ough his act when he had seduced Glycera, he
himself now seemed to realize, and at the same time the enemy that had
betrayed him, Servianus, was none other than himself, Phoebicius, the
Gaul. He tried to protect himself and meditated revenge against the
seducer, and still he could not altogether lose the sense of his own
identity.

This whirl of mad imagining, which he vainly endeavored to make clear
to himself, threatened to distract his reason, and he groaned aloud; the
sound of his own voice brought him back to actuality.

He was Phoebicius again and not another, that he knew now, and yet he
could not completely bring himself to comprehend the situation. The
image of the lovely Glycera, who had followed him to Alexandria, and
whom he had there abandoned, when he had squandered his last piece of
money and her last costly jewels in the Greek city, no longer appeared
to him alone, but always side by side with his wife Sirona.

Glycera had been a melancholy sweetheart, who had wept much, and laughed
little after running away from her husband; he fancied he could hear
her speaking soft words of reproach, while Sirona defied him with loud
threats, and dared to nod and signal to the senator's son Polykarp.

The weary dreamer angrily shook himself, collected his thoughts, doubled
his fist, and lifted it angrily; this movement was the first sign of
returning physical energy; he stretched his limbs like a man awaking
from sleep, rubbed his eyes, pressed his hands to his temples; by
degrees full consciousness returned to him, and with it the recollection
of all that had occurred in the last hour or two.

He hastily left the dark room, refreshed himself in the kitchen with a
gulp of wine, and went up to the open window to gaze at the stars.

It was long past midnight; he was reminded of his companions now
sacrificing on the mountain, and addressed a long prayer "to the crown,"
"the invincible sun-god," "the great light," "the god begotten of the
rock," and to many other names of Mithras; for since he had belonged to
the mystics of this divinity, he had become a zealous devotee, and could
fast too with extraordinary constancy. He had already passed through
several of the eighty trials, to which a man had to subject himself
before he could attain to the highest grades of the initiated, and the
weakness which had just now overpowered him, had attacked him for the
first time, after he had for a whole week lain for hours in the