IIMELITTA“Purify thyself, stranger.”“I shall enter pure,” said Demetrios.Dipping the end of her hair in water, the young gate-keeper moistened first his eyelids, then his lips and fingers, in order that his glance might be sanctified, as also the kiss of his mouth and the caress of his hands.And then he pressed forward into the wood of Aphrodite.Through the dark branches, he perceived a setting sun of sombre purple, powerless to dazzle the eyes. It was the evening of the day on which his life had been convulsed by the meeting with Chrysis.The feminine soul is of a simplicity incredible to men. Where there is nothing but a straight line, they obstinately search for the complexity of a web; they find emptiness and go astray in it. Thus it was that the soul of Chrysis, limpid as a little child’s, appeared to Demetrios more mysterious than a problem in metaphysics. After leaving this woman upon the quay, he went back to his house like a man in a dream, incapable of answering all the questions which tormented him. What did she want with these three gifts? It was impossible for her either to wear or to sell a celebrated mirror, acquired by theft, the comb of an assassinated woman, the pearl necklace of the goddess. If she kept them at home, she would expose herself every day to the possibility of a fatal discovery. Then why ask for them? To destroy them? He knew only too well that women are incapable of enjoying things in secret and that good fortune brings them happiness only as soon as it is noised abroad. And then, what divination, what profound clairvoyance had led her to judge him capable of accomplishing three such extraordinary actions for her sake?Assuredly, if he had liked, he might have carried off Chrysis from her home, held her at his mercy, and made her his mistress, his wife, or his slave, at choice. He had even the right to do away with her, simply. Former revolutions had accustomed the citizens to violent deaths, and no one would have troubled about the disappearance of a courtesan. Chrysis must know this, and yet she had dared . . .ill-024The young gate-keeper moistened first his eyelids.The more he thought about her, the more grateful he was to her for having varied the usual routine of bargaining in so charming a manner. How many women of equal worth with Chrysis had offered themselves clumsily! But what did this one ask for? Neither love, nor gold, nor jewels, but three unheard-of crimes! She interested him keenly. He had offered her all the treasures of Egypt: he felt distinctly, now, that if she had accepted them she would not have received two obols, and that he would have tired of her even before knowing her. Three crimes were certainly an unusual salary; but she was worthy to receive it since she was a woman capable of exacting it, and he promised himself to go on with the adventure.In order not to give himself the time to repent of his firm resolve, he went the very same day to the house of Bacchis, found the house empty, took the silver mirror and went off to the gardens.Was it necessary to make a direct call on Chrysis’s second victim? Demetrios thought not. The priestess Touni, who owned the famous ivory comb, was so charming and so weak that he was afraid of repenting if he went straight to her house without any preliminary precautions. He retraced his steps and went along the Grand Terrace.The courtesans were on show in their “chambres exposées” like flowers in a shop window.Their attitudes and their costumes had no less diversity than their ages, types, and races. The most beautiful, according to the tradition of Phryne, leaving exposed nothing but the oval of their faces, sat enveloped from head to foot in their great garment of fine wool. Others had adopted the fashion of transparent robes, under which one distinguished their beauties mysteriously, just as, through limpid water, one discerns the green mosses lying in splashes of shade upon the bottom. Those whose sole charm consisted in their youthfulness sat naked to the waist, stiffening out their busts in order to display to the best advantage the firmness of their breasts. But the most mature, knowing that the features of the feminine visage age more quickly than the skin of the body, sat quite naked, holding their breasts in their hands, and stretching their clumsy thighs apart, as if they wished to prove that they were still women.ill-025Demetrios passed slowly before them.Demetrios passed slowly before them, with unflagging admiration. He had never yet succeeded in contemplating a woman’s nudity without intense emotion. He understood neither disgust before the corpse of a young woman nor insensibility to the body of a little girl. That evening any woman could have charmed him. Provided she remained silent and did not display more ardour than the minimum required by the etiquette of the bed, he was quite ready to forgive her for her lack of beauty. And what is more, he even preferred that she should have a coarse body, for the more his intelligence considered faultless forms, the less room was there for his sensual desires. The agitation which he felt upon contact with living beauty was due to a sensualism exclusively cerebral, which annihilated mere sexual excitation. He remembered with anguish having remained all night as impotent as an old man, by the side of the most admirable woman he had ever held in his arms. And since that night he had learnt to choose mistresses of less purity.