by Eugène Sue
The Ethiopian lighted several candelabra ranged around a statue that represented the god Priapus. The inside of the rotunda was how fully and brightly lighted, while the cavity of the entablature under the upper cupola where Sylvest was ensconced was thrown into the shade. Within the inside pillars of white marble, fluted and gilt like the capitals, fresco paintings were discovered of such obscenity that Sylvest blushed at their sight. The floor of the temple was completely covered by a thick mattress of purple ticking and a large number of cushions that lay strewn about in disorder. Between two of the pillars, and facing each other, were ivory buffets of exquisite workmanship and inlaid with tortoise shell. On their porphyry tops stood large vases of chased gold, cups ornamented with precious stones, and others of even greater value — murhe cups, imported from the Orient at a fabulous cost, which consist of a sort of odoriferous and polished paste that glitters in all the colors of the rainbow. In basins filled with snow little flagons of Sagonte wine stood dipped to the neck. Large dishes of perfume stood upon tripods, placed around the statue of Priapus. The Ethiopian lighted them and immediately a balsamic odor of almost intoxicating pungency rose from the gold tripods and invaded the cupola.
These preparations being ended, the gigantic Ethiopian disappeared by the door through which he had entered, and returned shortly. He now carried in his arms, as a sleeping child is held, a woman enveloped in a long veil. A number of young female slaves, all of exceptional beauty and clad in black, followed the Negro. They were the female slave attendants of the grand Roman dame, the rich and noble Faustina; they were her chamber assistants, her fanners, her hairdressers, tiers of her sandals, carriers of her casket, singers, musicians, and many others.
From the moment the retinue of female slaves stepped into the temple they busied themselves with arranging and smoothing the cushions in order that their mistress, whom the Ethiopian carried in his arms, be laid down as softly as possible. Those among the female slaves who played the flute or the lyre on the way to the temple, still held their musical instruments in their hands. Among the slaves were also two beautiful manumitted Greeks of about sixteen or eighteen years of age. Like all the men of their race who adopt this servile occupation, the two Greek musicians were distinguishable by their lascivious gait and their brazen faces, by their short and frizzled hair, and also by their costume, which was both rich and effeminate. They carried wide peacock fans intended to cool the air in the immediate neighborhood of their mistress.
After the cushions were carefully arranged, the Ethiopian laid the noble Faustina upon them with as much precaution as if he feared to break her. The two young Greeks then deposited their fans upon the floor, knelt down near their mistress, and gently removed the veil that enveloped her.
Sylvest had often heard Faustina spoken of, the noble dame being, as so many other distinguished Roman women, celebrated for her beauty, her opulence and her monstrous debaucheries. But never until now had Sylvest seen the redoubted woman. He contemplated her with a mixture of horror, hatred and curiosity.
Of middle size and frail, and not over thirty years of age, Faustina would have been of rare beauty if unspeakable excesses had not at her early age wilted and worn her delicate and regular features. Her thick black hair shone through the golden network that crowned her pale and arched forehead. Her black eyes, surrounded with deep dark circles, seemed for a moment dazed by the brilliancy of the lights. At the first slight contraction of the dame’s eyelids, two of the female slaves guessed her thoughts and hastened to unroll a veil which they held spread between the light of the candelabra and the pupils of their mistress’ eyes.
Faustina wore two tunics of Tyrean silk, one long and white, trimmed in gold, the other much shorter, of a light green color and trimmed in silver. Her corsage consisted merely of a network of gold like that of her hair, through which peeped her bosom and her shoulders, bare as her slender wax-colored arms. A necklace of large Oriental pearls and rubies wound several times around her flexible and rather long neck. Her little ears were almost drawn out of shape under the weight of heavy diamond, emerald and carbuncle pendante, that nearly touched her shoulders. Her silk stockings were pink, and her gold sandals, that were fastened to her feet with green silk ribbons, disappeared almost wholly under the precious stones that they were loaded with.
The grand dame who lay so softly nestled amid cushions, made a sign to the two Greeks. They forthwith drew nearer, knelt down on either side of her, one on her right the other on her left, and began gently to fan her, while the gigantic Negro, likewise on his knees, but at his mistress’ head, held himself in readiness to rearrange the slightest disorder on her couch.
In a languishing voice Faustina was heard to say: “I am thirsty.”
Immediately several of her women precipitated themselves upon the ivory buffets. One placed a murhe cup on a jasper tray, another took a silver vessel, while a third brought one of the large silver basins filled with snow into which the little flagons of Sagonte wine were inserted. Faustina indicated with a faint gesture that she wished to drink of the wine cooled in the ice. One of the female slaves stretched out the murhe cup, which another immediately filled. In her hurry to tender the beverage to her mistress, the young female slave tripped over one of the cushions, the cup was slightly spilled, and a few drops of the icy liquor fell upon Faustina’s feet. The dame frowned, and while taking the cup with one of her white slender hands that was covered with precious stones, with the other she directed the slave’s attention to the spot left by the wine upon her footgear. She then slowly emptied the cup without taking her black and piercing eyes from the young slave, who began to tremble and grow pale.
