Artemio, corregidor* of the Augostolida of Egypt, in a time that you may choose within the twilight of Rome, was a neophyte Christian. At the shadow of his severe old age lived, as a pupil, Lucrecia, whose father, who died when she was a child, had been a friend of Artemio. This Lucrecia did not disappoint the splendor of such a name. Before one heard her name, one could sense the quality of a virtue so candid, uniform and exquisite, that she had signs and reflections of beatitude.
One day, a religious man from some Eastern cult arrived at Artemio's house: an astrologer, or perhaps a Chaldean magician, one of those who wandered around the Roman world adding fragments of Hellenic culture to their primitive knowledge and professing the arts of divination and enchantment. The magistrate welcomed him: the religiosity of these Eastern Christians used to go hand in hand with their love of witchcraft. Hearing the magician say that among the capabilities of his science was that of revealing what the souls contained in their center and root most remote from common suspicion, Artemio made Lucrecia appear, moved by a desire to know what prodigious form she took in the radical and densest part of her spirit, the essence of her rare candor.
The magician declared that he only needed her to fill a cup with her own hands, and then, under the clarity of the water, he would see Lucrecia's soul painted, as in a clean mirror.
“Let's see” said Artemio, “what star of innocent brilliance, what crystalline spring, what gentle lamb, occupies the depths of this soul...” The cup was brought, which Lucrecia filled with water to the brim, and once this was done, the magician focused his gaze on the cup, and the maiden and her tutor longed to hear what he said.
“First of all,” the magician began, “I see, as in all the souls that I have seen with this second sight of my eyes, a chasm or abyss comparable to those that narrow the path of the traveler on the roads of the harsh mountains. And there, deep, deep — he interrupted himself, hesitating for a moment... Should I say it? he asked. And as Artemio bowed his head...
Well, what I see, he continued, in the depths of that abyss, is a happy, spirited and resplendent courtesan. She is lying under a high canopy, one of those of Tyre; and asleep. She dresses all in purple, with a looseness and transparency that, more than her own nudity, serve as a provocation dart. A fire of voluptuousness overflows from her eyes veiled by sleep, and it lights up, in the corners of her lips, like two flames, between which opens the most divine and infernal smile I have ever seen. The head rests on one of the bare arms. The other goes up in abandon, all intertwined with bangles that appear to be waving vipers, and between his thumb and forefinger there raises a small stream, bloody in color, which is one of the signs of Aphrodite. This is what this soul has in the virtual, in the expectant, in what is without yet being: in short, Artemio, in the shadow of what you wanted to know through my arts...
Vile impostor! — Lucrecia moaned at this, her eyes filled with tears: is this your science? Is your skill infamy? Bring an ember of fire with which to test if a word that is not true has passed through my lips, and hear me confess if there is an intention or feeling in me that is related to the image that you claim to have seen within my spirit!
“Hush, poor Lucrecia,” argued the magician. Is it necessary for you to know it? You speak truth and so do I.
“Will it be fair then,” said Artemio, “to despise the promises that captivated us and prepare our spirits for disappointment?” “I don't think that way,” replied the magician. “Who assures you that the courtesan wakes up?” “I'm talking in case she wakes up,” Artemio added. “Lord,” replied the magician, “I grant you that this may happen; but I also saw in the depths of the soul of that sleeping hetaerae* that is in the depths of Lucrecia's soul, and I saw another abyss, and in the bosom of the abyss a light, and as if enveloped and suspended in the light, a very soft creature, for which the field of snow would be happy to exchange itself, for it is white. Next to this angel, a woman without sex, pure spirit, you would judge the radiance of Lucrecia's virtue to be shadowy... and like the courtesan in your pupil, she, inside the courtesan, sleeps...
“Do I infer from this,” — said the magistrate — “that even with the awakening of the courtesan, our hopes in Lucrecia could be resurrected? Let us give thanks to God, since in the loss of his virtue we find the way to his holiness.”
“Yes,” the magician said again; but do not forget that, as in the others, there is in the soul of that angelic form an abyss into which I can peer. “Who,” Artemio asked, “is the sleeper of that abyss? “I would tell you,” said the magician, “if it were right to show Lucrecia a painting of an abomination.” Think of the scene from Lucius' Corinthian Pasiphae... Think of a woman such that the first courtesan is to her, in degree of virtue, what Lucrecia is to the first courtesan.
“You abyss me,” Artemio burst out, “in a sea of confusion!” “What strange creature is this that friendship entrusted into my hands?...”
“Cease in your astonishment,” the magician finally said, while going to revive Lucrecia, who remained immersed in a painful stupor: “she is not an extraordinary being, nor is what you have seen through my eyes things that have anything supernatural or pilgrim to them. Together with a hundred wicked men, who have always been asleep, in the hidden depths of his being, has raised each blessed one to glory; and with a hundred righteous people, who have never woken up, deep within himself, has gone down every reprobate to their condemnation.
“Artemio: do not ever encourage security in the just; distrust, in the fallen: everyone has guests who are not like them in the hidden depths of the soul. There are times when good consists in ensuring that one of those guests wakes up; but there are also times (and this matters to you) in which disturbing their sleep would be recklessness or a useless risk. The dream lives in a silent environment; innocence is the silence of the soul: let there be silence in the heart of Lucrecia!...”
Endnotes
Corregidor: something like a judge (see here).
Hetaerae: a type of prostitute in ancient Greece who served as an artist, entertainer and conversationalist in addition to having sex (see here).