Woman and Puppet 6

Woman and Puppet 6

CHAPTER II

 

 

To my utter amazement she followed her last words by slipping off her

jewels and robes. She had the grandeur of a goddess from throat to

feet. She curved into a long, deep, easy chair, and said, “Why have

you people of to-day not perfected the woman as you have perfected

flowers?” She continued in a soft, dreamy voice, “Oh, days of the youth

of the world, days of the first coming of pleasure!... During the

nineteen hundred years of my sleep in the grave what new joy have you

all discovered. What new pleasure have you found? Invite me to share it

with you....”

 

“We need more time, Callisto,” I pleaded.

 

She smiled in derision. “Your art and thought have both borrowed from

us--parasites of our dead bodies. Descartes and Kant borrowed from

our Parmenides. Euclid, Archimedes, Aristotle, Democritus, Heraclitus

... you have discovered nothing that they had not dreamt. You have

discovered nothing, not even America. Aristotle said the earth was

round, and indicated the path that Columbus finally took. But, oh! if

only you had discovered _one_ new pleasure; only one.”

 

I sighed. I could not combat her arguments any more than I could

resist her beauty. Instead, I simply said, “Will you take a cigarette?

Doubtless Aristotle taught you that----”

 

“No,” Callisto answered; “but do you offer me that as a new pleasure?”

 

She consented to take one, and I taught her the best method of getting

joy from those tubes of white and gold. There followed a long silence.

She held in her hand my packet of cigarettes, and seemed to be deep

in the enjoyment of an emotion she would not share. Another cigarette

was lit for her, and slowly smoked. Callisto, at last, had found a new

pleasure!

 

 

 

 

BYBLIS

 

 

 

 

_Amaryllis told to the three young women and the three philosophers,

as if they were little children, this fable._

 

“Travellers I have known, who have gone to Caril by ascending the

Méandre far beyond the range of the shepherds, have seen the River God

asleep in the shade on the river-bank. He had a long green beard, and

his face was wrinkled like the river’s grey and rocky banks from which

trailed dripping plants. His old eyelids seemed dead as they overhung

the eyes which were for ever blind. It is likely that if any one went

to find him now, he would not be discovered alive.

 

“Now this was the father of Byblis by his marriage with the nymph

Cyanée; I will tell you the story of the unhappy Byblis.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

 

In the grotto from which the river emerged in a mysterious way the

nymph Cyanée gave birth to twins; one was a son who was named Caunos,

and the other a girl to whom the name of Byblis was given.

 

They both grew up upon the banks of the Méandre, and sometimes Cyanée

showed them beneath its transparent surface the divine appearance of

their father, whose soul disturbed its flowing stream.

 

The only world the children knew was the forest in which they were

born. They had never seen the sun except through the network of its

branches. Byblis never left her brother, and walked with her arm around

his neck.

 

She wore a little tunic which her mother had woven for her in the

depths of the river, which tunic was blue-grey like the first light of

dawn. Caunos wore around his waist nothing but a garland of roses from

which hung a yellow waist-cloth.

 

As soon as it was light enough for them to walk in the woods, they

wandered far away, playing with the fruits which had fallen to the

ground, or searching for the largest and most sweetly-scented flowers.

They always shared their finds and never quarrelled, so that their

mother spoke proudly of them to the other nymphs her friends.

 

* * * * *

 

Now when twelve years from the day of their birth had sped, their

mother became uneasy and sometimes followed them.

 

The two children played no longer, and when they returned from a day

in the forest, they brought back nothing with them, neither birds,

flowers, fruits, nor garlands. They walked so close together that their

hair was mingled. Byblis’ hands strayed about her brother’s arms.

Sometimes she kissed him upon the cheek: then they both remained silent.

 

When the heat was too great they glided beneath the low branches, and

lying on their breasts upon the sweet-smelling grass talked and adored

each other without ever withdrawing from each other’s embrace.

