Aphrodite: Book Five: Chapter Five. Piety

AFTER the turning of the second street, they put down the body a second time to do on their sandals. Rhodis’s feet, too delicate to walk bare, were raw and bleeding.

The night was very brilliant. All the town was silent. The iron-colored shadows were outlined sharply in the middle of the street according to the profile of the houses.

The little virgins took up their burden.

"Where are we going?" asked the child. "Where shall we lay her in the earth?"

"In the cemetery of Hermanubis. It is always deserted. She will be in peace there."

"Poor Chrysis! Would I have thought that on the day of her end I would carry her body, without torches and without a funeral car, secretly, like a stolen thing?"

Then both began to speak volubly as though they were afraid of the silence, side by side with the corpse. The last day of Chrysis’s life overwhelmed them with astonishment. Whence had she the mirror, the comb and the necklace? She herself could not have taken the pearls of the goddess; the temple was so well guarded that a courtesan could not have entered there. Then someone had acted for her? But who? She was not known to have a

Myrtocleia put her arm about her neck.

"Try again, my dear. We must carry her. It is for her life in the underworld. If she has no sepulcher and no obolos in her hand, she will wander forever on the brink of the river of hell and when, in our turn, Rhodis, we descend to the dead, she will reproach us for our impiety and we will not know how to answer her."

But the child, in her weakness, burst into tears in her embrace.

"Quick, quick," continued Myrtocleia. "Here comes someone from the end of the street. Place thyself with me before the body. Hide it behind our tunics. If they see it, all will be lost . . ."

She interrupted herself.

"It is Timon, I recognize him. Timon with four women . . . Ah! Gods! what will happen! He who laughs at everything will make fun of us . . . But no; stay here, Rhodis, I am going to speak to him."

The young girl threw him a sorrowful look; but already the four women, Philotis, Seso of Knidos, Callistion and Tryphera, fidgeted about her.

"Come, little idiot!" said Tryphera, "if thou hast drained thy nurse dry, we cannot help thee. It is almost day, thou shouldst be in bed; since when do children wander in the moonlight?"

"Her nurse!" said Philotis. "It is Timon she wants.

"Spank her. She deserves a spanking!"

And Callistion, an arm around Myrto's waist, lifted her from the ground, raising her little blue tunic.

But Seso interposed.

"You are mad," she cried. "Myrto does not run after men. If she calls Timon, she has other reasons. Leave her in peace and let them get it over with!"

"Well," said Timon, "what wilt thou of me? Come over here. Speak in my ear. Is it really serious?"

"Chrysis’s body is there, in the street," said the still trembling young girl. "We are carrying it to the cemetery, my little friend and I, but it is heavy and we ask if thou art willing to aid us . . It will not take long . . . Immediately after, thou canst rejoin thy women . . ."

Rhodis was still seated by the head of the corpse. When she saw Timon coming, she besought: "Do not tell this! We have stolen her to save her shade. Keep our secret, we will love thee well, Timon."

"Be reassured," said the young man.

He took the body under the shoulders and Myrto took it under the knees. They walked in silence and Rhodis followed, with short and tottering steps.

Timon did not speak. For the second time in two days, human wrath had taken from him one of his friends; and he asked himself what extravagance thus swept spirits aside from the enchanted road which leads to unclouded happiness.

"Ataraxia!" he thought, "indifference, repose, O voluptuous serenity! Who among men will appreciate you? Man agitates himself, struggles, hopes, when but one thing is precious: to know how to draw from the passing moments all the joys they can give and to leave one's bed as seldom as possible."

They arrived at the gate of the ruined necropolis.

"Where shall we put her?" asked Myrto.

"Near the god."

"Where is the statue? I have never entered here. I was afraid of the tombs and of the steles. I do not know the Hermanubis."

The violet tints of the first dawn mingled with the moonlight on the marbles. Vague and distant harmony floated among the cypress branches. The rhythmic rustle of the palms, so like to drops of falling rain, shed an illusion of coolness.

Timon opened with effort a pink stone buried in the earth. The sepulcher was hollowed out beneath the hands of the funerary god who made the gesture of the embalmer. It must have contained a cadaver, formerly, but nothing more was found in the cavity save a heap of brownish dust.

The young man descended waist-deep and held out his arms: "Give her to me," he said to Myrto. "I will lay her well within and we will close the tomb . . ."

But Rhodis threw herself upon the body.

"No! do not bury her so quickly! I want to see her again! A last time! A last time! Chrysis! my poor Chrysis! Ah! horror . . . What has she become! . . ."

THE END