at the State had reached its zenith both in material prosperity and
intellectual achievement, and that all the future held in reserve was
decline and decay. This thought was ever present with him; in the vast
extension of empire he foresaw the inevitable disintegration, and he
wondered in a melancholy fashion what would be the fate of mankind
when the Empire, dismembered and rotten, should become the prey of the
Barbarians.

It was in the winter of the second year after his retirement that his
melancholy increased to a pitch of almost intolerable heaviness. That
winter was an extraordinarily mild one, and even during the coldest
month he strolled every evening after he had supped on the terrace walk
which was before the portico. He was strolling one night on the terrace
pondering on the fate of mankind, and more especially on the life--if
there was such a thing--beyond the grave. He was not a superstitious
man, but, saturated with tradition, he was a scrupulous observer of
religious feast, custom, and ritual. He had lately been disturbed by
what he considered to be an ill-favoured omen. One night--it was twelve
nights ago he reckoned--the statues of Pan and Apollo, standing in his
dining-room, which was at the end of the portico, had fallen to the
ground without any apparent cause and had been shattered into fragments.
And it had seemed to him that the crash of this accident was immediately
followed by a low and prolonged wail, which appeared to come from
nowhere in particular and yet to fill the world; the noise of the moan
had seemed to be quite close to him, and as it died away its echo
had seemed to be miles and miles distant. He thought it had been a
hallucination, but that same night a still stranger thing happened.
After the accident, which had wakened the whole household, he had been
unable to go to sleep again and he had gone from his sleeping chamber
into an adjoining room, and, lighting a lamp, had taken down and read
out of the "Iliad" of Homer. After he had been reading for about half
an hour he heard a voice calling him very distinctly by his name, but
as soon as the sound had ceased he was not quite certain whether he had
heard it or not. At that moment one of his slaves, who had been born in
the East, entered the room and asked him what he required, saying that
he had heard his master calling loudly. What these signs and portents
signified he had no idea; perhaps, he mused, they mean my own
death, which