"How you must miss the hot flowing river!"she said."But there is a bath in the corner with no white leeches in it!At the foot of your couch you will find a garment.When you come down,I shall be in the room to your left at the foot of the stair."I stood as she left me,accusing my presumption:how was I to treat this lovely woman as a thing of evil,who behaved to me like a sister?--Whence the marvellous change in her?She left me with a blow;she received me almost with an embrace!She had reviled me;she said she knew I would follow and find her!Did she know my doubts concerning her--how much I should want explained?COULD she explain all?Could I believe her if she did?As to her hospitality,I had surely earned and might accept that--at least until I came to a definite judgment concerning her!
Could such beauty as I saw,and such wickedness as I suspected,exist in the same person?If they could,HOW was it possible?Unable to answer the former question,I must let the latter wait!
Clear as crystal,the water in the great white bath sent a sparkling flash from the corner where it lay sunk in the marble floor,and seemed to invite me to its embrace.Except the hot stream,two draughts in the cottage of the veiled woman,and the pools in the track of the wounded leopardess,I had not seen water since leaving home:it looked a thing celestial.I plunged in.
Immediately my brain was filled with an odour strange and delicate,which yet I did not altogether like.It made me doubt the princess afresh:had she medicated it?had she enchanted it?was she in any way working on me unlawfully?And how was there water in the palace,and not a drop in the city?I remembered the crushed paw of the leopardess,and sprang from the bath.
What had I been bathing in?Again I saw the fleeing mother,again I heard the howl,again I saw the limping beast.But what matter whence it flowed?was not the water sweet?Was it not very water the pitcher-plant secreted from its heart,and stored for the weary traveller?Water came from heaven:what mattered the well where it gathered,or the spring whence it burst?But I did not re-enter the bath.
I put on the robe of white wool,embroidered on the neck and hem,that lay ready for me,and went down the stair to the room whither my hostess had directed me.It was round,all of alabaster,and without a single window:the light came through everywhere,a soft,pearly shimmer rather than shine.Vague shadowy forms went flitting about over the walls and low dome,like loose rain-clouds over a grey-blue sky.
The princess stood waiting me,in a robe embroidered with argentine rings and discs,rectangles and lozenges,close together--a silver mail.It fell unbroken from her neck and hid her feet,but its long open sleeves left her arms bare.
In the room was a table of ivory,bearing cakes and fruit,an ivory jug of milk,a crystal jug of wine of a pale rose-colour,and a white loaf.
"Here we do not kill to eat,"she said;"but I think you will like what I can give you."I told her I could desire nothing better than what I saw.She seated herself on a couch by the table,and made me a sign to sit by her.
She poured me out a bowlful of milk,and,handing me the loaf,begged me to break from it such a piece as I liked.Then she filled from the wine-jug two silver goblets of grotesquely graceful workmanship.
"You have never drunk wine like this!"she said.
I drank,and wondered:every flower of Hybla and Hymettus must have sent its ghost to swell the soul of that wine!
"And now that you will be able to listen,"she went on,"I must do what I can to make myself intelligible to you.Our natures,however,are so different,that this may not be easy.Men and women live but to die;we,that is such as I--we are but a few--live to live on.Old age is to you a horror;to me it is a dear desire:the older we grow,the nearer we are to our perfection.Your perfection is a poor thing,comes soon,and lasts but a little while;ours is a ceaseless ripening.I am not yet ripe,and have lived thousands of your years--how many,I never cared to note.The everlasting will not be measured.