André returned to Seville. He there met Concha Perez.
As they were starting for Paris a letter came by hand addressed to her.
A little later in life André knew that the letter was as follows--
“_My Conchita, I pardon you. I cannot live where you are not. Return
to me. Now it is I who kneel to you. I kiss your feet._
“MATEO.”
THE NEW PLEASURE
CHAPTER I
For four or five years I lived in a flat that was in a street near
the little Park Monceau. I was there only for certain days in the
week. The flat was not the finest in Paris, but was discreet, and the
place generally had a well-valeted look. A distinct drawback was that
although one end of my street gave on to the park, I could not enjoy
that latter place much, for the gates were closed every evening before
midnight--just when I most deeply appreciate walking for exercise and
to take the pure air.
One night at the flat I sat in silent contemplation of two blue china
cats that crouched upon a white table. I was wondering whether it would
be better to pass the time smoking cigarettes or writing sonnets.
Another idea was that it might be better to smoke the cigarettes and
stare at the painting on the ceiling. Cigarette, sonnet, or stare? The
most important thing at such an hour is to have a cigarette ready to
hand and lip. It enshrouds all the most material things with scarves
of cloud, fine and celestial. It adds something both to the lights and
to the dark of the chamber, taking away the hard mathematics of the
angles, and by means of a scented magical spell brings to the agitated
human spirit a panacea and peace. It brings, too, the land of dreams.
On the particular evening I now speak of there was the intention of
doing some writing, and yet the desire to do nothing was active and
coercive. Put differently, it was an evening that resembled many other
similar evenings of the “unlit lamp and ungirt loin.” Evenings that
ended with a full ink-well, sheets of dead-white writing paper, and--a
large ash-tray full of golden ends of cigarettes, ashes and unused
ideas.
Suddenly I was brought back from my “open-eye dreams” by the unexpected
ringing of the bell. I raised my head and tried to be positive that on
Friday night, the ninth of June, I did not await any one at that hour
of the night. A second ring soon came, so I went to the door and drew
back the bolt.
When the door was opened I saw a woman waiting. She was wrapped in a
sort of mantle, like a travelling cloak, fastened around the throat.
Above, the head was poised. I saw that her hair was blond, and that she
was young. Beneath the shadow of her tresses gleamed very dark eyes.
The face was a trifle teasing in its expression, and rather sensual,
the mouth being very red.
“Do you wish me to come in?” she said, inclining her sweet head upon
her shoulder.
I drew back, flattened as it were against the wall, suffering from
the genuine, the natural astonishment of a man who has to open his
door at such an hour to a woman of whom he has not the slightest
recollection--a woman, too, who used the intimate form of address,
“thou,” in the first phrase she used.
“My dear lady,” I said, with a touch of timidity, as I followed her
into my chamber, “spare me any blame. Of course I recognize you
clearly, but by some lapse of memory I do not recall your name. Is it
not Lucienne or Tototte?”
She smiled a tender, indulgent smile, but, making no reply, unfastened
her mantle.
Her robe was of sea-green silk, with an iris pattern. Snared in the
low-cut corsage were beautiful breasts, that seemed as though they
longed to burst forth--a flow of imprisoned beauty. Clasped around
each of the nude, dark arms was a golden snake, with glittering
emerald eyes. Around the throat of darkest cream were two rows of
pearls--pearls that had meant the loss of many lives.
“If you remember me it is because we have met in the land of dreams, or
in some land of the mind, where it seems that dreams come true. I am
Callisto, daughter of Lamia. During eighteen hundred years my tomb has
had peace. It is in the flowerful fields and woods of Daphne, near to
the hills where were the voluptuous dwelling-places of Antioch. But in
these days even the tombs have no abiding home. They took me to Paris,
and my shadow or spirit followed. For a long time I slept in the icy
caves of the Louvre. I should have been there for ever and ever if it
had not been for a great and grand pagan, a really holy man, Louis
Ménard. He is the only living man in all this land who knows to-day the
signs and symbols of the ancient divinities. Before my tomb he solemnly
pronounced the words that of old gave a nightly and transitory life to
the unhappy dead! Therefore behold me. For seven hours each night I may
go through your miserable city....”
“Oh, child of the older world,” I cried, “how you must see the change
the world sorrows under!”
“Yes, and yet no. I find the dwellings dark, the dresses ugly, the sky
sorrowful. How oddly you dress for such a climate. I find that life
in general is more stupid, and that human beings look much less happy
than in the older and more golden days. But if there is one thing that
greatly stupefies me, it is to see that you have still so many of the
things that I knew of old. What ... in eighteen hundred years have you
all made nothing more, nothing new? Is that so really and truly? What
I have seen in the houses, the open air, the streets, is that all?
Have you not succeeded in finding a new thing? If not, what misery, my
friend!”
My attitude of astonishment was my sole reply.
She smiled, the lovely red lips parting over her mother-of-pearl teeth
most enchantingly. Then she murmured in explanation--
“See how I am dressed. This was my burial attire. Regard it. In my
first lifetime one dressed in wool and silk. In returning to the earth
I thought that such things would have passed away even from the memory
of man. I imagined that after so many years that the human race would
have discovered fabrics to dress in more wonderful than a tissue of
sun and silk, more pleasurable to touch than the exquisite tender skin
of young virgins, of rose-leaves, of downy peaches. But you still
dress or clothe yourselves in thread, in wool, in the silk we all had
of old. Then look at my shoes of olive morocco, worked with gold like
the binding of a rare book. Have you as lovely things for the feet in
these days? And so with the gems and jewels of these days. I knew them
all, then.”
“Callisto,” at last I said, “you give these things too great an
importance. A girl is never so beautiful as when she is made as the
gods made her.”
She gazed at me, then said very slowly, “Are you sure now that women
themselves, their form, has not changed since my early days of life?”
CHAPTER II
To my utter amazement she followed her last words by slipping off her
jewels and robes. She had the grandeur of a goddess from throat to
feet. She curved into a long, deep, easy chair, and said, “Why have
you people of to-day not perfected the woman as you have perfected
flowers?” She continued in a soft, dreamy voice, “Oh, days of the youth
of the world, days of the first coming of pleasure!... During the
nineteen hundred years of my sleep in the grave what new joy have you
all discovered. What new pleasure have you found? Invite me to share it
with you....”
“We need more time, Callisto,” I pleaded.
She smiled in derision. “Your art and thought have both borrowed from
us--parasites of our dead bodies. Descartes and Kant borrowed from
our Parmenides. Euclid, Archimedes, Aristotle, Democritus, Heraclitus
... you have discovered nothing that they had not dreamt. You have
discovered nothing, not even America. Aristotle said the earth was
round, and indicated the path that Columbus finally took. But, oh! if
only you had discovered _one_ new pleasure; only one.”
I sighed. I could not combat her arguments any more than I could
resist her beauty. Instead, I simply said, “Will you take a cigarette?
Doubtless Aristotle taught you that----”
“No,” Callisto answered; “but do you offer me that as a new pleasure?”
She consented to take one, and I taught her the best method of getting
joy from those tubes of white and gold. There followed a long silence.
She held in her hand my packet of cigarettes, and seemed to be deep
in the enjoyment of an emotion she would not share. Another cigarette
was lit for her, and slowly smoked. Callisto, at last, had found a new
pleasure!
BYBLIS
_Amaryllis told to the three young women and the three philosophers,
as if they were little children, this fable._
“Travellers I have known, who have gone to Caril by ascending the
Méandre far beyond the range of the shepherds, have seen the River God
asleep in the shade on the river-bank. He had a long green beard, and
his face was wrinkled like the river’s grey and rocky banks from which
trailed dripping plants. His old eyelids seemed dead as they overhung
the eyes which were for ever blind. It is likely that if any one went
to find him now, he would not be discovered alive.
