CHAPTER VI
THE ROSE OF CHRYSIS THE LOVELY
It was a white, blue, yellow, red and green procession.
Thirty courtesans advanced carrying baskets of flowers, snow-white doves with red feet, veils of the most fragile azure and valuable ornaments.
An old white-bearded priest, enveloped from head to foot in stiff unbleached stuff walked in front of this procession of youth and guided towards the stone altar the line of devout worshippers.
They sang, and their song rose and fell like the sound of the sea and the winds. The first two carried harps, which they held in the palm of their left hands and bent forward like sickles of slender wood.
One of them advanced and said--
“Tryperha, beloved Cypris, offers thee this blue veil which she has spun herself so that thou mayst continue thy goodness to her.”
Another said--
“Mousairon lays at the feet of the Goddess of the beautiful crown, these garlands and bouquets of flowers. She has worn them at the fête and has invoked thy name in the intoxication of their perfumes. O Conqueror, receive these spoils of love.”
Another one said--
“As an offering to thee, golden Cytheræ, Timo consecrates this sinuous bracelet. Mayst thou entwine thy vengeance around the throat of the one thou knowest, as this silver serpent entwined itself about these naked arms.”
Myrtocleia and Rhodis advanced hand in hand.
“Here are two doves from Smyrna with wings as white as caresses and feet as red as kisses. O double Goddess of Amathonte, accept them from our joint hands if it is true that the fair Adonis did not satisfy thee and a still more sweet embrace sometimes disturbed thy slumbers.”
A very young courtesan followed, saying--
“Aphrodite Peribasia receive my virginity with this stained tunic of mine. I am Pannychis of Pharos; since last night I have vowed myself to thy worship.”
Another said--
“Dorothea begs thee, charitable Epistrophia, to banish from her mind the desire placed there by Eros or at least to inflame for her the eyes of the lover who refuses her. She presents to thee this branch of myrtle because it is the tree thou preferest.”
Another said--
“Upon thy altar, Paphia, Calliston places sixty drachmas of silver, the balance of a gift she has received from Cleomenes. Give her a still more generous lover, if the offering seems to thee acceptable.”
The only one left in front of the idol was a blushing child who had taken the last place. She held in her hand nothing but a tiny garland of flowers, and the priest treated her with contempt because of the smallness of her offering.
She said--
“I am not rich enough to give thee pieces of gold, great Goddess. Besides, what could I give thee which thou dost not already possess. Here are green and yellow flowers woven as a garland for thy feet.”
The procession seemed to be at an end and the other courtesans were about to retrace their steps when a woman was seen standing at the door.
She had nothing in her hand and seemed to have come to offer her beauty to the Goddess. Her hair was like two waves of gold, two deep billows full of shadow engulfing the ears and twisted in seven turns at the throat. Her nose was fine, with expressive and palpitating nostrils, and beneath it was a full and coral coloured mouth with rounded mobile corners to it. The supple lines of the body undulated at each step she took.
Her eyes were wonderful; they were blue but dark and gleaming as well, and changed like moonstones, as she held them half closed beneath her long lashes. The glances of those eyes were like the sirens’ songs.
The priest turned towards her and waited for her to speak.
She said--
“Chrysis offers up her prayer to thee, O Chrysea. Receive the paltry offering she lays at thy feet. Hear and aid, love and solace her who lives according to thy pattern and for the worship of thy name.”
She extended her hands golden with rings and bowed her knees before the Goddess.
The vague chant recommenced. The sound of the harps ascended towards the statue with the smoke of the incense which the priest was burning in a swinging censor.
She slowly rose and presented a bronze mirror which had been hanging at her girdle.
“To thee,” she said, “Astarte, Goddess of the Night, who minglest hands and lips and whose symbol is like unto the footprint of the hinds upon the earth of Syria, Chrysis consecrates her mirror. It has seen the eyes and the gleam of love in them, the hair clinging to the temples after the rites of thy ceremonial, O thou warrior with relentless hands thou mingler of bodies and mouths.”
The priest placed the mirror at the foot of the statue. Chrysis drew from her golden hair a long comb of red copper, the sacred metal of the Goddess.
“To thee,” she said, “Anadyomene, who wast born of the blood-hued dawn and the foaming smile of the sea, to thee, whose nakedness is like the gleam of pearls, who fastenest thy moist hair with ribbons of seaweed, Chrysis dedicates her comb. It has been plunged in her hair disordered by movements in thy name.”
She handed the comb to the old man and leant her head to the right to take off her emerald necklace.
“To thee,” she said, “O Hetaira, who wipest away the blushes of shamefaced virgins and teaches them the immodest laugh, to thee, for whom we barter our love, Chrysis dedicates her necklace. She received it from a man whose name she does not know and each emerald represents a kiss where thou hast dwelt for a moment.”
She bowed herself once again and for a longer space as she placed the necklace in the priest’s hands and took a step as if to depart.
But the priest detained her.
“What do you ask from the Goddess in return for these precious offerings?”
She smiled and shook her head, saying--
“I ask for nothing.”
Then she walked along the row of women, took a rose from a basket and raised it to her lips as she went out.
One by one all the women followed her and the door closed upon an empty temple.
* * * * *
Demetrios had remained alone concealed in the bronze pedestal.
He had not lost a gesture or a word of the whole of this scene, and when it was ended he remained for a long while without moving, being once again in a state of torment, passion and irresolution.
He had believed himself cured of the madness of the previous night and thought that nothing could ever again hurl him into this shadow of the unknown.
But he had reckoned without the woman.
Women! women! if you desire to be loved, show yourself, return, be ever-present! The emotion he had felt at the entrance of the courtesan was so overwhelming and complete that there could be no thought of opposing it by an effort of the will. Demetrios was bound like a barbarian slave to the conqueror’s chariot. The thought that he had freed himself was a delusion. Without knowing it and quite naturally she had placed her hand upon him.
He had seen her approach, for she wore the same yellow robe she had done when he met her on the jetty. She walked with slow and graceful steps with undulating motion of the hips. She had come straight towards him as if she guessed he were concealed behind the stone.
From the first he realized that he had again fallen at her feet. When she took from her girdle the mirror of shining bronze, she gazed at herself in it for a time before handing it to the priest, and the splendour of her eyes became dazzling. When to take her copper comb she put her hand to her hair and lifted her bent arm, the beautiful lines of her body were displayed beneath her robe and the sunlight glistened upon the tiny beads of perspiration on her skin. When, last of all, to unfasten and take off her necklace of heavy emeralds she put aside the thick silk which shielded her breast and left but a little space full of shadow with just room for the insertion of a bouquet, Demetrios felt himself seized with frenzy.
But then she began to speak and each word of hers was suffering to him. She, a beautiful vase, white as the statue itself and with gleaming golden hair, seemed to insist upon pleasure. She told of her deeds in the service of the Goddess. Even the ease with which her favours were obtainable attracted Demetrios to her. How true it is that a woman is not entirely seductive to her lover unless she gives him ground for jealousy!
So, after presenting to the Goddess her green necklace in exchange for the one for which she was hoping, when Chrysis returned to the city she took with her a man’s will in her mouth with the little rose the stalk of which she was biting.
Demetrios waited till he was alone in the holy place; then he emerged from his retreat.
He looked at the statue in anguish expecting a struggle within him. But being incapable of renewing, after so short an interval, such violent emotion, he remained wonderfully calm and without any preliminary remorse.
He carelessly ascended to the statue, took off the necklace of real pearls from its bowed neck and concealed it within his raiment.