"What happened to him? What did he die of?"
"Just like the others," the Professor replied, "just like Lieutenant
Woodhouse, like Captain Deligne, like Major Russell, like Colonel von
Wittman, like the forty-seven of yesterday and all those of
to-morrow."
"Of what did they die?" Morhange demanded imperatively in his turn.
The Professor looked at Morhange. I saw my comrade grow pale.
"Of what did they die, sir? _They died of love_."
And he added in a very low, very grave voice:
"Now you know."
Gently and with a tact which we should hardly have suspected in him,
M. Le Mesge drew us away from the statues. A moment later, Morhange
and I found ourselves again seated, or rather sunk among the cushions
in the center of the room. The invisible fountain murmured its plaint
at our feet.
Le Mesge sat between us.
"Now you know," he repeated. "You know, but you do not yet
understand."
Then, very slowly, he said:
"You are, as they have been, the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeance
is due Antinea."
"Vengeance?" said Morhange, who had regained his self-possession. "For
what, I beg to ask? What have the lieutenant and I done to Atlantis?
How have we incurred her hatred?"
"It is an old quarrel, a very old quarrel," the Professor replied
gravely. "A quarrel which long antedates you, M. Morhange."
"Explain yourself, I beg of you, Professor."
"You are Man. She is a Woman," said the dreamy voice of M. Le Mesge.
"The whole matter lies there."
"Really, sir, I do not see ... we do not see."
"You are going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an
extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of
the strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor
Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem
called _la Fille d'O-Taiti_. Wherever we look, we see similar examples
of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty
and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared.
She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the position
carefully, did not return with ships and troops of occupation."
"Your learning charms me," said Morhange. "Continue."
"Do you need examples? Alas! they abound. Think of the cavalier
fashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirhoë. What
should I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea with
inconceivable lightness. The Romans continued the tradition with still
greater brutality. Aenaeus, who has many characteristics in common
with the Reverend Spardek, treated Dido in a most undeserved fashion.
Caesar was a laurel-crowned blackguard in his relations with the
divine Cleopatra. Titus, that hypocrite Titus, after having lived a
whole year in Idummea at the expense of the plaintive Berenice, took
her back to Rome only to make game of her. It is time that the sons of
Japhet paid this formidable reckoning of injuries to the daughters of
Shem.
"A woman has taken it upon herself to re-establish the great Hegelian
law of equilibrium for the benefit of her sex. Separated from the
Aryan world by the formidable precautions of Neptune, she draws the
youngest and bravest to her. Her body is condescending, while her
spirit is inexorable. She takes what these bold young men can give
her. She lends them her body, while her soul dominates them. She is
the first sovereign who has never been made the slave of passion, even
for a moment. She has never been obliged to regain her self-mastery,
for she never has lost it. She is the only woman who has been able to
disassociate those two inextricable things, love and voluptuousness."