“Now this was the father of Byblis by his marriage with the nymph
Cyanée; I will tell you the story of the unhappy Byblis.”
CHAPTER I
In the grotto from which the river emerged in a mysterious way the
nymph Cyanée gave birth to twins; one was a son who was named Caunos,
and the other a girl to whom the name of Byblis was given.
They both grew up upon the banks of the Méandre, and sometimes Cyanée
showed them beneath its transparent surface the divine appearance of
their father, whose soul disturbed its flowing stream.
The only world the children knew was the forest in which they were
born. They had never seen the sun except through the network of its
branches. Byblis never left her brother, and walked with her arm around
his neck.
She wore a little tunic which her mother had woven for her in the
depths of the river, which tunic was blue-grey like the first light of
dawn. Caunos wore around his waist nothing but a garland of roses from
which hung a yellow waist-cloth.
As soon as it was light enough for them to walk in the woods, they
wandered far away, playing with the fruits which had fallen to the
ground, or searching for the largest and most sweetly-scented flowers.
They always shared their finds and never quarrelled, so that their
mother spoke proudly of them to the other nymphs her friends.
* * * * *
Now when twelve years from the day of their birth had sped, their
mother became uneasy and sometimes followed them.
The two children played no longer, and when they returned from a day
in the forest, they brought back nothing with them, neither birds,
flowers, fruits, nor garlands. They walked so close together that their
hair was mingled. Byblis’ hands strayed about her brother’s arms.
Sometimes she kissed him upon the cheek: then they both remained silent.
When the heat was too great they glided beneath the low branches, and
lying on their breasts upon the sweet-smelling grass talked and adored
each other without ever withdrawing from each other’s embrace.
Then Cyanée took her son aside and said to him--
“Why are you sad?”
Caunos replied--
“I am not sad. I used to be when I was playing and laughing. Now
everything is changed. I no longer feel the need of play, and if I do
not laugh it is because I am happy.”
Then Cyanée asked him, “Why are you happy?”
The answer which Caunos gave her was--
“Because I look at Byblis.”
Cyanée asked him too--
“Why is it that you do not now look at the forest?”
“Because Byblis’ hair is softer and more scented than the grass;
because Byblis’ eyes--”
But Cyanée stopped him. “Child! be silent!”
Hoping to cure him of his illicit passion, she at once took him
to a mountain-nymph who had seven daughters most wondrously and
indescribably beautiful.
Both of them, after planning together, said to him--
“Make your choice, Caunos, and the one who pleases you shall be your
wife.”
But Caunos looked at the seven young girls as unmovedly as if he had
been looking at seven rocks; for the image of Byblis quite filled his
little soul, and there was not room in him for an alien love.
For a month Cyanée took her son from mountain to mountain, and from
plain to plain without succeeding in diverting him from his desire.
At last realizing that she would never overcome his obstinate passion,
she began to hate her son and accuse him of infamous conduct. But the
child did not understand why his mother reproached him. Why among all
women was he to be refused the one he loved? Why was it that caresses,
which would have been permissible in the importunate arms of another,
became criminal in the arms of his beloved Byblis? For what mysterious
reason was it that a sentiment which he knew to be good, tender and
capable of any sacrifice, was deemed worthy of every punishment? Zeus,
he thought, married his sister, and Aphrodite dared to deceive her
brother Ares with her brother Hephaïstos. For he did not yet know that
the gods alone have given themselves an intelligent morality and that
they disturb men’s virtue by incomprehensible laws.
Now Cyanée said to her son--
“I disown you as my child!”
She made a sign to a Centaur which was going towards the sea, and had
Caunos placed upon its back. Then the beast went rapidly away.
For some time Cyanée followed her son with her eyes. Caunos in his
fright clung to the shoulders of the beast, and was sometimes buried in
its monstrous mane. Then Centaur moved with long and powerful strides;
it travelled in a straight line, and soon grew small in the distance.
Then it turned behind a clump of bushes, and reappeared looking from
afar like a tiny and almost stationary speck. At last Cyanée could see
it no longer.
Slowly the mother of Byblis retraced her steps into the forest.
She was sad, but at the same time proud of saving by a forced
separation the destiny of her two children; and she thanked the gods
for giving her the strength to accomplish such a heartrending duty.
“Now,” she thought, “Byblis being alone will forget the brother who has
been sacrificed for her. She will fall in love with the first man who
knows how to caress her, and from the marriage-bed will spring, as is
right, a race half human and half divine. Blest are the immortal gods!”
But when she returned to the grotto, little Byblis had disappeared.
CHAPTER II
When Byblis found herself alone upon the little bed of green leaves
upon which she had slept by her brother’s side every night, she had in
vain tried to sleep; but that evening dreams came not to her.
She went out into the warm night. A gentle breath of air swayed the
darkness of the forest. She sat down and watched the flowing stream.
“Why,” she thought, “has not Caunos come back. What has called him away
and kept him from me. Who is it, father, that is separating us?”
As this last idea came to her she leant over the spring.
“Father!” she repeated, “father! where is Caunos? Reveal the secret to
me?”
A murmur of the water answered--
“Far away.”
Byblis in affright quickly continued--
“When will he return? When will he come back to me?”
“Never,” the spring replied.
“Dead! Is he dead?”
“No.”
“Where shall I see him again?”
The spring spake no more. Its gentle ripple resumed its monotonous
sound. No divine presence seemed to live in its clear waters.
Byblis got up and fled. She knew the path by which Caunos had started
with his mother. It was a narrow track which wound from tree to tree as
it buried itself in the forest. She had not traversed it often, for it
ran through a valley infested with serpents and dangerous beasts. This
time her desire overcame her fear, and she tremblingly followed the
path with all the speed of which her little bare feet were capable.
The night was not very dark; but the shadows thrown by the moon are
black, and behind the mighty trees Byblis had to feel her way.
She reached a spot where the pathway split in two. Which direction was
she to take, which path was she to follow? On her knees she for a long
time sought for a footstep to guide her. But the earth was dry. Byblis
could see nothing. As she lifted her head she perceived that, hidden in
the foliage of an oak, a tree-nymph with green breasts was watching her
with a smile.
“Oh!” Byblis cried, “which way did they go? Tell me if you saw them.”
The tree-nymph extended one of her long branch-like arms to the right,
and Byblis thanked her with a grateful glance.
She walked on that night for a long way. The pathway seemed
never-ending, and, besides, it was hardly visible beneath a covering of
dead leaves; it ceaselessly wound its way, determined in its direction
by the chance of the soil, and the position of the trees; it seemed to
climb up and descend into the shadows for ever.
At last worn out with fatigue Byblis fell to the ground and went to
sleep.
She awakened in the morning when the sun was high in the heavens with a
soft, warm sensation upon her outstretched hand. She opened her eyes to
see a white hind gently licking her. But at Byblis’ first movement the
graceful animal jumped up, pricked its ears, and fixed its lovely dark
eyes, which glittered like a mountain stream, upon a distant point.
“Hind,” Byblis said, “to whom do you belong? If your mistress is the
Goddess Artemis guide me, for I know her. I offer up to her in the full
moonlight libations of goat’s milk which are very pleasing to her,
and, hind, she loves me dearly. If you are one of her company listen
to the voice of my anguish, and be sure that by so doing you will not
displease the kind Huntress of the Night.”
