Demetrios does not answer. And he asks within himself:
“Is it really a last term? Is it truly a goal of human existence? Have I then passed through the other three chambers only to stop in this one? And shall I, shall I ever be able to leave it if I lie in it a whole night in the attitude of love which is the prostration of the tomb.”
But Chrysis speaks.
“Well-Beloved, you asked for me; I am come, look at me well . . .”
She raises her two arms together, lays her hands upon her hair, and, with her elbows projecting in front of her, smiles.
“Well-Beloved, I am yours . . . Oh! not immediately . . . I promised you to sing, I will sing first . . .”
And he thinks of her no more, and lays him down at her feet. She has little black sandals. Four threads of blue pearls pass between the dainty toes, on the nails of which has been painted a carmine lunar crescent.
With her head reposing on her shoulder, she taps on the palm of her left hand with her right, and undulates her hips almost imperceptibly.
“By night, on my bed,
I sought him whom my soul loveth:
I sought him, but I found him not. . . . .
I charge ye, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
If ye find my beloved,
Tell him
That I am sick of love.”