BOOK IV
IDEMETRIOS DREAMS A DREAMNow, with the mirror, the necklace, and the collar, Demetrios having returned home, a dream visited him in his slumber, and this was his dream:He is going towards the quay, mingled with the crowd, on a strange moonless night, cloudless, but shedding a peculiar brilliance of its own.Without knowing why, or what it is that draws him, he is in a hurry to arrive, to bethereas soon as he can, but he walks with effort, and the air opposes an inexplicable resistance to his legs, as deep water hampers footsteps.He trembles, he thinks he will never reach the goal, that he will never know towards whom, in this bright obscurity, he is walking thus, panting and troubled.At times, the crowd disappears entirely, whether it be that it really fades away, or that he ceases to be conscious of its presence. Then it jostles more importunately than ever, and all press, on, on, on, with a quick and sonorous step, more quickly than he . . .Then the human mass closes in upon him; Demetrios pales; a man pushes him with his shoulder; a woman’s buckle tears his tunic; a young girl is wedged against him, so tightly that he feels the pressure of her nipples against his chest, and she pushes his face away with two terrified hands.Suddenly he is alone, the first, upon the quay. And as he turns to look behind him, he perceives in the distance the white swarm of the crowd which has all at once receded to the Agora.And he realises that it will advance no further.The quay lies white and straight like the first stage of an unfinished road which has undertaken to cross the sea.He wants to go to Pharos, and he walks. His legs have suddenly become light. The wind blowing in the sandy deserts drives him headlong towards the watery solitudes into which the quay plunges venturesomely. But in proportion as he advances, Pharos retreats before him; the quay is immeasurably prolonged. Soon the high marble tower on which blazes a purple wood-pile touches the livid horizon, flickers, dies down, wanes, and sets like another moon.Demetrios walks ever onwards.ill-063Days and nights seem to have passed since he left the great quay of Alexandria far behind him, and he dare not turn his head, for fear of seeing nothing but the road he has travelled along: a white line stretching to infinity—and the sea.And still he turns round.An island is behind him, covered with great trees whence droop enormous blossoms.Has he crossed it like a blind man, or does it spring into sight at the same instant and become mysteriously visible? He does not think of conjecturing: he accepts the impossible as a natural event . . .A woman is in the isle. She is standing before the door of its one house, with her eyes half closed and her face bending over a monstrous iris-flower that reaches to the level of her lips. She has heavy hair, the colour of dull gold, and of a length one may surmise to be marvellous, judging by the mass of the great coil that lies on her drooping neck. A black tunic envelopes this woman, and a robe blacker still is draped upon the tunic, and the iris whose perfume she breathes with downcast eyelids is of the same hue as night.In all this mourning garb, Demetrios sees but the hair, like a golden vase on an ebony column. He recognises Chrysis.The recollection of the mirror and of the necklace and of the comb recurs to him vaguely; but he does not believe in it, and in this singular vision reality alone seems to him a dream . . .“Come,” says Chrysis. “Follow me.”He follows her. She slowly mounts a staircase strewn with white skins. Her arm rests upon the rail. Her naked heels float in and out from under her robe.The house has but one storey. Chrysis halts at the topmost step.“There are four chambers,” she says.“When you have seen them, you will never leave them. Will you follow me? Have you confidence?”ill-064A monstrous iris-flower reaches to the level of her lips.But he will follow her everywhere. She opens the first door and closes it behind him.This room is long and narrow. It is lighted by a single window, through which is seen enframed the great expanse of sea. On the right and left are two small tables and on them a dozen book-rolls.“Here are the books you love,” says Chrysis. “There are no others.”Demetrios opens them: they areThe Oineusof Chæremon,The Returnof Alexis,The Mirror of Laisof Aristippos,The Enchantress,The Cyclops, theBucolicsof Theocritos,Œdipus at Colonos, theOdesof Sappho, and several other little works. Upon a pile of cushions, in the midst of this ideal library, there is a naked girl who utters no word.“Now,” murmurs Chrysis, drawing from a long golden coder a manuscript consisting of a single leaf, “here is the page of antique poesy that you never read alone without weeping.”The young man reads at a venture:[Greek: Hoi men ar’ ethrêneon, epi de stenachonto gynaikes.Têsin d’Andromachê leukôlenos êrche gooio,Hektoros androphonoio karê meta chersin echousa;Aner, ap’ aiônos neos ôleo, kadde me chêrênLeipeis en megaroisi; pais d’eti nêpios autôs,Hon tekomen sy t’egô te dysammoroi. . .]He stops, casting upon Chrysis a look of surprise and tenderness.