Bab Bab 3 · SALAMMBÔ

’s voice, while his outspread

hands were held like two light hands on the strings of a lyre.

To all the consolations offered by Spendius, he repeated the same words;

their nights were spent in these wailings and exhortations.

Matho sought to drown his thoughts in wine. After his fits of

drunkenness he was more melancholy still. He tried to divert himself at

huckle-bones, and lost the gold plates of his necklace one by one. He

had himself taken to the servants of the Goddess; but he came down the

hill sobbing, like one returning from a funeral.

Spendius, on the contrary, became more bold and gay. He was to be seen

in the leafy taverns discoursing in the midst of the soldiers. He mended

old cuirasses. He juggled with daggers. He went and gathered herbs in

the fields for the sick. He was facetious, dexterous, full of invention

and talk; the Barbarians grew accustomed to his services, and he came to

be loved by them.

However, they were awaiting an ambassador from Carthage to bring

them mules laden with baskets of gold; and ever beginning the same

calculation over again, they would trace figures with their fingers in

the sand. Every one was arranging his life beforehand; they would have

concubines, slaves, lands; others intended to bury their treasure,

or risk it on a vessel. But their tempers were provoked by want of

employment; there were constant disputes between horse-soldiers and

foot-soldiers, Barbarians and Greeks, while there was a never-ending din

of shrill female voices.

Every day men came flocking in nearly naked, and with grass on their

heads to protect them from the sun; they were the debtors of the rich

Carthaginians and had been forced to till the lands of the latter, but

had escaped. Libyans came pouring in with peasants ruined by the taxes,

outlaws, and malefactors. Then the horde of traders, all the dealers in

wine and oil, who were furious at not being paid, laid the blame upon

the Republic. Spendius declaimed against it. Soon the provisions ran

low; and there was talk of advancing in a body upon Carthage, and

calling in the Romans.

One evening, at supper-time, dull cracked sounds were heard approaching,

and something red appeared in the distance among the undulations of the

soil.

It was a large purple litter, adorned with ostrich feathers at the

corners. Chains of crystal and garlands of pearls beat against the

closed hangings. It was followed by camels sounding the great bells

that hung at their breasts, and having around them horsemen clad from

shoulder to heel in armour of golden scales.

They halted three hundred paces from the camp to take their round

bucklers, broad swords, and Boeotian helmets out of the cases which they

carried behind their saddles. Some remained with the camels, while

the others resumed their march. At last the ensigns of the Republic

appeared, that is to say, staves of blue wood terminated in horses’

heads or fir cones. The Barbarians all rose with applause; the women

rushed towards the guards of the Legion and kissed their feet.

The litter advanced on the shoulders of twelve Negroes who walked in

step with short, rapid strides; they went at random to right or left,

being embarrassed by the tent-ropes, the animals that were straying

about, or the tripods where food was being cooked. Sometimes a fat hand,

laden with rings, would partially open the litter, and a hoarse voice

would utter loud reproaches; then the bearers would stop and take a

different direction through the camp.

But the purple curtains were raised, and a human head, impassible and

bloated, was seen resting on a large pillow; the eyebrows, which were

like arches of ebony, met each other at the points; golden dust sparkled

in the frizzled hair, and the face was so wan that it looked as if

it had been powdered with marble raspings. The rest of the body was

concealed beneath the fleeces which filled the litter.

In the man so reclining the soldiers recognised the Suffet Hanno, he

whose slackness had assisted to lose the battle of the Ægatian islands;

and as to his victory at Hecatompylos over the Libyans, even if he did

behave with clemency, thought the Barbarians, it was owing to cupidity,

for he had sold all the captives on his own account, although he had

reported their deaths to the Republic.

After seeking for some time a convenient place from which to harangue

the soldiers, he made a sign; the litter stopped, and Hanno, supported

by two slaves, put his tottering feet to the ground.

