Her glance wandered round the room, to the tablets and rolls which had been tossed off the couch and the table to make room for her, and for the lamps and medicaments.  They lay in disorder on the floor, and the sight of this confusion produced a favorable excitement and reaction; she succeeded in expressing herself in husky accents and broken, hardly intelligible sentences, so far as to scold them sharply for their irreverence for the precious documents, and for the disorder they had created.  The waiting-woman proceeded to pick them up:  but Damia again became unconscious.  Gorgo bathed her brow and tried to pour some wine between her teeth, but she clenched them too firmly, till the slave-woman came to her assistance and they succeeded in making Damia swallow a few drops.  The old woman opened her eyes, smacking her tongue feebly; but she took the cup into her own hand to hold it to her lips; and though she trembled so that half the contents were spilt, she drank eagerly till it was quite empty.  “More,” she gasped with the eagerness of intense thirst, “more—­I want drink!”

Gorgo gave her a second and a third draught which Damia drank with equal eagerness; then, with a deep breath, she looked up fully conscious, at her granddaughter.

“Thank you, child,” she said.  “Now I shall do very well for a little while.  The material world and all that belongs to it weighs us down and clings to us like iron fetters.  We may long and strive to be free, but it pursues us and holds us fast.  Only those who are content with their miserable humanity can enjoy it.  They laugh, as you know, at Praxilla, the poetess, because she makes the dying Adonis lament, when face to face with death, that he is forced to leave the apples and pears behind him.  But is not that subtly true?  Yes, yes; Praxilla is right!  We fast, we mortify ourselves—­I have felt it all myself—­to partake of divinity.  We almost perish of hunger and thirst, when we might be so happy if only we would be satisfied with apples and pears!  No man has ever yet succeeded in the great effort; those who would be truly happy must be content with small things.  That is what makes children so happy.  Apples and pears!  Well, everything will be at an end for me ere long—­even those.  But if the great First Cause spares himself in the universal crash, there is still the grand idea of Apples and Pears; and who knows but that it may please Him, when this world is destroyed, to frame another to come after it.  Will He then once more embody the ideas of Man—­and Apples and Pears?  It would be plagiarism from himself.  Nay, if He is merciful, He will never again give substance to that hybrid idea called Man; or, if He does, He will let the poor wretch be happy with apples and pears—­I mean trivial joys; for all higher joys, be they what they may, are vanity and vexation. . . .  Give me another draught.  Ah, that is good!  And to-morrow is the end.  I could find it in my heart to regret the good gifts of Dionysus myself; it is