CHAPTER V TANITH
After leaving the gardens Matho and Spendius found themselves checkedby the rampart of Megara. But they discovered a breach in the great walland passed through.
The ground sloped downwards, forming a kind of very broad valley. It wasan exposed place.
“Listen,” said Spendius, “and first of all fear nothing! I shallfulfil my promise—”
He stopped abruptly, and seemed to reflect as though searching forwords,—“Do you remember that time at sunrise when I showed Carthageto you on Salammbô’s terrace? We were strong that day, but you wouldlisten to nothing!” Then in a grave voice: “Master, in the sanctuaryof Tanith there is a mysterious veil, which fell from heaven and whichcovers the goddess.”
“I know,” said Matho.
Spendius resumed: “It is itself divine, for it forms part of her. Thegods reside where their images are. It is because Carthage possesses itthat Carthage is powerful.” Then leaning over to his ear: “I havebrought you with me to carry it off!”
Matho recoiled in horror. “Begone! look for some one else! I will nothelp you in this execrable crime!”
“But Tanith is your enemy,” retorted Spendius; “she is persecutingyou and you are dying through her wrath. You will be revenged uponher. She will obey you, and you will become almost immortal andinvincible.”
Matho bent his head. Spendius continued:
“We should succumb; the army would be annihilated of itself. We haveneither flight, nor succour, nor pardon to hope for! What chastisementfrom the gods can you be afraid of since you will have their power inyour own hands? Would you rather die on the evening of a defeat, inmisery beneath the shelter of a bush, or amid the outrages of thepopulace and the flames of funeral piles? Master, one day you will enterCarthage among the colleges of the pontiffs, who will kiss your sandals;and if the veil of Tanith weighs upon you still, you will reinstate itin its temple. Follow me! come and take it.”
Matho was consumed by a terrible longing. He would have liked to possessthe veil while refraining from the sacrilege. He said to himself thatperhaps it would not be necessary to take it in order to monopolise itsvirtue. He did not go to the bottom of his thought but stopped at theboundary, where it terrified him.
“Come on!” he said; and they went off with rapid strides, side byside, and without speaking.
The ground rose again, and the dwellings were near. They turned againinto the narrow streets amid the darkness. The strips of esparto-grasswith which the doors were closed, beat against the walls. Some camelswere ruminating in a square before heaps of cut grass. Then they passedbeneath a gallery covered with foliage. A pack of dogs were barking. Butsuddenly the space grew wider and they recognised the western face ofthe Acropolis. At the foot of Byrsa there stretched a long black mass:it was the temple of Tanith, a whole made up of monuments and galleries,courts and fore-courts, and bounded by a low wall of dry stones.Spendius and Matho leaped over it.
This first barrier enclosed a wood of plane-trees as a precautionagainst plague and infection in the air. Tents were scattered hereand there, in which, during the daytime, depilatory pastes,perfumes, garments, moon-shaped cakes, and images of the goddess withrepresentations of the temple hollowed out in blocks of alabaster, wereon sale.
They had nothing to fear, for on nights when the planet did not appear,all rites were suspended; nevertheless Matho slackened his speed, andstopped before the three ebony steps leading to the second enclosure.
“Forward!” said Spendius.
Pomegranate, almond trees, cypresses and myrtles alternated in regularsuccession; the path, which was paved with blue pebbles, creaked beneaththeir footsteps, and full-blown roses formed a hanging bower over thewhole length of the avenue. They arrived before an oval hole protectedby a grating. Then Matho, who was frightened by the silence, said toSpendius:
“It is here that they mix the fresh water and the bitter.”
“I have seen all that,” returned the former slave, “in Syria, inthe town of Maphug”; and they ascended into the third enclosure by astaircase of six silver steps.
A huge cedar occupied the centre. Its lowest branches were hiddenbeneath scraps of material and necklaces hung upon them by the faithful.They walked a few steps further on, and the front of the temple wasdisplayed before them.
Two long porticoes, with their architraves resting on dumpy pillars,flanked a quadrangular tower, the platform of which was adorned withthe crescent of a moon. On the angles of the porticoes and at the fourcorners of the tower stood vases filled with kindled aromatics. Thecapitals were laden with pomegranates and coloquintidas. Twining knots,lozenges, and rows of pearls alternated on the walls, and a hedge ofsilver filigree formed a wide semicircle in front of the brass staircasewhich led down from the vestibule.