He wore boots of black felt strewn with silver moons. His legs were

swathed in bands like those wrapped about a mummy, and the flesh crept

through the crossings of the linen; his stomach came out beyond the

scarlet jacket which covered his thighs; the folds of his neck fell down

to his breast like the dewlaps of an ox; his tunic, which was painted

with flowers, was bursting at the arm-pits; he wore a scarf, a girdle,

and an ample black cloak with laced double-sleeves. But the abundance of

his garments, his great necklace of blue stones, his golden clasps, and

heavy earrings only rendered his deformity still more hideous. He might

have been taken for some big idol rough-hewn in a block of stone; for

a pale leprosy, which was spread over his whole body, gave him the

appearance of an inert thing. His nose, however, which was hooked like

a vulture’s beak, was violently dilated to breathe in the air, and his

little eyes, with their gummed lashes, shone with a hard and metallic

lustre. He held a spatula of aloe-wood in his hand wherewith to scratch

his skin.

At last two heralds sounded their silver horns; the tumult subsided, and

Hanno commenced to speak.

He began with an eulogy of the gods and the Republic; the Barbarians

ought to congratulate themselves on having served it. But they must show

themselves more reasonable; times were hard, “and if a master has only

three olives, is it not right that he should keep two for himself?”

The old Suffet mingled his speech in this way with proverbs and

apologues, nodding his head the while to solicit some approval.

He spoke in Punic, and those surrounding him (the most alert, who

had hastened thither without their arms), were Campanians, Gauls, and

Greeks, so that no one in the crowd understood him. Hanno, perceiving

this, stopped and reflected, swaying himself heavily from one leg to the

other.

It occurred to him to call the captains together; then his heralds

shouted the order in Greek, the language which, from the time of

Xanthippus, had been used for commands in the Carthaginian armies.

The guards dispersed the mob of soldiers with strokes of the whip; and

the captains of the Spartan phalanxes and the chiefs of the Barbarian

cohorts soon arrived with the insignia of their rank, and in the

armour of their nation. Night had fallen, a great tumult was spreading

throughout the plain; fires were burning here and there; and the

soldiers kept going from one to another asking what the matter was, and

why the Suffet did not distribute the money?

He was setting the infinite burdens of the Republic before the captains.

Her treasury was empty. The tribute to Rome was crushing her. “We are

quite at a loss what to do! She is much to be pitied!”

From time to time he would rub his limbs with his aloe-wood spatula,

or perhaps he would break off to drink a ptisan made of the ashes of a

weasel and asparagus boiled in vinegar from a silver cup handed to

him by a slave; then he would wipe his lips with a scarlet napkin and

resume:

“What used to be worth a shekel of silver is now worth three shekels

of gold, while the cultivated lands which were abandoned during the war

bring in nothing! Our purpura fisheries are nearly gone, and even pearls

are becoming exhorbitant; we have scarcely unguents enough for the

service of the gods! As for the things of the table, I shall say nothing

about them; it is a calamity! For want of galleys we are without spices,

and it is a matter of great difficulty to procure silphium on account

of the rebellions on the Cyrenian frontier. Sicily, where so many slaves

used to be had, is now closed to us! Only yesterday I gave more money

for a bather and four scullions than I used at one time to give for a

pair of elephants!”

He unrolled a long piece of papyrus; and, without omitting a single

figure, read all the expenses that the government had incurred; so much

for repairing the temples, for paving the streets, for the construction

of vessels, for the coral-fisheries, for the enlargement of the

Syssitia, and for engines in the mines in the country of the

Cantabrians.

But the captains understood Punic as little as the soldiers, although

the Mercenaries saluted one another in that language. It was usual to

place a few Carthaginian officers in the Barbarian armies to act as

interpreters; after the war they had concealed themselves through fear

of vengeance, and Hanno had not thought of taking them with him; his

hollow voice, too, was lost in the wind.

The Greeks, girthed in their iron waist-belts, strained their ears as

they strove to guess at his words, while the mountaineers, covered with

furs like bears, looked at him with distrust, or yawned as they leaned

on their brass-nailed clubs. The heedless Gauls sneered as they

shook their lofty heads of hair, and the men of the desert listened

motionless, cowled in their garments of grey wool; others kept coming up

behind; the guards, crushed by the mob, staggered on their horses; the

Negroes held out burning fir branches at arm’s length; and the big

Carthaginian, mounted on a grassy hillock, continued his harangue.

The Barbarians, however, were growing impatient; murmuring arose, and

every one apostrophized him. Hanno gesticulated with his spatula; and

those who wished the others to be quiet shouted still more loudly,

thereby adding to the din.

