Stories by Catulle Mendès
INVITATION TO THE VOYAGE
Would it not delight you, O dear Parisiennes, to travel, and to see the far lands of love? For I, even now, have loaded a galley like unto the winged barks wherein Watteau groups those charming couples departing for Cytherea; its rowers are vested with columbine velour and with zinzoline silk. There, all day and all evening, musicians make song on the lute and on the rebec. If you would come aboard on some rose-morning or on some star-night, we would depart together for those blessed isles yonder! For, far better than on stormy continents encumbered by too much humanity, love delights itself in these peaceful islets, which dream beneath the sky, apart from the world, and which the noise of waters surrounds with eternal epithalamium; there nothing is which is not love; and it isolates itself with joy in their isolation. It was on an island that Anadyomene smiled for the first time, that Ariadne, in tears, was consoled, and that Virginia died. Come away! Come beautiful and dear ones, we shall sail together, in music and dreams, and in the noises of kisses toward the "Isles of Love," mysterious and tender, of all rivers, of all seas, toward Paphos where the breeze carries perfume of mouths, toward Otahiti where the bathing-girls with their sunskin glisten under water, like Nereids in gold, and toward Cyprus, which has for its flower Amathonte, and toward Lesbos too; not without putting in at La Grande-Jatte and at La Grenouillère where the beautiful girls have the abandonment to enfold boatmen within their naked arms.
FERLOE
In the glazed island, of the north, the earth is white as the battlefield of a swan-war, and the light flurries of snow, when a breeze sways and glides, are perhaps the fluttering of the wings of one wounded. Amidst the air which seems like vaporized frost, beneath the wan sky, through which clouds are moving with the heaviness of icebergs, Rosborg and Nohella, benumbed despite their coats of fur, remain embraced beside a fir-tree that is bent from its accumulation of rime. There is sun only in their hair, warmth only in their lips, in all this pale isle, gripped by the eternal winter.
Sometimes, from the clouds, a bird drops to the earth, its wings sprawling, dead and cold.
In the meanwhile Nohella is saying: "What are you dreaming about, Rosborg, and what means this smile which possesses you? Are you not happy, you whom I love? Have I not deserted, to rejoin you here, the underground hut where my father and my brothers become uneasy at no longer seeing me, and, all that one may ravish in a virgin, have I not given you that, ingrate?"
He replies: "No one is more loved than you, Nohella, even as no one is more tender. You have made me the most gracious of gifts since I have been your husband in the morning solitudes. But I dream in spite of myself of those beautiful lands of light and of those blowing flowers, which are remembered by the lost sailors who debark sometimes on this isle."
"Ah! why do you dream of those far countries, when I am near you?"
"Nohella, my beloved! yonder, in the azure south, amongst the scattered flames of the breezes, there are woods of lilacs and of roses so warm, that the young girls there may disrobe in the arms of their lovers. Those who are happy down there know the whiteness of breasts, whereon a strawberry blushes, and the whiteness of naked arm, neck-entangling. And I, who possess you, I have seen only your eyes and your lips under your hood of animal-skin. How lovely you must be, Nohella, alas!"
"Is this then your trouble, Rosborg?"
"There is none greater."
"Why did you not say so before?" says Nohella, smiling. And very swiftly, even in the moment in which there falls from the clouds an eider with stiffened wings, she unites, tears off, throws away her furs. She is all naked, on the frozen island, in the north.
"Vision! Vision!" cries Rosborg in ecstasy. "O divine flesh! O perfect beauty!"
But, white with terror, he does not add another word. For Nohella has fallen, and white death lies on the earth like a swan.
CROISSY
Between the stillness of the wood and the stillness of the water, beneath the beautiful sky, clear, wherein the rockets rise to tease the stars, La Grenouillère laughs, sings, drinks, dances, amuses itself, and the naked arms of rowers, well-muscled, white-skinned, whirl away the flying skirts of dark girls, of russet girls, in the mad quadrille rhythmed by a rasping harpsichord out-of-tune. In the wooden shacka hulk which is an inn where the walls are painted with half-nude barcarolles, there is a pell-mell of laughs, and of cries, of legs and of arms, of tables overturned amongst rolling bottles, and of prostrate couples who rise again only after having partaken on the boards of the relish of the love-bed. The shoe of a dancer, above all their heads, defies the death-head that a gloomy fantasist has sketched on the wall, between the commandress of the Vibrion and real herrings that swim in an aquarelle river.
Colette speaks softly into the ear of Ludovic:
"Really, II am not at all bored; and because of this gaiety, this youth, this frenzy, I am younger and gayer and madder than ever. Don't you thing that in this stirring music of storms of laughter and songs, a kiss would be a pretty organ-point?"
