... through the long hair half hiding her face, I thought that I could recognize Ammonaria ...
... through the long hair half hiding her face, I thought that I could recognize Ammonaria ...
... through the long hair half hiding her face, I thought that I could recognize Ammonaria ...
"Nevertheless ... this one was taller ... and beautiful ... prodigiously beautiful!"
(He passes his hands over his forehead.)
"No! no! I must not think of it!
"Another time Athanasius summoned me to assist him against the Arians. The contest was limited to invectives and laughter. But since that time he has been calumniated, dispossessed of his see, obliged to fly for safety elsewhere. Where is he now? I do not know! The people give themselves very little trouble to bring me news. All my disciples have abandoned me—Hilarion like the rest.
"He was perhaps fifteen years of age when he first came to me and his intelligence was so remarkable that he asked me questions incessantly. Then he used to listen to me with a pensive air, and whatever I needed he brought it to me without a murmur—nimbler than a kid, merry enough to make even the patriarchs laugh. He was a son to me."
(The sky is red; the earth completely black. Long drifts of sand follow the course of the gusts of wind, rising like great shrouds and falling again. Suddenly against a bright space in the sky a flock of birds pass, forminga triangular battalion, gleaming like one sheet of metal, of which the edges alone seem to quiver.
Anthony watches them.)
"Ah, how I should like to follow them.
"How often also have I enviously gazed upon those long vessels, whose sails resemble wings—and above all when they were bearing far away those I had received at my hermitage! What pleasant hours we passed!—what out-pourings of feeling! No one ever interested me more than Ammon: he told me of his voyage to Rome, of the Catacombs, the Coliseum, the piety of illustrious women, and a thousand other things!—and it grieved me to part with him! Wherefore my obstinacy in continuing to live such a life as this? I would have done well to remain with the monks of Nitria, inasmuch as they supplicated me to do so. They have cells apart, and nevertheless communicate with each other. On Sundays a trumpet summons them to assemble at the church, where one may see three scourges hanging up, which serve to punish delinquents, robbers, and intruders; for their discipline is severe.
"Nevertheless they are not without someenjoyments. The faithful bring them eggs, fruits, and even instruments with which they can extract thorns from their feet. There are vineyards about Prisperi; those dwelling at Pabena have a raft on which they may journey when they go to seek provisions.
"But I might have served my brethren better as a simple priest. As a priest one may aid the poor, administer the sacraments, and exercise authority over families.
"Furthermore, all laics are not necessarily damned, and it only depended upon my own choice to become—for example—a grammarian, a philosopher. I would then have had in my chamber a sphere of reeds, and tablets always ready at hand, young men around me, and a wreath of laurel suspended above my door, as a sign.
"But there is too much pride in triumphs such as those. A soldier's life would have been preferable. I was robust and bold: bold enough to fasten the cables of the military machines—to traverse dark forests, or to enter, armed and helmeted, into smoking cities.... Neither was there anything to have prevented me from purchasing with my money the position of publican at the toll-officeof some bridge; and travellers would have taught me many strange things, and told me strange stories, the while showing me many curious objects packed up among their baggage....
"The merchants of Alexandria sail upon the river Canopus on holidays, and drink wine in the chalices of lotus-flowers, to a music of tambourines which makes the taverns along the shore tremble! Beyond, trees, made cone-shaped by pruning, protect the quiet farms against the wind of the south. The roof of the lofty house leans upon thin colonettes placed as closely together as the laths of a lattice; and through their interspaces the master, reclining upon his long couch, beholds his plains stretching about him—the hunter among the wheat-fields—the winepress where the vintage is being converted into wine, the oxen treading out the wheat. His children play upon the floor around him; his wife bends down to kiss him."
(Against the grey dimness of the twilight, here and there appear pointed muzzles, with straight, pointed ears and bright eyes. Anthony advances toward them. There is asound of gravel crumbling down; the animals take flight. It was a troop of jackals.
One still remains, rising upon his hinder legs, with his body half arched and head raised in an attitude full of defiance.)
"How pretty he is! I would like to stroke his back gently!"
(Anthony whistles to coax him to approach. The jackal disappears.)
"Ah! he is off to join the others. What solitude! what weariness!" (Laughing bitterly.)
"A happy life this indeed!—bending palm-branches in the fire to make shepherds' crooks, fashioning baskets, stitching mats together—and then exchanging these things with the Nomads for bread which breaks one's teeth! Ah! woe, woe is me! will this never end? Surely death were preferable! I can endure it no more! Enough! enough!"
(He stamps his foot upon the ground, and rushes frantically to and fro among the rocks; then pauses, out of breath, bursts into tears, and lies down upon the ground, on his side.
The night is calm; multitudes of stars are palpitating; only the crackling noise made by the tarantulas is audible.
The two arms of the cross make a shadow upon the sand; Anthony, who is weeping, observes it.)
"Am I, then, so weak, O my God! Courage, let me rise from here!"
(He enters his hut, turns over a pile of cinders, finds a live ember, lights his torch and fixes it upon the wooden desk, so as to throw a light upon the great book.)
"Suppose I take the Acts of the Apostles?—yes!—no matter where!"
'And he saw the heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending, as it were a great linen sheet let down by the four corners from heaven to the earth—wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts, and creeping things of the earth and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him: Arise, Peter! Kill and eat!'[1]
"Then the Lord desired that his apostle should eat of all things?... while I...."
(Anthony remains thoughtful, his chin resting against his breast. The rustling of the pages, agitated by the wind, causes him to lift his head again; and he reads:)
'So the Jews made a great slaughter of their enemies with the sword, and killed them, repaying according to what they had prepared to do to them....[2]
"Then, comes the number of people slain by them—seventy-five thousand. They had suffered so much! Moreover, their enemies were the enemies of the true God. And how they must have delighted in avenging themselves thus by the massacre of idolaters! Doubtless the city must have been crammed with the dead! There must have been corpses at the thresholds of the garden gates, upon the stairways, in all the chambers, and piled up so high that the doors could no longer move upon their hinges!... But lo! here I am permitting my mind to dwell upon ideas of murder and of blood!..."