Suddenly a man of mean appearance bounded to Hanno’s feet, snatched

up a herald’s trumpet, blew it, and Spendius (for it was he) announced

that he was going to say something of importance. At this declaration,

which was rapidly uttered in five different languages, Greek, Latin,

Gallic, Libyan and Balearic, the captains, half laughing and half

surprised, replied: “Speak! Speak!”

Spendius hesitated; he trembled; at last, addressing the Libyans who

were the most numerous, he said to them:

“You have all heard this man’s horrible threats!”

Hanno made no exclamation, therefore he did not understand Libyan; and,

to carry on the experiment, Spendius repeated the same phrase in the

other Barbarian dialects.

They looked at one another in astonishment; then, as by a tacit

agreement, and believing perhaps that they had understood, they bent

their heads in token of assent.

Then Spendius began in vehement tones:

“He said first that all the Gods of the other nations were but dreams

besides the Gods of Carthage! He called you cowards, thieves, liars,

dogs, and the sons of dogs! But for you (he said that!) the Republic

would not be forced to pay excessive tribute to the Romans; and through

your excesses you have drained it of perfumes, aromatics, slaves,

and silphium, for you are in league with the nomads on the Cyrenian

frontier! But the guilty shall be punished! He read the enumeration of

their torments; they shall be made to work at the paving of the streets,

at the equipment of the vessels, at the adornment of the Syssitia, while

the rest shall be sent to scrape the earth in the mines in the country

of the Cantabrians.”

Spendius repeated the same statements to the Gauls, Greeks, Campanians

and Balearians. The Mercenaries, recognising several of the proper

names which had met their ears, were convinced that he was accurately

reporting the Suffet’s speech. A few cried out to him, “You lie!”

but their voices were drowned in the tumult of the rest; Spendius added:

“Have you not seen that he has left a reserve of his horse-soldiers

outside the camp? At a given signal they will hasten hither to slay you

all.”

The Barbarians turned in that direction, and as the crowd was then

scattering, there appeared in the midst of them, and advancing with the

slowness of a phantom, a human being, bent, lean, entirely naked, and

covered down to his flanks with long hair bristling with dried leaves,

dust and thorns. About his loins and his knees he had wisps of straw and

linen rags; his soft and earthy skin hung on his emaciated limbs like

tatters on dried boughs; his hands trembled with a continuous quivering,

and as he walked he leaned on a staff of olive-wood.

He reached the Negroes who were bearing the torches. His pale gums were

displayed in a sort of idiotic titter; his large, scared eyes gazed upon

the crowd of Barbarians around him.

But uttering a cry of terror he threw himself behind them, shielding

himself with their bodies. “There they are! There they are!” he

stammered out, pointing to the Suffet’s guards, who were motionless

in their glittering armour. Their horses, dazzled by the light of the

torches which crackled in the darkness, were pawing the ground; the

human spectre struggled and howled:

“They have killed them!”

At these words, which were screamed in Balearic, some Balearians came up

and recognised him; without answering them he repeated:

“Yes, all killed, all! crushed like grapes! The fine young men! the

slingers! my companions and yours!”

They gave him wine to drink, and he wept; then he launched forth into

speech.

Spendius could scarcely repress his joy, as he explained the horrors

related by Zarxas to the Greeks and Libyans; he could not believe them,

so appropriately did they come in. The Balearians grew pale as they

learned how their companions had perished.

It was a troop of three hundred slingers who had disembarked the evening

before, and had on that day slept too late. When they reached the

square of Khamon the Barbarians were gone, and they found themselves

defenceless, their clay bullets having been put on the camels with the

rest of the baggage. They were allowed to advance into the street of

Satheb as far as the brass sheathed oaken gate; then the people with a

single impulse had sprung upon them.

Indeed, the soldiers remembered a great shout; Spendius, who was flying

at the head of the columns, had not heard it.

Then the corpses were placed in the arms of the Patæc gods that fringed

the temple of Khamon. They were upbraided with all the crimes of the

Mercenaries; their gluttony, their thefts, their impiety, their disdain,

and the murder of the fishes in Salammbô’s garden. Their bodies were

subjected to infamous mutilations; the priests burned their hair

in order to torture their souls; they were hung up in pieces in the

meat-shops; some even buried their teeth in them, and in the evening

funeral-piles were kindled at the cross-ways to finish them.

These were the flames that had gleamed from a distance across the lake.

