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.

"Slay me, comfort me, For I am sick of love.

Let his left hand be under my head And his right hand embrace me.

Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, with one 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 garden And 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 A SEAL UPON THINE HEART AS A SEAL UPON THINE ARM FOR 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s, 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 loath 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.u.s.tration: 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 loaden-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 pa.s.sionate 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 grat.i.tude, fix the madness of their glance at the corner of the eyelids. Her checks 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s have already a.s.sumed, 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.

II

THE PANIC

Far above the sea and the Gardens of the G.o.ddess, the moon poured down torrents of light.

Melitta--that little damsel, so delicate and slender, possessed by Demetrios for a fleeting moment, and who had offered to take him to Chimairis, learned in chiromancy--had remained behind alone with the fortune-teller, crouching, and still fierce.

"Do not fellow that man," Chimairis had said.

"Oh yes, I will! I've not even asked him if I am ever to see him again.

Let me run after him to kiss him, and I'll come back--"

"No, you'll not see him ever more. And so much the better, my girl.

Women who meet him once, learn to knew pain. Women who meet him twice, trifle with death."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Oh, prophetess of evil! Take back what you've said!]

"Why say it? I've just met him, and I've only trifled with pleasure in his arms."

"You owe your pleasure to him because you do not know what voluptuousness means, my tiniest of tiny girls. Forget him as you would a playmate and congratulate yourself on being only twelve years old."

"So one is very unhappy when grown up?" asked the child. "All the women here chatter unceasingly of their troubles, and I, who never hardly cry, see so many weeping!"

Chimairis dug her two hands into her hair and uttered a groan. Her goat shook its gold collar and turned its head in her direction, but she did not bestow a glance on the animal.

"Nevertheless, I know one happy woman," continued Melitla, significantly. "She's my great friend, Chrysis. I'm certain she never sheds a tear."

"She will," said Chimairis.

"Oh, prophetess of evil! Take back what you've said, distraught old woman, or I shall hate you!"

Seeing the young girl's threatening gestures, the black goat reared up erect, its front legs bent under; its horns thrust forward.