Makrina.
Blaspheme not; though surely you have loved this dead man
Maximus.
[Approaching the body.] Loved, and led him astray—Nay, not I!
Led astray like Cain. Led astray like Judas.—Your God is a spendthrift God, Galileans! He wears out many souls.
Wast thou not then, this time either, the chosen one—thou victim on the altar of necessity?
What is it worth to live? All is sport and mockery.—To <g>will</g> is to <g>have</g> to will.
Oh my beloved—all signs deceived me, all auguries spoke with a double tongue, so that I saw in thee the mediator between the two empires.
The third empire shall come! The spirit of man shall re-enter on its heritage—and then shall offerings of atonement[1] be made to thee, and to thy two guests in the symposium.
[He goes out.
Makrina.
[Rising, pale.] Basil—did you understand the heathen's speech?
Basil.
No,—but it dawns on me like a great and
- ↑ Here occurs the one clear case I have observed of a revision of the text. In earlier editions the phrase ran "da skal der tændes rögoffer," meaning literally "then shall burnt-offerings (smoke-offerings) be lighted." In the collected edition (1899) "sonoffer" (offerings of atonement) is substituted for "rögoffer." This can scarcely be a printer's error; and as one deliberate alteration has been made, it would seem that the alterations noted on pp. 382 and 417 (especially the former) may also be due, not to the printer, but to the poet.
