Oh,
why could I not die with thee, I who slew thee? Alas, that I cannot die!
Alas! Alas!" and she flung herself prone upon the ground, and sobbed and
wept till I thought her heart must burst.
Suddenly she ceased, raised herself to her feet, rearranged her robe,
and, tossing back her long locks impatiently, swept across to where the
figure lay upon the stone.
"Oh Kallikrates," she cried, and I trembled at the name, "I must look
upon thy face again, though it be agony. It is a generation since
I looked upon thee whom I slew--slew with mine own hand," and with
trembling fingers she seized the corner of the sheet-like wrapping that
covered the form upon the stone bier, and then paused. When she spoke
again, it was in a kind of awed whisper, as though her idea were
terrible even to herself.
"Shall I raise thee," she said, apparently addressing the corpse, "so
that thou standest there before me, as of old? I _can_ do it," and she
held out her hands over the sheeted dead, while her whole frame became
rigid and terrible to see, and her eyes grew fixed and dull.
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