Each woman had brought a little idol of the goddess from her native country, and each adored it in her own tongue, as it stood upon the altar, without understanding the other women. Lachmi, Ashtaroth, Venus, Ischtar, Freia, Mylitta, Cypris, such were the religious names of their deified VOLUPTAS. Some venerated her under a symbolic form: a red pebble, a conical stone, a great knotted shell. Most of them had a little statuette on a pedestal of green wood, usually a rudely-carved figure with thin arms, heavy breasts, and excessive hips. The hand pointed to the delta-shaped locks of the belly. They laid a myrtle-branch at its feet, scattered the altar with rose leaves, and burned a little grain of incense for every prayer granted. It was the confidant of all their troubles, the witness of all their undertakings, the supposed cause of all their pleasures. At their death, it was placed in their fragile little coffin, to watch over their sepulture.
The most beautiful of these women came from the kingdoms of Asia. Every year, the vessels which carried the presents of the tributaries or allies to Alexandria landed, together with the bales and leathern bottles, a cargo of a hundred virgins chosen by the priests for the service of the sacred garden. They were Mysians and Jewesses, Phrygians and Cretans, daughters of Ecbatana and Babylon, maidens from the Bay of Pearls and from the sacred banks of the Ganges. Some were white-skinned with medallion-like faces and inflexible bosoms; others, brown as the earth under rain, wore silver rings in their noses. Their hair fell short and dark upon their shoulders.
Some came from a still greater distance: dainty, deliberate little beings, whose language nobody understood, and who resembled yellow monkeys.
Their long eyes pointed towards their temples; they dressed their straight black hair in the quaintest fashion. These girls remained all their lives as timid as strayed animals. They knew the movements of love, but refused the kiss upon the mouth. Between two passing unions they were to be seen sitting on their little feet, and playing with one another, and amusing themselves like infants.
In a solitary meadow, the pink and pale daughters of the North lived together, lying upon the grass. They were Sarmatians with triple tresses, robust legs, square shoulders, who made garlands for themselves with the branches of trees, and wrestled for a pastime. There were big-breasted, flat-nosed, hairy Scythians, who paired in the attitude of beasts; gigantic Teutons who terrified the Egyptians with their hair pale as that of old men and their flesh softer than that of children; Gauls, sandy-hued like cows, and who laughed without a motive; young Celts with sea-green eyes, who never went out naked.
Elsewhere, the brown-breasted Iberians assembled together during the day. They had heavy hair that they dressed with extreme care, and nervous bellies which they did not depilate. Their firm skins and powerful croups were held in great esteem by the Alexandrians. They were chosen for dancing-girls as often as for mistresses. Under the large shadow of the palm-trees lived the daughters of Africa: Numidians veiled in white, Carthaginians apparelled in black gauze, Negresses enveloped in many-coloured costumes.
They were fourteen hundred.
When once a woman had entered the garden, she never left it till the first day of her old age. She gave the half of her gains to the temple, and the remainder went to defray the cost of her meals and perfumes.