(He opens the book at another place.)
'Then King Nabuchodonosor fell on his face, and worshipped Daniel....'[3]
"Ah! that was just! TheMost Highexalts his prophets above Kings; yet that monarch spent his life in banqueting, perpetually drunk with pleasure and pride. But God, topunish him, changed him into a beast! He walked upon four feet!"
(Anthony begins to laugh; and in extending his arms, involuntarily disarranges the leaves of the book with the tips of his fingers. His eyes fell upon this phrase:—)
'And Ezechias rejoiced at their coming, and he showed them the house of his aromatical spices, and the gold and the silver, and divers precious odours and ointments, and the house of his vessels, and all that he had in his treasures....'[4]
"I can imagine that spectacle; they must have beheld precious stones, diamonds and darics heaped up to the very roof. One who possesses so vast an accumulation of wealth is no longer like other men. While handling his riches he knows that he controls the total result of innumerable human efforts—as it were the life of nations drained by him and stored up, which he can pour forth at will. It is a commendable precaution on the part of Kings. Even theWisestof all did not neglect it. His navy brought him elephants' teeth and apes.... Where is that passage?"
(He turns the leaves over rapidly.)
"Ah! here it is:"
'And the Queen of Saba, having heard of the fame of Solomon in the name of the Lord, came to try him with hard questions.'[5]
"How did she hope to tempt him? TheDevilindeed sought to tempt Jesus! But Jesus triumphed because he was God; and Solomon, perhaps, owing this knowledge of magic! It is sublime—that science! For the world—as a philosopher once explained it to me, forms a whole, of which all parts mutually influence one another, like the organs of one body. It is science which enables us to know the natural loves and natural repulsions of all things, and to play upon them?... Therefore, it is really possible to modify what appears to be the immutable order of the universe?"
(Then the two shadows formed behind him by the arms of the cross, suddenly lengthen and project themselves before him. They assume the form of two great horns. Anthony cries out:—)
"Help me! O my God!"
Saint Anthony: Help me, O my God!
Saint Anthony: Help me, O my God!
Saint Anthony: Help me, O my God!
(The shadows shrink back to their former place.)
"Ah!... it was an illusion ... nothing more. It is needless for me to torment my mind further! I can do nothing!—absolutely nothing."
(He sits down and folds his arms.)
"Nevertheless ... it seems to me that I felt the approach of.... But why shouldHecome? Besides, do I not know all his artifices? I repulsed the monstrous anchorite who laughingly offered me little loaves of warm, fresh bread, the centaur who sought to carry me away upon his croup, and that black child who appeared to me in the midst of the sands, who was very beautiful, and who told me that he was called the Spirit of Lust!"
(Anthony rises and walks rapidly up and down, first to the right, then to the left.)
"It was by my order that this multitude of holy retreats was constructed—full of monks all wearing sackcloth of camel's hair beneath their garments of goatskin, and numerous enough to form an army. I have cured the sick from afar off; I have cast out demons; I have passed the river in the midst of crocodiles;the Emperor Constantine wrote me throe letters; Balacius, who had spat upon mine, was torn to pieces by his own horses; when I reappeared the people of Alexandria fought for the pleasure of seeing me, and Athanasius himself escorted me on the way back. But what works have I not accomplished Lo! for these thirty years and more I have been dwelling and groaning unceasingly in the desert! Like Eusebius, I have carried thirty-eight pounds of bronze upon my loins; like Macarius, I have exposed my body to the stings of insects; like Pacomus, I have passed fifty-three nights without closing my eyes; and those who are decapitated, tortured with red hot pincers, or burned alive, are perhaps less meritorious than I, seeing that my whole life is but one prolonged martyrdom." (Anthony slackens his pace.)
"Assuredly there is no human being in a condition of such unutterable misery! Charitable hearts are becoming scarcer. I no longer receive aught from any one. My mantle is worn out. I have no sandals—I have not even a porringer!—for I have distributed all I possessed to the poor and to my family, without retaining so much as one obolus. Yetsurely I ought to have a little money to obtain the tools indispensable to my work? Oh, not much! a very small sum.... I would be very saving of it....
"The fathers of Nicæa, clad in purple robes, sat like magi, upon thrones ranged along the walls; and they were entertained at a great banquet and overwhelmed with honours, especially Paphnutius, because he is one-eyed and lame, since the persecution of Diocletian! The Emperor kissed his blind eye several times; what foolishness! Besides, there were such infamous men members of that Council! A bishop of Scythia, Theophilus! another of Persia, John! a keeper of beasts, Spiridion! Alexander was too old. Athanasius ought to have shown more gentleness towards the Arians, so as to have obtained concessions from them.
"Yet would they have made any? They would not hear me! The one who spoke against me—a tall young man with a curly beard—uttered the most captious objections to my argument; and while I was seeking words to express my views they all stared at me with their wicked faces, and barked like hyenas. Ah! why cannot I have them all exiledby the Emperor! or rather have them beaten, crushed, and see them suffer! I suffer enough myself."
(He leans against his cabin in a fainting condition.)
"It is because I have fasted too long; my strength is leaving me. If I could eat—only once more—a piece of meat." (He half closes his eyes with languor.)
"Ah! some red flesh—a bunch of grapes to bite into ... curdled milk that trembles on a plate!...
"But what has come upon me? What is the matter with me? I feel my heart enlarging like the sea, when it swells before the storm. An unspeakable feebleness weighs down upon me, and the warm air seems to waft me the perfume of a woman's hair. No woman has approached this place; nevertheless?—"
(He gazes toward the little pathway between the rocks.)
