Temptation Of St. Anthony — Chapter Fourteen

_And first_:-- THE ASTOMI--_approach, like bubbles of air traversed by sunlight.

They cry_): "Do not breathe too hard!

The drops of rain bruise us, false notes excoriate us, darknesses blind us!

Composed wholly of breezes and of perfumes, we float along, we roll along:--a little more than Dreams, yet not quite beings...."

THE NISNAS

(_have only one eye, one cheek, one hand, one leg, half a body, half a heart.

They say_): "We live quite in our halves of houses, with our halves of wives and our halves of children!"

THE BLEMMYES

(_who have no head at all_): "Our shoulders are all the broader;--and there is no ox, rhinoceros, or elephant able to carry what we carry.

"Something dimly resembling features--as it were a vague face--imprinted upon our breasts: that is all!

We think digestions; we subtleize secretions.

God, in our belief, floats peacefully within the interior chyles.

"We go straight upon our way, through all mires, crossing all morasses, skirting the edges of all abysses: and we are the most laborious, the most happy, the most virtuous of all peoples!"

THE PYGMIES:

"We, good little men, swarm upon the world like vermin upon the hump of a dromedary.

"We are burned, drowned, crushed; and we always reappear, more vivacious and countless than before--terrible by reason of our numbers!"

THE SCIAPODS:

"Fettered to the earth by our hair, long as lianas, we vegetate beneath the shelter of our feet, broad as parasols; and the light comes to us through the thickness of our heels.

No annoyances for us, no work!

The head as low as possible--That is the secret of happiness."

[Illustration: The Sciapods: The head as low as possible—That is the secret of happiness.

] (_Their lifted thighs,--resembling the trunks of trees,--multiply.

_ _And a forest appears.

Great apes clamber through it on all fours:--these are men with the heads of dogs.

_) THE CYNOCEPHALI:

"We leap from branch to branch in search of eggs to suck; and we pluck the little fledglings alive; then we put their nests upon our heads in lieu of caps.

"We tear off the teats of cows; and we put out the eyes of lynxes: we let fall our dung from the heights of the trees--we parade our turpitude in the full light of the sun.

"Lacerating the flowers, crushing the fruits, befouling the springs, violating women, we are the masters of all,--by the strength of our arms, and the ferocity of our hearts.

"Ho!

companions!

--gnash with your jaws!"

(_Blood and milk pour down their chops.

The rain streams over their hairy backs.

_ _Anthony inhales the freshness of the green leaves.

_ _There is a movement among them, a clashing of branches; and all of a sudden appears a huge black stag, with the head of a bull, having between his ears a thicket of white horns.

_) THE SADHUZAG:

"My seventy-four antlers are hollow like flutes.

"When I turn me toward the wind of the South, there issue from them sounds that draw all the ravished animals around me.

The serpents twine about my legs; the wasps cluster in my nostrils; and the parrots, the doves, the ibises, alight upon the branches of my horns.

"Listen!"

(_He throws back his horns, whence issues a music of sweetness ineffable.

_ _Anthony presses both hands upon his heart.

It seems to him as though his soul were being borne away by the melody.

_) THE SADHUZAG:

"But when I turn me toward the wind of the North, my antlers, more thickly bristling than a battalion of lances, give forth a sound of howlings: the forests are startled with fear; the rivers remount toward their sources; the husks of fruits burst open; and the bending grasses stand erect on end, like the hair of a coward.

"Listen!"

(_He bends his branching antlers forward: hideous and discordant cries proceed from them.

Anthony feels as though his heart were torn asunder.

_ _And his horror augments upon beholding_)-- THE MARTICHORAS

(_A gigantic red lion, with human face, and three rows of teeth_): "The gleam of my scarlet hair mingles with the reflection of the great sands.

I breathe through my nostrils the terror of solitudes.

I spit forth plague.

I devour armies when they venture into the desert.

"My claws are twisted like screws, my teeth shaped like saws; and my curving tail bristles with darts which I cast to right and left, before and behind!

"See!

see!"

(_The Martichoras shoots forth the keen bristles of his tail, which irradiate in all directions like a volley of arrows.

Drops of blood rain down, spattering upon the foliage.

_) THE CATOBLEPAS

(_A black buffalo with a pig's head, falling to the ground, and attached to his shoulders by a neck long, thin, and flaccid as an empty gut.

_ _He wallows flat upon the ground, and his feet entirely disappear beneath the enormous mane of coarse hair which covers his face_): "Fat, melancholy, fierce--thus I continually remain, feeling against my belly the warmth of the mud.

So heavy is my skull that it is impossible for me to lift it.

I roll it slowly all around me, open-mouthed; and with my tongue I tear up the venemous plants bedewed with my breath.