 

Then Cyanée took her son aside and said to him--

 

“Why are you sad?”

 

Caunos replied--

 

“I am not sad. I used to be when I was playing and laughing. Now

everything is changed. I no longer feel the need of play, and if I do

not laugh it is because I am happy.”

 

Then Cyanée asked him, “Why are you happy?”

 

The answer which Caunos gave her was--

 

“Because I look at Byblis.”

 

Cyanée asked him too--

 

“Why is it that you do not now look at the forest?”

 

“Because Byblis’ hair is softer and more scented than the grass;

because Byblis’ eyes--”

 

But Cyanée stopped him. “Child! be silent!”

 

Hoping to cure him of his illicit passion, she at once took him

to a mountain-nymph who had seven daughters most wondrously and

indescribably beautiful.

 

Both of them, after planning together, said to him--

 

“Make your choice, Caunos, and the one who pleases you shall be your

wife.”

 

But Caunos looked at the seven young girls as unmovedly as if he had

been looking at seven rocks; for the image of Byblis quite filled his

little soul, and there was not room in him for an alien love.

 

For a month Cyanée took her son from mountain to mountain, and from

plain to plain without succeeding in diverting him from his desire.

 

At last realizing that she would never overcome his obstinate passion,

she began to hate her son and accuse him of infamous conduct. But the

child did not understand why his mother reproached him. Why among all

women was he to be refused the one he loved? Why was it that caresses,

which would have been permissible in the importunate arms of another,

became criminal in the arms of his beloved Byblis? For what mysterious

reason was it that a sentiment which he knew to be good, tender and

capable of any sacrifice, was deemed worthy of every punishment? Zeus,

he thought, married his sister, and Aphrodite dared to deceive her

brother Ares with her brother Hephaïstos. For he did not yet know that

the gods alone have given themselves an intelligent morality and that

they disturb men’s virtue by incomprehensible laws.

 

Now Cyanée said to her son--

 

“I disown you as my child!”

 

She made a sign to a Centaur which was going towards the sea, and had

Caunos placed upon its back. Then the beast went rapidly away.

 

For some time Cyanée followed her son with her eyes. Caunos in his

fright clung to the shoulders of the beast, and was sometimes buried in

its monstrous mane. Then Centaur moved with long and powerful strides;

it travelled in a straight line, and soon grew small in the distance.

Then it turned behind a clump of bushes, and reappeared looking from

afar like a tiny and almost stationary speck. At last Cyanée could see

it no longer.

 

Slowly the mother of Byblis retraced her steps into the forest.

 

She was sad, but at the same time proud of saving by a forced

separation the destiny of her two children; and she thanked the gods

for giving her the strength to accomplish such a heartrending duty.

 

“Now,” she thought, “Byblis being alone will forget the brother who has

been sacrificed for her. She will fall in love with the first man who

knows how to caress her, and from the marriage-bed will spring, as is

right, a race half human and half divine. Blest are the immortal gods!”

 

But when she returned to the grotto, little Byblis had disappeared.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

 

When Byblis found herself alone upon the little bed of green leaves

upon which she had slept by her brother’s side every night, she had in

vain tried to sleep; but that evening dreams came not to her.

 

She went out into the warm night. A gentle breath of air swayed the

darkness of the forest. She sat down and watched the flowing stream.

 

“Why,” she thought, “has not Caunos come back. What has called him away

and kept him from me. Who is it, father, that is separating us?”

 

As this last idea came to her she leant over the spring.

 

“Father!” she repeated, “father! where is Caunos? Reveal the secret to

me?”

 

A murmur of the water answered--

 

“Far away.”

 

Byblis in affright quickly continued--

 

“When will he return? When will he come back to me?”

 

“Never,” the spring replied.

 

“Dead! Is he dead?”

 

“No.”

 

“Where shall I see him again?”

 

The spring spake no more. Its gentle ripple resumed its monotonous

sound. No divine presence seemed to live in its clear waters.