"Yes, certainly, but where do the stones come from?" "From the monastery." "But why have the monks allowed it?" "How could they prevent it? The divine Augustus Julian himself ordered it. The god's blue eyes were used as an ornament on the robe of the Crucified that's all.... They talk about charity and justice, and they themselves are the worst of brigands! See how beautifully the stones fit into their old setting!..." The god fixed his sapphire eyes on Gnyphon. The old man recoiled and crossed himself, seized with dread. "Lord have mercy on us! It's horrible!" Remorse filled his soul, and while sweeping he began, as was his wont, to talk to himself-- "Gnyphon! Gnyphon! what a poor creature you are!... Just like a mangy dog one might say.... You're ending your days in a nice way! Why have you gone and damned yourself? The fiend has over-tempted you!... And now you go into everlasting fire without a chance of salvation. You've smirched soul and body, Gnyphon, by serving the abomination of the heathen!... Better had it been for thee hadst thou never been born!" "What are you groaning at, old man?" Philomena the draper's wife enquired. "My heart is heavy!... Oh, how heavy!" "Are you a Christian?" "Christian?--I am a betrayer of Christ!" answered Gnyphon, using his broom vigorously. "Would you like me to take away your sin so that not a trace of heathen defilement shall stick to you? You see I'm a Christian too, and yet afraid of nothing. Do you think I'd have undertaken work like this, if I hadn't known how to purify myself after it?" Gnyphon stared at her, incredulous. But the draper's wife, having ascertained that nobody could hear them, muttered mysteriously-- "Yes!... there is a means! I must tell you about it! A pilgrim made me a present of a little bit of Egyptian wood, called persis, which grows at Hermopolis, in the Thebaïd. When Jesus and His mother on their ass were going through the gates of the town, the persis tree bowed down before them to the earth; and ever since it has been a miraculous healer. I've got a little splinter of it, and I'll break off a bit for you. There's such a power in that wood, that if you put a bit into a vat of water and leave it there for a night the water becomes holy. You'll just wash yourself from head to foot in it, and the heathen abomination will leave you like magic, and you'll feel yourself light and pure. Isn't it written in the Bible, 'Thou shalt dip in the water and shalt become as white as snow'?" "Oh, my benefactress!" groaned Gnyphon, "save me! Give me a chip of that wonderful wood!" "Ah! you may well call it precious!... Just to do a good turn to a neighbour I'll give it you for a drachma."[9] "What's that you're saying, mother? Why, I never earned a drachma in my life! Will you take three obols?"[10] [9] Worth about 8_d._ [10] Six to the drachma. "Miser!" cried the draper's wife indignantly. "You stick at a drachma!... Isn't your immortal soul worth so much?"