At this news, which spread rapidly through the crowd, the strong men

elbowed their way toward the front ranks; the agile boys, embracing the

shafts of the columns, sought to climb up to the capitals and there seat

themselves; others, not without having skinned their knees against the

bark, succeeded in perching themselves comfortably enough in the Y of

some tree-branch. The women lifted their little children upon their

shoulders, warning them to hold tightly to their necks. Those who had

the good fortune to dwell on the street along which Candaules and Nyssia

were about to pass, leaned over from the summit of their roofs, or,

rising on their elbows, abandoned for a time the cushions upon which

they had been reclining.

A murmur of satisfaction and gratified expectation ran through the

crowd, which had already been waiting many long hours, for the arrows of

the midday sun were commencing to sting.

The heavy-armed warriors, with cuirasses of bull's-hide covered with

overlapping plates of metal, helmets adorned with plumes of horse-hair

dyed red, _knemides_ or greaves faced with tin, baldrics studded with

nails, emblazoned bucklers, and swords of brass, rode behind a line of

trumpeters who blew with might and main upon their long tubes, which

gleamed under the sunlight. The horses of these warriors were all white

as the feet of Thetis, and might have served, by reason of their noble

paces and purity of breeds, as models for those which Phidias at a later

day sculptured upon the metopes of the Parthenon.

At the head of this troop rode Gyges, the well-named, for his name in

the Lydian tongue signifies beautiful. His features, of the most

exquisite regularity, seemed chiselled in marble, owing to his intense

pallor, for he had just discovered in Nyssia, although she was veiled

with the veil of a young bride, the same woman whose face had been

betrayed to his gaze by the treachery of Boreas under the walls of

Bactria.

"Handsome Gyges looks very sad," said the young maidens. "What proud

beauty could have secured his love, or what forsaken one has caused some

Thessalian witch to cast a spell on him? Has that cabalistic ring (which

he is said to have found hidden within the flanks of a brazen horse in

the midst of some forest) lost its virtue, and suddenly ceasing to

render its owner invisible, have betrayed him to the astonished eyes of

some innocent husband, who had deemed himself alone in his conjugal

chamber?"

"Perhaps he has been wasting his talents and his drachmas at the game of

Palamedes, or else it may be that he is disappointed at not having won

the prize at the Olympian games. He had great faith in his horse

Hyperion."

No one of these conjectures was true. A fact is never guessed.

After the battalion commanded by Gyges, there came young boys crowned

with myrtle-wreaths, and singing epithalamic hymns after the Lydian

manner, accompanying themselves upon lyres of ivory, which they played

with bows. All were clad in rose-colored tunics ornamented with a silver

Greek border, and their long hair flowed down over their shoulders in

thick curls.

They preceded the gift-bearers, strong slaves whose half-nude bodies

exposed to view such interlacements of muscle as the stoutest athletes

might have envied.

Upon brancards, supported by two or four men or more, according to the

weight of the objects borne, were placed enormous brazen cratera,

chiselled by the most famous artists: vases of gold and silver whose

sides were adorned with bas-reliefs and whose hands were elegantly

worked into chimeras, foliage, and nude women; magnificent ewers to be

used in washing the feet of illustrious guests; flagons incrusted with

precious stones and containing the rarest perfumes; myrrh from Arabia,

cinnamon from the Indies, spikenard from Persia, essence of roses from

Smyrna; klamklins or perfuming pans, with perforated covers; cedar-wood

or ivory coffers of marvellous workmanship, which opened with a secret

spring that none save the inventor could find, and which contained

bracelets wrought from the gold of Ophir, necklaces of the most lustrous

pearls, mantle-brooches constellated with rubies and carbuncles; toilet

boxes containing blonde sponges, curling-irons, sea-wolves' teeth to

polish the nails, the green rouge of Egypt, which turns to a most

beautiful pink on touching the skin, powders to darken the eyelashes

and eyebrows, and all the refinements that feminine coquetry could

invent. Other litters were freighted with purple robes of the finest

linen and of all possible shades from the incarnadine hue of the rose to

the deep crimson of the blood of the grape; _calasires_ of the linen of

Canopus, which is thrown all white into the vat of the dyer, and comes

forth again, owing to the various astringents in which it had been

steeped, diapered with the most brilliant colors; tunics brought from

the fabulous land of Seres, made from the spun slime of a worm which

feeds upon leaves, and so fine that they might be drawn through a

finger-ring.

Ethiopians, whose bodies shone like jet, and whose temples were tightly

bound with cords, lest they should burst the veins of their foreheads in

the effort to uphold their burden, carried in great pomp a statue of

Hercules, the ancestor of Candaules, of colossal size, wrought of ivory

and gold, with the club, the skin of the Nemean lion, the three apples

from the garden of the Hesperides, and all the traditional attributes of

the hero.

Statues of Venus Urania, and of Venus Genitrix, sculptured by the best

pupils of the Sicyon School in that marble of Paros whose gleaming

transparency seemed expressly created for the representation of the

ever-youthful flesh of the immortals, were borne after the statue of

Hercules, which admirably relieved the harmony and elegance of their

proportions by contrast with its massive outlines and rugged forms.

A painting by Bularchus, which Candaules had purchased for its weight in

gold, executed upon the wood of the female larch-tree, and representing

the defeat of the Magnesians, evoked universal admiration by the beauty

of its design, the truthfulness of the attitude of its figures, and the

harmony of its coloring, although the artist had only employed in its

production the four primitive colors: Attic ochre, white, Pontic

_sinopis,_ and _atramentum_. The young king loved painting and sculpture

even more, perhaps, than well became a monarch, and he had not

unfrequently bought a picture at a price equal to the annual revenue of

a whole city.

Camels and dromedaries, splendidly caparisoned, with musicians seated on

their necks performing upon drums and cymbals, carried the gilded

stakes, the cords, and the material of the tent designed for the use of

the queen during voyages and hunting parties.

These spectacles of magnificence would upon any other occasion have

ravished the people of Sardes with delight, but their curiosity had been

enlisted in another direction, and it was not without a certain feeling

of impatience that they watched this portion of the procession file by.

The young maidens and the handsome boys, bearing flaming torches, and

strewing handfuls of crocus flowers along the way, hardly attracted any

attention. The idea of beholding Nyssia had preoccupied all minds.

At last Candaules appeared, riding in a chariot drawn by four horses, as

beautiful and spirited as those of the sun, all rolling their golden

bits in foam, shaking their purple-decked manes, and restrained with

great difficulty by the driver, who stood erect at the side of

Candaules, and was leaning back to gain more power on the reins.

Candaules was a young man full of vigor, and well worthy of his

Herculean origin. His head was joined to his shoulders by a neck

massive as a bull's, and almost without a curve; his hair, black and

lustrous, twisted itself into rebellious little curls, here and there

concealing the circlet of his diadem; his ears, small and upright, were

of a ruddy hue; his forehead was broad and full, though a little low,

like all antique foreheads; his eyes full of gentle melancholy, his oval

cheeks, his chin with its gentle and regular curves, his mouth with its

slightly parted lips--all bespoke the nature of the poet rather than

that of the warrior. In fact, although he was brave, skilled in all

bodily exercises, could subdue a wild horse as well as any of the

Lapithæ, or swim across the current of rivers when they descended,

swollen with melted snow, from the mountains, although he might have

bent the bow of Odysseus or borne the shield of Achilles, he seemed

little occupied with dreams of conquest; and war, usually so fascinating

to young kings, had little attraction for him. He contented himself with

repelling the attacks of his ambitious neighbors, and sought not to

extend his own dominions. He preferred building palaces, after plans

suggested by himself to the architects, who always found the king's

hints of no small value, or to form collections of statues and paintings

by artists of the elder and later schools. He had the works of

Telephanes of Sicyon, Cleanthes, Ardices of Corinth, Hygiemon, Deinias,

Charmides, Eumarus, and Cimon, some being simple drawings, and other

paintings in various colors or monochromes. It was even said that

Candaules had not disdained to wield with his own royal hands-a thing

hardly becoming a prince--the chisel of the sculptor and the sponge of

the encaustic painter.

But why should we dwell upon Candaules? The reader undoubtedly feels

like the people of Sardes: and it is of Nyssia that he desires to hear.

The daughter of Megabazus was mounted upon an elephant, with wrinkled

skin and immense ears which seemed like flags, who advanced with a heavy

but rapid gait, like a vessel in the midst of the waves. His tusks and

his trunk were encircled with silver rings, and around the pillars of

his limbs were entwined necklaces of enormous pearls. Upon his back,

which was covered with a magnificent Persian carpet of striped pattern,

stood a sort of estrade overlaid with gold finely chased, and

constellated with onyx stones, carnelians, chrysolites, lapis-lazuli,

and girasols; upon this estrade sat the young queen, so covered with

precious stones as to dazzle the eyes of the beholders. A mitre, shaped

like a helmet, on which pearls formed flower designs and letters after

the Oriental manner, was placed upon her head; her ears, both the lobes

and rims of which had been pierced, were adorned with ornaments in the

form of little cups, crescents, and balls; necklaces of gold and silver

beads, which had been hollowed out and carved, thrice encircled her neck

and descended with a metallic tinkling upon her bosom; emerald serpents

with topaz or ruby eyes coiled themselves in many folds about her arms,

and clasped themselves by biting their own tails. These bracelets were

connected by chains of precious stones, and so great was their weight

that two attendants were required to kneel beside Nyssia and support her

elbows. She was clad in a robe embroidered by Syrian workmen with

shining designs of golden foliage and diamond fruits, and over this she

wore the short tunic of Persepolis, which hardly descended to the knee,

and of which the sleeves were slit and fastened by sapphire clasps. Her

waist was encircled from hip to loins by a girdle wrought of narrow

material, variegated with stripes and flowered designs, which formed

themselves into symmetrical patterns as they were brought together by a

certain arrangement of the folds which Indian girls alone know how to

make. Her trousers of byssus, which the Phœnicians called _syndon_,

were confined at the ankles by anklets adorned with gold and silver

bells, and completed this toilet, so fantastically rich and wholly

opposed to Greek taste. But, alas! a saffron-colored _flammeum_

pitilessly masked the face of Nyssia, who seemed embarrassed, veiled

though she was, at finding so many eyes fixed upon her, and frequently

signed to a slave behind her to lower the parasol of ostrich plumes, and

thus conceal her yet more from the curious gaze of the crowd.

Candaules had vainly begged of her to lay aside her veil, even for that

solemn occasion. The young barbarian had refused to pay the welcome of

her beauty to his people. Great was the disappointment. Lamia declared

that Nyssia dared not uncover her face for fear of showing her double

pupil. The young libertine remained convinced that Theano of Colophon

was more beautiful than the queen of Sardes; and Gyges sighed when he

beheld Nyssia, after having made her elephant kneel down, descend upon

the inclined heads of Damascus slaves as upon a living ladder, to the

threshold of the royal dwelling, where the elegance of Greek

architecture was blended with the fantasies and enormities of Asiatic

taste.

CHAPTER II

In our character of poet we have the right to lift the saffron-colored

_flammeum_ which concealed the young bride, being more fortunate in this

wise than the Sardians, who after a whole day's waiting were obliged to

return to their houses and were left, as before, to their own

conjectures.

Nyssia was really far superior to her reputation, great as it was. It

seemed as though Nature in creating her had resolved to exhaust her

utmost powers, and thus make atonement for all former experimental

attempts and fruitless essays. One would have said that, moved by

jealousy of the future marvels of the Greek sculptors, she also had

resolved to model a statue herself, and to prove that she was still

sovereign mistress in the plastic art.

