Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Aphrodite by Pierre Louÿs (hot novels to read .txt) 📖
- Author: Pierre Louÿs
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The interior of the Didascalion, the seven class-rooms, the little theater and the peristyle of the court were ornamented with ninety-two frescoes which summed up the teachings of love. They were the work of a man’s entire life—Cleochares of Alexandria, disciple and natural son of Apelles, had finished them, dying. Recently Berenice the queen, who was much interested in the celebrated school and had sent her young sisters there, had ordered from Demetrios a series of marble groups to complete the decoration; but until now only one had been placed, in the children’s class.
At the end of each year, in the presence of all the assembled courtesans, a great competition took place which excited an extraordinary emulation in this crowd of women, for the twelve prizes awarded gave the right to the most supreme glory of which they could dream: the entry into the Cotytteion.
This last monument was enveloped in so many mysteries that a detailed description of it cannot now be given. We know only that it was included in the garden and that it had the form of a triangle whose base was a temple of the goddess Cotytto, in whose name fearful, unknown ceremonies were performed. The other two sides of the monument were composed of eighteen houses. Thirty-six courtesans dwelt there, so sought by rich suitors that they would by no means accept less than two minae; they were the Baptes of Alexandria. Once a month, at the full moon, they gathered in the close of the temple, maddened by exciting beverages and girt in ritual costumes. The eldest of the thirty-six had to take a mortal dose of the terrible philtre. The certainty of her speedy death made her attempt without fear all the dangerous excesses before which the living recoil. Her body, everywhere foaming, became the center and the model of the whirling orgy; in the midst of long yells, cries, tears and dances the other women embraced her, toweled her with their hair and joined madly in the uninterrupted spasm of this furious agony. Three years these women lived thus, and at the end of the thirty-sixth month such was the intoxication of their end.
Other less venerated sanctuaries had been raised by the women in honor of the other names of the many-formed Aphrodite. There was even an altar consecrated to the Uranian, who received the chaste vows of sentimental courtesans; another to the Epistrophia who brought forgetfulness of unhappy loves; another to the Chryseia, who attracted rich lovers; another to the Genetyllis, who protected young girls; another to the Coliade, who approved strong passions, for all that touched love was piety for the goddess. But the special altars had efficacy and virtue only in regard to small desires. They were served from day to day, their favors were quotidian and their commerce familiar. The successful suppliants placed simple flowers upon them; those who were not gratified soiled them. They were neither consecrated nor kept up by the priests and in consequence their profanation was not punishable.
Quite otherwise was the discipline of the temple.
The Temple, the High Temple or the High Goddess, the holiest place in all Egypt, the inviolable Astarteion, was a colossal edifice three hundred and thirty-six feet in length, elevated upon seventeen steps at the height of the gardens. Its golden doors were guarded by twelve hermaphroditic hierodules, symbols of love and the twelve hours of the night.
The entrance was not turned toward the East but in the direction of Paphos, that is to say, toward the north-east; the rays of the sun never penetrated directly into the sanctuary of the great nocturnal Immortal. Eighty-six columns sustained the architrave; they were tinted with crimson to half their height, and the upper parts disengaged themselves from these red vestments with an ineffable whiteness like the torsos of standing women.
Between the epistyle and the corona, the long girdling ornamental zoophoros unrolled its love myths of the fabulous beasts. Centaurs were there with stallions, goats with thin satyrs, naiads, stags, Bacchantes, tigers, lionesses, gryphons. The great multitude of beings hurtled thus onward, passionate, divine, creative, awake to the first stirring of life. The crowd of obscure couples ranged somewhat by chance about a few immortal scenes: Europa with the Olympian bull, Leda with the swan. Farther along, Glaucos expired in the arms of the siren; the god Pan embraced a hamadryad with flying hair; the Sphinx approached the horse Pegasus —and, at the end of the frieze, the sculptor himself was figured before the goddess Aphrodite, modeling, from her own person, in soft wax the contours of a perfect cteis, as though all his ideal of beauty, joy and virtue had long since taken refuge in that precious and fragile jewel.
“PURIFY thyself, Stranger.”
“I shall enter pure,” said Demetrios.
Dipping the end of her hair in water, the young guardian of the gate touched first his eyelids, then his lips and fingers, that his glance, the kiss of his mouth and the caress of his hands should be sanctified.
And he advanced into the wood of Aphrodite.
Through the branches which had become black, he perceived at the western horizon a sun of dark crimson which no longer dazzled the eyes. It was the sun of the same day upon which the meeting with Chrysis had thrown his life out of its groove.
