IVTHE RESPONSEAnd the Agora was left empty, like a beach after the tide.Empty, but not completely: a man and a woman stayed behind, the only two mortals who knew the secret of the great public emotion, the two beings who were the cause of it: Chrysis and Demetrios.The young man was seated on a block of marble near the port. The young woman stood at the opposite end of the square. They could not recognise one another; but they divined one another mutually: Chrysis, drunk with pride and finally with desire, ran in the full glare of the sun.“You have done it!” she cried; “you have done it, then!”“Yes,” said the young man simply. “You are obeyed.”She quickly sat herself on his knees and embraced him deliriously:“I love you! I love you! I have never before felt what I feel now! Gods! At last I know what it is to be in love! You see, my beloved, I give you more than I promised you the day before yesterday. I, who have never denied anyone, I could not dream that should change so quickly. I had only sold you my body upon the bed, now I give you all my excellence, all my purity, my sincerity, my passion, my virgin soul, Demetrios. Come with me; let us leave this town for a time; let us go into a hidden place, where there are only you and I. We will spend days such as the world has never seen. Never did a lover do what you have done for me. Never did a woman love as I love: it is not possible! it is not possible! I can hardly speak. I am choking. You see, I weep. I know now what it is to weep: it is through excess of happiness. But you do not answer! You say nothing? Kiss me!”Demetrios stretched out his right leg to ease his knee, which was a little cramped. Then he raised the young woman, stood up, shook the creases out of his garments, and said softly with an enigmatic smile:“No . . . Adieu . . .”ill-073“You say nothing! Kiss me!And he tranquilly turned away.Chrysis stood rooted to the ground with stupefaction, her mouth open and her head dangling.“What? What . . . what . . . what do you say?”“I say adieu,” he said, without raising his voice.“But . . . but it cannot be you who . . .”“Yes. I had promised.”“Then . . . I fail to understand . . .”“My dear, whether you understand or not is a matter of indifference to me. I leave this little mystery to your meditations. If what you have told me is true, they are likely to be prolonged. This affair occurs most conveniently to give them occupation. Adieu.”“Demetrios! What do I hear? . . . what is the meaning of this tone? Is it really you who speak? Explain! I conjure you! What has happened between us? It is enough to make one dash one’s head against the wall.”“Am I to repeat the same thing a hundred times? Yes, I have taken the mirror; yes, I have killed the priestess Touni in order to get the peerless comb; yes, I have stolen the great seven-stringed necklace of the goddess. I was to hand you over the presents in exchange for a single sacrifice on your part. It was putting it at a high value, was it not? Now, I have ceased to estimate it at this extraordinary value, and I have nothing more to ask of you. Act in the same way, and let us part. I wonder you do not understand a situation the simplicity of which is so evident.”“Keep your presents! Do you suppose I care about them? It is yourself that I want, you, you alone.”“Yes, I know. But once again, I am not willing, and, as the consent of both the parties is necessary for a rendez-vous, I am very much afraid it will not take place, if I persist in my present views. This is what I am trying to impress upon you with all the clearness of diction of which I am capable. I see it is inadequate; but as I cannot improve it, I beg you to kindly accept the accomplished fact with a good grace, without prying into what you consider obscure about it, since you do not admit that it is within the limits of probability. I am most anxious to bring this discussion to an end. It can lead to no result, and might perhaps force me to be impolite.”“People have been tittle-tattling about me?”“No!”“Oh yes, I guess as much! People have been talking about me, don’t deny it. They have said things about me behind my back! I have terrible enemies, Demetrios! You must not listen to them: I swear to you by the gods, they lie!”“I do not know them.”“Believe me! Believe me, Well-beloved! What interest could I have in deceiving you, since I desire nothing from you except yourself? You are the first person I have ever spoken to like this . . .”ill-074Demetrios looked her in the eyes.“It is too late,” he said. “I have possessed you.”“You are raving . . . When? Where? How?”“I speak the truth. I have possessed you in spite of yourself. What I hoped from your complaisance you have given me without your knowledge. You took me to the country you want to go to, in a dream, last night, and you were beautiful . . . ah! you were beautiful, Chrysis! I have returned from that country. No human will shall force me to see it again. The same event never brings happiness twice. I am not so mad as to ruin a happy souvenir. I am indebted for this to you, you will say; but as I have only loved your shadow, you will dispense me, dear creature, from thanking your reality.”Chrysis pressed her hands to her temples.“It is abominable, abominable! And he dares to say this! And he makes a boast of it!”