The hind appeared to understand; it started off at a pace slow enough
for the child to follow. In this way they both traversed a vast expanse
of forest and crossed two streams, the hind crossing them with a bound
while Byblis had to wade knee-deep across them. Byblis was full of
confidence. She was now sure that she was upon the right track; without
a doubt the hind had been sent by the goddess herself out of gratitude
for her devoutness, and the divine animal was leading her through
the woods to her beloved brother from whom she would never again be
separated. Every step took her nearer to the place where she would see
Caunos again. She could even now feel upon her breast the fugitive’s
affectionate embrace. A part of his breath seemed to have entered into
the atmosphere and to have charmed the breeze.
Suddenly the hind stopped. She slid her long head between two young
trees, where at the same time the horns of a stag appeared, and just as
if she had reached the end of her journey the hind lay down with her
hoofs beneath her and her head upon the ground.
“Caunos!” Byblis called aloud, “Caunos, where are you?”
Her only answer was from the stag, as he took a few steps towards her
and threatened her with his terrible horns, which were interwoven like
ten brown serpents.
Then Byblis understood that the hind, like her, had come to meet her
lover, and that it was perhaps useless to reckon upon the help of these
entirely absorbed by an inward passion.
She turned back, but she was lost. She took another track, which
rapidly descended to an invisible path. Her poor little weary feet
stumbled over the stones, caught in the roots, and slipped upon the
brown carpet of pine-needles. At a turn in this uneven path, which
followed the course of a stream, she stopped before a divine couple.
They were two nymphs of different orders, one of them having authority
over the forests and the other the spring waters. The oread had brought
to the naiad the fresh offerings received from men, and both of them
were bathing in the stream, sporting and embracing as they did so.
“Naiad,” Byblis said, “have you seen the son of Cyanée?”
“Yes. His shadow has passed over me. It was yesterday at sunset.”
“From what direction did he come?”
“I do not know.”
“Where was he going?”
“I did not follow him.”
Byblis uttered a profound sigh.
“Did you,” she asked the other nymph, “see the son of Cyanée?”
“Yes. Far away from here in the mountains.”
“Whence did he come?”
“I did not follow him.”
“Where was he going?”
“I have forgotten.”
Then she continued, rising up in the midst of the flowing waters as she
spake--
“Remain with us, young girl, stay. Why do you still think of him, who
is absent? We have treasured up for you boundless present joys. There
is no future happiness worth the trouble of pursuit.”
But Byblis did not think that the nymph had spoken the truth. Although
she was unable to express the ideas of her little soul, she could not
conceive any greater joy than to suffer in the pursuit of happiness.
During the first day of her useless journey she had counted on the
assistance and zeal of the unknown creatures. When she saw that they
were careless about aiding her destiny she relied solely upon herself,
and, leaving the winding path, penetrated haphazard into the labyrinth
of the woods.
But the two immortals repeated their words of wisdom.
“Stay with us, young girl, stay. Why do you still think of the absent
one? There is no future happiness worth the trouble of pursuit.”
Long, long afterwards the child as she crossed the mysterious mountain
could hear in the distance two clear voices, calling together--
“Byblis!”
CHAPTER III
For a night and day Byblis traversed the mountain. She made anxious
inquiries of all the deities of the woods, of the trees, of the glades
and the thickets. She recounted her sorrows many times; she tremblingly
implored their assistance, and wrung her little hands. But not one of
them had seen Caunos.
She climbed up so high that her mother’s holy name was quite unknown to
all she met, and the unconcerned nymphs did not understand her.
She wanted to retrace her steps, but she was lost. On every side she
was surrounded by a confused colonnade of enormous pine-trees. There
were no more paths. There was no horizon. She ran in every direction.
She called out in despair.
There was not even an echo to be heard.
Then as her weary eyelids drooped lower and lower she lay down upon the
ground and a passing dream told her in measured tones--
“You will never see your brother, you will never set eyes upon him
again.”
She awoke with a start, with her arms outstretched and her mouth open,
but she was so overwhelmed with sorrow and anguish that she had not the
strength to cry out.
The moon rose red like blood behind the high black outlines of the
pine-trees. Byblis could hardly see it. It seemed to her that a humid
veil had been dropped over her long eyes. An eternal silence had
enveloped the sleeping woods.
Then a large tear gathered in the corner of her left eye.
Byblis had never before wept. She believed that she was about to die,
and sighed as if divine solace had come to her aid in a mysterious way.
The tear grew, trembled, became larger still and then suddenly trickled
down her cheek.
Byblis remained motionless with fixed eyes in the light of the moon.
Then a large tear filled the corner of her right eye. It grew like the
other and trickled down her right cheek.
Two other tears came, two burning drops which flowed down the moist
track made by the other. They reached the corner of her mouth; a
delightful bitterness overcame the worn-out child.
Then never more would her hand touch the beloved hand of Caunos. Never
more would she see the gleam of his black eyes, his dear head, and wavy
hair. Never again would they sleep side by side in each other’s arms
upon the same bed of leaves. The forests no longer knew his name.
An overwhelming outburst of despair made Byblis hide her face in her
hands, but such an abundance of tears moistened her inflamed cheeks
that she seemed to feel a miraculous spring washing away her sufferings
like dead leaves upon the waters of a torrent.
The tears which had been gradually born in her, rose to her eyes,
welled up, overflowed, trickled in a warm flood over her cheeks, bathed
her tiny breasts and fell upon her entwined legs. She did not feel
them trickle one by one between her long lashes: they were a gentle
and never-ending stream, an inexhaustible flood, the outpouring of an
enchanted sea.
But awakened by the moonlight the deities of the forest had gathered
from every side. The bark of the trees became transparent and allowed
the faces of the nymphs to be seen; and even the quivering naiads left
the water and the rocks and came into the woods.
They all crowded around Byblis and spoke to her, for they were
frightened because the river of the child’s tears had traced in the
earth a sinuous track which was slowly extending towards the plain.
But now Byblis could hear nothing, neither voices, footsteps, nor the
night wind. Her attitude little by little became eternal. Her skin had
assumed beneath the deluge of tears the smooth white tint of marble
washed by the waters. The wind would not have disturbed one of her
hairs which were as long as her arms. She died like pure marble. A
vague light still illuminated her vision. Suddenly it went out; but
fresh tears still flowed from her eyes.
In that way was Byblis changed into a fountain.
LÊDA
There was not light enough in which to clearly see any creature or
thing; it was twilight, the time of the gauzy haze that haunts our
dreams.
Moonbeams were beginning to light up the blackest branches of trees:
moonlight and the shine of flinching silver stars.
There were four young Corinthians reclining upon the ground near to
three young men. They were deep in pleasant thought, but opened their
eyes wide when the grave Melandryon said these words--
“I will tell you the story of the Swan and the little Nymph who lived
upon the banks of the Eurotas. It is a story in praise of blissful
shadows.” He half raised himself, and what he told his companions now
follows.
CHAPTER I
In those days there were no tombs by the roadside and no temples upon
the hills. Men themselves scarce existed; there was not much talk of
them. The earth was given up to the joy of the gods and the times
favoured the birth of amazing divinities. It was the time of Echnida
and the Chimera of Pasiphæ and the Minotaur. The young ones that there
were went pale through the woods fearing to be waylaid by dragons.
