Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/228

216 and well, as if a burden had been cast from me; and then I saw that I was even in this garden, and a multitude of people, whom I knew well, were assembled to see the burial of some great man. I spoke to some, but none did answer me nor looked my way, and methought I was struck dumb. Then I heard one say to the other: ' 'T is the burial of Lazarus.'

"Then I bethought me I would go back to see whether my body still lay there, for I said, 'If Lazarus doth still lie here, then indeed the spirit and the body are not one, even as the Lord hath spoken. '

"Then I entered my room and I saw my own body stretched out on the bed, and all ye good women and Joanna and Rachel too did tend me and embalm me. And, while I looked, methought, 'How much of foul greed is in that face, how much of weary thought; yet how little hath that body understood the burden that it carried.'

"I looked at the costly curtains of my room. I smelt the fragrant scents that rose on the air; I noticed the costly cedar-wood carvings and the Ethiopian ivories, and I said: 'Thou fool; and didst thou think all this beautiful and rare, and thyself great, because thou hadst these things, and versed in love and wisdom because thou hadst read the sayings and doings of other fools as great as thy own self?'

"And then it seemed as though the body mocked me, and while ye were striving to bind one arm in grave clothes, it did rise and seem to point at me with blue, dead fingers, and a voice like mine did seem to say: 'Truly now thou hast escaped me, but in life we were not divided. Who was the stronger,