"Lucretius constantly led her back to Epicurus, and awakened a severe
conflict in her unresting mind. You probably know that he teaches that
life in itself is not so great a blessing that it must be deemed a
misfortune not to live. It is only spoiled by having death appear to us
as the greatest of misfortunes. Only the soul which ceases to regard
death as a misfortune finds peace. Whoever knows that thought and
feeling end with life will not fear death; for, no matter how many dear
and precious things the dead have left here below, their yearning for
them has ceased with life. He declares that providing for the body is
the greatest folly, while the Egyptian religion, in which Anubis strove
to strengthen her faith, maintained precisely the opposite.

"To a certain degree he succeeded, for his personality exerted a powerful
influence over her; and besides, she naturally took great pleasure in
mystical, supernatural things, as my brother Straton did in physical
strength, and you, Barine, enjoy the gift of song. You know Anubis by
sight. What Alexandrian has not seen this remarkable man? and whoever
has once met his eyes does not easily forget him. He does indeed rule
over mysterious powers, and he used them in his intercourse with
the young princess. It is his work if she cleaves to the religious
belief of her people, if she who is a Hellene to the last drop of blood
loves Egypt, and is ready to make any sacrifice for her independence and
grandeur. She is called 'the new Isis,' but Isis presides over the magic
arts of the Egyptians, and Anubis initiated Cleopatra into this secret
science, and even persuaded her to enter the observatory and the
laboratory--

"But all these things had their origin in our garden of Epicurus, and my
father did not venture to forbid it; for the King had sent a message from
Rome to say that he was glad to have Cleopatra find pleasure in her own