Pierre Lous

(From “Aphrodite”)

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[Pg 108]
[Pg 109]

CHAPTER I
THE GARDENS OF THE GODDESS

The temple of Aphrodite-Astarte stood outside the gates of the city in an immense domain full of flowers and shadows, where the waters of the Nile flowed through seven aqueducts and maintained at all seasons a state of wonderful fertility.

This forest of flowers on the sea-shore, these deep streams, these lakes and shady meadows had been created in the desert by Ptolemy I. Since that time the sycamores planted by his orders had become giants; through the fertilizing influence of the waters the lawns had grown into meadows; the ponds had become enlarged into lakes; Nature had turned a park into a country.

The gardens were more than a valley, more than a country, more than a land; they were a complete world enclosed within walls of stone, and ruled by a Goddess who was the soul and centre of this universe. All around this domain arose a circular terrace. Its boundary was not a wall, it was a colossal city, consisting of fourteen hundred houses. A like number of courtesans dwelt in this holy city and represented in this spot alone seventy different races.

These sacred houses were uniform in design, and had upon each door the courtesan’s name who dwelt there.

Upon each side of the door were two rooms without walls upon the side next to the gardens. The room to the right was where the courtesan arrayed in all her finery sat to await the arrival of her visitors. The room on the left was at the disposal of those who wished to pass the night in the open air without sleeping on the grass.

On opening the door a passage gave entrance to a vast courtyard paved with marble, the middle of which was adorned by an oval basin. A peristyle provided the shade around this great square of light, and formed a zone of coolness for the entrance to the seven rooms of the house. At the back stood the altar which was of red granite.

Every woman had brought from her own country a little image of the Goddess, and as it stood there upon the altar of the house it was worshipped by each one in her own tongue. LakmÎ Ashtoreth, Venus, Iskhtar, Freia, Mylitta, and Cypris were some of the holy names of their Divinity of Pleasure. Some worshipped the divinity in the symbolical shapes of a sea pebble, a conical stone, or a large prickly shell. In many of the houses there was upon a wooden stand a rough statuette with thin arms, large breasts, and huge thighs. They placed a myrtle branch at the feet of the idol, strewed the altar with rose-leaves, and burnt a grain of incense for each prayer which was granted. The Goddess was the confidante of all their sorrows, the witness of all their labours, and the supposed cause of all their pleasure. At the courtesan’s death the image was placed in her fragile coffin as a guardian of her tomb.

The most beautiful of these girls came from the kingdoms of Asia. Every year vessels bearing to Alexandria gifts from tributaries or allies landed besides their cargoes a hundred virgins chosen by the priests for the service of the sacred garden. They came from Mysia, Crete, Phrygia, Babylon, and the banks of the Ganges, and there were also Jewesses among them. Some were fair of skin with impassive faces and inflexible breasts; others were dark as the earth after rain, and had gold rings through their noses, and dark hair hanging down upon their shoulders. Some came from still more distant lands; they were slender, quiet little creatures, whose language no one understood and who looked like yellow monkeys. Their eyes were long, and their straight black hair was grotesquely arranged. These girls spent the whole of their lives like lost and frightened animals. They knew the gestures of love but declined to kiss upon the mouth. They amused themselves by playing childish games.

In a meadow apart, the fair and rosy daughters of the North lived together sleeping upon the grass. These were women from Sarmatia with triple-plaited hair, robust limbs, and square shoulders, who made themselves garlands of the branches of trees and wrestled among themselves for amusement; there were flat-nosed hairy Scythians and gigantic Teutons who terrified the Egyptians with their hair which was lighter than an old man’s and their flesh which was softer than a child’s; there were Gauls like animals, who laughed without reason, and young Celts with sea-green eyes, who never went out naked.

The women of Iberia, too, who had swarthy breasts, spent their days together. They had heavy masses of hair which was skilfully arranged and did not remove the hairs from their bodies. Their firm skins and strong limbs were much in favour with the Alexandrians. They were as often employed as dancers as taken for mistresses.

In the shade of the palm-trees dwelt the daughters of Africa, the Numidians veiled in white, the Carthaginians clad in black gauze, and Negresses clad in many-coloured costumes.

There were fourteen hundred women.

When a woman once entered the sacred garden, she never left it till the first day of her old age came upon her. She gave to the temple half of her gains and the rest sufficed for her food and perfumes.

They were not slaves and each one really possessed one of the Terrace houses; but all were not equally favoured and the more fortunate often purchased houses near their own which the owners sold to save themselves from growing thin through starvation. The latter then removed the image of their Divinity into the park and found an altar consisting of a flat stone, near which they took up their abode. The poor people knew this and sought out the women who slept in the open air near their altars; but sometimes they were neglected even by the poor, and then the unfortunate girls united in their misery, two and two, in a passionate friendship which became almost conjugal love, and shared their misfortunes.

Those without friends offered themselves as slaves to their more fortunate companions. They were forbidden to have in their service more than twelve of these poor girls, but these poor courtesans are mentioned as having the maximum number which was composed of a selection from many races.

If a courtesan bore a son, the child was taken into the precincts of the temple for the service of her divinity. When a daughter was born she was consecrated to the service of the Goddess. The first day of her life her symbolical marriage with the son of Dionysius was celebrated. Later she entered the Didascalion, a great school situated behind the temple where little girls learned in seven classes the theory and method of all the erotic arts; the glance, the embrace, the movements of the body, caresses and the secrets of the kiss. The pupil chose the day of her first experience because desire is a command from the Goddess which must not be disobeyed; on that day she received a house on the Terrace; and some of these children, though not yet nubile, were the most popular of all.

The interior of the Didascalion, the seven classes, the little theatre and the peristyle of the court were ornamented with ninety-two frescoes which comprised the teaching of love. They were the lifework of a man, Cleochares of Alexandria the natural son and disciple of Apelles, who had furnished them on his death-bed. Lately Queen Berenice, who was greatly interested in this famous school and had sent her little sisters there, had ordered from Demetrios a series of marble groups to complete the decoration; but only one of them had yet been placed in position in the infants’ school.

At the end of every year in the presence of all the famous courtesans, a great gathering took place at which there was extraordinary emulation among the women to win the twelve prizes offered, for they consisted of the entry into the Cotytteion, the greatest honour of which they ever dreamed.

