently; but the burden was a heavy one for the
little musicians, and they laid it down upon the ground.

“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 . . .”



V
PIETY

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.

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.

The little virgins resumed their load.

“Where are we going to?” asked the child. “Where are we going to bury
it?”

“In the cemetery of Hermanubis. It is always deserted, it will be in
peace there.”

“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.”

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?

“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.”

At this point, Rhodis, who had been resting for several instants,
sighed:

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_The little virgins resumed their load_


“I cannot carry her any longer, Myrto. I shall fall down on my knees, I
am broken with fatigue and grief.”

Myrtocleia took her by the neck:

“Try again, my darling. We _must_ 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.”

But the child, overcome with weakness, burst into tears.

“Quickly, quickly!” exclaimed Myrtocleia.

“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 . . .”

She stooped short.

“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.”

And, inspired by a sudden thought, she ran down the street to meet the
little group.

“Timon,” she said, and her voice was full of supplication; “Timon,
stop. I have grave words to utter to you alone.”

“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.”

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.

“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?”

“Her nurse?” said Philotis. “She wants to steal away Timon.”

“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:

“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!”

“Come,” said Timon, “what do you want with me? Come here. Whisper in my
ear. Is it really serious?”

“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 . . .”

Timon’s look reassured her.

“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.”

Turning to the four women . . .

“Go to my house,” he said, “by the street of the Potters. I shall be
there in a short time. Do not follow me.”

Rhodis was still sitting in front of the corpse. When she saw Timon
coming, she implored him:

“Do not tell! We have stolen it to save her shade. Keep our secret, we
will love you, Timon.”

“Have no fears,” said the young man.

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.

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.

“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.”

They reached the gate of the ruined necropolis.

“Where shall we put it?” said Myrto.

“Near the god.”

“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.”

Nor did they fail to find it.

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.

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.

ill-881


_They passed the limp body to Timon._


The young man jumped into the grave, as far as his waist, and held out
his arms:

“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.”

But Rhodis threw herself on the body.

“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! . . .”

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.

Then, shaken by interminable sobs, they passed the limp inert body to
Timon.

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.

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.

ΤΟΙΝΔΕ ΠΕΡΑΣ ΕΣΧΕ ΤΟ ΣΥΝΤΑΓΜΑ
ΤΩΝ ΠΕΡΙ ΧΡΥΣΙΔΑ ΚΑΙ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΝ


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