There was a cone of stone at the entrance between a stela of gold andone of emerald, and Matho kissed his right hand as he passed beside it.
The first room was very lofty; its vaulted roof was pierced bynumberless apertures, and if the head were raised the stars might beseen. All round the wall rush baskets were heaped up with the firstfruits of adolescence in the shape of beards and curls of hair; and inthe centre of the circular apartment the body of a woman issued from asheath which was covered with breasts. Fat, bearded, and with eyelidsdowncast, she looked as though she were smiling, while her hands werecrossed upon the lower part of her big body, which was polished by thekisses of the crowd.
Then they found themselves again in the open air in a transversecorridor, wherein there was an altar of small dimensions leaning againstan ivory door. There was no further passage; the priests alone couldopen it; for the temple was not a place of meeting for the multitude,but the private abode of a divinity.
“The enterprise is impossible,” said Matho. “You had not thoughtof this! Let us go back!” Spendius was examining the walls.
He wanted the veil, not because he had confidence in its virtue(Spendius believed only in the Oracle), but because he was persuadedthat the Carthaginians would be greatly dismayed on seeing themselvesdeprived of it. They walked all round behind in order to find someoutlet.
Aedicules of different shapes were visible beneath clusters ofturpentine trees. Here and there rose a stone phallus, and large stagsroamed peacefully about, spurning the fallen fir-cones with their clovenhoofs.
But they retraced their steps between two long galleries which ranparallel to each other. There were small open cells along their sides,and tabourines and cymbals hung against their cedar columns from top tobottom. Women were sleeping stretched on mats outside the cells. Theirbodies were greasy with unguents, and exhaled an odour of spices andextinguished perfuming-pans; while they were so covered with tattooings,necklaces, rings, vermilion, and antimony that, but for the motion oftheir breasts, they might have been taken for idols as they lay thus onthe ground. There were lotus-trees encircling a fountain in which fishlike Salammbô’s were swimming; and then in the background, againstthe wall of the temple, spread a vine, the branches of which were ofglass and the grape-bunches of emerald, the rays from the preciousstones making a play of light through the painted columns upon thesleeping faces.
Matho felt suffocated in the warm atmosphere pressed down upon him bythe cedar partitions. All these symbols of fecundation, these perfumes,radiations, and breathings overwhelmed him. Through all the mysticdazzling he kept thinking of Salammbô. She became confused with thegoddess herself, and his loved unfolded itself all the more, like thegreat lotus-plants blooming upon the depths of the waters.
Spendius was calculating how much money he would have made in formerdays by the sale of these women; and with a rapid glance he estimatedthe weight of the golden necklaces as he passed by.
The temple was impenetrable on this side as on the other, and theyreturned behind the first chamber. While Spendius was searching andferreting, Matho was prostrate before the door supplicating Tanith. Hebesought her not to permit the sacrilege, and strove to soften her withcaressing
words, such as are used to an angry person.
Spendius noticed a narrow aperture above the door.
“Rise!” he said to Matho, and he made him stand erect with his backagainst the wall. Placing one foot in his hands, and then the otherupon his head, he reached up to the air-hole, made his way into it anddisappeared. Then Matho felt a knotted cord—that one which Spendiushad rolled around his body before entering the cisterns—fall upon hisshoulders, and bearing upon it with both hands he soon found himself bythe side of the other in a large hall filled with shadow.
Such an attempt was something extraordinary. The inadequacy of themeans for preventing it was a sufficient proof that it was consideredimpossible. The sanctuaries were protected by terror more than by theirwalls. Matho expected to die at every step.
However a light was flickering far back in the darkness, and they wentup to it. It was a lamp burning in a shell on the pedestal of a statuewhich wore the cap of the Kabiri. Its long blue robe was strewn withdiamond discs, and its heels were fastened to the ground by chains whichsank beneath the pavement. Matho suppressed a cry. “Ah! there she is!there she is!” he stammered out. Spendius took up the lamp in order tolight himself.
“What an impious man you are!” murmured Matho, following himnevertheless.
The apartment which they entered had nothing in it but a black paintingrepresenting another woman. Her legs reached to the top of the wall, andher body filled the entire ceiling; a huge egg hung by a thread from hernavel, and she fell head downwards upon the other wall, reaching as faras the level of the pavement, which was touched by her pointed fingers.