“Friend,” said a voice, “you don’t recognise me?”He turned round with a negative sign, and went on his way, for he never undressed the same woman twice. It was the principle that guided his visits to the gardens. A woman one has not yet possessed retains something of the virgin; but what good result, what surprise can one expect from a second rendez-vous? It is almost marriage. Demetrios did not expose himself to the illusions of the second night. Queen Berenice sufficed for his rare conjugal impulses, and with that exception he was careful to choose a new accomplice for every evening’s indispensable adultery.“Clonarion!Gnatene!Plango!Mnaïs!Crobyle!Ioessa.”They cried their names as he passed, and some added protestations of their ardent natures or proposed an abnormal vice. Demetrios followed the road. He was preparing to choose at a venture, according to his habit, when a little girl entirely dressed in blue leaned her head upon her shoulder and said to him softly, without rising:“Is it quite out of the question?”The novelty of this mode of address made him smile. He stopped.“Open the door,” he said. “I choose you.”The little girl gleefully jumped to her feet and gave two raps with the phallus-shaped knocker. The door was opened by an old slave woman.“Gorgo,” said the little girl, “I have got somebody; quickly, get some cakes and Cretan wine, and make the bed.”She turned round to Demetrios.“You don’t want any satyrion?”“No,” said the young man laughing. “You have some?”“I have to keep it,” said the child. “I am asked for it oftener than you think. Come this way; be careful of the steps, one of them is worn. Go into my room. I shall be back in a moment.”The room was quite simple, like those of the novices. A great bed, a couch, a few seats and carpets composed all the scanty furniture; but through a large open bay there was a view over the gardens, the sea, the double harbour of Alexandria. Demetrios remained standing and looked at the distant city.Suns setting behind harbours! Incomparable glories of maritime cities, calm skies, purple waters! Upon what soul vociferous with joy or sorrow would you not cast a shroud of silence? What feet have not halted, what passions have not withered, what voices have not died away before you? . . . Demetrios looked; a swell of torrential flame seemed to issue from the sun, half dipping into the sea, and to flow straight to the left bend of the wood of Aphrodite. From horizon to horizon, the Mediterranean was flooded by the sumptuous purple spectrum which lay in sharply-defined bands of colour, golden red and dull violet side by side. Between this ever-shifting splendour and the peaty mirror of Lake Mareotis, stood the white mass of the town, bathed in red and violet reflexions. Its twenty thousand flat houses spreading in different directions picked it out marvellously with twenty thousand dashes of colour that underwent a perpetual metamorphosis according to the various phases of the setting luminary. The flaming sun shot forth rapid shafts, then was swallowed up, almost suddenly, in the sea, and with the first reflux of the night, there floated over the whole earth a thrill, a muffled breeze, uniform and transparent.“Here are figs, cakes, a piece of honeycomb, wine, a woman. Eat the figs while it is daylight and the woman when it is dark.”It was the little girl, laughing as she entered. She bade the young man sit down, mounted astride on his knees, and stretching her two arms behind her head, made fast a rose which was on the point of slipping down from her auburn hair.In spite of himself Demetrios could not restrain an exclamation of surprise. She was completely naked, and when divested of her ample robe, her little body was seen to be so young, so infantine in the breast, so narrow at the hips, so visibly immature, that Demetrios felt a sense of pity, like a horseman on the point of throwing his man’s weight upon an over-delicate mare.“But you are not a woman!” he exclaimed.“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?”ill-026“Ten and a half. Eleven. One may say eleven. I was born in the gardens. My mother is a Milesian. She is called Pythias, but she goes by the name of ‘The Goat.’ Shall I send for her, if you think me too little? Her house is not far from mine.”“You have been to the Didascalion?”“I am still there in the sixth class. I shall have finished next year; and not too soon either.”“Aren’t you happy?”