"Ah," cries Ludovic, "who would not think so, on seeing your lips?". . . "Maybe I have seen yours," murmurs Colette, "and if there be, under the nearby trees, some dark retreat, well-apart from the frivolous passers-by, I shall behold without any anguish, the extremity of finding myself alone there with you." . . "We shall find it easily, this boudoir of verdure! Come Colette, try to preserve on your mouth that young-rose smile, which has driven me mad, and which I want to pluck!" . . . "If it is no longer there you will find another one like it of equal worth. But please, I pray you, let me alone discover the lovely solitary corner in which I would be sweet to you, for I maintain that it is of my fancy and not of yours, Sir."
Thereupon Colette flees from the crowd, at a little run, and sets out through the lanes, behind the holiday inn. She seeks a leafy shelter, propitious to tender conferences. She has somewhat of the aspect of a duel second in quest of a place for combat; but how lovely it will be, this duel! Under the white moon, she sees, in a bush of syringas, a shadowy opening, flowery, of just a little space, with inviting caresses. Would not one be soft there? She approaches, bends over, feels with her delicate hands the turf and moss. Oh dear! The place is taken. Two lovers, seeing her, interrupt a sweeter occupation to burst out laughing. She wants to escape. There is no time. An arm has her by the waist, holds her, keeps her. She has seen closely his lip of fine moustaches which are not at all repulsive.
"But, Sir, you are not alone!" . . . "Oh, that's all right, the more, the more loving!" A long moment passes before she breaks away, and, when she escapes, finally, she murmurs in very sad tones. . . . "Ludovic! Ah! poor boy!" Meanwhile she continues her search diligently. It is not easy, these nights of summer Sundays, to find in the Isle of Croissy a nook of verdure where no eclogue is being murmured. "The next time it is going to be our affair," says Colette. She has just spied, under a willow, a moored boat, a boat in which carpets and thick furs lie. And she is turning back from it to go and look for Ludovic. But suddenly she is seized, lifted, in a powerful embrace, and the boat in which she finds herself lying in truth very comfortably reaches the middle of the river, while a young oarsman, rowingAh! the pretty mustache, this time even more so! says to the astonished Colette . . . "I was expecting Albertine, but you are a hundred times prettier than she." Alas! meanwhile, Ludovic has grown impatient, is troubled at not having seen his mistress return. Where is she? What is she doing? What can be keeping her? Are there no propitious bushes, nor carpets of soft grass in the Isle of Croissy? One hour goes by, then another. He does not know what to think. He is frightened, he is irritated. . . . Here is Colette at last! But no more has she on her lips, nor in her eyes, the smile that he loves. However, he is happy. Since she is here, since she is going to follow him.
"Well! Colette, have you found it, the charming place of the promised kiss, and are you as clement to me as you were a little while ago." . . . "Ah! Ludovic," she says with singular calm, "strange things happen on that island, which is not deserved; and as for that matter of the kiss, we'll talk about it tomorrow!"
SADO SHIMA
As soon as night comes, the whole facade of the djorea is lit up by a thousand lanterns, and, from a distance, one might believe that one is looking at the conflagration of a forest of flowers. Close by, the spectacle is even more seductive; for, behind the lattice, in the vast hall which is decorated with silks coloured by a flight of birds or by falling wisteria, or by bamboos which a tiger is parting, on rice-straw mats, the dainty djoro are seated, each in her frame, her heels under her thighs. They motion to the passers-by, while lighting their pipes on the embers of little bronze stoves. They are careful not to wear much clothing, being insensible to cold from their habit of undressing so often; only one kimono suffices to clothe them, of light crepe, shrinking, inwoven here and there with threads of vermilion, and so close, so well adapted to their slender bodies, that one might take it for a trembling skin, tattooed with gold. But, through the parting of the cloth under the chin, the true skin appears, a little yellow, with a small ripe neck beginning. May the brilliant Kouannon keep you from disdaining the houses of pleasure in which Yokohama prides itself! There the girls are as beautiful as the mistresses of a daimyo; there the best songs are heard; the rice-wine that is poured inebriates one with great love. But the djorea of the isle of Sado is not lacking in