The grain of snow, the micaceous brilliancy of Parian marble, the

sparkling pulp of balsamine flowers, would render but a feeble idea of

the ideal substance whereof Nyssia had been formed. That flesh, so fine,

so delicate, permitted daylight to penetrate it, and modelled itself in

transparent contours, in lines as sweetly harmonious as music itself.

According to different surroundings, it took the color of the sunlight

or of purple, like the aromal body of a divinity, and seemed to radiate

light and life. The world of perfections inclosed within the

nobly-lengthened oval of her chaste face could have been rendered by no

earthly art--neither by the chisel of the sculptor, nor the brush of

the painter, nor the style of any poet--though it were Praxiteles,

Apelles, or Mimnermus; and on her smooth brow, bathed by waves of hair

amber-bright as molten electrum and sprinkled with gold filings,

according to the Babylonian custom, sat as upon a jasper throne the

unalterable serenity of perfect loveliness.

As for her eyes, though they did not justify what popular credulity said

of them, they were at least wonderfully strange eyes; brown eyebrows,

with extremities ending in points elegant as those of the arrows of

Eros, and which were joined to each other by a streak of henna after the

Asiatic fashion, and long fringes of silkily-shadowed eyelashes

contrasted strikingly with the twin sapphire stars rolling in the heaven

of dark silver which formed those eyes. The irises of those eyes, whose

pupils were blacker than atrament, varied singularly in shades of

shifting color. From sapphire they changed to turquoise, from turquoise

to beryl, from beryl to yellow amber, and sometimes, like a limpid lake

whose bottom is strewn with jewels, they offered, through their

incalculable depths, glimpses of golden and diamond sands upon which

green fibrils vibrated and twisted themselves into emerald serpents. In

those orbs of phosphoric lightning the rays of suns extinguished, the

splendors of vanished worlds, the glories of Olympus eclipsed--all

seemed to have concentrated their reflections. When contemplating them

one thought of eternity, and felt himself seized with a mighty

giddiness, as though he were leaning over the verge of the Infinite.

The expression of those extraordinary eyes was not less variable than

their tint. At times their lids opened like the portals of celestial

dwellings; they invited you into elysiums of light, of azure, of

ineffable felicity; they promised you the realization, tenfold, a

hundredfold, of all your dreams of happiness, as though they had divined

your soul's most secret thoughts; again, impenetrable as sevenfold

plated shields of the hardest metals, they flung back your gaze like

blunted and broken arrows. With a simple inflexion of the brow, a mere

flash of the pupil, more terrible than the thunder of Zeus, they

precipitated you from the heights of your most ambitious escalades into

depths of nothingness so profound that it was impossible to rise again.

Typhon himself, who writhes under Ætna, could not have lifted the

mountains of disdain with which they overwhelmed you. One felt that

though he should live for a thousand Olympiads endowed with the beauty

of the fair son of Latona, the genius of Orpheus, the unbounded might of

Assyrian kings, the treasures of the Cabeirei, the Telchines, and the

Dactyli, gods of subterranean wealth, he could never change their

expression to mildness.

At other times their languishment was so liquidly persuasive, their

brilliancy and irradiation so penetrating, that the icy coldness of

Nestor and Priam would have melted under their gaze, like the wax of the

wings of Icarus when he approached the flaming zones. For one such

glance a man would have gladly steeped his hands in the blood of his

host, scattered the ashes of his father to the four winds, overthrown

the holy images of the gods, and stolen the fire of heaven itself, like

the sublime thief, Prometheus.

Nevertheless, their most ordinary expression, it must be confessed, was

of a chastity to make one desperate--a sublime coldness--an ignorance of

all possibilities of human passion, such as would have made the

moon-bright eyes of Phœbe or the sea-green eyes of Athena appear by

comparison more liquidly tempting than those of a young girl of Babylon

sacrificing to the goddess Mylitta within the cord-circled enclosure of

Succoth-Benohl. Their invincible virginity seemed to bid love defiance.

The cheeks of Nyssia, which no human gaze had ever profaned, save that

of Gyges on the day when the veil was blown away, possessed a youthful

bloom, a tender pallor, a delicacy of grain, and a downiness whereof the

faces of our women, perpetually exposed to sunlight and air, cannot

convey the most distant idea. Modesty created fleeting rosy clouds upon

them like those which a drop of crimson essence would form in a cup of

milk, and when uncolored by any emotion they took a silvery sheen, a

warm light, like an alabaster vessel illumined by a lamp within. That

lamp was her charming soul, which exposed to view the transparency of

her flesh.

A bee would have been deceived by her mouth, whose form was so perfect,

whose corners were so purely dimpled, whose crimson was so rich and warm

that the gods would have descended from their Olympian dwellings in

order to touch it with lips humid with immortality, but that the

jealousy of the goddesses restrained their impetuosity. Happy the wind

which passed through that purple and pearl, which dilated those pretty

nostrils, so finely cut and shaded with rosy tints like the

mother-of-pearl of the shells thrown by the sea on the shore of Cyprus

at the feet of Venus Anadyomene! But are there not a multitude of favors

thus granted to things which cannot understand them? What lover would

not wish to be the tunic of his well-beloved or the water of her bath?

Such was Nyssia, if we dare make use of the expression after so vague a

description of her face. If our foggy Northern idioms had the warm

liberty, the burning enthusiasm of the Sir Hasirim, we might, perhaps,

by comparisons--awakening in the mind of the reader memories of flowers

and perfumes, of music and sunlight, evoking, by the magic of words, all

the graceful and charming images that the universe can contain--have

been able to give some idea of Nyssia's features; but it is permitted to

Solomon alone to compare the nose of a beautiful woman to the tower of

Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. And yet what is there in the

world of more importance than the nose of a beautiful woman? Had Helen,

the white Tyndarid, been flat-nosed, would the Trojan War have taken

place? And if the profile of Semiramis had not been perfectly regular,

would she have bewitched the old monarch of Nineveh and encircled her

brow with the mitre of pearls, the symbol of supreme power?

Although Candaules had brought to his palace the most beautiful slaves

from the people of the Soræ, of Askalon, of Sogdiana, of the Sacæ, of

Rhapta, the most celebrated courtesans from Ephesus, from Pergamus, from

Smyrna, and from Cyprus, he was completely fascinated by the charms of

Nyssia. Up to that time he had not even suspected the existence of such

perfection.

Privileged as a husband to enjoy fully the contemplation of this beauty,

he found himself dazzled, giddy, like one who leans over the edge of an

abyss, or fixes his eyes upon the sun; he felt himself seized, as it

were, with the delirium of possession, like a priest drunk with the god

who fills and moves him. All other thoughts disappeared from his soul,

and the universe seemed to him only as a vague mist in the midst of

which beamed the shining phantom of Nyssia. His happiness transformed

itself into ecstasy, and his love into madness. At times his very

felicity terrified him. To be only a wretched king, only a remote

descendant of a hero who had become a god by mighty labors, only a

common man formed of flesh and bone, and without having in aught

rendered himself worthy of it--without having even, like his ancestor,

strangled some hydra, or torn some lion asunder--to enjoy a happiness

whereof Zeus of the ambrosial hair would scarce be worthy, though lord

of all Olympus! He felt, as it were, a shame to thus hoard up for

himself alone so rich a treasure, to steal this marvel from the world,

to be the dragon with scales and claws who guarded the living type of

the ideal of lovers, sculptors, and poets. All they had ever dreamed of

in their hope, their melancholy, and their despair, he possessed--he,

Candaules, poor tyrant of Sardes, who had only a few wretched coffers

filled with pearls, a few cisterns filled with gold pieces, and thirty

or forty thousand slaves, purchased or taken in war.

Candaules's felicity was too great for him, and the strength which he

would doubtless have found at his command in time of misfortune was

wanting to him in time of happiness. His joy overflowed from his soul

like water from a vase placed upon the fire, and in the exasperation of

his enthusiasm for Nyssia he had reached the point of desiring that she

were less timid and less modest, for it cost him no little effort to

retain in his own breast the secret of such wondrous beauty.

"Ah," he would murmur to himself during the deep reveries which absorbed

him at all hours that he did not spend at the queen's side, "how strange

a lot is mine! I am wretched because of that which would make any other

husband happy. Nyssia will not leave the shadow of the gynæceum, and

refuses, with barbarian modesty, to lift her veil in the presence of any

other than myself. Yet with what an intoxication of pride would my love

behold her, radiantly sublime, gaze down upon my kneeling people from

the summit of the royal steps, and, like the rising dawn, extinguish all

those pale stars who during the night thought themselves suns! Proud

Lydian women, who believe yourselves beautiful, but for Nyssia's reserve

you would appear, even to your lovers, as ugly as the oblique-eyed and

thick-lipped slaves of Nahasi and Kush. Were she but once to pass along

the streets of Sardes with face unveiled, you might in vain pull your

adorers by the lappet of their tunic, for none of them would turn his

head, or, if he did, it would be to demand your name, so utterly would

he have forgotten you! They would rush to precipitate themselves beneath

the silver wheels of her chariot, that they might have even the pleasure

of being crushed by her, like those devotees of the Indus who pave the

pathway of their idol with their bodies.

"And you, oh goddesses, whom Paris-Alexander judged, had Nyssia appeared

among you, not one of you would have borne away the golden apple, not

even Aphrodite, despite her cestus and her promise to the

shepherd-arbiter that she would make him beloved by the most beautiful

woman in the world!...

"Alas! to think that such beauty is not immortal, and that years will

alter those divine outlines, that admirable hymn of forms, that poem

whose strophes are contours, and which no one in the world has ever read

or may ever read save myself; to be the sole depositary of so splendid a

treasure! If I knew even, by imitating the play of light and shadow with

the aid of lines and colors, how to fix upon wood a reflection of that

celestial face; if marble were not rebellious to my chisel, how well

would I fashion in the purest vein of Paros or Pentelicus an image of

that charming body, which would make the proud effigies of the goddesses

fall from their altars! And long after, when deep below the slime of

deluges, and beneath the dust of ruined cities, the men of future ages

should find a fragment of that petrified shadow of Nyssia, they would

cry: 'Behold, how the women of this vanished world were formed!' And

they would erect a temple wherein to enshrine the divine fragment. But I

have naught save a senseless admiration and a love that is madness! Sole

adorer of an unknown divinity, I possess no power to spread her worship

through the world."

Thus in Candaules had the enthusiasm of the artist extinguished the

jealousy of the lover. Admiration was mightier than love. If in place of

Nyssia, daughter of the Satrap Megabazus, all imbued with Oriental

ideas, he had espoused some Greek girl from Athens or Corinth, he would

certainly have invited to his court the most skilful painters and

sculptors, and have given them the queen for their model, as did

afterward Alexander his favorite Campaspe, who posed naked before

Apelles. Such a whim would have encountered no opposition from a woman

of the land where even the most chaste made a boast of having

contributed--some for the back, some for the bosom--to the perfection

of a famous statue. But hardly would the bashful Nyssia consent to

unveil herself in the discreet shadow of the thalamus, and the earnest

prayers of the king really shocked her rather than gave her pleasure.

The sentiment of duty and obedience alone induced her to yield at times

to what she styled the whims of Candaules.

Sometimes he besought her to allow the flood of her hair to flow over

her shoulders in a river of gold richer than the Pactolus, to encircle

her brow with a crown of ivy and linden leaves like a Bacchante of Mount

Mænalus, to lie, hardly veiled by a cloud of tissue finer than woven

wind, upon a tiger-skin with silver claws and ruby eyes, or to stand

erect in a great shell of mother-of-pearl, with a dew of pearls falling

from her tresses in lieu of drops of sea-water.

