“Thais is going to leave the city; we shall sell no more to her; it is dreadful to think of. What will become of us without her? This monk has driven her mad. He is ruining us. Why let him do it? What is the use of the laws? Are there no magistrates in Alexandria? Thais does not think about us and our wives and our poor children. It is a public scandal. She ought to be compelled to stay in the city.” The young men, on their part, also thought-- “If Thais is going to renounce acting and love, our chief amusements will be taken from us. She was the glory, delight, and honour of the stage. She was the joy even of those who had never possessed her. The women we loved, we loved in her. There were no kisses given in which she was altogether absent, for she was the joy of all voluptuaries, and the mere thought that she breathed amongst us excited us to pleasure.” Thus thought the young men, and one of them, named Cerons, who had held her in his arms, cried out upon the abduction, and blasphemed against Christ. In every group the conduct of Thais was severely criticised. “It is a shameful flight!” “A cowardly desertion!” “She is taking the bread out of our mouths.” “She is robbing our children.” “She ought at least to pay for the wreaths I have sold to her.” “And the sixty robes she has ordered of me.” “She owes money to everybody.” “Who will represent Iphigenia, Electra, and Polyxena when she is gone? The handsome Polybia herself will not make such a success as she has done.” “Life will be dull when her door is closed.” “She was the bright star, the soft moon of the Alexandrian sky.” All the most notorious mendicants of the city--cripples, blind men, and paralytics--had by this time assembled in the place; and crawling through the remnants of the riches, they groaned-- “How shall we live when Thais is no longer here to feed us? Every day the fragments from her table fed two hundred poor wretches, and her lovers, when they quitted her, threw us as they passed handfuls of silver pieces.” Some thieves, too, also mingled with the crowd, and created a deafening clamour, and pushed their neighbours, to increase disorder, and take advantage of the tumult to filch some valuable object. Old Taddeus, who sold Miletan wool and Tarentan linen, and to whom Thais owed a large sum of money, alone remained calm and silent in the midst of the uproar. He listened and watched, and gently stroking his goat-beard, seemed thoughtful. At last he approached young Cerons, and pulling him by the sleeve, whispered-- “You are the favoured lover of Thais, handsome youth; show yourself, and do not allow this monk to carry her off.” “By Pollux and his sister, he shall not!” cried Cerons. “I will speak to Thais, and without flattering myself, I think she will listen to me rather than to that sooty-faced Lapithan. Place! Place, dogs!”