Novels, Tales, Journeys

“Exactly,” Alexei Ivanych went on. “His little book is quite worthless, but in it is found the story of Cleopatra that struck me so much. And, remarkably enough, in that passage the dry and dull Aurelius Victor equals Tacitus in power of expression: ‘Haec tantae libidinis fuit ut saepe prostiterit; tanta pulchritudinis ut multi noctem illius morte emerint…’ ”^*2

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Vershnev. “It reminds me of Sallust—remember? ‘Tantae…’ ”6

“What is this, gentlemen?” asked the hostess. “Now you’re so good as to talk in Latin! How pleasant for us! Tell me, what is the meaning of your Latin phrase?”

“The point is that Cleopatra sold her beauty and that many bought a night with her at the price of their lives…”

“How terrible!” said the ladies. “What do you find astonishing about it?”

“You ask what? It seems to me that Cleopatra was no banal coquette and did not value herself cheaply. I suggested to * * * that he make a poem out of it; he did begin one, but dropped it.”

“And he did well.”

“What did he want to draw from it? What was the main idea here—do you remember?”

“He begins with the description of a banquet in the gardens of the Egyptian queen.”

Dark, sultry night envelops the African sky; Alexandria has fallen asleep; its squares are quiet, its houses dark. The distant Pharos burns solitarily in its vast harbor, like a lamp at the head of a sleeping beauty’s bed.

Bright and noisy are the halls of the Ptolemies’ palace: Cleopatra is receiving her friends; the table is surrounded by ivory couches; three hundred youths serve the guests, three hundred maidens bring them amphorae filled with Greek wines; three hundred black eunuchs silently oversee them.

The porphyry colonnade open to the south and to the north awaits the wafting of Eurus; but the air is still; the flaming tongues of lamps burn motionlessly; the smoke of incense rises straight up in a motionless stream; the sea, like a mirror, lies motionless at the pink steps of the semicircular porch. The gilded claws and granite tails of the guardian sphinxes are reflected in it…only the sounds of cithara and flute stir the lights, the air, and the sea.

Suddenly the queen fell to thinking and sadly hung her wondrous head; the bright banquet was darkened by her sadness, as the sun is darkened by a cloud.

What makes her sad?

Why does sorrow weigh her down?

What lacks ancient Egypt’s crown?

In her resplendent capital,

Protected by a crowd of thralls,

Peacefully her power she wields.

The earthly gods to her do yield,

Filled with wonders are her halls.

Let Africa’s scorching noon befall,

Let the cool shade of night descend,

At every hour on her attend

Luxury and art to gratify

Her drowsy senses, and to her fly

From all lands, over all the seas,

Offerings of rich finery,

Which she keeps changing in delight:

Now she shines with rubies bright,

Now chooses, like the women of Tyre,

A purple chiton for attire,

Now on the flood of hoary Nile,

Shaded by a splendid sail,

On her golden-decked trireme

She floats like Cypris in a dream.

Hourly before her eyes

Banquet after banquet flies,

And who in his soul can guess aright

All the mysteries of her nights?…

In vain! Her heart in languor moans,

She longs for pleasures yet unknown –

Exhausted, surfeited is she,

Ill with insensibility…

Cleopatra awakens from her pensiveness.

The feast dies down as in a daze,

But she again her head does raise,

Fire is in her haughty eyes,

And with a sudden smile she cries:

“You find my love a blissful force?

Pay heed, then, to the terms I set,

And luck perhaps will still be yours.

All inequality I can forget.

I challenge you: who will say aye?

My nights I offer for a fee:

Say, which of you agrees to buy

At the price of life one night with me?”

“This subject should be given to the marquise George Sand,7 as shameless a woman as your Cleopatra. She would rework your Egyptian anecdote for present-day morals.”

“Impossible. It would have no verisimilitude. This anecdote is perfectly antique. Such an exchange is as unfeasible now as building pyramids.”

“Why unfeasible? Can it be that among present-day women not one can be found who would wish to test in reality the truth of what is repeated to her every moment—that her love is dearer to them than life?”

“Let’s say it would be interesting to find out. But how can this scientific testing be organized? Cleopatra had every possibility of making her debtors pay. But we? We certainly can’t write such terms down on official paper and have it notarized in the civil court.”

“In that case we could rely on word of honor.”

“How so?”

“The woman can take her lover’s word of honor that he’ll shoot himself the next day.”

“And the next day he goes abroad, and she’s left a fool.”