“Ah! if only you knew how difficult the mistresses are to please! They make you recommence the same lesson twenty times! Things perfectly useless that men never ask for. And then one is tired out, all for nothing. I don’t like that at all. Come, take a fig; not that one, it is not ripe. I will show you a new way to eat. Look!”“I know it. It is longer and no better than the other way. I see that you are a good pupil.”“Oh! I have learnt everything I know by myself. The mistresses would have us believe that they are cleverer than we are. They have more style, that may be, but they have invented nothing.”“You have many lovers?”“They are all too old: it is inevitable. Young men are so foolish! They only like women forty years old. Now and again I see young men pretty as Eros pass by, and if you were to see what they choose! Hippopotami! It is enough to make one turn pale. I hope sincerely that I shall never reach these women’s age: I should be too ashamed to undress. I am so glad to be still quite young. The breasts always develop too soon. I think that the first month I see my blood flow I shall feel ready to die. Let me give you a kiss. I like you very much.”Here the conversation took a less serious if not a more silent turn, and Demetrios rapidly perceived that his scruples were beside the mark in the case of so expert a young lady. She seemed to realise that she was somewhat meagre pasturage for a young man’s appetite, and she battled her lover by a prodigious activity of furtive finger-touches, which he could neither foresee nor elude, nor direct, and which never left him the leisure for a loving embrace. She multiplied her agile, firm little body around him, offered herself, refused herself, slipped and turned and struggled. Finally they grasped one another. But this half hour was merely a long game.She jumped out of bed the first, dipped her finger in the honey-bowl and moistened her lips; then, making a thousand efforts not to laugh, she bent over Demetrios and rubbed her mouth against his. Her round curls danced on either side of their cheeks. The young man smiled and leaned upon his elbow.“What is your name?” he asked.“Melitta. Did you not see my name upon the door?”“I did not look.”“You can see it in my room. They have written it all over the walls. I shall soon be forced to have them repainted.”Demetrios raised his head: the four panels of the chamber were covered with inscriptions.“That is very curious, indeed.” said he. “May one read?”“Oh, if you like. I have no secrets.”He read. Melitta’s name was there several times repeated, coupled with various men’s names and barbaric drawings. Tender, obscene, or comic sentences jostled oddly with one another. Lovers boasted of their vigour, or detailed the charms of the little courtesan, or poked fun at her girl-friends. All this was interesting merely as a written proof of a general degradation. But, looking towards the bottom of the right-hand panel, Demetrios gave a start.“What is that? What is that? Speak!”“Who? What? Where?” said the child. “What is the matter with you?”“Here. That name. Who wrote that?”And his finger stopped under this double line.ΜΕΛΙΤΤΑ .Λ. ΧΡΥΣΙΔΑΧΡΥΣΙΣ .Λ. ΜΕΛΙΤΤΑΝ“Ah!” she answered, “that’s me. I wrote that.”“Who is she, Chrysis?”“My great friend.”“I dare say. That is not what I ask you. Which Chrysis? There are many.”“Mine, the most beautiful. Chrysis of Galilee.”“You know her! you know her! But speak, speak! Where does she come from? where does she live? who is her lover? tell me everything!”He sat down upon the couch and took the little girl upon his knees.“You are in love, then?” she said.“That matters little to you. Tell me what you know; I am in a hurry to hear everything.”“Oh! I know nothing at all. It is quite short. She has been to see me twice, and you may imagine that I have not asked her for details about her family. I was too happy to have her, and I did not lose time in conversation.”“How is she made?”“Like a pretty girl, what do you expect me to say? Do you want me to name all the parts of her body, adding that everything is beautiful? And then, she is a woman, a real woman . . . Every time I think about her I desire somebody.”ill-027And she put her arm round the neck of Demetrios.“Don’t you know anything about her?” he began again.“I know—I know that she comes from Galilee, that she is nearly twenty years old, and that she lives in the Jews’ quarter, in the east end, near the gardens. But that is all.”“And about her life, her tastes? can you tell me nothing? She is fond of women, since she came to see you. But is she altogether Lesbian?”“Certainly not. The first night she passed here, she brought a lover, and I swear to you there was no make-believe about her. When a woman is sincere, I can see it by her eyes. That did not prevent her from returning once quite alone. And she has promised me a third night.”“You don’t know whether she has any otheramiein the gardens? Nobody?”“Yes, one of her countrywomen, Chimairis. She is very poor.”“Where does she live? I must see her.”