They drew a hanging aside, in order to go on further; but the wind blewand the light went out.
Then they wandered about, lost in the complications of the architecture.Suddenly they felt something strangely soft beneath their feet. Sparkscrackled and leaped; they were walking in fire. Spendius touched theground and perceived that it was carefully carpeted with lynx skins;then it seemed to them that a big cord, wet, cold, and viscous, wasgliding between their legs. Through some fissures cut in the wall therefell thin white rays, and they advanced by this uncertain light. At lastthey distinguished a large black serpent. It darted quickly away anddisappeared.
“Let us fly!” exclaimed Matho. “It is she! I feel her; she iscoming.”
“No, no,” replied Spendius, “the temple is empty.”
Then a dazzling light made them lower their eyes. Next they perceivedall around them an infinite number of beasts, lean, panting, withbristling claws, and mingled together one above another in a mysteriousand terrifying confusion. There were serpents with feet, and bullswith wings, fishes with human heads were devouring fruit, flowers wereblooming in the jaws of crocodiles, and elephants with uplifted trunkswere sailing proudly through the azure like eagles. Their incomplete ormultiplied limbs were distended with terrible exertion. As they thrustout their tongues they looked as though they would fain give forththeir souls; and every shape was to be found among them as if thegerm-receptacle had been suddenly hatched and had burst, emptying itselfupon the walls of the hall.
Round the latter were twelve globes of blue crystal, supported bymonsters resembling tigers. Their eyeballs were starting out of theirheads like those of snails, with their dumpy loins bent they wereturning round towards the background where the supreme Rabbet, theOmnifecund, the last invented, shone splendid in a chariot of ivory.
She was covered with scales, feathers, flowers, and birds as high as thewaist. For earrings she had silver cymbals, which flapped against hercheeks. Her large fixed eyes gazed upon you, and a luminous stone,set in an obscene symbol on her brow, lighted the whole hall by itsreflection in red copper mirrors above the door.
Matho stood a step forward; but a flag stone yielded beneath his heelsand immediately the spheres began to revolve and the monsters to roar;music rose melodious and pealing, like the harmony of the planets; thetumultuous soul of Tanith was poured streaming forth. She was about toarise, as lofty as the hall and with open arms. Suddenly the monstersclosed their jaws and the crystal globes revolved no more.
Then a mournful modulation lingered for a time through the air and atlast died away.
“And the veil?” said Spendius.
Nowhere could it be seen. Where was it to be found? How could it bediscovered? What if the priests had hidden it? Matho experienced anguishof heart and felt as though he had been deceived in his belief.
“This way!” whispered Spendius. An inspiration guided him. He drewMatho behind Tanith’s chariot, where a cleft a cubit wide ran down thewall from top to bottom.
Then they penetrated into a small and completely circular room, so loftythat it was like the interior of a pillar. In the centre there was abig black stone, of semispherical shape like a tabourine; flames wereburning upon it; an ebony cone, bearing a head and two arms, rosebehind.
But beyond it seemed as though there were a cloud wherein were twinklingstars; faces appeared in the depths of its folds—Eschmoun with theKabiri, some of the monsters that had already been seen, the sacredbeasts of the Babylonians, and others with which they were notacquainted. It passed beneath the idol’s face like a mantle, andspread fully out was drawn up on the wall to which it was fastened bythe corners, appearing at once bluish as the night, yellow as the dawn,purple as the sun, multitudinous, diaphanous, sparkling light. It wasthe mantle of the goddess, the holy zaïmph which might not be seen.
Both turned pale.
“Take it!” said Matho at last.
Spendius did not hesitate, and leaning upon the idol he unfastened theveil, which sank to the ground. Matho laid his hand upon it; then he puthis head through the opening, then he wrapped it about his body, and hespread out his arms the better to view it.
“Let us go!” said Spendius.
Matho stood panting with his eyes fixed upon the pavement. Suddenly heexclaimed:
“But what if I went to her? I fear her beauty no longer! What couldshe do to me? I am now more than a man. I could pass through flames orwalk upon the sea! I am transported! Salammbô! Salammbô! I am yourmaster!”
His voice was like thunder. He seemed to Spendius to have grown tallerand transformed.
