“Did you trouble yourself about me when you took advantage of my sudden passion to extort from me, in a moment of folly, three actions which might have destroyed my existence, and which will always leave behind them the remembrance of a triple shame?” “If I asked this, it was to attach you to me. I should not have got you if I had given myself.” “Good. You have been satisfied. You have held me, not for long, but you have held me, nevertheless, in the serfdom you desired. Today, you must allow me to free myself!” “I am the only slave, Demetrios.” ill-075 _He freed himself from both her arms._ “Yes, you or I, but one of us two if he loves the other. Slavery! Slavery! that is the real name of passion. You have all of you only one dream, one idea in your heads; to break men’s strength with your feebleness and govern his intelligence with your futility. As soon as your breasts take form, you desire neither to love nor to be loved, but to bind a man to your ankles, to lower him, to bow his head and put your sandals upon it. Then, in conformity with your ambition, you can dash the sword, the chisel, or the compass out of our hands, break everything which transcends you, emasculate everything which frightens you, tweak Hercules by the nose and set him a-spinning wool. But when you have been able neither to bow his head nor weaken his character, you adore the fist that beats you, the knee that strikes you to the ground, the very mouth that insults you. The man who has refused to kiss your naked feet satisfies your dearest wish if he violates you. The man who has not wept when you left his house, can drag you there by the hair: your love will spring up again from your tears, for there is but one thing that consoles you when you are unable to impose slavery, amorous women! and that is to submit to it.” “Ah, beat me, if you like! but love me afterwards!” And she hugged him so brusquely that he had not time to turn away his lips. He freed himself from both her arms. “I detest you! Adieu,” he said. But Chrysis clung to his mantle. “Do not lie. You adore me. Your soul is full of me: but you are ashamed at having yielded. Listen, listen, Well-beloved! If that is all that is needed to console your pride, I am ready to give you, in order to have you, still more than I asked of you. Whatever sacrifice I make you, I will not complain of life after our union.” Demetrios looked at her curiously, and, like her, the night before upon the quay, he said to her: “What oath do you swear me?” “By Aphrodite also.” “You do not believe in Aphrodite. Swear by Jehovah Sabaoth.” The Galilæan woman paled. “We do not swear by Jehovah.” “You refuse?” “It is a terrible oath.” “I must have it.” She hesitated, then said in a low voice: “I swear by Jehovah. What do you want of me, Demetrios?” The young man kept silence. “Speak quickly, I am afraid.” “Oh! very little.” “But what is it?”