Only a few moments passed before the sage realised that the knowledge
of the horrible is not the horrible, and that the sight of death is
not death. And he felt that in the eyes of the Infinite wisdom and
folly are the same, for the Infinite knows them not. And the
boundaries between knowledge and ignorance, between truth and
falsehood, between top and bottom, faded and his shapeless thought was
suspended in emptiness. Then he grasped his grey head in his hands and
cried out insanely: "I cannot think! I cannot think!"

Thus it was that under the cool gaze of Lazarus, the man miraculously
raised from the dead, all that serves to affirm life, its sense and
its joys, perished. And people began to say it was dangerous to allow
him to see the Emperor; that it were better to kill him and bury him
secretly, and swear he had disappeared. Swords were sharpened and
youths devoted to the welfare of the people announced their readiness
to become assassins, when Augustus upset the cruel plans by demanding
that Lazarus appear before him.

Even though Lazarus could not be kept away, it was felt that the heavy
impression conveyed by his face might be somewhat softened. With that
end in view expert painters, barbers and artists were secured who
worked the whole night on Lazarus' head. His beard was trimmed and
curled. The disagreeable and deadly bluishness of his hands and face
was covered up with paint; his hands were whitened, his cheeks rouged.
The disgusting wrinkles of suffering that ridged his old face were
patched up and painted, and on the smooth surface, wrinkles of
good-nature and laughter, and of pleasant, good-humoured cheeriness,
were laid on artistically with fine brushes.

Lazarus submitted indifferently to all they did with him, and soon was
transformed into a stout, nice-looking old man, for all the world a
quiet and good-humoured grandfather of numerous grandchildren. He
looked as though the smile with which he told funny stories had not
left his lips, as though a quiet tenderness still lay hidden in the
corner of his eyes. But the wedding-dress they did not dare to take
off; and they could not change his eyes--the dark, terrible eyes from
out of which stared the incomprehensible _There_.

VI

Lazarus was untouched by the magnificence of the imperial apartments.
He remained stolidly indifferent, as though he saw no contrast between
his ruined house at the edge of the desert and the solid, beautiful
palac