"That is the path by which they come, rocked in their litters by the black arms of the eunuchs. They descend and joining their hands, heavy with rings, kneel down before me. They relate to me all their troubles.The desire of human pleasure tortures them; they would gladly die; they have seen in their dreams God calling to them ... and all the while the hems of their robes fall upon my feet. I repel them from me. 'Ah! no!' they cry, 'not yet! What shall I do?' They gladly accept any penitence I impose on them. They ask for the hardest of all; they beg to share mine and to live with me.
"It is now a long time since I have seen any of them! Perhaps some of them will come! why not? If I could only hear again, all of a sudden, the tinkling of mule-bells among the mountains. It seems to me...."
(Anthony clambers upon a rock at the entrance of the pathway, and leans over, darting his eyes into the darkness.)
"Yes! over there, far off I see a mass moving, like a band of travellers seeking the way.Sheis there!... They are making a mistake." (Calling.)
"This way! Come! Come!"
(Echo repeats: Come! Come! he lets his arms fall, stupefied.)
"What shame for me! Alas! poor Anthony."
(And all of a sudden he hears a whisper:—"Poor Anthony"!)
"Who is there? Speak!"
(The wind passing through the intervals between the rocks, makes modulations; and in those confused sonorities he distinguishes Voices, as though the air itself were speaking. They are low, insinuating, hissing.)
The First: "Dost thou desire women?"
The Second: "Great heaps of money, rather!"
The Third: "A glittering sword?" (and)
The Others: "All the people admire thee! Sleep!"
"Thou shalt slay them all, aye, thou shalt slay them!"
(At the same moment objects become transformed. At the edge of the cliff, the old palm tree with its tuft of yellow leaves, changes into the torso of a woman leaning over the abyss, her long hair waving in the wind.
Anthony turns toward his cabin; and the stool supporting the great book whose pages are covered with black letters, seems to him changed into a bush all covered with nightingales.)
"It must be the torch which is making this strange play of light.... Let us put it out!"
(He extinguishes it; the obscurity becomes deeper, the darkness profound.
And suddenly in the air above there appear and disappear successively—first, a stretch of water; then the figure of a prostitute; the corner of a temple, a soldier; a chariot with two white horses, prancing.
These images appear suddenly, as in flashes—outlined against the background of the night, like scarlet paintings executed upon ebony.
Their motion accelerates. They defile by with vertiginous rapidity. Sometimes again, they pause and gradually pale and melt away; or else float off out of sight, to be immediately succeeded by others.
Anthony closes his eyelids.
They multiply, surround him, besiege him. An unspeakable fear takes possession of him; and he feels nothing more of living sensation, save a burning contraction of the epigastrium. In spite of the tumult in his brain, he is aware of an enormous silence which separates him from the world. He tries to speak;—impossible!He feels as though all the bands of his life were breaking and dissolving;—and, no longer able to resist, Anthony falls prostrate upon his mat.)
[1]Acts X: 11-13—T.
[1]Acts X: 11-13—T.
[2]Esther IX: 5—T.
[2]Esther IX: 5—T.
[3]Daniel II: 46.—T.
[3]Daniel II: 46.—T.
[4]Kings XX: 13 (Vulg.).—T.
[4]Kings XX: 13 (Vulg.).—T.
[5]III Kings X: I (Vulg.).—T.
[5]III Kings X: I (Vulg.).—T.
(Then a great shadow, subtler than any natural shadow, and festooned by other shadows along its edges, defines itself upon the ground.
It is the Devil, leaning upon the roof of the hut, and bearing beneath his wings—like some gigantic bat suckling its little ones—the Seven Deadly Sins, whose grimacing heads are dimly distinguishable.
With eyes still closed, Anthony yields to the pleasure of inaction; and stretches his limbs upon the mat.
It seems to him quite soft, and yet softer—so that it becomes as if padded; it rises up; it becomes a bed. The bed becomes a shallop; water laps against its sides.
To right and left rise two long tongues of land, overlooking low cultivated plains, with a sycamore tree here and there. In the distance there is a tinkling of bells, a sound of drums and of singers. It is a party going toCanopus to sleep upon the temple of Serapis, in order to have dreams. Anthony knows this; and impelled by the wind, his boat glides along between the banks. Papyrus-leaves and the red flowers of the nymphæa, larger than the body of a man, bend over him. He is lying at the bottom of the boat; one oar at the stem, drags in the water. From time to time, a lukewarm wind blows; and the slender reeds rub one against the other, and rustle. Then the sobbing of the wavelets becomes indistinct. A heavy drowsiness falls upon him. He dreams that he is a Solitary of Egypt.
Then he awakes with a start.)
"Did I dream? It was all so vivid that I can scarcely believe I was dreaming! My tongue burns. I am thirsty."
(He enters the cabin, and gropes at random in the dark.)
"The ground is wet; can it have been raining? What can this mean! My pitcher is broken into atoms! But the goatskin?" (He finds it.)
"Empty!—completely empty! In order to get down to the river, I should have to walk for at least three hours; and the night is so dark that I could not see my way.
"There is a gnawing in my entrails. Where is the bread!"
(After long searching, he picks up a crust not so large as an egg.)
"What? Have the jackals taken it? Ah! malediction!"
(And he flings the bread upon the ground with fury.
No sooner has the action occurred than a table makes its appearance, covered with all things that are good to eat.
The byssus cloth, striated like the bandelets of the sphinx, produces of itself luminous undulations. Upon it are enormous quarters of red meats; huge fish; birds cooked in their plumage, and quadrupeds in their skins; fruits with colors and tints almost human in appearance; while fragments of cooling ice, and flagons of violet crystal reflect each other's glittering. Anthony notices in the middle of the table a boar smoking at every pore—with legs doubled up under its belly, and eyes half closed—and the idea of being able to eat so formidable an animal greatly delights him. Then many things appear which he has never seen before—black hashes, jellies, the color of gold, ragouts in whichmushrooms float like nenuphars upon ponds, dishes of whipt cream light as clouds.