When he had placed himself in the best position for observation, he

became absorbed in silent contemplation. His hand, tracing vague

contours in the air, seemed to be sketching the outlines for some

picture, and he would have remained thus for whole hours if Nyssia, soon

becoming weary of her rôle of model, had not reminded him in chill and

disdainful tones that such amusements were unworthy of royal majesty and

contrary to the holy laws of matrimony. "It is thus," she would exclaim,

as she withdrew, draped to her very eyes, into the most mysterious

recesses of her apartment, "that one treats a mistress, not a virtuous

woman of noble blood!"

These wise remonstrances did not cure Candaules, whose passion augmented

in inverse ratio to the coldness shown him by the queen. And it had at

last brought him to that point that he could no longer keep the secrets

of the nuptial couch. A confidant became as necessary to him as to the

prince of a modern tragedy. He did not proceed, you may feel assured, to

fix his choice upon some crabbed philosopher of frowning mien, with a

flood of gray-and-white beard rolling down over a mantle in proud

tatters; nor a warrior who could talk of nothing save ballista,

catapults, and scythed chariots; nor a sententious Eupatrid full of

counsels and politic maxims; but Gyges, whose reputation for gallantry

caused him to be regarded as a connoisseur in regard to women.

One evening he laid his hand upon his shoulder in a more than ordinarily

familiar and cordial manner, and after giving him a look of peculiar

significance, he suddenly strode away from the group of courtiers,

saying in a loud voice:

"Gyges, come and give me your opinion in regard to my effigy, which the

Sicyon sculptors have just finished chiselling on the genealogical

bas-relief where the deeds of my ancestors are celebrated."

"O king, your knowledge is greater than that of your humble subject, and

I know not how to express my gratitude for the honor you do me in

deigning to consult me," replied Gyges, with a sign of assent.

Candaules and his favorite traversed several halls ornamented in the

Hellenic style, where the Corinthian acanthus and the Ionic volute

bloomed or curled in the capitals of the columns, where the friezes were

peopled with little figures in polychromatic plastique representing

processions and sacrifices, and they finally arrived at a remote portion

of the ancient palace whose walls were built with stones of irregular

form, put together without cement in the Cyclopean manner. This ancient

architecture was colossally proportioned and weirdly grim. The

immeasurable genius of the elder civilizations of the Orient was there

legibly written, and recalled the granite and brick debauches of Egypt

and Assyria. Something of the spirit of the ancient architects of the

tower of Lylax survived in those thick-set pillars with their

deep-fluted trunks, whose capitals were formed by four heads of bulls,

placed forehead to forehead, and bound together by knots of serpents

that seemed striving to devour them, an obscure cosmogonic symbol

whereof the meaning was no longer intelligible, and had descended into

the tomb with the hierophants of preceding ages. The gates were neither

of a square nor rounded form. They described a sort of ogive much

resembling the mitre of the Magi, and by their fantastic character gave

still more intensity to the character of the building.

This portion of the palace formed a sort of court surrounded by a

portico whose architecture was ornamented with the genealogical

bas-relief to which Candaules had alluded.

In the midst thereof sat Heracles upon a throne, with the upper part of

his body uncovered, and his feet resting upon a stool, according to the

rite for the representation of divine personages. His colossal

proportions would otherwise have left no doubt as to his apotheosis, and

the archaic rudeness and hugeness of the work, wrought by the chisel of

some primitive artist, imparted to his figure an air of barbaric

majesty, a savage grandeur more appropriate, perhaps, to the character

of this monster-slaying hero than would have been the work of a sculptor

consummate in his art.

On the right of the throne were Alcæus, son of the hero and of Omphale;

Ninus, Belus, Argon, the earlier kings of the dynasty of the

Heracleidæ, then all the line of intermediate kings, terminating with

Ardys, Alyattes, Meles or Myrsus, father of Candaules, and finally

Candaules himself.

All these personages, with their hair braided into little strings, their

beards spirally twisted, their oblique eyes, angular attitudes, cramped

and stiff gestures, seemed to own a sort of factitious life, due to the

rays of the setting sun, and the ruddy hue which time lends to marble in

warm climates. The inscriptions in antique characters, graven beside

them after the manner of legends, enhanced still more the mysterious

weirdness of the long procession of figures in strange barbarian garb.

By a singular chance, which Gyges could not help observing, the statue

of Candaules occupied the last available place at the right hand of

Heracles; the dynastic cycle was closed, and in order to find a place

for the descendants of Candaules it would be absolutely necessary to

build a new portico and commence the formation of a new bas-relief.

Candaules, whose arm still rested on the shoulder of Gyges, walked

slowly round the portico in silence. He seemed to hesitate to enter into

the subject, and had altogether forgotten the pretext under which he had

led the captain of his guards into that solitary place.

"What would you do, Gyges," said Candaules, at last breaking the silence

which had been growing painful to both, "if you were a diver, and should

bring up from the green bosom of the ocean a pearl of incomparable

purity and lustre, and of worth so vast as to exhaust the richest

treasures of the earth?"

"I would inclose it," answered Gyges, a little surprised at this brusque

question, "in a cedar box overlaid with plates of brass, and I would

bury it under a detached rock in some desert place; and from time to

time, when I should feel assured that none could see me, I would go

thither to contemplate my precious jewel and admire the colors of the

sky mingling with its nacreous tints."

"And I," replied Candaules, his eye illuminated with enthusiasm, "if I

possessed so rich a gem, I would enshrine it in my diadem, that I might

exhibit it freely to the eyes of all men, in the pure light of the sun,

that I might adorn myself with its splendor and smile with pride when I

should hear it said: 'Never did king of Assyria or Babylon, never did

Greek or Trinacrian tyrant possess so lustrous a pearl as Candaules, son

of Myrsus and descendant of Heracles, King of Sardes and of Lydia!

Compared with Candaules, Midas, who changed all things to gold, were

only a mendicant as poor as Irus.'"

Gyges listened with astonishment to this discourse of Candaules, and

sought to penetrate the hidden sense of these lyric divagations. The

king appeared to be in a state of extraordinary excitement: his eyes

sparkled with enthusiasm; a feverish rosiness tinted his cheeks; his

dilated nostrils inhaled the air with unusual effort.

"Well, Gyges," continued Candaules, without appearing to notice the

uneasiness of his favorite, "I am that diver. Amid this dark ocean of

humanity, wherein confusedly move so many defective or misshapen beings,

so many forms incomplete or degraded, so many types of bestial

ugliness, wretched outlines of nature's experimental essays, I have

found beauty, pure, radiant, without spot, without flaw, the ideal made

real, the dream accomplished, a form which no painter or sculptor has

ever been able to translate upon canvas or into marble--I have found

Nyssia!"

"Although the queen has the timid modesty of the women of the Orient,

and that no man save her husband has ever beheld her features, Fame,

hundred-tongued and hundred-eared, has celebrated her praise throughout

the world," answered Gyges, respectfully inclining his head as he spoke.

"Mere vague, insignificant rumors. They say of her, as of all women not

actually ugly, that she is more beautiful than Aphrodite or Helen; but

no person could form even the most remote idea of such perfection. In

vain have I besought Nyssia to appear unveiled at some public festival,

some solemn sacrifice, or to show herself for an instant leaning over

the royal terrace, bestowing upon her people the immense favor of one

look, the prodigality of one profile view, more generous than the

goddesses who permit their worshippers to behold only pale simulacra of

ivory or alabaster. She would never consent to that. Now there is one

strange thing which I blush to acknowledge even to you, dear Gyges.

Formerly I was jealous; I wished to conceal my amours from all eyes, no

shadow was thick enough, no mystery sufficiently impenetrable. Now I can

no longer recognize myself. I have the feelings neither of a lover nor a

husband; my love has melted in adoration like thin wax in a fiery

brazier. All petty feelings of jealousy or possession have vanished. No,

the most finished work that heaven has ever given to earth, since the

day that Prometheus held the flame under the right breast of the statue

of clay, cannot thus be kept hidden in the chill shadow of the

gynæceum. Were I to die, then the secret of this beauty would forever

remain shrouded beneath the sombre draperies of widowhood! I feel myself

culpable in its concealment, as though I had the sun in my house, and

prevented it from illuminating the world. And when I think of those

harmonious lines, those divine contours which I dare scarcely touch

with a timid kiss, I feel my heart ready to burst; I wish that some

friendly eye could share my happiness and, like a severe judge to whom a

picture is shown, recognize after careful examination that it is

irreproachable, and that the possessor has not been deceived by his

enthusiasm. Yes, often do I feel myself tempted to tear off with rash

hand those odious tissues, but Nyssia, in her fierce chastity, would

never forgive me. And still I cannot alone endure such felicity. I must

have a confidant for my ecstasies, an echo which will answer my cries of

admiration, and it shall be none other than you."

Having uttered these words, Candaules brusquely turned and disappeared

through a secret passage. Gyges, left thus alone, could not avoid

noticing the peculiar concourse of events which seemed to place him

always in Nyssia's path. A chance had enabled him to behold her beauty,

though walled up from all other eyes. Among many princes and satraps she

had chosen to espouse Candaules, the very king he served; and through

some strange caprice, which he could only regard as fateful, this king

had just made him, Gyges, his confidant in regard to the mysterious

creature whom none else had approached, and absolutely sought to

complete the work of Boreas on the plain of Bactria! Was not the hand of

the gods visible in all these circumstances? That spectre of beauty,

whose veil seemed to be lifted slowly, a little at a time, as though to

enkindle a flame within him, was it not leading him, without his having

suspected it, toward the accomplishment of some mighty destiny? Such

were the questions which Gyges asked himself, but being unable to

penetrate the obscurity of the future, he resolved to await the course

of events, and left the Court of Images, where the twilight darkness was

commencing to pile itself up in all the angles, and to render the

effigies of the ancestors of Candaules yet more and more weirdly

menacing.

Was it a mere effort of light, or was it rather an illusion produced by

that vague uneasiness with which the boldest hearts are filled by the

approach of night amid ancient monuments? As he stepped across the

threshold Gyges fancied that he heard deep groans issue from the stone

lips of the bas-reliefs, and it seemed to him that Heracles was making

enormous efforts to loosen his granite club.

CHAPTER III

On the following day Candaules again took Gyges aside and continued the

conversation begun under the portico of the Heracleidæ. Having freed

himself from the embarrassment of broaching the subject, he freely

unbosomed himself to his confidant; and had Nyssia been able to overhear

him she might perhaps have been willing to pardon his conjugal

indiscretions for the sake of his passionate eulogies of her charms.

Gyges listened to all these bursts of praise with the slightly

constrained air of one who is yet uncertain whether his interlocutor is

not feigning an enthusiasm more ardent than he actually feels, in order

to provoke a confidence naturally cautious to utter itself. Candaules at

last said to him in a tone of disappointment: "I see, Gyges, that you

do not believe me. You think I am boasting, or have allowed myself to be

fascinated like some clumsy laborer by a robust country girl on whose

cheeks Hygeia has crushed the gross hues of health. No, by all the gods!