Nevertheless upon the humid banks of the river Eurotas, where the
trees were so thick that one could not see the light, there lived an
extraordinary young girl who was blue-tinted like the light of the
night, mysterious as the moon and sweet as the Milky Way. That was why
they had named her Lêda. She was in truth almost blue, for the blood
of the iris was in her veins and not the blood of the rose that is in
your own veins. Her lips shone with blue like her eyes. Her hair was
so abundant that she sometimes seemed to have long wings. She loved
only the water and the night. Her chief pleasure was to walk upon the
soft springy spongy turf of the banks near the water. She could feel
the cold moisture of the water but hardly see the water itself, and her
naked feet had little shudders of pleasure and were softly moistened.
For she did not bathe in the river because of her fear of the jealous
water-nymphs, and she did not want to give herself up to the water
entirely. But she loved to moisten her body and hair with the sweet
river-water. Sometimes she took up into her hands the freshness of the
flood and poured it between her young breasts, watching it trickle down
and run away. Sometimes she laid her full length down upon the bank
and drank from the surface of the water slowly, sweetly. Then she
seemed like a thirsty little animal. Such was chiefly her life: that
and thinking upon the satyrs. Sometimes one came upon her unexpectedly
but fled in affright, for they all thought her to be Phœbe, and austere
to those who saw her naked. She would have liked to talk to them had
they stayed near her. Their appearance filled her with astonishment.
One night when she had gone for a short walk in the forest, because it
had been raining and the ground was like a torrent, she approached one
of these half-divine creatures as he slept and gazed upon him; but she,
too, in her turn became horrified and quickly retraced her steps. Since
that time she occasionally thought of the incident and was disturbed
about things she did not understand. She began to gaze at herself and
found herself mysterious. It was the time when she became sentimental
and spent much time in weeping.
When the nights were clear she gazed at her reflection in the water.
Once the thought came to her that it would be better for her to plait
her hair like a serpent and so display the nape of her neck which the
touch of her hand told her was beautiful. She chose a jewel for her
hair and made herself a garland of the leaves of water-lilies and their
blossoms.
At first she took pleasure in walking like this. But as she was alone
there was none to gaze at her. Then she became unhappy and ceased to be
amused.
Now her spirit did not know itself but her body awaited the beating of
the Swan’s wings.
CHAPTER II
One evening, as she was hardly awake and thought of continuing her
dream, because a long streak of yellow daylight still flowed behind the
darkness of the forest, her attention was attracted by the sound of the
reeds near her and she saw the apparition of a Swan.
The beautiful bird was as white as a woman, splendid as the light and
gleaming like a cloud. It seemed to be like a midday sky, its form and
its winged spirit. That is why it was called Dzeus.
Lêda knew it to be looking at her as it flew and walked in turn. It
circled around the nymph at a distance and looked sidelong at her. Even
when it was almost touching her it still continued to approach, and
rising on its red feet it stretched its graceful and undulating neck
as high as possible before her young thighs.
Lêda’s astonished hands carefully grasped its little head and caressed
it. The bird fluttered all its feathers, with its soft and feathery
wings it gripped her naked legs and bent them; Lêda let herself fall
upon the ground.
She covered her face with her two hands. She experienced neither fear
nor shame but inexpressible joy and a beating of the heart which made
her breasts tremble.
She did not realize or understand what was about to happen. She did not
even understand why she was happy. She felt along her arms the supple
neck of the Swan.
Why had it come? What had she done that it should come to her? Why had
it not flown away like the other swans on the river or fled like the
satyrs into the forest? From her earliest recollection she had always
lived alone. For that reason her ideas were very limited and the events
of that night were so disconcerting. This Swan she had neither called
nor seen, for she was asleep. It had come.
She neither dared to look nor move lest it should fly away. She felt
upon her flushed cheeks the freshness of the beating of its wings.
Soon it seemed to recoil and its caresses changed. She felt between her
cool knees the warmth of the bird’s body.
She uttered a long sigh of bounteous delight, let fall backward with
closed eyes her fevered head, and plucked the grass with convulsive
fingers.
Then for a long while she remained motionless. At her first gesture
her hand met the Swan’s beak. She sat up and saw the reflection of the
great bird in the river. She wished to rise but the bird prevented her.
She wished to take a little water in the palm of her hand and moisten
her flesh, but the Swan prevented her with its wing.
She clasped the bird in her arms and covered its thick feathers with
kisses, making it set them up with her embraces. Then she stretched
herself upon the river-bank and fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning at daybreak a new sensation awakened her with a start:
something seemed to become detached from her body. A large blue egg
rolled in front of her and shone like a sapphire.
She wanted to take it and play with it or else cook it in the warm
ashes as she had seen the satyrs do; but the Swan picked it up in its
beak and placed it under a tuft of overhanging reeds. It stretched
out its wings over the egg with its gaze fixed upon Lêda, and then
with a movement of the wings slowly soared straight up into the sky to
disappear in the growing daylight with the last white star.
CHAPTER III
Lêda hoped that the following night the Swan would come back to her,
and she waited for it in the reeds by the river-side near the blue egg
which was born of their miraculous union.
The Eurotas was covered with swans, but her Swan was not among them.
She would have recognized it from a thousand, and even with her eyes
shut would have perceived its approach. But it was very certain that
the one was no longer there.
Then she took off her garland of water-lily leaves, dropped it into the
stream, let down her hair and began to weep.
When after a time she dried her eyes a great Satyr was near her though
she had not heard his approach.
Now she was no longer like Phœbe. She had lost her virginity. The
satyrs were no longer afraid of her.
She leapt to her feet and drew back in affright.
The Satyr gently said to her: “Who are you?”
“I am Lêda,” she replied.
He was silent for a moment and then went on--
“Why are you different from the other nymphs? Why are you blue like the
water and the night?”
“I do not know.”
He looked at her in great astonishment.
“What are you doing here all alone?”
“I am waiting for the Swan.”
She was looking at the river. “What Swan?” he asked.
“The Swan. I did not call it, I did not see it, but it appeared. I was
so surprised. I will tell you.”
She told him what had happened and parted the reeds to show him the
blue egg.
The Satyr understood. He began to laugh and gave her vulgar
explanations, which she stopped by putting her hand over his mouth;
then she cried--
“I do not wish to know. I will not know. Oh, you have told me. Oh! it
is frightful! Now I shall not be able to love the Swan, and I shall die
of unhappiness.”
He seized her by the arm in his passion.
“Do not touch me!” she cried through her tears. “Oh! how happy was I
this morning! I did not realize how happy I was! Now if it return I
shall not love it. Now you have told me! Ah! how wicked you are!”
He embraced her and caressed her hair.
“Oh, no! no! no!” she cried. “Do not do that! Oh if the Swan were to
come back! Alas! alas! all is ended.”
She stood with staring eyes and open mouth without weeping but with
hands trembling with fear.
“I would like to die. I do not even know whether I am mortal. I would
like to die in the water, but I fear the naiads, lest they make me join
them. Oh! what have I done!”
She sobbed bitterly in his arms. But a serious voice spake before her,
and when she opened her eyes she saw the river god crowned with green
leaves rising half out of the water and leaning upon a staff of light
wood.
He said--
“You are quite right. But you have loved the symbol of all that is
light and glorious, and you have been united to it.
“Of the symbol is born the symbol, and of the symbol will be born
Beauty. It is in the blue egg which you have seen. Since the beginning
of the world it has been called Helen; and the last man of all shall
know of her existence.
“You were full of love because you were ignorant. For that let the
blessed darkness be praised.
“But you are a woman, too, and bear in you the obscure being who would
be simply himself, whose father has not foreseen him, and whose son
does not know him. I will take the germ in my waters. It shall remain
in obscurity.
“You were full of hatred because you learned the truth. I will make you
forget it. For that let the blessed darkness be praised.”
She did not understand what the God had said, but she thanked him with
tears.