The grand dame had hardly finished drinking when several hands reached out contending for the privilege of receiving the cup back. Faustina then half rose amidst her cushions, leaned upon one elbow, and, while the two Greeks renewed their fanning, a smile instinct with cruelty played upon her lips as she fondled the pendants on the ears of the two youths. The smile exposed two rows of small white teeth between her ruddy lips. Presently she said to the slave who bad clumsily spilt the drops of wine:
“Philenie, down on your knees!”
The frightened slave obeyed.
“Draw nearer,” said Faustina; “still nearer — nearer still, within my reach.”
Philenie obeyed the orders.
“I feel very warm!” remarked the Roman dame while the young female slave, a prey to increasing terror, approached her mistress upon her knees and now almost touched her. When Faustina said that she felt warm the two young Greeks played their fans with redoubled vigor, while the slave who carried Faustina’s handkerchief rummaged in her perfumed hand-basket and passed to one of her companions a square bit of richly embroidered linen with which the latter hastened gently and respectfully to dry the forehead of her mistress. Philenie, guilty of clumsiness, awaited her fate on her knees, shaking with fear.
Faustina contemplated her for a moment with savage satisfaction, and then said:
“The pin-cushion!”
At these words the young slave stretched her suppliant arms to her mistress; but the latter, without even seeming to notice the imploring gesture, said to the gigantic Ethiopian:
“Erebus, bare her bosom — hold her firmly — hold her wrists.”
The Negro followed the directions of the dame, who thereupon took a singular and horrible instrument of torture from the hands of one of her women. The instrument consisted of a little flexible steel shaft, tipped with a small round gold plate and a cushion of red silk. Fastened by the head in the cushion and well apart from one another were numerous needled, whose sharp points protruded outward.
The Negro seized Philenie. Herself pale as a ghost, the wretched girl attempted no resistance. Her bosom was brutally bared, and amidst the lugubrious silence of all the other slaves — they knew too well what punishment followed the slightest sign of sympathy — Faustina, leaning with one elbow on one of the pillows and with her cheek resting
on her left hand, took the pin-cushion with her right, imparted a slight vibration to the flexible rod, and struck with its head the breast of Philenie, who was firmly held in the arms of the Ethiopian, on his knees behind the victim. t the sharp pain inflicted by the pin-cushion, the poor girl uttered a scream and her white breast was dyed with little beads of blood that rose to the surface of the skin.
t the sight of the blood, at the scream of the victim, Faustina’s black eyes, that until then seemed dead, suddenly re-lighted. The female monster’s smile became frightful; she straightened herself up in her seat, and said with a sort of ferocious affection:
“Cry — my sweet treasure! Cry, my dove, do cry!”
While saying these words Faustina redoubled the strokes of the pin-cushion until the slave’s bosom was wholly empurpled with a light spray of blood.
Philenie succeeded in smothering the cries that the pain forced to her throat; she feared that, by yielding to her agony, she would excite still more the barbarity of her mistress, whose features rapidly assumed a strange, unnatural appearance. Suddenly the Roman dame hurled the pincushion from her, half shut her eyes, threw herself down upon the cushions, and, while her victim, almost fainting with pain, dropped into the arms of her companions, said languid-
“I am thirsty.”
Just as her slaves again hastened to meet their mistress’s wishes, the thrilling sound of two little cymbals was heard without, from the side of the canal.
“The Thessalian sorceress! The sorceress! So soon?” said Faustina after once more emptying the cup. “By all the Fates and sisters of this old witch, I did not expect her quite so soon.” And turning to Erebus: “Let her in immediately, and order the barge that brought her to wait at the steps of the temple.”
The Thessalian sorceress was brought in by the Ethiope. Her complexion was coppery, her long tangled grey hair that escaped from her black cape, half hid her hideous face. A red leather belt, on which magical signs were traced in white and from which hung a little pouch, fastened her sable robe around her waist. The Thessalian held a little twig of hazel in her hand.
At the sight of the sorceress all the slaves looked disturbed and even frightened. But Faustina, impassive as a marble statue whose paleness she shared, remained leaning on her elbow and addressed the Thessalian who stopped at the door:
“Approach — approach — come beside me, osprey of hell!”
“You sent for me,” said the sorceress stepping forward; “what do you wish?”
Sylvest was struck by the witch’s voice and accent: the woman was old, yet her voice was sweet and youthful.
“I believe in your magic science as little as I do in the power of the gods, at whom I laugh,’ replied Faustina. “And yet I would like to consult you. I am to-day in one of my weak days.”
“Life does not believe in death — the sun does not believe in darkness,” answered the old hag shrugging her shoulders; “and for all that the dark night comes — and for all that the black grave arrives. — What do you want of me, noble Faustina? What is your pleasure? I am at your orders.”
“You have heard of the famous gladiator, Mont-Liban, have you not?”
“Ha! Ha!” said the sorceress laughing strangely. “He again! Always that Hercules of iron arms and a tiger’s heart!”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you see, noble Faustina, out of every ten noble dames who resort to my magical charms, nine always begin as you have done — they mention as the object of their amorous dreams the famous gladiator Mont-Liban.”