This last monument was wrapped in such mystery that to-day it is not possible to give a detailed description of it. We only know that it was in the shape of a triangle the base of which was a temple to the Goddess Cotytto, in whose name frightful unheard-of debauchery was committed. The two other sides of the monument consisted of eighteen houses; thirty-six courtesans dwelt there, and were much sought after by wealthy lovers; they were the Baptes of Alexandria. Once every month, on the night of the full moon, they met within the temple maddened by aphrodisiacs. The oldest of the thirty-six had to take a fatal dose of the terrible erotogenous drug. The certainty of her immediate death made her try without fear all the dangerous pleasures from which the living recoil. Her body, which soon became covered with sweat, was the centre and model of the whirling orgie; in the midst of loud wailings, cries, tears and dancing the other naked women embraced her, mingled their hair in her sweat, rubbed themselves upon her burning skin and derived fresh ardour from the interrupted spasm of this furious agony. For three years these women lived in this way, and at the end of thirty-six months such was the intoxication of their end.

Other but less venerated sanctuaries had been built by the women in honour of the other names of Aphrodite. There was an altar consecrated to the Ouranian Aphrodite which received the chaste vows of sentimental courtesans; another to Aphrodite Apostrophia, where unfortunate love affairs were forgotten, and there were many others. But these separate altars were only efficacious and effective in the case of trivial desires. They were used day by day, and their favours were trivial ones. The suppliants who had their requests granted placed offerings of flowers on them, while those who were not satisfied spat upon them. They were neither consecrated nor maintained by the priests and consequently their profanation was not punishable.

The discipline of the Temple was very different.

The Temple, the Mighty Temple of the Great Goddess, the most holy place in the whole of Egypt, was a colossal edifice 336 feet in length with golden gates standing at the top of seventeen steps at the end of the gardens.

The entrance was not towards the East, but in the direction of Paphos, that is to say the north-west; the rays of the sun never penetrated directly into the Sanctuary. Eighty-six columns supported the architraves, they were all tinted with purple to half their height, and the upper part of each stood out with indescribable whiteness like the bust of a woman from her attire.

Within were placed sculptured groups representing many famous scenes, Europa and the Bull, LÊda and the Swan, the Siren and the dying Glaucos, the God Pan and a Hamadryad, and at the end of the frieze the sculptor was depicted modelling the Goddess Aphrodite herself.

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“Purify yourself, stranger.”

“I shall enter pure,” Demetrios said. With the end of her hair dipped in the holy water the young guardian of the gate moistened first his eyes, then his lips and then his fingers, so that his look, the kiss from his mouth and the caress of his hands were all sanctified.

Then he advanced into the wood of Aphrodite.

Through the darkening branches he saw the sun set a dark purple which did not dazzle the eyes. It was the evening of the day when his meeting with Chrysis had disturbed his life. That day he had seen a beautiful woman upon the jetty, and addressed himself to her. She had declined his advances though he was Demetrios the famous sculptor, a young, wealthy and handsome man and the accredited lover of Queen Berenice. To obtain her favour Chrysis, the courtesan, had imposed upon him three almost impossible conditions. She required him to present to her the silver mirror of Bacchis the famous courtesan, her friend, the ivory comb worn by Touni the wife of the High Priest, and last of all the necklace of pearls from the neck of the statue of the Goddess Aphrodite within the Holy Temple. The first two of her demands could be carried out possibly even without the shedding of blood, but her third behest would mean the committal of an act of sacrilege punishable by death, before which the boldest would hesitate. The feminine soul is so transparent, that men cannot believe it to be so. Where there is only a straight line they obstinately seek the complexity of an intricate path. This was why the soul of Chrysis, in reality as clear as that of a little child, appeared to Demetrios more mysterious than a problem in metaphysics. When he left her on the jetty, he returned home in a dream unable to reply to the questions which assailed him. What would she do with the three gifts she had ordered him to procure her? It was impossible for her to wear or sell a famous stolen mirror, the comb of a woman who had perhaps been murdered in its acquirement, or the necklace of pearls belonging to the Goddess. By retaining possession of them she exposed herself every day to a discovery which would be fatal to her. Then why did she ask for them? Was it to destroy them? He knew that women did not rejoice in secrets and that good luck only pleased them when it was well known to every one. Then, too, by what divination or clairvoyance had she judged him to be capable of accomplishing three such extraordinary deeds?

Surely if he had wished, Chrysis might have been carried off, placed in his power and become his mistress, his wife or his slave, as he pleased. He had too the chance of destroying her. Revolutions in the past had accustomed the citizens to deaths by violence, and no one was disturbed by the disappearance of a courtesan. Chrysis must know him, and yet she dared....

The more he thought of her the more her strange commands seemed to please him. How many women were her equal! how many had presented themselves to him in an unfavourable manner! What did she demand? Neither love, gold, nor jewels, but three impossible crimes! She interested him keenly. He had offered her all the treasures of Egypt: he realized now that if she had accepted them she would not have received two obols, and he would have wearied of her even before he had known her. Three crimes, assuredly, were an uncommon salary; but she was worthy to receive it since she was the woman to demand it, and he promised himself to go on with the adventure.

To give himself no time to repent of his resolutions that very day he went to the house of Bacchis, found it empty, took the silver mirror and fled into the gardens. Must he at once go to the second victim of Chrysis? Demetrios did not think so. The wife of the High Priest Touni, who possessed the famous ivory comb, was so charming and so weak that he feared to approach her without preliminary precautions. So he turned back and walked along the great Terrace.

The courtesans were outside their dwellings like a display of flowers. There was no less diversity in their attitudes and costumes than in their ages, types and nationalities. The most beautiful, according to the tradition of Phryne, only leaving the oval of their faces uncovered, were clad from their hair to their heels in great robes of fine wool. Others had adopted the fashion of transparent robes, through which their beauty could be distinguished in a mysterious way, as through limpid water one can see the patches of green weeds at the bottom of the river. Those whose only charm was their youth remained naked to the waist, and displayed the firmness of their breasts. But the older women, knowing how much more quickly a woman’s face grows old than does the skin of the body, sat quite naked, holding their breasts.

Demetrios passed very slowly in front of them without allowing himself to admire them.

He could never view a woman’s nakedness without intense emotion. He could not realize any feeling of disgust in the presence of the dead, or of insensibility with very young girls. That evening every woman could have charmed him. Provided she kept silence and did not display any more ardour than the minimum demanded by politeness her beauty did not matter. He preferred, also, that she should have a “coarse” body, for the more his thoughts were fixed upon perfect shapes the further away from them did his desire depart. The trouble, which the impression of living beauty gave to him, was of an exclusively cerebral sensuality which reduced to naught other excitation. He recollected with agony that he had remained for an hour like an old man by the side of the most admirable woman he had ever held in his arms. Since that night he had learned to select less pure mistresses.

“Friend,” a voice said, “do you not know me?”

He turned, shook his head and went on his way, for he never visited the same girl twice. That was the only principle he carried out in his visits to the gardens.

“Clonarion!”

“Gnathene!”

“Plango!”

“MnaÏs!”

“Crobyle!”

“Ioesa!”

They called out their names as he passed, and some added, as a further inducement, a phrase upon their own ardent nature. Demetrios continued his walk; he was inclined, as his usual custom was, to pick out one of them haphazard, when a little girl dressed in blue spoke to him softly.

“Open the door for me,” he said. “I wish to speak to you.”

The little girl jumped gaily to her feet and knocked twice with the knocker. An old slave opened the door.

“Gorgo,” the girl said, “bring some wine and cakes.”

She led the way into her chamber, which was very plain, like that of all very young courtesans. Two large beds, a little tapestry and a few chairs comprised the furniture, but through a large open bay could be seen the gardens, the sea, and the roadstead of Alexandria. Demetrios remained standing looking at the distant city.

The sun sinking behind the harbour, that incomparable glory of a coast town, the calm sky, the purple waters, were they not enough to bring silence to any soul bursting with joy or sorrow! What footsteps would they not stay, what pleasure suspend and what voice they not hush? Demetrios watched: a swell of torrent-like flame seemed to leap out from the sun which had half sunk into the sea and to flow straight to the curved edge of the wood of Aphrodite. From one to another of the two horizons the rich purple tone overran the Mediterranean in zones of shades without transition from golden red to pale purple. Between the moving splendour and the green mirror of the Mareotis lake the white mass of the city was clothed in reddish violet reflections. The different aspects of its twenty thousand flat houses marvellously speckled it with twenty thousand patches of colour perpetually changing with the decreasing phasis of the rays in the west. Now it was rapid and fiery; then the sun was engulfed with almost startling suddenness and the first approach of the night caused a tremor throughout the earth and a hidden breeze.

“Here are figs, sweets, honey and wine. You must eat the figs before it is dark.”

The girl came in with a laugh. She made the young man sit down and took up her position upon his knees, refastening, as she did so, a rose in her hair which was in danger of falling out.

Demetrios uttered an exclamation of surprise, she looked so young and childish that he felt full of pity for her.

“But you are not a woman!” he cried.

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

“How old are you?”

“Ten years and a half. Eleven years. You can say eleven. I was born in the gardens. My mother is a Milesian, her name is Pythias, nicknamed the ’Goat.’ Shall I send for her if you think I am too young? She has a soft skin and is very beautiful.”

“You have been to the Didascalion?”

“I am still there in the sixth class. I shall finish there next year; it will not be any too soon.”

“What don’t you like then?”

“Ah! if you only knew how hard to please the mistresses are. They make you begin the same lesson twenty-five times, and it is all about useless things which the men never desire. Then one tires oneself for nothing, and I do not like that. Come, have a fig; not that one, it is not ripe. I will show you a new way to eat them—look.”

“I know it. It takes longer, but it is not a better way. I believe you are a good pupil.”

“Oh! what I know I have learned by myself. The mistresses try to make out they are stronger than we are. They are more experienced, but they have not invented anything.”

“Have you many lovers?”

“They are all too old; it is inevitable. The young are so foolish! They only care for women of forty. I sometimes see one pass as good-looking as Eros, and you ought to see the woman he picks out—a hateful hippopotamus! It makes one turn pale. I hope I shall not live to be the age of those women; I should be ashamed to undress. That is why I am so glad that I am young. But let me kiss you. I like you very much.”

Here the conversation took a turn, and Demetrios soon saw that his scruples were unnecessary in the case of such a well-informed young woman.

“What is your name?” he asked her presently.

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

“I did not look at it.”

“You could see it in the room. It has been written on the walls. I shall soon have to have them repainted.”

Demetrios raised his head. The four walls of the room were covered with inscriptions.

“Well, that is very curious,” he said. “May I read them?”

“Yes, if you like. I have no secrets.”

He read them. The name of Melitta was there several times, coupled with various men’s names and strange designs. There were tender and comic phrases. Lovers detailed the charms of the little courtesan, or made jokes upon her. All that was not very interesting; but when he was near the end of his reading he gave a start of surprise.

“What is this? What is it? Tell me.”

“What? Where? What is the matter?”

“Here. This name. Who wrote that?” His finger was pointing to the name of Chrysis.

“Ah,” she replied, “I wrote that.”

“But who is Chrysis?”

“She is my great friend.”

“I don’t doubt that. That is not what I am asking you. Which Chrysis is it? There are so many.”

“Mine is the most beautiful Chrysis of Galilee.”

“You know her, then! Tell me about her! Where was her home? Where does she live? Who is her lover? Tell me all about her.”

He sat down upon the bed and took the girl upon his knees.

“Are you in love with her?” she said.

“What does it matter? Tell me what you know about her; I am anxious to hear.”

“Oh! I know nothing at all about her—very little indeed. She has been twice to see me, and you can imagine that I did not ask her questions about her relations. I was too pleased to see her to waste time in idle conversation.”

“What is she like?”

“She is like a pretty girl; what do you want me to say? Must I name all the parts of her body and say that they are all beautiful? Ah! she is a real woman.”

“You know nothing about her, then?” Demetrios asked.

“I know she comes from Galilee; that she is nearly twenty, and lives in the Jews’ quarter, on the east of the city, near the gardens. That is all.”

“Can you tell me nothing of her life or tastes?”

“The first night she came here she came with her lover. Then she came by herself, and she has promised to come and see me again.”

“Do you know any other friend of hers in the gardens?”

“Yes; a woman from her country——Chimairis, a poor woman.”

“Where does she live? I want to see her.”

“She sleeps in the wood. She has done so for a year. She sold her house. But I know where her nest is, and I can take you there if you wish. Put on my sandals for me, please.”

Demetrios rapidly fastened the leather thongs of the sandals upon Melitta’s little feet, and they went out together.

They walked for some distance. The park was immense. Here and there a girl beneath a tree called out her name as they passed. Melitta knew a few, whom she embraced without stopping. As she passed a worn altar she gathered three large flowers from the grass and placed them on the stone.

It was not yet quite dark. The intense light of the summer days has something durable about it which vaguely lingers in the dusk. The sprinkling of small stars, hardly brighter than the sky itself, twinkled gently, and the shadows of the branches remained vague and indefinite.

“Ah!” said Melitta, “here is mother.”

A woman clad in blue-striped muslin was coming slowly towards them. As soon as she saw the child she ran to her, picked her up in her arms, and kissed her fondly on the cheeks.

“My little girl! my little love, where are you going?”

“I am taking some one to see Chimairis. Are you taking a walk too?”

“Corinna has been confined. Have been to her, and I dined at her bedside.”

“Is it a boy?”

