"Look here," he says, "you weren"t at the Meyers" yesterday."
"I was invited elsewhere."
"Where?"
I"ve got to think a minute before I can remember the name. We all suffer from weakness in the head.
"Aha," he cries. "I"m told it was swell. Magnificent women ... and that fellow ... er ... thought reader and what"s her name ... yes ...
the Sembrich ... swell ... you must introduce me there some day...."
Stretching his legs he sinks down at my side on the sofa.
Silence. My bosom friend and I have exhausted the common stock of interests.
He has lit a cigarette and is busy catching the white clouds which he blows from his nose with his mouth. This employment seems to satisfy his intellect wholly.
I, for my part, stare at the ceiling. There the golden bodies of snakes wind themselves in mad arabesques through chains of roses. The pretentious luxury offends my eye. I look farther, past the candelabrum of crystal which reflects sharp rainbow tints over all, past the painted columns whose shafts end in lily leaves as some torturing spear does in flesh.
My glance stops yonder on the wall where a series of fresco pictures has been painted.
The forms of an age that was drunk with beauty look down on me in their victorious calm. They are steeped in the glow of a southern heaven. The rigid splendour of the marble walls is contrasted with the magnificent flow of long garments.
It is a Roman supper. Rose-crowned men lean upon Indian cushions, holding golden beakers in their right hands. Women in yielding nakedness cower at their feet. Through the open door streams in a Bacchic procession with fauns and panthers, the drunken Pan in its midst. Brown-skinned slaves with leopard skins about their loins make mad music. Among them is one who at once makes me forget the tumult.
She leans her firm, naked body surrept.i.tiously against the pillar. Her form is contracted with weariness. Thoughtlessly and with tired lips she blows the _tibia_ which her nerveless hands threaten to drop. Her cheeks are yellow and fallen in, her eyes are gla.s.sy, but upon her forehead are seen the folds of lordship and about her mouth wreaths a stony smile of irony. Who is she? Whence does she come? I ask myself.
But I feel a dull thud against my shoulder. My bosom friend has fallen asleep and is using me as a pillow.
"Look here, you!" I call out to him, for I have for the moment forgotten his name. "Go home and go to bed."
He starts up and gazes at me with swimming eyes.
"Do you mean me?" he stutters. "That"s a good joke." And next moment he begins to snore.
I hide him as well as possible with my broad back and bend down over the glittering samovar before me. The fragrant steam p.r.i.c.kles my nose.
It is time that the little woman turn up if I am to amuse her guests.
I think of the brown-skinned woman yonder in the painting.
I open my eyes. Merciful heaven! What is that?
For the woman stands erect now in all the firm magnificence of her young limbs, presses her clenched fists against her forehead and stares down at me with glowing eyes.
And suddenly she hurls the flutes from her in a long curve and cries with piercing voice: "No more ... I will play no more!" It is the voice of a slave at the moment of liberation.
"For heaven"s sake, woman!" I cry. "What are you doing? You will be slain; you will be thrown to the wild beasts!"
She points about her with a gesture that is full of disgust and contempt.
Then I see what she means. All that company has fallen asleep. The men lie back with open mouths, the goblets still in their hands. Golden cascades of wine fall glittering upon the marble. The women writhe in these pools of wine. But even in the intoxication of their dreams they try to guard their elaborate hair dress. The whole mad band, musicians and animals, lies there with limbs dissolved, panting for air, overwhelmed by heavy sleep.
"The way is free!" cries the flute player jubilantly and buries her twitching fingers into the flesh of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "What is there to hinder my flight?"
"Whither do you flee, mad woman?" I ask.
A gleam of dreamy ecstasy glides over her grief-worn face which seems to flush and grow softer of outline.
"Home--to freedom," she whispers down to me and her eyes burn.
"Where is your home?"
"In the desert," she cries. "Here I play for their dances; there I am queen. My name is Thea and it is resonant through storms. They chained me with golden chains; they lured me with golden speeches until I left my people and followed them to their prison that is corroded with l.u.s.t.... Ah, if you knew with my knowledge, you would not sit here either.... But the slave of the moment knows not liberty."
"I have known it," I say drearily and let my chin sink upon the table.
"And you are here?"
Contemptuously she turns her back to me.
"Take me with you, Thea," I cry, "take me with you to freedom."
"Can you still endure it."
"I will endure the glory of freedom or die of it."
"Then come."
A brown arm that seems endless stretches down to me. An iron grasp lifts me upward. Noise and lights dislimn in the distance.
Our way lies through great, empty, pillared halls which curve above us like twilit cathedrals. Great stairs follow which fall into black depths like waterfalls of stone. Thence issues a mist, green with silvery edges....
A dizziness seizes me as I strive to look downward.
I have a presentiment of something formless, limitless. A vague awe and terror fill me. I tremble and draw back but an alien hand constrains me.
We wander along a moonlit street. To the right and left extend pallid plains from which dark cypress trees arise, straight as candles.
It is all wide and desolate like those halls.
In the far distance arise sounds like half smothered cries of the dying, but they grow to music.
Shrill jubilation echoes between the sounds and it too grows to music.
But this music is none other than the roaring of the storm which lashes us on when we dare to faint.
And we wander, wander ... days, weeks, months. Who knows how long?
Night and day are alike. We do not rest; nor speak.
The road is far behind us. We wander upon trackless wastes.