One of Cleopatra's Nights (6 page)

Our world of to-day is puny indeed beside the antique world. Our
banquets are mean, niggardly, compared with the appalling sumptuousness
of the Roman patricians and the princes of ancient Asia. Their ordinary
repasts would in these days be regarded as frenzied orgies, and a whole
modern city could subsist for eight days upon the leavings of one supper
given by Lucullus to a few intimate friends. With our miserable habits
we find it difficult to conceive of those enormous existences, realizing
everything vast, strange, and most monstrously impossible that
imagination could devise. Our palaces are mere stables, in which
Caligula would not quarter his horse. The retinue of our wealthiest
constitutional king is as nothing compared with that of a petty satrap
or a Roman proconsul. The radiant suns which once shone upon the earth
are forever extinguished in the nothingness of uniformity. Above the
dark swarm of men no longer tower those Titanic colossi who bestrode the
world in three paces, like the steeds of Homer; no more towers of
Lylacq; no giant Babel scaling the sky with its infinity of spirals; no
temples immeasurable, builded with the fragments of quarried mountains;
no kingly terraces for which successive ages and generations could each
erect but one step, and from whence some dreamfully reclining prince
might gaze on the face of the world as upon a map unfolded; no more of
those extravagantly vast cities of cyclopæan edifices, inextricably
piled upon one another, with their mighty circumvallations, their
circuses roaring night and day, their reservoirs filled with ocean brine
and peopled with whales and leviathans, their colossal stairways, their
super-imposition of terraces, their tower-summits bathed in clouds,
their giant palaces, their aqueducts, their multitude-vomiting gates,
their shadowy necropoli. Alas! henceforth only plaster hives upon
chessboard pavements.

One marvels that men did not revolt against such confiscation of all
riches and all living forces for the benefit of a few privileged ones,
and that such exorbitant fantasies should not have encountered any
opposition on their bloody way. It was because those prodigious lives
were the realizations by day of the dreams which haunted each man by
night, the personifications of the common ideal which the nations beheld
living symbolized under one of those meteoric names that flame
inextinguishably through the night of ages. To-day, deprived of such
dazzling spectacles of omnipotent will, of the lofty contemplation of
some human mind whose least wish makes itself visible in actions
unparalleled, in enormities of granite and brass, the world becomes
irredeemably and hopelessly dull. Man is no longer represented in the
realization of his imperial fancy.

The story which we are writing, and the great name of Cleopatra which
appears in it, have prompted us to these reflections, so ill-sounding,
doubtless, to modern ears. But the spectacle of the antique world is
something so crushingly discouraging, even to those imaginations which
deem themselves exhaustless, and those minds which fancy themselves to
have conceived the utmost limits of fairy magnificence, that we cannot
here forbear recording our regret and lamentation that we were not
cotemporaries of Sardanapalus; of Teglathphalazar; of Cleopatra, queen
of Egypt; or even of Elagabalus, emperor of Rome and priest of the Sun.

It is our task to describe a supreme orgie—a banquet compared with
which the splendors of Belshazzar's feast must pale—one of Cleopatra's
nights. How can we picture forth in this French tongue, so chaste, so
icily prudish, that unbounded transport of passions, that huge and
mighty debauch which feared not to mingle the double purple of wine and
blood, those furious outbursts of insatiate pleasure, madly leaping
toward the Impossible with all the wild ardor of senses as yet untamed
by the long fast of Christianity?

The promised night should well have been a splendid one, for all the
joys and pleasures possible in a human lifetime were to be concentrated
into the space of a few hours. It was necessary that the life of
Meïamoun should be converted into a powerful elixir which he could
imbibe at a single draught. Cleopatra desired to dazzle her voluntary
victim, and plunge him into a whirlpool of dizzy pleasures; to
intoxicate and madden him with the wine of orgie, so that death, though
freely accepted, might come invisibly and unawares.

Let us transport our readers to the banquet-hall.

Our existing architecture offers few points for comparison with those
vast edifices whose very ruins resemble the crumblings of mountains
rather than the remains of buildings. It needed all the exaggeration of
the antique life to animate and fill those prodigious palaces, whose
halls were too lofty and vast to allow of any ceiling save the sky
itself—a magnificent ceiling, and well worthy of such mighty
architecture.

