“I am not rich enough to give you silver coins, O glittering Olympian goddess. Besides, what could I give thee that thou lackest? Here are flowers, yellow and green, pleated into a wreath for thy feet. And now . . .”
She unbuckled the clasps of her tunic; the tissue slipped down to the ground and she stood revealed quite naked.
. . . “I dedicate myself to thee body and soul, beloved goddess. I desire to enter thy gardens and die a courtesan of the temple. I swear to desire naught but love, I swear to love but to love, I renounce the world and I shut myself up in thee.”
Then the priest covered her with perfumes and enveloped her nudity in the veil woven by Tryphera. They left the nave together by the door opening into the gardens.
The procession seemed at an end, and the other courtesans were about to retrace their steps when another woman, a belated arrival, was seen upon the threshold. She had nothing in her hand, and it seemed as if she also had naught but her beauty to offer. Her hair appeared as two streams of gold, two deep waves full of shade, which engulfed the ears and were twisted in seven rolls over the back of the neck. The nose was delicate, with expressive nostrils which palpitated at times over a thick painted mouth, the corners rounded and throbbing. The flexible line of the body undulated at every step, animated by the rolling of the hips or the oscillation of the breasts, under which bent the supple waist.
Her eyes were extraordinary: blue but dark and bright at the same time, changing and glinting like moonstones, half closed under drooping lashes. Those eyes looked, as sirens sing . . .
The priest turned towards her, waiting for her to speak.
She said: