The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-05-05
THE NArAD IN THE BATH.
Chicago Times.

tropical air, delicately perfumed :; half dozen women, rolled loosely in white, lying with closed eyes and tumbled hair, an arm tossed over the head, little foot struggling out of the folds of the sheet--such is the hot room of Turkish bathing house.
 At the door stands plnmp negroes, as firmly moulded as if she were in bronze. A white linen shift hang ing loosely about her shoulders falls to the knees, and around her throat is a great strand of amber beads. The women lie as still as corpses, but their flesh is glowing, and the drops gather like great pearls on their necks and brows. After time the negroes touches one of the recumbent figures on the shoulder. She gets up and staggers into the next room. She has the look of the lotus- eaters in her eyes. The next room is still more tropical. The lotus-eater falls on one of the couches and slides into dreams again with smile. The wrappings drop away from her shoulders. Her hair loosens and falls about her.
 In few minutes the negress touches her again on the shoulder. She shakes off her stupor and reels out, still smil- ing. Her bare feet make a soft pat tering on the marble. Otherwise there is no noise in the place. She is taken into stall and laid out on slab of marble.
 Around the edges the marble has yellowed trifle, and it looks like one of Alma Tadema's benches, with high back and sides. The negroes unwraps the lotus-eater and begins to rub the pink flesh. She rubs it this way and that, she kneads it and pinches it, she slaps it unsparingly. The patient lotus-eater keeps her eyes and her lips closed. Now the negroes seizes on the splender of one white hand and slaps it and pounds it. Now she takes brush and rubs the flesh, leaving it scarlet. Then she seizes a pot and sprinkles the lotus-e eater as a florist would rose.
 "Now," says the dusky one, "now you kin go, miss"
 The lotus-eater gets up and walks like Eve to the shower bath. The water, bursting from hundred little perforations, is deliciously warm and it grows warmer and warmer; it grows hot; it seems to be scalding the eater puts her lips together; she looks a little sick. Then the shower begins to cool again; 1t de- scends rapidly; it gets as chilly ss a cistern in May, then as cold as a we'll in March, then as icy as the lake in December. The lotus-eater is no longer a lotus- eater. She is a drip ping naiad, as cold as Undine before she found her soul. From head to foot she is pricking as though she were bewitched. /. Her lungs seem stifled. She feels that she is turning to ice. The arctic shower gets triie colder. It is too much. The naiad filings up her arms and rushes out. The plunge" ripping softly in the shadow, with the infowing and out flowing, stands near. Up the steps and along the terrace of marble runs the naiad, leaving wet footprints as she goes. There is splash and the naiad is in her element. There are other naiads there and the silence is broken. Some of the naiads know each other. Some of them are intro- duced, and brush the drops from their faces to bow to each other. Some one grows playful and begins throwing water. The air is full of sparkling drops. The attendants call time. The naiads rush out, and once out grow little timorous and ashamed, and hurry off quickly to their rooms. The great ante-room lies in shadow. It is as quiet as if it were in the heart of a solitude instead of in the heart of the city. Each of the naiads goes into her own little room. Each one is rubbed with the magnetic fingers of her at- tendant dipped in alcohol. Then she is swathed in flannel, the gas turned low, the door locked, and she is left to slumber. Once the scent of a per- fumed cigarette steals in; now and then there is low ripple of laughter, but the naiads have drifted of into the world of visions. They have for gotten all about their last true one, and sleep as if there was never to be any more hurry or fret for them in the world.
 After an hour or two of this they awaken. They ring. The attendants come. The erstwhile naiads call for coffee. It comes in tiny cups with froth of cream on the top. It is swal- lowed in haste. In twenty minutes the gowns are on, the hair combed ,the gloves buttoned, the bonnets tied, and they are on the street. They are full of youth. Their muscles are elastic and strong; their feet seem to have grown wings. They feel as if they had been drinking from Ponce de Leon's fountain. They know how a tree feels when the fresh sap springs through it