no one as it lives in me.  This hand has never even touched your victim—­and yet God has given Sirona to no man as he has given her wholly to me, for to no man can she be what she is to me, and no man can love her as I do!  She has the nature of an angel, and the heart of a child; she is without spot, and as pure as the diamond, or the swan’s breast, or the morning-dew in the bosom of a rose.  And though she had let you into her house a thousand times, and though my father even, and my own mother, and every one, every one pointed at her and condemned her, I would never cease to believe in her purity.  It is you who have brought her to shame; it is you—­”

“I kept silence while all condemned her,” said Paulus with warmth, “for I believed that she was guilty, just as you believe that I am, just as every one that is bound by no ties of love is more ready to believe evil than good, Now I know, aye, know for certain, that we did the poor woman an injustice.  If the splendor of the lovely dream, that you call Sirona, has been clouded by my fault—­”

“Clouded?  And by you?” laughed Polykarp.  “Can the toad that plunges into the sea, cloud its shining blue, can the black bat that flits across the night, cloud the pure light of the full-moon?”

An emotion of rage again shot through the anchorite’s heart, but he was by this time on his guard against himself, and he only said bitterly, and with hardly-won composure: 

“And how was it then with the flower, and with the bird, that were destroyed by beasts without understanding?  I fancy you meant no absent third person by that beast, and yet now you declare that it is not within my power even to throw a shadow over your day-star!  You see you contradict yourself in your anger, and the son of a wise man, who himself has not long since left the school of rhetoric, should try to avoid that.  You might regard me with less hostility, for I will not offend you; nay, I will repay your evil words with good—­perhaps the very best indeed that you ever heard in your life.  Sirona is a worthy and innocent woman, and at the time when Phoebicius came out to seek her, I had never even set eyes upon her nor had my ears ever heard a word pass her lips.”

At these words Polykarp’s threatening manner changed, and feeling at once incapable of understanding the matter, and anxious to believe, he eagerly exclaimed: 

“But yet the sheepskin was yours, and you let yourself be thrashed by Phoebicius without defending yourself.”

“So filthy an ape,” said Paulus, imitating Polykarp’s voice, “needs many blows, and that day I could not venture to defend myself because—­because—­But that is no concern of yours.  You must subdue your curiosity for a few days longer, and then it may easily happen that the man whose very aspect makes you feel dirty—­the bat, the toad—­”

“Let that pass now,” cried Polykarp.  “Perhaps the excitement which the sight of you stirred up in my bruised and wounded heart, led me to use unseemly language.  Now, indeed, I see that your matted hair sits round a well featured countenance.  Forgive my violent and unjust attack.  I was beside myself, and I opened my whole soul to you, and now that you know how it is with me, once more I ask you, where is Sirona?”