The feminine soul is of a simplicity incredible to man. Where there is but a straight line they obstinately seek the complexity of a web; they find space and lose themselves in it. It was thus that the soul of Chrysis, transparent as that of a little child, appeared to Demetrios more mysterious than a problem of metaphysics. After leaving this woman upon the jetty, he returned home as though in a dream, incapable of replying to all the questions which tormented him. What did she wish with the three gifts? It would be impossible for her to carry or sell a stolen famous mirror, the comb of a murdered woman, the goddess’s necklace of pearl. In keeping them at home she would expose herself each day to a fatal discovery. Then why demand them? To destroy them? He knew too well that women do not enjoy things in secret and that happy events do not begin to please them until the day they become known. And then, by what divination, by what prodigious clairvoyance, had she judged him capable of accomplishing for her three actions so extraordinary? Assuredly, if he wished, Chrysis, carried from her house, delivered over to his mercy, could be made his mistress, his wife or his slave, according to his choice. He was even free simply to destroy her. Former revolutions had accustomed the citizens to frequent violent deaths and no one would have given a second thought to a vanished courtesan. Chrysis must know this, yet she had dared…
The more he thought of her, the more pleased he was that she had so prettily varied the debate of the proposition. How many women, desirable as she, would have presented themselves awkwardly! This one, what had she demanded? Neither love, nor gold, nor jewels, but three incredible crimes! She interested him keenly. He had offered her all the treasures of Egypt; he felt now that, had she accepted them, she would not have received two oboli and that he would have been weary of her even before having known her. Three crimes were surely an unusual fee; but she was worthy of receiving it since she was the woman to demand it, and he promised himself to continue the adventure.
To give himself no time to withdraw from his firm resolution, he went the same day to Bacchis’s, found her house empty, took the silver mirror and went to the gardens.
Must he go directly to Chrysis’s second victim? He did not think so. The Priestess Touni, who possessed the famous ivory comb, was so charming and so delicate that he feared his heart would be touched if he appeared before her without a preliminary precaution. He retraced his steps and walked along the Great Terrace.
The temple women sat in their exposed chambers like flowers at an exhibition. Their attitudes and their costumes had no less diversity than their ages, types and races. The most beautiful, following the tradition of Phryne, left uncovered only the oval of their face, enveloping themselves from head to foot in great garments of fine linen. Others had adopted the fashion of robes under which their beauties were mysteriously distinguished as one sees green mosses like spots of shadow at the bottom of limpid waters.
Those who had youth for a charm dressed and posed to display their young beauty. But the more mature likewise had beauties, and posed in their own manner to exhibit their desirable femininity.
Demetrios passed slowly before them and did not weary of admiring.
He had never been able to see without intense emotion the beauty of a woman. He understood neither disgust before departed youth nor insensibility before very young girls. Any woman, this evening, could have charmed him. Provided she was silent and unassertive, he gave her dispensation as to beauty. The more his thoughts dwelt upon perfect forms the more his first emotional response weakened. The emotion given him by the expression of living beauty was an exclusively cerebral sensuality which quite destroyed aphrodisia. He remembered with anguish the most admirable woman he had ever held in his arms.
“Friend,” said a voice, “dost thou not know me?”
He turned, made a negative sign, and continued his way, for he never twice visited the same girl. It was the only principle he followed in his visits to the gardens. Demetrios did not expose himself to the disillusions of any second visit.
“Clonarion!”
“Gnathene!”
“Plango!”
“Mnais!”
“Crobyle!”
“Ioesa!”
They cried out their names as he passed and some added the affirmation of their ardent nature . Demetrios followed the way; he was disposed, according to his habit, to select at hazard in the troop, when a young girl all dressed in blue leaned her head upon her shoulders and said to him, softly, without rising, “Is there no way?”
The unexpectedness of this formula made him smile. He stopped. “Open the door,” he said. “I choose thee.”
The girl joyously sprang to her feet and struck two blows on a gong. An old female slave came to open.
“Gorgo,” she said, “I have someone; quick, Cretan wine, and cakes!”
And she turned to Demetrios. “Thou hast no thirst for strong drink?”
“No,” said the young man, laughing, “hast thou any?”
“I must have it; they ask for it oftener than thou thinkest. Come this way; take care of the steps, one of them is broken. Enter my chamber; I will come back.”
The room was quite plain, like that of all novice priestesses. A great bed, some rugs and some seats furnished it insufficiently; but, through a large open bay, could be seen the gardens, the sea, the double roadstead of Alexandria. Demetrios stood looking at the distant city.
Setting suns beyond the harbors—peerless glories of maritime cities—calm of the heavens, purple of the waters—upon what soul clamorous with joy or sorrow do you not cast silence? What steps do not halt, what enjoyments do not suspend, what voices do not fail before you?… Demetrios gazed; a surge of torrential flame seemed to issue from the sun half plunged into the sea, and to flow directly to the curved shore of the wood of Aphrodite. From one horizon to the other, the sumptuous scale of crimson swept over the Mediterranean in zones of tints without transitions from golden red to cold violet. Between this quivering splendor and the greened mirror of Lake Mareotis, the white mass of the
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