Once, I even devoured my own feet without knowing it!

"No one, Anthony, has ever beheld mine eyes,--or at least, those who have beheld them are dead.

Were I to lift my eyelids--my pink and swollen eyelids, thou wouldst forthwith die!"

ANTHONY.

"Oh, that one!

Ugh!

As though I could desire it?

--Yet his stupidity fascinates me!

No, no!

I will not!"

(_He gazes fixedly upon the ground.

_ _But the weeds take fire; and amidst the contorsions of the flames, arises_)-- THE BASILISK

(_A great violet serpent, with trilobate crest, and two fangs, one above, one below_): "Beware, lest thou fall into my jaws!

I drink fire.

I am fire!

--and I inhale it from all things: from clouds, from flints, from dead trees, the fur of animals, the surface of marshes.

My temperature maintains the volcanoes: I lend glitter to jewels: I give colours to metals!"

THE GRIFFIN

(_A lion with a vulture's beak, and white wings, red paws and blue neck_): "I am the master of deep splendours.

I know the secrets of the tombs wherein the Kings of old do slumber.

"A chain, issuing from the wall, maintains their heads upright.

Near them, in basins of porphyry, the women they loved float upon the surfaces of black liquids.

Their treasures are all arrayed in halls, in lozenge-shaped designs, in little heaps, in pyramids;--and down below, far below the tombs, and to be reached only after long travelling through stifling darkness, there are rivers of gold bordered by forests of diamonds, there are fields of carbuncles and lakes of mercury.

"Addossed against the subterranean gate I remain with claws uplifted;

and my flaming eyes spy out those who seek to approach.

The vast and naked plain that stretches away to the end of the horizon is whitened with the bones of travellers.

But for thee the gates of bronze shall open; and thou shalt inhale the vapour of the mines, thou shalt descend into the caverns....

Quick!

quick!"

(_He burrows into the earth with his paws, and crows like a cock.

_ _A thousand voices answer him.

The forest trembles.

_ _And all manner of frightful creatures arise:--The Tragelaphus, half deer, half ox; the Myrmecoles, lion before-and ant behind, whose genitals are set reversely; the python Askar, sixty cubits long, that terrified Moses; the huge weasel Pastinaca, that kills the trees with her odour; the Presteros, that makes those who touch it imbecile;

the Mirag, a horned hare, that dwells in the islands of the sea.

The leopard Phalmant bursts his belly by roaring; the triple-headed bear Senad tears her young by licking them with her tongue; the dog Cepus pours out the blue milk of her teats upon the rocks.

Mosquitoes begin to hum, toads commence to leap; serpents hiss.

Lightnings flicker.

Hail falls.

_ _Then come gusts, bearing with them marvellous anatomies:--Heads of alligators with hoofs of deer; owls with serpent tails; swine with tiger-muzzles; goats with the crupper of an ass; frogs hairy as bears;

chameleons huge as hippopotami; calves with two heads, one bellowing, the other weeping; winged bellies flitting hither and thither like gnats.

_ _They rain from the sky, they rise from the earth, they pour from the rocks; everywhere eyes flame, mouths roar, breasts bulge, claws are extended, teeth gnash, flesh clacks against flesh.

Some crouch; some devour each other at a mouthful.

_ _Suffocating under their own numbers, multiplying by their own contact, they climb over one another; and move about Anthony with a surging motion as though the ground were the deck of a ship.

He feels the trail of snails upon the calves of his legs, the chilliness of vipers upon his hands:--and spiders spinning about him enclose him within their network.

_ _But the monstrous circle breaks, parts; the sky suddenly becomes blue;

and_)-- THE UNICORN (_appears_): "Gallop!

Gallop!

"I have hoofs of ivory, teeth of steel; my head is the colour of purple, my body the colour of snow; and the horn of my forehead is bestreaked with the tints of the rainbow.

"I travel from Chaldea to the Tartar desert,--upon the shores of the Ganges and in Mesopotamia.

I overtake the ostriches.

I run so swiftly that I draw the wind after me.

I rub my back against the palm-trees.

I

roll among the bamboos.

I leap rivers with a single bound.

Doves fly above me.

Only a virgin can bridle me.

"Gallop!

Gallop!"

(_Anthony watches him depart.

_ _And as he gazes he beholds all the birds that nourish themselves with wind: the Gouith, the Ahuti, the Alphalim, the Iukneth, of the mountains of Kaf, the homai of the Arabs--which are the souls of murdered men.

He hears the parrots that utter human speech; and the great Pelasgian palmipeds that sob like children or chuckle like old women.

_ _A saline air strikes his nostrils.