The banquet-hall was of enormous and Babylonian dimensions; the eye
could not penetrate its immeasurable depth. Monstrous columns—short,
thick, and solid enough to sustain the pole itself—heavily expanded
their broad-swelling shafts upon socles variegated with hieroglyphics,
and sustained upon their bulging capitals gigantic arcades of granite
rising by successive tiers, like vast stairways reversed. Between each
two pillars a colossal sphinx of basalt, crowned with the
pshent
, bent
forward her oblique-eyed face and horned chin, and gazed into the hall
with a fixed and mysterious look. The columns of the second tier,
receding from the first, were more elegantly formed, and crowned in lieu
of capitals with four female heads addorsed, wearing caps of many folds
and all the intricacies of the Egyptian headdress. Instead of sphinxes,
bull-headed idols—impassive spectators of nocturnal frenzy and the
furies of orgie—were seated upon thrones of stone, like patient hosts
awaiting the opening of the banquet.

A third story, constructed in a yet different style of architecture,
with elephants of bronze spouting perfume from their trunks, crowned the
edifice; above, the sky yawned like a blue gulf, and the curious stars
leaned over the frieze.
[4]

Prodigious stairways of porphyry, so highly polished that they reflected
the human body like a mirror, ascended and descended on every hand, and
bound together these huge masses of architecture.

We can only make a very rapid sketch here, in order to convey some idea
of this awful structure, proportioned out of all human measurements. It
would require the pencil of Martin,
[5]
the great painter of enormities
passed away, and we can present only a weak pen-picture in lieu of the
Apocalyptic depth of his gloomy style; but imagination may supply our
deficiencies. Less fortunate than the painter and the musician, we can
only present objects and ideas separately in slow succession. We have as
yet spoken of the banquet-hall only, without referring to the guests,
and yet we have but barely indicated its character. Cleopatra and
Meïamoun are waiting for us. We see them drawing near....

Meïamoun was clad in a linen tunic constellated with stars, and a purple
mantle, and wore a fillet about his locks, like an Oriental king.
Cleopatra was apparelled in a robe of pale green, open at either side,
and clasped with golden bees. Two bracelets of immense pearls gleamed
around her naked arms; upon her head glimmered the golden-pointed
diadem. Despite the smile on her lips, a slight cloud of preoccupation
shadowed her fair forehead, and from time to time her brows became
knitted in a feverish manner. What thoughts could trouble the great
queen? As for Meïamoun, his face wore the ardent and luminous look of
one in ecstasy or vision; light beamed and radiated from his brow and
temples, surrounding his head with a golden nimbus, like one of the
twelve great gods of Olympus.

A deep, heartfelt joy illumined his every feature. He had embraced his
restless-winged chimera, and it had not flown from him; he had reached
the goal of his life. Though he were to live to the age of Nestor or
Priam, though he should behold his veined temples hoary with locks
whiter than those of the high priest of Ammon, he could never know
another new experience, never feel another new pleasure. His maddest
hopes had been so much more than realized that there was nothing in the
world left for him to desire.

Cleopatra seated him beside her upon a throne with golden griffins on
either side, and clapped her little hands together. Instantly lines of
fire, bands of sparkling light, outlined all the projections of the
architecture—the eyes of the sphinxes flamed with phosphoric
lightnings; the bull-headed idols breathed flame; the elephants, in lieu
of perfumed water, spouted aloft bright columns of crimson fire; arms of
bronze, each bearing a torch, started from the walls, and blazing
aigrettes bloomed in the sculptured hearts of the lotos flowers.

Huge blue flames palpitated in tripods of brass; giant candelabras shook
their dishevelled light in the midst of ardent vapors; everything
sparkled, glittered, beamed. Prismatic irises crossed and shattered each
other in the air. The facets of the cups, the angles of the marbles and
jaspers, the chiselling of the vases—all caught a sparkle, a gleam, or
a flash as of lightning. Radiance streamed in torrents and leaped from
step to step like a cascade, over the porphyry-stairways. It seemed the
reflection of a conflagration on some broad river. Had the Queen of
Sheba ascended thither she would have caught up the folds of her robe,
and believed herself walking in water, as when she stepped upon the
crystal pavements of Solomon. Viewed through that burning haze, the
monstrous figures of the colossi, the animals, the hieroglyphics, seemed
to become animated and to live with a factitious life; the black marble
rams bleated ironically, and clashed their gilded horns; the idols
breathed harshly through their panting nostrils.

