Part 34 (1/2)

Only the courtesans were there, for the third day of the Aphrodisae being reserved for the exclusive devotions of the married women, the latter had just started for the Astarteion in a great procession, and there was nothing in the square but flowered robes and eyes blackened with paint.

As Myrtocleia pa.s.sed by, a young girl called Philotis, who was talking with many others, pulled her by the sleeve knot.

”Ho, my little la.s.s! you played at Bacchis's yesterday? What happened?

What took place there? Did Bacchis put on a new necklace to hide the cavities in her neck? Has she got wooden b.r.e.a.s.t.s or copper ones? Did she forget to dye the little white hairs on her temples before putting on her wig? Come, speak, fried fis.h.!.+”

”Do you suppose I looked at her? I arrived after the banquet, I played my piece, I received my payment, and I ran off.”

”Oh, I know you don't dissipate!”

”To stain my robe and receive blows? No, Philotis. Only rich women can afford to indulge in orgies. Little flute-girls get nothing but tears.”

”When one doesn't want to stain one's robe, one leaves it in the ante-chamber. When one receives blows, one insists on being paid double.

It is quite elementary. So you have nothing to tell us? not an adventure, not a joke, not a scandal? We are yawning like storks. Invent something if you know nothing.”

”My friend Theano stayed after me. When I awoke a few minutes ago, she had not yet come. The fete is perhaps still going on.”

”It is finished,” said another woman. ”Theano is down there, by the ceramic wall.”

The courtesans started off at a run, but presently stopped with a smile of pity.

Theano, in a naive fit of drunkenness, was obstinately pulling at a rose stripped of its leaves, the thorns of which were caught in her hair. Her yellow tunic was soiled with red and white stains as if she had borne the brunt of the whole orgie. The bronze clasp, which kept up up the converging folds of the stuff upon her left shoulder, dangled below the waist, and revealed the mobile globe of a young breast already too mature, and which was stained with two spots of purple.

As soon as she saw Myrtocleia, she brusquely went off into a peal of singular laughter. Everybody knew it at Alexandria, and it had procured her the nickname of the ”Fowl.” It was an interminable cluck-cluck, a torrent of gaiety which commenced in a very low key and took her breath away, then shot up again into a shrill cry, and so forth, rhythmically, like the joy of a triumphant hen.

”An egg! an egg!” said Philotis.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

But Myrtocleia made a gesture:

”Come, Theano, come to bed. You are not well, come with me.”

”Ah! . . . ha! . . . Ah! . . . ha!” laughed the child. And she took her breast in her little hand, crying in a hoa.r.s.e voice:

”Ah! . . . Ha! . . . the mirror . . .”

”Come along!” repeated Myrto, losing patience.

”The mirror . . . it is stolen, stolen! Ah! haaa! I shall never laugh so much again if I live to be as old as Chronos. Stolen, stolen, the silver mirror!”

The singing-girl tried to drag her away, but Philotis had understood.

”Hi!” she cried to the others, waving her two arms. ”Come here quickly!

There is news! Bacchis's mirror has been stolen!”

And all exclaimed: