Criminal as he was, his
joy in his abasement, his glory in his miserable isolation from
humanity, was a doom of degradation pitiable to behold.
After an interval his mood changed. He rose to his feet, his trembling
limbs strengthened with a youthful vigour as he ascended the temple
steps and gained its doorway. He turned for a moment, and looked forth
over the street, ere he entered the hallowed domain of his distempered
imagination. To him the cloudy sky above was now shining with the
radiance of the sun-bright East. The death-laden highways of Rome, as
they stretched before him, were beautiful with lofty trees, and populous
with happy figures; and along the dark flagstones beneath, where still
lay the corpses which he had no eye to see, he beheld already the
priests of Serapis with his revered guardian, his beloved Macrinus of
former days, at their head, advancing to meet and welcome him in the
hall of the Egyptian god. Visions such as these passed gloriously
before the Pagan's eyes as he stood triumphant on the steps of the
temple, and brightened to him with a noonday light its dusky recesses
when, after his brief delay, he turned from the street and disappeared
through the doorway of the sacred place.
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