Part 12 (1/2)
”The master will beat me!” said Tarrar, s.h.i.+vering. ”That impudent wench!”
But Caleb, with his finger to his mouth, told him to be silent ... and listened at the door.
The veiled woman stood in Lucius' room. Lucius lay on a couch in mournful meditation. He opened his eyes wide with amazement.
”I am Tamyris,” said the woman. ”Lucius, I am Tamyris. I am famed for my beauty; and I have kept kings waiting on the threshold of my villa on Lake Mareotis merely out of caprice. I once kissed a negro slave while the King of Pontus was waiting; and, when my black lover held me in his arms, I called the king in ... and then showed him the door and drove him away.”
”That's not true,” said Lucius.
Tamyris opened her veils and laughed:
”No, it's not true,” she said. ”But what is true is this, that I have been burning with love for you since the day when I saw you, beautiful as a G.o.d, on the threshold of Amphris' pyramid. Lucius, I want to be your slave. I want to serve and love you. I will cure you and make you laugh. I shall make you forget all your sorrow. Lucius, I have served the sacred G.o.ddess Aphrodite since I was a child of six. She has taught me, through oracles and dreams, the utter secret of her science, the secret of her highest voluptuousness, which she herself did not know until she loved Adonis. Lucius, if you will love me, I shall be your slave and reveal the secret of Adonis to you.”
”Go away,” said Lucius.
”Lucius,” said Tamyris, ”I have never asked a man to love me. But my days, since I looked into the mournful depths of your eyes, have been like withered gardens and my nights like scorched sands. I suffer and I am ill. I have an everlasting thirst here, in my throat, despite draughts cooled with snow and fruit steeped in silphium. See, my hands shake as though I were in a fever. See, Lucius, how my hands shake. They want to fondle you, to fondle your limbs and....”
”Go away,” said Lucius.
”Lucius, I long to be your slave. I, Tamyris, the famous hetaira, who possess treasures, as you do, and the largest beryl discovered in Ethiopia, I long to be your slave and I long to shake your pillows high and soft and to lave your feet in nard and to dry them with my kisses, kiss after kiss until they are dry.”
Lucius struck a hard blow on the gong. Caleb and Tarrar appeared.
”Call the guards,” Lucius commanded. ”And drag this woman away if she does not go.”
”I am going,” said Tamyris. ”But, when I am dead, O Lucius, burnt out with love, I shall haunt you and my ghost will twine around you, without your being able to prevent it, and I shall suck your soul from your lips ... until I have you inside me ... inside me.”
”Gracious lady,” said Caleb, obsequiously, ”the rain has ceased and your litter waits.”
”I am going,” said Tamyris. ”The Prince of Numidia expects me. He has come with twenty swimming elephants, over the sea and straight across the lake, to love me. I am giving an orgy to-night, just to amuse him. Lucius, if you call on me to-night, we will tie up the Prince of Numidia and tickle the soles of his feet till he dies of laughing. Will you come?”
”You lie,” said Lucius. ”There is no prince come to see you and there are no swimming elephants. You weary me. Go away, or I shall have you scourged from my presence with long whips.”
”I am going,” said Tamyris. ”But, at a moment when you are not thinking of it, I shall bewitch you. Then you, without knowing it, will drink a philtre which I have prepared for you; and you will come to me and I shall embrace you. And in my embrace you shall know what otherwise would have always remained a secret to you. I am going.”
That night Lucius went to Tamyris.
But he returned, the next morning, disillusionized and disappointed.
CHAPTER XIII
”My son,” said old Thrasyllus, sitting beside his couch, ”do you intend always to cherish your illness and longing, like a serpent that devours you, bone and flesh? The sibyl of Rhacotis merely guessed your own thoughts. The holy Amphris could explain nothing more than that many, who resemble one another, mean only one in the dream. After that, what could your credulity imagine that a crafty hetaira would make you guess in her embrace? The name of that one man? The name of the pirate? The place where he is hiding Ilia?... One pirate?... Who could have stolen her?”
”I don't know,” said Lucius, wearily.
”My poor, sick boy,” said the tutor, ”no one knows and no one will ever know. She has disappeared. If she has not been kidnapped by pirates, she is drowned. Did you not visit the slave-markets in Rome on purpose to find her? Have you not done the same thing here, in Alexandria? She is not to be found. Forget her, my son. Try to get better. If no other woman can cure you, let some other power than love cure you. Amphris mentioned wisdom. There is wisdom. Seek it here, in the land of wisdom. This city, my son, is a sinful city, though it is fair to look upon. This city is as Tamyris herself: it is a wanton among cities. There is no more wisdom in this city, notwithstanding the Museum, notwithstanding the Serapeum, notwithstanding the dreams of Canopus, which die away in orgies. In this city I have met none save merchants, usurers and venal women. This magnificent city is a venal city. Even the philosophers here are avaricious and venal. Even the prophets demand a talent for their divinations. The power of money holds sway here and no longer wisdom. Let us go farther. There is wisdom left in Egypt. And in the wisdom which we shall find you will be cured. Listen, my son: there is the sacred word of the Kabbala, which Moses himself received from the G.o.dhead on Mount Sinai. That word has never been graven on tables of stone, but Moses whispered it to his sons and those sons to theirs. It is the key to happiness. He who utters it has the power to avoid suffering and to know all that can be known on earth. I have sought for it, in the Museum, in the Serapeum, here and at Canopus. While you lay sorrowing on your couch, my son, I have held converse with priests and with philosophers, with prophets. I am persuaded that I shall not find the word in Alexandria.”