Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite Part 37

"What an idea!"

"No, I thought so. It is therefore out of pure cruelty that you incited me to ravish them at the price of the three crimes with which the whole town resounds to-day. Well, you are going to wear them."

"What?"

"You must go into the little enclosed garden where the statue of the Stygian Hermes is. This place is always deserted, and you will run no risk of being disturbed. You will take off the G.o.d's left heel. The stone is broken, you will see. Then, in the interior of the pedestal, you will find Bacchis's mirror, and you will place it in your hand; you will find the great comb of Nitaoucrit, and will place it in your hair; you will find the seven pearl necklaces of the G.o.ddess Aphrodite, and you will put them on your neck. Thus adorned, beautiful Chrysis, you will go about the town. The crowd will deliver you to the Queen's soldiers, but you will have what you desired, and I will go and see you in your prison before sunrise."

V

THE GARDEN OF HERMANUBIS

Chrysis's first impulse was to shrug her shoulders. She would not be so ingenuous as to keep her word.

The second was to go and see.

A rising curiosity impelled her toward the mysterious place where Demetrios had hidden the three criminal trophies. She wanted to take them, to touch them with her hands, to make them gleam in the sunlight, to possess them for an instant. It seemed to her that her victory would not be quite complete so long as she should not have seized the booty of her ambitions.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

As for Demetrios: she would find the means of recapturing him ultimately. How was it possible to believe that he had emanc.i.p.ated himself from her for ever? The pa.s.sion she attributed to him was not one of those that die out in a man's heart irrevocably. The women one has once greatly loved form a family of election in a man's hearts and the meeting with a former mistress, even though hated or forgotten, excites an unexpected disorder of the soul whence the new love may burst forth.

Chrysis was not ignorant of this. However ardent she might be herself, however anxious to conquer the first man she had ever loved, she was not mad enough to buy him at the cost of her life when she saw so many other methods of seducing him more simply.

And yet . . . what a blessed end he had proposed to her!

Under the eyes of an innumerable crowd, bear the antique mirror into which Sappho had gazed, the comb which had held in place the royal hair of Nitaoucrit, the necklace of marine pearls that had rolled in the sh.e.l.l of the G.o.ddess Anadyomene . . . Then, from the evening till the morning drink madly of all the sensations with which the wildest love can inspire a woman . . . and towards the middle of the day, die without effort . . . what an incomparable destiny!

She closed her eyes . . .

But no: she would not allow herself to be tempted.

She crossed Rhacotis and mounted the street which led in a straight line to the Great Serapeion. This road, constructed by the Greeks, seemed incongruous in this quarter of angular alleys. The two populations mingled oddly, in a promiscuity from which hatred was not absent.

Amongst the blue-s.h.i.+rted Egyptians, the unbleached tunics of the h.e.l.lenes made splashes of white. Chrysis mounted rapidly, without listening to the conversations in which the people discoursed of the crimes committed for her sake.

Before the steps of the monument, she turned to the right, took an obscure street, then another, the houses of which almost touched, crossed a little star-shaped square where two swarthy little girls were playing in a sunny fountain, and finally she stopped.

The garden of Hermes Anubis was a little necropolis long ago abandoned, a sort of no man's land to which parents no longer brought the libations to the dead, and that the pa.s.sers-by avoided. In the midst of the crumbling tombs, Chrysis advanced in the greatest silence, quaking with fear at every stone that clattered under her feet. The wind, always charged with fine sand, blew her hair over her temples and sent her veil of scarlet silk floating towards the white leaves of the sycamores.

She discovered the statue between three monuments that hid it on all sides and enclosed it in a triangle. The spot was well chosen for the concealment of a mortal secret.

Chrysis forced her way as best she could through the narrow, stony pa.s.sage; on seeing the statue she paled slightly.

The jackal-headed G.o.d was in a standing att.i.tude, with his right leg advanced, and with his hair falling on his shoulders. This hair was pierced by two holes for the arms.

The head on the top of the rigid body was bent downwards and contemplated the movement of the hands as they performed the characteristic gesture of the embalmer. The left foot was loose.

Looking round slowly and fearfully, Chrysis made sure that she was quite alone. A little noise behind her made her start; but it was only a green lizard slipping away into a marble fissure.

Then she ventured at last to lay hold of the broken foot of the statue.

She lifted it obliquely, and not without difficulty, for it was attached to a loose fragment of the hollow pedestal. And under the stone she suddenly saw the gleam of the enormous pearls.

She withdrew the necklace altogether. How heavy it was! She would never have imagined that unmounted pearls could weigh with such a weight upon the hand. The pearl globes were all marvellously round and of an almost lunar water. The seven strings succeeded one another in ever-widening circles, like circular clouds on a star-studded lake.

She put it round her neck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On seeing the statue she paled slightly.]

She arranged it in tiers with one hand, closing her eyes in order the better to feel the coldness of the pearls on her skin. She disposed the seven tiers regularly along her naked breast, and thrust the last one into the warm channel between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Then she took the ivory comb, considered it for a time, caressed the white figurine carved in the dainty coronal, and plunged the jewel into her hair several times before fixing it exactly as she wished.

Then she drew the silver mirror from the pedestal, looked at herself in it, saw her triumph in it, her eyes gleaming with pride, her shoulders adorned with the spoils of the G.o.ds . . .

And enveloping herself to the hair in her great purple cyclas, she left the necropolis, taking with her the terrible jewels.

VI

THE WALLS OF PURPLE

Then, out of the mouth of the hierodules, the people had learnt the certainty of the sacrilege for the second time, they gradually melted away through the gardens.

The courtesans of the temple crowded by hundreds along the paths of black olive trees. Some scattered ashes on their heads. Others beat their foreheads on the ground, or pulled out their hair, or tore their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as a sign of calamity. Many sobbed, with their heads in their hands.

The crowd descended into the town in silence, along the Dromos and along the quay. Universal mourning spread consternation throughout the streets. The shopkeepers had hastily taken in their multicoloured stands, from fear, and wooden shutters kept in place by iron bars succeeded one another like a monotonous palisade on the ground-floor of windowless houses.

The life of the harbour had come to a stand-still. The sailors sat motionless on the street-posts, with their cheeks in their hands. The s.h.i.+ps ready to leave had taken in their long oars and clewed up their pointed sails along the masts rocking in the wind. Those who wished to enter the harbour waited for the signals out in the open, and some of their pa.s.sengers, who had relatives at the queen's palace, believing a b.l.o.o.d.y revolution was in progress, sacrificed to the infernal G.o.ds.

At the corner of the island of Pharos and the quay, Rhodis recognised Chrysis standing near her in the crowd.

"Ah! Chrysis! take me under your care! I am afraid! Myrto is here! but the crowd is so great . . . I am afraid that we shall be separated. Take us by the hand."

"You know," said Myrtocleia, "you know what is happening? Do they know the culprit? Is he being tortured? Nothing like it has ever been seen since Hierostratos. The Olympians are deserting us. What is going to become of us?"