She entered the bed of the river to purify herself from the Satyr, and
when she returned to the bank she had lost every remembrance of her
sorrow and her joy.
* * * * *
Melandryon spake no more. The women were all silent. But Rhea asked--
“What of Kaftor and Polydeukes? You have told us nothing of them. They
were the brothers of Helen.”
“No, that is not true, they are not interesting. Helen alone was a
child of the Swan.”
“Why, too, do you say that the Swan wounded her with its beak? That is
not in the legend, nor is it likely. Then why do you say that Lêda was
blue like water in the night? You have a reason for saying it.”
“Did you not hear the words of the River. Symbols must never be
explained. They must not be understood. Have faith. Ah! do not doubt.
The maker of the symbol has concealed a truth in it, but he need not
explain it or what would be the use of the reader of symbols.
“One must not tear aside ceremonies, for they only conceal the
invisible. We know that in these trees adorable nymphs are enclosed,
and yet when the wood-cutter fells the trees they are dead. We know
that behind us are dancing satyrs and divine nakedness but we need not
turn round, for if we do all will have disappeared.
“The undulating reflection of the springs is actually the naiad. The
buck standing in the midst of the does is the reality of the Satyr. One
or other of you all is Aphrodite in reality. But we must not know it,
we must not seek to find it out. Such is the condition of love and joy.
Praise be to the blessed darkness for it.”
IMMORTAL LOVE
(_From “Aphrodite”_)
CHAPTER I
THE GARDENS OF THE GODDESS
The temple of Aphrodite-Astarte stood outside the gates of the city in
an immense domain full of flowers and shadows, where the waters of the
Nile flowed through seven aqueducts and maintained at all seasons a
state of wonderful fertility.
This forest of flowers on the sea-shore, these deep streams, these
lakes and shady meadows had been created in the desert by Ptolemy I.
Since that time the sycamores planted by his orders had become giants;
through the fertilizing influence of the waters the lawns had grown
into meadows; the ponds had become enlarged into lakes; Nature had
turned a park into a country.
The gardens were more than a valley, more than a country, more than a
land; they were a complete world enclosed within walls of stone, and
ruled by a Goddess who was the soul and centre of this universe. All
around this domain arose a circular terrace. Its boundary was not a
wall, it was a colossal city, consisting of fourteen hundred houses. A
like number of courtesans dwelt in this holy city and represented in
this spot alone seventy different races.
These sacred houses were uniform in design, and had upon each door the
courtesan’s name who dwelt there.
Upon each side of the door were two rooms without walls upon the side
next to the gardens. The room to the right was where the courtesan
arrayed in all her finery sat to await the arrival of her visitors. The
room on the left was at the disposal of those who wished to pass the
night in the open air without sleeping on the grass.
On opening the door a passage gave entrance to a vast courtyard paved
with marble, the middle of which was adorned by an oval basin. A
peristyle provided the shade around this great square of light, and
formed a zone of coolness for the entrance to the seven rooms of the
house. At the back stood the altar which was of red granite.
Every woman had brought from her own country a little image of the
Goddess, and as it stood there upon the altar of the house it was
worshipped by each one in her own tongue. Lakmî Ashtoreth, Venus,
Iskhtar, Freia, Mylitta, and Cypris were some of the holy names of
their Divinity of Pleasure. Some worshipped the divinity in the
symbolical shapes of a sea pebble, a conical stone, or a large prickly
shell. In many of the houses there was upon a wooden stand a rough
statuette with thin arms, large breasts, and huge thighs. They placed
a myrtle branch at the feet of the idol, strewed the altar with
rose-leaves, and burnt a grain of incense for each prayer which was
granted. The Goddess was the confidante of all their sorrows, the
witness of all their labours, and the supposed cause of all their
pleasure. At the courtesan’s death the image was placed in her fragile
coffin as a guardian of her tomb.
The most beautiful of these girls came from the kingdoms of Asia. Every
year vessels bearing to Alexandria gifts from tributaries or allies
landed besides their cargoes a hundred virgins chosen by the priests
for the service of the sacred garden. They came from Mysia, Crete,
Phrygia, Babylon, and the banks of the Ganges, and there were also
Jewesses among them. Some were fair of skin with impassive faces and
inflexible breasts; others were dark as the earth after rain, and had
gold rings through their noses, and dark hair hanging down upon their
shoulders. Some came from still more distant lands; they were slender,
quiet little creatures, whose language no one understood and who
looked like yellow monkeys. Their eyes were long, and their straight
black hair was grotesquely arranged. These girls spent the whole of
their lives like lost and frightened animals. They knew the gestures
of love but declined to kiss upon the mouth. They amused themselves by
playing childish games.
In a meadow apart, the fair and rosy daughters of the North lived
together sleeping upon the grass. These were women from Sarmatia
with triple-plaited hair, robust limbs, and square shoulders, who
made themselves garlands of the branches of trees and wrestled among
themselves for amusement; there were flat-nosed hairy Scythians and
gigantic Teutons who terrified the Egyptians with their hair which
was lighter than an old man’s and their flesh which was softer than a
child’s; there were Gauls like animals, who laughed without reason, and
young Celts with sea-green eyes, who never went out naked.
The women of Iberia, too, who had swarthy breasts, spent their days
together. They had heavy masses of hair which was skilfully arranged
and did not remove the hairs from their bodies. Their firm skins and
strong limbs were much in favour with the Alexandrians. They were as
often employed as dancers as taken for mistresses.
In the shade of the palm-trees dwelt the daughters of Africa, the
Numidians veiled in white, the Carthaginians clad in black gauze, and
Negresses clad in many-coloured costumes.
There were fourteen hundred women.
When a woman once entered the sacred garden, she never left it till the
first day of her old age came upon her. She gave to the temple half of
her gains and the rest sufficed for her food and perfumes.
They were not slaves and each one really possessed one of the Terrace
houses; but all were not equally favoured and the more fortunate
often purchased houses near their own which the owners sold to save
themselves from growing thin through starvation. The latter then
removed the image of their Divinity into the park and found an altar
consisting of a flat stone, near which they took up their abode. The
poor people knew this and sought out the women who slept in the open
air near their altars; but sometimes they were neglected even by the
poor, and then the unfortunate girls united in their misery, two and
two, in a passionate friendship which became almost conjugal love, and
shared their misfortunes.
Those without friends offered themselves as slaves to their more
fortunate companions. They were forbidden to have in their service
more than twelve of these poor girls, but these poor courtesans are
mentioned as having the maximum number which was composed of a
selection from many races.
If a courtesan bore a son, the child was taken into the precincts of
the temple for the service of her divinity. When a daughter was born
she was consecrated to the service of the Goddess. The first day of her
life her symbolical marriage with the son of Dionysius was celebrated.
Later she entered the Didascalion, a great school situated behind the
temple where little girls learned in seven classes the theory and
method of all the erotic arts; the glance, the embrace, the movements
of the body, caresses and the secrets of the kiss. The pupil chose
the day of her first experience because desire is a command from the
Goddess which must not be disobeyed; on that day she received a house
on the Terrace; and some of these children, though not yet nubile, were
the most popular of all.
The interior of the Didascalion, the seven classes, the little theatre
and the peristyle of the court were ornamented with ninety-two frescoes
which comprised the teaching of love. They were the lifework of a man,
Cleochares of Alexandria the natural son and disciple of Apelles,
who had furnished them on his death-bed. Lately Queen Berenice, who
was greatly interested in this famous school and had sent her little
sisters there, had ordered from Demetrios a series of marble groups to
complete the decoration; but only one of them had yet been placed in
position in the infants’ school.