“She has slept in the wood for upwards of a year. She has sold her house. But I know where her den is. I can take you to it if you wish. Put on my sandals, will you?”Demetrios rapidly buckled the plaited leather straps round Melitta’s slender ankles. Then he handed her her short robe, which she merely threw over her arm, and they departed in haste.They walked far. The park was immense. From time to time, a girl under a tree proffered her name and opened her robe, then lay down again and leaned her face upon her hand. Melitta knew some of them: they embraced her without stopping her. Passing before a rustic altar, she gathered three great flowers and placed them upon the stone.ill-028“My little girl! my little love! how are you?”It was not yet dusk. The intense light of summer days has something permanent about it which lingers vaguely in the slow twilight.The faint, humid stars, hardly brighter than the body of the sky, twinkled and throbbed gently, and the shadows of the branches remained indecisive.“Mamma! There’s mamma,” cried Melitta suddenly.A woman, dressed in a garment of triple muslin striped with blue, was seen advancing with a tranquil step, alone. As soon as she caught sight of the child she ran up to her, raised her off the ground, lifted her up in her arms, and kissed her energetically on the cheek.“My little girl! my little love! how are you?”“I am guiding somebody who wants to see Chimairis. And you? Are you out for a walk?”“Corinna isaccouchée. I have been to see her. I have dined by her bedside.”“And what has she given birth to? A boy?”“Two twin girls, my dear, as pink as wax dolls. You can go and see them tonight; she will show them to you.”“Oh! how lovely! Two little courtesans. What are their names?”“They are both called Pannychis, because they were born on the day before the Aphrodisiæ. It is a divine presage. They will be pretty.”She replaced the child upon her feet, and turning to Demetrios:“What do you think of my daughter? Have I the right to be proud of her?”“You have the right to be satisfied with one another,” he answered gravely.“Kiss mamma,” said Melitta.He silently imprinted a kiss between her breasts. Pythias returned it to him upon the mouth, and they separated.Demetrios and the child advanced a few more paces beneath the trees, whilst the courtesan receded into the distance, turning her head as she walked. At last they reached their goal, and Melitta said:“It is here.”Chimairis was sitting crouching upon her left heel, on a little grass-plot between two trees and a bust. A sort of red rag, her last remaining day garment, lay spread out beneath her. At night, she slept upon it naked, at the hour the men passed. Demetrios contemplated her with growing interest. She had the feverish aspect of certain emaciated dark women whose tawny bodies seem consumed by an ever-throbbing ardour. Her powerful lips, the excessive brilliancy of her glance, her livid eyelids combined to produce a double expression of sensual lustfulness and physical exhaustion. The curve of her hollow belly and her nervous thighs formed a natural cavity, designed as if to receive; and as she had sold everything, even her combs and pins, even her depilatory tweezers, her hair was tangled together in inextricable disorder. A black pubescence invested her nudity with a certain savage and shaggy effrontery.A great he-goat stood stiffly on its four legs beside her. It was tethered to a tree by a gold chain which had formerly glittered in a quadruple coil upon its mistress’s breast.“Chimairis,” said Melitta, “get up. Here is somebody who wishes to speak to you.”The Jewess looked, but did not move.Demetrios advanced.“Do you know Chrysis?” he said.“Yes.”“Do you see her often?”“Yes.”“Will you talk to me about her?”“No.”“What? No? What? you cannot?”“No.”Melitta was stupefied.“Speak to him,” she said. “Have confidence. He loves her, he wishes her well.”“I see clearly that he loves her.” answered Chimairis. “If he loves her, he wishes her ill. If he loves her, I shall not speak.”Demetrios tingled with rage, but said nothing.“Give me your hand,” said the Jewess. “It will tell me whether I am mistaken.”She took the young man’s left hand and turned it towards the moonlight. Melitta leaned forward to see, although she could not read the mysterious lines, but their fatality attracted her.“What do you see?” said Demetrios.“I see . . . Can I tell what I see? will you be obliged to me? First I see happiness, but it is all in the past. I also see love, but it is drowned in blood . . .”“In my blood?”“In a woman’s blood. And then the blood of another woman. And then yours, a little later on.”Demetrios shrugged his shoulders, and when he turned, he perceived Melitta fleeing down the alley at full speed.“It has given her a fright,” said Chimairis.“But there is no question of Melitta or of me. Let things take their course, since nothing can be prevented. Your destiny was certain even before your birth. Go. I shall say no more.” And she dropped his hand.
“Purify thyself, stranger.”
“I shall enter pure,” said Demetrios.
