During the tragic adventure which had just convulsed his intelligence, he had, for the first time, felt the great living breath of life inflate his breast. If he feared a second ordeal; if, victorious in the struggle, he swore above all things not to run the risk of flinching from the beautiful attitude he had adopted in the face of the world, at any rate he had just realised that that only is worthy of being imagined which penetrates by means of marble, colour or speech to one of the profundities of human emotion—and that formal beauty is merely so much uncertain matter, ever capable of being transfigured by the expression of sorrow or joy. Just as he was finishing this line of thought, he arrived before the door of the criminal prison. His two slaves were waiting for him. “We have brought the lump of red clay,” they said. “The body is on the bed. It has not been touched. The gaoler salutes you and hopes you will not forget him.” The young man entered in silence, followed the long corridor, mounted some steps, and penetrated into the death-chamber. He carefully closed the door after him. The body lay upon the bed, with the head covered with a veil, the fingers extended, and the feet close together. The fingers were laden with rings: two silver bangles encircled the pale ankles, and the nails of each toe were still red with powder. Demetrios laid his hand on the veil in order to raise it; but he had no sooner touched it than a dozen flies rapidly escaped from the opening. He shivered from head to foot. Nevertheless he removed the tissue of white wool and wound it round the hair. Chrysis’ face had little by little become illumined with the expression of eternity that death dispenses to the eyelids and hair of corpses. In the bluish whiteness of the cheeks, the azure veinlets gave the immobile head the appearance of cold marble. The diaphanous nostrils were distended above the fine lips. The fragile ears had something immaterial about them. Never, in any light, even in his dreams, had Demetrios seen such superhuman beauty and such a brilliancy of fading skin. And then he remembered the words uttered by Chrysis during their first interview: “You only know my face. You do not know how beautiful I am!” An intense emotion suddenly stifles him. He wishes to know. He has the power. Of his three days of passion he wishes to keep a souvenir which shall last longer than himself.—to lay bare the admirable body, to pose it as a model in the violent attitude in which he saw it in his dreams, and to create, from the corpse, the statue of Immortal Life. He unclasps the buckle and unties the knot. He throws back the draperies. The body is heavy. He raises it. The head falls backwards. The breasts tremble. The arms drop pendent. He withdraws the robe entirely and casts it into the middle of the chamber. Heavily, the body falls back again.