Atlantida

Suddenly I was bowled over a second time.

I felt a warm, silky touch, a burning breath on my neck. Again the

mocking growl which had so disturbed me in the corridor.

With a wrench, I pulled myself free and sent a chance blow at my

assailant. The cry, this time of pain and rage, broke out again.

It was echoed by a long peal of laughter. Furious, I turned to look

for the insolent onlooker, thinking to speak my mind. And then my

glance stood still.

Antinea was before me.

In the dimmest part of the room, under a kind of arch lit by the mauve

rays from a dozen incense-lamps, four women lay on a heap of

many-colored cushions and rare white Persian rugs.

I recognized the first three as Tuareg women, of a splendid regular

beauty, dressed in magnificent robes of white silk embroidered in

gold. The fourth, very dark skinned, almost negroid, seemed younger.

A tunic of red silk enhanced the dusk of her face, her arms and her

bare feet. The four were grouped about a sort of throne of white rugs,

covered with a gigantic lion's skin, on which, half raised on one

elbow, lay Antinea.

Antinea! Whenever I saw her after that, I wondered if I had really

looked at her before, so much more beautiful did I find her. More

beautiful? Inadequate word. Inadequate language! But is it really the

fault of the language or of those who abuse the word?

One could not stand before her without recalling the woman for whom

Ephractoeus overcame Atlas, of her for whom Sapor usurped the scepter

of Ozymandias, for whom Mamylos subjugated Susa and Tentyris, for whom

Antony fled....

O tremblant coeur humain, si jamais tu vibras

C'est dans l'étreinte altière et chaude de ses bras.

An Egyptian klaft fell over her abundant blue-black curls. Its two

points of heavy, gold-embroidered cloth extended to her slim hips. The

golden serpent, emerald-eyed, was clasped about her little round,

determined forehead, darting its double tongue of rubies over her

head.

She wore a tunic of black chiffon shot with gold, very light, very

full, slightly gathered in by a white muslin scarf embroidered with

iris in black pearls.

That was Antinea's costume. But what was she beneath all this? A slim

young girl, with long green eyes and the slender profile of a hawk. A

more intense Adonis. A child queen of Sheba, but with a look, a smile,

such as no Oriental ever had. A miracle of irony and freedom.

I did not see her body. Indeed I should not have thought of looking at

it, had I had the strength. And that, perhaps, was the most

extraordinary thing about that first impression. In that unforgettable

moment nothing would have seemed to me more horribly sacrilegious than

to think of the fifty victims in the red marble hall, of the fifty

young men who had held that slender body in their arms.