Dipping the end of her hair in water, the young gate-keeper moistened first his eyelids, then his lips and fingers, in order that his glance might be sanctified, as also the kiss of his mouth and the caress of his hands.
And then he pressed forward into the wood of Aphrodite.
Through the dark branches, he perceived a setting sun of sombre purple, powerless to dazzle the eyes. It was the evening of the day on which his life had been convulsed by the meeting with Chrysis.
The feminine soul is of a simplicity incredible to men. Where there is nothing but a straight line, they obstinately search for the complexity of a web; they find emptiness and go astray in it. Thus it was that the soul of Chrysis, limpid as a little child’s, appeared to Demetrios more mysterious than a problem in metaphysics. After leaving this woman upon the quay, he went back to his house like a man in a dream, incapable of answering all the questions which tormented him. What did she want with these three gifts? It was impossible for her either to wear or to sell a celebrated mirror, acquired by theft, the comb of an assassinated woman, the pearl necklace of the goddess. If she kept them at home, she would expose herself every day to the possibility of a fatal discovery. Then why ask for them? To destroy them? He knew only too well that women are incapable of enjoying things in secret and that good fortune brings them happiness only as soon as it is noised abroad. And then, what divination, what profound clairvoyance had led her to judge him capable of accomplishing three such extraordinary actions for her sake?
Assuredly, if he had liked, he might have carried off Chrysis from her home, held her at his mercy, and made her his mistress, his wife, or his slave, at choice. He had even the right to do away with her, simply. Former revolutions had accustomed the citizens to violent deaths, and no one would have troubled about the disappearance of a courtesan. Chrysis must know this, and yet she had dared . . .
ill-024
The young gate-keeper moistened first his eyelids.
The more he thought about her, the more grateful he was to her for having varied the usual routine of bargaining in so charming a manner. How many women of equal worth with Chrysis had offered themselves clumsily! But what did this one ask for? Neither love, nor gold, nor jewels, but three unheard-of crimes! She interested him keenly. He had offered her all the treasures of Egypt: he felt distinctly, now, that if she had accepted them she would not have received two obols, and that he would have tired of her even before knowing her. Three crimes were certainly an unusual salary; but she was worthy to receive it since she was a woman capable of exacting it, and he promised himself to go on with the adventure.
In order not to give himself the time to repent of his firm resolve, he went the very same day to the house of Bacchis, found the house empty, took the silver mirror and went off to the gardens.
Was it necessary to make a direct call on Chrysis’s second victim? Demetrios thought not. The priestess Touni, who owned the famous ivory comb, was so charming and so weak that he was afraid of repenting if he went straight to her house without any preliminary precautions. He retraced his steps and went along the Grand Terrace.
The courtesans were on show in their “chambres exposées” like flowers in a shop window.
Their attitudes and their costumes had no less diversity than their ages, types, and races. The most beautiful, according to the tradition of Phryne, leaving exposed nothing but the oval of their faces, sat enveloped from head to foot in their great garment of fine wool. Others had adopted the fashion of transparent robes, under which one distinguished their beauties mysteriously, just as, through limpid water, one discerns the green mosses lying in splashes of shade upon the bottom. Those whose sole charm consisted in their youthfulness sat naked to the waist, stiffening out their busts in order to display to the best advantage the firmness of their breasts. But the most mature, knowing that the features of the feminine visage age more quickly than the skin of the body, sat quite naked, holding their breasts in their hands, and stretching their clumsy thighs apart, as if they wished to prove that they were still women.
ill-025
Demetrios passed slowly before them.
Demetrios passed slowly before them, with unflagging admiration. He had never yet succeeded in contemplating a woman’s nudity without intense emotion. He understood neither disgust before the corpse of a young woman nor insensibility to the body of a little girl. That evening any woman could have charmed him. Provided she remained silent and did not display more ardour than the minimum required by the etiquette of the bed, he was quite ready to forgive her for her lack of beauty. And what is more, he even preferred that she should have a coarse body, for the more his intelligence considered faultless forms, the less room was there for his sensual desires. The agitation which he felt upon contact with living beauty was due to a sensualism exclusively cerebral, which annihilated mere sexual excitation. He remembered with anguish having remained all night as impotent as an old man, by the side of the most admirable woman he had ever held in his arms. And since that night he had learnt to choose mistresses of less purity.
