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Read Ebook: Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite by Lou S Pierre Zier Douard Illustrator
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Ebook has 1823 lines and 60973 words, and 37 pages
"Ah! Djala," she said, "ah! Djala! I long for extraordinary adventures."
"Everything is extraordinary," said Djala, "or nought. The days resemble one another."
"No, no. Formerly it was not like that. In all the countries of the world gods came down to earth and loved mortal women. Ah! on what beds await them, in what forest search for them that are a little more than men? What prayers shall I put up for the coming of them that will teach me something new or oblivion of all things? And if the gods will no longer come down, if they are dead or too old, Djala, shall I too die without seeing a man capable of putting tragic events into my life?"
She turned over upon her back and interlocked her fingers.
"If somebody adored me, I think it would give me such joy to make him suffer till he died. Those who come here are not worthy to weep. And then, it is my fault as well: it is I who summon them; how should they love me?"
"What bracelet to-day?"
"I shall put them all on. But leave me. I need no one. Go to the steps before the door, and if anyone comes, say that I am with my lover, a black slave whom I pay. Go."
"You are not going out?"
"Yes, I shall go out alone. I shall dress myself alone. I shall not return. Off with you! Off with you!"
She let one leg drop upon the carpet and stretched herself into a standing posture. Djala had gone away noiselessly.
She walked very slowly about the room, with her hands crossed behind her neck, entirely absorbed in the luxury of cooling the sweat of her naked feet by stepping about on the tiles. Then she entered her bath.
It was a delight to her to look at herself through the water. She saw herself like a great pearl-shell lying open on a rock. Her skin became smooth and perfect; the lines of her legs tapered away into blue light; her whole form was more supple; her hands were transfigured. The lightness of her body was such that she raised herself on two fingers and allowed herself to float for a little and fall gently back on the marble, causing the water to ripple softly against her chin. The water entered her ears with the provocation of a kiss.
It was when taking her bath that Chrysis began to adore herself. Every part of her body became separately the object of tender admiration and the motive of a caress. She played a thousand charming pranks with her hair and her breasts. Sometimes, even, she accorded a more direct satisfaction to her perpetual desires, and no place of repose seemed to her more propitious for the minute slowness of this delicate solace.
The day was waning. She sat up in the piscina, stepped out of the water, and walked to the door. Her foot-marks shone upon the stones. Tottering, and as if exhausted, she opened the door wide and stopped, holding the latch at arm's length; then entered, and, standing upright near her bed, and dripping with water, said to the slave:
"Dry me."
The Malabar woman took a large sponge and passed it over Chrysis's golden hair, which, being heavily charged with water, dripped streams down her back. She dried it, smoothed it out, waved it gently to and fro, and, dipping the sponge into a jar of oil, she caressed her mistress with it even to the neck. She then rubbed her down with a rough towel which brought the colour to her supple skin.
Chrysis sank quivering into the coolness of a marble chair and murmured:
"Dress my hair."
In the level rays of evening her hair, still heavy and humid, shone like rain illuminated by the sun: The slave took it in handfuls and entwined it. She rolled it into a spiral and picked it out with slim golden pins, like a great metal serpent bristling with arrows. She wound the whole around a triple fillet of green in order that its reflections might be heightened by the silk.
Chrysis held a mirror of polished copper at arm's length. She watched the slave's darting hands with a distracted eye, as she passed them through the heavy hair, rounded off the clusters, captured the stray locks, and built up her head-dress like a spiral rhytium of clay. When all was finished, Djala knelt down on her knees before her mistress and shaved her rounded flesh to the skin, in order that she might have the nudity of a statue in her lovers' eyes.
ill-003
Chrysis became graver and said in a low voice:
"Paint me."
A little pink box from the island of Dioscoris contained cosmetics of all colours. With a camel-hair brush, the slave took a little of a certain black paste which she laid upon the long curves of the beautiful eye-lashes, in order to heighten the blueness of the eyes. Two firm lines put on with a pencil imparted increased length and softness to them; a bluish powder tinted the eye-lids the colour of lead; two touches of bright vermilion accentuated the tear-corners. In order to fix the cosmetics, it was necessary to anoint the face and breast with fresh cerate. With a soft feather dipped in ceruse, Djala painted trails of white along the arms and on the neck; with a little brush swollen with carmine she reddened the mouth and touched up the nipples of the breasts; with her fingers she spread a fine layer of red powder over the cheeks, marked three deep lines between the waist and the belly, and in the rounded haunches two dimples that sometimes moved; then with a plug of leather dipped in cosmetics she gave a indefinable tint to the elbows and polished up the ten nails. The toilette was finished.
The Chrysis began to smile, and said to the Hindoo woman:
"Sing to me."
She sat erect in her marble chair. Her pins gleamed with a golden glint behind her head. Her painted finger-nails, pressed to her neck from shoulder to shoulder, broke the red line of her necklace, and her white feet rested close together upon the stone.
Huddled against the wall, Djala bethought her of the love-songs of India.
"Chrysis . . ."
She sang in a monotonous chant.
"Chrysis, thy hair is like a swarm of bees hanging on a tree. The hot wind of the south penetrates it with the dew of love-battles and the wet perfume of night-flowers."
The young woman alternated, in a softer, lower voice:
"My hair is like an endless river in the plain when the flame-lit evening fades."
And they sang, one after the other:
"Thine eyes are like blue water-lilies without stalks, motionless upon the pools."
"Mine eyes rest in the shadow of my lashes like deep lakes under dark branches."
"Thy lips are two delicate flowers stained with the blood of a roe."
"My lips are the edges of a burning wound."
"Thy tongue is the bloody dagger that has made the wound of thy mouth."
"My tongue is inlaid with precious stones. It is red with the sheen of my lips."
"Thine arms are tapering as two ivory tusks, and thy armpits are two mouths."
"Mine arms are tapering as two lily-stalks and my fingers hang therefrom like five petals."
"Thy thighs are two white elephants' trunks. They bear thy feet like two red flowers."
"My feet are two nenuphar-leaves upon the water: My thighs are two bursting nenuphar buds."
"Thy breasts are two silver bucklers with cusps steeped in blood."
"My breasts are the moon and the reflection of the moon and the water."
ill-004
"Thy navel is a deep pit in a desert of red sand, and thy belly a young kid lying on its mother's breast."
"My navel is a round pearl on an inverted cup, and the curve of my belly is the clear crescent of Phoebe in the forests."
There was a silence. The slave raised her hands and bowed to the ground.
The courtesan proceeded:
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