"Because I am regarded as a foul fiend by the most pious among you perhaps ?" "But it is because you are a sinner that Heaven denies you its blessing." "No--no, a thousand times no!" cried Miriam.

"No god has ever troubled himself about me.

And if I am not good, why should I be when nothing but evil ever has fallen to my share?
Do you know who I am and how I became so?
I was wicked, perhaps, when both my parents were slain in their pilgrimage hither?
Why, I was then no more than six years old, and what is a child of that age?
But still I very well remember that there were many camels grazing near our house, and horses too that belonged to us, and that on a hand that often caressed me--it was my mother's hand--a large jewel shone.

I had a black slave too that obeyed me; when she and I did not agree I used to hang on to her grey woolly hair and beat her.
Who knows what may have become of her?
I did not love her, but if I had her now, how kind I would be to her.

And now for twelve years I myself have eaten the bread of servitude, and have kept Senator Petrus's goats, and if I ventured to show myself at a festival among the free maidens, they would turn me out and pull the wreath out of my hair.