“You?” he says. “You show me this?”“Ah! you have not seen everything. Follow me. Follow me quickly.”They open another door.The second chamber is square. It is lighted by a single window, through which is seen enframed all nature. In the midst, stands a wooden trestle bearing a lump of red clay, and in a corner, a naked girl lies upon a curved chair, and utters no word.“Here you will model Andromeda and Zagreus and the Horses of the Sun. As you will create them for yourself alone, you will break them in pieces before your death.”“It is the House of Felicity,” says Demetrios in a low voice.And he lets his forehead sink into his hands.But Chrysis opens another door.The third chamber is vast and round. It is lighted by a single window, through which is seen enframed the great expanse of blue sky. Its walls consist of gratings of bronze bars so disposed as to form lozenge-shaped interstices. Through them glides a music of flutes and pipes played to a doleful measure by invisible musicians. And against the far wall, upon a throne of green marble, sits a naked girl who utters no word.“Come! Come!” repeats Chrysis.They open another door.ill-065The fourth chamber is low, sombre, hermetically closed, and triangular. Thick carpets and rugs array it so luxuriously from floor to roof that nudity is not astonished in it. Lovers can easily imagine that they have cast off their garments upon the walls in all directions. When the door is closed again, it is impossible to guess where it was. There is no window. It is a narrow world, outside the world. A few wisps of black hair hanging to the cushions shed tear-drops of perfumes. And this chamber is lighted by seven little myrrhine panes which colour diversely the incomprehensible light of seven subterranean lamps.“See,” explains the woman in an affectionate and tranquil tone, “there are three different beds in the three corners ofourchamber.”Demetrios does not answer. And he asks within himself:“Is it really a last term? Is it truly a goal of human existence? Have I then passed through the other three chambers only to stop in this one? And shall I, shall I ever be able to leave it if I lie in it a whole night in the attitude of love which is the prostration of the tomb.”But Chrysis speaks.“Well-Beloved, you asked for me; I am come, look at me well . . .”She raises her two arms together, lays her hands upon her hair, and, with her elbows projecting in front of her, smiles.“Well-Beloved, I am yours . . . Oh! not immediately . . . I promised you to sing, I will sing first . . .”And he thinks of her no more, and lays him down at her feet. She has little black sandals. Four threads of blue pearls pass between the dainty toes, on the nails of which has been painted a carmine lunar crescent.With her head reposing on her shoulder, she taps on the palm of her left hand with her right, and undulates her hips almost imperceptibly.“By night, on my bed,I sought him whom my soul loveth:I sought him, but I found him not. . . . .I charge ye, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,If ye find my beloved,Tell himThat I am sick of love.”“Ah! it is the Song of Songs, Demetrios. It is the nuptial canticle of the women of my country.”“I sleep, but my heart waketh:It is the voice of my beloved . . .That knocketh at my door,The voice of my beloved!He cometh,Leaping upon the mountainsLike a roeOr a young hart.”“My beloved speaks, and says unto me:Open unto me, my sister, my fair one:My head is filled with dew,And my locks with the drops of the night.Rise up, my love, my fair one,And come away.For lo, the winter is past,The rain is over and gone,The flowers appear on the earth.The time of the singing of birds is come,The voice of the turtle-dove is heard in the land.Rise up, my love, my fair one,And come away.”She casts her veil away, and stands up arrayed in some tight-fitting stuff wound closely round the legs and hips.“I have put off my coat;How shall I put it on?I have washed my feet:How shall I defile them?My well-beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door,And my bowels were moved for him.I rose up to open to my beloved,And my hands dropped with myrrh,And my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh,Upon the handles of the lock.Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!She throws her head back and half closes her eyelids.“Stay me, comfort me,For I am sick of love.Let his left hand be under my headAnd his right hand embrace me.Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, withone of thine eyes,With one chain of thy neck.How fair is thy love!How fair are thy caresses!How much better than wine!The smell of thee pleaseth me more than all spices.Thy lips drop as the honeycomb:Honey and milk are under thy tongue.The smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.”“A garden enclosed is my sister,A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.“Awake, O north wind!Blow, thou south!Blow upon my garden,That the spices thereof may flow out.”She rounds her arms, and holds out her mouth.