Demas And Gestas Have
A Quarrel, In Which Gestas Is Rather Roughly Handled, And Goes Off
Growling Like Every Villain,
Qui se respecte, - "I will have
r-revenge." Barabbas proposes to go around to the cider-cellars, but
Demas confides
To him that he is enslaved by a dream of a child, who
said to him, "Follow me - to Paradise;" that he had come down to
Jerusalem to seek and find the mysterious infant of his vision. The
jovial Barabbas seems imperfectly impressed by these transcendental
fancies, and at this moment Mary comes in dressed like a Madonna of
Guido Reni, and soon after St. Joseph and his staff. They ask each other
where is the Child, - a scene of alarm and bustle, which ends by the door
of the Temple flying open and discovering, shrined in ineffable light,
Jesus teaching the doctors.
In the fourth act, Demas meets a beautiful woman by the city gate, in
the loose, graceful dress of the Hetairai, and the most wonderful
luxuriance of black curls I have ever seen falling in dense masses to
her knees. After a conversation of amorous banter, he gives her a
golden chain, which she assumes, well pleased, and gives him her name,
La Magdalena. A motley crowd of street loafers here rushed upon the
scene, and I am sure there was no one of Northern blood in the theatre
that did not shudder for an instant at the startling apparition that
formed the central figure of the group.
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