Serapis | Page 9

had pulled them about half-way across, she pointed to a broad
vacant spot on the bank where a new building was just rising above the
soil, and said sadly to her husband:
"Would you know that place again? Where is our dear old temple gone?
The temple of Dionysus." Karnis started up so hastily that he almost
upset the boat, and their conductor was obliged to insist on his keeping
quiet; he obeyed but badly, however, for his arms were never still as he
broke out:
"And do you suppose that because we are in Egypt I can keep my living
body as still as one of your dead mummies? Let others keep still if they
can! I say it is shameful, disgraceful; a dove's gall might rise at it! That
splendid building, the pride of the city and the delight of men's eyes,
destroyed--swept away like dust from the road! Do you see? Do you
see, I say? Broken columns, marble capitals, here, there and
everywhere at the bottom of the lake--here a head and there a torso!
Great and noble masters formed those statues by the aid of the gods,
and they--they, small and ignoble as they are, have destroyed them by
the aid of evil daemons. They have annihilated and drowned works that
were worthy to live forever! And why? Shall I tell you? Because they
shun the Beautiful as an owl shuns light. Aye, they do! There is nothing
they hate or dread so much as beauty; wherever they find it, they deface
and destroy it, even if it is the work of the Divinity. I accuse them
before the Immortals--for where is the grove even, not the work of man
but the special work of Heaven itself? Where is our grove, with its cool
grottos, its primaeval trees, its shady nooks, and all the peace and
enjoyment of which it was as full as a ripe grape is full of sweet juice?"
"It was cut down and rooted up," replied the steward. "The emperor
gave the sanctuary over to Bishop Theophilus and he set to work at
once to destroy it. The temple was pulled down, the sacred vessels went

into the melting-pot, and the images were mutilated and insulted before
they were thrown into the lime-kiln. The place they are building now is
to be a Christian church. Oh! to think of the airy, beautiful colonnades
that once stood there, and then of the dingy barn that is to take their
place!"
"Why do the gods endure it? Has Zeus lost his thunderbolts?" cried
Orpheus clenching his hands, and paying no heed to Agne who sat pale
and sternly silent during this conversation.
"Nay, he only sleeps, to wake with awful power," said the old man.
"See those blocks of marble and ruins under the waves. Swift work is
destruction! And men lost their wits and looked on at the crime,
flinging the delight of the gods into the water and the kiln. They were
wise, very wise; fishes and flames are dumb and cannot cry to heaven.
One barbarian, in one hour can destroy what it has taken the sublimest
souls years, centuries, to create. They glory in destruction and ruin and
they can no more build up again such a temple as stood there than they
can restore trees that have taken six hundred years to grow. There--out
there, Herse, in the hollow where those black fellows are stirring
mortar--they have given them shirts too, because they are ashamed of
the beauty of men's bodies--that is where the grotto was where we
found your poor father."
"The grotto?" repeated his wife, looking at the spot through her tears,
and thinking of the day when, as a girl, she had hurried to the feast of
Dionysus and sought her father in the temple. He had been famous as a
gem-cutter. In obedience to the time-honored tradition in Alexandria,
after intoxicating himself with new wine in honor of the god, he had
rushed out into the street to join the procession. The next morning he
had not returned; the afternoon passed and evening came and still he
did not appear, so his daughter had gone in search of him. Karnis was
at that time a young student and, as her father's lodger, had rented the
best room in the house. He had met her going on her errand and had
been very ready to help her in the search; before long they had found
the old man in the ivy-grown grotto in the grove of
Dionysus--motionless and cold, as if struck by lightning. The

bystanders believed that the god had snatched him away in his
intoxicated legion.
In this hour of sorrow Karnis had proved himself her friend, and a few
months after Herse had become