his mind all that, which
from the first moment of his speech, the old man had said touching life,
truth, love, God; and his thoughts were dazed from the brightness, as
the eyes are blinded from lightning flashes which follow each other
unceasingly.

As is usual with people for whom life has been turned into one single
passion, Vinicius thought of all this through the medium of his love for
Lygia; and in the light of those flashes he saw one thing distinctly,
that if Lygia was in the cemetery, if she confessed that religion,
obeyed and felt it, she never could and never would be his mistress.

For the first time, then, since he had made her acquaintance at Aulus's,
Vinicius felt that though now he had found her he would not get her.
Nothing similar had come to his head so far, and he could not explain it
to himself then, for that was not so much an express understanding as
a dim feeling of irreparable loss and misfortune. There rose in him
an alarm, which was turned soon into a storm of anger against the
Christians in general, and against the old man in particular. That
fisherman, whom at the first cast of the eye he considered a peasant,
now filled him with fear almost, and seemed some mysterious power
deciding his fate inexorably and therefore tragically.

The quarrymen again, unobserved, added torches to the fire; the wind
ceased to sound in the pines; the flame rose evenly, with a slender
point toward the stars, which were twinkling in a clear sky. Having
mentioned the death of Christ, the old man talked now of Him only. All
held the breath in their breasts, and a silence set in which was deeper
than the preceding one, so that it was possible almost to hear the
beating of hearts. That man had seen! and he narrated as one in whose
memory every moment had been fixed in such a way that were he to close
his eyes he would see yet. He told, therefore, how on their return from
the Cross he and John had sat two days and nights in the supper-chamber,
neither sleeping nor eating, in suffering, in sorrow, in doubt, in
alarm, holding their heads in their hands, and thinking that He had
died. Oh, how grievous, how grievous that was! The third day had dawned
and the light whitened the walls, but he and John were sitting in the
chamber, without hope or comfort. How desire for sleep tortured them
(for they had spent the night before the Passion without sleep)! They
roused themselves then, and began again to lament. But barely had