“You jump to definite conclusions very quickly. I have told you that I have had a dream: are you sure that I was asleep? I have told you that I was happy: does happiness, according to you, consist in the gross physical thrill which you say you are so expert in producing, but which you cannot diversify, since it is much the same with all women who give themselves! No, it is yourself that you belittle by taking this most unbecoming point of view. I think you do not quite realise all the felicities which spring from under your footsteps. What differentiates mistresses from one another is that they have each a fashion, personal to themselves, of preparing and terminating an incident which, as a matter of fact, is as monstrous as it is necessary, and the quest of which, supposing we had only it in view, would not be worth all the trouble we take to find a perfect mistress. In this preparation and in this termination you excel beyond all women. At least, it has been a pleasure to me to think so, and perhaps you will grant me that after having produced the Aphrodite of the Temple my imagination has had no great difficulty in divining the manner of woman you are. Once again, I will not tell you whether it is a question of a night dream or a waking error. It is enough for you to know that, whether dreamed or conceived, your image has appeared to me in an extraordinary frame. Illusion; but, in all things I shall prevent you, Chrysis, from disillusioning me.”“And me, what do you mean to do with me, who loves you still in spite of all the horrors that proceed from your mouth? Have I had the consciousness of your odious dream? Have I had my share in this happiness of which you speak, and which you have stolen, stolen from me! Has one ever heard of a lover so amazingly selfish as to take his pleasure of the woman who loves him without allowing her to share it! . . . This confounds all thought. It will drive me mad.”At this point, Demetrios dropped his tone of mockery, and said, in a voice that trembled slightly:“Did you trouble yourself about me when you took advantage of my sudden passion to extort from me, in a moment of folly, three actions which might have destroyed my existence, and which will always leave behind them the remembrance of a triple shame?”“If I asked this, it was to attach you to me. I should not have got you if I had given myself.”“Good. You have been satisfied. You have held me, not for long, but you have held me, nevertheless, in the serfdom you desired. Today, you must allow me to free myself!”“I am the only slave, Demetrios.”ill-075He freed himself from both her arms.“Yes, you or I, but one of us two if he loves the other. Slavery! Slavery! that is the real name of passion. You have all of you only one dream, one idea in your heads; to break men’s strength with your feebleness and govern his intelligence with your futility. As soon as your breasts take form, you desire neither to love nor to be loved, but to bind a man to your ankles, to lower him, to bow his head and put your sandals upon it. Then, in conformity with your ambition, you can dash the sword, the chisel, or the compass out of our hands, break everything which transcends you, emasculate everything which frightens you, tweak Hercules by the nose and set him a-spinning wool. But when you have been able neither to bow his head nor weaken his character, you adore the fist that beats you, the knee that strikes you to the ground, the very mouth that insults you. The man who has refused to kiss your naked feet satisfies your dearest wish if he violates you. The man who has not wept when you left his house, can drag you there by the hair: your love will spring up again from your tears, for there is but one thing that consoles you when you are unable to impose slavery, amorous women! and that is to submit to it.”“Ah, beat me, if you like! but love me afterwards!”And she hugged him so brusquely that he had not time to turn away his lips. He freed himself from both her arms.“I detest you! Adieu,” he said.But Chrysis clung to his mantle.“Do not lie. You adore me. Your soul is full of me: but you are ashamed at having yielded. Listen, listen, Well-beloved! If that is all that is needed to console your pride, I am ready to give you, in order to have you, still more than I asked of you. Whatever sacrifice I make you, I will not complain of life after our union.”Demetrios looked at her curiously, and, like her, the night before upon the quay, he said to her:“What oath do you swear me?”“By Aphrodite also.”“You do not believe in Aphrodite. Swear by Jehovah Sabaoth.”The Galilæan woman paled.“We do not swear by Jehovah.”“You refuse?”“It is a terrible oath.”“I must have it.”She hesitated, then said in a low voice: “I swear by Jehovah. What do you want of me, Demetrios?”The young man kept silence.“Speak quickly, I am afraid.”“Oh! very little.”“But what is it?”“I will not ask you to give me three presents, were they as simple as the first three were rare. It would be contrary to the usages. But I can ask you to accept some, can I not?”“Assuredly,” said Chrysis joyously.“This mirror, this necklace, this comb, which you made me steal for you, you did not expect to use them, I suppose? A stolen mirror, the comb of a victim, and the goddess’s necklace are not jewels one can make a display of.”“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 god’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 goddess 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.”
And the Agora was left empty, like a beach after the tide.
