his family, and you
crushed their eggs. I am afraid, my poor friend, you will have a
troublesome business on your hands. You were warned, however, that he
was a musician and a lover. What have you done? You have quarrelled with
science and beauty. You are altogether miserable, and Iaveh does not
come to your help. It is not probable that he will come. Being as
great as all things, he cannot move for want of space, and if, by an
impossibility, he made the least movement, all creation would be pushed
out of place. My handsome hermit, give me a kiss."

Paphnutius was aware that great prodigies are performed by magic arts.
He thought--not without much uneasiness--

"Perhaps the dead man buried at my feet knows the words written in that
mysterious book which exists hidden, not far from here, at the bottom of
a royal tomb. By virtue of these words, the dead, taking the form which
they had upon earth, see the light of the sun and the smiles of women."

His chief fear was that the girl with the theorbo and the dead man might
come together, as they did in their lifetime, and that he should see
them unite. Sometimes he thought he heard the sound of kissing.

He was troubled in his mind, and now, in the absence of God he feared
to think as much as to feel. One evening, when he was kneeling prostrate
according to his custom, an unknown voice said to him--

"Paphnutius, there are on earth more people than you imagine, and if I
were to show you what I have seen, you would die of astonishment. There
are men with a single eye in the middle of their forehead. There are
men who have but one leg, and advance by jumps. There are men who change
their sex, and the females become males. There are men-trees, who shoot
out roots in the ground. And there are men with no head, with two eyes,
a nose, and a mouth in their breast. Can you honestly believe that Jesus
Christ died for the salvation of these men?"

Another time he had a vision. He saw, in a strong light, a broad road,
rivulets, and gardens. On the road, Aristobulus and Chereas passed at
a gallop on their Syrian horses, and the joyous ardour of the race
reddened the cheeks of the two young men. Beneath a portico, Callicrates
recited his verses; satisfied pride trembled in his voice and shone in
his eyes. In the garden, Zenothemis picked apples of gold, and caressed
a serpent with azure wings. Clad in white, and wearing a shining mitre,
Hermodorus meditated beneath a sacred persea,