Now a vast beach stretches before him.

_ _In the distance jets of water arise, spouted by whales; and from the very end of the horizon come_)-- THE BEASTS OF THE SEA

(_round as wineskins, flat as blades, denticulated like saws, dragging themselves over the sand as they approach_): [Illustration: The beasts of the sea round as wineskins ...

] "Thou wilt accompany us to our immensities, whither as yet no one has descended.

"Divers peoples inhabit the countries of the Ocean.

Some dwell in the sojourn of tempests; others swim freely amid the transparency of chill waves;--or, like oxen, graze upon the coral plains, or suck in through their trunks the reflux of the tides,--or bear upon their shoulders the vast weight of the sources of the sea."

[Illustration: Divers peoples inhabit the countries of the Ocean.

] (_Phosphorences gleam in the moustaches of the seals, shift in the scales of fish.

Echini whirl like wheels; ammonites uncoil like cables;

oysters make their shell hinges squeak; polypi unfold their tentacles;

medusæ quiver like balls of crystal suspended; sponges float hither and thither, anemones ejaculate water; wrack and sea-mosses have grown all about.

_ _And all sorts of plants extend themselves into branches, twist themselves into screws, lengthen into points, round themselves out like fans.

Gourds take the appearance of breasts; lianas interlace like serpents.

_ _The Dedaims of Babylon, which are trees, bear human heads for fruit;

Mandragoras sing;--the root Baaras runs through the grass.

_ _And now the vegetables are no longer distinguishable from the animals.

Polyparies that seem like trees, have arms upon their branches.

Anthony thinks he sees a caterpillar between two leaves: it is a butterfly that takes flight.

He is about to step on a pebble: a grey locust leaps away.

One shrub is bedecked with insects that look like petals of roses; fragments of ephemerides form a snowy layer upon the soil.

_ _And then the plants become confounded with the stones.

_ _Flints assume the likeness of brains; stalactites of breasts; the flower of iron resembles a figured tapestry.

_[2] _He sees efflorescences in fragments of ice, imprints of shrubs and shells--yet so that one cannot detect whether they be imprints only, or the things themselves.

Diamonds gleam like eyes; metals palpitate.

_ _And all fear has departed from him!

He throws himself down upon the ground, and leaning upon his elbows, watches breathlessly.

_ _Insects that have no stomachs persistently eat; withered ferns bloom again and reflower; absent members grow again.

_ _At last he perceives tiny globular masses, no larger than pinheads, with cilia all round them.

They are agitated with a vibratile motion_): ANTHONY (_deliriously_): "O joy!

O bliss!

I have beheld the birth of life!

I have seen the beginning of motion!

My pulses throb even to the point of bursting!

I long to fly, to swim, to bark, to bellow, to howl!

Would that I had wings, a carapace, a shell,--that I could breathe out smoke, wield a trunk,--make my body writhe,--divide myself everywhere,--be in everything,--emanate with odours,--develop myself like the plants,--flow like water,--vibrate like sound--shine like light, squatting upon all forms--penetrate each atom--descend to the very bottom of matter,--be matter itself!"

(_Day at last appears;--and, like tabernacle curtains uplifted, clouds of gold uprolling in broad volutes unveil the sky.

_ _Even in the midst thereof, and in the very disk of the sun, beams the face of Jesus Christ.

_ [Illustration: Day at last appears ...

in the midst thereof and in the very disk of the sun, beams the face of Jesus Christ.

] _Anthony makes the sign of the cross, and resumes his devotions.

_) FINIS

[1] Winkelmann claims to have been the first to discover that the Egyptian sphinxes were bisexual--females before--males otherwise.

(See Book II, chap.

I, § 25.

) Flaubert speaks of the Sphinx in the masculine like Philemon.

(See also Signor Carlo Fea's note upon the paragraph in Winkelmann, old French edition.

An II, R. F.

)--Trans.

[2] Fleurs de fer, "flowers of iron."

In mineralogy _flos ferri_, a form of Aragonite.

--Trans.

[NOTE

Those who compare this translation with the original will observe the omission of some few paragraphs on pages 77, 96 and 211. They are speeches put in the mouths of certain Heresiarchs, or complaints of certain of the minor Roman household gods.

The translator relegated these to an addenda, which the publishers have omitted as being unnecessary.

Those who are familiar with the original will be able to supply them, and will realize that while they might be offensive to some persons, they are in no respect an integral or important part of the great drama.

] ADDENDA (added by transcribers) A.

Observation of Manes, pages 82-3, original text; page 89 of translation.

MANES

_Ou plutôt, faites si bien qu'elle ne soit pas fécondes.