But some houses having taken fire, any dead or dying that remained were

speedily thrown over the walls; Zarxas had remained among the reeds on

the edge of the lake until the following day; then he had wandered about

through the country, seeking for the army by the footprints in the dust.

In the morning he hid himself in caves; in the evening he resumed his

march with his bleeding wounds, famished, sick, living on roots and

carrion; at last one day he perceived lances on the horizon, and he

had followed them, for his reason was disturbed through his terrors and

miseries.

The indignation of the soldiers, restrained so long as he was speaking,

broke forth like a tempest; they were going to massacre the guards

together with the Suffet. A few interposed, saying that they ought to

hear him and know at least whether they should be paid. Then they all

cried: “Our money!” Hanno replied that he had brought it.

They ran to the outposts, and the Suffet’s baggage arrived in the

midst of the tents, pressed forward by the Barbarians. Without waiting

for the slaves, they very quickly unfastened the baskets; in them they

found hyacinth robes, sponges, scrapers, brushes, perfumes, and antimony

pencils for painting the eyes—all belonging to the guards, who were

rich men and accustomed to such refinements. Next they uncovered a large

bronze tub on a camel: it belonged to the Suffet who had it for bathing

in during his journey; for he had taken all manner of precautions, even

going so far as to bring caged weasels from Hecatompylos, which were

burnt alive to make his ptisan. But, as his malady gave him a great

appetite, there were also many comestibles and many wines, pickle, meats

and fishes preserved in honey, with little pots of Commagene, or melted

goose-fat covered with snow and chopped straw. There was a considerable

supply of it; the more they opened the baskets the more they found, and

laughter arose like conflicting waves.

As to the pay of the Mercenaries it nearly filled two esparto-grass

baskets; there were even visible in one of them some of the leathern

discs which the Republic used to economise its specie; and as the

Barbarians appeared greatly surprised, Hanno told them that, their

accounts being very difficult, the Ancients had not had leisure to

examine them. Meanwhile they had sent them this.

Then everything was in disorder and confusion: mules, serving men,

litter, provisions, and baggage. The soldiers took the coin in the bags

to stone Hanno. With great difficulty he was able to mount an ass; and

he fled, clinging to its hair, howling, weeping, shaken, bruised, and

calling down the curse of all the gods upon the army. His broad necklace

of precious stones rebounded up to his ears. His cloak which was too

long, and which trailed behind him, he kept on with his teeth, and

from afar the Barbarians shouted at him, “Begone coward! pig! sink of

Moloch! sweat your gold and your plague! quicker! quicker!” The routed

escort galloped beside him.

But the fury of the Barbarians did not abate. They remembered that

several of them who had set out for Carthage had not returned; no doubt

they had been killed. So much injustice exasperated them, and they began

to pull up the stakes of their tents, to roll up their cloaks, and to

bridle their horses; every one took his helmet and sword, and instantly

all was ready. Those who had no arms rushed into the woods to cut

staves.

Day dawned; the people of Sicca were roused, and stirring in the

streets. “They are going to Carthage,” said they, and the rumour of

this soon spread through the country.

From every path and every ravine men arose. Shepherds were seen running

down from the mountains.

Then, when the Barbarians had set out, Spendius circled the plain,

riding on a Punic stallion, and attended by his slave, who led a third

horse.

A single tent remained. Spendius entered it.

“Up, master! rise! we are departing!”

“And where are you going?” asked Matho.

“To Carthage!” cried Spendius.

Matho bounded upon the horse which the slave held at the door.

Chapter 3. SALAMMBÔ

The moon was rising just above the waves, and on the town which

was still wrapped in darkness there glittered white and luminous

specks:—the pole of a chariot, a dangling rag of linen, the corner of

a wall, or a golden necklace on the bosom of a god. The glass balls on

the roofs of the temples beamed like great diamonds here and there.

