After the turning of the second street, they laid the body down a second time in order in put on their sandals. Rhodis’s feet, too delicate to walk naked, were torn and bleeding.
The night was full of brilliancy. The town was full of silence. The iron-coloured shadows lay in square blocks in the middle of the streets, according to the profile of the houses.
The little virgins resumed their load.
“Where are we going to?” asked the child. “Where are we going to bury it?”
“In the cemetery of Hermanubis. It is always deserted, it will be in peace there.”
“Poor Chrysis! Could I ever have thought that on her last day, I should bear her body without torches and without funeral car, secretly, like a thing stolen.”
Then both began to talk volubly as if they were afraid of the silence, cheek by jowl with the corpse. The last day of Chrysis’s life filled them with astonishment. Where had she got the mirror, the necklace and the comb? She could not have taken the pearls of the goddess herself. The temple was too well guarded for a courtesan to be able to enter it. Then somebody must have acted for her? But who? She was not known to possess any lover amongst the Stolists to whom the guard of the divine statue was entrusted. And then, if someone had acted for her, why had she not denounced him? And, in any case, why these three crimes? Of what had they availed her, except to deliver her over to punishment? A woman does not commit such follies without an object, unless she be in love? Was Chrysis in love? and who could it be?
“We shall never know”, concluded the flute-player. “She has taken her secret with her, and even if she had an accomplice he would be the last to enlighten us.”
At this point, Rhodis, who had been resting for several instants, sighed:
