During the last thirty years much indeed was changed, and nothing to the
satisfaction of old Karnis; Herse, too, shook her head, and when the
rowers had pulled them about half-way across, she pointed to a broad
vacant spot on the bank where a new building was just rising above the
soil, and said sadly to her husband:

"Would you know that place again? Where is our dear old temple gone?
The temple of Dionysus." Karnis started up so hastily that he almost
upset the boat, and their conductor was obliged to insist on his keeping
quiet; he obeyed but badly, however, for his arms were never still as he
broke out:

"And do you suppose that because we are in Egypt I can keep my living
body as still as one of your dead mummies? Let others keep still if they
can! I say it is shameful, disgraceful; a dove's gall might rise at it!
That splendid building, the pride of the city and the delight of men's
eyes, destroyed--swept away like dust from the road! Do you see? Do you
see, I say? Broken columns, marble capitals, here, there and everywhere
at the bottom of the lake--here a head and there a torso! Great and
noble masters formed those statues by the aid of the gods, and they--
they, small and ignoble as they are, have destroyed them by the aid of
evil daemons. They have annihilated and drowned works that were worthy
to live forever! And why? Shall I tell you? Because they shun the
Beautiful as an owl shuns light. Aye, they do! There is nothing they
hate or dread so much as beauty; wherever they find it, they deface and
destroy it, even if it is the work of the Divinity. I accuse them before
the Immortals--for where is the grove even, not the work of man but the
special work of Heaven itself? Where is our grove, with its cool
grottos, its primaeval trees, its shady nooks, and all the peace and