MIERIS. Can you part from her, and feel nothing? Even now, Satni, in denouncing the gods to the fury of the crowd, you did not say everything--You, who can see her, behold this little image, think how many tears were shed before her, in the years since she was made. She has been ours for generations. Call up the countless crowds of those who have fixed their anxious looks upon her eyes, dead even as mine are. It is for all the anguish she has looked upon, we must respect her. Tears make holy. I doubt not you are right: she must be broken too--but not without farewell. [_To Yaouma_] Where is she, Yaouma? I would say my last prayer to her. [_To the statue_] Oh, them who didst not heal, but didst console me; O thou who hast heard so many entreaties and thanksgivings, thou art but clay! Yet men have given thee life; thy life was not in thee, it was in them--and the proof is that thou diest, now they have taken their soul from thee. I give thee over to those who would break thee, but I revere thee, I salute thee, and I thank thee for all the hope thou hast given me; and I thank thee in the name of all the sorrows that thou hast sent to sleep. [To the men] Take her hence--let them destroy her with respect. _They take Isis away._ SATNI. There is nothing so sad or so great as the death of a god! [_A pause. To Yaouma, who comes through the crowd_] Behold, Yaouma! The gods are dead and I live--behold them! Do you believe me--do you believe me? _Sadly Yaouma looks at the broken statues, then bursts into tears before Satni, who stands amazed._ CURTAIN ACT III SCENE:--_The yard in front of the potter's hut. On the right from the middle of the back of the scene to the footlights, the walls of the dwelling made of beaten clay. Two unequal doors. The wall is slightly raised supporting a terrace where pottery of all kinds is drying in the sun. Left, a wall of loose stones high enough to lean on. Between the wall and the house an opening leading to an invisible inclined plane that descends to the Nile, the water and opposite bank of which are visible. Behind the house and on the right groups of lofty palms. The whole is abject misery beneath the splendor of a heaven blazing with light._ _Kirjipa, crouching down, is grinding corn between a large and a small stone. Satni is seated on the wall dreaming._ KIRJIPA. Son. SATNI. Mother. KIRJIPA. And so you do not believe that when the moon grows little by little less, 'tis because it is eaten by a pig? SATNI. No, mother. KIRJIPA. Then what beast eats it? SATNI. None. KIRJIPA [_laughing_] You have ideas that are not reasonable. What makes me marvel, is that your father seems to understand them. I must haste to make the bread, that he find it when he returns. SATNI. Here comes the messenger from Rheou. KIRJIPA [_horrified_] The messenger of him who kills the gods. SATNI. We do not kill what has no life.