And the aroma of all this comes to him together with the salt smell of the ocean, the coolness of mountains, the great perfumes of the woods. He dilates his nostrils to their fullest extent; his mouth waters; he thinks to himself that he has enough before him for a year, for ten years, for his whole life!
As he gazes with widely-opened eyes at all these viands, others appear; they accumulate, forming a pyramid crumbling at all its angles. The wines begin to flow over—the fish palpitate—the blood seethes in the dishes—the pulp of the fruit protrudes like amorous lips—and the table rises as high as his breast, up to his very chin at last—now bearing only one plate and a single loaf of bread, placed exactly in front of him.
He extends his hand to seize the loaf. Other loaves immediately present themselves to his grasp.)
"For me!... all these! But ..." (Anthony suddenly draws back.)
"Instead of one which was there, lo! there are many! It must be a miracle, then, the same as our Lord wrought!
"Yet for what purpose?... Ah! all the rest of these things are equally incomprehensible! Demon, begone from me! depart! begone!"
(He kicks the table from him. It disappears.)
"Nothing more?—no!" (He draws a lung breath.)
"Ah! the temptation was strong! But how well I delivered myself from it!"
(He lifts his head, and at the same time stumbles over some sonorous object.)
"Why! what can that be?" (Anthony stoops down.)
"How! a cup! Some traveller must have lost it here. There is nothing extraordinary...."
(He wets his finger, and rubs.)
"It glitters!—metal! Still, I cannot see very clearly...."
(He lights his torch, and examines the cup.)
"It is silver, ornamented with ovules about the rim, with a medal at the bottom of it."
(He detaches the medal with his nail!)
"It is a piece of money worth about seven or eight drachmas—not more! It mattersnot! even with that I could easily buy myself a sheepskin."
(A sudden flash of the torch lights up the cup.)
"Impossible! gold? Yes, all gold, solid gold!"
(A still larger piece of money appears at the bottom. Under it he perceives several others.)
"Why, this is a sum ... large enough to purchase three oxen ... and a little field!"
(The cup is now filled with pieces of gold.)
"What! what!... a hundred slaves, soldiers, a host ... enough to buy...."
(The granulations of the rim, detaching themselves form a necklace of pearls.)
"With such a marvel of jewelry as that, one could win even the wife of the Emperor!"
(By a sudden jerk, Anthony makes the necklace slip down over his wrist. He holds the cup in his left hand, and with his right lifts up the torch so as to throw the light upon it. As water streams overflowing from the basin of a fountain, so diamonds, carbuncles, and sapphires, all mingled with broadpieces of gold bearing the effigies of Kings, overflow from the cup in never ceasing streams, to form a glittering hillock upon the sand.)
"What! how! Staters, cycles, dariacs, aryandics; Alexander, Demetrius, the Ptolemies, Cæsar!—yet not one of them all possessed so much! Nothing is now impossible! no more suffering for me! how these gleams dazzle my eyes! Ah! my heart overflows! how delightful it is! yes—yes!—more yet! never could there be enough! Vainly I might continually fling it into the sea, there would always be plenty remaining for me. Why should I lose any of it? I will keep all, and say nothing to any one about it; I will have a chamber hollowed out for me in the rock, and lined with plates of bronze, and I will come here from time to time to feel the gold sinking down under the weight of my heel; I will plunge my arms into it as into sacks of grain! I will rub my face with it, I will lie down upon it!"
(He flings down the torch in order to embrace the glittering heap, and falls flat upon the ground.
He rises to his feet. The place is wholly empty.)
"What have I done!
"Had I died during those moments, I should have gone to hell—to irrevocable damnation."
(He trembles in every limb.)
"Am I, then, accursed? Ah! no; it is my own fault! I allow myself to be caught in every snare! No man could be more imbecile, more infamous! I should like to beat myself, or rather to tear myself out of my own body! I have restrained myself too long. I feel the want of vengeance—the necessity of striking, of killing!—as though I had a pack of wild beasts within me! Would that I could hew my way with an axe, through the midst of a multitude.... Ah, a poniard!..."
(He perceives his knife, and rushes to seize it. The knife slips from his hand; and Anthony remains leaning against the wall of his hut, with wide-open mouth, motionless, cataleptic.
Everything about him has disappeared.
He thinks himself at Alexandria, upon the Paneum—an artificial mountain in the centre of the city, encircled by a winding stairway.
Before him lies Lake Mareolis; on his right hand is the sea, on his left the country; andimmediately beneath him a vast confusion of flat roofs, traversed from north to south and from east to west by two streets which intercross, and which offer throughout their entire length the spectacle of files of porticoes with Corinthian columns. The houses overhanging this double colonnade have windows of stained glass. Some of them support exteriorly enormous wooden cages, into which the fresh air rushes from without.
Monuments of various architecture tower up in close proximity. Egyptian pylons dominate Greek temples. Obelisks appear like lances above battlements of red brick. In the middle of public squares there are figures of Hermes with pointed ears, and of Anubis with the head of a dog. Anthony can distinguish the mosaic pavements of the courtyards, and tapestries suspended from the beams of ceilings.
He beholds at one glance, the two ports (the Great Port and the Eunostus), both round as circuses, and separated by a mole connecting Alexandria with the craggy island upon which the Pharos-tower rises—quadrangular, five hundred cubits high, nine storied,having at its summit a smoking heap of black coals.
Small interior ports open into the larger ones. The mole terminates at each end in a bridge supported upon marble columns planted in the sea. Sailing vessels pass beneath it, while heavy lighters overladen with merchandise, thalamegii[1]inlaid with ivory, gondolas covered with awnings, triremes, biremes, and all sorts of vessels are moving to and fro, or lie moored at the wharves.
About the Great Port extends an unbroken array of royal construction: the palace of the Ptolomies, the Museum, the Posidium, the Cæsareum, the Timonium where Mark Anthony sought refuge, the Soma which contains the tomb of Alexander; while at the other extremity of the city, beyond the Eunostus, the great glass factories, perfume factories, and papyrus factories may be perceived in a suburban quarter.
