"'My hands are not for work.'
"'But for what?' wondered the scribe, spreading apart her fingers (as I do thine, Kama," said the prince, fondling the small hands of the priestess). "' But what are those arms for?' inquired the scribe of the figure.
"'To put around thy neck.'
"'Thou wishest to say shoulder,' cried the frightened scribe, whom the priest always seized by the shoulder when he was to get stripes.
"'Not by the shoulder,' said the figure, 'but this way;' and she put her arms around his neck thus," said the prince (here he put his arms around the priestess), "and she nestled up to his breast thus" (here he nestled up to Kama).
"Lord, what art Thou doing?" whispered Kama. "But this is nay death."
"Have no fear," replied the prince; "I was only showing thee what the statue did to that scribe in his palace. The moment she embraced him the earth trembled, the palace disappeared, dogs, horses, slaves vanished. The hill covered with grape-vines turned into a cliff, the olive-trees into thorns, the wheat into sand. The scribe, when he recovered in the embrace of his love, understood that he was as poor as he had been on the highroad a day earlier. But he did not regret his wealth, since he had a woman who loved and who clung to him."
"So everything vanished but the woman!" exclaimed Kama, naively.
"The compassionate Amon left her to the scribe to console him," said the viceroy.
"Then Amon is compassionate only to scribes," answered Kama. "But what does that story signify?"