“Friend,” said a voice, “you don’t recognise me?”
He turned round with a negative sign, and went on his way, for he never undressed the same woman twice. It was the principle that guided his visits to the gardens. A woman one has not yet possessed retains something of the virgin; but what good result, what surprise can one expect from a second rendez-vous? It is almost marriage. Demetrios did not expose himself to the illusions of the second night. Queen Berenice sufficed for his rare conjugal impulses, and with that exception he was careful to choose a new accomplice for every evening’s indispensable adultery.
“Clonarion!
Gnatene!
Plango!
Mnaïs!
Crobyle!
Ioessa.”
They cried their names as he passed, and some added protestations of their ardent natures or proposed an abnormal vice. Demetrios followed the road. He was preparing to choose at a venture, according to his habit, when a little girl entirely dressed in blue leaned her head upon her shoulder and said to him softly, without rising:
“Is it quite out of the question?”
The novelty of this mode of address made him smile. He stopped.
“Open the door,” he said. “I choose you.”
The little girl gleefully jumped to her feet and gave two raps with the phallus-shaped knocker. The door was opened by an old slave woman.
“Gorgo,” said the little girl, “I have got somebody; quickly, get some cakes and Cretan wine, and make the bed.”
She turned round to Demetrios.
“You don’t want any satyrion?”
“No,” said the young man laughing. “You have some?”
“I have to keep it,” said the child. “I am asked for it oftener than you think. Come this way; be careful of the steps, one of them is worn. Go into my room. I shall be back in a moment.”
The room was quite simple, like those of the novices. A great bed, a couch, a few seats and carpets composed all the scanty furniture; but through a large open bay there was a view over the gardens, the sea, the double harbour of Alexandria. Demetrios remained standing and looked at the distant city.
Suns setting behind harbours! Incomparable glories of maritime cities, calm skies, purple waters! Upon what soul vociferous with joy or sorrow would you not cast a shroud of silence? What feet have not halted, what passions have not withered, what voices have not died away before you? . . . Demetrios looked; a swell of torrential flame seemed to issue from the sun, half dipping into the sea, and to flow straight to the left bend of the wood of Aphrodite. From horizon to horizon, the Mediterranean was flooded by the sumptuous purple spectrum which lay in sharply-defined bands of colour, golden red and dull violet side by side. Between this ever-shifting splendour and the peaty mirror of Lake Mareotis, stood the white mass of the town, bathed in red and violet reflexions. Its twenty thousand flat houses spreading in different directions picked it out marvellously with twenty thousand dashes of colour that underwent a perpetual metamorphosis according to the various phases of the setting luminary. The flaming sun shot forth rapid shafts, then was swallowed up, almost suddenly, in the sea, and with the first reflux of the night, there floated over the whole earth a thrill, a muffled breeze, uniform and transparent.
“Here are figs, cakes, a piece of honeycomb, wine, a woman. Eat the figs while it is daylight and the woman when it is dark.”
It was the little girl, laughing as she entered. She bade the young man sit down, mounted astride on his knees, and stretching her two arms behind her head, made fast a rose which was on the point of slipping down from her auburn hair.
In spite of himself Demetrios could not restrain an exclamation of surprise. She was completely naked, and when divested of her ample robe, her little body was seen to be so young, so infantine in the breast, so narrow at the hips, so visibly immature, that Demetrios felt a sense of pity, like a horseman on the point of throwing his man’s weight upon an over-delicate mare.
“But you are not a woman!” he exclaimed.
“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?”
ill-026
“Ten and a half. Eleven. One may say eleven. I was born in the gardens. My mother is a Milesian. She is called Pythias, but she goes by the name of ‘The Goat.’ Shall I send for her, if you think me too little? Her house is not far from mine.”
“You have been to the Didascalion?”
“I am still there in the sixth class. I shall have finished next year; and not too soon either.”
“Aren’t you happy?”
“Ah! if only you knew how difficult the mistresses are to please! They make you recommence the same lesson twenty times! Things perfectly useless that men never ask for. And then one is tired out, all for nothing. I don’t like that at all. Come, take a fig; not that one, it is not ripe. I will show you a new way to eat. Look!”
“I know it. It is longer and no better than the other way. I see that you are a good pupil.”
“Oh! I have learnt everything I know by myself. The mistresses would have us believe that they are cleverer than we are. They have more style, that may be, but they have invented nothing.”
