Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite Part 25

A glance convinced the young man that he was not being watched. He ventured upon a caress after which women rarely resist when once they have allowed things to go so far. Then, in order to quench by a decisive argument the last scruples of expiring modesty, he put his purse in her hand, which happened by chance to be open.

Chrysis resisted no longer.

Meanwhile the young acrobat continued her subtle and dangerous tricks.

She walked upon her hands, with her skirt reversed, with her feet dangling in front of her head, between sharp swords and long keen blades. The effort occasioned by this critical posture, and perhaps also the fear of wounds, flooded her cheeks with dark warm blood, which heightened still further the glitter of her wide-open eyes. Her waist bent and straightened itself again. Her legs parted like the arms of a dancing girl.

A violent respiration agitated her naked breast.

"Enough," said Chrysis briefly: "you have only excited me a little. Let us have no more of it. Leave me. Leave me."

And at the moment when the two Ephesians rose, according to the tradition, to play _The Fable of Hermaphroditus_, she let herself slip down from the bed and went out feverishly.

III

RHACOTIS

Hardly had the door closed upon her than Chrysis pressed the inflamed centre of her desire with her hand as one presses a sore spot to relieve shooting pains. Then she leaned up against a column and twisted her fingers, groaning with anguish.

She would never know anything, then!

As the hours pa.s.sed, the improbability of her success increased, became flagrant. Brusquely to ask for the mirror was a very risky method of discovering the truth. In case it should have been taken, she would attract the suspicions of all to herself, and would be lost. On the other hand, she had left the banqueting hall out of sheer impatience.

Timon's clumsinesses had merely served to exasperate her dumb rage. A trembling fit due to over-excitement compelled her to apply her whole body to the freshness of the smooth, monstrous column. She felt an attack coming on and was afraid.

She called the slave Arelias:

"Keep my jewels for me: I am going out."

And she descended the seven stone steps.

The night was hot. Not a breath of wind to fan the heavy beads of sweat upon her forehead. The disappointment increased her discomfort and made her reel.

She walked along down the street.

Bacchis's house was situated at the extremity of Brouchion, on the limits of the native town, an enormous slum inhabited by sailors and Egyptian women. The fishermen, who slept upon their vessels anch.o.r.ed during the crippling heat of the day, came to pa.s.s their nights there till the break of dawn, and in return for a double intoxication left the harlots and the wine-sellers the price of the evening's catch.

Chrysis entered the narrow streets of this Alexandrian Suburra, full of sound, movement and barbarous music. She cast furtive glances through open doors into rooms reeking with lamp smoke, where naked couples lay enlaced together. At the cross-roads, on low trestles erected in front of the houses, multi-coloured mattresses creaked and tumbled in the shadow, under a double human load. Chrysis walked along with embarra.s.sment. A woman without a lover solicited her. An old man caressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A mother offered her her daughter. A gaping peasant kissed the back of her neck. She fled, in a sort of hot terror.

This foreign town within the Greek town was, for Chrysis, full of night and dangers. She was ill acquainted with the strange labyrinth, the intricacy of the streets, the secrets of certain houses. When, at rare intervals, she ventured to set foot in it, she always followed the same direct road towards a little red door; and there she forgot her usual lovers in the indefatigable arms of a young a.s.s-driver with strong muscles, whom she had the joy of paying in her turn.

But this evening, she felt even without turning her head that she was being followed by a double footstep.

She increased her pace. The double footstep did likewise. She began to run; the footsteps behind her ran also; then beside herself with terror, she took another alley, and then another in the opposite direction, and then a long street which stretched away in an unknown direction.

With dry throat and swollen temples, but sustained by Bacchis's wine, she pursued her flight, turned from right to left, pale, panic-stricken.

Finally, a wall blocked farther progress: she was in a blind alley. She tried hastily to double, but two sailors with brown hands barred the narrow pa.s.sage.

"Where are you going to, my little wisp of gold?" said one of them laughing.

"Let me pa.s.s."

"Eh? you are lost, young lady, you don't know Rhacotis well, eh? We are going to show you the town."

And they both took her by the waist. She shouted, and struggled, struck out with her fist, but the second sailor seized both her hands in his left hand and simply said:

"A little calm, please. You know that the Greeks are not loved here: n.o.body will come to your a.s.sistance."

"I am not Greek!"

"You lie, you have a white skin and a straight nose. Unless you want the stick, submit quietly."

Chrysis looked at the speaker, and suddenly fell on his neck.

"I love you, I will follow you," she said.

"You will follow both of us. My friend shall have his share. Walk with us: it will not be dull."

Where were they taking her to? She had not the least idea, but this second sailor's very rudeness, his brutish head pleased her. She considered him with the imperturbable glance that young b.i.t.c.hes have in the presence of meat. She bent her body towards him, to touch him as she walked.

With rapid steps they traversed strange quarters, without life, without lights. Chrysis could not understand how they threaded their way through this nocturnal maze out of which she never could have got alone on account of the curious intricacy of the streets. The closed doors, the deserted windows, the motionless shadows terrified her. Above her head, between the houses, that almost met, ran a pale ribbon of sky, flooded with moonlight.

Finally, they entered life once more. At a turning of the street, suddenly, eight, ten, eleven lights appeared, illuminated doorways occupied by Nabataean women squatting between two red lamps which cast a gleam from below upon their heads hooded with gold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She shouted and struggled.]

In the distance, they heard first a swelling murmur, and then a confused roar of chariots, tumbling bales, a.s.ses' footsteps, and human voices. It was the square of Rhacotis where, during the Alexandrian summer, all the provisions for nine hundred thousand mouths a day were collected and stacked up.

They pa.s.sed the houses of the square, between green piles, vegetables, lotus roots, smooth beans, baskets of olives. Chrysis took a handful of mulberries out of a violet heap, and ate them without stopping. Finally, they arrived before a low door and the sailors entered with her for whom had been stolen the True Pearls of Anadyomene.

There was an immense hall there. Five hundred men of the people sat waiting for the day, drinking cups of yellow beer, eating figs, lentils, sesame cakes, olyra bread. In their midst, swarmed a herd of yelping women, a whole field of black hair and multicoloured flowers in an atmosphere of fire. They were poor homeless girls who were the property of all. They came there to beg for sc.r.a.ps, bare-footed, bare-breasted, with a scanty red or blue rag tied round their bellies, carrying, for the most part, a tattered infant on their left arm. There were also dancing-girls, six Egyptians on a dais, with an orchestra of three musicians, the first two of whom smote ox-hide timbrels with drum-sticks, whilst the third wielded a great sistrum of sonorous bra.s.s.

"Oh! myxaira sweets!" said Chrysis gleefully.

And she bought two sous' worth of the little girl who hawked them.

But suddenly she swooned, overcome by the insupportable stink of this den, and the sailors carried her out in their arms.