I have collected within my home, like a living bouquet, the fairest

flowers of Asia and of Greece. I know all that the art of sculptors and

painters has produced since the time of Dædalus, whose statues walked

and spoke. Linus, Orpheus, Homer, have taught me harmony and rhythm. I

do not look about me with Love's bandage blind-folding my eyes. I judge

of all things coolly. The passions of youth never influence my

admiration, and when I am as withered, decrepit, wrinkled, as Tithonus

in his swaddling bands, my opinion will be still the same. But I forgive

your incredulity and want of sympathy. In order to understand me fully,

it is necessary that you should see Nyssia in the radiant brilliancy of

her shining whiteness, free from jealous drapery, even as nature with

her own hands moulded her in a lost moment of inspiration which never

can return. This evening I will hide you in a corner of the bridal

chamber ... you shall see her!"

"Sire, what do you ask of me?" returned the young warrior with

respectful firmness. "How shall I, from the depths of my dust, from the

abyss of my nothingness, dare to raise my eyes to this sun of

perfections, at the risk of remaining blind for the rest of my life, or

being able to see naught but a dazzling spectre in the midst of

darkness? Have pity on your humble slave, and do not compel him to an

action so contrary to the maxims of virtue. No man should look upon what

does not belong to him. We know that the immortals always punish those

who through imprudence or audacity surprise them in their divine nudity.

Nyssia is the loveliest of all women; you are the happiest of lovers and

husbands. Heracles, your ancestor, never found in the course of his many

conquests aught to compare with your queen. If you, the prince of whom

even the most skilful artists seek judgment and counsel--if you find her

incomparable, of what consequence can the opinion of an obscure soldier

like me be to you? Abandon, therefore, this fantasy, which I presume to

say is unworthy of your royal majesty, and of which you would repent so

soon as it had been satisfied."

"Listen, Gyges," returned Candaules; "I perceive that you suspect me;

you think that I seek to put you to some proof, but by the ashes of that

funeral pyre whence my ancestor arose a god, I swear to you that I speak

frankly and without any after-purpose."

"O Candaules, I doubt not of your good faith; your passion is sincere,

but perchance, after I should have obeyed you, you would conceive a deep

aversion to me, and learn to hate me for not having more firmly resisted

your will. You would seek to take back from these eyes, indiscreet

through compulsion, the image which you allowed them to glance upon in a

moment of delirium; and who knows but that you would condemn them to the

eternal night of the tomb to punish them for remaining open at a moment

when they ought to have been closed."

"Fear nothing; I pledge my royal word that no evil shall befall you."

"Pardon your slave if he still dares to offer some objection, even after

such a promise. Have you reflected that what you propose to me is a

violation of the sanctity of marriage, a species of visual adultery? A

woman often lays aside her modesty with her garments; and once violated

by a look, without having actually ceased to be virtuous, she might deem

that she had lost her flower of purity. You promise, indeed, to feel no

resentment against me; but who can insure me against the wrath of

Nyssia, she who is so reserved and chaste, so apprehensive, fierce, and

virginal in her modesty that she might be deemed still ignorant of the

laws of Hymen? Should she ever learn of the sacrilege which I am about

to render myself guilty of in deferring to my master's wishes, what

punishment would she condemn me to suffer in expiation of such a crime?

Who could place me beyond the reach of her avenging anger?"

"I did not know you were so wise and prudent," said Candaules, with a

slightly ironical smile; "but such dangers are all imaginary, and I

shall hide you in such a way that Nyssia will never know she has been

seen by any one except her royal husband."

Being unable to offer any further defence, Gyges made a sign of assent

in token of complete submission to the king's will. He had made all the

resistance in his power, and thenceforward his conscience could feel at

ease in regard to whatever might happen; besides, by any further

opposition to the will of Candaules, he would have feared to oppose

destiny itself, which seemed striving to bring him still nearer to

Nyssia for some grim ulterior purpose into which it was not given to him

to see further.

Without actually being able to foresee any result, he beheld a thousand

vague and shadowy images passing before his eyes. That subterranean

love, so long crouched at the foot of his soul's stairway, had climbed a

few steps higher, guided by some fitful glimmer of hope. The weight of

the impossible no longer pressed so heavily upon his breast, now that he

believed himself aided by the gods. In truth, who would have dreamed

that the much-boasted charms of the daughter of Megabazus would ere

long cease to own any mystery for Gyges?

"Come, Gyges," said Candaules, taking him by the hand, "let us make

profit of the time. Nyssia is walking in the garden with her women; let

us look at the place, and plan our stratagems for this evening."

The king took his confidant by the hand and led him along the winding

ways which conducted to the nuptial apartment. The doors of the

sleeping-room were made of cedar planks so perfectly put together that

it was impossible to discover the joints. By dint of rubbing them with

wool steeped in oil, the slaves had rendered the wood as polished as

marble. The brazen nails, with heads cut in facets, which studded them,

had all the brilliancy of the purest gold. A complicated system of

straps and metallic rings, whereof Candaules and his wife alone knew the

combination, served to secure them, for in those heroic ages the

lock-smith's art was yet in its infancy.

Candaules unloosed the knots, made the rings slide back upon the thongs,

raised with a handle which fitted into a mortise the bar that fastened

the door from within, and bidding Gyges place himself against the wall,

turned back one of the folding doors upon him in such a way as to hide

him completely; yet the door did not fit so perfectly to its frame of

oaken beams, all carefully polished and put up according to line by a

skilful workman, that the young warrior could not obtain a distinct view

of the chamber interior through the interstices contrived to give room

for the free play of the hinges.

Facing the entrance, the royal bed stood upon an estrade of several

steps, covered with purple drapery. Columns of chased silver supported

the entablature, all ornamented with foliage wrought in relief, amid

which Loves were sporting with dolphins, and heavy curtains embroidered

with gold surrounded it like the folds of a tent.

Upon the altar of the household gods were placed vases of precious

metal, pateræ enamelled with flowers, double-handled cups, and all

things needful for libations.

Along the walls, which were faced with planks of cedar-wood,

marvellously worked, at regular intervals stood tall statues of black

basalt in the constrained attitudes of Egyptian art, each sustaining in

its hand a bronze torch into which a splinter of resinous wood had been

fitted.

An onyx lamp, suspended by a chain of silver, hung from that beam of the

ceiling which is called the black beam, because more exposed than the

others to the embrowning smoke. Every evening a slave carefully filled

this lamp with odoriferous oil.

Near the head of the bed, on a little column, hung a trophy of arms,

consisting of a visored helmet, a twofold buckler made of four bull's

hides and covered with plates of brass and tin, a two-edged sword, and

several ashen javelins with brazen heads.

The tunics and mantles of Candaules were hung upon wooden pegs. They

comprised garments both simple and double; that is, capable of going

twice around the body. A mantle of thrice-dyed purple, ornamented with

embroidery representing a hunting scene wherein Laconian hounds were

pursuing and tearing deer, and a tunic whereof the material, fine and

delicate as the skin which envelops an onion, had all the sheen of

woven sunbeams, were especially noticeable. Opposite to the trophy stood

an arm-chair inlaid with silver and ivory upon which Nyssia hung her

garments. Its seat was covered with a leopard skin more eye-spotted than

the body of Argus, and its foot-support was richly adorned with

open-work carving.

"I am generally the first to retire," observed Candaules to Gyges, "and

I always leave this door open as it is now. Nyssia, who has invariably

some tapestry flower to finish, or some order to give her women, usually

delays a little in joining me; but at last she comes, and slowly takes

off, one by one, as though the effort cost her dearly, and lays upon

that ivory chair all those draperies and tunics which by day envelop her

like mummy bandages. From your hiding-place you will be able to follow

all her graceful movements, admire her unrivalled charms, and judge for

yourself whether Candaules be a young fool prone to vain boasting, or

whether he does not really possess the richest pearl of beauty that ever

adorned a diadem."

"O King, I can well believe your words without such a proof as this,"

replied Gyges, stepping forth from his hiding-place.

"When she has laid aside her garments," continued Candaules, without

heeding the exclamation of his confidant, "she will come to lie down

with me. You must take advantage of the moment to steal away, for in

passing from the chair to the bed she turns her back to the door. Step

lightly as though you were treading upon ears of ripe wheat; take heed

that no grain of sand squeaks under your sandals; hold your breath, and

retire as stealthily as possible. The vestibule is all in darkness, and

the feeble rays of the only lamp which remains burning do not penetrate

beyond the threshold of the chamber. It is therefore certain that Nyssia

cannot possibly see you; and to-morrow there will be some one in the

world who can comprehend my ecstasies, and will feel no longer

astonished at my bursts of admiration. But see, the day is almost spent;

the Sun will soon water his steeds in the Hesperian waves at the further

end of the world, and beyond the Pillars erected by my ancestors. Return

to your hiding-place, Gyges, and though the hours of waiting may seem

long, I can swear by Eros of the Golden Arrows that you will not regret

having waited."

After this assurance Candaules left Gyges again hidden behind the door.

The compulsory quiet which the king's young confidant found himself

obliged to maintain left him ample leisure for thought. His situation

was certainly a most extraordinary one. He had loved Nyssia as one loves

a star. Convinced of the hopelessness of the undertaking, he had made no

effort to approach her. And nevertheless, by a succession of

extraordinary events he was about to obtain a knowledge of treasures

reserved for lovers and husbands only. Not a word, not a glance had been

exchanged between himself and Nyssia, who probably ignored the very

existence of the one being for whom her beauty would so soon cease to be

a mystery. Unknown to her whose modesty would have naught to sacrifice

for you, how strange a situation! To love a woman in secret and find

one's self led by her husband to the threshold of the nuptial chamber,

to have for guide to that treasure the very dragon who should defend

all approach to it, was there not in all this ample food for

astonishment and wonder at the combination of events wrought by destiny?

In the midst of these reflections, he suddenly heard the sound of

footsteps on the pavement. It was only the slaves coming to replenish

the oil in the lamp, throw fresh perfumes upon the coals of the

_klamklins,_ and arrange the purple and saffron-tinted sheepskins which

formed the royal bed.

The hour approached, and Gyges felt his heart beat faster, and the

pulsation of his arteries quicken. He even felt a strong impulse to

steal away before the arrival of the queen, and, after averring

subsequently to Candaules that he had remained, abandon himself

confidently to the most extravagant eulogiums. He felt a strong

repugnance (for, despite his somewhat free life, Gyges was not without

delicacy) to take by stealth a favor for the free granting of which he

would gladly have paid with his life. The husband's complicity rendered

this theft more odious in a certain sense, and he would have preferred

to owe to any other circumstance the happiness of beholding the marvel

of Asia in her nocturnal toilet. Perhaps, indeed, the approach of

danger, let us acknowledge as veracious historians, had no little to do

with his virtuous scruples. Undoubtedly Gyges did not lack courage.

Mounted upon his war-chariot, with quiver rattling upon his shoulder,

and bow in hand, he would have defied the most valiant warriors; in the

chase he would have attacked without fear the Calydon boar or the Nemean

lion; but--explain the enigma as you will--he trembled at the idea of

looking at a beautiful woman through a chink in a door. No one possesses

every kind of courage. He felt likewise that he could not behold Nyssia

with impunity. It would be a decisive epoch in his life. Through having

obtained but a momentary glimpse of her he had lost all peace of mind;

what, then, would be the result of that which was about to take place?

Could life itself continue for him when to that divine head which fired

his dreams should be added a charming body formed for the kisses of the

immortals? What would become of him should he find himself unable

thereafter to contain his passion in darkness and silence as he had done

till that time? Would he exhibit to the court of Lydia the ridiculous

spectacle of an insane love, or would he strive by some extravagant

action to bring down upon himself the disdainful pity of the queen? Such

a result was strongly probable, since the reason of Candaules himself,

the legitimate possessor of Nyssia, had been unable to resist the

vertigo caused by that superhuman beauty--he, the thoughtless young king

who till then had laughed at love, and preferred pictures and statues

before all things. These arguments were very rational but wholly

useless, for at the same moment Candaules entered the chamber, and

exclaimed in a low but distinct voice as he passed the door:

"Patience, my poor Gyges, Nyssia will soon come."

