This conviction raised a hundred-pound weight from his soul.

What was applause!  What was recognition!  What were fame and laurel wreaths!  He desired clearness and truth for himself and all the world and, as if frantic, he suddenly sprang from his cushions, shouting to the startled guests:  “I myself and this whole great city were deceived!  The Demeter is not mine, not the work of Hermon!  The dead Myrtilus created it!”

Then pressing his hand to his brow, he called his student friend to his side, and, as the scholar anxiously laid his arm on his shoulder, whispered:  “Away, away from here!  Only let me get out of doors into the open air!”

Crates, bewildered and prepared for the worst, obeyed his wish; but Althea and the other guests left behind felt more and more impressed by the suddenly awakened conviction that the hapless blind man had now also become the victim of madness.

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Aimless life of pleasure

ARACHNE

By Georg Ebers

Volume 7.

CHAPTER VIII.

Without a word of explanation, Hermon dragged his guide along in breathless haste.  No one stopped them.

The atrium, usually swarming with guards, servants, and officials until a far later hour, was completely deserted when the blind man hurried through it with his friend.

The door leading into the outer air stood open, but Hermon, leaning on the scholar’s arm, had scarcely crossed the threshold and entered the little courtyard encircled with ornamental plants, which separated this portion of the palace from the street, when both were surrounded by a band of armed Macedonian soldiers, whose commander exclaimed:  “In the name of the King!  Not a sound, if you value your lives!”

Incensed, and believing that there was some mistake, Hermon announced himself as a sculptor and Crates as a member of the Museum, but this statement did not produce the slightest effect upon the warrior; nay, when the friends answered the officer’s inquiry whether they were coming from Proclus’s banquet in the affirmative; he curtly commanded them to be put in chains.

To offer resistance would have been madness, for even Hermon perceived, by the loud clanking of weapons around them, the greatly superior power of the enemy, and they were acting by the orders of the King.  “To the prison near the place of execution!” cried the officer; and now not only the mythograph, but Hermon also was startled—­this dungeon opened only to those sentenced to death.

Was he to be led to the executioner’s block?  A cold shudder ran through his frame; but the next moment he threw back his waving locks, and his chest heaved with a long breath.

What pleasure had life to offer him, the blind man, who was already dead to his art?  Ought he not to greet this sudden end as a boon from the immortals?