The Temptation of St. Anthony
"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. Yet surely 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 exiled by 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. She is 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.)
II
(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 to Canopus 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 which mushrooms 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 matters not! 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 broad pieces 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; and immediately 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 6 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 with his 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, those who 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 corresponding to 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 before the 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.
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 large sums. 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.
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1
Acts X: 11-13 – T.
2
Esther IX: 5 – T.
3
Daniel II: 46. – T.
4
Kings XX: 13 (Vulg.). – T.
5
III Kings X: I (Vulg.). – T.
6
Thalamegii– pleasure-boats having apartments.