nt lamentation ascends from the depths of the ergastula. The
soft and monotonous sounds of a hydraulic organ alternate with the
chorus of voices; and one feels as if all around the hall there was an
immense city, an ocean of humanity, whose waves were beating against the
walls.

The slaves rush forward carrying plates. Women run about offering drink
to the guests. The baskets groan under the load of bread, and a
dromedary, laden with leathern bottles, passes to and fro, letting
vervain trickle over the floor in order to cool it.

Belluarii lead forth lions; dancing-girls, with their hair in ringlets,
turn somersaults, while squirting fire through their nostrils;
negro-jugglers perform tricks; naked children fling snowballs, which, in
falling, crash against the shining silver plate. The clamour is so
dreadful that it might be described as a tempest, and the steam of the
viands, as well as the respirations of the guests, spreads, as it were,
a cloud over the feast. Now and then, flakes from the huge torches,
snatched away by the wind, traverse the night like flying stars.

The King wipes off the perfumes from his visage with his hand. He eats
from the sacred vessels, and then breaks them, and he enumerates,
mentally, his fleets, his armies, his peoples. Presently, through a
whim, he will burn his palace, along with his guests. He calculates on
rebuilding the Tower of Babel, and dethroning God.

Antony reads, at a distance, on his forehead, all his thoughts. They
take possession of himself--and he becomes Nebuchadnezzar.

Immediately, he is satiated with conquests and exterminations; and a
longing seizes him to plunge into every kind of vileness. Moreover, the
degradation wherewith men are terrified is an outrage done to their
souls, a means still more of stupefying them; and, as nothing is lower
than a brute beast, Antony falls upon four paws on the table, and
bellows like a bull.

He feels a pain in his hand--a pebble, as it happened, has hurt him--and
he again finds himself in his cell.

The rocky enclosure is empty. The stars are shining. All is silence.

"Once more I have been deceived. Why these things? They arise from the
revolts of the flesh! Ah! miserable man that I am!"

He dashes into his cell, takes out of it a bundle of cords, with iron
nails at the ends of them, strips himself to the waist, and raising his
eyes towards Heaven:

"Accept my penance, O my God! Do not despise it on account of its
insu