One of Cleopatra's Nights Read Online Free Page B

sought after by all kinds of women—yellow, red,
copper-colored, sooty-black, or golden skinned, and even by one fair,
white Greek.
    Do not suppose from this that Meïamoun's lot was altogether enviable.
The ashes of aged Priam, the very snows of Hippolytus, were not more
insensible or more frigid; the young white-robed neophyte preparing for
the initiation into the mysteries of Isis led no chaster life; the young
maiden benumbed by the icy shadow of her mother was not more shyly pure.
    Nevertheless, for so coy a youth, the pleasures of Meïamoun were
certainly of a singular nature. He would go forth quietly some morning
with his little buckler of hippopotamus hide, his
harpe
or curved
sword, a triangular bow, and a snake-skin quiver filled with barbed
arrows; then he would ride at a gallop far into the desert, upon his
slender-limbed, small-headed, wild-maned mare, until he could find some
lion-tracks. He especially delighted in taking the little lion-cubs from
underneath the belly of their mother. In all things he loved the
perilous or the unachievable. He preferred to walk where it seemed
impossible for any human being to obtain a foothold, or to swim in a
raging torrent, and he had accordingly chosen the neighborhood of the
cataracts for his bathing place in the Nile. The Abyss called him!
    Such was Meïamoun, son of Mandouschopsh.
    For some time his humors had been growing more savage than ever. During
whole months he buried himself in the Ocean of Sands, returning only at
long intervals. Vainly would his uneasy mother lean from her terrace and
gaze anxiously down the long road with tireless eyes. At last, after
weary waiting, a little whirling cloud of dust would become visible in
the horizon, and finally the cloud would open to allow a full view of
Meïamoun, all covered with dust, riding upon a mare gaunt as a wolf,
with red and bloodshot eyes, nostrils trembling, and huge scars along
her flanks—scars which certainly were not made by spurs.
    After having hung up in his room some hyena or lion skin, he would start
off again.
    And yet no one might have been happier than Meïamoun. He was beloved by
Nephthe, daughter of the priest Afomouthis, and the loveliest woman of
the Nome Arsinoïtes. Only such a being as Meïamoun could have failed to
see that Nephthe had the most charmingly oblique and indescribably
voluptuous eyes, a mouth sweetly illuminated by ruddy smiles, little
teeth of wondrous whiteness and transparency, arms exquisitely round,
and feet more perfect than the jasper feet of the statue of Isis.
Assuredly there was not a smaller hand nor longer hair than hers in all
Egypt. The charms of Nephthe could have been eclipsed only by those of
Cleopatra. But who could dare to dream of loving Cleopatra? Ixion,
enamoured of Juno, strained only a cloud to his bosom, and must forever
roll the wheel of his punishment in hell.
    It was Cleopatra whom Meïamoun loved.
    He had at first striven to tame this wild passion; he had wrestled
fiercely with it; but love cannot be strangled even as a lion is
strangled, and the strong skill of the mightiest athlete avails nothing
in such a contest. The arrow had remained in the wound, and he carried
it with him everywhere. The radiant and splendid image of Cleopatra,
with her golden-pointed diadem and her imperial purple, standing above a
nation on their knees, illumined his nightly dreams and his waking
thoughts. Like some imprudent man who has dared to look at the sun and
forever thereafter beholds an impalpable blot floating before his eyes,
so Meïamoun ever beheld Cleopatra. Eagles may gaze undazzled at the sun,
but what diamond eye can with impunity fix itself upon a beautiful
woman, a beautiful queen?
    He commenced at last to spend his life in wandering about the
neighborhood of the royal dwelling, that he might at least breathe the
same air as Cleopatra, that he might sometimes kiss the almost
imperceptible print of her foot upon the sand (a happiness, alas! rare
indeed). He