Read The Man Who Died for Free Online

Isis of the subtle lotus, the womb which waits submerged
and in bud, waits for the touch of that other inward sun that streams its
rays from the loins of the male Osiris.
    This was the mystery the woman had served alone for seven years, since
she was twenty, till now she was twenty–seven. Before, when she was
young, she had lived in the world, in Rome, in Ephesus, in Egypt. For her
father had been one of Anthony's captains and comrades, had fought with
Anthony and had stood with him when Caesar was murdered, and through to
the days of shame. Then he had come again across to Asia, out of favour
with Rome, and had been killed in the mountains beyond Lebanon. The
widow, having no favour to hope for from Octavius, had retired to her
small property on the coast under Lebanon, taking her daughter from the
world, a girl of nineteen, beautiful but unmarried.
    When she was young the girl had known Caesar, and had shrunk from his
eagle–like rapacity. The golden Anthony had sat with her many a
half–hour, in the splendour of his great limbs and glowing manhood, and
talked with her of the philosophies and the gods. For he was fascinated
as a child by the gods, though he mocked at them, and forgot them in his
own vanity. But he said to her:
    "I have sacrificed two doves for you, to Venus, for I am afraid you make
no offering to the sweet goddess. Beware you will offend her. Come, why
is the flower of you so cool within? Does never a ray nor a glance find
its way through? Ah, come, a maid should open to the sun, when the sun
leans towards her to caress her."
    And the big, bright eyes of Anthony laughed down on her, bathing her in
his glow. And she felt the lovely glow of his male beauty and his
amorousness bathe all her limbs and her body. But it was as he said: the
very flower of her womb was cool, was almost cold, like a bud in shadow
of frost, for all the flooding of his sunshine. So Anthony, respecting
her father, who loved her, had left her.
    And it had always been the same. She saw many men, young and old. And on
the whole, she liked the old ones best, for they talked to her still and
sincere, and did not expect her to open like a flower to the sun of their
maleness. Once she asked a philosopher: "Are all women born to be given
to men?" To which the old man answered slowly:
    "Rare women wait for the re–born man. For the lotus, as you know, will
not answer to all the bright heat of the sun. But she curves her dark,
hidden head in the depths, and stirs not. Till, in the night, one of
these rare, invisible suns that have been killed and shine no more, rises
among the stars in unseen purple, and like the violet, sends its rare
purple rays out into the night. To these the lotus stirs as to a caress,
and rises upwards through the flood, and lifts up her bent head, and
opens with an expansion such as no other flower knows, and spreads her
sharp rays of bliss, and offers her soft, gold depths such as no other
flower possesses, to the penetration of the flooding, violet–dark sun
that has died and risen and makes no show. But for the golden brief
day–suns of show such as Anthony, and for the hard winter suns of power,
such as Caesar, the lotus stirs not, nor will ever stir. Those will only
tear open the bud. Ah, I tell you, wait for the re–born and wait for the
bud to stir."
    So she had waited. For all the men were soldiers or politicians in the
Roman spell, assertive, manly, splendid apparently but of an inward
meanness, an inadequacy. And Rome and Egypt alike had left her alone,
unroused. And she was a woman to herself, she would not give herself for
a surface glow, nor marry for reasons. She would wait for the lotus to
stir.
    And then, in Egypt, she had found Isis, in whom she spelled her mystery.
She had brought Isis to the shores of Sidon, and lived with her in the
mystery of search; whilst her mother, who loved affairs, controlled the
small estate and the slaves with a free hand.
    When the woman had roused from her muse and