Demetrios casts the dark lump of clay upon the table. He presses it, kneads it, lengthens it out into human form: a sort of barbarous monster takes shape under his burning fingers: he looks.

The motionless corpse preserves its att.i.tude of pa.s.sion. But a thin thread of blood trickles from the right nostril, flows upon the lip, and falls, drop by drop, under the half-opened mouth.

Demetrios continues. The rough figure takes life and precision. A prodigious left arm circles over the body as if it were clasping someone in a tight embrace. The muscles of the thigh stand out violently. The heels are bent upwards.

When night mounted from the earth and darkened the low chamber, Demetrios had finished the statue.

He had it carried to his studio by four slaves. That very evening, by lamplight, he had a block of Parian marble rough-hewed, and a year after that day he was still working at the marble.

IV

PITY

"Gaoler, open! Gaoler, open!"

Rhodis and Myrtocleia knocked at the closed door.

The door opened half way.

"What do you want?"

"To see our friend," said Myrto. "To see Chrysis, poor Chrysis, who died this morning."

"It is not allowed; go away!"

"Oh, let us enter. No one will know. We will tell no one. She was our friend, let us see her once more. We will go out again. We will go out again quickly. We will make no noise."

"And supposing I am caught, my little girls? Supposing I am punished on your account? You will not pay the fine?"

"You will not be caught. You are alone here. There are no other inmates of the prison. You have sent away the soldiers. We know this. Let us enter."

"Well, well! Do not stay too long. Here is the key. It is the third door. Tell me when you go away. It is late and I want to go to bed."

The kindly old man handed them a key of beaten iron which hung from his girdle, and the two little virgins ran immediately, on their noiseless sandals, along the obscure corridors.

Then the gaoler re-entered his lodge, and did not insist any further upon a useless surveillance. The penalty of imprisonment was not applied in Greek Egypt, and the little white house that was placed under the care of the gentle old man served merely for the reception of culprits condemned to death. In the interval between executions it remained almost deserted.

The moment the great key entered the lock, Rhodis arrested her friend's hand:

"I do not know whether I dare see her," she said. "I loved her well, Myrto . . . I am afraid . . . Go in first, will you?"

Myrtocleia pushed open the door; but as soon as she had cast a glance into the chamber she cried:

"Do not enter, Rhodis! Wait for me here."

"Oh! What is there? You are afraid too . . . What is there on the bed? Is she not dead?"

"Yes, wait for me . . . I will tell you . . . Stay in the corridor and do not look."

The body was still in the ecstatic att.i.tude in which Demetrius had arranged it for his Statue of Immortal Life. But the transports of extreme joy confine upon the convulsions of extreme pain, and Myrtocleia asked herself what atrocious sufferings, what agonies had produced such an upheaval in the corpse.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

She approached the bed on tiptoe.

The thread of blood continued to flow from the diaphanous nostril. The skin of the body was perfectly white; the pale tips of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s receded like delicate navels; not a single rose-coloured reflection gave life to the ephemeral rec.u.mbent statue; but some emerald-coloured spots that tinted the smooth belly signified that millions of new lives were germinating in the scarcely--cold flesh, and were demanding "the right of succession!"

Myrtocleia took the dead arm and laid it flat along the hip. She tried also to pull out the left leg; but the knee was almost rigid, and she did not succeed in pulling it out completely.

"Rhodis," she said, in a troubled voice, "come; you can enter now."

The trembling child penetrated into the chamber. Her features contracted, her eyes opened wide.

As soon as they felt that there were two of them, they fell into one another's arms and burst into long-drawn sobs.

"Poor Chrysis! Poor Chrysis!" repeated the child.

They kissed one another on the cheek with a desperate affection from which all sensuality had disappeared and the taste of the tears upon their lips filled their forlorn little souls with bitterness.

They wept, and wailed, they looked at one another other with anguish, and sometimes they spoke both together in a hoa.r.s.e voice of agony, and their words ended in sobs.

"How we loved her! She was not a friend for us. She was a little mother for both of us . . ."

Rhodis repeated:

"Like a little mother . . ."

And Myrto, dragging her to the side of the dead woman, said in a low voice:

"Kiss her."

They both bent down, and placed their hands upon the bed, as, with fresh sobs, they touched the icy forehead with their lips.

And Myrto took the head between her two hands, buried them in the hair, and spoke to her thus:

"Chrysis, my Chrysis, you who were the most beautiful and the most adored of women, who were so like the G.o.ddess that the people took you for her, where are you now, what have they done with you? You lived to impart beneficent joy. No fruit was ever sweeter than your mouth, no light brighter than your eyes; your skin was a glorious robe that you would not veil; voluptuousness floated upon it like a perpetual odour; and when you unclasped your hair, all desires flowed from it; and when you clasped your naked arms, one implored the G.o.ds for permission to die."