have long chewed and rechewed, and in the evening you will swallow some radishes without any oil.  Well, my dear friend, in accomplishing these acts, so different apparently, we are both obeying the same sentiment, the only motive for all human actions; we are both seeking our own pleasure, and striving to attain the same end—­happiness, the impossible happiness.  It would be folly on my part to say you were wrong, dear friend, even though I think myself in the right.

“And you, my Thais, go and enjoy yourself, and be more happy still, if it be possible, in abstinence and austerity than you have been in riches and pleasure.  On the whole, I should say you were to be envied.  For if in our whole lives, Paphnutius and I have pursued but one kind of pleasurable satisfaction, you in your life, dear Thais, have tasted diverse joys such as it is rarely given to the same person to know.  I should really like to be for one hour, a saint like our dear friend Paphnutius.  But that is not possible.  Farewell, then, Thais!  Go where the secret forces of nature and your destiny conduct you!  Go, and take with you, whithersoever you go, the good wishes of Nicias!  I know that is mere foolishness, but can I give you anything more than barren regrets and vain wishes in payment for the delicious illusions which once enveloped me when I was in your arms, and of which only the shadow now remains to me?  Farewell, my benefactress!  Farewell, goodness that is ignorant of its own existence, mysterious virtue, joy of men!  Farewell to the most adorable of the images that nature has ever thrown—­for some unknown reasons—­on the face of this deceptive world!”

Whilst he spoke, deep wrath had been brewing in the monk’s heart, and it now broke forth in imprecations.

“Avaunt, cursed wretch!  I scorn thee and hate thee.  Go, child of hell, a thousand times worse than those poor lost ones who just now threw stones and insults at me!  They knew not what they did, and the grace of God, which I implored for them, may some day descend into their hearts.  But thou, detestable Nicias, thou art but a perfidious venom and a bitter poison.  Thy mouth breathes despair and death.  One of thy smiles contains more blasphemy than issues in a century from the smoking lips of Satan.  Avaunt, backslider!”

Nicias looked at him.

“Farewell, my brother,” he said, “and may you preserve until your life’s end your store of faith, hate, and love.  Farewell, Thais!  It is in vain that you will forget me, because I shall ever remember you.”

On quitting them he walked thoughtfully through the winding streets in the vicinity of the great cemetery of Alexandria, which are peopled by the makers of funeral urns.  Their shops were full of clay figures painted in bright colours and representing gods and goddesses, mimes, women, winged sprites, &c., such as were usually buried with the dead.  He fancied that perhaps some of the little images which he saw there might be the companions of his eternal sleep; and it seemed to him that a little Eros, with its tunic tucked up, laughed at him mockingly.  He looked forward to his death, and the idea was painful to him.  To cure his sadness he tried to philosophise, and reasoned thus—­