But ill-defined ruins, piles of black earth, and gardens formed deeper

masses in the gloom, and below Malqua fishermen’s nets stretched

from one house to another like gigantic bats spreading their wings. The

grinding of the hydraulic wheels which conveyed water to the highest

storys of the palaces, was no longer heard; and the camels, lying

ostrich fashion on their stomachs, rested peacefully in the middle of

the terraces. The porters were asleep in the streets on the thresholds

of the houses; the shadows of the colossuses stretched across the

deserted squares; occasionally in the distance the smoke of a still

burning sacrifice would escape through the bronze tiling, and the heavy

breeze would waft the odours of aromatics blended with the scent of the

sea and the exhalation from the sun-heated walls. The motionless waves

shone around Carthage, for the moon was spreading her light at once upon

the mountain-circled gulf and upon the lake of Tunis, where flamingoes

formed long rose-coloured lines amid the banks of sand, while further

on beneath the catacombs the great salt lagoon shimmered like a piece

of silver. The blue vault of heaven sank on the horizon in one direction

into the dustiness of the plains, and in the other into the mists of the

sea, and on the summit of the Acropolis, the pyramidal cypress trees,

fringing the temple of Eschmoun, swayed murmuring like the regular waves

that beat slowly along the mole beneath the ramparts.

Salammbô ascended to the terrace of her palace, supported by a female

slave who carried an iron dish filled with live coals.

In the middle of the terrace there was a small ivory bed covered

with lynx skins, and cushions made with the feathers of the parrot, a

fatidical animal consecrated to the gods; and at the four corners rose

four long perfuming-pans filled with nard, incense, cinnamomum, and

myrrh. The slave lit the perfumes. Salammbô looked at the polar star;

she slowly saluted the four points of heaven, and knelt down on the

ground in the azure dust which was strewn with golden stars in imitation

of the firmament. Then with both elbows against her sides, her fore-arms

straight and her hands open, she threw back her head beneath the rays of

the moon, and said:

“O Rabetna!—Baalet!—Tanith!” and her voice was lengthened in

a plaintive fashion as if calling to some one. “Anaïtis! Astarte!

Derceto! Astoreth! Mylitta! Athara! Elissa! Tiratha!—By the hidden

symbols, by the resounding sistra,—by the furrows of the earth,—by

the eternal silence and by the eternal fruitfulness,—mistress of the

gloomy sea and of the azure shores, O Queen of the watery world, all

hail!”

She swayed her whole body twice or thrice, and then cast herself face

downwards in the dust with both arms outstretched.

But the slave nimbly raised her, for according to the rites someone must

catch the suppliant at the moment of his prostration; this told him

that the gods accepted him, and Salammbô’s nurse never failed in this

pious duty.

Some merchants from Darytian Gætulia had brought her to Carthage when

quite young, and after her enfranchisement she would not forsake her old

masters, as was shown by her right ear, which was pierced with a large

hole. A petticoat of many-coloured stripes fitted closely on her hips,

and fell to her ankles, where two tin rings clashed together. Her

somewhat flat face was yellow like her tunic. Silver bodkins of great

length formed a sun behind her head. She wore a coral button on the

nostril, and she stood beside the bed more erect than a Hermes, and with

her eyelids cast down.

Salammbô walked to the edge of the terrace; her eyes swept the horizon

for an instant, and then were lowered upon the sleeping town, while the

sigh that she heaved swelled her bosom, and gave an undulating movement

to the whole length of the long white simar which hung without clasp or

girdle about her. Her curved and painted sandals were hidden beneath

a heap of emeralds, and a net of purple thread was filled with her

disordered hair.

But she raised her head to gaze upon the moon, and murmured, mingling

her speech with fragments of hymns:

“How lightly turnest thou, supported by the impalpable ether! It

brightens about thee, and ’tis the stir of thine agitation that

distributes the winds and fruitful dews. According as thou dost wax

and wane the eyes of cats and spots of panthers lengthen or grow short.

Wives shriek thy name in the pangs of childbirth! Thou makest the shells

to swell, the wine to bubble, and the corpse to putrefy! Thou formest

the pearls at the bottom of the sea!

“And every germ, O goddess! ferments in the dark depths of thy

moisture.

“When thou appearest, quietness is spread abroad upon the earth; the

flowers close, the waves are soothed, wearied man stretches his breast

toward thee, and the world with its oceans and mountains looks at

itself in thy face as in a mirror. Thou art white, gentle, luminous,

immaculate, helping, purifying, serene!”

The crescent of the moon was then over the mountain of the Hot Springs,

in the hollow formed by its two summits, on the other side of the gulf.

Below it there was a little star, and all around it a pale circle.