“Let my beloved come into his gardenAnd eat of his pleasant fruits.Yes, I come into my garden,O! my sister, my spouse,I gather my myrrh with my spice,I eat my honeycomb with my honey.I drink my wine with my milk.SET ME AS A SEAL UPON THINE HEARTAS A SEAL UPON THINE ARMFOR LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH.” [1]Without moving her feet, without bending her tightly-pressed knees, she slowly turns her body upon her motionless hips. Her face and her two breasts, above her tightly-swathed legs, seem three great pink flowers in a flower-holder made of stuffs.She dances gravely, with her shoulders and her head and the intermingling of her beautiful arms. She seems to suffer in her sheath and to reveal ever and ever more the whiteness of her half imprisoned body. Her breathing inflates her breast. Her mouth cannot close. Her eyelids cannot open. A heightening flame flushes her cheeks.Now her ten interlocked fingers join before her face. Now she raises her arms. She strains voluptuously. A long fugitive groove separates her shoulders as they rise and fall. Finally, with a single movement of her body, enveloping her panting visage in her hair as with a bridal veil, she tremblingly unfastens the sculptured clasp which retained her garment about her loins, and allows all the mystery of her grace to slip down upon the ground.Demetrios and Chrysis . . .Their first embracement before love is immediately so perfect, so harmonious, that they keep it immobile, in order fully to know its multiple voluptuousness. One of her breasts stands out erect and round, from under the strong encircling arm of Demetrios. One of her burning thighs is rivetted between his two legs, and the other lies with all its heavy weight thrown upon them. They remain thus, motionless, clasped together but not penetrated, in the rising exaltation of an inflexible desire which they are loth to satisfy. At first, they catch at one another with their mouths alone. They intoxicate each other with the contact of their aching and ungated virginities.ill-066She dances gravely with her shoulders and her head.We look at nothing so minutely as the face of the woman we love. Seen at the excessively close range of the kiss, Chrysis’s eyes seem enormous. When she closes them, two parallel creases remain on each eyelid, and a leaden-hued patch extends from the brilliant eyebrows to the verge of the cheeks. When she opens them, a green ring, fine as a silken thread, illumines with a coloured coronal the fathomless black eyeball immeasurably distended under the long curved lashes. The little pellet of red flesh whence the tears flow has sudden palpitations.Their kiss is endless. Chrysis would seem to have under her tongue, not milk and honey, as in Holy Writ, but living, mobile, enchanted water. And this multiform tongue itself, now incurved like an arch, now rolled up like a spiral, now shrinking into its hiding-place, now darting forth like a flame, more caressing than the hand, more expressive than the eyes, circling, flower-like, into a pistil, or thinning away into a petal, this ribbon of flesh that hardens when it quivers and softens when it licks, Chrysis animates it with all the resources of her endearing and passionate fantasy . . . Then she showers on him a series of prolonged caresses that twist and turn. Her nervous finger-tips suffice to grasp him tightly, and to produce convulsive tremblings along his sides. She is happy only when palpitating with desire or enervated by exhaustion: the transition terrifies her like a torture. As soon as her lover summons her, she thrusts him away with rigid arms: she presses her knees close together, she supplicates him dumbly with her lips. Demetrios constrains her by force....No spectacle of nature, neither the blazing glory of the setting sun, nor the tempest in the palm-trees, nor the mirage, nor the mighty upheavals of the waters, seem worthy of astonishment to those who have witnessed the transfiguration of a woman in their arms. Chrysis becomes extraordinary. Arching her body upwards, and sinking back again in turns, with her bent elbow resting on the cushions, she seizes the corner of a pillow, clutches at it like a dying woman, and gasps for breath, with her head thrown back. Her eyes, brilliant with gratitude, fix the madness of their glance at the corner of the eyelids. Her cheeks are resplendent. The curve of her swaying hair is disconcerting. Two admirable, muscular lines, descending from the ear and the shoulder, meet under the right breast and bear it like a fruit.Demetrios contemplates this divine madness in the feminine body with a sort of religious awe—this transport of a whole being, this superhuman convulsion of which he is the direct cause, which he exalts or represses at will, and which confounds him for the thousandth time.Under his very eyes all the mighty forces of life strain in the effort to create. The breasts have already assumed, up to their very tips, maternal majesty. And these wails, these lamentable wails that prematurely weep over the labour of childbirth! . . .[1] Song of Songs.
