Pollione. She pauses a moment, then asks the crowd to with-draw, for she wishes to learn from the prisoner whether he had accomplices in reaching the entrance of the temple.

Norma and Pollione remain alone, and she tells him that if he swears never to see Adalgisa again, she will grant him his freedom. He refuses, and will not bow to her command even when she threatens to kill his two children. Though he has no intention of giving up Adalgisa, he implores her not to harm the children, offering his own life in place of hers. Norma declares that the gods demand a victim, and that Adalgisa must be that victim. Once more Pollione offers himself in Adalgisa's stead. But Norma insists that by killing the woman he loves she will cause him a torment he could never suffer by any other means. Norma turns to the altar, mounts its steps, and stands like an avenging goddess. She sum-mons the people and announces to them that the victim has been chosen, saying that it is a priestess... a priestess who has broken her priestly vows. The people demand to know the name of this false priestess, and Pollione, believing that Norma is about to expose Adalgisa, implores her not to do it... But Norma cries out: "I... I am the false priestess!"

She tears from her head the wreath of flowers that she wears at the solemn ceremonies and casts it to the ground, urging the priests to kindle the fire into which the victim is thrown. She turns to Pollione and tells him that she loves him still, and will go on loving him even after her death. Pollione is moved, and says that the veil has been lifted from his eyes, that his infatuation with Adalgisa was no more than a passing whim, and that his deep and great love for Norma has taken its place.

Amazement ties the tongues of Oroveso and the priests, and

they implore Norma to take back her decision, believing she uttered it in a moment of madness. But Norma assures them that her sin is too great for forgiveness to encompass, and charges her father with the care of her two children.

When the fire has been made ready, Pollione asks Norma to allow him to share with her the expiation of their common sin. The priests chant, proclaiming

that this sacrifice will cleanse their temple of treachery. A black veil is cast over Norma's head. She embraces her father Oroveso, bidding him the last farewell, praying that her two children may not fall victim to her sin. She places her arm in Pollione's arm, and they advance with slow steps toward their inevitable fate, while the priests send them on their way with the prayer for the dead.

ators or to the refrigerators of our own homes... to be dis-tributed to the squads standing ready for work at the first light of morning. All the officials of the Ministry of Health mobilized for the work, and all the officials of the health department of the Municipality of Beirut, and dozens of students of the French Institute of Medicine and the American University of Beirut, and dozens of nurses of the Lebanese Red Cross and the Children's Welfare Society, and the women social workers, and dozens of young men of the popular organizations, and physicians and volunteers, men and women alike.

These squads were posted in every place where people meet or resort: in the ministries of state, the official departments, the police posts, the banks, the institutes, the hospitals, the houses of worship, and the

theaters. Other squads were posted at the entrances of the city and along the roads leading to the South, the North, and the Bekaa, to vaccinate travelers; and squads went about the quarters vaccinating families in their homes, and squads toured the districts vaccinating the inhabitants in every hamlet and farmstead.

And today I raise my hands to heaven and thank God that victory over the epidemic was written for us in less than a month! We have come out of the battle victorious, and we have learned many things: we must remove the shanties from every place, and see to the estab-lishment of sanitary facilities in every quarter and region, and repeat the compulsory vaccina-tion campaign every five years, before the immunity of people's bodies is lost and they are exposed anew to the epidemic.