renown; they come there from all parts of the empire, and it is with the memory of sweetest joys that the guests there sleep to the sound of the go and of the Samisen. Now, of all the djoro who flourish throughout the season on the island, none is so lovely as Naivha. Whitened by a fragrant powder, she has on her low, curving brow hair shinier than a black lake; a line of light between very long eyelashes is all one sees of her eyes; her narrow mouth opens with thick lips, and her laugh makes her teeth gleam like moistened pearls. When she walks, her bust protruding, her hams lowered, her knees joined, it seems that she is about to fall at any moment. So much has she as she moves along on her little feetretarded by the clacking, wooden slippersof an endearing negligee in her dress which presses her closely on all sides. And on her stooping loins, where the cloth is flowered, the middle of her body resembles an enormous butterfly heavier than the branch. But it is when she has emptied five cups of sake, one after another, that one should see and hear her! Slowly she twists her arms, downy with dark gold, out of her long sleeves, and, pushing forward her whole body, offers her firm breasts like two round stones, and her belly which pulses like a bosom; while with a voice more shrill than the jabbering of pintados, she sings the plaint of the daughter of the daimyo, whose dress, ignited by the firebrands of a burning woodpile, set fire to an entire village. Never has any man, no matter how old, been able to resist such charms; more often than any other does she mount the stairs, going before, holding in her right hand the candle of paper wick, toward the little rooms of the second story, where, with neither dancing nor speaking, she is even more seductive. And Naivha rejoices greatly to please visitors this way. She will have soon repaid the three hundred yen which were advanced to her some time ago by the patron of the djorea: She will be able to return from there to Tokyo, to him she loves, a young and strong Samurai, for whom she has sold herself, for he used to have a debt in every tea-house of the town for whom she will again sell herself, with neither chagrin nor remorse, if he would but kiss her on the eyes on the morning of her departure, and kiss her on the mouth on the evening of her return.
LESBOS
Muse! Since it is true that the daughters of Lesbos sometimes turn away from the masculine lips which covet them, and wend their way, in pairs, in the evening, conversing in whispers, in lanes of oleander, sing the divine anger from which their crime has arisen, and how they learned the mysteries of feminine hymeneals.
When Lesbos was a savage land, unapproached by man, all-burgeoning among the thorns of virgin lilies and wild roses, the young god Eros, one day, was hunting the boar in the black forests of Lepithymos. While he was sitting, a little tired, not far from a cave shut in by fallen stones, he heard a very soft voice speaking in an answer of sighs:
"O beautiful! O blonde! O white! O incomparably more charming than all the beautiful and than all the blonde and than all the white! Why do you turn away from me? Do you believe that I love any the less and that my caresses will be less burning because I am not the same as the detestable men whose embrace binds too painfully and whose kiss bites. It is not in the furious seas that the nymphs love to bathe, but in the calm pools of tepid envelopment; flee those stormy tormentors of the masculine passion, and yield to the cradling of my delicate and languid love."
And then to this voice, tender murmurs of consent replied.
Then Eros was stricken with a great anger! He was not pleased that the laws of eternal love, which he had established, should be transgressed and flouted by the young girls of the earth. He plunged into the cave, resolved to chastise the criminals. But, on seeing them, he stopped, amazed, for one of themthe entreated one who was consenting he recognized as Kypris herself, against whom his power was naught; as for the temptress, she was a hamadryad called Perystera.
He thought a moment, then he said:
"Mother, go away, since punishment cannot touch you. But she there will not escape my vengeance."
He raised his dreaded right hand: Perystera, who never ceased being as white as the swans and snow, was changed into a dove, flapped her wings and flew into the murmuring woods. Through her, her new sisters, soon disdainful of the ring-doves, knew the charm of the guilty kiss, wherein beak glides into beak; and, later the girls of Lesbos, wandering beneath the boughs, felt troubled, on seeing one another beautiful, and on not refusing to one another their mouths, according to the example, alas! of the cooing doves.