Empty, but not completely: a man and a woman stayed behind, the only two mortals who knew the secret of the great public emotion, the two beings who were the cause of it: Chrysis and Demetrios.
The young man was seated on a block of marble near the port. The young woman stood at the opposite end of the square. They could not recognise one another; but they divined one another mutually: Chrysis, drunk with pride and finally with desire, ran in the full glare of the sun.
“You have done it!” she cried; “you have done it, then!”
“Yes,” said the young man simply. “You are obeyed.”
She quickly sat herself on his knees and embraced him deliriously:
“I love you! I love you! I have never before felt what I feel now! Gods! At last I know what it is to be in love! You see, my beloved, I give you more than I promised you the day before yesterday. I, who have never denied anyone, I could not dream that should change so quickly. I had only sold you my body upon the bed, now I give you all my excellence, all my purity, my sincerity, my passion, my virgin soul, Demetrios. Come with me; let us leave this town for a time; let us go into a hidden place, where there are only you and I. We will spend days such as the world has never seen. Never did a lover do what you have done for me. Never did a woman love as I love: it is not possible! it is not possible! I can hardly speak. I am choking. You see, I weep. I know now what it is to weep: it is through excess of happiness. But you do not answer! You say nothing? Kiss me!”
Demetrios stretched out his right leg to ease his knee, which was a little cramped. Then he raised the young woman, stood up, shook the creases out of his garments, and said softly with an enigmatic smile:
“No . . . Adieu . . .”
ill-073
“You say nothing! Kiss me!
And he tranquilly turned away.
Chrysis stood rooted to the ground with stupefaction, her mouth open and her head dangling.
“What? What . . . what . . . what do you say?”
“I say adieu,” he said, without raising his voice.
“But . . . but it cannot be you who . . .”
“Yes. I had promised.”
“Then . . . I fail to understand . . .”
“My dear, whether you understand or not is a matter of indifference to me. I leave this little mystery to your meditations. If what you have told me is true, they are likely to be prolonged. This affair occurs most conveniently to give them occupation. Adieu.”
“Demetrios! What do I hear? . . . what is the meaning of this tone? Is it really you who speak? Explain! I conjure you! What has happened between us? It is enough to make one dash one’s head against the wall.”
“Am I to repeat the same thing a hundred times? Yes, I have taken the mirror; yes, I have killed the priestess Touni in order to get the peerless comb; yes, I have stolen the great seven-stringed necklace of the goddess. I was to hand you over the presents in exchange for a single sacrifice on your part. It was putting it at a high value, was it not? Now, I have ceased to estimate it at this extraordinary value, and I have nothing more to ask of you. Act in the same way, and let us part. I wonder you do not understand a situation the simplicity of which is so evident.”
“Keep your presents! Do you suppose I care about them? It is yourself that I want, you, you alone.”
“Yes, I know. But once again, I am not willing, and, as the consent of both the parties is necessary for a rendez-vous, I am very much afraid it will not take place, if I persist in my present views. This is what I am trying to impress upon you with all the clearness of diction of which I am capable. I see it is inadequate; but as I cannot improve it, I beg you to kindly accept the accomplished fact with a good grace, without prying into what you consider obscure about it, since you do not admit that it is within the limits of probability. I am most anxious to bring this discussion to an end. It can lead to no result, and might perhaps force me to be impolite.”
“People have been tittle-tattling about me?”
“No!”
“Oh yes, I guess as much! People have been talking about me, don’t deny it. They have said things about me behind my back! I have terrible enemies, Demetrios! You must not listen to them: I swear to you by the gods, they lie!”
“I do not know them.”
“Believe me! Believe me, Well-beloved! What interest could I have in deceiving you, since I desire nothing from you except yourself? You are the first person I have ever spoken to like this . . .”
ill-074
Demetrios looked her in the eyes.
“It is too late,” he said. “I have possessed you.”
“You are raving . . . When? Where? How?”
“I speak the truth. I have possessed you in spite of yourself. What I hoped from your complaisance you have given me without your knowledge. You took me to the country you want to go to, in a dream, last night, and you were beautiful . . . ah! you were beautiful, Chrysis! I have returned from that country. No human will shall force me to see it again. The same event never brings happiness twice. I am not so mad as to ruin a happy souvenir. I am indebted for this to you, you will say; but as I have only loved your shadow, you will dispense me, dear creature, from thanking your reality.”
Chrysis pressed her hands to her temples.
“It is abominable, abominable! And he dares to say this! And he makes a boast of it!”
