Julian.
Scandalous? Call you that way scandalous? Is not this the end of all wisdom. Communion between spirit and spirit——
Basil.
Oh, dear, misguided friend——!
Libanius.
More than scandalous, I call it! What is Hecate? What are the gods, as a whole, in the eyes of enlightened humanity? We have happily left far behind us the blind old singer’s days. Maximus ought to know better than that. Has not Plato—and we others after him—shed the light of interpretation over the whole? Is it not scandalous now, in our own days, to seek to enshroud afresh in riddles and misty dreams this admirable, palpable, and, let me add, this laboriously constructed edifice of ideas and interpretations which we, as lovers of wisdom, as a school, as——
Julian.
[Wildly.] Basil, farewell! I see a light on my path!
Basil.
[Flinging his arms around him.] I will not let you go; I will hold you fast!