When he saw that he could no longer retreat, Gyges, who was but a young

man after all, forgot every other consideration, and no longer thought

of aught save the happiness of feasting his eyes upon the charming

spectacle which Candaules was about to offer him. One cannot demand

from a captain of twenty-five the austerity of a hoary philosopher.

At last a low whispering of raiment sweeping and trailing over marble,

distinctly audible in the deep silence of the night, announced the

approach of the queen. In effect it was she. With a step as cadenced and

rhythmic as an ode, she crossed the threshold of the thalamus, and the

wind of her veil with its floating folds almost touched the burning

cheek of Gyges, who felt well-nigh on the point of fainting, and found

himself compelled to seek the support of the wall; but soon recovering

from the violence of his emotions, he approached the chink of the door,

and took the most favorable position for enabling him to lose nothing of

the scene whereof he was about to be an invisible witness.

Nyssia advanced to the ivory chair and commenced to detach the pins,

terminated by hollow balls of gold, which fastened her veil upon her

head; and Gyges from the depths of the shadow-filled angle where he

stood concealed could examine at his ease the proud and charming face

of which he had before obtained only a hurried glimpse; that rounded

neck, at once delicate and powerful, whereon Aphrodite had traced with

the nail of her little finger those three faint lines which are still at

this very day known as the "necklace of Venus;" that white nape on whose

alabaster surface little wild, rebellious curls were disporting and

entwining themselves; those silver shoulders, half rising from the

opening of the chlamys, like the moon's disk emerging from an opaque

cloud. Candaules, half reclining upon his cushions, gazed with fondness

upon his wife, and thought to himself: "Now Gyges, who is so cold, so

difficult to please, and so skeptical, must be already half convinced."

Opening a little coffer which stood on a table supported by one leg

terminating in carven lion's paws, the queen freed her beautiful arms

from the weight of the bracelets and jewelry wherewith they had been

overburdened during the day--arms whose form and whiteness might well

have enabled them to compare with those of Hera, sister and wife of

Zeus, the lord of Olympus. Precious as were her jewels, they were

assuredly not worth the spots which they concealed, and had Nyssia been

a coquette, one might have well supposed that she only donned them in

order that she should be entreated to take them off. The rings and

chased work had left upon her skin, fine and tender as the interior pulp

of a lily, light rosy imprints, which she soon dissipated by rubbing

them with her little taper-fingered hand, all rounded and slender at its

extremities.

Then with the movement of a dove trembling in the snow of its feathers,

she shook her hair, which being no longer held by the golden pins,

rolled down in languid spirals like hyacinth flowers over her back and

bosom. Thus she remained for a few moments ere reassembling the

scattered curls and finally reuniting them into one mass. It was

marvellous to watch the blond ringlets streaming like jets of liquid

gold between the silver of her fingers; and her arms undulating like

swans' necks as they were arched above her head in the act of twisting

and confining the natural bullion. If you have ever by chance examined

one of those beautiful Etruscan vases with red figures on a black

ground, and decorated with one of those subjects which are designated

under the title of "Greek Toilette," then you will have some idea of the

grace of Nyssia in that attitude which, from the age of antiquity to our

own era, has furnished such a multitude of happy designs for painters

and statuaries.

Having thus arranged her coiffure, she seated herself upon the edge of

the ivory footstool and commenced to untie the little bands which

fastened her buskins. We moderns, owing to our horrible system of

footgear, which is hardly less absurd than the Chinese shoe, no longer

know what a foot is. That of Nyssia was of a perfection rare even in

Greece and antique Asia. The great toe, a little apart like the thumb of

a bird, the other toes, slightly long, and all ranged in charming

symmetry, the nails well shaped and brilliant as agates, the ankles well

rounded and supple, the heel slightly tinted with a rosy hue--nothing

was wanting to the perfection of the little member. The leg attached to

this foot, and which gleamed like polished marble under the lamp-light,

was irreproachable in the purity of its outlines and the grace of its

curves.

Gyges, lost in contemplation, though all the while fully comprehending

the madness of Candaules, said to himself that had the gods bestowed

such a treasure upon him he would have known how to keep it to himself.

"Well, Nyssia, are you not coming to sleep with me?" exclaimed

Candaules, seeing that the queen was not hurrying herself in the least,

and feeling desirous to abridge the watch of Gyges.

"Yes, my dear lord, I will soon be ready," answered Nyssia.

And she detached the cameo which fastened the peplum upon her shoulder.

There remained only the tunic to let fall. Gyges, behind the door, felt

his veins hiss through his temples; his heart beat so violently that he

feared it must make itself heard in the chamber, and to repress its

fierce pulsations he pressed his hand upon his bosom; and when Nyssia,

with a movement of careless grace, unfastened the girdle of her tunic,

he thought his knees would give way beneath him.

Nyssia--was it an instinctive presentiment, or was her skin, virginally

pure from profane looks, so delicately magnetic in its susceptibility

that it could feel the rays of a passionate eye though that eye was

invisible--Nyssia hesitated to strip herself of that tunic, the last

rampart of her modesty. Twice or thrice her shoulders, her bosom, and

bare arms shuddered with a nervous chill, as though they had been

suddenly grazed by the wings of a nocturnal butterfly, or as though an

insolent lip had dared to touch them in the darkness.

At last, seeming to nerve herself for a sudden resolve, she doffed the

tunic in its turn; and the white poem of her divine body suddenly

appeared in all its splendor, like the statue of a goddess unveiled on

the day of a temple's inauguration. Shuddering with pleasure the light

glided and gloated over those exquisite forms, and covered them with

timid kisses, profiting by an occasion, alas, rare indeed! The rays

scattered through the chamber, disdaining to illuminate golden arms,

jewelled clasps, or brazen tripods, all concentrated themselves upon

Nyssia, and left all other objects in obscurity. Were we Greeks of the

age of Pericles we might at our ease eulogize those beautiful serpentine

lines, those polished flanks, those elegant curves, those breasts which

might have served as moukis for the cup of Hebe; but modern prudery

forbids such descriptions, for the pen cannot find pardon for what is

permitted to the chisel; and besides, there are some things which can be

written of only in marble.

Candaules smiled in proud satisfaction. With a rapid step, as though

ashamed of being so beautiful, for she was only the daughter of a man

and a woman, Nyssia approached the bed, her arms folded upon her bosom;

but with a sudden movement she turned round ere taking her place upon

the couch beside her royal spouse, and beheld through the aperture of

the door a gleaming eye flaming like the carbuncle of Oriental legend;

for if it were false that she had a double pupil, and that she possessed

the stone which is found in the heads of dragons, it was at least true

that her green glance penetrated darkness like the glaucous eye of the

cat and tiger.

A cry, like that of a fawn who receives an arrow in her flank while

tranquilly dreaming among the leafy shadows, was on the point of

bursting from her lips, yet she found strength to control herself, and

lay down beside Candaules, cold as a serpent, with the violets of death

upon her cheeks and lips. Not a muscle of her limbs quivered, not a

fibre of her body palpitated, and soon her slow, regular breathing

seemed to indicate that Morpheus had distilled his poppy juice upon her

eyelids.

She had divined and comprehended all.

CHAPTER IV

Gyges, trembling and distracted with passion, had retired, following

exactly the instructions of Candaules; and if Nyssia, through some

unfortunate chance, had not turned her head ere taking her place upon

the couch, and perceived him in the act of taking flight, doubtless she

would have remained forever unconscious of the outrage done to her

charms by a husband more passionate than scrupulous.

Accustomed to the winding corridors of the palace, the young warrior had

no difficulty in finding his way out. He passed through the city at a

reckless pace like a madman escaped from Anticyra, and by making himself

known to the sentinels who guarded the ramparts, he had the gates opened

for him and gained the fields beyond. His brain burned, his cheeks

flamed as with the fires of fever; his breath came hotly panting through

his lips; he flung himself down upon the meadow-sod humid with the tears

of the night; and at last hearing in the darkness, through the thick

grass and water-plants, the silvery respiration of a Naiad, he dragged

himself to the spring, plunged his hands and arms into the crystal

flood, bathed his face, and drank several mouthfuls of the water in the

hope to cool the ardor which was devouring him. Any one who could have

seen him thus hopelessly bending over the spring in the feeble

starlight would have taken him for Narcissus pursuing his own shadow;

but it was not of himself assuredly that Gyges was enamoured.

The rapid apparition of Nyssia had dazzled his eyes like the keen zigzag

of a lightning-flash. He beheld her floating before him in a luminous

whirlwind, and felt that never through all his life could he banish that

image from his vision. His love had grown to vastness; its flower had

suddenly burst, like those plants which open their blossoms with a clap

of thunder. To master his passion were henceforth a thing impossible: as

well counsel the empurpled waves which Poseidon lifts with his trident

to lie tranquilly in their bed of sand and cease to foam upon the rocks

of the shore. Gyges was no longer master of himself, and he felt a

miserable despair, as of a man riding in a chariot, who finds his

terrified and uncontrollable horses rushing with all the speed of a

furious gallop toward some rock-bristling precipice. A hundred thousand

projects, each wilder than the last, whirled confusedly through his

brain. He blasphemed Destiny, he cursed his mother for having given him

life, and the gods that they had not caused him to be born to a throne,

for then he might have been able to espouse the daughter of the satrap.

A frightful agony gnawed at his heart; he was jealous of the king. From

the moment of the tunic's fall at the feet of Nyssia, like the flight of

a white dove alighting upon a meadow, it had seemed to him that she

belonged to him; he deemed himself despoiled of his wealth by Candaules.

In all his amorous reveries he had never until then thought of the

husband; he had thought of the queen only as of a pure abstraction,

without representing to himself in fancy all those intimate details of

conjugal familiarity, so poignant, so bitter for those who love a woman

in the power of another. Now he had beheld Nyssia's blonde head bending

like a blossom beside the dark head of Candaules. The very thought of it

had inflamed his anger to the highest degree, although a moment's

reflection should have convinced him that things could not have come to

pass otherwise, and he felt growing within him a most unjust hatred

against his master. The act of having compelled his presence at the

queen's dishabille seemed to him a barbarous irony, an odious refinement

of cruelty, for he did not remember that his love for her could not have

been known by the king, who had sought in him only a confidant of easy

morals and a connoisseur in beauty. That which he ought to have regarded

as a great favor affected him like a mortal injury for which he was

meditating vengeance. While thinking that to-morrow the same scene of

which he had been a mute and invisible witness would infallibly renew

itself, his tongue clove to his palate, his forehead became imbeaded

with drops of cold sweat, and his hand convulsively grasped the hilt of

his great double-edged sword.

Nevertheless, thanks to the freshness of the night, that excellent

counsellor, he became a little calmer, and returned to Sardes before the

morning light had become bright enough to enable a few early rising

citizens and slaves to notice the pallor of his brow and the disorder of

his apparel. He betook himself to his regular post at the palace, well

suspecting that Candaules would shortly send for him; and, however

violent the agitation of his feelings, he felt he was not powerful

enough to brave the anger of the king, and could in no way escape

submitting again to this _rôle_ of confidant, which could thenceforth

only inspire him with horror. Having arrived at the palace, he seated

himself upon the steps of the cypress-panelled vestibule, leaned his

back against a column, and, under the pretext of being fatigued by the

long vigil under arms, he covered his head with his mantle and feigned

sleep to avoid answering the questions of the other guards.

