My hand reached greedily for the silver bowl; I felt an uncontrollable craving for this bitter-sweet confection gradually assert its hold over me. And then – did it only seem so to me or did it actually happen? – all at once the light in the room was a strange green. I felt as if I were suddenly deep under water, at the bottom of the sea or an underground lake, in the ancient wreck of a ship or on an island on the sea-bed. And at the same time I knew: this woman opposite me was Black Isaïs. How Black Isaïs managed to appear through the very tangible flesh and blood of a Circassian Princess I do not know, but I knew that facing me was John Dee’s enemy, the arch-enemy of our sex and the destroyer of the road that leads us beyond humanity. And an ice-cold jet of hatred spurted up my spine to the back of my head. I thought of Jane and looked at the Princess; disgust welled up within me.
The Princess must have had some sense of what was going on inside me, for she looked me straight in the eye and said in a half-whisper:
“I think you are a model pupil, my friend; you are quick to understand; it is a pleasure to instruct you.”
“Yes, I understand and I would like to leave,” I said coldly.
“What a shame. Just when I could reveal so much to you, my dear friend.”
“Everything has been revealed. It is enough. I ... hate you!”
The Princess leapt up.
“At last! Thus speaks a man! Now victory will be complete!”
I found speech almost impossible because of an incomprehensible excitement which I could scarcely control. I heard my own voice as if from outside and it was hoarse with hate:
“My victory is to have seen through you in spite of everything. Look over there” – I pointed to the stone goddess – “that is you. That is your true face. That is your beauty and its whole secret. And the mirror and the spearhead that is missing are the symbols of your primitive power: vanity and lust; the age-old, wearisome game with cupid’s poison darts!”
As I spat this out, and more along the same lines, the Princess, listening attentively and giving cool nods of agreement, stepped over to the statue of the Cat Goddess and, with swift, supple grace, took up the same attitude as the stone image, as if to invite close comparison. Smiling, she purred:
“You are not the first man to flatter me by saying there is a certain similarity between me and this venerable work of art – –”
I dropped all considerations of politeness:
“It is true! The similarity is true, right down to the most intimate details of this feline body, my dear Princess!”
A mocking laugh, a twist, a snake-like ripple and the Princess stood naked beside the statue. Her dress seemed to foam about her feet, like the waves at the feet of Aphrodite.
“Well, my pupil, were you right? Does this confirm your supposition. Can I flatter myself that I match up to your expectations – perhaps I should say your hopes? See: I take the mirror in this left hand” – with a swift movement she picked up an oval object that must have lain on top of the altar and for a brief moment she held up towards me an antique bronze mirror overlaid with verdigris – “the mirror – your interpretation of its significance was quite superficial, by the way – the mirror in the hand of the Goddess is not at all a sign of feminine vanity. It is a symbol of the error that lies at the base of every desire for reproduction and – if you can understand this – of the rightness of all human multiplication, be it in the physical or the spiritual sphere. And now, as you can see, all that is lacking for the similarity with the image of the deity to be completed is the spearhead in this right hand. The spear I have so often asked you for. You would be very far from the mark if you imagine it is the attribute of your little bourgeois cherub, Eros. It is an insult to accuse me of such a lack of taste. You will, I hope, learn today from your own personal experience, what the invisible spear is.” With complete assurance she stepped out of the circle of her dress on the floor. Her marvellously smooth body, light bronze in colour and of a virginal suppleness, which seemed never to have suffered a lover’s caress, was indeed a more beautiful work of art than the stone Isaïs. A wild fragrance, it seemed to me, rose from the dress on the floor, a perfume I knew well and which was beginning to numb my already overwrought senses. I needed no further proof that here I was faced with the struggle to prove my strength, to test the genuineness of my calling and to settle my fate for good or ill.
Leaning back against the dark edges of the bookshelves, the Princess stood there with inimitable, unselfconscious animal grace, and her beautiful, velvety voice told me of the ancient cult of the Thracian Isaïs that had developed amongst a secret sect of the priests of Mithras.
“Jane! Jane!” I cried inwardly as I tried to close my ears to the dark melodious voice continuing its explanation in even, rational tones. The image of Jane seemed to hover in a greenish nimbus; it nodded to me with a melancholy smile; it became fuzzy and indistinct in a current of green water. – She is back “on the other side”, as I am now, on the green sea-bed, I thought. But my eyes lost the vision and were once more the captive of Assja Shotokalungin’s perfect physical presence and the clear and measured flow of her speech.
She was talking of the mysteries of the esoteric Thracian cult dedicated