Salammbô went on:

“But thou art a terrible mistress!—Monsters, terrifying phantoms,

and lying dreams come from thee; thine eyes devour the stones of

buildings, and the apes are ever ill each time thou growest young again.

“Whither goest thou? Why dost thou change thy forms continually? Now,

slender and curved thou glidest through space like a mastless galley;

and then, amid the stars, thou art like a shepherd keeping his flock.

Shining and round, thou dost graze the mountain-tops like the wheel of a

chariot.

“O Tanith! thou dost love me? I have looked so much on thee! But no!

thou sailest through thine azure, and I—I remain on the motionless

earth.

“Taanach, take your nebal and play softly on the silver string, for my

heart is sad!”

The slave lifted a sort of harp of ebony wood, taller than herself,

and triangular in shape like a delta; she fixed the point in a crystal

globe, and with both hands began to play.

The sounds followed one another hurried and deep, like the buzzing of

bees, and with increasing sonorousness floated away into the night with

the complaining of the waves, and the rustling of the great trees on the

summit of the Acropolis.

“Hush!” cried Salammbô.

“What ails you, mistress? The blowing of the breeze, the passing of a

cloud, everything disquiets you just now!”

“I do not know,” she said.

“You are wearied with too long prayers!”

“Oh! Tanaach, I would fain be dissolved in them like a flower in

wine!”

“Perhaps it is the smoke of your perfumes?”

“No!” said Salammbô; “the spirit of the gods dwells in fragrant

odours.”

Then the slave spoke to her of her father. It was thought that he had

gone towards the amber country, behind the pillars of Melkarth. “But

if he does not return,” she said, “you must nevertheless, since it

was his will, choose a husband among the sons of the Ancients, and then

your grief will pass away in a man’s arms.”

“Why?” asked the young girl. All those that she had seen had

horrified her with their fallow-deer laughter and their coarse limbs.

“Sometimes, Tanaach, from the depths of my being there exhale as it

were hot fumes heavier than the vapours from a volcano. Voices call me,

a globe of fire rolls and mounts within my bosom, it stifles me, I am at

the point of death; and then, something sweet, flowing from my brow to

my feet, passes through my flesh—it is a caress enfolding me, and I

feel myself crushed as if some god were stretched upon me. Oh! would

that I could lose myself in the mists of the night, the waters of the

fountains, the sap of the trees, that I could issue from my body, and be

but a breath, or a ray, and glide, mount up to thee, O Mother!”

She raised her arms to their full length, arching her form, which in

its long garment was as pale and light as the moon. Then she fell back,

panting, on the ivory couch; but Taanach passed an amber necklace with

dolphin’s teeth about her neck to banish terrors, and Salammbô said

in an almost stifled voice: “Go and bring me Schahabarim.”

Her father had not wished her to enter the college of priestesses,

nor even to be made at all acquainted with the popular Tanith. He was

reserving her for some alliance that might serve his political ends; so

that Salammbô lived alone in the midst of the palace. Her mother was

long since dead.

She had grown up with abstinences, fastings and purifications, always

surrounded by grave and exquisite things, her body saturated with

perfumes, and her soul filled with prayers. She had never tasted wine,

nor eaten meat, nor touched an unclean animal, nor set her heels in the

house of death.

She knew nothing of obscene images, for as each god was manifested

in different forms, the same principle often received the witness

of contradictory cults, and Salammbô worshipped the goddess in her

sidereal presentation. An influence had descended upon the maiden from

the moon; when the planet passed diminishing away, Salammbô grew weak.

She languished the whole day long, and revived at evening. During an

eclipse she nearly died.

But Rabetna, in jealousy, revenged herself for the virginity withdrawn

from her sacrifices, and she tormented Salammbô with possessions, all

the stronger for being vague, which were spread through this belief and

excited by it.

Unceasingly was Hamilcar’s daughter disquieted about Tanith. She had

learned her adventures, her travels, and all her names, which she would

repeat without their having any distinct signification for her. In

order to penetrate into the depths of her dogma, she wished to become

acquainted, in the most secret part of the temple, with the old idol in

the magnificent mantle, whereon depended the destinies of Carthage, for

the idea of a god did not stand out clearly from his representation,

and to hold, or even see the image of one, was to take away part of his

virtue, and in a measure to rule him.

But Salammbô turned around. She had recognised the sound of the golden

bells which Schahabarim wore at the hem of his garment.