A sound of footsteps drew near, a door opened, and a man appeared, apriest with lofty cap and staring eyes. Before he could make a gestureSpendius had rushed upon him, and clasping him in his arms had buriedboth his daggers in his sides. His head rang upon the pavement.
Then they stood for a while, as motionless as the corpse, listening.Nothing could be heard but the murmuring of the wind through thehalf-opened door.
The latter led into a narrow passage. Spendius advanced along it, Mathofollowed him, and they found themselves almost immediately in the thirdenclosure, between the lateral porticoes, in which were the dwellings ofthe priests.
Behind the cells there must be a shorter way out. They hastened along.
Spendius squatted down at the edge of the fountain and washed hisbloodstained hands. The women slept. The emerald vine shone. Theyresumed their advance.
But something was running behind them under the trees; and Matho, whobore the veil, several times felt that it was being pulled very gentlyfrom below. It was a large cynocephalus, one of those which dwelt atliberty within the enclosure of the goddess. It clung to the mantle asthough it had been conscious of the theft. They did not dare to strikeit, however, fearing that it might redouble its cries; suddenly itsanger subsided, and it trotted close beside them swinging its body withits long hanging arms. Then at the barrier it leaped at a bound into apalm tree.
When they had left the last enclosure they directed their steps towardsHamilcar’s palace, Spendius understanding that it would be useless totry to dissuade Matho.
They went by the street of the Tanners, the square of Muthumbal, thegreen market and the crossways of Cynasyn. At the angle of a wall a mandrew back frightened by the sparkling thing which pierced the darkness.
“Hide the zaïmph!” said Spendius.
br /> Other people passed them, but without perceiving them.
At last they recognised the houses of Megara.
The pharos, which was built behind them on the summit of the cliff,lit up the heavens with a great red brightness, and the shadow of thepalace, with its rising terraces, projected a monstrous pyramid, as itwere, upon the gardens. They entered through the hedge of jujube-trees,beating down the branches with blows of the dagger.
The traces of the feast of the Mercenaries were everywhere stillmanifest. The parks were broken up, the trenches drained, the doorsof the ergastulum open. No one was to be seen about the kitchens orcellars. They wondered at the silence, which was occasionally broken bythe hoarse breathing of the elephants moving in their shackles, and thecrepitation of the pharos, in which a pile of aloes was burning.
Matho, however, kept repeating:
“But where is she? I wish to see her! Lead me!”
“It is a piece of insanity!” Spendius kept saying. “She will call,her slaves will run up, and in spite of your strength you will die!”
They reached thus the galley staircase. Matho raised his head, andthought that he could perceive far above a vague brightness, radiant andsoft. Spendius sought to restrain him, but he dashed up the steps.
As he found himself again in places where he had already seen her, theinterval of the days that had passed was obliterated from his memory.But now had she been singing among the tables; she had disappeared, andhe had since been continually ascending this staircase. The sky abovehis head was covered with fires; the sea filled the horizon; at eachstep he was surrounded by a still greater immensity, and he continued toclimb upward with that strange facility which we experience in dreams.
The rustling of the veil as it brushed against the stones recalled hisnew power to him; but in the excess of his hope he could no longer tellwhat he was to do; this uncertainty alarmed him.
From time to time he would press his face against the quadrangularopenings in the closed apartments, and he thought that in several of thelatter he could see persons asleep.
The last story, which was narrower, formed a sort of dado on the summitof the terraces. Matho walked round it slowly.
A milky light filled the sheets of talc which closed the littleapertures in the wall, and in their symmetrical arrangement they lookedin the darkness like rows of delicate pearls. He recognised the red doorwith the black cross. The throbbing of his heart increased. He wouldfain have fled. He pushed the door and it opened.
A galley-shaped lamp hung burning in the back part of the room,and three rays, emitted from its silver keel, trembled on the loftywainscots, which were painted red with black bands. The ceiling was anassemblage of small beams, with amethysts and topazes amid their gildingin the knots of the wood. On both the great sides of the apartment therestretched a very low bed made with white leathern straps; while above,semi-circles like shells, opened in the thickness of the wall, suffereda garment to come out and hang down to the ground.
There was an oval basin with a step of onyx round it; delicate slippersof serpent skin were standing on the edge, together with an alabasterflagon. The trace of a wet footstep might be seen beyond. Exquisitescents were evaporating.