Strolling peddlers, porters, ass-drivers run and jostle together. Here and there one observes some priest of Isis wearing a panther skin on his shoulders, a Roman soldier withhis bronze helmet, and many negroes. At the thresholds of the shops women pause, artisans ply their trades; and the grinding noise of chariot wheels puts to flight the birds that devour the detritus of the butcher-shops and the morsels of fish left upon the ground.
The general outline of the streets seems like a black network flung upon the white uniformity of the houses. The markets stocked with herbs make green bouquets in the midst of it; the drying-yards of the dyers, blotches of color; the golden ornaments of the temple-pediments, luminous points—all comprised within the oval enclosure of the grey ramparts, under the vault of the blue heaven, beside the motionless sea.
But suddenly the movement of the crowd ceases; all turn their eyes toward the west, whence enormous whirlwinds of dust are seen approaching.
It is the coming of the monks of the Thebaid, all clad in goatskins, armed with cudgels, roaring a canticle of battle and of faith with the refrain:
"Where are they? Where are they?"
Anthony understands that they are coming to kill the Arians.
The streets are suddenly emptied—only flying feet are visible.
The Solitaries are now in the city. Their formidable cudgels, studded with nails, whirl in the air like suns of steel. The crash of things broken in the houses is heard. There are intervals of silence. Then great screams arise.
From one end of the street to the other there is a continual eddy of terrified people.
Many grasp pikes. Sometimes two bands meet, rush into one; and this mass of men slips upon the pavement—fighting, disjointing, knocking down. But the men with the long hair always reappear.
Threads of smoke begin to escape from the corners of edifices! folding doors burst open. Portions of walls crumble down. Architraves fall.
Anthony finds all his enemies again, one after the other. He even recognizes some whom he had altogether forgotten; before killing them he outrages them. He disembowels—he severs throats—he fells as in a slaughter house—he hales old men by the beard, crushes children, smites the wounded. And vengeance is taken upon luxury, thosewho do not know how to read tear up hooks; others smash and deface the statues, paintings, furniture, caskets,—a thousand dainty things the use of which they do not know, and which simply for that reason exasperates them. At intervals they pause, out of breath, in the work of destruction; then they recommence.
The inhabitants moan in the courtyards where they have sought refuge. The women raise their tearful eyes and lift their naked arms to heaven. In hope of moving the Solitaries they embrace their knees; the men cast them off and fling them down, and the blood gushes to the ceilings, falls back upon the walls like sheets of rain, streams from the trunks of decapitated corpses, fills the aqueducts, forms huge red pools upon the ground.
Anthony is up to his knees in it. He wades in it; he sucks up the blood-spray on his lips; he is thrilled with joy as he feels it upon his limbs, under his hair-tunic which is soaked through with it.
Night comes. The immense uproar dies away.
The Solitaries have disappeared.
Suddenly, upon the outer galleries correspondingto each of the nine stories of the Pharos, Anthony observes thick black lines forming, like lines of crows perching. He hurries thither; and soon finds himself at the summit.
A huge mirror of brass turned toward the open sea, reflects the forms of the vessels in the offing.
Anthony amuses himself by watching them; and while he watches, their number increases.
They are grouped together within a gulf which has the form of a crescent. Upon a promontory in the background, towers a new city of Roman architecture, with cupolas of stone, conical roofs, gleams of pink and blue marbles, and a profusion of brazen ornamentation applied to the volutes of the capitals, to the angles of the cornices, to the summits of the edifices. A cypress-wood overhangs the city. The line of the sea is greener, the air colder. The mountains lining the horizon are capped with snow.
Anthony is trying to find his way, when a man approaches him, and says:
"Come! they are waiting for you."
He traverses a forum, enters a great court, stoops beneath a low door; and he arrives beforethe facade of the palace, decorated with a group in wax, representing Constantine overcoming a dragon. There is a porphyry basin, from the centre of which rises a golden conch-shell full of nuts. His guide tells him that he may take some of them. He does so. Then he is lost, as it were, in a long succession of apartments.
There are mosaics upon the walls representing generals presenting the Emperor with conquered cities, which they hold out upon the palms of their hands. And there are columns of basalt everywhere, trellis-work in silver filigree, ivory chairs, tapestries embroidered with pearls. The light falls from the vaults above; Anthony still proceeds. Warm exhalations circulate about him; occasionally he hears the discreet clapping sound of sandals upon the pavement. Posted in the anti-chambers are guards, who resemble automata, holding wands of vermillion upon their shoulders.
And there are columns of basalt everywhere,... The light falls from the vaults above
And there are columns of basalt everywhere,... The light falls from the vaults above
And there are columns of basalt everywhere,... The light falls from the vaults above
At last he finds himself in a great hall, with hyacinth-colored curtains at the further end. They part, and display the Emperor seated on a throne, clad in a violet tunic, and wearing red shoes striped with bands of black.
A diadem of pearls surround his head; his locks are arranged symmetrically in rouleaux. He has a straight nose, drooping eyelids, a heavy and cunning physiognomy. At the four corners of the dais stretched above his head are placed four golden doves; and at the foot of the throne are two lions in enamel crouching. The doves begin to sing, the lions to roar. The Emperor rolls his eyes; Anthony advances; and forthwith, without preamble, they commence to converse about recent events. In the cities of Antioch, Ephesus, and Alexandria, the temples have been sacked, and the statues of the gods converted into pots and cooking utensils; the Emperor laughs heartily about it. Anthony reproaches him with his tolerance toward the Novations. But the Emperor becomes vexed. Novations, Arians or Meletians—he is sick of them all! Nevertheless, he admires the episcopate; for inasmuch as the Christians maintain bishops, who depend for their position upon five or six important personages, it is only necessary to gain over the latter, in order to have all the rest on one's side. Therefore he did not fail to furnish them with largesums. But he detests the Fathers of the Council of Nicæa.