He ascended the staircases; then at the threshold of the terrace he

stopped and folded his arms.

His sunken eyes shone like the lamps of a sepulchre; his long thin body

floated in its linen robe which was weighted by the bells, the latter

alternating with balls of emeralds at his heels. He had feeble limbs, an

oblique skull and a pointed chin; his skin seemed cold to the touch, and

his yellow face, which was deeply furrowed with wrinkles, was as if it

contracted in a longing, in an everlasting grief.

He was the high priest of Tanith, and it was he who had educated

Salammbô.

“Speak!” he said. “What will you?”

“I hoped—you had almost promised me—” She stammered and was

confused; then suddenly: “Why do you despise me? what have I forgotten

in the rites? You are my master, and you told me that no one was so

accomplished in the things pertaining to the goddess as I; but there are

some of which you will not speak. Is it so, O father?”

Schahabarim remembered Hamilcar’s orders, and replied:

“No, I have nothing more to teach you!”

“A genius,” she resumed, “impels me to this love. I have climbed

the steps of Eschmoun, god of the planets and intelligences; I have

slept beneath the golden olive of Melkarth, patron of the Tyrian

colonies; I have pushed open the doors of Baal-Khamon, the enlightener

and fertiliser; I have sacrificed to the subterranean Kabiri, to the

gods of woods, winds, rivers and mountains; but, can you understand?

they are all too far away, too high, too insensible, while she—I feel

her mingled in my life; she fills my soul, and I quiver with inward

startings, as though she were leaping in order to escape. Methinks I am

about to hear her voice, and see her face, lightnings dazzle me and then

I sink back again into the darkness.”

Schahabarim was silent. She entreated him with suppliant looks. At

last he made a sign for the dismissal of the slave, who was not of

Chanaanitish race. Taanach disappeared, and Schahabarim, raising one arm

in the air, began:

“Before the gods darkness alone was, and a breathing stirred dull

and indistinct as the conscience of a man in a dream. It contracted,

creating Desire and Cloud, and from Desire and Cloud there issued

primitive Matter. This was a water, muddy, black, icy and deep. It

contained senseless monsters, incoherent portions of the forms to be

born, which are painted on the walls of the sanctuaries.

“Then Matter condensed. It became an egg. It burst. One half formed

the earth and the other the firmament. Sun, moon, winds and clouds

appeared, and at the crash of the thunder intelligent creatures awoke.

Then Eschmoun spread himself in the starry sphere; Khamon beamed in

the sun; Melkarth thrust him with his arms behind Gades; the Kabiri

descended beneath the volcanoes, and Rabetna like a nurse bent over the

world pouring out her light like milk, and her night like a mantle.”

“And then?” she said.

He had related the secret of the origins to her, to divert her from

sublimer prospects; but the maiden’s desire kindled again at his last

words, and Schahabarim, half yielding resumed:

“She inspires and governs the loves of men.”

“The loves of men!” repeated Salammbô dreamily.

“She is the soul of Carthage,” continued the priest; “and although

she is everywhere diffused, it is here that she dwells, beneath the

sacred veil.”

“O father!” cried Salammbô, “I shall see her, shall I not? you

will bring me to her! I had long been hesitating; I am devoured with

curiosity to see her form. Pity! help me! let us go?”

He repulsed her with a vehement gesture that was full of pride.

“Never! Do you not know that it means death? The hermaphrodite Baals

are unveiled to us alone who are men in understanding and women in

weakness. Your desire is sacrilege; be satisfied with the knowledge that

you possess!”

She fell upon her knees placing two fingers against her ears in token of

repentance; and crushed by the priest’s words, and filled at once with

anger against him, with terror and humiliation, she burst into sobs.

Schahabarim remained erect, and more insensible than the stones of the

terrace. He looked down upon her quivering at his feet, and felt a kind

of joy on seeing her suffer for his divinity whom he himself could not

wholly embrace. The birds were already singing, a cold wind was blowing,

and little clouds were drifting in the paling sky.

Suddenly he perceived on the horizon, behind Tunis, what looked like

slight mists trailing along the ground; then these became a great

curtain of dust extending perpendicularly, and, amid the whirlwinds of

the thronging mass, dromedaries’ heads, lances and shields appeared.

It was the army of the Barbarians advancing upon Carthage.