And only after they spoke to him much and long of beauty, he
would reply wearily:
"But all this is--a lie."
And in the daytime, when the sun was shining, he would go into his
rich and beautifully laid-out garden, and finding a place where there
was no shadow, would expose his bare head and his dull eyes to the
glitter and burning heat of the sun. Red and white butterflies
fluttered around; down into the marble cistern ran splashing water
from the crooked mouth of a blissfully drunken Satyr; but he sat
motionless, like a pale shadow of that other one who, in a far land,
at the very gates of the stony desert, also sat motionless under the
fiery sun.
V
And it came about finally that Lazarus was summoned to Rome by the
great Augustus.
They dressed him in gorgeous garments as though it had been ordained
that he was to remain a bridegroom to an unknown bride until the very
day of his death. It was as if an old coffin, rotten and falling
apart, were regilded over and over, and gay tassels were hung on it.
And solemnly they conducted him in gala attire, as though in truth it
were a bridal procession, the runners loudly sounding the trumpet that
the way be made for the ambassadors of the Emperor.
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