"Let us go and see them!"
Anthony follows him.
And they find themselves on a terrace, upon the same floor.
It overlooks a hippodrome thronged with people, and surmounted by porticoes where other spectators are walking to and fro. From the centre of the race-course rises a narrow platform of hewn stone, supporting a little temple of Mercury, the statue of Constantine, and three serpents of brass twisted into a column; there are three huge wooden eggs at one end, and at the other a group of seven dolphins with their tails in the air.
Behind the imperial pavilion sit the Prefects of the Chambers, the Counts of the Domestics, and the Patricians—in ranks rising by tiers to the first story of a church whose windows are thronged with women. On the right is the tribune of the Blue Faction; on the left, that of the Green; below, a picket of soldiers is stationed; and on a level with the arena is a row of Corinthian arches, forming the entrances to the stables.
The races are about to commence; thehorses are drawn up in line. Lofty plumes, fastened between their ears, bend to the wind like saplings; and with every restive bound, they shake their chariots violently, which are shell-shaped, and conducted by charioteers clad in a sort of multi-colored cuirass, having sleeves tight at the wrist and wide in the arms; their legs are bare; their beards, faces and foreheads are shaven after the manner of the Huns.
Anthony is at first deafened by the billowy sound of voices. From the summit of the hippodrome to its lowest tiers, he sees only faces painted with rouge, garments checkered and variegated with many colors, flashing jewelry; and the sand of the arena, all white, gleams like a mirror.
The Emperor entertains him. He confides to him many matters of high importance, many secrets; he confesses the assassination of his son Criopus, and even asks Anthony for advice regarding his health.
Meanwhile Anthony notices some slaves in the rear portion of the stables below. They are the Fathers of Nicæa, ragged and abject. The martyr Paphnutius is brushing the mane of one horse; Theophilus is washing the legsof another; John is painting the hoofs of a third; Alexander is collecting dung in a basket.
Anthony passes through the midst of them. They range themselves on either side respectfully; they beseech his intercession; they kiss his hands. The whole assemblage of spectators hoots at them; and he enjoys the spectacle with immeasurable pleasure. Lo! he is now one of the grandees of the Court—the Emperor's confidant—the prime minister! Constantine places his own diadem upon his brows. Anthony allows it to remain upon his head, thinking this honor quite natural.
And suddenly in the midst of the darkness a vast hall appears, illuminated by golden candelabra.
Candles so lofty that they are half lost in the darkness, stretch away in huge files beyond the lines of banquet-tables, which seem to extend to the horizon, where through a luminous haze loom superpositions of stairways, suites of arcades, colossi, towers, and beyond all a vague border of palace walls, above which rise the crests of cedars, making yet blacker masses of blackness against the darkness.
The guests, crowned with violet wreaths, recline upon very low couches and are leaning upon their elbows. Along the whole length of this double line of couches, wine is being poured out from amphoræ, and at the further end, all alone, coiffed with the tiara and blazing with carbuncles, King Nebuchadnezzar eats and drinks.
On his right and left, two bands of priests in pointed caps are swinging censers. On the pavement below crawl the captive kings whose hands and feet have been cut off; from time to time he flings them bones to gnaw. Further off sit his brothers, with bandages across their eyes, being all blind.
From the depths of the ergastula arise moans of ceaseless pain. Sweet slow sounds of a hydraulic organ alternate with choruses of song; and one feels that all about the palace without extends an immeasurable city—an ocean of human life whose waves break against the walls. The slaves run hither and thither carrying dishes. Women walk between the ranks of guests, offering drinks to all; the baskets groan under their burthen of loaves; and a dromedary, laden with perforated water-skins: passes and repasses throughthe hall, sprinkling and cooling the pavement with vervain.
Lion tamers are leading tamed lions about. Dancing girls—their hair confined in nets—balance themselves and turn upon their hands, emitting fire through their nostrils; negro boatmen are juggling; naked children pelt each other with pellets of snow, which burst against the bright silverware. There is an awful clamor as of a tempest; and a huge cloud hangs over the banquet—so numerous are the meats and breaths. Sometimes a flake of fire torn from the great flambeaux by the wind, traverses the night like a shooting star.
The king wipes the perfumes from his face with his arm. He eats from the sacred vessels—then breaks them; and secretly reckons up the number of his fleets, his armies, and his subjects. By and by, for a new caprice, he will burn his palace with all its guests. He dreams of rebuilding the tower of Babel, and dethroning God.
Anthony, from afar off, reads all these thoughts upon his brow. They penetrate his own brain, and he becomes Nebuchadnezzar. Immediately he is cloyed with orgiastic excesses,sated with fury of extermination; and a great desire comes upon him to wallow in vileness. For the degradation of that which terrifies men is an outrage inflicted upon their minds—it affords yet one more way to stupefy them; and as nothing is viler than a brute, Anthony goes upon the table on all fours, and bellows like a bull.
He feels a sudden pain in his hand—a pebble has accidentally wounded him—and he finds himself once more in front of his cabin.
The circle of the rocks is empty. The stars are glowing in the sky. All is hushed.)
"Again have I allowed myself to be deceived! Why these things? They come from the rebellion of the flesh. Ah! wretch!"
(He rushes into his cabin, and seizes a bunch of thongs, with metallic hooks attached to their ends, strips himself to the waist and, lifting his eyes to heaven exclaims:)
"Accept my penance, O my God: disdain it not for its feebleness. Render it sharp, prolonged, excessive! It is time, indeed!—to the work!"
(He gives himself a vigorous lash—and shrieks.)
"No! no!—without mercy it must be."
(He recommences.)
"Oh! oh! oh! each lash tears my skin, rends my limbs! It burns me horribly!"
"Nay!—it is not so very terrible after all!—one becomes accustomed to it. It even seems to me...."
(Anthony pauses.)