The orgie was at its height: the dishes of phenicopters' tongues, and
the livers of scarus fish; the eels fattened upon human flesh, and
cooked in brine; the dishes of peacock's brains; the boars stuffed with
living birds; and all the marvels of the antique banquets were heaped
upon the three table-surfaces of the gigantic triclinium. The wines of
Crete, of Massicus, and of Falernus foamed up in cratera wreathed with
roses, and filled by Asiatic pages whose beautiful flowing hair served
the guests to wipe their hands upon. Musicians playing upon the sistrum,
the tympanum, the sambuke, and the harp with one-and-twenty strings
filled all the upper galleries, and mingled their harmonies with the
tempest of sound that hovered over the feast. Even the deep-voiced
thunder could not have made itself heard there.

Meïamoun, whose head was lying on Cleopatra's shoulder, felt as though
his reason were leaving him. The banquet-hall whirled around him like a
vast architectural nightmare; through the dizzy glare he beheld
perspectives and colonnades without end; new zones of porticoes seemed
to uprear themselves upon the real fabric, and bury their summits in
heights of sky to which Babel never rose. Had he not felt within his
hand the soft, cool hand of Cleopatra, he would have believed himself
transported into an enchanted world by some witch of Thessaly or Magian
of Persia.

Toward the close of the repast hump-backed dwarfs and mummers engaged
in grotesque dances and combats; then young Egyptian and Greek maidens,
representing the black and white Hours, danced with inimitable grace a
voluptuous dance after the Ionian manner.

Cleopatra herself arose from her throne, threw aside her royal mantle,
replaced her starry diadem with a garland of flowers, attached golden
crotali
[6]
to her alabaster hands, and began to dance before Meïamoun,
who was ravished with delight. Her beautiful arms, rounded like the
handles of an alabaster vase, shook out bunches of sparkling notes, and
her
crotali
prattled with ever-increasing volubility. Poised on the
pink tips of her little feet, she approached swiftly to graze the
forehead of Meïamoun with a kiss; then she recommenced her wondrous art,
and flitted around him, now backward-leaning, with head reversed, eyes
half closed, arms lifelessly relaxed, locks uncurled and loose-hanging
like a Bacchante of Mount Mænalus; now again, active, animated,
laughing, fluttering, more tireless and capricious in her movements than
the pilfering bee. Heart-consuming love, sensual pleasure, burning
passion, youth inexhaustible and ever-fresh, the promise of bliss to
come—she expressed all....

The modest stars had ceased to contemplate the scene; their golden eyes
could not endure such a spectacle; the heaven itself was blotted out,
and a dome of flaming vapor covered the hall.

Cleopatra seated herself once more by Meïamoun. Night advanced; the last
of the black Hours was about to take flight; a faint blue glow entered
with bewildered aspect into the tumult of ruddy light as a moonbeam
falls into a furnace; the upper arcades became suffused with pale azure
tints—day was breaking.

Meïamoun took the horn vase which an Ethiopian slave of sinister
countenance presented to him, and which contained a poison so violent
that it would have caused any other vase to burst asunder. Flinging his
whole life to his mistress in one last look, he lifted to his lips the
fatal cup in which the envenomed liquor boiled up, hissing.

Cleopatra turned pale, and laid her hand on Meïamoun's arm to stay the
act. His courage touched her. She was about to say, "Live to love me
yet, I desire it!..." when the sound of a clarion was heard. Four
heralds-at-arms entered the banquet-hall on horseback; they were
officers of Mark Antony, and rode but a short distance in advance of
their master. Cleopatra silently loosened the arm of Meïamoun. A long
ray of sunlight suddenly played upon her forehead, as though trying to
replace her absent diadem.