She descended a stone stairway, and stepped over the dark thresholds of clanging doors. Now and again, the two women came upon soldiers, resting on mats in couples, their spears close to their hands. Some long time afterwards, Cleopatra crossed a courtyard lit up by the rays of the full moon, and the shadow of a palm-tree caressed her hips. Berenice, wrapped in her blue mantle, still followed her. At last, they reached a massive door, clamped with iron like a warrior’s breastplate. In the lock, Cleopatra slipped her key, turning it twice. Then, pushing open the portal, a man—a very giant in the darkness—rose to his full height out of the depths of his dungeon. Berenice stirred with emotion, looked in, and with drooping head, said very softly: “Tis you, my child, who know not how to love. At least—not yet. I was quite right when I told you that.” “Love for love, I prefer mine,” said the girl. “He gives me naught but joy, at any rate.” So saying, erect on the prison threshold, and without making a step forward, she said to the man who stood in the shadow: “Come hither, and kiss my foot, son of a cur!” When he had done so, she pressed her mouth to his lips. BOOK IV I DEMETRIOS DREAMS A DREAM Now, with the mirror, the necklace, and the collar, Demetrios having returned home, a dream visited him in his slumber, and this was his dream: He is going towards the quay, mingled with the crowd, on a strange moonless night, cloudless, but shedding a peculiar brilliance of its own. Without knowing why, or what it is that draws him, he is in a hurry to arrive, to be _there_ as soon as he can, but he walks with effort, and the air opposes an inexplicable resistance to his legs, as deep water hampers footsteps. He trembles, he thinks he will never reach the goal, that he will never know towards whom, in this bright obscurity, he is walking thus, panting and troubled. At times, the crowd disappears entirely, whether it be that it really fades away, or that he ceases to be conscious of its presence. Then it jostles more importunately than ever, and all press, on, on, on, with a quick and sonorous step, more quickly than he . . . Then the human mass closes in upon him; Demetrios pales; a man pushes him with his shoulder; a woman’s buckle tears his tunic; a young girl is wedged against him, so tightly that he feels the pressure of her nipples against his chest, and she pushes his face away with two terrified hands. Suddenly he is alone, the first, upon the quay. And as he turns to look behind him, he perceives in the distance the white swarm of the crowd which has all at once receded to the Agora. And he realises that it will advance no further. The quay lies white and straight like the first stage of an unfinished road which has undertaken to cross the sea.