BORNEO
Enormous, fierce, his jaws clacking in a formidable grimace, the monkey, with one hand, has seized a young ebony, and torn it, with all its roots, from out a herbous heap of broken stones. He lifts it high, and twirls it through the air, so that earth and leaves are scattered wide; lifts it again; the tree strikes the head of another monkey, no less great, who falls, his skull cracked, and blood flows from his brain. But as soon as the wounded one has touched the ground, he rebounds, stands upright, wavers a little, then springs. He grabs the trunk of the ebony, breaks it over his knee, throws the remains of it away, hurls himself against his opponent, bites him in the neck, sinks his claws into his loins, through the hair which soon grows red. And now it is one of those hideous face-to-face combats of two monsters. Skin hangs from their shoulders. The teeth of one has made so deep a wound in the flank of the other, that his entrails are bulging out. And the one overthrown urges on the fight with the overthrower. Bound together, they roll, on the pebbles, in the brambles. Their hug is so tight, their arms are so long, that the hands of each rejoin behind his own back. And, from their gasping, from their choking, burst rattling cries. Meanwhile, the uprooter of trees has seen a large stone near him, a piece of rock, which once rolled down from the hill; he seizes it, and, laughing with terrible teeth, again and again he strikes the chest of his enemy, who groans, resists, is broken, is crushed. He stirs no more. Only a quick stiffening of his legs, which soon ceases; and the conqueror, drawing himself up torn, bleeding, what not dashes across the foliage toward the beautiful female who swings not far from there in the perfumed hammock of liana. She sees him, she smiles and laughs. She licks the wounds that he has received for her, taking pleasure in the taste of blood; she embraces him, and draws him into a long, hairy caress. Around them the last glimmerings of the sunset subside, about to go out. There is, over all the forest, that tenderness spread by the beginning of evening light. The rustling of the boughs is softer; a brook nearby murmurs more quietly; and the endless twittering of the birds, on all sides, beguiles with its sweet music, the deepening silence of the shadows. It is that mysterious and good hour in which, in the nests, in the caves, in the high briars full of invisible prowlers, repose has not yet become sleep, and the wind is already still. Suddenly, in this peace, there is a crash of breaking branches. The conquered monkey has dragged himself here, now, creeping, now clinging to the stalks, at each jolt letting fall from himself tatters which impede his legs losing his blood, his life. At length he has arrived. He raises his head toward the nuptial tree, looks and sees, listens and hears. Then, with a long sigh, he falls back. He is dead. The lovers, beneath their shelter of leaves, embrace each other more voluptuously; and sometimes the joy of the female rattles into a little laugh.
CAPREAE
On his bed of purple, the emperor yawns, fat, heavy, languid, laden with necklaces and rings, with a hundred orfevreries, laden with another weight, ennui. Today, nothing has been able to divert the morose languor of old Tiberius. He has reread the books of Elephantis, without a twinkle lighting up his eye. He has entered the mysterious chamberwherein the sacred art degrading itself so low as to realize the dream of debauchesmarble, white as pure snow or red as the noble flesh of virgins, is seen to twist itself into shameful positions; he has brooded long over the painting of Parrhasius which shows Meleager swooning with joy under the strange caress of Atalantusthis painting which he preferred to a million sesterces! He has bathed in the vast basin of white marble, wherein young boys, delicate and slender, swim all nude, like fish in a hollow of the bank, and he has asked for the grazing and the caressing that comes by chance from their boyish games; he has seen, having been intoxicated in vain, a triple chain of men and women, the most beautiful in the empire, without clothes, turn about him in the enormous hall wherein rise perfumes charming and cloying; couched on a litter, he has had himself borne in the midst of a wood full of Sylvans and of Dryads who passionately embraced wordless, rattling, in the grass, in the branches, in the caves, make noises like the rut of foul brutes. He has remained silent, has not made a gesture signifying any desire. Now, he is stretched out on his bed of purple, he yawns. Comes, of a sudden, Cresonnius Crispus, Roman knight, Minister of Pleasures. He announces a new one. An African has captured a young lioness, has fed it, trained it. He has made, of this savage beast, oblivious to males with beautiful manes, a crawling and wise courtesan, who smiles at men with her enormous teeth, and who licks. Tiberius, in his lassitude, has not stirred. But his eyelids have trembled: He desires to see the lioness, gives orders to have her brought to him. She approaches, also heavy, tawny, with eyes of gold that bleed. He looks at her. She pleases him. He smiles faintly, orders that they be left alone. Through a bay-window there comes into the room the dying noises of the sea and the ending day. The warm light of summer droops and falls. An hour glides by, slow, with the retarded glide of a very oily liquor. Servants appear, carrying lamps, and, according to custom, without being called. His foot resting on the loins of the prostrate lioness, who opens and closes her mouth with an air of ennui, the emperor yawns, and his yawning, little by little, ends with the dying sun.
ROBINSON
All evening, the public house, shaken with chants, has been brawling under branches, illumined with lanterns, has been mingling the laughter of loose women with the gross gaiety of drinkers whose fists resound on the boards of the tables; and, through the windows, the steps of the quadrilles, with blasts of sour music, scoff at the melancholy waltz of the first stars. All wings have flown, except the sparrows who snap up the crumbs between the legs of waiters, go, come, skip, beg, in menial familiarity, with that gamin-whining which is the slang of birds; and there is, within the grove, kisses which take the wrong mouths, embraces on a broken bench, which take the wrong arms. An entire bestial merrymaking has been contained in this corner of the earth, for hours; something like a dirty rivulet which whirls into a hole at the foot of a hill.