If the night had been terrible to Gyges, it had not been less so to

Nyssia, as she never for an instant doubted that he had been purposely

hidden there by Candaules. The king's persistency in begging her not to

veil so austerely a face which the gods had made for the admiration of

men, his evident vexation upon her refusal to appear in Greek costume at

the sacrifices and public solemnities, his unsparing raillery at what he

termed her barbarian shyness, all tended to convince her that the young

Heracleid had sought to admit some one into those mysteries which

should remain secret to all, for without his encouragement no man could

have dared to risk himself in an undertaking the discovery of which

would have resulted in the punishment of a speedy death.

How slowly did the black hours seem to her to pass! How anxiously did

she await the coming of dawn to mingle its bluish tints with the yellow

gleams of the almost exhausted lamp! It seemed to her that Apollo would

never mount his chariot again, and that some invisible hand was

sustaining the sand of the hour-glass in air. Though brief as any other,

that night seemed to her like the Cimmerian nights, six long months of

darkness.

While it lasted she lay motionless and rigid at full length on the very

edge of her couch in dread of being touched by Candaules. If she had not

up to that night felt a very strong love for the son of Myrsus, she had,

at least, ever exhibited toward him that grave and serene tenderness

which every virtuous woman entertains for her husband, although the

altogether Greek freedom of his morals frequently displeased her, and

though he entertained ideas at variance with her own in regard to

modesty; but after such an affront she could only feel the chilliest

hatred and most icy contempt for him; she would have preferred even

death to one of his caresses. Such an outrage it was impossible to

forgive, for among the barbarians, and above all among the Persians and

Bactrians, it was held a great disgrace, not for women only, but even

for men, to be seen without their garments.

At length Candaules arose, and Nyssia, awaking from her simulated sleep,

hurried from that chamber now profaned in her eyes as though it had

served for the nocturnal orgies of Bacchantes and courtesans. It was

agony for her to breathe that impure air any longer, and that she might

freely give herself up to her grief she took refuge in the upper

apartments reserved for the women, summoned her slaves by clapping her

hands, and poured ewers of water over her shoulders, her bosom, and her

whole body, as, though hoping by this species of lustral ablution to

efface the soil imprinted by the eyes of Gyges. She would have

voluntarily torn, as it were, from her body that skin upon which the

rays shot from a burning pupil seemed to have left their traces. Taking

from the hands of her waiting women the thick downy materials which

served to drink up the last pearls of the bath, she wiped herself with

such violence that a slight purple cloud rose to the spots she had

rubbed.

"In vain," she exclaimed, letting the damp tissues fall, and dismissing

her attendants--"in vain would I pour over myself all the waters of all

the springs and the rivers; the ocean with all its bitter gulfs could

not purify me. Such a stain may be washed out only with blood. Oh, that

look, that look! It has incrusted itself upon me; it clasps me, covers

me, burns me like the tunic dipped in the blood of Nessus; I feel it

beneath my draperies, like an envenomed tissue which nothing can detach

from my body! Now, indeed, would I vainly pile garments upon garments,

select materials the least transparent, and the thickest of mantles. I

would none the less bear upon my naked flesh this infamous robe woven by

one adulterous and lascivious glance. Vainly, since the hour when I

issued from the chaste womb of my mother, have I been brought up in

private, enveloped like Isis, the Egyptian goddess, with a veil of which

none might have lifted the hem without paying for his audacity with his

life. In vain have I remained guarded from all evil desires, from all

profane imaginings, unknown of men, virgin as the snow on which the

eagle himself could not imprint the seal of his talons, so loftily does

the mountain which it covers lift its head in the pure and icy air. The

depraved caprice of a Lydian Greek has sufficed to make me lose in a

single instant, without any guilt of mine, all the fruit of long years

of precaution and reserve. Innocent and dishonored, hidden from all yet

made public to all ... this is the lot to which Candaules has condemned

me. Who can assure me that, at this very moment, Gyges is not in the act

of discoursing upon my charms with some soldiers at the very threshold

of the palace? Oh shame! Oh infamy! Two men have beheld me naked and yet

at this instant enjoy the sweet light of the sun! In what does Nyssia

now differ from the most shameless hetaira, from the vilest of

courtesans? This body which I have striven to render worthy of being the

habitation of a pure and noble soul, serves for a theme of conversation;

it is talked of like some lascivious idol brought from Sicyon or from

Corinth; it is commended or found fault with. The shoulder is perfect,

the arm is charming, perhaps a little thin--what know I? All the blood

of my heart leaps to my cheeks at such a thought. Oh beauty, fatal gift

of the gods! why am I not the wife of some poor mountain goatherd of

innocent and simple habits? He would not have suborned a goatherd like

himself at the threshold of his cabin to profane his humble happiness!

My lean figure, my unkempt hair, my complexion faded by the burning sun,

would then have saved me from so gross an insult, and my honest

homeliness would not have been compelled to blush. How shall I dare,

after the scene of this night, to pass before those men, proudly erect

under the folds of a tunic which has no longer aught to hide from either

of them. I should drop dead with shame upon the pavement. Candaules,

Candaules, I was at least entitled to more respect from you, and there

was nothing in my conduct which could have provoked such an outrage. Was

I one of those ones whose arms forever cling like ivy to their husbands'

necks, and who seem more like slaves bought with money for a master's

pleasure than free-born women of noble blood? Have I ever after a repast

sung amorous hymns accompanying myself upon the lyre, with wine-moist

lips, naked shoulders, and a wreath of roses about my hair, or given you

cause, by any immodest action, to treat me like a mistress whom one

shows after a banquet to his companions in debauch?"

While Nyssia was thus buried in her grief, great tears overflowed from

her eyes like rain-drops from the azure chalice of a lotus-flower after

some storm, and rolling down her pale cheeks fell upon her fair forlorn

hands, languishingly open, like roses whose leaves are half-shed, for no

order came from the brain to give them activity. The attitude of Niobe,

beholding her fourteenth child succumb beneath the arrows of Apollo and

Diana, was not more sadly despairing, but soon starting from this state

of prostration, she rolled herself upon the floor, rent her garments,

covered her beautiful dishevelled hair with ashes, tore her bosom and

cheeks with her nails amid convulsive sobs, and abandoned herself to all

the excesses of Oriental grief, the more violently that she had been

forced so long to contain her indignation, shame, pangs of wounded

dignity, and all the agony that convulsed her soul, for the pride of her

whole life had been broken, and the idea that she had nothing wherewith

to reproach herself afforded her no consolation. As a poet has said,

only the innocent know remorse. She was repenting of the crime which

another had committed.

Nevertheless she made an effort to recover herself, ordered the baskets

filled with wools of different colors, and the spindles wrapped with

flax to be brought to her, and distributed the work to her women as she

had been accustomed to do; but she thought she noticed that the slaves

looked at her in a very peculiar way, and had ceased to entertain the

same timid respect for her as before. Her voice no longer rang with the

same assurance; there was something humble and furtive in her demeanor;

she felt herself interiorly fallen.

Doubtless her scruples were exaggerated, and her virtue had received no

stain from the folly of Candaules; but ideas imbibed with a mother's

milk obtain irresistible sway, and the modesty of the body is carried by

Oriental nations to an extent almost incomprehensible to Occidental

races. When a man desired to speak to Nyssia in the palace of Megabazus

at Bactria, he was obliged to do so keeping his eyes fixed upon the

ground, and two eunuchs stood beside him, poniard in hand, ready to

plunge their keen blades through his heart should he dare lift his head

to look at the princess, notwithstanding that her face was veiled. You

may readily conceive, therefore, how deadly an injury the action of

Candaules would seem to a woman thus brought up, while any other would

doubtless have considered it only a culpable frivolity. Thus the idea of

vengeance had instantly presented itself to Nyssia, and had given her

sufficient self-control to strangle the cry of her offended modesty ere

it reached her lips, at the moment when, turning her head, she beheld

the burning eyes of Gyges flaming through the darkness. She must have

possessed the courage of the warrior in ambush, who, wounded by a random

dart, utters no syllable of pain through fear of betraying himself

behind his shelter of foliage or river-reeds, and in silence permits his

blood to stripe his flesh with long red lines. Had she not withheld that

first impulse to cry aloud, Candaules, alarmed and forewarned, would

have kept upon his guard, which must have rendered it more difficult, if

not impossible, to carry out her purpose.

Nevertheless, as yet she had conceived no definite plan, but she had

resolved that the insult done to her honor should be fully expiated. At

first she had thought of killing Candaules herself while he slept, with

the sword hung at the bedside. But she recoiled from the thought of

dipping her beautiful hands in blood; she feared lest she might miss her

blow; and, with all her bitter anger, she hesitated at so violent and

unwomanly an act.

Suddenly she appeared to have decided upon some project. She summoned

Statira, one of the waiting women who had come with her from Bactria,

and in whom she placed much confidence, and whispered a few words close

to her ear in a very low voice, although there were no other persons in

the room, as if she feared that even the walls might hear her.

Statira bowed low, and immediately left the apartment.

Like all persons who are actually menaced by some great peril, Candaules

presumed himself perfectly secure. He was certain that Gyges had stolen

away unperceived, and he thought only upon the delight of conversing

with him about the unrivalled attractions of his wife.

So he caused him to be summoned, and conducted him to the Court of the

Heracleidæ.

"Well, Gyges," he said to him with laughing mien, "I did not deceive you

when I assured you that you would not regret having passed a few hours

behind that blessed door. Am I right? Do you know of any living woman

more beautiful than the queen? If you know of any superior to her, tell

me so frankly, and go bear her in my name this string of pearls, the

symbol of power."

"Sire," replied Gyges in a voice trembling with emotion, "no human

creature is worthy to compare with Nyssia. It is not the pearl fillet of

queens which should adorn her brows, but only the starry crown of the

immortals."

"I well knew that your ice must melt at last in the fires of that sun.

Now can you comprehend my passion, my delirium, my mad desires? Is it

not true, Gyges, that the heart of a man is not great enough to contain

such a love? It must overflow and diffuse itself."

A hot blush overspread the cheeks of Gyges, who now but too well

comprehended the admiration of Candaules.

The king noticed it, and said, with a manner half smiling, half serious:

"My poor friend, do not commit the folly of becoming enamoured of

Nyssia; you would lose your pains. It is a statue which I have enabled

you to see, not a woman. I have allowed you to read some stanzas of a

beautiful poem, whereof I alone possess the manuscript, merely for the

purpose of having your opinion; that is all."

"You have no need, sire, to remind me of my nothingness. Sometimes the

humblest slave is visited in his slumbers by some radiant and lovely

vision, with ideal forms, nacreous flesh, ambrosial hair. I--I have

dreamed with open eyes; you are the god who sent me that dream."

"Now," continued the king, "it will scarcely be necessary for me to

enjoin silence upon you. If you do not keep a seal upon your lips you

might learn to your cost that Nyssia is not as good as she is

beautiful."

The king waved his hand in token of fare-well to his confidant, and

retired for the purpose of inspecting an antique bed sculptured by

Ikmalius, a celebrated artisan, which had been offered him for purchase.

Candaules had scarcely disappeared when a woman, wrapped in a long

mantle so as to leave but one of her eyes exposed, after the fashion of

the barbarians, came forth from the shadow of a column behind which she

had kept herself hidden during the conversation of the king and his

favorite, walked straight to Gyges, placed her finger upon his shoulder,

and made a sign to him to follow her.

