Part 40 (1/2)

II

DUST RETURNS TO EARTH

”Demetrios!” she cried.

And she rushed forward.

But after carefully dropping the wooden bolt, the young man remained motionless, and his glance betrayed such profound tranquility that Chrysis was suddenly stricken with a cold chill.

She had hoped for an impulse of generosity, a movement of the arms, the lips, anything, an outstretched hand . . .

Demetrios did not move.

He waited in silence for an instant, in an extremely correct att.i.tude, as if he wished clearly to disavow all responsibility in the case.

Then, seeing that nothing was asked of him, he strode towards the window and planted himself in the embrasure to contemplate the dawn of day.

Chrysis sat upon the low bed, with a fixed look in her dulled eyes.

Then Demetrios began to commune with himself.

”It is better thus,” He said to himself. ”Such trivial amus.e.m.e.nts on the very eve of death would, as a matter of fact, be most lugubrious. I wonder, however, that she should not have had a presentiment of it from the very beginning, and I marvel that she should have received me so enthusiastically. As for me, it is an adventure terminated. I regret somewhat this denouement, for all things considered, the only crime of which Chrysis is guilty is to have expressed very frankly an ambition which might have been shared by most women, without doubt, and if it were not necessary to cast a victim to the public indignation, I should be satisfied with the banishment of this too-ardent young woman, in order to get rid of her and at the same time leave her the joys of life.

But there has been a scandal, and none can stop the course of events.

Such are the effects of pa.s.sion. Thoughtless sensuality, or its contrary, the idea without the reality, do not involve these fatal consequences. We ought to have many mistresses, but to beware, with the help of the G.o.ds, of forgetting that all mouths resemble one another.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chrysis sat upon the low bed.]

Having thus, in an audacious aphorism, summed up one of his moral theories, he lightly resumed the normal course of his ideas.

He remembered vaguely an invitation to dine that he had accepted for the night before and then forgotten in the whirl of events, and he resolved to send an apology.

He considered whether he should put his slave-tailor up for sale, an old man who had remained attached to the fas.h.i.+onable cut of the former regime, and who succeeded very imperfectly with the new puckered tunics.

His mind was even so free from all preoccupation that he stumped out upon the wall a rough study of his group of _Zagreus and the t.i.tans_, a variant which modified the position of the princ.i.p.al character's right arm.

Hardly had he finished, when a gentle knock was heard at the door.

Demetrios opened without haste. The old executioner entered, followed by two helmeted hoplites.