Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/211

 tually upon false pretences, they reveal to the confiding dupes the real meaning of the engagement they have entered into only at the last moment, when it is too late for them to escape the murderous knife. One evening, two men, one of them young and blooming, the other old, with sallow and unnaturally smooth face, were conversing, while sipping their tea, in a house in Moscow. ‘Virgins will alone stand before the throne of the Most High,’ said the elder man. ‘He who looks on a woman with desire commits adultery in his heart, and adulterers shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’ ‘What then should we sinners do?’ asked the young man. ‘Knowest thou not,’ replied the elder, ‘the word of the Lord? If thy right eye leadeth thee into temptation, pluck it out and cast it from thee; if thy right hand leadeth thee into temptation, cut it off and cast it from thee. What ye must do is to kill the flesh. Ye must become like unto the disembodied angels, and that may be attained only through being made white as snow.’ ‘And how can we be made thus white?’ further inquired the young man. ‘Come and see,’ said the old man. He took his companion down many stairs, into a cellar resplendent with lights. Some fifteen white robed men and women were gathered there. In a corner was a stove, in which blazed a fire. After some Rh