The surrounding leaves shrivel up. Fleeing rats rush over the ground.
He slowly turns his eyes downward toward the rising flames, and then continues:—)
"I have loathed Form, I have loathed Perception, I have loathed even Knowledge itself, for the thought does not survive the transitory fact which caused it; and mind, like all else, is only an illusion.
"All that is engendered will perish; all that is dead must live again; the beings that have even now disappeared shall sojourn again in wombs as yet unformed, and shall again return to earth to serve in woe other creatures.
"But inasmuch as I have rolled through the revolution of an indefinite multitude of existences, under the envelopes of gods, of men, and of animals, I renounce further wanderings; I will endure this weariness no more! I abandon the filthy hostelry of this body of mine, built with flesh, reddened with blood, covered with a hideous skin, full of uncleanliness; and, for my recompense, I go at last to slumber in the deepest deeps of the Absolute—in Annihilation."
(The flames rise to his chest, then envelope him. His head rises through them as through a hole in the wall. His cavernous eyes still remain icicle open, gazing.)
Anthony (rises).
(The torch, which had fallen to the ground, has ignited the splinters of wood; and the flames have singed his beard.
With a loud cry, Anthony tramples the fire out; and, when nothing remains but ashes, he exclaims:—)
"Where can Hilarion be? He was here a moment ago. I saw him!