_The Young Woman has become fatter. Her robe gleams with shifting colours; her nostrils palpitate, her eyes roll softly._)
THE FORMER (_opening her arms, exclaiming_):
"Come to me!--I am Consolation, repose, oblivion, eternal calm!"
"I am the sleep-giver, life, happiness inexhaustible!"
(_Anthony turns to fee from them. Each lays a hand on his shoulder._
_The Shroud parts, exposes the Skeleton of Death._
_The robe splits asunder, and leaves the whole body of Lust exposed:--her waist is slender; her long and undulating hair flutters in the wind._
_Anthony stands motionless between the two, considering them_):
"What matters it, whether now or at another time! Thou art mine,--like suns, nations, cities, kings, mountain-snows, and the grasses of the fields. I fly higher than the hawks of heaven. I run more swiftly than the gazelle; I overtake even Hope; I vanquished the Son of God!"
LUST. "Resist not! I am the Omnipotent! The forests re-echo with my sighs; the waters tremble with my agitations. Virtue, courage, piety, dissolve in the perfume of my mouth. Man I accompany in every step that he makes; and even from the threshold of the tomb he turns to me!"
DEATH. "I will find for thee that which thou hast vainly sought for, by the gleam of torches, upon the faces of the dead,--or among those awful sands that are formed of human remains, where thou wast wont to wander beyond the Pyramids. From time to time, the fragment of a skull rolled under thy sandal. Thou didst take up the dust: thou didst let it trickle through thy fingers; and thy thought, blending with it, sank into nothingness."
LUST. "My gulf is deeper! Marbles have inspired loves. Men rush to conjunctures that terrify. Fetters are riveted that the fettered curse. Whence the bewitchment of courtesans, the extravagance of dreams, the immensity of my sadness?"
DEATH. "Mine irony depasseth all others! There are convulsions of delight at the funerals of kings, at the extermination of a whole people; and war is made with music, with plumes, with harness of gold,--with vast display of ceremony that my due of homage may be greater!"
[Illustration: Death: Mine irony depasseth all others!]
LUST. "My rage equals thine! I also yell; I bite! I, too, have sweats of agony, and aspects cadaverous!"