Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite Part 15

"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.

III

LOVE AND DEATH

"A woman's blood. Afterwards another woman's blood. Afterwards yours, but a little later on."

Demetrios repeated these words to himself as he walked, and in spite of himself, his belief in them weighed upon him. He had never had any faith in oracles drawn from the bodies of victims or the movements of planets.

These affinities seemed too problematical. But the complex lines of the hand have, in themselves, an exclusively personal horoscopic aspect which he considered with uneasiness. The fortune-teller's prediction haunted his mind.

In his turn, he examined the palm of his left hand, on which his life was summed up in secret and indelible signs.

In the first place he saw, at the summit, a sort of regular crescent, the ends of which pointed towards the base of the fingers. Below this, a deep quadruple line, knotted and roseale, marked in two places by very red spots. Another line, but thinner, ran parallel to this at first, and then swerved brusquely round towards the wrist. Finally, a third line, short and clear, turned round the base of the thumb, which was entirely covered with thread-like markings. He saw all that; but, not being able to read the hidden symbol, he pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes and changed the subject of his meditations.

Chrysis! Chrysis! Chrysis! This name throbbed within him like a fever.

Satisfy her, vanquish her, clasp her in his arms, fly with her elsewhere, to Syria, to Greece, to Rome, no matter where, provided it was a place where he had no mistress and she no lovers: that was the thing, and immediately, immediately.

Of the three presents she had asked for, one was already in his possession. Remained the other two: the comb and the necklace.

"The comb first," he said to himself.

Every evening at sunset, the high priest's wife went forth and sat upon a marble seat, with her back turned to the forest and her face set to the great expanse of sea in front of her. Demetrios knew this well, for this woman, like so many others, had been in love with him, and she had told him that the day he chose to possess her it was there he would find her.

It was to that spot, then, that he directed his steps. And there indeed she was; but she did not see him coming. She was sitting with her eyes shut, with her body thrown back upon the seat, and her arms hanging negligently by her sides.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

She was an Egyptian. Her name was Touni. She wore a light tunic of bright purple, without clasp or girdle, and without other adornments than two black stars to mark the points of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The thin tissue, ironed into pleats, terminated at the curve of the delicate knees, and little shoes of blue leather, fitting like gloves, covered her dainty round feet. Her skin was very swarthy, her lips very thick, her shoulders very small, and her fragile, supple waist seemed to bend under the weight of her full throat. She was asleep with her mouth open, dreaming peacefully.

Demetrios, noiselessly, sat down on the bench, by her side.

He slowly drew nearer and nearer, leaning over her, appreciating the delicate lines of her smooth, dark-skinned shoulders, slender at the summit, muscular near the armpit and joined to the bust by the shading of the bush beneath.

Lower down, the long, loose slit of the purple muslin tunic was open as far as the hips. Through the gaping drapery, Demetrios slowly pa.s.sed his hand, and his united finger-tips touched the curves of her left breast, damp with perspiration. Its nipple rose erect in the palm of his hand.

Notwithstanding, Touni slept on.

Her dream gradually changed, but did not fade. Her breath came quicker through her half open lips and she murmured a long, unintelligible sentence, as her fevered head fell back once more.

With the same stealthy tenderness, Demetrios withdrew his hot hand, to let it be refreshed by the light breeze.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She was asleep, dreaming peacefully.]

From the vague outline of the blue garden slopes as far as the immense scintillation of the night, shuddered the eternal sea. Like unto another bosom of some fresh priestess, its undulations were swelling heavenwards, uplifted by the dreams of antiquity that still cause it to thrill in the sight of our belated glances. When the end of all things is nigh, the last living beings will try before they disappear to fathom the mysteries of the moving ocean.

The moon inclined her great goblet of blood over the waters. Faraway, in the purest atmosphere that had ever united heaven and earth, a slight red trail, where black veins meandered, trembled on the surface of the waves beneath the rising orb of night, as when the agitation of a caress on a rounded breast, in the dead of night, remains long after the hand that caused it has been lifted.

Touni still slumbered, her head leaning backwards, her body well-nigh naked, enshrouded in tinted muslin folds.

The purple glare of the moon, as yet on the horizon, came over the sea towards the sleeping woman. The fatal, vivid rays lit her up with a flame that seemed immobile. Little by little, their brilliancy mounted, encircling the Egyptian girl. Her black curls appeared one by one, and finally the Comb flashed out of the darkness: the royal Comb that Chrysis coveted. The ivory diadem was now bathed in the glory of the crimson moonbeams.

It was then that the sculptor took Touni's sweet face in both his hands, turning her features towards his own. Her eyes opened and became dilated.

"Demetrios! Demetrios! Is it you? Oh! You have come at last! You are here!" she murmured, clasping him in her arms, as her voice rang with the accents of happiness. "Is it really you, Demetrios, whose hands awake me? Is it you, son of my G.o.ddess; G.o.d of my body and my life?"

Demetrios made as if to retreat. With one bound, she was close to him again.

"What do you fear?" she said. "For you I am not the woman before whom all tremble, because she is surrounded by the might of the High Priest.

Forget my name, Demetrios. In their lovers' arms, women have no name. I am no longer what you think. I am nothing but a woman who loves and whose yearning for you fills her frame as far as the points of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

Demetrios did not open his lips.

"Listen to me a little while longer," she went on. "I know who enthralls you. I will not even be your mistress, nor make the least attempt to rival the queen. No, Demetrios. Do with me as you will. Take me like some little slave-wench that a man possesses for a few minutes, leaving her afterwards with a remembrance that becomes oblivion. Take me like the lowest poverty-stricken harlot who, crouching by the roadside, awaits the charity of some furtive and brutal attack of l.u.s.t. After all, what am I to place myself above those women? Have the Immortals given me anything more than that with which they have endowed the most servile of all my slaves? You, at least, are Beauty incarnate, with its out spreading emanations of the G.o.ds."

Demetrios, more steadfastly serious than before, pierced her with his glance.

"Wretched creature, what do you suppose emanates from the G.o.ds, if it be not.--"

"Love!"

"Or Death!"

"What mean you?" she exclaimed, starting to her feet. "Death! Yes, Death indeed! But it is so far off for me! In sixty years' time, I'll think of my end. Why speak to me of Death, Demetrios?"

"Death this very night!" he said quietly.

She laughed outright, in sheer fright.

"To-night? No, no! Who says so? Why should I die? Answer me! Speak! What means this vile mockery?"

"You are condemned."

"By whom?"