Presently came the end--not a climax of action; not, in one sense, a climax at all. With a master-touch, Sophocles has made the end of "Antigone" the dead after-calm of evil action--a desolate despair. Slowly the group upon the stage melted away. _Creon_, with his hopeless cry upon his lips, "Death! Death! Only death!" moved with a weary languor toward the palace and slowly disappeared in the darkness beyond the ruined portal. There was a pause before the chorus uttered its final solemn words. And then--not as though obeying a stage direction, but rather as though moved severally by the longing in their own breasts to get away from that place of sorrow--those others also departed: going slowly, in little groups and singly, until at last the stage was bare. The audience was held bound in reality by the spell which had seemed to bind the chorus after _Creon's_ exit. Some moments passed before that spell was broken, before the eight thousand hearts beat normally again and the eight thousand throats burst forth into noisy applause--which was less, perhaps, an expression of gratitude for an artistic creation rarely equalled than of the natural rebound of the spirit after so tense a strain. In another moment the seats were emptied and the multitude was flowing down the tiers--a veritable torrent of humanity--into the pit: there to be packed for a while in a solid mass before it could work its way out through the insufficient exits and so return again to our modern world. And then the Roman Theatre--with a fresh legend of beauty added to the roll of its centuries--was left desert beneath the bright silence of the eternal stars. SAINT-REMY-DE-PROVENCE, _December, 1894._ THE END FOOTNOTES [1] _Recipe for Poumpo_: Flour, 101/2 oz.; brown sugar, 31/2 oz.; virgin olive oil (probably butter would answer), 31/2 oz.; the white and the yolk of one egg. Knead with enough water to make a firm paste. Fold in three and set to rise for eight or ten hours. Shape for baking, gashing the top. Bake in a slow oven. [2] _Vin cue_, literally cooked wine, is made at the time of the vintage by the following recipe: Boil unfermented grape-juice in a well scoured cauldron [or porcelain-lined vessel] for a quarter of an hour, skimming thoroughly. Pour into earthen pans, and let it stand until the following day. Pour again into the cauldron, carefully, so as to leave the dregs, and boil until reduced to one-half--or less, or more, according to the sweetness desired. A good rule is to boil in the wine a quince stuck full of cloves--the thorough cooking of the quince shows that the wine is cooked too. Set to cool in earthen pans, and when cold bottle and cork and seal. The Provencal cooked-wine goes back to Roman times. Martial speaks of "Cocta fumis musta Massiliensis."