At the end of every year in the presence of all the famous courtesans,
a great gathering took place at which there was extraordinary emulation
among the women to win the twelve prizes offered, for they consisted of
the entry into the Cotytteion, the greatest honour of which they ever
dreamed.
This last monument was wrapped in such mystery that to-day it is not
possible to give a detailed description of it. We only know that it
was in the shape of a triangle the base of which was a temple to the
Goddess Cotytto, in whose name frightful unheard-of debauchery was
committed. The two other sides of the monument consisted of eighteen
houses; thirty-six courtesans dwelt there, and were much sought after
by wealthy lovers; they were the Baptes of Alexandria. Once every
month, on the night of the full moon, they met within the temple
maddened by aphrodisiacs. The oldest of the thirty-six had to take
a fatal dose of the terrible erotogenous drug. The certainty of her
immediate death made her try without fear all the dangerous pleasures
from which the living recoil. Her body, which soon became covered with
sweat, was the centre and model of the whirling orgie; in the midst
of loud wailings, cries, tears and dancing the other naked women
embraced her, mingled their hair in her sweat, rubbed themselves upon
her burning skin and derived fresh ardour from the interrupted spasm of
this furious agony. For three years these women lived in this way, and
at the end of thirty-six months such was the intoxication of their end.
Other but less venerated sanctuaries had been built by the women in
honour of the other names of Aphrodite. There was an altar consecrated
to the Ouranian Aphrodite which received the chaste vows of sentimental
courtesans; another to Aphrodite Apostrophia, where unfortunate love
affairs were forgotten, and there were many others. But these separate
altars were only efficacious and effective in the case of trivial
desires. They were used day by day, and their favours were trivial
ones. The suppliants who had their requests granted placed offerings
of flowers on them, while those who were not satisfied spat upon
them. They were neither consecrated nor maintained by the priests and
consequently their profanation was not punishable.
The discipline of the Temple was very different.
The Temple, the Mighty Temple of the Great Goddess, the most holy place
in the whole of Egypt, was a colossal edifice 336 feet in length with
golden gates standing at the top of seventeen steps at the end of the
gardens.
The entrance was not towards the East, but in the direction of Paphos,
that is to say the north-west; the rays of the sun never penetrated
directly into the Sanctuary. Eighty-six columns supported the
architraves, they were all tinted with purple to half their height, and
the upper part of each stood out with indescribable whiteness like the
bust of a woman from her attire.
Within were placed sculptured groups representing many famous scenes,
Europa and the Bull, Lêda and the Swan, the Siren and the dying
Glaucos, the God Pan and a Hamadryad, and at the end of the frieze the
sculptor was depicted modelling the Goddess Aphrodite herself.
CHAPTER II
MYLITTA AND MELITTA
“Purify yourself, stranger.”
“I shall enter pure,” Demetrios said. With the end of her hair dipped
in the holy water the young guardian of the gate moistened first his
eyes, then his lips and then his fingers, so that his look, the kiss
from his mouth and the caress of his hands were all sanctified.
Then he advanced into the wood of Aphrodite.
Through the darkening branches he saw the sun set a dark purple which
did not dazzle the eyes. It was the evening of the day when his meeting
with Chrysis had disturbed his life. That day he had seen a beautiful
woman upon the jetty, and addressed himself to her. She had declined
his advances though he was Demetrios the famous sculptor, a young,
wealthy and handsome man and the accredited lover of Queen Berenice. To
obtain her favour Chrysis, the courtesan, had imposed upon him three
almost impossible conditions. She required him to present to her the
silver mirror of Bacchis the famous courtesan, her friend, the ivory
comb worn by Touni the wife of the High Priest, and last of all the
necklace of pearls from the neck of the statue of the Goddess Aphrodite
within the Holy Temple. The first two of her demands could be carried
out possibly even without the shedding of blood, but her third behest
would mean the committal of an act of sacrilege punishable by death,
before which the boldest would hesitate. The feminine soul is so
transparent, that men cannot believe it to be so. Where there is only
a straight line they obstinately seek the complexity of an intricate
path. This was why the soul of Chrysis, in reality as clear as that of
a little child, appeared to Demetrios more mysterious than a problem
in metaphysics. When he left her on the jetty, he returned home in a
dream unable to reply to the questions which assailed him. What would
she do with the three gifts she had ordered him to procure her? It was
impossible for her to wear or sell a famous stolen mirror, the comb
of a woman who had perhaps been murdered in its acquirement, or the
necklace of pearls belonging to the Goddess. By retaining possession of
them she exposed herself every day to a discovery which would be fatal
to her. Then why did she ask for them? Was it to destroy them? He knew
that women did not rejoice in secrets and that good luck only pleased
them when it was well known to every one. Then, too, by what divination
or clairvoyance had she judged him to be capable of accomplishing three
such extraordinary deeds?
Surely if he had wished, Chrysis might have been carried off, placed
in his power and become his mistress, his wife or his slave, as he
pleased. He had too the chance of destroying her. Revolutions in the
past had accustomed the citizens to deaths by violence, and no one was
disturbed by the disappearance of a courtesan. Chrysis must know him,
and yet she dared....
The more he thought of her the more her strange commands seemed to
please him. How many women were her equal! how many had presented
themselves to him in an unfavourable manner! What did she demand?
Neither love, gold, nor jewels, but three impossible crimes! She
interested him keenly. He had offered her all the treasures of Egypt:
he realized now that if she had accepted them she would not have
received two obols, and he would have wearied of her even before he had
known her. Three crimes, assuredly, were an uncommon salary; but she
was worthy to receive it since she was the woman to demand it, and he
promised himself to go on with the adventure.
To give himself no time to repent of his resolutions that very day he
went to the house of Bacchis, found it empty, took the silver mirror
and fled into the gardens. Must he at once go to the second victim of
Chrysis? Demetrios did not think so. The wife of the High Priest Touni,
who possessed the famous ivory comb, was so charming and so weak that
he feared to approach her without preliminary precautions. So he turned
back and walked along the great Terrace.
The courtesans were outside their dwellings like a display of flowers.
There was no less diversity in their attitudes and costumes than in
their ages, types and nationalities. The most beautiful, according
to the tradition of Phryne, only leaving the oval of their faces
uncovered, were clad from their hair to their heels in great robes
of fine wool. Others had adopted the fashion of transparent robes,
through which their beauty could be distinguished in a mysterious way,
as through limpid water one can see the patches of green weeds at the
bottom of the river. Those whose only charm was their youth remained
naked to the waist, and displayed the firmness of their breasts. But
the older women, knowing how much more quickly a woman’s face grows old
than does the skin of the body, sat quite naked, holding their breasts.
Demetrios passed very slowly in front of them without allowing himself
to admire them.
He could never view a woman’s nakedness without intense emotion. He
could not realize any feeling of disgust in the presence of the dead,
or of insensibility with very young girls. That evening every woman
could have charmed him. Provided she kept silence and did not display
any more ardour than the minimum demanded by politeness her beauty did
not matter. He preferred, also, that she should have a “coarse” body,
for the more his thoughts were fixed upon perfect shapes the further
away from them did his desire depart. The trouble, which the impression
of living beauty gave to him, was of an exclusively cerebral sensuality
which reduced to naught other excitation. He recollected with agony
that he had remained for an hour like an old man by the side of the
most admirable woman he had ever held in his arms. Since that night he
had learned to select less pure mistresses.
“Friend,” a voice said, “do you not know me?”