“Twins, my dear; as rosy as wax dolls. You can go and see her to-night; she will show them to you.”

“Oh, how nice! Two little courtesans. What are they to be called?”

“Pannychis—both of them, because they were born on the eve of the festival of Aphrodite. It is a divine omen. They will be beautiful!”

She put down the child, and, turning to Demetrios, said—

“What do you think of my daughter? Have I not good cause to be proud of her?”

“You can be satisfied with one another,” he calmly replied.

“Kiss mother,” Melitta said.

He did so, and Pythias kissed him on the mouth as they separated.

Demetrios went a little further still beneath the trees, while the courtesan turned her head to watch them. At last they reached the spot they sought, and Melitta said—

“Here it is.”

Chimairis was squatting on her left heel in a little turfy glade between two trees and a bush. She had beneath her a red rag, which was her sole remaining garment in the daytime, and on which she lay when the men passed. Demetrios looked at her with growing interest. She had the feverish look of some thin, dark women whose tawny bodies seem to be consumed by ever-present ardour. Her great lips, her eager gaze, her livid eyes, gave her a double expression—that of covetous sensuality and exhaustion. As Chimairis had sold everything—even her toilet instruments—her hair was in indescribable disorder, while the down upon her body gave her something of the appearance of a shameless and hairy savage.

Near her was a great stag, fastened to a tree by a gold chain which had once adorned her mistress’s breast.

“Chimairis,” Melitta said, “get up. Some one wants to speak to you.”

The Jewess looked, but did not move. Demetrios approached.

“Do you know Chrysis?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you see her often?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me about her?”

“No.”

“Why not? Can’t you do so?”

“No.”

Melitta was surprised.

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

“I can clearly see that he loves her,” Chimairis replied. “If he loves her he wishes her ill. If he loves her I will not speak.”

Demetrios trembled with anger, but did not speak.

“Give me your hand,” the Jewess said to him. “I will see whether I am mistaken.”

She took the young man’s left hand and turned towards the moonlight. Melitta leant over to watch, although she did not know how to read the mysterious lines; but their fatality attracted her.

“What do you see?” Demetrios asked.

“I see—may I tell you what I see? Shall you be pleased? Will you believe me? First of all I see happiness, but that is in the past. I see love, too, but that is lost in blood.”

“Mine?”

“The blood of a woman. Then the blood of another woman; and then, a little later, your own.”

Demetrios shrugged his shoulders.

Melitta uttered a cry.

“She is frightened,” Chimairis went on. “But this concerns neither her nor me. Events must come to pass, since we cannot prevent them. From before your birth your destiny was certain. Go away. I shall say no more.”

She let his hand drop.

---

“A woman’s blood. Afterwards the blood of another woman. Afterwards thine; but a little later.”

Demetrios repeated these words as he walked and a vague belief in them oppressed him with sadness. He had never believed in oracles drawn from the bodies of victims or from the movements of the planets. Such affinities seemed to him much too problematic. But the complex lines of the hand had of themselves a horoscopic aspect which was entirely individual and which he regarded with uneasiness. Thus the prediction remained in his mind.

He, too, gazed at the palm of his left hand where his life was displayed in mysterious and ineffaceable lines. He saw the signs without being able to understand their meaning, and passing his hand across his eyes he changed the subject of his meditation.

Chrysis, Chrysis, Chrysis.

The name beat in him like a fever. To satisfy her, to conquer her, to enclose her in his arms, to flee away with her to Syria, Greece, Rome or elsewhere, any place, in fact, where he had no mistresses and she no lovers: that was what he had to do and to do at once!

Of the three presents she had demanded one was already obtained. Two others remained to be procured, the comb and the necklace.

“First the comb,” he thought. He hastened his steps.

Every evening after sunset the wife of the High Priest sat with her back to the forest upon a marble seat from which a view of the sea could be obtained, and Demetrios was aware of this, for Touni, like many others, had been enamoured of him, and once she had told him that the day he desired her he could take her.

Thither he made his way.

She was there; but she did not see him approach; she was reclining with her eyes closed and her arms outstretched.

She was an Egyptian. Her name was Touni. She wore a thin tunic of bright purple without clasps or girdle, and with no other embroidery than two black stars upon her breasts. The thin stuff reached down to her knees and her little, round feet were shod with shoes of blue leather. Her skin was very swarthy, her lips were very thick, her fragile and supple waist seemed bowed down by the weight of her full breast. She was sleeping with open lips and quietly dreaming.

Demetrios took his seat in silence by her side.

He gradually drew nearer to her. A young shoulder, smooth and dark and muscular, delicately offered itself to him.

Lower down the purple muslin tunic was open at the thigh. Demetrios gently touched her, but she did not awake. Her dream changed but was not dispelled.

The eternal sea shimmered beneath a moon which was like a vast cup of blood, but still Touni slept on with bowed head.

The purple of the moon upon the horizon reached her from across the sea. Its glorious and fateful light bathed her in a flame which seemed motionless; but slowly the shadow withdrew from the Egyptian woman; one by one her black stars appeared, and at last there suddenly emerged from the shadows the comb, the royal comb desired by Chrysis.

Then the sculptor took in his two hands Touni’s sweet face and turned it towards him. She opened her eyes which grew big with surprise.

“Demetrios! Demetrios! You!”

Her two arms seized hold upon him.

“Oh!” she murmured in a voice vibrating with happiness, “oh! you have come, you are there. Is it you, Demetrios, who has awakened me with your hands? Is it you, son of my Goddess, O God of my body and life?”

Demetrios made a movement as if to draw back, but she at once came suddenly quite close to him.

“No,” she said, “what do you fear? I am not a woman to be feared by you, one surrounded by the omnipotence of the High Priest. Forget my name, Demetrios. Women in their lovers’ arms have no name. I am not the woman you believe me to be. I am only a creature who loves you and is filled with desire for you.”

Demetrios made her no answer.

“Listen once more,” she went on. “I know whom you possess. I do not desire to be your mistress, nor do I aspire to become my Queen’s rival. No, Demetrios, do with me what you will: look upon me as a little slave whom one takes and casts aside in a moment. Take me like one of the lowest of those poor courtesans who wait by the side of the pathway for furtive and abortive love. In fact what am I but one of them? Have the Gods given me anything more than they have bestowed upon the least of all my slaves? You at least have the beauty which comes from the Gods.”

Demetrios gazed at her still more gravely.

“What do you think, unhappy woman,” he asked, “also comes from the Gods?”

“Love.”

“Or death.”

She got up.

“What do you mean? Death.... Yes, death. But that is so far away from me. In sixty years’ time I shall think of it. Why do you speak to me of death, Demetrios?”