Now, the boats have carried away in parties those who were laughing and drinking, all the coarse good humour, and all the drunkenness. The windows are dark, the doors are closed. It seems as if no one has ever come there, since no one remains. The last paper lantern has vanished in flames! Solitude has regained possession of its trees, of its meadows, of its mysteriously purling stream; and under the trembling stars, far as the lands of the unknown poles, within the shadow spacious and sweet, the island listens to the nightingale sing the nocturnal reverie of silence.
FERME ISLE
When Amadis, with the beautiful Oriane, and Galaor and Florestan, had landed on Ferme Isle, they were very much amazed to see in this savage country a palace so splendid that it surpassed in glory the abode of the Emperor of Constantinople and that also of the Emperor of Rome. It was built of porphyry and of serancolin marble, on which shone mosaics of fine stones, rubies, sapphires, beryls, agates; and on the roof of polished silver, storks of gold flapped their wings, as if they had been alive. But, still more beautiful, were two colossal statues both on the right and left side of the gate, one of a knight-at-arms, the other of a lady in royal raiment. Not even in a dream could one have seen anything more marvellous than this knight, so strong a mien of loyal valour had he; nor than this lady, so much had she of grace and beauty. And the gate was not shut. Under the marble vault, where the colonnades ranged, a man of bronze stood erect on a pedestal, holding in his right hand a hunting-horn.
"Truly," says Galaor, "were this palace enchanted, and defended from approach by magicians or giants, I should not give up trying to enter it; for if within it is as magnificent as it is without, its visitors are bound to taste unparalleled delight."
Florestan said about the same thing, but Amadis spoke no word, too much engrossed with gazing at Oriane. It was not long before that the most perfect of knights, after a long quest, had rediscovered the most beautiful of ladies, and he thought that there was no trouble more sweet than gazing closely at her.
Then Galaor and Florestan advanced toward the gate, but, as they put their feet on the threshold, a moorish dwarf, clad in scarlet and brocade, came out of the vault and spoke to them in mocking tones:
"It is my opinion that you will do well to renounce this enterprise. For here it is not a matter of conquering, according to your custom, giants or magicians. Now listen to a story which I am commissioned to teach the rash ones who desire to visit this marvellous palace. It was built a hundred years ago, by Appollidon, the elder son of the King of Greece, for Grimanese, sister to the Emperor of Italy. This knight, whom you see at the right of the gate, is Apollidon, and this lady is Grimanese. After having lived on Ferme Isle for a long time, they were summoned to Rome to succeed the emperor who had died. But Grimanese did not wish that an abode, in which she had been loved with so much constancy, should be opened to whoever would take it into his head to enter, and, at her prayer, Apollidon, who had been, since his youth, much given to magic, arranged matters in such a way that no one could penetrate the interior of the palace, unless he had been always faithful to only one love."
These words made Florestan and Galaor quite uneasy; although still young they had more than once given, retaken, and again given their hearts.
But Galaor cried: "I know no gate ajar, which I could not open entirely, or none closed, which I could not break in."
And Florestan said about the same. Then they advanced boldly. And a strange thing happened to them! The man of bronze, standing under the vault, began to blow on his hunting-horn, and there came from his instrument so furious a blast, with a crash of thunder, that the two knights, rebuffed, blown, carried away, were in the air like rags swept aloft by the north wind. Florestan fell into the sea, five hundred paces off, and he saved himself only with the greatest difficulty. Searching with his eyes for his comrade in defeat, he saw him, without helmet or sword, held in the air by a branch which had caught him by the hair.
Then Amadis: "Madame," said he to Oriane, "the moment has come when I can prove to you that in all my life I have loved only you."
"Very well," said the lady, with that air of indifference which beautiful persons have.
He stepped toward the gate. The man of bronze blew again into his trumpet; but, instead of a tempest, a harmony infinitely sweet spread forth, arose, under the vault, under the sky; and with this music there fell roses, as if the sounds had blossomed into flowers. Amadis entered the marvellous palace without difficulty.
He saw things so shining that his eyes were almost blinded by them: halls with floors of precious stones, with ceilings of lapis-lazuli, with walls of diamond, statues of sun-gold, and mirrors wherein were reflected strange flowers full of birds of all colours; it was truly an incomparable abode. But, dazzled though he was, he did not linger too long in his admiration of so many miracles. He was in a hurry to see his lady again, and to win from her the recompense for a fidelity, in which now she would be well obliged to believe.
He retraced his steps. He was surprised not to find Oriane and Galaor.
