[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





HOMO SUM

By Georg Ebers

Volume 2.


CHAPTER V.

Thanks to the senator's potion Stephanus soon fell asleep. Paulus sat
near him and did not stir; he held his breath, and painfully suppressed
even an impulse to cough, so as not to disturb the sick man's light
slumbers.

An hour after midnight the old man awoke, and after he had lain
meditating for some time with his eyes open, he said thoughtfully: "You
called yourself and us all egotistic, and I certainly am so. I have
often said so to myself; not for the first time to day, but for weeks
past, since Hermas came back from Alexandria, and seems to have forgotten
how to laugh. He is not happy, and when I ask myself what is to become
of him when I am dead, and if he turns from the Lord and seeks the
pleasures of the world, my heart sickens. I meant it for the best when