Now, with the mirror, the necklace, and the collar, Demetrios having returned home, a dream visited him in his slumber, and this was his dream:
He is going towards the quay, mingled with the crowd, on a strange moonless night, cloudless, but shedding a peculiar brilliance of its own.
Without knowing why, or what it is that draws him, he is in a hurry to arrive, to bethereas soon as he can, but he walks with effort, and the air opposes an inexplicable resistance to his legs, as deep water hampers footsteps.
He trembles, he thinks he will never reach the goal, that he will never know towards whom, in this bright obscurity, he is walking thus, panting and troubled.
At times, the crowd disappears entirely, whether it be that it really fades away, or that he ceases to be conscious of its presence. Then it jostles more importunately than ever, and all press, on, on, on, with a quick and sonorous step, more quickly than he . . .
Then the human mass closes in upon him; Demetrios pales; a man pushes him with his shoulder; a woman’s buckle tears his tunic; a young girl is wedged against him, so tightly that he feels the pressure of her nipples against his chest, and she pushes his face away with two terrified hands.
Suddenly he is alone, the first, upon the quay. And as he turns to look behind him, he perceives in the distance the white swarm of the crowd which has all at once receded to the Agora.
And he realises that it will advance no further.
The quay lies white and straight like the first stage of an unfinished road which has undertaken to cross the sea.
He wants to go to Pharos, and he walks. His legs have suddenly become light. The wind blowing in the sandy deserts drives him headlong towards the watery solitudes into which the quay plunges venturesomely. But in proportion as he advances, Pharos retreats before him; the quay is immeasurably prolonged. Soon the high marble tower on which blazes a purple wood-pile touches the livid horizon, flickers, dies down, wanes, and sets like another moon.
Demetrios walks ever onwards.
ill-063
Days and nights seem to have passed since he left the great quay of Alexandria far behind him, and he dare not turn his head, for fear of seeing nothing but the road he has travelled along: a white line stretching to infinity—and the sea.
And still he turns round.
An island is behind him, covered with great trees whence droop enormous blossoms.
Has he crossed it like a blind man, or does it spring into sight at the same instant and become mysteriously visible? He does not think of conjecturing: he accepts the impossible as a natural event . . .
A woman is in the isle. She is standing before the door of its one house, with her eyes half closed and her face bending over a monstrous iris-flower that reaches to the level of her lips. She has heavy hair, the colour of dull gold, and of a length one may surmise to be marvellous, judging by the mass of the great coil that lies on her drooping neck. A black tunic envelopes this woman, and a robe blacker still is draped upon the tunic, and the iris whose perfume she breathes with downcast eyelids is of the same hue as night.
In all this mourning garb, Demetrios sees but the hair, like a golden vase on an ebony column. He recognises Chrysis.
The recollection of the mirror and of the necklace and of the comb recurs to him vaguely; but he does not believe in it, and in this singular vision reality alone seems to him a dream . . .
“Come,” says Chrysis. “Follow me.”
He follows her. She slowly mounts a staircase strewn with white skins. Her arm rests upon the rail. Her naked heels float in and out from under her robe.
The house has but one storey. Chrysis halts at the topmost step.
“There are four chambers,” she says.
“When you have seen them, you will never leave them. Will you follow me? Have you confidence?”
ill-064
A monstrous iris-flower reaches to the level of her lips.
But he will follow her everywhere. She opens the first door and closes it behind him.
This room is long and narrow. It is lighted by a single window, through which is seen enframed the great expanse of sea. On the right and left are two small tables and on them a dozen book-rolls.
“Here are the books you love,” says Chrysis. “There are no others.”
Demetrios opens them: they areThe Oineusof Chæremon,The Returnof Alexis,The Mirror of Laisof Aristippos,The Enchantress,The Cyclops, theBucolicsof Theocritos,Œdipus at Colonos, theOdesof Sappho, and several other little works. Upon a pile of cushions, in the midst of this ideal library, there is a naked girl who utters no word.
“Now,” murmurs Chrysis, drawing from a long golden coder a manuscript consisting of a single leaf, “here is the page of antique poesy that you never read alone without weeping.”
The young man reads at a venture:
[Greek: Hoi men ar’ ethrêneon, epi de stenachonto gynaikes.Têsin d’Andromachê leukôlenos êrche gooio,Hektoros androphonoio karê meta chersin echousa;Aner, ap’ aiônos neos ôleo, kadde me chêrênLeipeis en megaroisi; pais d’eti nêpios autôs,Hon tekomen sy t’egô te dysammoroi. . .]