Florestan said to him, not without an air of raillery: "I suppose that you are going to be very much troubled. Just after you entered the palace, Galaor, unhooked from the tree, threw himself at the knees of Oriane, swore to her that she was the most beautiful person in the world and that he would die with pleasure if she would not refuse to let him kiss her lips. She smiled. They went together into the woods yonder. I suppose that Galaor, by this time, ought to be dead, if he has kept his word." Amadis could not help weeping bitterly, and he seemed terribly put out. But the moorish dwarf, clad in scarlet and brocade: "Well! that proves," said he, "that ladies care more for desire than for fidelity, and that one can deceive them, provided one adores them."
CYTHEREA
The children who are to be hetaira, are grouped together in the number of one hundred in the grove of a wood of myrtles and laurel-roses, where stands like a divine example of beauty, the statue of Anadyomene; seated three by three on the flowered grass, they raise their eyes to the great Lysistrata, but lately priestess at Corinth, who teaches and questions them; and each of them, more perfect than all the virgins. If her neighbour were not as perfect, has before her a tablet of black wood, on which she writes, with a piece of chalk, the lessons of the illustrious teacher; for, in Cytherea, as in Mytilene, they initiate young girls, selected from the most beautiful, into all the acts of charm, so that they become in time the companions of poets, amiable sophists, and young leaders, equal to the gods. Demosthenes, complaining of Naera, said: "We have wives that they may give us children of our blood, and take care of our home; concubines for the satisfaction of our senses; but we have hetairai for the pleasure of our souls."
Lysistrata asks: "Of the means of giving joy to men, which is, in your opinion, the best? Answer first, you Ipsea of Miletus."
Ipsea arises, all blushing; under the bonnet of Thessalian straw, wreathed with violets, her hair flows like a golden rivulet, and her mouth is a flower about to enfold; her tunic scarcely swells before her; her neck is slender, she being scarcely ten years old. "May Cytherea, born of waves, encourage and inspire me!" says she. "I think that nothing is more pleasing to the sight of men than a well-dressed woman."
"The toilette, it is true, gives birth to desire, which is the beginning of happiness. But this difficult art of ornament, in what does it consist? Don't be troubled, answer, Ipsea."
"Under the calypha, wrought of imperceptible threads, the curls of blonde hair glitter and tremble like golden butterflies; those having small ears should wear on them a pearl just a little long, and those having large ones, a single precious jewel, fastened to the skin; necklaces with three pendants go with large bosoms which have low breasts. As for the garments, the Kyparis must be recommended, that short shift which falls down to the middle of the thighs; the Cymbrian tunic, of a light material; the dress of saffron colour, unstitched, which is open at the neck, with cuffs; the strophion which sets off the neck; the peplos which is worn on the left shoulder; or the anaboladion, broidered with gold, which trembles and flies away like a fog crossed with sunlight. Although many esteem the Tyrrhenian buskins, with which the red nakedness of the foot appears, I am inclined to prefer the crepida with silver ribbons binding the ankle. But the science of the toilette implies more mysterious cares. She indeed would not be worthy of the name hetaira, who would not anoint her face to remove freckles with the pomatum called aesipon, made of Corsican honey and of the oil of sheep's wool; who would not black her eyebrows with lead and antimony, would not polish her teeth with the mastic of Chios, or with pumice stone reduced to fine powder; and it is proper to perfume the hands with essences of Egypt, the cheeks and breasts with odours of Phoenicia, the hair with sweet marjoram and the armpits with wild thyme."
Having finished reciting her lesson, Ipsea sat down, deeply moved, fearing to have omitted some important detail; but her instructress reassured her with a complimenting look.
Then she said: "Now you answer, Eucharis of Amathus."
Eucharis then arises; her hair, bound by ribbons of the toenia, is like a light helmet on which day is shining, and her dark eyes languish beneath her long lifting eyebrows; because she is fourteen, the double point of her breasts raises like arrow-ends the yielding linen of her tunic.
"May Eros protect me!" she says, "he who is pleased with the choruses of amorous nymphs! I think nothing is so valuable for charming men as the sound of the lyre, rhythming beautiful odes and graceful dances."
"It is true that music, enchantment of souls, draws mortals into a languor that is very propitious to love. But the mysterious art of rhythms and song, know you it, Eucharis, and can you tell of its innumerable ways?"
"Indeed they are very numerous, thanks to the sacred musicians whom the gods inspire! However, I hope to be able, in a while. . . ."
