"Ah, I see; you don't want the crooked one?"
"No; my old bones crack at the very idea of the crooked one."
In the catacombs, and especially near the relics, so much value was set upon grave-sites that it was necessary to contrive slanting tombs which were leased to the poor.
"God knows how long one will have to wait for the resurrection," the old woman was explaining; "and if I took a tomb on the slant it would be all very well to begin with, but when I got tired it wouldn't do at all."
Anatolius listened in astonishment.
"It is much more curious than the mysteries of Mithra," he observed to Arsinoë with a languid smile. "Pity that I didn't know it sooner. I've never seen such an amusing cemetery."
They went on into a rather large chamber called the cubicula of consolation. A multitude of small lamps were burning on the walls. The priest was at the evening office, the stone lid of a martyr's tomb placed under an arched vault (arcosolium) serving as altar. There were many of the faithful in long white robes, every face serenely happy. Myrrha, kneeling with eyes full of love, was gazing at the Good Shepherd pictured on the ceiling of the chamber. In the catacombs early Christian customs had been revived, so that after the liturgy all present, looking on themselves as brothers and sisters, gave each other the kiss of peace. Arsinoë following the general example with a smile kissed Anatolius.
Then all four climbed again toward the upper storeys, whence they could take their way to the secret retreat of Juventinus, an old pagan tomb, a columbarium, lying at some distance from the Appian Way. There, while waiting for the ship which was to take him to Egypt, the land of holy anchorites, he was living hidden from the searches of his mother and of government officials. He lodged with Didimus, a good old man from the Lower Thebaïd, to whom Juventinus gave blind and unquestioning obedience.
Here they found Didimus squatting on his heels, weaving basket-work. The moon-rays, filtering through a narrow opening, glinted on his white hair and long beard. From top to bottom of the walls of the columbarium were little niches like pigeons' nests, and each of these contained a mortuary urn.
Myrrha, of whom the old man was very fond, kissed his withered hand respectfully, and prayed him to tell her some story about the hermit fathers of the desert. Nothing pleased her better than these wonderful and terrible tales by Didimus.