Leon.—­We must finish this mutual torture.  Madam, I am a weak man.  I would give way if—­but I wish to spare you—­if not for the fact that my sore and dead heart cannot give you anything but tears and pity.

Jadwiga.—­You do not love me!

Leon.—­I have no strength for happiness.  I did love you.  My heart throbbed for a moment with a recollection as of a dead person.  But the other one is dead.  I tell you this, madam, in tears and torture.  I do not love you.

Jadwiga.—­Leon!

Leon.—­Have pity on me and forgive me.

Jadwiga.—­You do not love me!

Leon.—­What is dead cannot be resuscitated.  Farewell.

Jadwiga (after a while).—­Very well.  If you think you have humiliated me enough, trampled on me, and are sufficiently avenged, leave me then (to Leon, who wishes to withdraw).  No! no!  Remain.  Have pity on me.

Leon.—­May God have pity on us both. (He goes away.)

Jadwiga.—­It is done!

A Servant (entering).—­Count Skorzewski!

Jadwiga.—­Ha!  Show him in!  Show him in!  Ha! ha! ha!

PART FOURTH

THE VERDICT

Apollo and Hermes once met toward evening on the rocks of Pnyx and were looking on Athens.

The evening was charming; the sun was already rolled from the Archipelago toward the Ionian Sea and had begun to slowly sink its radiant head in the water which shone turquoise-like.  But the summits of Hymettus and Pentelicus were yet beaming as if melted gold had been poured over them, and the evening twilight was in the sky.  In its light the whole Acropolis was drowned.  The white walls of Propyleos, Parthenon, and Erechtheum seemed pink and as light as though the marble had lost all its weight, or as if they were apparitions of a dream.  The point of the spear of the gigantic Athena Promathos shone in the twilight like a lighted torch over Attica.

In the space hawks were flying toward their nests in the rocks, to pass the night.

The people returned in crowds from work in the fields.  On the road to Piraeus, mules and donkeys carried baskets full of olives and wine-grapes; behind them, in the red cloud of dust, marched herds of nannygoats, before each herd there was a white-bearded buck; on the sides, watchdogs; in the rear, shepherds, playing flutes of thin oat-stems.

Among the herds chariots slowly passed, carrying holly barlet, pulled by slow, heavy oxen; here and there passed a detachment of Hoplites or heavy armed troops, corseleted in copper, going to guard Piraeus and Athens during the night.

Beneath, the city was full of animation.  Around the big fountain at Poikile, young girls in white dresses drew water, singing, laughing, or defending themselves from the boys, who threw over them fetters made of ivy and wild vine.  The others, having already drawn the water, with the amphorae poised on their shoulders, were turned homeward, light and graceful as immortal nymphs.