He stops, casting upon Chrysis a look of surprise and tenderness.
“You?” he says. “You show me this?”
“Ah! you have not seen everything. Follow me. Follow me quickly.”
They open another door.
The second chamber is square. It is lighted by a single window, through which is seen enframed all nature. In the midst, stands a wooden trestle bearing a lump of red clay, and in a corner, a naked girl lies upon a curved chair, and utters no word.
“Here you will model Andromeda and Zagreus and the Horses of the Sun. As you will create them for yourself alone, you will break them in pieces before your death.”
“It is the House of Felicity,” says Demetrios in a low voice.
And he lets his forehead sink into his hands.
But Chrysis opens another door.
The third chamber is vast and round. It is lighted by a single window, through which is seen enframed the great expanse of blue sky. Its walls consist of gratings of bronze bars so disposed as to form lozenge-shaped interstices. Through them glides a music of flutes and pipes played to a doleful measure by invisible musicians. And against the far wall, upon a throne of green marble, sits a naked girl who utters no word.
“Come! Come!” repeats Chrysis.
They open another door.
ill-065
The fourth chamber is low, sombre, hermetically closed, and triangular. Thick carpets and rugs array it so luxuriously from floor to roof that nudity is not astonished in it. Lovers can easily imagine that they have cast off their garments upon the walls in all directions. When the door is closed again, it is impossible to guess where it was. There is no window. It is a narrow world, outside the world. A few wisps of black hair hanging to the cushions shed tear-drops of perfumes. And this chamber is lighted by seven little myrrhine panes which colour diversely the incomprehensible light of seven subterranean lamps.
“See,” explains the woman in an affectionate and tranquil tone, “there are three different beds in the three corners ofourchamber.”
Demetrios does not answer. And he asks within himself:
“Is it really a last term? Is it truly a goal of human existence? Have I then passed through the other three chambers only to stop in this one? And shall I, shall I ever be able to leave it if I lie in it a whole night in the attitude of love which is the prostration of the tomb.”
But Chrysis speaks.
“Well-Beloved, you asked for me; I am come, look at me well . . .”
She raises her two arms together, lays her hands upon her hair, and, with her elbows projecting in front of her, smiles.
“Well-Beloved, I am yours . . . Oh! not immediately . . . I promised you to sing, I will sing first . . .”
And he thinks of her no more, and lays him down at her feet. She has little black sandals. Four threads of blue pearls pass between the dainty toes, on the nails of which has been painted a carmine lunar crescent.
With her head reposing on her shoulder, she taps on the palm of her left hand with her right, and undulates her hips almost imperceptibly.
“By night, on my bed,I sought him whom my soul loveth:I sought him, but I found him not. . . . .I charge ye, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,If ye find my beloved,Tell himThat I am sick of love.”
“Ah! it is the Song of Songs, Demetrios. It is the nuptial canticle of the women of my country.”
“I sleep, but my heart waketh:It is the voice of my beloved . . .That knocketh at my door,The voice of my beloved!He cometh,Leaping upon the mountainsLike a roeOr a young hart.”
“My beloved speaks, and says unto me:Open unto me, my sister, my fair one:My head is filled with dew,And my locks with the drops of the night.Rise up, my love, my fair one,And come away.For lo, the winter is past,The rain is over and gone,The flowers appear on the earth.The time of the singing of birds is come,The voice of the turtle-dove is heard in the land.Rise up, my love, my fair one,And come away.”
She casts her veil away, and stands up arrayed in some tight-fitting stuff wound closely round the legs and hips.
“I have put off my coat;How shall I put it on?I have washed my feet:How shall I defile them?My well-beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door,And my bowels were moved for him.I rose up to open to my beloved,And my hands dropped with myrrh,And my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh,Upon the handles of the lock.Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
She throws her head back and half closes her eyelids.
“Stay me, comfort me,For I am sick of love.Let his left hand be under my headAnd his right hand embrace me.Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, withone of thine eyes,With one chain of thy neck.How fair is thy love!How fair are thy caresses!How much better than wine!The smell of thee pleaseth me more than all spices.Thy lips drop as the honeycomb:Honey and milk are under thy tongue.The smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.”“A garden enclosed is my sister,A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
“Awake, O north wind!Blow, thou south!Blow upon my garden,That the spices thereof may flow out.”
She rounds her arms, and holds out her mouth.