She cannot continue her talk because of an outburst of laughter which sounds like the fluttering of turtle-doves; she who has laughed is Doris, of Paphos; she is seventeen, her face has the expression of a blossoming rose, and her eyes return to the day more sunlight than they have received from it; she has the habit, being a frolicsome pupil, of interrupting at every opportunity the most grave lessons with her gay pranks.
Lysistrata looks at her sternly.
"Doris," says she, "why do you not imitate the reserve of your companions? Will you force me to impose on you some just punishment, in spite of my innate mansuetude?"
"By the laugh of Aphrodite when she sees through the veil the flurried face of Hephaestos, I believe that we are wasting our time!" replies Doris, pouting most beautifully; "it is neither the toilette nor music which most ravishes men and women."
"Eh! what then is it?" cries the crowd of pupils in ardent tumult.
"By the elder Eros, it is kissing!" says Doris.
Lysistrata intervenes.
"Stop interrupting us! For you are wrong, child. To be sure, the art of kissing, such as Sappho of Lesbos and Corinne of Tanagra celebrated after having practised it, is indeed the supreme art and the supreme joy. But how could you know its mysteries, you young girl, who have so far blushed only in your dreams? However we are listening; tell us, if you know, the ways and delights of the incomparable caress."
Doris replies:
"If the kiss, which nothing equals, can be explained by the lips, it is not by the lips which speak."
"Well," says Lysistrata, "you will follow me into this wood of flowered myrtles. I desire greatly to prove to myself just how far your knowledge goes; but know that I shall proclaim your defeat without pity."
Upon these words, instructress and pupil go together into the perfumed wood; when they return from it, the redness of evening is already trembling in the branches of sleeping nests.
"Well?" ask all the virgins. "Doris is conquered? She was wrong? She did not know what she said?"
"No. She was right," says Lysistrata, sweetly humbled.
NEIRAI
As one might part the branches with the ends of his fingers in order to see a beautiful bather, the curious moon, with its gliding rays, makes an opening amidst the foliage of pawpaws and plantains, in order to admire Abounivalou, that daughter of a, great chief, who is playing in the night. With her skin of sombre copper, tattooed with black holes in relief, and which glistens with polish of oil, with her enormous hair, coiffured like a square tower, and cemented with coal and chalk, with her lips so thick and bulging that she has the appearance of holding between her teeth a red fruit of the shaddock, Abounivalou is made to charm all eyes. The ample rondure of her belly is such that the girdle of malo fibres cannot fall to her thighs, slender and spare as the arms of a young monkey; she presses to the soil feet larger and flatter than a pendanus leaf. But her grace is even more charming than her beauty; it is in an adorable attitude that she paints, with a single nail, very long, the bush of her left armpit, and that, with the other hand, she raises the flute with two apertures, in which she blows from her black nostrils.
During this, Abounivalou stops intermittently in her playing, and, turning aside her head, she gazes between the branches toward the distant glade from which emerge, by fits and starts, red glares and violent songs; for the men of Neirai have conquered the men of Manolo; and now they are rejoicing in a feast. Does the daughter of the chief regret that custom forbids women to participate in the feast of husbands and fathers? It is more probable that she awaits under the plantains and pawpaws, some young warrior; and doubtless, if she is in a torment, it is because he has delayed his coming for so long. Amidst the good cheer and drunkenness of the feast, he has perhaps lost the memory of her whom he loves; will she have given in vain, in breathing with her nose into the flute, the dear signal they had agreed on? She stamps her foot and, with her upper jaw, she bites her enormous lip, equal to a limax puffed with blood. Be not uneasy, lovely Abounivalou. You are too perfect to be forgotten; your lover, caring for you only, will not fail to rejoin you; the reawakened nests will hear your kisses in the silences of the moon.
And now he appears superb! his headdress so tufted and so straight that one might believe it coiffured of a bush; his body naked and smooth, with the protuberance of the belly, like that of a skinned gorilla; and in his face, into which his retroussé nose vanishes, his mouth resembles an axe-wound.
"Abounivalou! Abounivalou! You are the most beautiful of the daughters of Neirai! Joy is a flower which blooms beneath your large feet, and it is in your hair that the bird of happiness nestles."
Then, opening his long arms, he goes to bind her against his chest, tattooed with tomahawk and with lance.
But she withdraws, escapes him, feigning without doubt to have little love because of too much modesty. How her heart must beat and how happy she will be when she will no longer fear to confess her tenderness! However she says: "Kanazea, have you brought me what I have asked you for?" He hesitates and finally answers:
"No, I have not."
Then she begins to weep, with little sighs which throb her delicious neck, long and hanging like the bags in which the mountain hunters are accustomed to put their game.