“You have many lovers?”
“They are all too old: it is inevitable. Young men are so foolish! They only like women forty years old. Now and again I see young men pretty as Eros pass by, and if you were to see what they choose! Hippopotami! It is enough to make one turn pale. I hope sincerely that I shall never reach these women’s age: I should be too ashamed to undress. I am so glad to be still quite young. The breasts always develop too soon. I think that the first month I see my blood flow I shall feel ready to die. Let me give you a kiss. I like you very much.”
Here the conversation took a less serious if not a more silent turn, and Demetrios rapidly perceived that his scruples were beside the mark in the case of so expert a young lady. She seemed to realise that she was somewhat meagre pasturage for a young man’s appetite, and she battled her lover by a prodigious activity of furtive finger-touches, which he could neither foresee nor elude, nor direct, and which never left him the leisure for a loving embrace. She multiplied her agile, firm little body around him, offered herself, refused herself, slipped and turned and struggled. Finally they grasped one another. But this half hour was merely a long game.
She jumped out of bed the first, dipped her finger in the honey-bowl and moistened her lips; then, making a thousand efforts not to laugh, she bent over Demetrios and rubbed her mouth against his. Her round curls danced on either side of their cheeks. The young man smiled and leaned upon his elbow.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Melitta. Did you not see my name upon the door?”
“I did not look.”
“You can see it in my room. They have written it all over the walls. I shall soon be forced to have them repainted.”
Demetrios raised his head: the four panels of the chamber were covered with inscriptions.
“That is very curious, indeed.” said he. “May one read?”
“Oh, if you like. I have no secrets.”
He read. Melitta’s name was there several times repeated, coupled with various men’s names and barbaric drawings. Tender, obscene, or comic sentences jostled oddly with one another. Lovers boasted of their vigour, or detailed the charms of the little courtesan, or poked fun at her girl-friends. All this was interesting merely as a written proof of a general degradation. But, looking towards the bottom of the right-hand panel, Demetrios gave a start.
“What is that? What is that? Speak!”
“Who? What? Where?” said the child. “What is the matter with you?”
“Here. That name. Who wrote that?”
And his finger stopped under this double line.
ΜΕΛΙΤΤΑ .Λ. ΧΡΥΣΙΔΑΧΡΥΣΙΣ .Λ. ΜΕΛΙΤΤΑΝ
“Ah!” she answered, “that’s me. I wrote that.”
“Who is she, Chrysis?”
“My great friend.”
“I dare say. That is not what I ask you. Which Chrysis? There are many.”
“Mine, the most beautiful. Chrysis of Galilee.”
“You know her! you know her! But speak, speak! Where does she come from? where does she live? who is her lover? tell me everything!”
He sat down upon the couch and took the little girl upon his knees.
“You are in love, then?” she said.
“That matters little to you. Tell me what you know; I am in a hurry to hear everything.”
“Oh! I know nothing at all. It is quite short. She has been to see me twice, and you may imagine that I have not asked her for details about her family. I was too happy to have her, and I did not lose time in conversation.”
“How is she made?”
“Like a pretty girl, what do you expect me to say? Do you want me to name all the parts of her body, adding that everything is beautiful? And then, she is a woman, a real woman . . . Every time I think about her I desire somebody.”
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And she put her arm round the neck of Demetrios.
“Don’t you know anything about her?” he began again.
“I know—I know that she comes from Galilee, that she is nearly twenty years old, and that she lives in the Jews’ quarter, in the east end, near the gardens. But that is all.”
“And about her life, her tastes? can you tell me nothing? She is fond of women, since she came to see you. But is she altogether Lesbian?”
“Certainly not. The first night she passed here, she brought a lover, and I swear to you there was no make-believe about her. When a woman is sincere, I can see it by her eyes. That did not prevent her from returning once quite alone. And she has promised me a third night.”
“You don’t know whether she has any otheramiein the gardens? Nobody?”
“Yes, one of her countrywomen, Chimairis. She is very poor.”
“Where does she live? I must see her.”
“She has slept in the wood for upwards of a year. She has sold her house. But I know where her den is. I can take you to it if you wish. Put on my sandals, will you?”
Demetrios rapidly buckled the plaited leather straps round Melitta’s slender ankles. Then he handed her her short robe, which she merely threw over her arm, and they departed in haste.