"Continue, coward! continue! Good! good!—upon the arms, on the back, on the breast, on the belly—everywhere! Hiss, ye thongs! bite me! tear me! I would that my blood could spurt to the stars!—let my bones crack!—let my tendons be laid bare! O for pincers, racks, and melted lead! The martyrs have endured far worse; have they not, Ammonaria?"
(The shadow of the Devil's horns reappears.)
"I might have been bound to the column opposite to thine,—face to face—under thy eyes—answering thy shrieks by my sighs; and our pangs might have been interblended, our souls intermingled."
(He lashes himself with fury.)
"What! what! again. Take that!—But how strange a titillation thrills me! What punishment! what pleasure! I feel as thoughreceiving invisible kisses; the very marrow of my bones seems to melt. I die...."
And he sees before him three cavaliers, mounted upon onagers, clad in robes of green—each holding a lily in his hand, and all resembling each other in feature.
Anthony turns round, and beholds three other cavaliers exactly similar, riding upon similar onagers, and preserving the same attitude.
He draws back. Then all the onagers advance one pace at the same time, and rub their noses against him, trying to bite his garment. Voices shout:—
"Here! here! this way!"
And between the clefts of the mountain, appear standards,—camels' heads with halters of red silk—mules laden with baggage, and women covered with yellow veils, bestriding piebald horses.
The panting beasts lie down; the slaves rush to the bales and packages, motley-striped carpets are unrolled; precious glimmering things are laid upon the ground.
A white elephant, caparisoned with a golden net, trots forward, shaking the tuft of ostrich plumes attached to his head-band.
Upon his back, perched on cushions of blue wool, with her legs crossed, her eyes half closed, her comely head sleepily nodding, is a woman so splendidly clad that she radiates light about her. The crowd falls prostrate; the elephant bends his knees; and
The Queen of Sheba
letting herself glide down from his shoulder upon the carpets spread to receive her, approaches Saint Anthony.
Her robe of gold brocade, regularly divided by furbelows of pearls, of jet, and of sapphires, sheaths her figure closely with its tight-fitting bodice, set off by colored designs representing the twelve signs of the Zodiac. She wears very high pattens—one of which is black, and sprinkled with silver stars, with a moon crescent; the other, which is white, is sprinkled with a spray of gold, with a golden sun in the middle.
Her wide sleeves, decorated with emeralds and bird-plumes, leave exposed her little round bare arms, clasped at the wrist by ebony bracelets; and her hands, loaded with precious rings, are terminated by nails sosharply pointed that the ends of her fingers seem almost like needles.
A chain of dead gold, passing under her chin, is caught up on either side of her face, and spirally coiled about her coiffure, whence, redescending, it grazes her shoulders and is attached upon her bosom to a diamond scorpion, which protrudes a jewelled tongue between her breasts. Two immense blond pearls depend heavily from her ears. The borders of her eyelids are painted black. There is a natural brown spot upon her left cheek; and she opens her mouth in breathing, as if her corset inconvenienced her.
She shakes, as she approaches, a green parasol with an ivory handle, and silver-gilt bells attached to its rim; twelve little woolly-haired negro-boys support the long train of her robe, whereof an ape holds the extremity, which it raises up from time to time. She exclaims:
"Ah! handsome hermit! handsome hermit!—my heart swoons!
"By dint of stamping upon the ground with impatience, callosities have formed upon my heel, and I have broken one of my nails. I sent out shepherds, who remained upon the mountain tops, shading their eyes with theirhands—and hunters who shouted thy name in all the forests—and spies who travelled along the highways, asking every passer-by:
"'Hast thou seen him?'
"By night I wept, with my face turned to the wall. And at last my tears made two little holes in the mosaic, like two pools of water among the rocks;—for I love thee!—oh! how I love thee!"
(She takes him by the beard.)
"Laugh now, handsome hermit! laugh! I am very joyous, very gay: thou shalt soon see! I play the lyre; I dance like a bee; and I know a host of merry tales to tell, each more diverting than the other.
"Thou canst not even imagine how mighty a journey we have made. See! the onagers upon which the green couriers rode are dead with fatigue!"
(The onagers are lying motionless upon the ground.)
"For three long moons they never ceased to gallop on with the same equal pace, holdings flints between their teeth to cut the wind, their tails ever streaming out behind them, their sinews perpetually strained to the uttermost, always galloping, galloping. Nevercan others be found like them. They were bequeathed me by my paternal grand-father, the Emperor Saharil, son of Iakhschab, son of Iaarab, son of Kastan. Ah! if they were still alive, we should harness them to a litter that they might bear us back speedily to the palace! But ... what ails thee?—of what art thou dreaming?"
(She stares at him, examines him closely.)
"Ah, when thou shalt be my husband, I will robe thee, I will perfume thee, I will depilate thee."
(Anthony remains motionless, more rigid than a stake, more pallid than a corpse.)
"Thou hast a sad look—is it because of leaving thy hermitage? Yet I have left everything for thee—even King Solomon, who, nevertheless, possesses much wisdom, twenty thousand chariots of war, and a beautiful beard. I have brought thee my wedding gifts. Choose!"
(She walks to and fro among the ranks of slaves and the piles of precious goods.)
"Here is Genezareth balm, incense from Cape Gardefui, labdanum, cinnamon, and silphium—good to mingle with sauces. In that bale are Assyrian embroideries, ivoryfrom the Ganges, purple from Elissa; and that box of snow contains a skin of chalybon, the wine, which is reserved for the Kings of Assyria, and which is drunk from the horn of a unicorn. Here are necklaces, brooches, nets for the hair, parasols, gold powder from Baasa, cassiteria from Tartessus, blue wood from Pandio, white furs from Issidonia, carbuncles from the Island Palæsimondus, and toothpicks made of the bristles of the tachas—that lost animal which is found under the earth. These cushions come from Emath, and these mantle-fringes from Palmyra. On this Babylonian carpet there is.... But come hither! come! come!"