He turned, shook his head and went on his way, for he never visited
the same girl twice. That was the only principle he carried out in his
visits to the gardens.
“Clonarion!”
“Gnathene!”
“Plango!”
“Mnaïs!”
“Crobyle!”
“Iœsa!”
They called out their names as he passed, and some added, as a further
inducement, a phrase upon their own ardent nature. Demetrios continued
his walk; he was inclined, as his usual custom was, to pick out one of
them haphazard, when a little girl dressed in blue spoke to him softly.
“Open the door for me,” he said. “I wish to speak to you.”
The little girl jumped gaily to her feet and knocked twice with the
knocker. An old slave opened the door.
“Gorgo,” the girl said, “bring some wine and cakes.”
She led the way into her chamber, which was very plain, like that of
all very young courtesans. Two large beds, a little tapestry and a few
chairs comprised the furniture, but through a large open bay could be
seen the gardens, the sea, and the roadstead of Alexandria. Demetrios
remained standing looking at the distant city.
The sun sinking behind the harbour, that incomparable glory of a coast
town, the calm sky, the purple waters, were they not enough to bring
silence to any soul bursting with joy or sorrow! What footsteps would
they not stay, what pleasure suspend and what voice they not hush?
Demetrios watched: a swell of torrent-like flame seemed to leap out
from the sun which had half sunk into the sea and to flow straight to
the curved edge of the wood of Aphrodite. From one to another of the
two horizons the rich purple tone overran the Mediterranean in zones
of shades without transition from golden red to pale purple. Between
the moving splendour and the green mirror of the Mareotis lake the
white mass of the city was clothed in reddish violet reflections. The
different aspects of its twenty thousand flat houses marvellously
speckled it with twenty thousand patches of colour perpetually changing
with the decreasing phasis of the rays in the west. Now it was rapid
and fiery; then the sun was engulfed with almost startling suddenness
and the first approach of the night caused a tremor throughout the
earth and a hidden breeze.
“Here are figs, sweets, honey and wine. You must eat the figs before it
is dark.”
The girl came in with a laugh. She made the young man sit down and took
up her position upon his knees, refastening, as she did so, a rose in
her hair which was in danger of falling out.
Demetrios uttered an exclamation of surprise, she looked so young and
childish that he felt full of pity for her.
“But you are not a woman!” he cried.
“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?”
“Ten years and a half. Eleven years. You can say eleven. I was born in
the gardens. My mother is a Milesian, her name is Pythias, nicknamed
the ’Goat.’ Shall I send for her if you think I am too young? She has a
soft skin and is very beautiful.”
“You have been to the Didascalion?”
“I am still there in the sixth class. I shall finish there next year;
it will not be any too soon.”
“What don’t you like then?”
“Ah! if you only knew how hard to please the mistresses are. They
make you begin the same lesson twenty-five times, and it is all about
useless things which the men never desire. Then one tires oneself for
nothing, and I do not like that. Come, have a fig; not that one, it is
not ripe. I will show you a new way to eat them--look.”
“I know it. It takes longer, but it is not a better way. I believe you
are a good pupil.”
“Oh! what I know I have learned by myself. The mistresses try to make
out they are stronger than we are. They are more experienced, but they
have not invented anything.”
“Have you many lovers?”
“They are all too old; it is inevitable. The young are so foolish! They
only care for women of forty. I sometimes see one pass as good-looking
as Eros, and you ought to see the woman he picks out--a hateful
hippopotamus! It makes one turn pale. I hope I shall not live to be the
age of those women; I should be ashamed to undress. That is why I am so
glad that I am young. But let me kiss you. I like you very much.”
Here the conversation took a turn, and Demetrios soon saw that his
scruples were unnecessary in the case of such a well-informed young
woman.
“What is your name?” he asked her presently.
“Melitta. Did you not see the name over the door?”
“I did not look at it.”
“You could see it in the room. It has been written on the walls. I
shall soon have to have them repainted.”
Demetrios raised his head. The four walls of the room were covered with
inscriptions.
“Well, that is very curious,” he said. “May I read them?”
“Yes, if you like. I have no secrets.”
He read them. The name of Melitta was there several times, coupled with
various men’s names and strange designs. There were tender and comic
phrases. Lovers detailed the charms of the little courtesan, or made
jokes upon her. All that was not very interesting; but when he was
near the end of his reading he gave a start of surprise.
“What is this? What is it? Tell me.”
“What? Where? What is the matter?”
“Here. This name. Who wrote that?” His finger was pointing to the name
of Chrysis.
“Ah,” she replied, “I wrote that.”
“But who is Chrysis?”
“She is my great friend.”
“I don’t doubt that. That is not what I am asking you. Which Chrysis is
it? There are so many.”
“Mine is the most beautiful Chrysis of Galilee.”
“You know her, then! Tell me about her! Where was her home? Where does
she live? Who is her lover? Tell me all about her.”
He sat down upon the bed and took the girl upon his knees.
“Are you in love with her?” she said.
“What does it matter? Tell me what you know about her; I am anxious to
hear.”
“Oh! I know nothing at all about her--very little indeed. She has been
twice to see me, and you can imagine that I did not ask her questions
about her relations. I was too pleased to see her to waste time in idle
conversation.”
“What is she like?”
“She is like a pretty girl; what do you want me to say? Must I name all
the parts of her body and say that they are all beautiful? Ah! she is a
real woman.”
“You know nothing about her, then?” Demetrios asked.
“I know she comes from Galilee; that she is nearly twenty, and lives in
the Jews’ quarter, on the east of the city, near the gardens. That is
all.”
“Can you tell me nothing of her life or tastes?”
“The first night she came here she came with her lover. Then she came
by herself, and she has promised to come and see me again.”
“Do you know any other friend of hers in the gardens?”
“Yes; a woman from her country----Chimairis, a poor woman.”
“Where does she live? I want to see her.”
“She sleeps in the wood. She has done so for a year. She sold her
house. But I know where her nest is, and I can take you there if you
wish. Put on my sandals for me, please.”
Demetrios rapidly fastened the leather thongs of the sandals upon
Melitta’s little feet, and they went out together.
They walked for some distance. The park was immense. Here and there a
girl beneath a tree called out her name as they passed. Melitta knew
a few, whom she embraced without stopping. As she passed a worn altar
she gathered three large flowers from the grass and placed them on the
stone.
It was not yet quite dark. The intense light of the summer days has
something durable about it which vaguely lingers in the dusk. The
sprinkling of small stars, hardly brighter than the sky itself,
twinkled gently, and the shadows of the branches remained vague and
indefinite.
“Ah!” said Melitta, “here is mother.”
A woman clad in blue-striped muslin was coming slowly towards them. As
soon as she saw the child she ran to her, picked her up in her arms,
and kissed her fondly on the cheeks.
“My little girl! my little love, where are you going?”
“I am taking some one to see Chimairis. Are you taking a walk too?”
“Corinna has been confined. Have been to her, and I dined at her
bedside.”
“Is it a boy?”
“Twins, my dear; as rosy as wax dolls. You can go and see her
to-night; she will show them to you.”
“Oh, how nice! Two little courtesans. What are they to be called?”
“Pannychis--both of them, because they were born on the eve of the
festival of Aphrodite. It is a divine omen. They will be beautiful!”
She put down the child, and, turning to Demetrios, said--
“What do you think of my daughter? Have I not good cause to be proud of
her?”
“You can be satisfied with one another,” he calmly replied.
“Kiss mother,” Melitta said.
He did so, and Pythias kissed him on the mouth as they separated.
Demetrios went a little further still beneath the trees, while the
courtesan turned her head to watch them. At last they reached the spot
they sought, and Melitta said--
“Here it is.”