They walked far. The park was immense. From time to time, a girl under a tree proffered her name and opened her robe, then lay down again and leaned her face upon her hand. Melitta knew some of them: they embraced her without stopping her. Passing before a rustic altar, she gathered three great flowers and placed them upon the stone.
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“My little girl! my little love! how are you?”
It was not yet dusk. The intense light of summer days has something permanent about it which lingers vaguely in the slow twilight.
The faint, humid stars, hardly brighter than the body of the sky, twinkled and throbbed gently, and the shadows of the branches remained indecisive.
“Mamma! There’s mamma,” cried Melitta suddenly.
A woman, dressed in a garment of triple muslin striped with blue, was seen advancing with a tranquil step, alone. As soon as she caught sight of the child she ran up to her, raised her off the ground, lifted her up in her arms, and kissed her energetically on the cheek.
“My little girl! my little love! how are you?”
“I am guiding somebody who wants to see Chimairis. And you? Are you out for a walk?”
“Corinna isaccouchée. I have been to see her. I have dined by her bedside.”
“And what has she given birth to? A boy?”
“Two twin girls, my dear, as pink as wax dolls. You can go and see them tonight; she will show them to you.”
“Oh! how lovely! Two little courtesans. What are their names?”
“They are both called Pannychis, because they were born on the day before the Aphrodisiæ. It is a divine presage. They will be pretty.”
She replaced the child upon her feet, and turning to Demetrios:
“What do you think of my daughter? Have I the right to be proud of her?”
“You have the right to be satisfied with one another,” he answered gravely.
“Kiss mamma,” said Melitta.
He silently imprinted a kiss between her breasts. Pythias returned it to him upon the mouth, and they separated.
Demetrios and the child advanced a few more paces beneath the trees, whilst the courtesan receded into the distance, turning her head as she walked. At last they reached their goal, and Melitta said:
“It is here.”
Chimairis was sitting crouching upon her left heel, on a little grass-plot between two trees and a bust. A sort of red rag, her last remaining day garment, lay spread out beneath her. At night, she slept upon it naked, at the hour the men passed. Demetrios contemplated her with growing interest. She had the feverish aspect of certain emaciated dark women whose tawny bodies seem consumed by an ever-throbbing ardour. Her powerful lips, the excessive brilliancy of her glance, her livid eyelids combined to produce a double expression of sensual lustfulness and physical exhaustion. The curve of her hollow belly and her nervous thighs formed a natural cavity, designed as if to receive; and as she had sold everything, even her combs and pins, even her depilatory tweezers, her hair was tangled together in inextricable disorder. A black pubescence invested her nudity with a certain savage and shaggy effrontery.
A great he-goat stood stiffly on its four legs beside her. It was tethered to a tree by a gold chain which had formerly glittered in a quadruple coil upon its mistress’s breast.
“Chimairis,” said Melitta, “get up. Here is somebody who wishes to speak to you.”
The Jewess looked, but did not move.
Demetrios advanced.
“Do you know Chrysis?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Do you see her often?”
“Yes.”
“Will you talk to me about her?”
“No.”
“What? No? What? you cannot?”
“No.”
Melitta was stupefied.
“Speak to him,” she said. “Have confidence. He loves her, he wishes her well.”
“I see clearly that he loves her.” answered Chimairis. “If he loves her, he wishes her ill. If he loves her, I shall not speak.”
Demetrios tingled with rage, but said nothing.
“Give me your hand,” said the Jewess. “It will tell me whether I am mistaken.”
She took the young man’s left hand and turned it towards the moonlight. Melitta leaned forward to see, although she could not read the mysterious lines, but their fatality attracted her.
“What do you see?” said Demetrios.
“I see . . . Can I tell what I see? will you be obliged to me? First I see happiness, but it is all in the past. I also see love, but it is drowned in blood . . .”
“In my blood?”
“In a woman’s blood. And then the blood of another woman. And then yours, a little later on.”
Demetrios shrugged his shoulders, and when he turned, he perceived Melitta fleeing down the alley at full speed.
“It has given her a fright,” said Chimairis.
“But there is no question of Melitta or of me. Let things take their course, since nothing can be prevented. Your destiny was certain even before your birth. Go. I shall say no more.” And she dropped his hand.