In the Moon temple there is no sacred pillar, but just the egg of stone. Beside it, on a tripod, a deathly pale woman was sitting so still that at first I took her for a statue in the darkness. But Aunt Laelia spoke to her in a voice that mewed with humility, calling her Helena and buying holy oil from her to rub into the egg. As she poured out the oil in drops, she mumbled a magic formula which only women are allowed to learn. For men it is useless to make offerings to this egg. As she was making offerings, I looked at the votive gifts and noticed to my delight that there were several small round’ silver boxes amongst them. I was ashamed at the thought of what I had promised to offer to the Moon goddess, for I considered it best to take it to the temple in a closed box when the time was right.
Just then the pale woman turned to me, looked at me with her frightening black eyes, smiled and said, “Don’t be ashamed of your thoughts, oh handsome youth. The Moon Goddess is a more powerful goddess than you think. If you can win her favor, then you will possess a power incomparably greater than the raw strength of Mars or the barren wisdom of Minerva.”
She spoke Latin with an accent, so that it sounded as if she had spoken some ancient forgotten language. Her face became enlarged in my eyes, as if shining with a hidden moonlight, and when she smiled I saw that she was beautiful despite her pallor. Aunt Laelia spoke to her even more humbly, so that I suddenly thought she looked like a thin cat, insinuatingly stroking and weaving herself around the stone
“No, no, not a cat,” said the priestess, still smiling. “A lioness. Don’t you see? What have you got to do with lions, boy?”
Her words frightened me and for a very brief moment I really seemed to see a thin troubled lioness where Aunt Laelia had been standing. It looked at me as reproachfully as the old lion outside Antioch had done when I had jabbed its paw with my spear. But the vision vanished as I brushed my hand across my forehead.
“Is your father at home?” asked Aunt Laelia. “And do you think he would receive us?”
“My father Simon has fasted and journeyed in many countries to appear unexpectedly to people who respect his divine power,” said the priestess Helena. “But I know that at the moment he is awake and is expecting you both.”
She took us through the rear door of the temple and a few steps beyond it to a tall block which had a shop for holy souvenirs on the ground floor full of both cheap and expensive moons and stars of copper and quite small polished stone eggs. The priestess Helena at once looked quite ordinary, her thin face yellow and her white cloak soiled and smelling foully of stale incense. She was no longer young.
She took us through the shop into a dirty back room where a black-bearded, thick-nosed man was sitting on a mat on the floor. He raised his eyes toward us as if he were still in another world, but then rose stiffly to greet Aunt Laelia.
“I was speaking with an Ethiopian magician,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. “But I felt it in me that you were on your way here. Why do you disturb me, Laelia Manilia? From your silks and jewels I see that you have already received all the good things I foretold. What more do you want?”
Aunt Laelia explained meekly that I slept in the room in which Simon the magician had lived for so long. I had bad dreams at night, ground my teeth and cried out in my sleep. Aunt Laelia wanted to know the reasons for this and if possible to receive a remedy for it.
“I was also in debt to you, dearest Simon, when you left my house in your bitterness,” said Aunt Laelia, and she asked me to give the magician three gold pieces.
Simon the magician did not take the money himself, but just nodded to his daughter-if the priestess Helena really was his daughter-and she took it indifferently. Three Roman aureii is after all three hundred sesterces or seventy-five silver coins, so I was annoyed at her superciliousness.
The magician sat down on his mat again and asked me to sit opposite him. The priestess Helena threw a few pinches of incense into the holder.
“I heard that you broke your leg when you were flying,” I said politely at last, as the magician said nothing and just stared at me.
“I had a fall on the other side of the sea in Samaria,” he began in a monotonous voice. But Aunt Laelia became impatient and started to fidget.
“Oh, Simon, won’t you command us as before?” she pleaded.
The magician held his forefinger up in the air. Aunt Laelia stiffened and began to stare at it. Without even glancing at her, — . Simon the magician said, “You can no longer turn your head, Laelia Manilia. And don’t disturb us, but go bathe in the spring. When you step into the water, you will be satisfied and become younger.”
Aunt Laelia did not go anywhere but just remained immobile where she was, staring stupidly ahead as she made gestures as if she were undressing. Simon the magician went on looking at me and returned to his story.
“I had a tower of stone,” he said. “The moon and all five of the planets served me and my power was divine. The Moon Goddess took on human form in Helena and became my daughter. With her help I could see into both the past and the future. But then came magicians from Galilee whose powers were greater than mine. They needed only to place their hands on a man’s head and he would begin to speak and the spirit came to him. I was still young then and wanted to study all kinds of powers. So I bade them lay their hands on me too and promised them a large sum of money if they would transfer their powers to me so that I could perform the same miracle as they did. But they were miserly with their powers and cursed me and forbade me to use the name of their god in my activities. Look in my eyes, boy. What is your name?”
“Minutus,” I said reluctantly, for his monotonous voice, more than his story, had made my head whirl. “Oughtn’t you to know that without asking me, if you’re such a great magician?” I added sarcastically.
“Minutus, Minutus,” he repeated. “The power in me tells me that you will receive another name before the moon waxes for the third time. But I did not believe the Galilean magicians. On the contrary, I cured the sick in the name of their God until they began to persecute me and had me prosecuted in Jerusalem because of a little gold Eros. A rich woman gave it to me of her own free will. Look in my eyes, Minutus. But they bewitched her with their powers so that she herself forgot she had given it to me. Instead she said that I had made myself invisible and stolen it from her. You know I can make myself invisible, don’t you? I count to three, Minutus. One, two, three. Now you cannot see me any longer.”
He really did fade away from view so that I seemed to be staring at a shimmering ball which was perhaps a moon. But I shook my head violently, shut my eyes and opened them again, and then he was sitting opposite me just as before.
“I can see you as before, Simon the magician,” I said distrustfully. “I don’t want to look into your eyes.”
He laughed in a friendly way, made a dismissive gesture with his hands and said, “You are a stubborn boy and I don’t want to force you, for that would bring nothing good. But look at Manilia Laelius.”
I looked at Aunt Laelia. She had raised her hands and was leaning back with a rapturous expression on her face. The wrinkles around her mouth and eyes had been smoothed out and her figure had become buoyant and youthful.
“Where are you at the moment, Manilia Laelius?” asked Simon the magician in a commanding voice.
In girlish tones, Aunt Laelia replied at once. “I’m bathing in your spring,” she said. “The wonderful water covers me completely so that I am quivering all over.”