“You jump to definite conclusions very quickly. I have told you that I have had a dream: are you sure that I was asleep? I have told you that I was happy: does happiness, according to you, consist in the gross physical thrill which you say you are so expert in producing, but which you cannot diversify, since it is much the same with all women who give themselves! No, it is yourself that you belittle by taking this most unbecoming point of view. I think you do not quite realise all the felicities which spring from under your footsteps. What differentiates mistresses from one another is that they have each a fashion, personal to themselves, of preparing and terminating an incident which, as a matter of fact, is as monstrous as it is necessary, and the quest of which, supposing we had only it in view, would not be worth all the trouble we take to find a perfect mistress. In this preparation and in this termination you excel beyond all women. At least, it has been a pleasure to me to think so, and perhaps you will grant me that after having produced the Aphrodite of the Temple my imagination has had no great difficulty in divining the manner of woman you are. Once again, I will not tell you whether it is a question of a night dream or a waking error. It is enough for you to know that, whether dreamed or conceived, your image has appeared to me in an extraordinary frame. Illusion; but, in all things I shall prevent you, Chrysis, from disillusioning me.”
“And me, what do you mean to do with me, who loves you still in spite of all the horrors that proceed from your mouth? Have I had the consciousness of your odious dream? Have I had my share in this happiness of which you speak, and which you have stolen, stolen from me! Has one ever heard of a lover so amazingly selfish as to take his pleasure of the woman who loves him without allowing her to share it! . . . This confounds all thought. It will drive me mad.”
At this point, Demetrios dropped his tone of mockery, and said, in a voice that trembled slightly:
“Did you trouble yourself about me when you took advantage of my sudden passion to extort from me, in a moment of folly, three actions which might have destroyed my existence, and which will always leave behind them the remembrance of a triple shame?”
“If I asked this, it was to attach you to me. I should not have got you if I had given myself.”
“Good. You have been satisfied. You have held me, not for long, but you have held me, nevertheless, in the serfdom you desired. Today, you must allow me to free myself!”
“I am the only slave, Demetrios.”
ill-075
He freed himself from both her arms.
“Yes, you or I, but one of us two if he loves the other. Slavery! Slavery! that is the real name of passion. You have all of you only one dream, one idea in your heads; to break men’s strength with your feebleness and govern his intelligence with your futility. As soon as your breasts take form, you desire neither to love nor to be loved, but to bind a man to your ankles, to lower him, to bow his head and put your sandals upon it. Then, in conformity with your ambition, you can dash the sword, the chisel, or the compass out of our hands, break everything which transcends you, emasculate everything which frightens you, tweak Hercules by the nose and set him a-spinning wool. But when you have been able neither to bow his head nor weaken his character, you adore the fist that beats you, the knee that strikes you to the ground, the very mouth that insults you. The man who has refused to kiss your naked feet satisfies your dearest wish if he violates you. The man who has not wept when you left his house, can drag you there by the hair: your love will spring up again from your tears, for there is but one thing that consoles you when you are unable to impose slavery, amorous women! and that is to submit to it.”
“Ah, beat me, if you like! but love me afterwards!”
And she hugged him so brusquely that he had not time to turn away his lips. He freed himself from both her arms.
“I detest you! Adieu,” he said.
But Chrysis clung to his mantle.
“Do not lie. You adore me. Your soul is full of me: but you are ashamed at having yielded. Listen, listen, Well-beloved! If that is all that is needed to console your pride, I am ready to give you, in order to have you, still more than I asked of you. Whatever sacrifice I make you, I will not complain of life after our union.”
Demetrios looked at her curiously, and, like her, the night before upon the quay, he said to her:
“What oath do you swear me?”
“By Aphrodite also.”
“You do not believe in Aphrodite. Swear by Jehovah Sabaoth.”
The Galilæan woman paled.
“We do not swear by Jehovah.”
“You refuse?”
“It is a terrible oath.”
“I must have it.”
She hesitated, then said in a low voice: “I swear by Jehovah. What do you want of me, Demetrios?”
The young man kept silence.
“Speak quickly, I am afraid.”
“Oh! very little.”
“But what is it?”
“I will not ask you to give me three presents, were they as simple as the first three were rare. It would be contrary to the usages. But I can ask you to accept some, can I not?”
“Assuredly,” said Chrysis joyously.
“This mirror, this necklace, this comb, which you made me steal for you, you did not expect to use them, I suppose? A stolen mirror, the comb of a victim, and the goddess’s necklace are not jewels one can make a display of.”
“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 god’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 goddess 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.”