She brought the mirror close to every part of her body, touching each in succession. She appraised the whiteness of her skin, estimated its softness by long caresses, its warmth by embraces. She tested the fullness of her breasts, the firmness of her belly, the tension of her flesh. She measured her hair and considered its glossiness. She tried the strength of her regard, the expression of her mouth, the fire of her breath; and she bestowed a long, slow kiss along her naked arm from the region of the armpit down to the bend of the elbow. ill-020 An extraordinary emotion, compounded of astonishment and pride, of certainty and impatience, took possession of her at this contact with her own lips. She turned round as if she were looking for somebody; but catching sight of the two forgotten Ephesian girls upon her bed, she leaped into their midst, separated them, hugged them with a sort of amorous fury, and her long golden hair enveloped the three young heads. BOOK II I THE GARDENS OF THE GODDESS The temple of Aphrodite-Astarte stood outside the gates of the town, in an immense park, full of flowers and shade. The Nile water, conveyed by seven aqueducts, induced an extraordinary verdure all the year round. This flowering forest on the sea’s verge, these deep streams, these lakes, these darkling meadows, had been created in the desert more than two centuries previously by the first of the Ptolemies. Since then, the sycamores planted by his orders had grown to gigantic size; under the influence of the fertilising waters, the lawns had grown into meads, the basins had widened into ponds, nature had turned a park into a champaign. The gardens were more than a valley, more than a country; they were a complete world enclosed by bounds of stone and governed by a goddess, the soul and centre of this universe. All around it stood a circular terrace, eighty stades long and thirty-two feet high. This was not a wall, it was a colossal “cité,” composed of fourteen hundred houses. A corresponding number of prostitutes inhabited this sacred town, and in this unique spot were represented seventy different nationalities. The plan of the sacred houses was uniform and as follows: the door, of red copper (a metal consecrated to the goddess), bore a phallos-shaped knocker which fell upon a receiving-plate in relief, the image of the cteis; and beneath was graved the courtesan’s name, with the initials of the usual formula: Ω.Ξ.Ε. ΚΟΧΛΙΣ Π.Π.Π Two rooms contrived like shops opened out on either side of the door, that is to say, there was no wall on the side facing the gardens. The one on the right, the “chambre exposée,” was the place where the courtesan sat bedecked with her adornments upon a lofty cathedra at the hour when the men arrived. The one on the left was at the disposal of suitors who wished to pass the night in the open air, without, however, sleeping on the grass.