“I love him!” exclaimed Faustina audaciously before her slaves, and as she said the words the Roman dame frowned ominously, her nostrils were inflated and her whole frame seemed to thrill. “I desire to know whether he loves.”
The Thessalian raised her head, and fixedly looking at the grand dame as if to fathom her thoughts, answered:
“Faustina, you ask me what you know — all Orange is aware — and you also — that at the last combat in the circus, every time Mont-Liban held his adversary under his foot, and before plunging his weapon into the defeated gladiator’s throat, he turned with a savage smile and looked at a certain place in the gilded gallery, waved a salute with his sword — and then slew his prostrate adversary.”
“And who occupied that place?”
“The seat was occupied by a new courtesan, newly arrived from Italy — handsome enough to make Venus jealous — blonde, black-eyed and pink as a rose. A nymph by her shape — twenty-five or twenty-six years at the most — a ravishing woman, and such a celebrity for beauty that she is known everywhere as the Beautiful Gaul.”
In the measure that the sorceress spoke Sylvest felt his heart ache; and a cold sweat inundated his forehead. He had heard before of a Gallic courtesan recently arrived in Orange, but had never heard any details concerning her. Learning, however, from the Thessalian that the courtesan came from Italy, that she was twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, was blonde of hair and black of eyes, his memory flew back to his sister Syomara, long ago and when still an infant sold after the battle of Vannes to the patrician Trymalcion, who was on his way to Italy. Syomara would now be twenty-five or twenty-six years of age; her hair was blonde and her eyes were black. A horrible suspicion shot through Sylvest’s mind. He sought to catch the witch’s words with increased anxiety.
Faustina, on the other hand, thrown into ever deeper gloom and malevolence in the measure that the old witch dilated on the rare beauty of the Gallic courtesan, listened without interrupting the Thessalian, and the latter continued amidst the profound silence of the slaves: —
‘“The Beautiful Gaul! Oh! Oh! I know all about her — thanks to my magic charms,” added the Thessalian with a mysterious air. “It was a happy day to me when I learned of her arrival,” and breaking out into a singular peal of laughter, that caused the Roman dame to shudder, the horrid looking witch cried:— “Ha! Ha! Ha! Beautiful Qaul!
Adored belle! You will yet meet your night — on a night as silent and dark as the tomb, you will see that the black hen has hatched serpents’ eggs!”
Sylvest could not understand the meaning of these mystic words, but the cruel expression of the witch’s face terrified him.
“Express yourself more clearly,” said Faustina; “what do those mysterious words portend?”
The sorceress shook her head and resumed:
“The hour has not yet arrived to tell you more. But what I can now impart to you is that the Beautiful Gaul’s name is Syomara. She was re-sold at the time of the distribution of the inheritance of the rich seigneur Trymalcion, who left behind him such monuments of opulence and of imperial debauchery in Italy.”
Sylvest’s last trace of doubt was wiped out — the Gallic courtesan was his own sister, his sister Syomara, whom he had not seen for over eighteen years.
Faustina listened to the witch in somber silence and observed:
“Accordingly Mont-Liban loves the courtesan? Is he loved by her?”
“You have said it, noble dame.”
“Listen — You pretend that your art is powerful. Could you instantly break the charm that attaches that man to the vile creature?”
“No; I can not do that. But I could predict to you whether the charm will ever be broken — and whether soon, or late.”
“Then speak!” cried Faustina, who looked at that moment paler and more malevolent than ever. “If your art is not a fraud — tell me the future instantly — Speak!”
“And do you imagine that the future unveils itself to our eyes without any propitiatory ceremony?”
“Perform the ceremony. Be quick about it!”
“I need three things.”
“Which?”
“A thread of your hair.”
“Here it is,” said Faustina, pulling out a thread of her black hair through the gold net-work that adorned her head.
“Next I need a little ball of wax. It is to represent the heart of Syomara, the Beautiful Gaul. I shall shape the wax int
o a heart, and pierce it with a gold needle.”
“Erebus,” Faustina called to the gigantic Ethiopian, “take a piece of wax from yonder candle,” and turning to the witch, “what next?”
The Thessalian spoke in a low voice at the ear of the Roman dame.
“Must she be young — and handsome?”
“Yes, young and handsome,” answered the magician with a smile that caused Sylvest to shudder. “I love youth — and beauty.”
“Take your pick,” replied Faustina with a wafture of her hand at the young female slaves who stood silent and motionless around their mistress.
The sorceress approached the group, carefully examined the palms of the hands of several of the young girls, who, not daring to disclose their alarm in the presence of Faustina, furtively exchanged uneasy looks among themselves. The old hag at last made her selection. It was a charming girl of fifteen. Her nut-brown complexion, her blue-black hair told that her home was in southern Gaul. The Thessalian took her by the hand and led her, trembling from head to foot, before the Roman dame.
“This one will suit.”
“Take her!” answered Faustina, who was steeped in her own thoughts, and deigned not even to look at the young girl, whose eyes, moist with tears, seemed humbly to implore mercy.