on the hills the tents of Jacob, and nourished in the
sands my fugitive people. It was I who burned Sodom! It was I who
engulfed the earth beneath the Deluge! It was I who drowned Pharaoh,
with the royal princes, the war-chariots, and the charioteers. A jealous
God, I execrated the other gods. I crushed the impure; I overthrew the
proud; and my desolation rushed to right and left, like a dromedary let
loose in a field of maize.

"To set Israel free, I chose the simple. Angels, with wings of flame,
spoke to them in the bushes.

"Perfumed with spikenard, cinnamon, and myrrh, with transparent robes
and high-heeled shoes, women of intrepid heart went forth to slay the
captains. The passing wind bore away the prophets.

"I engraved my law on tablets of stone. It shut in my people as in a
citadel. They were my people. I was their God! The earth was mine, and
men were mine, with their thoughts, their works, the implements with
which they tilled the soil, and their posterity.

"My ark rested in a triple sanctuary, behind purple curtains and flaming
lamps. For my ministry I had an entire tribe, who swung the censers,
and the high-priest in a robe of hyacinth, and wearing precious stones
upon his breast arranged in regular order.

"Woe! woe! The Holy of Holies is flung open; the veil is rent; the
odours of the holocaust are scattered to all the winds. The jackals
whine in the sepulchres; my temple is destroyed; my people are
dispersed!

"They have strangled the priests with the cords of their vestments. The
women are captives; the sacred vessels are all melted down!"

The voice, dying away:

"I was the God of armies, the Lord, the Lord God!" Then comes an
appalling silence, a profound darkness.

_Antony_--"They are all gone!"

"I remain!" says some one.

And, face to face with him stands Hilarion, but transfigured--beautiful
as an archangel, luminous as a sun, and so tall that, in order to see
him, Antony lifts up his head--"Who, then, are you?"

_Hilarion_--"My kingdom is as wide as the universe, and my desire has no
limits. I am always going about enfranchising the mind and weighing the
worlds, without hate, without fear, without love, and without God. I am
called Science."

_Antony_, recoiling backwards--"You must be, rather, the Devil!"

_Hilarion_, fixing his eyes upon him--"Do you wish to see him?"

Antony no longer avoids his glance. He is seized with curiosity
concerning the Devil. His terror increases