dimples around her knees, and her delicate
feet. Not far from her mouth a butterfly is fluttering. The splendour of
her body sheds around her a halo of brilliant mother-of-pearl; and all
the rest of Olympus is bathed in a rosy dawn, which, by insensible
degrees, reaches the heights of the azure sky.

_Antony_--"Ah! my bosom dilates. A joy, which I cannot analyse, descends
into the depths of my soul. How beautiful it is! how beautiful it is!"

_Hilarion_--"They stooped down from the height of the clouds to direct
the swords. You might meet them on the roadsides. You kept them in your
home; and this familiarity made life divine.

"Her only aim was to be free and beautiful. Her ample robes rendered her
movements more graceful. The orator's voice, exercised beside the sea,
struck the marble porticoes in unison with the sonorous waves. The
stripling, rubbed with oil, wrestled, quite naked, in the full light of
day. The most religious action was to expose pure forms.

"Those men, too, respected spouses, the aged and suppliants. Behind the
Temple of Hercules, an altar was raised to Pity.

"They used to immolate victims with flowers around their fingers. Memory
was not even troubled by the decay of the dead, for there remained of
them only a handful of ashes. The soul, mingled with the boundless
ether, ascended to the gods!"

Bending towards Antony's ear:

"And they live for ever! The Emperor Constantine adores Apollo. You will
find the Trinity in the mysteries of Samothrace, baptism in the case of
Isis, the redemption in that of Mithra, the martyrdom of a god in the
feasts of Bacchus. Proserpine is the Virgin; Aristaeus, Jesus!"

Antony keeps his eyes cast down; then all at once he repeats the creed
of Jerusalem--as he recollects it--emitting, after each phrase, a long
sigh:

"'I believe in one only God, the Father;--and in one only Lord, Jesus
Christ, first-born son of God, who became incarnate and was made man;
who was crucified and buried; who ascended into Heaven; who will come to
judge the living and the dead; whose kingdom will have no end;--and in
one only Holy Ghost;--and in one only baptism of repentance;--and in one
holy Catholic Church;--and in the resurrection of the flesh;--and in the
life everlasting!'"

Immediately the cross becomes larger, and, piercing the clouds, it casts
a shadow over the heaven of the gods.

They all grow dim. Olympus vanishes.

Antony distinguishes near its base, half lost in