One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances

The hand which held that of Gyges was cold, soft, and small; nevertheless those slender fingers clasped it with a bruising force, as the fingers of some statue of brass animated by a prodigy would have done. The rigidity of an inflexible will betrayed itself in that ever-equal pressure as of a vise – a pressure which no hesitation of head or heart came to vary. Gyges, conquered, subjugated, crushed, yielded to that imperious traction, as though he were borne along by the mighty arm of Fate.

Alas! it was not thus he had wished to touch for the first time that fair royal hand, which had presented the poniard to him, and was leading him to murder, for it was Nyssia herself who had come for Gyges, to conceal him in the place of ambuscade.

No word was exchanged between the sinister couple on the way from the prison to the nuptial chamber.

The queen unfastened the thongs, raised the bar of the entrance, and placed Gyges behind the folding door as Candaules had done the evening previous. This repetition of the same acts, with so different a purpose, had something of a lugubrious and fatal character. Vengeance, this time, had placed her foot upon every track left by the insult. The chastisement and the crime alike followed the same path. Yesterday it was the turn of Candaules, to-day it was that of Nyssia; and Gyges, accomplice in the injury, was also accomplice in the penalty. He had served the king to dishonor the queen; he would serve the queen to kill the king, equally exposed by the vices of the one and the virtues of the other.

The daughter of Megabazus seemed to feel a savage joy, a ferocious pleasure, in employing only the same means chosen by the Lydian king, and turning to account for the murder those very precautions which had been adopted for voluptuous fantasy.

"You will again this evening see me take off these garments which are so displeasing to Candaules. This spectacle should become wearisome to you," said the queen in accents of bitter irony, as she stood on the threshold of the chamber; "you will end by finding me ugly." And a sardonic, forced laugh momentarily curled her pale mouth; then, regaining her impassible severity of mien, she continued: "Do not imagine you will be able to steal away this time as you did before; you know my sight is piercing. At the slightest movement on your part I shall awake Candaules; and you know that it will not be easy for you to explain what you are doing in the king's apartments, behind a door, with a poniard in your hand. Further, my Bactrian slaves, the copper-colored mutes who imprisoned you a short time ago, guard all the issues of the palace, with orders to massacre you should you attempt to go out. Therefore let no vain scruples of fidelity cause you to hesitate. Think that I will make you King of Sardes, and that … I will love you if you avenge me. The blood of Candaules will be your purple, and his death will make for you a place in that bed."

The slaves came according to their custom to change the fuel in the tripod, renew the oil in the lamps, spread tapestry and the skins of animals upon the royal couch; and Nyssia hurried into the chamber as soon as she heard their footsteps resounding in the distance.

In a short time Candaules arrived all joyous. He had purchased the bed of Ikmalius and proposed to substitute it for the bed wrought after the Oriental fashion, which he declared had never been much to his taste. He seemed pleased to find that Nyssia had already retired to the nuptial chamber.

"The trade of embroidery, and spindles, and needles seems not to have the same attraction for you to-day as usual. In fact, it is a monotonous labor to perpetually pass one thread between other threads, and I wonder at the pleasure which you seem ordinarily to take in it. To tell the truth, I am afraid that some fine day Pallas-Athena, on finding you so skilful, will break her shuttle over your head as she once did to poor Arachne."

"My lord, I felt somewhat tired this evening, and so came down-stairs sooner than usual. Would you not like before going to sleep to drink a cup of black Samian wine mixed with the honey of Hymettus?" And she poured from a golden urn, into a cup of the same metal, the sombre-colored beverage which she had mingled with the soporiferous juice of the nepenthe.

Candaules took the cup by both handles and drained it to the last drop; but the young Heracleid had a strong head, and sinking his elbow into the cushions of his couch he watched Nyssia undressing without any sign that the dust of sleep was commencing to gather upon his eyes.

As on the evening before, Nyssia unfastened her hair and permitted its rich blonde waves to ripple over her shoulders. From his hiding-place Gyges fancied that he saw those locks slowly becoming suffused with tawny tints, illuminated with reflections of blood and flame; and their heavy curls seemed to lengthen with viperine undulations, like the hair of the Gorgons and Medusas.

All simple and graceful as that action was in itself, it took from the terrible events about to transpire a frightful and ominous character, which caused the hidden assassin to shudder with terror.

