"No, no; why nurse empty dreams? That can never be. I shall perish. Anger will stifle me. Listen; every night after passing the day on my knees in churches, bowed over relics, I go home broken with fatigue; I fling myself on the bed and sob; yes, bite my own flesh, to avoid crying out with pain. Oh, you cannot know yet, Arsinoë, this Galilean horror and infection in which I have agonised for twenty years without escaping by death. We Christians take a deal of killing,—worms that live on even when cut in pieces! At first I used to seek consolation in the teachings of the diviners and philosophers. It was hopeless. I follow neither the one nor the other. I am wicked and I wish to be wickeder still. To be strong and terrible as the Demon, my only brother.... But why, why can I not forget that there is beauty in the world; why, O cruel one, did you dawn upon my life?"
With a quick spontaneous movement Arsinoë flung her bare arms round Julian's neck, drew him to her so strongly, so closely, that he felt the whole freshness of her body, murmuring—
"And if I did come towards you, O young man, what if it were as a sibyl to prophesy you glory? You alone are alive among the dead! Splendour is yours! What matters it to me that your wings are no swan's wings, but wings of the black and lost, your talons, talons of a bird of prey? My love is for all the revolted, the reprobate, the rejected—you understand me, Julian? I love the proud and solitary eagles better than any stainless swan. Only ... be prouder yet, be wickeder yet! Dare up to the height of your ambition! Lie without shame; better lie than be humiliated. Fear not hate; it is the impetus of your wings. Come, shall we make an alliance? You shall give me power, I will give you beauty. Are you willing, Julian?"
Again through the light folds of her antique peplum, as once in the palæstra, he saw the breathing image of the huntress Artemis; it seemed that divine body shone through, golden and tender.
His head reeled in the lunar shadow enveloping them. Those haughty lips laughingly approached his own.
For the last time he mused. "I must tear myself away. She does not love me. She will never love me. Her love is only for power."
But immediately he added to himself, with a faint smile: "Well, let it be so! I consent to be duped!"
The chill of the strange and insatiate kiss of Arsinoë shot to his heart like the chill of death. It seemed as if Artemis herself, in the translucence of the moon, had descended towards him, embraced him, and mocked him, and like a beam of moonlight fled away.
On the following morning Basil of Cæsarea and Gregory of Nazianzen came across Julian in a basilica in Athens. He was kneeling in prayer. The two friends gazed at him, surprised. Never had they seen upon his features such an expression of rapt serenity.