ing with God for having given him into
the power of the demons, he felt himself pushed and dragged amidst a
crowd of people who were all hurrying in the same direction. As he was
unaccustomed to walk in the streets of a city, he was shoved and knocked
from one passer to another like an inert mass; and being embarrassed by
the folds of his tunic, he was more than once on the point of falling.
Desirous of knowing where all these people could be going, he asked one
of them the cause of this hurry.

"Do you not know, stranger," replied he, "that the games are about to
begin, and that Thais will appear on the stage? All the citizens are
going to the theatre, and I also am going. Would you like to accompany
me?"

It occurred to him at once that it would further his design to see Thais
in the games, and Paphnutius followed the stranger. In front of them
stood the theatre, its portico ornamented with shining masks, and its
huge circular wall covered with innumerable statues. Following the
crowd, they entered a narrow passage, at the end of which lay the
amphitheatre, glittering with light. They took their places on one of
the seats, which descended in steps to the stage, which was empty but
magnificently decorated. There was no curtain to hide the view, and on
the stage was a mound, such as used to be erected in old times to the
shades of heroes. This mound stood in the midst of a camp. Lances were
stacked in front of the tents, and golden shields hung from masts,
amidst boughs of laurel and wreaths of oak. On the stage all was
silence, but a murmur like the humming of bees in a hive rose from the
vast hemicycle filled with spectators. All their faces, reddened by the
reflection from the purple awning which waved above them, turned with
attentive curiosity towards the large, silent stage, with its tomb and
tents. The women laughed and ate lemons, and the regular theatre-goers
called gaily to one another from their seats.

Paphnutius prayed inwardly, and refrained from uttering any vain words,
but his neighbour began to complain of the decline of the drama.

"Formerly," he said, "clever actors used to declaim, under a mask, the
verses of Euripides and Menander. Now they no longer recite dramas, they
act in dumb show; and of the divine spectacles with which Bacchus
was honoured in Athens, we have kept nothing but what a barbarian--a
Scythian even--could understand--attitude and gesture. The tragic mask,
the mouth of which was