sed, weeping, and more sorrowful than
the saddest of the poor women who hold in their arms their ill-clad
infants.

'But what is she about?' inquired Aurelia, more and more attentive; 'she
stands before the young man of Nazareth; in one hand she holds her
alabaster urn pressed against her agitated bosom, whilst with the other
she detaches her rich turban. She throws it far from her. Her thick and
glossy tresses fall over her breast and shoulders, unroll themselves
like a velvet mantle and even trail on the ground.'

'Oh! look! look! her tears redouble,' said Jane; 'her face is drowned in
them.'

'She kneels at the feet of Jesus,' continued Aurelia, 'and covers them
with tears and kisses.'

'What heart-rending sobs!'

'And the tears she sheds on the feet of Mary's son she wipes away with
her long hair.'

'And now, still melting in tears, she takes her alabaster urn and
empties over the feet of Jesus a delicious perfume, the scent of which
reaches here.'

'The young master endeavors to raise her; she resists; she cannot speak;
her sobs break her voice; she bends down her lovely head to the very
ground.'

Then Jesus, who could scarcely restrain his emotion, turned towards
Simon, one of his disciples, and addressing him: 'Simon, I have
something to say to you.'

'Speak, master.'

'A creditor had two debtors; the one owned him five hundred pence, the
other fifty. As they had not wherewith to pay him, he remitted to both
their debt; tell me, then, which of these two should love him most?'
Simon replied: 'Master, I think it should be he to whom he forgave the
most.'

'Thou hast judged rightly, Simon.' And, turning to the rich courtezan
still kneeling, Jesus said to those present: 'Do you see this woman? I
declare to you that her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved
much!' He then said to Magdalen, in a voice full of tenderness and
pardon: 'Thy sins are forgiven thee--thy faith hath saved thee; go in
peace.'

'Abomination of desolation!' said the emissary of the pharisees half
aloud to his companion: 'can audacity and demoralization go further?
Why, the Nazarene pardons all that is blameable, relieves all that is
vile; after reinstating dissipation and prodigality, behold him now
reinstating the most notorious courtezans.'

'And why?' said the other emissary, 'that he may still flatter the vices
and detestable passions of the wretches he draws round him, whom he will
one day make his instruments.'