Glory and the Lightning Read Free Page A

and the light of soft lamps and candles. There is a new fashion now, of having lamps suspended from the ceiling. Avoid them like a traitor, for they are indeed traitorous to any woman beyond puberty.”
    All the maidens, and not only the eight of the choicest, found little leisure in the school for courtesans. They attended classes presided over by female and male teachers of the best mentality, where they learned—not the arts of a household, which were the province of illiterate ladies intended for marriage by their parents—but the arts of politics, philosophy, exquisitely perfect language, rhetoric, music, dancing, the arrangement of garments, the nuances of perfumes, seduction, conversation, history, gentle athletics to preserve the figure and enhance it, a smattering of medical lore, mathematics—“One must deal with bankers later”—artistic placing of furniture, selection of fabrics most flattering, graceful movements, hairdressing, charming sophistries, penmanship, the keeping of books, literature, poetry, sculpture, painting, science, but, above all else, how to please and entrance a man and all the arts of love, including perversions.
    “Young men are bulls,” Thargelia would say with severity, “therefore, unless they are tremendously rich and important, I deliver none of my maidens to them. A slut and one of my delicate courtesans are all the same in bed to them, and, as they have the identical equipment, there is no distinction. So, I am careful not to arrange matters between them and one of my young ladies, except on rare occasions and only by consent of the young lady. There is a greater danger, too: A maiden may fall in love with a young man, alas, and there is no worse fate, for young men are capricious and are soon discontented even with the most desirable of girls and look for novelty and are not interested in conversation. But a middle-aged man needs to be coaxed, and when coaxed to fulfillment he is endlessly grateful, and gratitude leads to pleasant establishment, money and jewels. Also adoration. Be careful, then, about love, which is a deceiver and a liar and men are also all deceivers and liars, and must be dealt with capably, or a woman is lost.”
    The maidens were taught delicacy. “There is nothing more abhorrent than a coarse lewd woman,” said Thargelia and the other teachers. “Never must an indecent word cross your lips or a lascivious jest, not even in passion—which I trust you will never feel. (Passion can destroy a woman.) You must keep in mind that you are great ladies, of taste and discrimination and learning. You must always be in control of your emotions, and never utter a hasty harsh reproach, no matter how provoked. Pleasantness is most desirable.”
    Once Aspasia said in her lovely soft voice though her eyes flashed with rebellion: “We are, then, only toys for the pleasure of men who may be inferior to us.”
    Thargelia smiled at her, for it was impossible to be irritable with Aspasia. “Say, better, that we are jewels, precious jewels. How is a jewel preserved? In fine cloth, guarded and cherished, valued above all things, adored, proudly displayed. We are not utensils of the kitchen. They serve their purpose, and are used by wives, whose husbands give us gold and gems and lay their heads on our knees and worship us. Do they worship their wives? They flee from them.”
    The girls were taught intensively of the nature of men, and how to preserve themselves from entanglements in their own emotions, which could ruin them. Thargelia was vehement in her admonitions that the maidens must cultivate a contempt for men, which, certainly, they must never reveal.
    “Once you become contemptuous of men you will always be serene in their company, and even happily affectionate, as one feels affection for a dog. For your contempt will make you impervious to destructive inclinations, and devoid of passion and natural indignation, and will render both your emotions and your