"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."

[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration: "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

to-night; 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.

[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration: 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. Faraway, 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 enthralls

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.

"To-night? 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.

[Illustration: "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.

[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration: 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 fète.

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.

[Illustration]

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 a 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 fète. We shall be seven, with you. Don't

fail to come."

"A fète? 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.

[Illustration: "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.

[Illustration]

"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."

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration]

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 cantiele began again. The murmur of the harps rose up towards

the statue with the swirling fumes of crackling incense from the

priest's censer.

[Illustration: "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."

* * * * *

[Illustration]

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 tor. 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 mere 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration]

"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.

[Illustration]

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."

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: "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 graminarian, 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 docs Phrasilas think about it?"

"He is an admirable writer," said the little man.

"In what sense?"

[Illustration]

"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."

[Illustration: "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.

[Illustration]

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 clientele 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 while 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'ouvre (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

[Greek: choiros] 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 Gnathene, 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 Gnathene 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration]

"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."

[Illustration: 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 Arelias:

"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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration]

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 tho 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."

[Illustration]

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 fète 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 grave 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration]

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?

* * * * *