He simply said—

“Death to-night.”

She burst into a frightened laugh.

“This evening ... surely not ... who says so? Why should I die?... answer me, speak, what horrible jest is this?...”

“You are condemned.”

“By whom?”

“By your destiny.”

“How do you know that?”

“I knew it because I, too, Touni, am involved in your destiny.”

“And my destiny wills that I die?”

“Your destiny demands that you die by my hand upon this seat.”

He seized her by the wrist.

“Demetrios,” she sobbed in her fear, “I will not cry out. I will not call for help. Let me speak.”

She wiped the sweat from her forehead.

“If death comes to me through you, death will be pleasant. I will accept it, I desire it; but listen to me.”

She dragged him into the darkness of the wood, stumbling from stone to stone.

“Since you have in your hands,” she continued, “everything we receive from the Gods, the thrill which gives life and that which takes it away, open your two hands upon my eyes, Demetrios ... that of love and that of death, and if you do so, I shall die without regret.”

He gazed at her without replying, but she thought she could read assent in his face.

Transfigured for the second time she lifted up her face with a fresh expression in it, one of new-born desire driving away terror with the strength of desperation.

She said no more, but from between her parted lips each breath seemed to be a song of victory.

She seized him in her arms crying—

“Ah! Kill me ... kill me, Demetrios, why are you waiting!”

He rose, gazed once more at Touni as she lifted up her great eyes to him, and taking one of the two gold pins from her hair, he buried it in her left breast.

---

Yet this woman would have given him her comb and even her hair for love of him.

It was simply a scruple which had prevented him asking her for it: Chrysis had very clearly desired a crime and not the ancient ornament from a young woman’s hair. That was the reason he believed it his duty to take part in the shedding of blood.

He might have considered that oaths made to a woman during an access of love can be forgotten afterwards without any great harm being done to the moral worth of the lover who has sworn them, and that, if ever this involuntary forgetfulness were excusable, it was so in the circumstances when the life of another woman, who was quite innocent, was being weighed in the balance. But Demetrios did not stay to reason thus. The adventure he had undertaken seemed to him too curious to be stayed by incidents of violence.

So after cutting off Touni’s hair and concealing the ivory comb in his clothing, he without further reflection undertook the third of the tasks ordered by Chrysis: the taking of the necklace of Aphrodite.

There was no question of entering the temple by the great door. The twelve hermaphrodites who kept the door would no doubt have allowed Demetrios to enter, in spite of the order which refused admission to the unsanctified in the priest’s absence; but what was the use of thus simply establishing his guilt for the future when there was a secret entry leading to the sanctuary. Demetrios wended his way to a lonely part of the wood where the necropolis of the High Priests of the Goddess was situated. He counted the tombs, opened the door of the seventh, and closed it behind him.

With great difficulty, for the stone was heavy, he raised a slab within the tomb which disclosed a marble staircase and descended it step by step.

He knew that it was possible to take sixty steps in a straight line and then it was necessary to advance by feeling the wall to save falling down the subterranean staircase of the temple.

The coolness of this deep passage gradually calmed him. In a few minutes he reached the end of it, ascended steps and opened the door.

The night was clear in the open, but black in the holy place. When he had cautiously closed the heavy door, he felt himself to be trembling as if he had been gripped by the coldness of the stones. He dared not lift his eyes. The black silence terrified him; the darkness seemed to him alive with the unknown. He put his hand to his brow like a man who did not desire to awaken lest he might find himself alive. At last he had the courage to look.

In a gleam of bright moonlight the Goddess was visible upon a pedestal of red stone loaded with hanging treasures. She was naked and tenderly tinted like a woman; in one hand she held her mirror and with the other she was adorning her beauty with a necklace of seven rows of pearls. A pearl, larger than the rest, long and silvery, gleamed at her breast like a crescent. These were the actual holy pearls.

Demetrios was lost in ineffable adoration. He believed in truth that Aphrodite herself was there. He could no longer recognize his own work, so deep was the abyss between that which it used to be and had become. He extended his arms and murmured the mysterious words by which the Goddess is addressed in the Phrygian ceremonies.

Supernatural, luminous, immaculate, nude and pure the vision seemed to hover over the stone pedestal softly palpitating. He fixed his eyes upon it, though he feared that the caress of his gaze would make this feeble hallucination vanish in the air. He advanced slowly and touched with his finger the rosy toe as if to assure himself of the existence of the statue, and being incapable of stopping, so great was its attraction for him, he mounted and stood by its side, placing his hands upon the white shoulders and looking into the eyes.

He trembled, he faltered and began to laugh with joy. His hands wandered over the bare arms, and he clasped the cold hard waist with all his strength. He gazed at himself in the mirror, grasped the necklace of pearls, took it off, made it gleam in the moonlight and then fearfully replaced it. He kissed the hand, the round neck, the undulating throat and the half-open marble mouth. Then he withdrew to the edge of the pedestal and gazed tenderly at the lovely bowed head.

The hair of the statue had been arranged in the oriental fashion and lightly veiled the forehead. The half-shut eyes were prolonged in a smile. The lips were separated as if vanquished by a kiss.

He silently replaced the seven rows of round pearls upon the glorious breast and descended to gaze upon the idol from a greater distance.

Then he seemed to awaken. He remembered his errand which he had up to then failed to accomplish, and realized how monstrous a project it was. He felt his blood burn to the temples.

The memory of Chrysis came to him like a common apparition. He enumerated everything which was at all doubtful in the courtesan’s beauty; her full lips, her dishevelled hair and her careless walk. He had forgotten what her hands were like, but he imagined them to be large in order to add an odious detail to the picture which he was attempting to reject. His state of mind was like that of a man who had been surprised at dawn by his dear mistress in the arms of a common girl, and could offer no explanation to himself as to why he allowed himself the previous evening to be tempted. He could find no excuse for himself nor even a serious reason. Evidently during the day he had suffered from a fit of passing madness, a physical trouble, a malady. He felt himself to be cured but still intoxicated with stupefaction.

To complete the recovery of his senses he leant against the temple wall and stood for a long time before the statue. The moonlight continued to shine through the square opening in the roof; Aphrodite shone resplendent; and as the eyes of the statue were in the shadow he tried to catch their expression.

He spent the whole night like this. Then daylight came and the statue in turn assumed the living rose colour of the dawn and the golden tint of the sunlight.

Demetrios could no longer think. The ivory comb and the silver mirror which he carried within his tunic had disappeared from his memory. He gently abandoned himself to serene contemplation.

Outside the confused singing and twittering of the birds sounded in the gardens. The talking and laughing of women’s voices could be heard outside the walls. The life and movement of the morning was spreading over the awakened land. Demetrios was full of pleasant ideas.

