each one of those who had been painted was then thrown into the abyss, just as the others; they left but the image, and that they placed on a pole, that it might be seen by all. "What immortality, then, is this?" I said. "They leave here only the paper and the ink with which the man's name is daubed on the paper. The man himself perishes as miserably as other men. This is but deceit—dear God, deceit! What is that to me that one bedaubs me[1] on paper, if, meanwhile, I know not what befalls me. I give no import to this." Hearing this, the interpreter chides me as a madman, and asks me what purpose there is in the world for one whose thoughts were thus contrary to those of all others.
(In History also there is much Falsehood.)
5. Then I was silent, and lo! I discover a new falsehood. The image of one whom in life I had seen well shaped and handsome, was deformed; on the other hand, I saw that they had made the most beautiful image they could of one who was hideous; they made two, three, four images of one man, and each one was different; therefore both the carelessness and the faithlessness of these painters enraged me. I witness also the vanity of all this. For when I look at these pictures I see that many were so antiquated, dust-covered, mouldy, rotten, that one could recognise little or nothing at all; some could in the number hardly be distinguished from
- ↑ I.e., my name.
