“Djala, what are we thinking of? It is night, and I have not yet gone out. There will be nothing left upon the heptastadion but sleeping sailors. Tell me, Djala, I am beautiful?
“Tell me, Djala, I am more beautiful than ever to-night? I am the most beautiful of the Alexandrian women, and you know it? Will not he who shall presently pass within the sidelong glance of my eyes follow me like a dog? Shall I not perform my pleasure upon him, and make a slave of him according to my whim, and can I not expect the most abject obedience from the first man whom I shall meet? Dress me, Djala.”
Djala twined two silver serpents about her arms. On her feet she fixed sandals and attached them to her brown legs with crossed leather straps. Over her warm belly Chrysis herself buckled a maiden’s girdle, which sloped down from the upper part of the loins along the hollow line of the groins; in her ears she hung great circular rings, on her neck three golden phallus-bracelets enchased at Paphos by the hierodules. She contemplated herself for some time, standing naked in her jewels; then, drawing from the coffer in which she had folded it, a vast transparent stuff of yellow linen, she twisted it about her and draped herself in it to the ground. Diagonal folds intersected the little that one saw of her body through the light tissue; one of her elbows stood out under the light tunic, and the other arm, which she had left bare, carried the long train high out of reach of the dust.
She took her feather fan in her hand, and carelessly sauntered forth.
Standing upon the steps of the threshold, with her hand leaning on the white wall, Djala watched the courtesan’s retreating form.
She walked slowly past the houses, in the deserted street bathed in moonlight. A little flickering shadow danced behind her.
On the quay at Alexandria a singing-girl was standing singing. By her side were two flute-girls, seated on the white parapet.
The satyrs pursue in the woods The light-footed oreads. They chase the nymphs upon the mountains, They fill their eyes with affright, They seize their hair in the wind, They grasp their breasts in the chase, And throw their warm bodies backwards Upon the green dew-covered moss, And the beautiful bodies, their beautiful bodies half divine, Writhe with the agony . . . O women! Eros makes your lips cry aloud With dolorous, sweet Desire.