The sun was high and the shadow from the roof had moved before he heard the confused sound of light footsteps on the outer staircase.

No doubt it was the prelude of a sacrifice to the Goddess by a procession of young women, who came to perform their vows or to offer up their prayers before the statue on the first day of the festival of Aphrodite.

Demetrios wished to flee. The sacred pedestal opened at the back in a way that only the priests and the sculptor knew. That was the position occupied by the hierophant from which he recited to a young girl with a clear strong voice the miraculous discourse which came from the statue on the third day of the festival. From that place the gardens could be reached. Demetrios entered and stood before a bronze-edged opening which pierced the thick stone.

The two golden gates slowly opened. Then the procession entered.

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

She was sleeping with her two friends Rhodis and Myrtocleia, and rising cautiously she went down and half opened the door.

A voice came from without. “Who is it, Djala? Who is it?” she asked.

“Naucrates wishes to speak to you. I told him that you were engaged.”

“Oh, how foolish! Most certainly I will see him. I am not engaged. Come in, Naucrates. I am in my chamber.”

She went back to bed. Naucrates remained for a moment at the door as if he feared to be indiscreet. The two girls, who were musicians, opened their sleepy eyes but could not rend themselves from their dreams.

“Sit down,” said Chrysis. “There need be no false modesty between us two. I know that you have not come to see me. What do you want?”

Naucrates was a well-known philosopher who for more than twenty years had been the lover of Bacchis and had not deceived her, though more from indolence than fidelity be it said. His grey hair was cut short, his beard was pointed after the manner of Demosthenes and his moustaches were even with his lips. He wore a great white woollen robe.

“I have brought you an invitation,” he said. “Bacchis is giving a dinner to-morrow to be followed by a fÊte. We shall be seven including yourself. Be sure you come.”

“A fÊte? What is the occasion?”

“She has given freedom to her most beautiful slave Aphrodisia. There will be dancers and musicians. I think your two friends are engaged to be there, and ought not to be here now. They are at this moment rehearsing at Bacchis’ house.”

“Oh! that is right,” Rhodis cried, “we had forgotten it. Arise, Myrto, we are very late.”

But Chrysis declared—

“No! not yet! It is too bad to take away my friends. If I had suspected I should not have admitted you. Oh! they are dressed already!”

“Our dresses are not very elaborate,” the girl answered. “We are not beautiful enough to spend much time over our toilettes.”

“Shall I then see you at the temple at some hour to-morrow?” Chrysis asked them.

“Yes, to-morrow morning, we shall take doves as our offering. I am taking a drachma from your purse, Chrysis. We shall not otherwise have the money to purchase them. Good-bye till to-morrow.”

They ran out. Naucrates gazed for some time at the door which had closed behind them, then he rose, saying—

“Can I tell Bacchis that she may reckon upon you?”

“I will come,” Chrysis replied.

The philosopher bowed to her and slowly departed.

As soon as he had gone Chrysis clasped her hands and spoke aloud although she was alone.

“Bacchis, Bacchis, he comes from her and does not know. Is the mirror then still in her possession? Demetrios has forgotten me. If he has hesitated on the first day, I am lost, he will do nothing. But it is quite possible that he has obtained it. Bacchis has other mirrors which she uses more often. Without a doubt she has not found out yet. Ye Gods! Ye Gods! there is no way of finding out. Ah! Djala! Djala!”

The slave entered.

“Give me my dice. I wish to throw them,” Chrysis said.

She tossed in the air the four dice.

“Oh! oh! Djala, look!”

The throw had resulted in the dice each presenting a different face. It was thirty-five chances to one against this happening and it was the highest scoring throw of all.

Djala coldly observed—

“What did you wish?”

“Quite true,” Chrysis said in disappointed tones. “I forgot to utter a wish. I thought of something but said nothing. Does not that count just the same?”

“I don’t think so; you must start again.”

Chrysis made a second throw. This time the result was not decisive, it resulted in both good and bad omens and required another throw to make its meaning clear.

The third throw Chrysis made with one of the dice only, and when she saw the result burst into tears.

Djala said nothing but was herself uneasy. Chrysis lay upon her bed weeping with her hair in disorder. At last she turned round with an angry movement.

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

“It would have done if you had expressed a wish, but you did not. You are the only one who knows what your desire was.”

“Besides, dice prove nothing. It is a Greek game. I don’t believe in it. I am going to try something else.”

She dried her tears and crossed the room. She took from the table a box of white counters, selected twenty-two of them, and then with the point of a pearl hook scratched one after the other the letters of the Hebrew alphabet upon them.

“I rely upon this. It never deceives one,” she said. “Raise the front of your robe, that shall be my bag.”

She threw the twenty-two counters into the slave’s tunic, repeating in her mind—

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

She drew out the tenth arcanum which clearly meant—

“Yes.”

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

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

An old white-bearded priest, enveloped from head to foot in stiff unbleached stuff walked in front of this procession of youth and guided towards the stone altar the line of devout worshippers.

They sang, and their song rose and fell like the sound of the sea and the winds. The first two carried harps, which they held in the palm of their left hands and bent forward like sickles of slender wood.

One of them advanced and said—

“Tryperha, beloved Cypris, offers thee this blue veil which she has spun herself so that thou mayst continue thy goodness to her.”

Another said—

“Mousairon lays at the feet of the Goddess of the beautiful crown, these garlands and bouquets of flowers. She has worn them at the fÊte and has invoked thy name in the intoxication of their perfumes. O Conqueror, receive these spoils of love.”

Another one said—

“As an offering to thee, golden CytherÆ, Timo consecrates this sinuous bracelet. Mayst thou entwine thy vengeance around the throat of the one thou knowest, as this silver serpent entwined itself about these naked arms.”

Myrtocleia and Rhodis advanced hand in hand.

“Here are two doves from Smyrna with wings as white as caresses and feet as red as kisses. O double Goddess of Amathonte, accept them from our joint hands if it is true that the fair Adonis did not satisfy thee and a still more sweet embrace sometimes disturbed thy slumbers.”

A very young courtesan followed, saying—

“Aphrodite Peribasia receive my virginity with this stained tunic of mine. I am Pannychis of Pharos; since last night I have vowed myself to thy worship.”

Another said—

“Dorothea begs thee, charitable Epistrophia, to banish from her mind the desire placed there by Eros or at least to inflame for her the eyes of the lover who refuses her. She presents to thee this branch of myrtle because it is the tree thou preferest.”

Another said—

“Upon thy altar, Paphia, Calliston places sixty drachmas of silver, the balance of a gift she has received from Cleomenes. Give her a still more generous lover, if the offering seems to thee acceptable.”

The only one left in front of the idol was a blushing child who had taken the last place. She held in her hand nothing but a tiny garland of flowers, and the priest treated her with contempt because of the smallness of her offering.

She said—

“I am not rich enough to give thee pieces of gold, great Goddess. Besides, what could I give thee which thou dost not already possess. Here are green and yellow flowers woven as a garland for thy feet.”

The procession seemed to be at an end and the other courtesans were about to retrace their steps when a woman was seen standing at the door.

She had nothing in her hand and seemed to have come to offer her beauty to the Goddess. Her hair was like two waves of gold, two deep billows full of shadow engulfing the ears and twisted in seven turns at the throat. Her nose was fine, with expressive and palpitating nostrils, and beneath it was a full and coral coloured mouth with rounded mobile corners to it. The supple lines of the body undulated at each step she took.

Her eyes were wonderful; they were blue but dark and gleaming as well, and changed like moonstones, as she held them half closed beneath her long lashes. The glances of those eyes were like the sirens’ songs.

The priest turned towards her and waited for her to speak.

She said—

“Chrysis offers up her prayer to thee, O Chrysea. Receive the paltry offering she lays at thy feet. Hear and aid, love and solace her who lives according to thy pattern and for the worship of thy name.”

She extended her hands golden with rings and bowed her knees before the Goddess.

The vague chant recommenced. The sound of the harps ascended towards the statue with the smoke of the incense which the priest was burning in a swinging censor.

She slowly rose and presented a bronze mirror which had been hanging at her girdle.

“To thee,” she said, “Astarte, Goddess of the Night, who minglest hands and lips and whose symbol is like unto the footprint of the hinds upon the earth of Syria, Chrysis consecrates her mirror. It has seen the eyes and the gleam of love in them, the hair clinging to the temples after the rites of thy ceremonial, O thou warrior with relentless hands thou mingler of bodies and mouths.”

The priest placed the mirror at the foot of the statue. Chrysis drew from her golden hair a long comb of red copper, the sacred metal of the Goddess.

“To thee,” she said, “Anadyomene, who wast born of the blood-hued dawn and the foaming smile of the sea, to thee, whose nakedness is like the gleam of pearls, who fastenest thy moist hair with ribbons of seaweed, Chrysis dedicates her comb. It has been plunged in her hair disordered by movements in thy name.”

She handed the comb to the old man and leant her head to the right to take off her emerald necklace.

“To thee,” she said, “O Hetaira, who wipest away the blushes of shamefaced virgins and teaches them the immodest laugh, to thee, for whom we barter our love, Chrysis dedicates her necklace. She received it from a man whose name she does not know and each emerald represents a kiss where thou hast dwelt for a moment.”

She bowed herself once again and for a longer space as she placed the necklace in the priest’s hands and took a step as if to depart.

But the priest detained her.

“What do you ask from the Goddess in return for these precious offerings?”

She smiled and shook her head, saying—

“I ask for nothing.”

Then she walked along the row of women, took a rose from a basket and raised it to her lips as she went out.

One by one all the women followed her and the door closed upon an empty temple.

Demetrios had remained alone concealed in the bronze pedestal.

He had not lost a gesture or a word of the whole of this scene, and when it was ended he remained for a long while without moving, being once again in a state of torment, passion and irresolution.

He had believed himself cured of the madness of the previous night and thought that nothing could ever again hurl him into this shadow of the unknown.

But he had reckoned without the woman.

Women! women! if you desire to be loved, show yourself, return, be ever-present! The emotion he had felt at the entrance of the courtesan was so overwhelming and complete that there could be no thought of opposing it by an effort of the will. Demetrios was bound like a barbarian slave to the conqueror’s chariot. The thought that he had freed himself was a delusion. Without knowing it and quite naturally she had placed her hand upon him.

He had seen her approach, for she wore the same yellow robe she had done when he met her on the jetty. She walked with slow and graceful steps with undulating motion of the hips. She had come straight towards him as if she guessed he were concealed behind the stone.

From the first he realized that he had again fallen at her feet. When she took from her girdle the mirror of shining bronze, she gazed at herself in it for a time before handing it to the priest, and the splendour of her eyes became dazzling. When to take her copper comb she put her hand to her hair and lifted her bent arm, the beautiful lines of her body were displayed beneath her robe and the sunlight glistened upon the tiny beads of perspiration on her skin. When, last of all, to unfasten and take off her necklace of heavy emeralds she put aside the thick silk which shielded her breast and left but a little space full of shadow with just room for the insertion of a bouquet, Demetrios felt himself seized with frenzy.

But then she began to speak and each word of hers was suffering to him. She, a beautiful vase, white as the statue itself and with gleaming golden hair, seemed to insist upon pleasure. She told of her deeds in the service of the Goddess. Even the ease with which her favours were obtainable attracted Demetrios to her. How true it is that a woman is not entirely seductive to her lover unless she gives him ground for jealousy!

So, after presenting to the Goddess her green necklace in exchange for the one for which she was hoping, when Chrysis returned to the city she took with her a man’s will in her mouth with the little rose the stalk of which she was biting.

Demetrios waited till he was alone in the holy place; then he emerged from his retreat.

He looked at the statue in anguish expecting a struggle within him. But being incapable of renewing, after so short an interval, such violent emotion, he remained wonderfully calm and without any preliminary remorse.

He carelessly ascended to the statue, took off the necklace of real pearls from its bowed neck and concealed it within his raiment.

He walked very rapidly in the hope of overtaking Chrysis on the road leading to the city, fearing if he lingered that he might become cowardly and irresolute once again.

The road, white with heat, was so luminous that Demetrios closed his eyes as if he had been in the midday sunlight. In that way he walked without seeing where he was going, and he had only just escaped colliding with four black slaves who were walking in front of a cortÈge when a little musical voice softly said—

“Beloved! how glad I am!”

He lifted his head: it was Queen Berenice reclining in her litter.

She ordered the bearers to stop and stretched out her arms to her lover.

Demetrios was much annoyed; but he could not refuse, so he slipped into the litter, with a sullen air.

Then Queen Berenice was filled with joy and rolled upon her cushions like a playful cat.

Now this litter was a room and twenty-four slaves carried it. Twelve women could easily lie within amid its blue tapestry, cushions and stuffs; and it was so lofty that it was not possible to touch the ceiling even with a fan. It was greater in length than in breadth, closed in front, but on the other three sides there were three very light yellow curtains, through which the light came with dazzling brightness. The floor was of cedar-wood covered with orange silk. Within it a lighted lamp struggled with the daylight and its ever changing shadows. Here Queen Berenice reclined between two Persian slaves who gently fanned her with fans of peacock’s feathers.