Nyssia then unfastened her bracelets, but, agitated as her hands had been by nervous straining, they ill served her will. She broke the string of a bracelet of beads of amber inlaid with gold, which rolled over the floor with a loud noise, causing Candaules to reopen his gradually closing eyes.

Each one of those beads fell upon the heart of Gyges as a drop of molten lead falls upon water.

Having unlaced her buskins, the queen threw her upper tunic over the back of an ivory chair. This drapery, thus arranged, produced upon Gyges the effect of one of those sinister-folding winding sheets wherein the dead were wrapped ere being borne to the funeral pyre. Every object in that room, which had the evening before seemed to him one scene of smiling splendor, now appeared to him livid, dim, and menacing. The statues of basalt rolled their eyes and smiled hideously. The lamp flickered weirdly, and its flame dishevelled itself in red and sanguine rays like the crest of a comet. Far back in the dimly lighted corners loomed the monstrous forms of the Lares and Lemures. The mantles hanging from their hooks seemed animated by a factitious life, and assumed a human aspect of vitality; and when Nyssia, stripped of her last garment, approached the bed, all white and naked as a shade, he thought that Death herself had broken the diamond fetters wherewith Hercules of old enchained her at the gates of hell when he delivered Alcestes, and had come in person to take possession of Candaules.

Overcome by the power of the nepenthe-juice, the king at last slumbered. Nyssia made a sign for Gyges to come forth from his retreat; and, laying her finger upon the breast of the victim, she directed upon her accomplice a look so humid, so lustrous, so weighty with languishment, so replete with intoxicating promise, that Gyges, maddened and fascinated, sprang from his hiding-place like the tiger from the summit of the rock where it has been crouching, traversed the chamber at a bound, and plunged the Bactrian poniard up to the very hilt in the heart of the descendant of Hercules. The chastity of Nyssia was avenged, and the dream of Gyges accomplished.

Thus ended the dynasty of the Heracleidæ, after having endured for five hundred and five years, and commenced that of the Mermnades in the person of Gyges, son of Dascylus. The Sardians, indignant at the death of Candaules, threatened revolt; but the oracle of Delphi having declared in favor of Gyges, who had sent thither a vast number of silver vases and six golden cratera of the value of thirty talents, the new king maintained his seat on the throne of Lydia, which he occupied for many long years, lived happily, and never showed his wife to any one, knowing too well what it cost.

ADDENDA

"ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS"

A. There is no correct English plural of "necropolis"; the French word nécropole is more normal. As the Greek plural could not be used very euphoniously, and as I have tried throughout to render an exact English equivalent for each French word whenever comprehensible, I beg indulgence for the illegitimate plural "necropoli," used to signify more than one necropolis, as an equivalent for the French nécropoles.

B. In the opening scene of "One of Cleopatra's Nights," the reader may be surprised at the expression "the chuckling of the crocodiles." Our own southern alligators often make a little noise which could not be better described – a low, guttural sound, bearing a sinister resemblance to a human chuckle or subdued, sneering laugh. A Creole friend who has lived much in those regions of Southern Louisiana intersected by bayous and haunted by alligators, comprehended at once the whole force of the term rire étouffe as applied to the sounds made by the crocodile. "Je l'ai entendu souvent" he said, with a smile.

"CLARIMONDE"

The idea of love after death has been introduced by Gautier into several beautiful creations, sometimes Hoffmanesquely, sometimes with an exquisite sweetness peculiarly his own. Among his most touching poems there is a fantastic —Les Tâches Jaunes– so remarkable that I cannot refrain from offering a rude translation of it. Though transplanted even by a master-hand into the richest soil of another language, such poetical flora necessarily lose something of their strange color and magical perfume. In this instance the translator, who is no poet, only strives to convey the beautiful weirdness of the original idea:

 
With elbow buried in the downy pillow
I've lain and read,
All through the night, a volume strangely written
In tongues long dead.
 
 
For at my bedside lie no dainty slippers;
And, save my own,
Under the paling lamp I hear no breathing: —
I am alone!
 
 
But there are yellow bruises on my body
And violet stains;
Though no white vampire came with lips blood-crimsoned
To suck my veins!
 
 
Now I bethink me of a sweet weird story,
That in the dark
Our dead loves thus with seal of chilly kisses
Our bodies mark.
 
 
Gliding beneath the coverings of our couches
They share our rest,
And with their dead lips sign their loving visit
On arm and breast.
 
 
Darksome and cold the bed where now she slumbers,
I loved in vain,
With sweet soft eyelids closed, to be reopened
Never again.
 
 
Dead sweetheart, can it be that thou hast lifted
With thy frail hand
Thy coffin-lid, to come to me again
From Shadowland?
 
 
Thou who, one joyous night, didst, pale and speechless,
Pass from us all,
Dropping thy silken mask and gift of flowers
Amidst the ball?
 
 
Oh, fondest of my loves, from that far heaven
Where thou must be,
Hast thou returned to pay the debt of kisses
Thou owest me?
 

"ARRIA MARCELLA"

Gautier doubtless obtained inspiration for this exquisite romance from an old Greek ghost story, first related by Phlegon, the freedman of Hadrian. Versions of it were current in the twelfth and sixteenth centuries; and Goethe reproduced it in his "Bride of Corinth." We offer a translation from the brief version of Michelet, who accuses Goethe of bad taste for having introduced the Slavic idea of vampirism into a purely Greek story.

A young Athenian goes to Corinth to visit the house of the man who has promised him his daughter in marriage. He has always remained a pagan, and does not know that the family into which he hopes to enter has been converted to Christianity. He arrives at a very late hour. All are in bed except the mother, who prepares a hospitable repast for him, and then leaves him to repose. He throws himself upon a couch, overwhelmed with fatigue. Scarcely has he closed his eyes, when a figure enters the room; it is a girl, all clad in white, with a white veil; there is a black-and-gold fillet about her brows. She beholds him. Astonishment! Lifting her white hand, she exclaims:

"Am I then such a stranger in the house? Alas! poor recluse that I am! But I am ashamed to be here. I shall now depart. Repose in peace!"

"Nay, remain, beautiful young girl! Behold! here are Ceres, Bacchus, and, with thee, Love! Fear not! be not so pale!"

"Ah! touch me not, young man! I belong no more to joy. Through a vow made by my sick mother, my youth and life are fettered forever. The gods have fled away. And now the only sacrifices are sacrifices of human victims."

"What! is it thou! thou, my beloved affianced, betrothed to me from childhood! The oath of our fathers bound us together forever under the benediction of heaven! Oh, virgin, be mine!"

"Nay, friend, nay! – not I. Thou shalt have my young sister. If I sigh in my chill prison, thou mayst, at least, while in her arms, think of me, of me who pines and thinks only of thee, and whom the earth must soon cover again."

"Never! I swear it by this flame, it is the torch of Hymen. Thou shalt come with me to my father's house. Remain, my well-beloved!"

For marriage-gift he offers her a cup of gold. She gives him her chain; but prefers a lock of his hair to the cup.

It is the ghostly hour. She sips with her pale lips the dark wine that is the color of blood. Eagerly he drinks after her. He invokes Love. She, though her poor heart was dying for it, nevertheless resists him. But he, in despair, casts himself upon the bed and weeps. Then she, flinging herself down beside him, murmurs:

"Ah! how much hurt thy pain causes me! Yet shouldst thou touch me – what horror! White as snow, cold as ice, alas! is thy betrothed!"

"I shall warm thee, love! come to me! even though thou hadst but this moment left the tomb." Sighs and kisses are exchanged… Love binds and fetters them. Tears mingle with happiness. Thirstily she drinks the fire of his lips; her long-congealed blood takes flame with amorous madness, yet no heart beats in her breast.

But the mother was there; listening. Sweet vows; cries of plaint and pleasure. "Hush," says the bride; "I hear the cock crow! Farewell, till to-morrow, after nightfall." Then adieu, and the sound of kisses smothering kisses.

Indignant, the mother enters. What does she behold! Her daughter! He seeks to hide her – to veil her! But she disengages herself; and waxing taller, towers from the couch to the roof.

"O, mother, mother! dost thou then envy me my sweet night? dost thou seek to drive me from this warm place? Was it not enough to have wrapped me in the shroud, and borne me so early to the tomb! But there was a power that lifted the stone! Vainly did thy priests hum above my grave. What avail salt and water where youth burns? The earth may not chill love… Thou didst promise me to this youth… I come to claim my right.

"Alack! friend, thou must die. Here thou must pine and wither away. I possess thy hair; to-morrow it shall be white… Mother, a last prayer! Open my black dungeon; erect a funeral pyre; and let the sweetheart obtain the repose that only flames can give. Let the sparks gush out, let the ashes redden! We return to our ancient gods." —La Sorcière, pages 32-34; edition of 1863.