Matho glided over the pavement, which was encrusted with gold,mother-of-pearl, and glass; and, in spite of the polished smoothnessof the ground, it seemed to him that his feet sank as though he werewalking on sand.
Behind the silver lamp he had perceived a large square of azure held inthe air by four cords from above, and he advanced with loins bent andmouth open.
Flamingoes’ wings, fitted on branches of black coral, lay aboutamong purple cushions, tortoiseshell strigils, cedar boxes, and ivoryspatulas. There were antelopes’ horns with rings and bracelets strungupon them; and clay vases were cooling in the wind in the cleft of thewall with a lattice-work of reeds. Several times he struck his foot,for the ground had various levels of unequal height, which formed asuccession of apartments, as it were, in the room. In the backgroundthere were silver balustrades surrounding a carpet strewn with paintedflowers. At last he came to the hanging bed beside an ebony stoolserving to get into it.
But the light ceased at the edge;—and the shadow, like a greatcurtain, revealed only a corner of the red mattress with the extremityof a little naked foot lying upon its ankle. Then Matho took up the lampvery gently.
She was sleeping with her cheek in one hand and with the other armextended. Her ringlets were spread about her in such abundance that sheappeared to be lying on black feathers, and her ample white tunic woundin soft draperies to her feet following the curves of her person. Hereyes were just visible beneath her half-closed eyelids. The curtains,which stretched perpendicularly, enveloped her in a bluish atmosphere,and the motion of her breathing, communicating itself to the cords,seemed to rock her in the air. A long mosquito was buzzing.
Matho stood motionless holding the silver lamp at arm’s length; buton a sudden the mosquito-net caught fire and disappeared, and Salammbôawoke.
The fire had gone out of itself. She did not speak. The lamp causedgreat luminous moires to flicker on the wainscots.
“What is it?” she said.
He replied:
“’Tis the veil of the goddess!”
“The veil of the goddess!” cried Salammbô, and supporting herselfon both clenched hands she leaned shuddering out. He resumed:
“I have been in the depths of the sanctuary to seek it for you!Look!” The zaïmph shone a mass of rays.
“Do you remember it?” said Matho. “You appeared at night in mydreams, but I did not guess the mute command of your eyes!” She putout one foot upon the ebony stool. “Had I understood I should havehastened hither, I should have forsaken the army, I should not have leftCarthage. To obey you I would go down through the caverns of Hadrumetuminto the kingdom of the shades!—Forgive me! it was as though mountainswere weighing upon my days; and yet something drew me on! I tried tocome to you! Should I ever have dared this without the Gods!—Let usgo! You must follow me! or, if you do not wish to do so, I will remain.What matters it to me!—Drown my soul in your breath! Let my lips becrushed with kissing your hands!”
“Let me see it!” she said. “Nearer! nearer!”
Day was breaking, and the sheets of talc in the walls were filled witha vinous colour. Salammbô leaned fainting against the cushions of thebed.
“I love you!” cried Matho.
“Give it!” she stammered out, and they drew closer together.
She kept advancing, clothed in her white trailing simar, and with herlarge eyes fastened on the veil. Matho gazed at her, dazzled by thesplendours of her head, and, holding out the zaïmph towards her, wasabout to enfold her in an embrace. She was stretching out herarms. Suddenly she stopped, and they stood looking at each other,open-mouthed.
Then without understanding the meaning of his solicitation a horrorseized upon her. Her delicate eyebrows rose, her lips opened; shetrembled. At last she struck one of the brass pateras which hung at thecorners of the red mattress, crying:
“To the rescue! to the rescue! Back, sacrilegious man! infamous andaccursed! Help, Taanach, Kroum, Ewa, Micipsa, Schaoul!”
And the scared face of Spendius, appearing in the wall between the clayflagons, cried out these words:
“Fly! they are hastening hither!”
A great tumult came upwards shaking the staircases, and a flood ofpeople, women, serving-men, and slaves, rushed into the room withstakes, tomahawks, cutlasses, and daggers. They were nearly paralysedwith indignation on perceiving a man; the female servants utteredfuneral wailings, and the eunuchs grew pale beneath their black skins.