She invited the young sculptor to her side with a look and repeated—

“Beloved, I am pleased.” She put her hand upon his cheek.

“I was seeking you, beloved. Where have you been? I have not seen you since the day before yesterday. If I had not met you I should have shortly died of grief. Alone in this great litter I was very dull. When passing over the bridge of HÊrmes I threw all my jewels into the water to make rings. You can see that I have neither rings nor necklaces now. I am like a little pauper at your feet.”

She turned to him and kissed him upon the lips. The two fan-bearers withdrew a little further, and when Queen Berenice began to speak in a low voice they put their fingers in their ears to pretend that they were not listening.

But Demetrios did not reply, for he hardly heard her and was quite deranged. He could only see the young Queen’s smile on her red lips, and the black cushion of her hair which was always loosely arranged to serve as a pillow for her weary head.

She said—

“Beloved, I have wept during the night. My bed was cold. When I awakened, I stretched out my naked arms on each side of my body and I did not touch you, nor could my hand find this hand of yours I am now embracing. I expected you in the morning and since the full moon you have not come. I sent my slaves into every quarter of the city and I condemned them to death when they returned without you. Where have you been? Were you at the Temple? You were not in the gardens with the foreign women? No, I can see from your eyes that you were not. Then what were you doing so long away from me? Were you before the statue? Yes, I am sure you were there. You love it more now than you love me. It is very like me, it has my eyes, my mouth, my breasts; but that is what you seek. As for me I am poor and forlorn. You are weary of me and I can see it clearly. You think of your marble and your ugly statues as if I were not more beautiful than all of them, as well as being alive, loving, good, ready to give all that you will accept and resigned to your refusals. But you will have nothing. You would not be king, you would not be a god and worshipped in a temple of your own. You will hardly, even, consent to love me now.”

She withdrew her feet beneath her and leant upon her hand.

“I would do anything in the world to see you at the palace, beloved. If you no longer desire me tell me who attracts you and she shall be my friend. The women of my court are beautiful. I have twelve who from their birth have been kept in my gynÆceum and are ignorant that men exist. They shall all be your mistresses if you come and see me after them. Others I have with me who have had more lovers than the sacred courtesans and are expert in love. Say one word. I have, too, a thousand foreign slaves: those you desire shall be given to you. I will dress them like myself, in yellow silk, gold and silver.

“No, you are the handsomest and coldest of men. You love no one, you lend yourself simply out of charity for those whom your eyes have filled with love. You allow me to obtain my happiness from your presence, but only in the way a beast allows itself to be led, looking elsewhere. You are full of condescension. Ye Gods! Ye Gods! I shall end by separating from you, young coxcomb whom all the city adores and no one can make weep. I have others besides women at the palace. I have strong Ethiopians who have chests of bronze and arms knotted with muscles. I shall soon forget you. But the day I am sure that your absence no longer makes me suffer, that I have replaced you, I will send you from the top of the bridge of HÊrmes to join my necklaces and rings like a jewel I have worn too long. Ah! what it is to be a queen!”

She raised herself and seemed to be waiting for an answer. But Demetrios still remained impassible and made no more movement than if he had not heard.

“Do you not understand?”

He nonchalantly leant upon his elbow as he said in a very unconcerned way—

“I have just had an idea for a story.

“Long ago before Thrace was conquered by your father’s ancestors it was overrun by wild animals and a few timid men dwelt there as well.

“The animals were very fine; there were lions red as the sun, tigers streaked like the evening and bears black as night.

“The men were small and flat-nosed, clad in old hairless skins, and armed with big spears and clumsy bows. They hid themselves in mountain caves, behind huge blocks of stone which they moved with the greatest difficulty. Their life was spent in hunting. There was blood in the forests.

“The land was so mournful that the Gods had deserted it. When at the break of day Artemis left Olympus his path was never towards the north. The wars there never disturbed Ares. The absence of flutes and citharas turned away Apollo from it. The triple Hecate shone there alone like the face of a Medusa upon a petrified land.

“Now a man came there to dwell; a man of a more fortunate race, who did not walk about clad in skins like the savages in the mountains.

“He wore a long white robe which trailed behind him a little. Through the beautiful glades of the forest he loved to wander at night in the moonlight holding in his hand a little lute with three silver strings.

“When his fingers touched the strings delightful music came from them, music sweeter than the sound of the springs or the whispers of the wind in the trees or the noise of grass shaken by the wind. The first time he began to play three sleeping tigers awakened, and so charmed were they that they did him no injury but came as near as possible to him while he was playing and afterwards withdrew. The next day still more animals came to listen, wolves, hyÆnas and serpents upright upon their tails.

“After a very short time the animals themselves came and asked him to play to them. It often happened that a bear came to him alone and went away satisfied with three marvellous chords. In return for his kindness the beasts gave him his food and protected him against men.

“But he wearied of this fastidious life. He became so sure of his genius and of the pleasure he gave the beasts that he no longer troubled to play well. The animals were always satisfied as long as he played to them. Soon he even refused to give them this pleasure, and through idleness ceased to play to them at all. The whole of the forest was sad, but the morsels of food and tasty fruits did not cease to be brought to the musician’s door. They continued to feed him and loved him all the more. After this fashion are the hearts of animals made.

“Now one day while he was leaning at his open door and watching the sun sink behind the motionless trees a lioness passed near him. He made a movement as if to go inside as if he expected a request which would displease him. The lioness took no notice of him and quietly passed on.

“Then he asked her in surprise: ’Why do you not ask me to play?’ She replied that she did not care for it. He said: ’Do you not know me?’ She replied: ’You are Orpheus.’ He went on; ’And you do not desire to hear me?’ She repeated: ’I do not.’ ’Oh!’ he cried, ’Oh! how greatly I am to be pitied! It is to you alone I always wished to play. You are much more beautiful than the others and you would understand so much better! If you will only listen to me for one hour, I will procure for you everything you have ever desired to possess.’ She replied: ’I order you to steal the fresh food belonging to the men of the plains. I command you to assassinate the first one you meet. I command you to steal the victims they have offered to their Gods and lay them at my feet.’ He thanked her for not demanding more and did as she required.

“For an hour he played to her; but afterwards he broke his lute and lived as if he were dead.”

The Queen sighed.

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

He rose.

“I did not tell it for you to understand. I told you a story to calm you a little. Now it is late. Adieu, Berenice.”

She began to weep.

“I was sure of it! I was sure of it!”

He laid her like a child upon her soft bed of silky stuffs; with a smile placed a kiss upon her tearful eyes then calmly descended the steps of the great litter.

[Pg 192]
[Pg 193]