CHAPTER V

Statira, followed by Gyges, paused before a little door, of which she

raised the latch by pulling a silver ring attached to a leathern strap,

and commenced to ascend a stairway with rather high steps contrived in

the thickness of the wall. At the head of the stairway was a second

door, which she opened with a key wrought of ivory and brass. As soon as

Gyges entered she disappeared without any further explanation in regard

to what was expected of him.

The curiosity of Gyges was mingled with uneasiness. He could form no

idea as to the significance of this mysterious message. He had a vague

fancy that he could recognize in the silent Iris one of Nyssia's women;

and the way by which she had made him follow low her led to the queen's

apartments. He asked himself in terror whether he had been perceived in

his hiding-place or betrayed by Candaules, for both suppositions seemed

probable.

At the idea that Nyssia knew all, he felt his face bedewed with a sweat

alternately burning and icy. He sought to fly, but the door had been

fastened upon him by Statira, and all escape was cut off; then he

advanced into the chamber, which was shadowed by heavy purple hangings,

and found himself face to face with Nyssia. He thought he beheld a

statue rise before him, such was her pallor. The hues of life had

abandoned her face; a feeble rose tint alone animated her lips; on her

tender temples a few almost imperceptible veins intercrossed their azure

network; tears had swollen her eyelids, and left shining furrows upon

the down of her cheeks; the chrysoprase tints of her eyes had lost their

intensity. She was even more beautiful and touching thus. Sorrow had

given soul to her marmorean beauty.

Her disordered robe, scarcely fastened to her shoulders, left visible

her beautiful bare arms, her throat, and the commencement of her

death-white bosom. Like a warrior vanquished in his first conflict, her

beauty had laid down its arms. Of what use to her would have been the

draperies which conceal form, the tunics with their carefully fastened

folds? Did not Gyges know her? Wherefore defend what has been lost in

advance?

She walked straight to Gyges, and fixing upon him an imperial look,

clear and commanding, said to him, in a quick, abrupt voice:

"Do not lie; seek no vain subterfuges; have at least the dignity and

courage of your crime. I know all; I saw you! Not a word of excuse. I

would not listen to it. Candaules himself concealed you behind the door.

Is it not so the thing happened? And you fancy, doubtless, that it is

all over? Unhappily I am not a Greek woman, pliant to the whims of

artists and voluptuaries. Nyssia will not serve for any one's toy. There

are now two men, one of whom is a man too much upon the earth. He must

disappear from it! Unless he dies, I cannot live. It will be either you

or Candaules. I leave you master of the choice. Kill him, avenge me,

and win by that murder both my hand and the throne of Lydia, or else

shall a prompt death henceforth prevent you from beholding, through a

cowardly complaisance, what you have not the right to look upon. He who

commanded is more culpable than he who has only obeyed; and, moreover,

should you become my husband, no one will have ever seen me without

having the right to do so. But make your decision at once, for two of

those four eyes in which my nudity has reflected itself must before this

very evening be forever extinguished."

This strange alternative, proposed with a terrible coolness, with an

immutable resolution, so utterly surprised Gyges, who was expecting

reproaches, menaces, and a violent scene, that he remained for several

minutes without color and without voice, livid as a shade on the shores

of the black rivers of hell.

"I! to dip my hands in the blood of my master! Is it indeed you, O

Queen, who demand of me so great a penalty? I comprehend all your

anger, I feel it to be just, and it was not my fault that this outrage

took place; but you know that kings are mighty, they descend from a

divine race. Our destinies repose on their august knees; and it is not

we, feeble mortals, who may hesitate at their commands. Their will

overthrows our refusal, as a dyke is swept away by a torrent. By your

feet that I kiss, by the hem of your robe which I touch as a suppliant,

be clement! Forget this injury, which is known to none, and which shall

remain eternally buried in darkness and silence! Candaules worships you,

admires you, and his fault springs only from an excess of love.

"Were you addressing a sphinx of granite in the arid sands of Egypt, you

would have more chance of melting her. The winged words might fly

uninterruptedly from your lips for a whole olympiad; you could not move

my resolution in the slightest. A heart of brass dwells in this marble

breast of mine. Die or kill! When the sunbeam which has passed through

the curtains shall touch the foot of this table let your choice have

been made. I wait."

And Nyssia crossed her arms upon her breast in an attitude replete with

sombre majesty.

To behold her standing erect, motionless and pale, her eyes fixed, her

brows contracted, her hair in disorder, her foot firmly placed upon the

pavement, one would have taken her for Nemesis descended from her

griffin, and awaiting the hour to smite a guilty one.

"The shadowy depths of Hades are visited by none with pleasure,"

answered Gyges. "It is sweet to enjoy the pure light of day; and the

heroes themselves who dwell in the Fortunate Isles would gladly return

to their native land. Each man has the instinct of self-preservation,

and since blood must flow, let it be rather from the veins of another

than from mine."

To these sentiments, avowed by Gyges with antique frankness, were added

others more noble whereof he did not speak. He was desperately in love

with Nyssia and jealous of Candaules. It was not, therefore, the fear of

death alone that had induced him to undertake this bloody task. The

thought of leaving Candaules in free possession of Nyssia was

insupportable to him; and, moreover, the vertigo of fatality had seized

him. By a succession of irregular and terrible events he beheld himself

hurried toward the realization of his dreams; a mighty wave had lifted

him and borne him on in despite of his efforts; Nyssia herself was

extending her hand to him, to help him to ascend the steps of the royal

throne. All this had caused him to forget that Candaules was his master

and his benefactor; for none can flee from Fate, and Necessity walks on

with nails in one hand and whip in the other, to stop your advance or to

urge you forward.

"It is well," replied Nyssia; "here is the means of execution." And she

drew from her bosom a Bactrian poniard, with a jade handle enriched with

inlaid circles of white gold. "This blade is not made of brass, but with

iron difficult to work, tempered in flame and water, so that Hephaistos

himself could not forge one more keenly pointed or finely edged. It

would pierce, like thin papyrus, metal cuirasses and bucklers of

dragon's skin.

"The time," she continued with the same icy coolness, "shall be while he

slumbers. Let him sleep and wake no more!"

Her accomplice, Gyges, hearkened to her words with stupefaction, for he

had never thought he could find such resolution in a woman who could not

bring herself to lift her veil.

"The ambuscade shall be laid in the very same place where the infamous

one concealed you in order to expose me to your gaze. At the approach of

night I shall turn back one of the folding doors upon you, undress

myself, lie down, and when he shall be asleep I will give you a signal.

Above all things, let there be no hesitancy, no feebleness; and take

heed that your hand does not tremble when the moment shall have come!

And now, for fear lest you might change your mind, I propose to make

sure of your person until the fatal hour. You might attempt to escape,

to forewarn your master. Do not think to do so."

Nyssia whistled in a peculiar way, and immediately from behind a Persian

tapestry embroidered with flowers, there appeared four monsters,

swarthy, clad in robes diagonally striped, which left visible arms

muscled and gnarled as trunks of oaks. Their thick pouting lips, the

gold rings which they wore through the partition of their nostrils,

their great teeth sharp as the fangs of wolves, the expression of stupid

servility on their faces, rendered them hideous to behold.

The queen pronounced some words in a language unknown to Gyges,

doubtless in Bactrian, and the four slaves rushed upon the young man,

seized him, and carried him away, even as a nurse might carry off a

child in the fold of her robe.

Now what were Nyssia's real thoughts? Had she, indeed, noticed Gyges at

the time of her meeting with him near Bactria, and preserved some memory

of the young captain in one of those secret recesses of the heart where

even the most virtuous women always have something buried? Was the

desire to avenge her modesty goaded by some other unacknowledged desire?

And if Gyges had not been the handsomest young man in all Asia would she

have evinced the same ardor in punishing Candaules for having outraged

the sanctity of marriage? That is a delicate question to resolve,

especially after a lapse of three thousand years; and although we have

consulted Herodotus, Hephæstion, Plato, Dositheus, Archilochus of

Paros, Hesychius of Miletus, Ptolomæus, Euphorion, and all who have

spoken either at length or in only a few words concerning Candaules,

Nyssia, and Gyges, we have been unable to arrive at any definite

conclusion. To pursue so fleeting a shadow through so many centuries,

under the ruins of so many crumbled empires, under the dust of departed

nations, is a work of extreme difficulty, not to say impossibility.

At all events, Nyssia's resolution was implacably taken; this murder

appeared to her in the light of the accomplishment of a sacred duty.

Among the barbarian nations every man who has surprised a woman in her

nakedness is put to death. The queen believed herself exercising her

right; only inasmuch as the injury had been secret, she was doing

herself justice as best she could. The passive accomplice would become

the executioner of the other, and the punishment would thus spring from

the crime itself. The hand would chastise the head.

The olive-tinted monsters shut Gyges up in an obscure portion of the

palace, whence it was impossible that he could escape, or that his cries

could be heard.

He passed the remainder of the day there in a state of cruel anxiety,

accusing the hours of being lame, and again of walking too speedily. The

crime which he was about to commit, although he was only, in some sort,

the instrument of it, and though he was only yielding to an irresistible

influence, presented itself to his mind in the most sombre colors. If

the blow should miss through one of those circumstances which none could

foresee? If the people of Sardes should revolt and seek to avenge the

death of the king? Such were the very sensible though useless

reflections which Gyges made while waiting to be taken from his prison

and led to the place whence he could only depart to strike his master.

At last the night unfolded her starry robe in the sky, and its shadow

fell upon the city and the palace. A light footstep became audible,

a veiled woman entered the room and conducted him through the obscure

corridors and multiplied mazes of the royal edifice with as much

confidence as though she had been preceded by a slave bearing a lamp or

a torch.

The hand which held that of Gyges was cold, soft, and small;

nevertheless those slender fingers clasped it with a bruising force, as

the fingers of some statue of brass animated by a prodigy would have

done. The rigidity of an inflexible will betrayed itself in that

ever-equal pressure as of a vise--a pressure which no hesitation of

head or heart came to vary. Gyges, conquered, subjugated, crushed,

yielded to that imperious traction, as though he were borne along by the

mighty arm of Fate.

Alas! it was not thus he had wished to touch for the first time that

fair royal hand, which had presented the poniard to him, and was leading

him to murder, for it was Nyssia herself who had come for Gyges, to

conceal him in the place of ambuscade.

No word was exchanged between the sinister couple on the way from the

prison to the nuptial chamber.

The queen unfastened the thongs, raised the bar of the entrance, and

placed Gyges behind the folding door as Candaules had done the evening

previous. This repetition of the same acts, with so different a purpose,

had something of a lugubrious and fatal character. Vengeance, this time,

had placed her foot upon every track left by the insult. The

chastisement and the crime alike followed the same path. Yesterday it

was the turn of Candaules, to-day it was that of Nyssia; and Gyges,

accomplice in the injury, was also accomplice in the penalty. He had

served the king to dishonor the queen; he would serve the queen to kill

the king, equally exposed by the vices of the one and the virtues of the

other.

The daughter of Megabazus seemed to feel a savage joy, a ferocious

pleasure, in employing only the same means chosen by the Lydian king,

and turning to account for the murder those very precautions which had

been adopted for voluptuous fantasy.

"You will again this evening see me take off these garments which are so

displeasing to Candaules. This spectacle should become wearisome to

you," said the queen in accents of bitter irony, as she stood on the

threshold of the chamber; "you will end by finding me ugly." And a

sardonic, forced laugh momentarily curled her pale mouth; then,

regaining her impassible severity of mien, she continued: "Do not

imagine you will be able to steal away this time as you did before; you

know my sight is piercing. At the slightest movement on your part I

shall awake Candaules; and you know that it will not be easy for you to

explain what you are doing in the king's apartments, behind a door, with

a poniard in your hand. Further, my Bactrian slaves, the copper-colored

mutes who imprisoned you a short time ago, guard all the issues of the

palace, with orders to massacre you should you attempt to go out.