"I knew truly," says she, "that you did not love me!" But he laughs while she grieves.
"I was only fooling, lovely Abounivalou. Here is what you have asked for. It was very hard for me to steal it, for my comrades would not cease looking at me."
At the same time he takes out from under his drawers, where he has been hiding it for fun, a man's arm, whose skin is all gilded from having been roasted on the coals.
"Ah! dear Kanazea!" says she.
And she throws herself on the good flesh, grilled just right, bites it with her long teeth, and stops eating from time to time in order to smile on the young warrior with her beautiful lips gleaming with warm blood; then she eats again, with laughs of comfort. He contemplates her, in ecstasy at seeing her so content. They are sitting on grass that is full of flowers. They do not speak; he kissing her, she eating. A bird amidst the verdure awakens and begins to sing. The moon, which is pleased with nocturnal idylls, gazes upon them and bathes them with a tender whiteness.
SWAN ISLE
This Sunday, since morning, men, women, children, uglinesses, vulgarities, whatnot, the crowd, prowled around the pond, in the garden of Luxembourg, throwing crumbs of rye bread into the water, amusing themselves with the quacking fleets of drakes and ducks. Across the sparse grey of the fog, the sky is blue as the eyes of a young maid behind her veil; one knows not what sort of rose-to-be desires to break the enclosure of buds, hesitates, does not emerge, with the timidity of an evasion which fears to be a surprise; the air holds promise of blossoming, of perfume, of love.
The people around the pond joy in the beautiful day, in a holy idleness of mind; in an animal comfort of living; that which charms them, that which makes them to blossom forth themselves, they feel without admiration; it is thus that the blind love the sun that warms them. The bread crumbsamidst laughs, savage words which would discourage the spring in its rebirth, were it not dreaming of the lovers who await it in the alleys of the woodcontinue to fall into the clear water, wherein is reflected the lengthening image of twisting branches, and the white back of a statue; and the drakes, beak-to-beak, quarrel stormily, in a pell-mell of beating wings. They, however, the swans, the beautiful swans of snow, the male and the female, wend their way through all this feather battle, majestically, trailing behind them a long wake. They have consented, two or three times, to snap up with their black beaks, the pieces of fallen bread, with that regal contempt of a poet who might accept alms. Now they swim apart, their necks aloft, in pompous whiteness. They reach the island by the side of the tree, raise themselves upon it, stand motionless, crushing the grass beneath their large feet, looking at the crowd from the side, with one eye. But they do not see it! And, suddenly, without troubling about the people who are near, the male spreads his wings with a terrible crackling, scarcely flies, alights on the sprawling female, whose stretched out wings caress the grass. There, they love each other, captives, as if they had the freedom of far skies. Then outbursts of laughter sound and resound, gross, stupid, mingled with vulgar hooting; and mothers leave, carrying away their questioning children. But two young women, standing together, tall and slender, pale as the swans, have not laughed, have not fled, and, without speaking, still more closely together, hand-in-hand, they dream before this union of whiteness ecstasies.
VENUS
Planet, star, dream, isle of flame and of gold, isle of the celestial sea, it is toward thee that we shall go, Venus! When we shall be beneath marble, with no hope of resurrection, when our bodies will live on only in the trembling of grass, and in the perfume of roses, our souls, those birds without wings, which mount higher than wings, will rise towards thy light, lights themselves, and will there disperse. Thou art the vast welcome of the flames from here below, vanished two by two, the paradise of breaths without mouths, and of kisses without lips, the eternal nuptials of the betrothed who no longer embrace one another. Thy landscapes are wrought of all the dreams of solitude in burgeoning valleys; the lovers dwell there, as a ray is lost in a haze of dawn, the vain form of their desires realized in your luminous nothingness; they are that which is no more, but that which rises and shines. In thy atmosphere, this fog, made sparse by all the sighs of love, augments itself with other mingled breaths; thou hast volcanoes, in memory of hearts; dew, in memory of tears; mornings because one will hope; evenings, because one might be sad; and thou art a star, because thou art love! But as sweetly as thou mayest rise in our horizon, as pure as thy effulgence may be, O Venus, in whom survives, subtilized, all dead caresses, as shining as thou mayest be, star! know that one day, a day close at hand, thou wilt be even more beautifulastounder of earthly astronomersand that will be when she whom I loved solely, and myself whom she loved always, after all the betrayals, and all the forgetting, and all the repentance, we will recognize each other, our bodies vanished as one recognizes oneself on the morrow of a ball, when the masks have fallen and we will mingle our glows with thy glow, Venus, our flames with thy flame!
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