Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/330

294 drought had burnt up their crops, and laid all the vineyards and olive-gardens desolate. To escape starvation they had fled to the starving. There they lay—men, women, and children—in heaps along the walls of the houses; fever shook them, famine gnawed their entrails. What had Caesarea to offer them—that impoverished, unhappy town, as yet but half rebuilt after the great earthquake of two years ago? And in the midst of this, amid scorching heat and frequent earthquake-shocks, we had to see ungodly festivals going on day and night. The ruined altars were hastily rebuilt; the blood of sacrifices ran in streams; mummers and harlots paraded the streets with dance and song.

Sire—can you wonder that my much-tried brethren thought they saw in the visitation that had come upon them a judgment of heaven because they had so long tolerated heathenism and its scandalous symbols in their midst?

What symbols do you mean?

The cry of the terror-stricken and fevered multitude rose ever higher; they demanded that the rulers of the city should give a palpable witness for Christ by ordering the destruction of what still remains of the former glory of heathendom in Caesarea.

You cannot mean to say that?