Therefore let no vain scruples of fidelity cause you to hesitate. Think

that I will make you King of Sardes, and that ... I will love you if you

avenge me. The blood of Candaules will be your purple, and his death

will make for you a place in that bed."

The slaves came according to their custom to change the fuel in the

tripod, renew the oil in the lamps, spread tapestry and the skins of

animals upon the royal couch; and Nyssia hurried into the chamber as

soon as she heard their footsteps resounding in the distance.

In a short time Candaules arrived all joyous. He had purchased the bed

of Ikmalius and proposed to substitute it for the bed wrought after the

Oriental fashion, which he declared had never been much to his taste. He

seemed pleased to find that Nyssia had already retired to the nuptial

chamber.

"The trade of embroidery, and spindles, and needles seems not to have

the same attraction for you to-day as usual. In fact, it is a monotonous

labor to perpetually pass one thread between other threads, and I wonder

at the pleasure which you seem ordinarily to take in it. To tell the

truth, I am afraid that some fine day Pallas-Athena, on finding you so

skilful, will break her shuttle over your head as she once did to poor

Arachne."

"My lord, I felt somewhat tired this evening, and so came down-stairs

sooner than usual. Would you not like before going to sleep to drink a

cup of black Samian wine mixed with the honey of Hymettus?" And she

poured from a golden urn, into a cup of the same metal, the

sombre-colored beverage which she had mingled with the soporiferous

juice of the nepenthe.

Candaules took the cup by both handles and drained it to the last drop;

but the young Heracleid had a strong head, and sinking his elbow into

the cushions of his couch he watched Nyssia undressing without any sign

that the dust of sleep was commencing to gather upon his eyes.

As on the evening before, Nyssia unfastened her hair and permitted its

rich blonde waves to ripple over her shoulders. From his hiding-place

Gyges fancied that he saw those locks slowly becoming suffused with

tawny tints, illuminated with reflections of blood and flame; and their

heavy curls seemed to lengthen with viperine undulations, like the hair

of the Gorgons and Medusas.

All simple and graceful as that action was in itself, it took from the

terrible events about to transpire a frightful and ominous character,

which caused the hidden assassin to shudder with terror.

Nyssia then unfastened her bracelets, but, agitated as her hands had

been by nervous straining, they ill served her will. She broke the

string of a bracelet of beads of amber inlaid with gold, which rolled

over the floor with a loud noise, causing Candaules to reopen his

gradually closing eyes.

Each one of those beads fell upon the heart of Gyges as a drop of molten

lead falls upon water.

Having unlaced her buskins, the queen threw her upper tunic over the

back of an ivory chair. This drapery, thus arranged, produced upon Gyges

the effect of one of those sinister-folding winding sheets wherein the

dead were wrapped ere being borne to the funeral pyre. Every object in

that room, which had the evening before seemed to him one scene of

smiling splendor, now appeared to him livid, dim, and menacing. The

statues of basalt rolled their eyes and smiled hideously. The lamp

flickered weirdly, and its flame dishevelled itself in red and sanguine

rays like the crest of a comet. Far back in the dimly lighted corners

loomed the monstrous forms of the Lares and Lemures. The mantles hanging

from their hooks seemed animated by a factitious life, and assumed a

human aspect of vitality; and when Nyssia, stripped of her last garment,

approached the bed, all white and naked as a shade, he thought that

Death herself had broken the diamond fetters wherewith Hercules of old

enchained her at the gates of hell when he delivered Alcestes, and had

come in person to take possession of Candaules.

Overcome by the power of the nepenthe-juice, the king at last slumbered.

Nyssia made a sign for Gyges to come forth from his retreat; and, laying

her finger upon the breast of the victim, she directed upon her

accomplice a look so humid, so lustrous, so weighty with languishment,

so replete with intoxicating promise, that Gyges, maddened and

fascinated, sprang from his hiding-place like the tiger from the summit

of the rock where it has been crouching, traversed the chamber at a

bound, and plunged the Bactrian poniard up to the very hilt in the

heart of the descendant of Hercules. The chastity of Nyssia was avenged,

and the dream of Gyges accomplished.

Thus ended the dynasty of the Heracleidæ, after having endured for five

hundred and five years, and commenced that of the Mermnades in the

person of Gyges, son of Dascylus. The Sardians, indignant at the death

of Candaules, threatened revolt; but the oracle of Delphi having

declared in favor of Gyges, who had sent thither a vast number of silver

vases and six golden cratera of the value of thirty talents, the new

king maintained his seat on the throne of Lydia, which he occupied for

many long years, lived happily, and never showed his wife to any one,

knowing too well what it cost.

ADDENDA

"ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS"

A. There is no correct English plural of "necropolis"; the French word

_nécropole_ is more normal. As the Greek plural could not be used very

euphoniously, and as I have tried throughout to render an exact English

equivalent for each French word whenever comprehensible, I beg

indulgence for the illegitimate plural "necropoli," used to signify more

than one necropolis, as an equivalent for the French _nécropoles_.

B. In the opening scene of "One of Cleopatra's Nights," the reader may

be surprised at the expression "the _chuckling_ of the crocodiles." Our

own southern alligators often make a little noise which could not be

better described--a low, guttural sound, bearing a sinister resemblance

to a human chuckle or subdued, sneering laugh. A Creole friend who has

lived much in those regions of Southern Louisiana intersected by bayous

and haunted by alligators, comprehended at once the whole force of the

term _rire étouffe_ as applied to the sounds made by the crocodile.

"_Je l'ai entendu souvent_" he said, with a smile.

"CLARIMONDE"

The idea of love after death has been introduced by Gautier into several

beautiful creations, sometimes Hoffmanesquely, sometimes with an

exquisite sweetness peculiarly his own. Among his most touching poems

there is a fantastic--_Les Tâches Jaunes_--so remarkable that I cannot

refrain from offering a rude translation of it. Though transplanted even

by a master-hand into the richest soil of another language, such

poetical flora necessarily lose something of their strange color and

magical perfume. In this instance the translator, who is no poet, only

strives to convey the beautiful weirdness of the original idea:

With elbow buried in the downy pillow

I've lain and read,

All through the night, a volume strangely written

In tongues long dead.

For at my bedside lie no dainty slippers;

And, save my own,

Under the paling lamp I hear no breathing:--

I am alone!

But there are yellow bruises on my body

And violet stains;

Though no white vampire came with lips blood-crimsoned

To suck my veins!

Now I bethink me of a sweet weird story,

That in the dark

Our dead loves thus with seal of chilly kisses

Our bodies mark.

Gliding beneath the coverings of our couches

They share our rest,

And with their dead lips sign their loving visit

On arm and breast.

Darksome and cold the bed where now she slumbers,

I loved in vain,

With sweet soft eyelids closed, to be reopened

Never again.

Dead sweetheart, can it be that thou hast lifted

With thy frail hand

Thy coffin-lid, to come to me again

From Shadowland?

Thou who, one joyous night, didst, pale and speechless,

Pass from us all,

Dropping thy silken mask and gift of flowers

Amidst the ball?

Oh, fondest of my loves, from that far heaven

Where thou must be,

Hast thou returned to pay the debt of kisses

Thou owest me?

"ARRIA MARCELLA"

Gautier doubtless obtained inspiration for this exquisite romance from

an old Greek ghost story, first related by Phlegon, the freedman of

Hadrian. Versions of it were current in the twelfth and sixteenth

centuries; and Goethe reproduced it in his "Bride of Corinth." We offer

a translation from the brief version of Michelet, who accuses Goethe of

bad taste for having introduced the Slavic idea of vampirism into a

purely Greek story.

* * * * *

A young Athenian goes to Corinth to visit the house of the man who has

promised him his daughter in marriage. He has always remained a pagan,

and does not know that the family into which he hopes to enter has been

converted to Christianity. He arrives at a very late hour. All are in

bed except the mother, who prepares a hospitable repast for him, and

then leaves him to repose. He throws himself upon a couch, overwhelmed

with fatigue. Scarcely has he closed his eyes, when a figure enters the

room; it is a girl, all clad in white, with a white veil; there is a

black-and-gold fillet about her brows. She beholds him. Astonishment!

Lifting her white hand, she exclaims:

"Am I then such a stranger in the house? Alas! poor recluse that I am!

But I am ashamed to be here. I shall now depart. Repose in peace!"

"Nay, remain, beautiful young girl! Behold! here are Ceres, Bacchus,

and, with thee, Love! Fear not! be not so pale!"

"Ah! touch me not, young man! I belong no more to joy. Through a vow

made by my sick mother, my youth and life are fettered forever. The

gods have fled away. And now the only sacrifices are sacrifices of human

victims."

"What! is it thou! thou, my beloved affianced, betrothed to me from

childhood! The oath of our fathers bound us together forever under the

benediction of heaven! Oh, virgin, be mine!"

"Nay, friend, nay!--not I. Thou shalt have my young sister. If I sigh in

my chill prison, thou mayst, at least, while in her arms, think of me,

of me who pines and thinks only of thee, and whom the earth must soon

cover again."

"Never! I swear it by this flame, it is the torch of Hymen. Thou shalt

come with me to my father's house. Remain, my well-beloved!"

For marriage-gift he offers her a cup of gold. She gives him her chain;

but prefers a lock of his hair to the cup.

It is the ghostly hour. She sips with her pale lips the dark wine that

is the color of blood. Eagerly he drinks after her. He invokes Love.

She, though her poor heart was dying for it, nevertheless resists him.

But he, in despair, casts himself upon the bed and weeps. Then she,

flinging herself down beside him, murmurs:

"Ah! how much hurt thy pain causes me! Yet shouldst thou touch me--what

horror! White as snow, cold as ice, alas! is thy betrothed!"

"I shall warm thee, love! come to me! even though thou hadst but this

moment left the tomb." Sighs and kisses are exchanged.... Love binds

and fetters them. Tears mingle with happiness. Thirstily she drinks the

fire of his lips; her long-congealed blood takes flame with amorous

madness, yet no heart beats in her breast.

But the mother was there; listening. Sweet vows; cries of plaint and

pleasure. "Hush," says the bride; "I hear the cock crow! Farewell, till

to-morrow, after nightfall." Then adieu, and the sound of kisses

smothering kisses.

Indignant, the mother enters. What does she behold! Her daughter! He

seeks to hide her--to veil her! But she disengages herself; and waxing

taller, towers from the couch to the roof.

"O, mother, mother! dost thou then envy me my sweet night? dost thou

seek to drive me from this warm place? Was it not enough to have wrapped

me in the shroud, and borne me so early to the tomb! But there was a

power that lifted the stone! Vainly did thy priests hum above my grave.

What avail salt and water where youth burns? The earth may not chill

love.... Thou didst promise me to this youth.... I come to claim my

right.

"Alack! friend, thou must die. Here thou must pine and wither away. I

possess thy hair; to-morrow it shall be white.... Mother, a last prayer!

Open my black dungeon; erect a funeral pyre; and let the sweetheart

obtain the repose that only flames can give. Let the sparks gush out,

let the ashes redden! We return to our ancient gods."--_La Sorcière_,

pages 32-34; edition of 1863.

* * * * *

Contents

TO THE READER

ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CLARIMONDE

ARRIA MARCELLA

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

OMPHALE: A ROCOCO STORY

KING CANDAULES

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

ADDENDA