Mieux vaut pour l'ame tomber sur la terre que de languir dans des entraves charnelles.

_ Probably a calumny against Manes; for the Eastern philosophy, especially that of Zoroaster, which is said to have inspired the tenets of Manichæism, advocated no such abominations.

B.

Page 105 of original; page 108 translation.

The realistic phraseology of the original passage is rather brutal.

The French text reads: "_Il souffrait de la maladie Bellerephontienne; et sa mère, la parfumeuse, s'est livrée à Pantherus, un soldat Romain, sur des gerbes de mais, un soir de moisson.

_" C.

Descriptive text, page 237 original, partly suppressed on page 223 translation: "_Et il lui montre dans un bosquet d'aliziers Une Femme toute nue, à quatre pattes comme une bête, et saillie par un homme noir, tenant dans chaque main un flambeau.

_" D.

Curious text of Crepitus, on page 228, pages 241-3 of original: CREPITUS

(----se fait entendre): _Moi aussi l'on m'honora jadis.

On me faisait des libations.

Je fus un Dieu!

_ _L'Athénien me saluait comme un presage de fortune, tandis que le Romain dévot me maudissait les poings levés et que le pontife d'Egypte, s'abstinant des fèves, tremblait à ma voix et pâlissait à mon odeur.

_ _Quand le vinaigre militaire coulait sur les barbes non rasées, qu'on se régalait de glands, de pois, et d'oignons crus, et que le bouc en morceau cuissait dans le beurre rance des pasteurs, sans souci du voisin, personne alors ne se gênait.

Les nourritures solides faisaient digestions retentissantes.

Au soleil de la campagne les hommes se soulageaient avec lenteur.

_ _Ainsi, je passais sans scandale, comme les autres besoins de la vie, comme Mena, tourment des vierges, et la douce Rumina qui protège le sein de la nourrice, gonflé, des veines bleuâtres.

J'étais joyeux.

Je faisais rire.

Et se dilatant d'aise à cause de moi, le convive exhalait toute sa gaieté par les ouvertures de son corps.

_ _J'ai eu mes jours d'orgeuil.

Le bon Aristophane me promena sur la scène, et l'empereur Claudius Drusus[1] me fit asseoir à sa table.

Dans les laticlaves des patriciens j'ai circulé majestueusement!

Les vases d'or, comme des tympanons, resonnaient sous moi; et, quand plein de murènes, de truffles, et de pâtés, l'intestin du maître se dégageait avec fracas, l'univers attentif apprenait que César avait diné!

_ _Mais à présent, je suis confiné dans la populace_[2] _et l'on se récrie, même à mon nom!

_ _Et Crepitus s'éloigne, en poussant un gémissement....

_ E.

For descriptions of the Martichoras and other monsters, appearing page 287 in the original and 263 in the translation, see also Rabelais' Pantagruel, Book V, Chap.

XXX.

[1] Needless to refer to the comedies of Aristophanes, with which English readers have been familiarized through the Bohn translations.

The reference to Claudius ius Drusus seems based upon the following lines in Suetonius: "_Dicitur etiam meditatus edictum, quo veniam daret flatum crepitumque ventris in convivio emittendi: cum periclitatum quemdam prae pudore ex continentia reperisset.

_" (_Suetonius-Tiberius Claudius Drusus_: 32. ) [2] The so-called divinities, _Deus Crepitus, Dea Pertunda, Deus Stercutius, Dea Rumina_ (or _Rumilia_), _Dea Mena_, concerning whose curious attributes the reader may consult English or French classical encyclopedists, were doubtless regarded by the intelligent classes of antiquity much as certain religious superstitions are regarded by educated moderns.

It is true that they furnished grotesque themes to artists; but many existing superstitions regarding elves and goblins have inspired modern sculptors, painters and designers.

Certainly, seriously worshipped as deities, Priapus might seem equally contemptible as a divinity; but his worship, degenerate as it became in later years, was primitively symbolical.

The obscene image merely typified the procreative Spirit of Nature.

The eccentric gods and goddesses above referred to had no such excuse for being.

As previously observed, however, Flaubert artistically represents these divinities not as they were really considered in the antique world, but rather as they would have appeared to the eyes of zealous Christians in the third century--infamous and loathsome.

--Translator.

* * * * * * Transcriber's note: This translation of the "Tentation" by Lafcadio Hearn, still regarded by many as the best up until now in English, still misses some small fragments (of a couple of words) not deemed fit for the Anglo-Saxon temperament of that time.

There is a contemporary version (2002) of this translation available, with introduction by Michel Foucault and the inclusion of some missing expressions.

The original French by Gustave Flaubert is also available at Project Gutenberg--see https://www.

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ANTHONY ***

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