it. She surrounded herself with priests
of Isis, Chaldean magi, pharmacopolists, and professors of the black
arts, who invariably deceived her, though she never tired of being
deceived. She feared death, and she saw it everywhere. When she yielded
to pleasure, it seemed to her that an icy finger would suddenly touch
her on the bare shoulder, and she turned pale, and cried with terror, in
the arms which embraced her.

Nicias said to her--

"What does it matter, O my Thais, whether we descend to eternal night
with white locks and hollow cheeks, or, whether this very day, now
laughing to the vast sky, shall be our last? Let us enjoy life; we
shall have greatly lived if we have greatly loved. There is no knowledge
except that of the senses; to love is to understand. That which we
do not know does not exist. What good is it to worry ourselves about
nothing?"

She replied angrily--

"I despise men like you, who hope for nothing and fear nothing. I wish
to know! I wish to know!"

In order to understand the secret of life, she set to work to read the
books of the philosophers, but she did not understand them. The further
the years of her childhood receded from her, the more anxious she was
to recall them. She loved to traverse at night, in disguise, the alleys,
squares, and places where she had grown up so miserably. She was sorry
she had lost her parents, and especially that she had not been able
to love them. When she met any Christian priest, she thought of her
baptism, and felt troubled. One night, when enveloped in a long
cloak, and her fair hair hidden under a black hood, she was wandering,
according to custom, about the suburbs of the city, she found
herself--without knowing how she came there--before the poor little
church of St. John the Baptist. They were singing inside the church,
and a bright light glimmered through the chinks of the door. There was
nothing strange in that, as, for the past twenty years, the Christians,
protected by the conqueror of Maxentius, had publicly solemnised their
festivals. But these hymns seemed more like an ardent appeal to the
soul. As if she had been invited to the mysteries, she pushed the
door open with her arm, and entered the building. She found a numerous
assembly of women, children, and old men, on their knees before a tomb,
which stood against the wall. The tomb was nothing but a stone coffer,
roughly sculptured with vine tendrils and bunches of grapes; yet it had
receive