Demetrios contemplates this divine madness in the feminine body with a sort of religious awe—this transport of a whole being, this superhuman convulsion of which he is the direct cause, which he exalts or represses at will, and which confounds him for the thousandth time.
Under his very eyes all the mighty forces of life strain in the effort to create. The breasts have already assumed, up to their very tips, maternal majesty. And these wails, these lamentable wails that prematurely weep over the labour of childbirth! . . .
[[1]] Song of Songs.
II
THE PANIC
Far above the sea and the Gardens of the Goddess, the moon poured down torrents of light.
Melitta—that little damsel, so delicate and slender, possessed by Demetrios for a fleeting moment, and who had offered to take him to Chimairis, learned in chiromancy—had remained behind alone with the fortune-teller, crouching, and still fierce.
“Do not follow that man,” Chimairis had said.
“Oh yes, I will! I’ve not even asked him if I am ever to see him again. Let me run after him to kiss him, and I’ll come back—”
“No, you’ll not see him ever more. And so much the better, my girl. Women who meet him once, learn to knew pain. Women who meet him twice, trifle with death.”
