understand, you merciless, pitiless daughter, all that we have suffered? Had you the right to buy for yourself eternal salvation at such a price? Oh! wicked, cruel, beloved one! When the sun had set, my old man gave me money, and said: ‘Go and bring me all they have left us of Lydia.’ So I have come, and have found her tattered tunic, and her scalp and hair, and her lovely hands, with the bracelets her father put on them when she was fifteen. Oh, ye gods, ye gods! Is it for this that we have brought her up and watched over her, and cared for her, that she should be a fairer sacrifice for the accursed Jews? Talk of mercy and love, and then take away from anguished parents their only joy, the light and mainstay of their old age! May they be accursed and thrice accursed, these demented, perverted villains, these murderers of our children!” And the old woman fell forward with a cry, on the tresses of the hapless Lydia. Not far away from her sat a proud young beauty, in a luxurious gold-embroidered tunic, her eyes fixed on the head of a young handsome Roman. Large, slow teardrops followed each other down her face, but she did not notice them nor attempt to brush them away. She only threw herself, at intervals, on the bleeding corpse, embraced it with her soft arms, and passionately kissed the cold lips and the golden moustache. “What have you done? What have you done? My adored, cruel husband! How could you leave me, forget my love, forget our happiness together? Were we all, your relations, your friends, your nearest and dearest, of so little import to you, that you could abandon us for the sake of a mad dream? How could you, a clever, well-bred noble Roman, fall under the influence of low, filthy slaves? They are all frantic about some wild idea, some frenzied vision, and _you_—_you_ could believe them, and share their madness! “Oh! What shall I do with my life without you? You took me, a young, careless, innocent child, you taught me the happiness of love, and now you have pitilessly abandoned me! I pass whole days and nights in the remembrance of your caresses, I stretch out my hands, I grope for you in the dark, and I shall never find you again! Oh! How terrible, how incredible is this thought. Thousands, millions of people are born every day, but never again will the world see your like!