Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite Part 5

"Then why do you mention him?"

"Because others consider him to be eminent."

"And what does he say?"

"He says everything with a smile, and that enables him to pa.s.s off his errors as international and common-places as subtile. He has all the advantage. People have allowed themselves to be duped."

"All this is beyond me, and I don't quite understand. Besides, the face of this Phrasilas is marked by hypocrisy."

"This is Philodemos."

"The strategist?"

"No. A Latin poet who writes in Greek."

"My dear, he is an enemy. I am sorry to have seen him."

At this point a flutter of excitement ran through the crowd and a murmur of voices p.r.o.nounced the same name:

"Demetrios . . . Demetrios . . ."

Tryphera mounted upon a street post, and she too said to the merchant:

"Demetrios . . . That is Demetrios. You were anxious to see celebrated men."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tryphera mounted upon a street post.]

"Demetrios? the Queen's lover? Is it possible?"

"Yes, you are in luck. He never leaves his house. This is the first time I have seen him on the quay since I have been at Alexandria."

"Where is he?"

"That's he, bending over to look at the harbour."

"There are two men leaning over."

"It is the one in blue."

"I cannot see him very well. His back is turned to me."

"Know you not? he is the sculptor to whom the queen offered herself for a model when he carved the Aphrodite in the temple."

"They say he is the royal lover. They say he is the master of Egypt."

"And he is as beautiful as Apollo."

"Ah! he has turned round. I am very glad that I came. I shall say that I have seen him. I have heard so much about him. It seems that no woman has ever resisted him. He has had many love adventures, has he not? How is it that the queen has not heard of them?"

"The queen knows of them as well as we do. She loves him too much to speak of them. She is afraid of his returning to Rhodes, to his master, Pherecrates. He is as powerful as she is, and it is she who desired him."

"He does not look happy. Why does he look so sad? I think I should be happy if I were in his place. I should like to be he, were it only for an evening."

The sun had set. The women gazed at this man, their common dream. He, without appearing to be conscious of the stir he created, remained leaning over the parapet, listening to the flute-girls.

The little musicians made another collection; then, they softly threw their light flutes over their backs. The singing-girl placed her arms round their necks and all three returned to the town.

At night-fall, the other women went back into immense Alexandria in little groups, and the herd of men followed them; but all turned round as they walked, and looked at Demetrios.

The last girl who pa.s.sed softly cast her yellow flowers at him, and laughed.

Night fell upon the quays.

III

DEMETRIOS

Demetrios remained alone, leaning on his elbow, at the spot vacated by the flute-girls. He listened to the murmur of the sea, to the slow creaking of the ships, to the wind pa.s.sing beneath the stars.

The town was illumined by a dazzling little cloud which lingered upon the moon, and the sky was bathed in soft light.

The young man looked around him. The flute-girls' tunics had left two marks in the dust. He remembered their faces: they were two Ephesians.

He had thought the elder one pretty; but the younger was without charm, and, as ugliness was a torture to him, he avoided thinking about her.

An ivory object gleamed at his feet. He picked it up: it was a writing-tablet, with a silver style attached to it. The wax was almost worn away and it had been necessary to go over the words several times in order to make them legible. They were even scratched into the ivory.

There were only these words:

Myrtis Loves Rhodocleia

and he did not know to which of the two women this belonged, and whether the other was the loved one, or whether it was some unknown girl left behind in Ephesos. Then he thought for a moment of overtaking the two musicians in order to restore them what was perhaps the souvenir of a cherished dead friend; but he could not have found them without difficulty, and as he was already beginning to lose interest in them, he turned round languidly and threw the little object into the sea.

It fell rapidly, with a gliding motion like a white bird, and he heard the splash it made away out in the black water. This little noise enhanced the immense silence of the harbour. Leaning against the cold parapet, he tried to drive away all thought, and began to look at the things around him.

He had a horror of life. He only left his house when the life of the day was dying down, and he returned home when the dawn began to draw the fishermen and market-gardeners to the town. The pleasure of seeing nought in the world but the ghost of the town and his own stature had become a voluptuous pa.s.sion with him, and he did not remember having seen the mid-day sun for months.

He was wearied. The queen was tedious.

He could hardly understand, that night, the joy and pride that had possessed him three years before, when the queen, bewitched perhaps by the stories of his beauty and genius, had sent for him to the palace, and had heralded him to the Evening Gate with the sound of the silver salpinx.

His arrival at the palace sometimes lighted up his memory with one of those souvenirs which, through excess of sweetness, become gradually embittered in the soul and then intolerable . . . The queen had received him alone, in her private apartments, consisting of three rooms of incomparable luxury, where every sound was m.u.f.fled by cushions. She lay upon her left side, embedded, at it were, in a litter of greenish silks which, by reflection, bathed the black locks of her hair in purple. Her youthful body was arrayed in a daring open-worked costume which she had had made before her eyes by a Phrygian courtesan, and which exposed the twenty-two places where caresses are irresistible. One had no need to take off that costume during a whole night, even though one exhausted one's amorous imagination beyond the most extravagant dreams.

Demetrios fell respectfully on his knees, and took Queen Berenice's naked little foot in his hand, in order to kiss it, as one kisses an object delicate and rare.