Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/58

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caesar's apostasy.
[act i.

Agathon.

I come at the bidding of the Lord God.

Julian.

If you love your Saviour or your salvation, get you home again. [Leans over the balustrade and listens.] Speak softy; a boat is coming in——

[Leads him over towards the other side.

What would you here? Kiss the splinter of the holy cross?—Get you home again, I say! Know you what Constantinople has become in these last fifteen months? A Babylon of blasphemy.—Have you not heard—do you not know that Libanius is here?

Agathon.

Ah, Julian, I know not Libanius.

Julian.

Secluded Cappadocian! Happy region, where his voice and his teaching have found no echo.

Agathon.

Ah, he is one of those heathen teachers of falsehood——?

Julian.

The most dangerous of them all.

Agathon.

Surely not more dangerous than Aedesius of Pergamus?

Julian.

Aedesius!—who now thinks of Aedesius of Pergamus? Aedesius is in his dotage——