“Look.  I am mysterious and beautiful.  Love me.  Exhaust in my arms the love which torments you.  What use is it to fear me?  You cannot escape me; I am the beauty of woman.  Whither do you think to fly from me, senseless fool?  You will find my likeness in the radiancy of flowers, and in the grace of the palm trees, in the flight of pigeons, in the bounds of the gazelle, in the rippling of brooks, in the soft light of the moon, and if you close your eyes, you will find me within yourself.  It is a thousand years since the man who sleeps here, swathed in linen, in a bed of black stone, pressed me to his heart.  It is a thousand years since he received the last kiss from my mouth, and his sleep is yet redolent with it.  You know me well, Paphnutius.  How is it you have not recognised me?  I am one of the innumerable incarnations of Thais.  You are a learned monk, and well skilled in the knowledge of things.  You have travelled, and it is by travel a man learns the most.  Often a day passed abroad will show more novelties than ten years passed at home.  You have heard that Thais lived formerly in Argos, under the name of Helen.  She had another existence in Thebes Hecatompyle.  And I was Thais of Thebes.  How is it you have not guessed it?  I took, when I was alive, a large share in the sins of this world, and now reduced here to the condition of a shadow, I am still quite capable of taking your sins upon me, beloved monk.  Whence comes your surprise?  It was certain that, wherever you went, you would find Thais again.”

He struck his forehead against the pavement, and uttered a cry of terror.  And every night the player of the theorbo left the wall, approached him, and spoke in a clear voice mingled with soft breathing.  And as the holy man resisted the temptations she gave him, she said to him—­

“Love me; yield, friend.  As long as you resist me I shall torment you.  You do not know what the patience of a dead woman is.  I shall wait, if necessary, till you are dead.  Being a sorceress, I shall put into your lifeless body a spirit who will reanimate it, and who will not refuse me what I have asked in vain of you.  And think, Paphnutius, what a strange situation when your blessed soul sees, from the height of heaven, its own body given up to sin.  God, who has promised to return you this body after the day of judgment and the end of time, will Himself be much puzzled.  How can He place in celestial glory a human form inhabited by a devil, and guarded by a sorceress?  You have not thought of that difficulty.  Nor God either, perhaps.  Between ourselves, He is not very knowing.  Any ordinary magician can easily deceive Him, and if He had not His thunder, and the cataracts of heaven, the village urchins would pull His beard.  He has certainly not as much sense as the old serpent, His adversary.  He, indeed, is a wonderful artist.  If I am so beautiful, it is because he adorned me with all my attractions.  It was he who taught