“Let my beloved come into his gardenAnd eat of his pleasant fruits.Yes, I come into my garden,O! my sister, my spouse,I gather my myrrh with my spice,I eat my honeycomb with my honey.I drink my wine with my milk.SET ME AS A SEAL UPON THINE HEARTAS A SEAL UPON THINE ARMFOR LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH.” [1]
Without moving her feet, without bending her tightly-pressed knees, she slowly turns her body upon her motionless hips. Her face and her two breasts, above her tightly-swathed legs, seem three great pink flowers in a flower-holder made of stuffs.
She dances gravely, with her shoulders and her head and the intermingling of her beautiful arms. She seems to suffer in her sheath and to reveal ever and ever more the whiteness of her half imprisoned body. Her breathing inflates her breast. Her mouth cannot close. Her eyelids cannot open. A heightening flame flushes her cheeks.
Now her ten interlocked fingers join before her face. Now she raises her arms. She strains voluptuously. A long fugitive groove separates her shoulders as they rise and fall. Finally, with a single movement of her body, enveloping her panting visage in her hair as with a bridal veil, she tremblingly unfastens the sculptured clasp which retained her garment about her loins, and allows all the mystery of her grace to slip down upon the ground.
Demetrios and Chrysis . . .
Their first embracement before love is immediately so perfect, so harmonious, that they keep it immobile, in order fully to know its multiple voluptuousness. One of her breasts stands out erect and round, from under the strong encircling arm of Demetrios. One of her burning thighs is rivetted between his two legs, and the other lies with all its heavy weight thrown upon them. They remain thus, motionless, clasped together but not penetrated, in the rising exaltation of an inflexible desire which they are loth to satisfy. At first, they catch at one another with their mouths alone. They intoxicate each other with the contact of their aching and ungated virginities.
ill-066
She dances gravely with her shoulders and her head.
We look at nothing so minutely as the face of the woman we love. Seen at the excessively close range of the kiss, Chrysis’s eyes seem enormous. When she closes them, two parallel creases remain on each eyelid, and a leaden-hued patch extends from the brilliant eyebrows to the verge of the cheeks. When she opens them, a green ring, fine as a silken thread, illumines with a coloured coronal the fathomless black eyeball immeasurably distended under the long curved lashes. The little pellet of red flesh whence the tears flow has sudden palpitations.
Their kiss is endless. Chrysis would seem to have under her tongue, not milk and honey, as in Holy Writ, but living, mobile, enchanted water. And this multiform tongue itself, now incurved like an arch, now rolled up like a spiral, now shrinking into its hiding-place, now darting forth like a flame, more caressing than the hand, more expressive than the eyes, circling, flower-like, into a pistil, or thinning away into a petal, this ribbon of flesh that hardens when it quivers and softens when it licks, Chrysis animates it with all the resources of her endearing and passionate fantasy . . . Then she showers on him a series of prolonged caresses that twist and turn. Her nervous finger-tips suffice to grasp him tightly, and to produce convulsive tremblings along his sides. She is happy only when palpitating with desire or enervated by exhaustion: the transition terrifies her like a torture. As soon as her lover summons her, she thrusts him away with rigid arms: she presses her knees close together, she supplicates him dumbly with her lips. Demetrios constrains her by force.
...No spectacle of nature, neither the blazing glory of the setting sun, nor the tempest in the palm-trees, nor the mirage, nor the mighty upheavals of the waters, seem worthy of astonishment to those who have witnessed the transfiguration of a woman in their arms. Chrysis becomes extraordinary. Arching her body upwards, and sinking back again in turns, with her bent elbow resting on the cushions, she seizes the corner of a pillow, clutches at it like a dying woman, and gasps for breath, with her head thrown back. Her eyes, brilliant with gratitude, fix the madness of their glance at the corner of the eyelids. Her cheeks are resplendent. The curve of her swaying hair is disconcerting. Two admirable, muscular lines, descending from the ear and the shoulder, meet under the right breast and bear it like a fruit.
Demetrios contemplates this divine madness in the feminine body with a sort of religious awe—this transport of a whole being, this superhuman convulsion of which he is the direct cause, which he exalts or represses at will, and which confounds him for the thousandth time.
Under his very eyes all the mighty forces of life strain in the effort to create. The breasts have already assumed, up to their very tips, maternal majesty. And these wails, these lamentable wails that prematurely weep over the labour of childbirth! . . .
[1] Song of Songs.