Short Fiction - Aleksandr Kuprin (best ebook reader for ubuntu .TXT) 📗

the ground and whispers words of madness in a barely audible voice.

“Our bed is green. The beams of our house are cedars.⁠ ⁠… Kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth⁠—for thy love is better than wine.⁠ ⁠…”

After a brief space Sulamith is lying with her head upon Solomon’s breast. His left arm is embracing her.

Bending to her very ear, the king is whispering something to her; the king is tenderly apologizing, and Sulamith reddens from his words and closes her eyes. Then, with an inexpressibly lovely smile of confusion, she says:

“My mother’s children made me the keeper of the vineyard.⁠ ⁠… But mine own vineyard have I not kept.”

But Solomon takes her little swarthy hand and presses it fervently to his lips.

“Thou dost not regret this, Sulamith?”

“O nay, my king, my beloved. I regret it not. Wert thou to arise this minute and go from me, and were I condemned never to see thee after, I would to the end of my life utter thy name with gratitude, Solomon!”

“Tell me one thing else, Sulamith.⁠ ⁠… Only, I beseech thee, speak the truth, my undefiled.⁠ ⁠… Didst thou know who I am?”

“Nay⁠—even now I know it not. Methought.⁠ ⁠… But I am shamed to confess it.⁠ ⁠… I fear thou wilt laugh at me.⁠ ⁠… They tell, that here, upon Mount Bath-El-Khav, pagan gods do oft wander.⁠ ⁠… Many of them, it is said, are beautiful.⁠ ⁠… And methought: art thou not Hor, the son of Osiris; or else some other god?”

“Nay, I am but a king, beloved. But here, upon this spot, I kiss thy dear hand, scorched of the sun, and swear to thee that never yet⁠—neither in the time of first love longings, nor in the days of my glory⁠—has my heart flamed with such an insatiable desire as that which is awakened within me by thy mere smile, by the mere touch of thy flaming locks⁠—the mere curve of thy purple lips! Thou art comely as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains in the temple of Solomon! Thy caresses intoxicate me. Behold thy breasts⁠—they are fragrant. Thy nipples are as wine!”

“O, yea⁠—gaze, gaze upon me, beloved. Thy eyes arouse me! O, what joy!⁠—for thy desire is unto me⁠—me! Thy locks are scented. As a bundle of myrrh thou dost lie betwixt my breasts!”

Time ceases its current and closes over them in a solar cycle. Their bed is the green; their roof is of cedars; and their walls are of cypresses. And the banner over their tent is love.

VII

The king had a pool in his palace⁠—an octagonal, fresh pool of white marble. Steps of dark-green malachite ran down to its bottom. A facing of Aegyptian jasper, snowy-white, with pink, barely perceptible little veins, served as a frame for the pool. The best of ebony had gone for the ornamentation of the walls. Four lions’ heads of pink sardonyx cast forth the water in thin jets into the pool. Eight mirrors of polished silver, the height of a man and of excellent Sydonian workmanship, were set into the walls, between the slender columns of white.

Before Sulamith was to enter the pool, young maidservants poured aromatic compounds into it, that made the water to turn white and blue and to play with all the colours of a milky opal. The female slaves disrobing Sulamith gazed with delight upon her body; and, when they had disrobed her, they led her up to a mirror. Not a single blemish was there upon her beautiful body, made aureate like a tawny, ripe fruit by the golden down of soft hair. And she, gazing upon her naked self in the mirror, turned red and thought:

“All this is for thee, my king!”

She came out of the pool fresh, cool, and fragrant, covered with quivering drops of water. The female slaves put upon her a short white tunic of the finest Aegyptian linen, and a chiton of precious Sargonian byssin, of such a refulgent golden colour that the garment seemed woven out of the rays of the sun. They shod her feet in red sandals made from the skin of a young kid; they dried her dark, flaming locks and bound them with strings of large black pearls; and they adorned her arms with tinkling bracelets.

In such array did she come before Solomon, and the king exclaimed joyously:

“Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun? O, Sulamith, thy beauty is more terrible than an army with flaunted banners! Seven hundred wives have I known and three hundred concubines, and virgins without number⁠—thou art but one, my fair! The queens shall behold thee and extoll thee, and all women upon earth shall praise thee. O, Sulamith, that day when thou wilt become my spouse and queen shall be the happiest my heart has known.”

Whereupon she walked up to the door of carved olive, and, pressing her cheek against it, said:

“I desire to be but thy slave, Solomon. Behold, I have put my ear to the post of the door. I beseech thee⁠—in accordance with the law of Moses, nail down my ear in witness of my voluntary bondage before thee.”

Then Solomon did command to be brought out of his treasure house precious pendants of deep-red carbuncles, fashioned to resemble elongated pears. He himself put them upon the ears of Sulamith, and said:

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”

And, taking Sulamith by the hand, the king brought her to the banqueting house, where his companions and familiars were already awaiting him.

VIII

Seven days had sped since Sulamith had stepped into the palace of the king. Seven days had she and the king taken joyance in love, yet could not be sated therewith.

Solomon loved to adorn his beloved with precious things. “How beautiful are thy little feet in sandals!” he would exclaim in rapture, and, getting down on his knees before her, he would kiss each toe in turn, and put upon them rings with stones so splendid and