Matho was standing behind the balustrades. With the zaïmph which waswrapped about him, he looked like a sidereal god surrounded by thefirmament. The slaves were going to fall upon him, but she stopped them:
“Touch it not! It is the mantle of the goddess!”
She had drawn back into a corner; but she took a step towards him, and
stretched forth her naked arm:
“A curse upon you, you who have plundered Tanith! Hatred, vengeance,massacre, and grief! May Gurzil, god of battles, rend you! may Mastiman,god of the dead, stifle you! and may the Other—he who may not benamed—burn you!”
Matho uttered a cry as though he had received a sword-thrust. Sherepeated several times: “Begone! begone!”
The crowd of servants spread out, and Matho, with hanging head, passedslowly through the midst of them; but at the door he stopped, for thefringe of the zaïmph had caught on one of the golden stars with whichthe flagstones were paved. He pulled it off abruptly with a movement ofhis shoulder and went down the staircases.
Spendius, bounding from terrace to terrace, and leaping over the hedgesand trenches, had escaped from the gardens. He reached the foot of thepharos. The wall was discontinued at this spot, so inaccessible was thecliff. He advanced to the edge, lay down on his back, and let himselfslide, feet foremost, down the whole length of it to the bottom; thenby swimming he reached the Cape of the Tombs, made a wide circuit of thesalt lagoon, and re-entered the camp of the Barbarians in the evening.
The sun had risen; and, like a retreating lion, Matho went down thepaths, casting terrible glances about him.
A vague clamour reached his ears. It had started from the palace, and itwas beginning afresh in the distance, towards the Acropolis. Some saidthat the treasure of the Republic had been seized in the temple ofMoloch; others spoke of the assassination of a priest. It was thought,moreover, that the Barbarians had entered the city.
Matho, who did not know how to get out of the enclosures, walkedstraight before him. He was seen, and an outcry was raised. Every oneunderstood; and there was consternation, then immense wrath.
From the bottom of the Mappalian quarter, from the heights of theAcropolis, from the catacombs, from the borders of the lake, themultitude came in haste. The patricians left their palaces, and thetraders left their shops; the women forsook their children; swords,hatchets, and sticks were seized; but the obstacle which had stayedSalammbô stayed them. How could the veil be taken back? The mere sightof it was a crime; it was of the nature of the gods, and contact with itwas death.
The despairing priests wrung their hands on the peristyles of thetemples. The guards of the Legion galloped about at random; the peopleclimbed upon the houses, the terraces, the shoulders of the colossuses,and the masts of the ships. He went on, nevertheless, and the rage, andthe terror also, increased at each of his steps; the streets cleared athis approach, and the torrent of flying men streamed on both sides upto the tops of the walls. Everywhere he could perceive only eyes openedwidely as if to devour him, chattering teeth and outstretched fists, andSalammbô’s imprecations resounded many times renewed.
Suddenly a long arrow whizzed past, then another, and stones began tobuzz about him; but the missiles, being badly aimed (for there was thedread of hitting the zaïmph), passed over his head. Moreover, he made ashield of the veil, holding it to the right, to the left, before him andbehind him; and they could devise no expedient. He quickened his stepsmore and more, advancing through the open streets. They were barredwith cords, chariots, and snares; and all his windings brought him backagain. At last he entered the square of Khamon where the Balearians hadperished, and stopped, growing pale as one about to die. This time hewas surely lost, and the multitude clapped their hands.
He ran up to the great gate, which was closed. It was very high, madethroughout of heart of oak, with iron nails and sheathed with brass.Matho flung himself against it. The people stamped their feet with joywhen they saw the impotence of his fury; then he took his sandal, spitupon it, and beat the immovable panels with it. The whole city howled.The veil was forgotten now, and they were about to crush him. Mathogazed with wide vacant eyes upon the crowd. His temples were throbbingwith violence enough to stun him, and he felt a numbness as ofintoxication creeping over him. Suddenly he caught sight of the longchain used in working the swinging of the gate. With a bound he graspedit, stiffening his arms, and making a buttress of his feet, and at lastthe huge leaves partly opened.
Then when he was outside he took the great zaïmph from his neck, andraised it as high as possible above his head. The material, upborne bythe sea breeze, shone in the sunlight with its colours, its gems, andthe figures of its gods. Matho bore it thus across the whole plain asfar as the soldiers’ tents, and the people on the walls watched thefortune of Carthage depart.