Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite Part 44

Certainly I will help you. Go and join your friend and wait for me, I am coming."

Turning to the four women . . .

"Go to my house," he said, "by the street of the Potters. I shall be there in a short time. Do not follow me."

Rhodis was still sitting in front of the corpse. When she saw Timon coming, she implored him:

"Do not tell! We have stolen it to save her shade. Keep our secret, we will love you, Timon."

"Have no fears," said the young man.

He took the body under the shoulders and Myrto took it under the knees, and they walked on in silence, with Rhodis tottering along behind.

Timon said not a word. For the second time in two days, human pa.s.sion had carried off one of the transitory guests of his bed, and he marvelled at the unreason that drove people out of the enchanted road that leads to perfect happiness.

"Impa.s.sivity," he thought, "indifference, quietude, voluptuous serenity!

who amongst men will appreciate you? We fight, we struggle, we hope, when one thing only is worth having: namely, to extract from the fleeting moment all the joys it is capable of affording, and to leave one's bed as little as possible."

They reached the gate of the ruined necropolis.

"Where shall we put it?" said Myrto.

"Near the G.o.d."

"Where is the Statue? I have never been in here before. I was afraid of the tombs and the inscriptions. I do not know the Hermanubis. It is probably in the centre of the little garden. Let us look for it. I once came here before when I was a child, in quest of a lost gazelle. Let us follow the alley of white sycamores. We cannot fail to discern it."

Nor did they fail to find it.

Dawn mingled its delicate violets with the moonbeams on the monuments. A vague and distant harmony floated in the cypress branches. The regular rustling of the palms, so similar to tiny drops of falling rain, cast an illusion of freshness.

Timon opened with difficulty a pink stone imbedded in the earth. The sepulture was excavated beneath the hands of the funerary G.o.d, whose att.i.tude was that of the embalmer. It must have contained a body, formerly; but at present nothing was to be found but a handful of brownish dust.

[Ill.u.s.tration: They pa.s.sed the limp body to Timon.]

The young man jumped into the grave, as far as his waist, and held out his arms:

"Give it to me," he said to Myrto. "I am going to lay it at the far end, and we will close up the tomb again."

But Rhodis threw herself on the body.

"No, do not bury her so quickly! I want to see her again! One last time!

One last time! Chrysis! My poor Chrysis! Ah! the horror of it . . . How she has changed! . . ."

Myrtocleia had just disarranged the blanket which covered the dead woman, and the sight of the sudden change the face had undergone made the two girls recoil. The checks had become square, the eyelids and lips were puffed out like half-a-dozen white pads. Nothing was left of all that superhuman beauty. They drew the thick winding-sheet over her again: but Myrto slipped her hand under the stuff and placed an obol for Charon in her fingers.

Then, shaken by interminable sobs, they pa.s.sed the limp inert body to Timon.

And when Chrysis was laid in the bottom of the sandy tomb, Timon opened the winding-sheet again. He fixed the silver obol tightly in the nerveless hand; he propped up the head with a flat stone; he spread the long deep-gold hair over her body from the forehead to the knees.

Then he left the tomb, and the musicians, kneeling before the yawning opening, cut off their young hair, bound it together in one sheaf, and buried it with the dead.

[Greek: TOIONDE PERAS ESCHE TO SYNTAGMA ToN PERI CHRYSIDA KAI DeMeTRION]

[Ill.u.s.tration]