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

rare that their like was not to be found even upon the ephod of a high-priest. Sulamith would listen, entranced, whenever he discoursed upon the inner nature of stones, their magic properties and secret significations.

“Here is anthrax, the sacred stone from the land of Ophir,” the king would say. “It is hot and moist. Behold, it is red, like blood, like the evening glow, like the blown flower of the pomegranate, like thick wine from the vineyards of En-gedi, like thy lips, my Sulamith, in the morning after a night of love. This is the stone of love, wrath, and blood. Upon the hand of a man languishing in a fever or made drunk by desire, it waxes warmer and glows with a red flame. Put it upon thy hand, my beloved, and thou shalt see it enkindle. If it be brayed to a powder and taken in water, it imparts a glow to the face, allays the stomach, and maketh the soul to rejoice. He that weareth it attaineth power over men. It is a curative for the heart, brain, and memory. But it ought not be worn nigh children, for it doth arouse the passions of love around it.

“Here is a transparent stone, the colour of copper verdigris. In the land of the Aethiopians, where it is gotten, it is called Mgnadis-Phza. It was given me by the father of my wife, Queen Astis⁠—by Shishak, the Pharaoh of Aegypt, into whose hands it came through a captive king. Thou seest⁠—it is not beautiful; yet is its value beyond computation, for but four men on earth possess the stone Mgnadis-Phza. It possesses the unusual property of attracting silver to it, just like a covetous man that loveth the metal. I give it thee, my beloved, for that thou are not covetous.

“Gaze upon these sapphires, Sulamith. Some of them resemble in colour cornflowers among wheat; others, an autumn sky; others still, the sea in fine weather. This is the stone of virginity⁠—chill and pure. During far and difficult voyages it is placed in the mouth to allay thirst. It also cureth leprosy and all malignant growths. It bestoweth clarity to thoughts. The priests of Jupiter in Rome wear it upon the index finger.

“The king of all stones is the stone Shamir. The Greeks name it Adamas⁠—which signifieth, the invincible. It is the hardest of all substances on earth and remains uninjured in the fiercest of fires. It is the light of the sun, concentrated in the ground and cooled by time. Admire it, Sulamith⁠—it playeth with all colours, but in itself remaineth translucent, like a drop of water. It shineth in the darkness of night; but loseth its radiance, even in the daytime, upon the hand of a murderer. The Shamir is tied to the hand of a woman tortured in heavy travail with child; and it is also put upon the left hand by warriors setting out for battle. He that weareth the Shamir findeth favour with kings and hath no dread of evil spirits. The Shamir driveth the mottled colour off the face, purifieth the breath, giveth quiet slumber to lunaticks, and induceth a sweat curative of near proximity to poison. The Shamir stones are male and female; buried deep in the ground they are capable of multiplying.

“The moonstone, pale and mild, like the shining of the moon⁠—it is the stone of the Chaldaean and Babylonian magi. Before divination it is placed under the tongue, and it imparts to them the gift of seeing the future. It hath a strange tie with the moon, for during a new moon it groweth chill and shineth more brightly. It is beneficial to woman during that year when from a child she is becoming a woman.

“Wear thou this ring with a smaragd constantly, my beloved, for the smaragd is the favourite stone of Solomon, King of Israel. It is green, pure, gay, tender, like grass in the spring of the year, and when one gazeth at it for long the heart waxeth radiant; if thou wilt look upon it in the morning, all the day shall hold no hardship of thee. I shall hang a smaragd over thy night couch, my comely one; let it drive evil dreams away from thee; let it lull the beating of thy heart, and divert black thoughts. Serpents and scorpions come not nigh him that weareth a smaragd; but if a smaragd be held before the eyes of a serpent, water shall flow from them, and continue flowing, till it go blind. Pounded smaragd, together with camel’s milk, is given an empoisoned man, that the poison may go off in transpiration; mixed with attar of roses, smaragd cureth the bites of venomous reptiles; while ground with saffron and applied to ailing eyes it eradicates night blindness. It also helps in dysentery and the black cough that is incurable by any human means.”

The king also bestowed upon his beloved Lybian amethysts, whose colour resembled early violets, that put forth in forests at the foot of the Lybian mountains⁠—amethysts, possessed of the wondrous property of curbing wind, mollifying wrath, preserving from intoxication, and helping at the trapping of wild beasts; turquoise of Persepolis, that bringeth happiness in love, endeth connubial quarrels, turneth away the wrath of kings, and is propitious in the breaking and selling of horses; and cat’s-eye⁠—that guardeth the property, reason, and health of its possessor; and the pale beryllion, blue-green, like seawater near shore⁠—a good travelling companion for pilgrims and a remedy against cataract and leprosy; and the varicoloured agate: he that weareth it hath no dread of the evil machinations of enemies, and avoideth the danger of being crushed in an earthquake; and the apple-green, turbidly-pellucid onychion⁠—its master’s guardian from fire and madness; and iaspis, that maketh beasts to tremble; and the black swallow-stone, that endoweth with eloquence; and the eagle-stone, esteemed of pregnant women⁠—eagles put it in their nests when the time comes for their young to break out of their shells;