(She pulls Saint Anthony by the sleeve. He resists. She continues:)
"This thin tissue which crackles under the finger with a sound as of sparks, is the famous yellow cloth which the merchants of Bactria bring us. I will have robes made of it for thee, which thou shalt wear in the house. Unfasten the hooks of that sycamore box, and hand me also the little ivory casket tied to my elephant's shoulder."
(They take something round out of a box—something covered with a cloth—and alsobring a little ivory casket covered with carving.)
"Dost thou desire the buckler of Dgian-ben-Dgian, who built the pyramids?—behold it!—It is formed of seven dragon-skins laid one over the other, tanned in the bile of parricides, and fastened together by adamantine screws. Upon one side are represented all the wars that have taken place since the invention of weapons; and upon the other, all the wars that will take place until the end of the world. The lightning itself rebounds from it like a ball of cork. I am going to place it upon thy arm; and thou wilt carry it during the chase.
"But if thou didst only know what I have in this little box of mine! Turn it over and over again! try to open it! No one could ever succeed in doing that. Kiss me! and I will tell thee how to open it."
(She takes Saint Anthony by both cheeks. He pushes her away at arms' length.)
"It was one night that King Solomon lost his head. At last we concluded a bargain. He arose, and stealing out on tiptoe...."
(She suddenly executes a pirouette.)
"Ah, ah! comely hermit, thou shalt not know it! thou shalt not know!"
(She shakes her parasol, making all its little bells tinkle.)
"And I possess many other strange things—oh! yes! I have treasures concealed in winding galleries where one would lose one's way, as in a forest. I have summer-palaces constructed in trellis-work of reeds, and winter-palaces all built of black marble. In the midst of lakes vast as seas, I have islands round as pieces of silver, and all covered with mother-of-pearl,—islands whose shores make music to the lapping of tepid waves upon the sand. The slaves of my kitchens catch birds in my aviaries, and fish in my fishponds. I have engravers continually seated at their benches to hollow out my likeness in hard jewel-stones, and panting molders forever casting statues of me, and perfumers incessantly mingling the sap of rare plants with vinegar, or preparing cosmetic pastes. I have female dressmakers cutting out patterns in richest material, goldsmiths cutting and mounting jewels of price, and careful painters pouring upon my palace wainscoting boiling resins, which they subsequently cool withfans. I have enough female attendants to form a harem, eunuchs enough to make an army. I have armies likewise; I have nations! In the vestibule of my palace I keep a guard of dwarfs—all bearing ivory trumpets at their backs." (Anthony sighs.)
"I have teams of trained gazelles; I have elephant quadrigæ; I have hundreds of pairs of camels, and mares whose manes are so long that their hoofs become entangled therein when they gallop, and herds of cattle with horns so broad that when they go forth to graze the woods have to be hewn down before them. I have giraffes wandering in my gardens; they stretch their heads over the edge of my roof, when I take the air after dinner.
"Seated in a shell drawn over the waters by dolphins, I travel through the grottoes, listening lo the dropping of the water from the stalactites. I go down to the land of diamonds, where my friends the magicians allow me to choose the finest: then I reascend to earth and return to my home."
(She utters a sharp whistle; and a great bird, descending from the sky, alights uponher hair, from which it makes the blue powder fall.
Its orange-colored plumage seems formed of metallic scales. Its little head, crested with a silver tuft, has a human face.
It has four wings, the feet of a vulture, and an immense peacock's tail which it spreads open like a fan.
It seizes the Queen's parasol in its beak, reels a moment ere obtaining its balance; then it erects all its plumes, and remains motionless.)
"Thanks! my beautiful Simorg-Anka!—thou didst tell me where the loving one was hiding! Thanks! thanks! my heart's messenger!
"He flies swiftly as Desire! He circles the world in his flight. At eve he returns; he perches at the foot of my couch and tells me all he has seen—the seas that have passed far beneath him with all their fishes and ships, the great void deserts he has contemplated from the heights of the sky, the harvests that were bowing in the valleys, and the plants that were growing upon the walls of cities abandoned."
(She wrings her hands, languorously.)
"Oh! if thou wast willing! if thou wast willing!... I have a pavilion on a promontory in the middle of an isthmus dividing two oceans. It is all wain-scoted with sheets of glass, and floored with tortoise shell, and open to the four winds of heaven. From its height I watch my fleets come in, and my nations toiling up the mountain-slopes with burthens upon their shoulders. There would we sleep upon downs softer than clouds; we would drink cool draughts from fruit-shells, and we would gaze at the sun through emeralds! Come!" ...
(Anthony draws back. She approaches him again, and exclaims in a tone of vexation:—)
"How? neither the rich, nor the coquettish, nor the amorous woman can charm thee: is it so? None but a lascivious woman, with a hoarse voice and lusty person, with fire-colored hair and superabundant flesh? Dost thou prefer a body cold as the skin of a serpent, or rather great dark eyes deeper than the mystic caverns?—behold them, my eyes!—look into them!"
(Anthony, in spite of him, gazes into her eyes.)
"All the women thou hast ever met—fromthe leman of the cross-roads, singing under the light of her lantern, even to the patrician lady scattering rose-petals abroad from her litter,—all the forms thou hast ever obtained glimpses of—all the imaginations of thy desire thou hast only to ask for them! I am not a woman: I am a world! My cloak has only to fall in order that thou mayest discover a succession of mysteries." (Anthony's teeth chatter.)
"Place but thy finger upon my shoulder: it will be as though a stream of fire shot through all thy veins. The possession of the least part of me will fill thee with a joy more vehement than the conquest of an Empire could give thee! Approach thy lips: there is a sweetness in my kisses as of a fruit dissolving within thy heart. Ah! how thou wilt lose thyself beneath my long hair, inhale the perfume of my bosom, madden thyself with the beauty of my limbs: and thus, consumed by the fire of my eyes, clasped within my arms as in a whirlwind...."