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during seven years, the minutest details of the complex and voluptuous art of the courtesans of Palibothra.
For love is an art, like music. It gives emotions of the same order, equally delicate, equally thrilling, sometimes perhaps more intense; and Chrysis, who knew all its rhythms and all its subtilities, regarded herself, with good reason, as a greater artist than Plango herself. Yet Plango was a musician of the temple.
Seven years she lived thus, without dreaming of a life happier or more varied. But shortly before her twentieth year, when she emerged from girlhood to womanhood and saw the first charming line of nascent maturity take form under her breasts, she suddenly conceived other ambitions.
And one morning, waking up two hours after mid-day, languid with loo much sleep, she turned over upon her breast, threw out her legs, leaned her cheek upon her hand, and with a long golden pin, pricked little symmetrical holes upon her pillow of green linen.
Her reflexions were profound.
First it was four little pricks which made a square, with a prick in the centre. Then four other pricks to make a bigger square. Then she tried to make a circle. But it was a little difficult. Then, she pricked away aimlessly and began to call:
