He wants to go to Pharos, and he walks. His legs have suddenly become light. The wind blowing in the sandy deserts drives him headlong towards the watery solitudes into which the quay plunges venturesomely. But in proportion as he advances, Pharos retreats before him; the quay is immeasurably prolonged. Soon the high marble tower on which blazes a purple wood-pile touches the livid horizon, flickers, dies down, wanes, and sets like another moon. Demetrios walks ever onwards. ill-063 Days and nights seem to have passed since he left the great quay of Alexandria far behind him, and he dare not turn his head, for fear of seeing nothing but the road he has travelled along: a white line stretching to infinity—and the sea. And still he turns round. An island is behind him, covered with great trees whence droop enormous blossoms. Has he crossed it like a blind man, or does it spring into sight at the same instant and become mysteriously visible? He does not think of conjecturing: he accepts the impossible as a natural event . . . A woman is in the isle. She is standing before the door of its one house, with her eyes half closed and her face bending over a monstrous iris-flower that reaches to the level of her lips. She has heavy hair, the colour of dull gold, and of a length one may surmise to be marvellous, judging by the mass of the great coil that lies on her drooping neck. A black tunic envelopes this woman, and a robe blacker still is draped upon the tunic, and the iris whose perfume she breathes with downcast eyelids is of the same hue as night. In all this mourning garb, Demetrios sees but the hair, like a golden vase on an ebony column. He recognises Chrysis. The recollection of the mirror and of the necklace and of the comb recurs to him vaguely; but he does not believe in it, and in this singular vision reality alone seems to him a dream . . . “Come,” says Chrysis. “Follow me.” He follows her. She slowly mounts a staircase strewn with white skins. Her arm rests upon the rail. Her naked heels float in and out from under her robe. The house has but one storey. Chrysis halts at the topmost step. “There are four chambers,” she says. “When you have seen them, you will never leave them. Will you follow me? Have you confidence?” ill-064 _A monstrous iris-flower reaches to the level of her lips._ But he will follow her everywhere. She opens the first door and closes it behind him. This room is long and narrow. It is lighted by a single window, through which is seen enframed the great expanse of sea. On the right and left are two small tables and on them a dozen book-rolls. “Here are the books you love,” says Chrysis. “There are no others.”