is quite mad! Wherefore? ..."

_Simon_--"Hush! Hush!"

_Helena_--"They rubbed me with unguents, and sold me to the people to
amuse them. One evening, standing with the sistrum in my hand, I was
coaxing Greek sailors to dance. The rain, like a cataract, fell upon the
tavern, and the cups of hot wine were smoking. A man entered without the
door having been opened."

_Simon_--"It was I! I found you. Here she is, Antony; she who is called
Sigeh, Eunoia, Barbelo, Prounikos! The Spirits who govern the world were
jealous of her, and they bound her in the body of a woman. She was the
Helen of the Trojans, whose memory the poet Stesichorus had rendered
infamous. She has been Lucretia, the patrician lady violated by the
kings. She was Delilah, who cut off the hair of Samson. She was that
daughter of Israel who surrendered herself to he-goats. She has loved
adultery, idolatry, lying and folly. She was prostituted by every
nation. She has sung in all the cross-ways. She has kissed every face.
At Tyre, she, the Syrian, was the mistress of thieves. She drank with
them during the nights, and she concealed assassins amid the vermin of
her tepid bed."

_Antony_--"Ah! what is coming over me?"

_Simon_, with a furious air--

"I have redeemed her, I tell you, and re-established her in all her
splendour, such as Caius Caesar Agricola became enamoured of when he
desired to sleep with the Moon!"

_Antony_---"Well! well!"

_Simon_--"But she really is the Moon! Has not Pope Clement written that
she was imprisoned in a tower? Three hundred persons came to surround
the tower; and on each of the murderers, at the same time, the moon was
seen to appear,--though there are not many moons in the world, or many
Eunoias!"

_Antony_--"Yes! ... I think I recollect ..."

And he falls into a reverie.

_Simon_--"Innocent as Christ, who died for men, she has devoted herself
to women. For the powerlessness of Jehovah is demonstrated by the
transgression of Adam, and we must shake off the old law, opposed, as it
is, to the order of things. I have preached the new Gospel in Ephraim
and in Issachar, along the torrent of Bizor, behind the lake of Houleh,
in the valley of Mageddo, and beyond the mountains, at Bostra and at
Damas. Let those who are covered with wine-dregs, those who are covered
with dirt, those who are covered with blood, come to me; and I will
wash out their defilement with the Holy Spirit, called by the Greeks,
Minerva. She is Miner