Chimairis was squatting on her left heel in a little turfy glade
between two trees and a bush. She had beneath her a red rag, which was
her sole remaining garment in the daytime, and on which she lay when
the men passed. Demetrios looked at her with growing interest. She had
the feverish look of some thin, dark women whose tawny bodies seem to
be consumed by ever-present ardour. Her great lips, her eager gaze, her
livid eyes, gave her a double expression--that of covetous sensuality
and exhaustion. As Chimairis had sold everything--even her toilet
instruments--her hair was in indescribable disorder, while the down
upon her body gave her something of the appearance of a shameless and
hairy savage.
Near her was a great stag, fastened to a tree by a gold chain which had
once adorned her mistress’s breast.
“Chimairis,” Melitta said, “get up. Some one wants to speak to you.”
The Jewess looked, but did not move. Demetrios approached.
“Do you know Chrysis?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you see her often?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me about her?”
“No.”
“Why not? Can’t you do so?”
“No.”
Melitta was surprised.
“Speak to him,” she said. “Have confidence in him. He loves her and
wishes her well.”
“I can clearly see that he loves her,” Chimairis replied. “If he loves
her he wishes her ill. If he loves her I will not speak.”
Demetrios trembled with anger, but did not speak.
“Give me your hand,” the Jewess said to him. “I will see whether I am
mistaken.”
She took the young man’s left hand and turned towards the moonlight.
Melitta leant over to watch, although she did not know how to read the
mysterious lines; but their fatality attracted her.
“What do you see?” Demetrios asked.
“I see--may I tell you what I see? Shall you be pleased? Will you
believe me? First of all I see happiness, but that is in the past. I
see love, too, but that is lost in blood.”
“Mine?”
“The blood of a woman. Then the blood of another woman; and then, a
little later, your own.”
Demetrios shrugged his shoulders.
Melitta uttered a cry.
“She is frightened,” Chimairis went on. “But this concerns neither her
nor me. Events must come to pass, since we cannot prevent them. From
before your birth your destiny was certain. Go away. I shall say no
more.”
She let his hand drop.
CHAPTER III
IMMORTAL LOVE AND MORTAL DEATH
“A woman’s blood. Afterwards the blood of another woman. Afterwards
thine; but a little later.”
Demetrios repeated these words as he walked and a vague belief in them
oppressed him with sadness. He had never believed in oracles drawn
from the bodies of victims or from the movements of the planets. Such
affinities seemed to him much too problematic. But the complex lines
of the hand had of themselves a horoscopic aspect which was entirely
individual and which he regarded with uneasiness. Thus the prediction
remained in his mind.
He, too, gazed at the palm of his left hand where his life was
displayed in mysterious and ineffaceable lines. He saw the signs
without being able to understand their meaning, and passing his hand
across his eyes he changed the subject of his meditation.
Chrysis, Chrysis, Chrysis.
The name beat in him like a fever. To satisfy her, to conquer her, to
enclose her in his arms, to flee away with her to Syria, Greece, Rome
or elsewhere, any place, in fact, where he had no mistresses and she no
lovers: that was what he had to do and to do at once!
Of the three presents she had demanded one was already obtained. Two
others remained to be procured, the comb and the necklace.
“First the comb,” he thought. He hastened his steps.
Every evening after sunset the wife of the High Priest sat with her
back to the forest upon a marble seat from which a view of the sea
could be obtained, and Demetrios was aware of this, for Touni, like
many others, had been enamoured of him, and once she had told him that
the day he desired her he could take her.
Thither he made his way.
She was there; but she did not see him approach; she was reclining with
her eyes closed and her arms outstretched.
She was an Egyptian. Her name was Touni. She wore a thin tunic of
bright purple without clasps or girdle, and with no other embroidery
than two black stars upon her breasts. The thin stuff reached down
to her knees and her little, round feet were shod with shoes of blue
leather. Her skin was very swarthy, her lips were very thick, her
fragile and supple waist seemed bowed down by the weight of her full
breast. She was sleeping with open lips and quietly dreaming.
Demetrios took his seat in silence by her side.
He gradually drew nearer to her. A young shoulder, smooth and dark and
muscular, delicately offered itself to him.
Lower down the purple muslin tunic was open at the thigh. Demetrios
gently touched her, but she did not awake. Her dream changed but was
not dispelled.
The eternal sea shimmered beneath a moon which was like a vast cup of
blood, but still Touni slept on with bowed head.
The purple of the moon upon the horizon reached her from across the
sea. Its glorious and fateful light bathed her in a flame which seemed
motionless; but slowly the shadow withdrew from the Egyptian woman; one
by one her black stars appeared, and at last there suddenly emerged
from the shadows the comb, the royal comb desired by Chrysis.
Then the sculptor took in his two hands Touni’s sweet face and turned
it towards him. She opened her eyes which grew big with surprise.
“Demetrios! Demetrios! You!”
Her two arms seized hold upon him.
“Oh!” she murmured in a voice vibrating with happiness, “oh! you have
come, you are there. Is it you, Demetrios, who has awakened me with
your hands? Is it you, son of my Goddess, O God of my body and life?”
Demetrios made a movement as if to draw back, but she at once came
suddenly quite close to him.
“No,” she said, “what do you fear? I am not a woman to be feared by
you, one surrounded by the omnipotence of the High Priest. Forget my
name, Demetrios. Women in their lovers’ arms have no name. I am not the
woman you believe me to be. I am only a creature who loves you and is
filled with desire for you.”
Demetrios made her no answer.
“Listen once more,” she went on. “I know whom you possess. I do not
desire to be your mistress, nor do I aspire to become my Queen’s rival.
No, Demetrios, do with me what you will: look upon me as a little
slave whom one takes and casts aside in a moment. Take me like one of
the lowest of those poor courtesans who wait by the side of the pathway
for furtive and abortive love. In fact what am I but one of them? Have
the Gods given me anything more than they have bestowed upon the least
of all my slaves? You at least have the beauty which comes from the
Gods.”
Demetrios gazed at her still more gravely.
“What do you think, unhappy woman,” he asked, “also comes from the
Gods?”
“Love.”
“_Or death._”
She got up.
“What do you mean? _Death...._ Yes, death. But that is so far away from
me. In sixty years’ time I shall think of it. Why do you speak to me of
death, Demetrios?”
He simply said--
“Death to-night.”
She burst into a frightened laugh.
“This evening ... surely not ... who says so? Why should I die?...
answer me, speak, what horrible jest is this?...”
“You are condemned.”
“By whom?”
“By your destiny.”
“How do you know that?”
“I knew it because I, too, Touni, am involved in your destiny.”
“And my destiny wills that I die?”
“Your destiny demands that you die by my hand upon this seat.”
He seized her by the wrist.
“Demetrios,” she sobbed in her fear, “I will not cry out. I will not
call for help. Let me speak.”
She wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“If death comes to me through you, death will be pleasant. I will
accept it, I desire it; but listen to me.”
She dragged him into the darkness of the wood, stumbling from stone to
stone.
“Since you have in your hands,” she continued, “everything we receive
from the Gods, the thrill which gives life and that which takes it
away, open your two hands upon my eyes, Demetrios ... that of love and
that of death, and if you do so, I shall die without regret.”
He gazed at her without replying, but she thought she could read assent
in his face.
Transfigured for the second time she lifted up her face with a fresh
expression in it, one of new-born desire driving away terror with the
strength of desperation.
She said no more, but from between her parted lips each breath seemed
to be a song of victory.
She seized him in her arms crying--