Temptation Of St. Anthony — Chapter Seven
_An exceedingly cold, opaque and f[oe]tid mist fills the atmosphere.
_) ANTHONY (_groping with his hands like a blind man_:--) "Where am I?...
I fear lest I fall into the abyss!
And the cross, surely, is too far from me.
Ah!
what a night!
what a terrible night!"
(_The mist is parted by a gust of wind; and Anthony sees two men covered with long white tunics.
_ _The first is of lofty stature, with a gentle face, and a grave mien.
His blond hair, parted like that of Christ, falls upon his shoulders.
He has cast aside a wand that he had been holding in his hand; his companion takes it up, making a reverence after the fashion of the Orientals.
_ _The latter is small of stature, thick set, flat-nosed; his neck and shoulders expresses good natured simplicity.
_ _Both are barefooted, bareheaded, and dusty, like persons who have made a long journey.
_) ANTHONY (_starting up_:--) "What do ye seek?
Speak!...
Begone from here!"
DAMIS (_who is a little man_).
"Nay!
nay!
be not angered, good hermit.
As for that I seek, I know not myself what it is!
Here is the Master!"
(_He sits down.
The other stranger remains standing.
Silence.
_) ANTHONY (_asks_).
"Then ye come?..."
DAMIS.
"Oh!
from afar off--very far off!"
ANTHONY.
"And ye go?..."
DAMIS (_pointing to the other_) "Whithersoever he shall desire!"
ANTHONY.
"But who may he be?"
DAMIS.
"Look well upon him!"
ANTHONY (_aside_).
"He looks like a saint!
If I could only dare...."
(_The mist is all gone.
The night is very clear.
The moon shines.
_) DAMIS.
"Of what art thou dreaming, that thou dost not speak?"
ANTHONY.
"I was thinking....
Oh!
nothing!"
DAMIS (_approaches Apollonius, and walks all round him several times, bending himself as he walks, never raising his head_:--) "Master, here is a Galilean hermit who desires to know the beginnings of wisdom."
APOLLONIUS.
"Let him approach!"
(_Anthony hesitates.
_) DAMIS.
"Approach!"
APOLLONIUS (_in a voice of thunder_:--) "Approach!
Thou wouldst know who I am, what I have done, and what I think,--is it not so, child?"
ANTHONY.
"Always supposing that these things can contribute to the salvation of my soul."
APOLLONIUS.
"Rejoice!
I am about to inform thee of them!"
DAMIS (_in an undertone, to Anthony_:--) "Is it possible?
He must surely have at the first glance discerned in thee extraordinary aptitude for philosophy.
I shall also strive to profit by his instruction."
APOLLONIUS.
"First of all, I shall tell thee of the long course which I have followed in order to obtain the doctrine; and if thou canst discover in all my life one evil action, thou shalt bid me pause, for he who hath erred in his actions may well give scandal by his words."
DAMIS (_to Anthony_).
"How just a man?
Is he not?"
ANTHONY.
"Indeed I believe him to be sincere."
APOLLONIUS.
"Upon the night of my birth, my mother imagined that she was gathering flowers by the shore of a great lake.
A flash of lightning appeared; and she brought me into the world to the music of the voices of swans singing to her in her dream.
"Until I had reached the age of fifteen I was plunged thrice a day into the fountain, Asbadeus, whose waters make perjurers hydropical; and my body was rubbed with the leaves of the onyza, that I might be chaste.
"A Palmyrian princess came one evening to seek me, offering me treasures that she knew to be in the tombs.
A hierodule of the temple of Diana, slew herself in despair with the sacrificial knife; and the governor of Cilicia, finding all his promises of no avail, cried out in the presence of my family that he would cause my death; but it was he that died only three days after, assassinated by the Romans."
DAMIS (_nudging Anthony with his elbow_).
"Eh?
did I not tell thee?
What a man!"
APOLLONIUS.
"For the space of four successive years I maintained the unbroken silence of the Pythagoreans.
The most sudden and unexpected pain never extorted a sigh from me; and when I used to enter the theatre, all drew away from me, as from a phantom."
DAMIS.
"Wouldst thou have done so much?
--thou?"
APOLLONIUS.
"After the period of my trial had been accomplished, I undertook to instruct the priests regarding the tradition they had lost."
ANTHONY.
"What tradition?"
DAMIS.
"Interrupt him not!
Be silent!"
APOLLONIUS.
"I have conversed with the Samaneans of the Ganges, with the astrologers of Chaldea, with the magi of Babylon, with the Gaulish Druids, with the priests of the negroes!
I have ascended the fourteen Olympii; I have sounded the Scythian lakes; I have measured the breadth of the Desert!"
DAMIS.
"It is all true!
I was with him the while!"
APOLLONIUS.
"But first I had visited the Hyrcanian Sea; I made the tour of it; and descending by way of the country of the Baraomati, where Bucephalus is buried, I approached the city of Nineveh.
At the gates of the city, a man drew near me...."
DAMIS.
"I--even I, good master!
I loved thee from the first.
Thou wert gentler than a girl and more beautiful than a god!"
APOLLONIUS (_without hearing him_).
"He asked me to accompany him, that he might serve as interpreter."
DAMIS.
"But thou didst reply that all languages were familiar to thee, and that thou couldst divine all thoughts.
Then I kissed the hem of thy mantle, and proceeded to walk behind thee."
APOLLONIUS.
"After Ctesiphon, we entered upon the territory of Babylon."
DAMIS.
"And the Satrap cried aloud on beholding a man so pale."
ANTHONY (_aside_).
"What signifies this?..."
APOLLONIUS.
"The king received me standing, near a throne of silver, in a hall constellated with stars; from the cupola hung suspended by invisible threads four great birds of gold, with wings extended."
ANTHONY (_dreamily_).
"Can there be such things in the world?"
DAMIS.
"Ah!
that is a city!
that Babylon!
everybody there is rich!
The houses, which are painted blue, have doors of bronze, and flights of steps descending to the river."
(_Drawing lines upon the ground, with his stick_:) "Like that, seest thou?
And then there are temples, there are squares, there are baths, there are aqueducts!
The palaces are roofed with red brass; and the interior ...
ah!
if thou only knewest!"
APOLLONIUS.
"Upon the north wall rises a tower which supports a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and there are also three others!
The eighth is a chapel containing a bed.
No one enters it save the woman chosen by the priests for the God Belus.
I was lodged there by order of the King of Babylon."
DAMIS.
"As for me, they hardly deigned to give me any attention!
So I walked through the streets all by myself.
I informed myself regarding the customs of the people; I visited the workshops; I examined the great machines that carry water to the gardens.
But I soon wearied of being separated from the Master."
APOLLONIUS.
"At last we left Babylon; and as we travelled by the light of the moon, we suddenly beheld an Empusa."
DAMIS.
"Aye, indeed!
She leaped upon her iron hoof; she brayed like an ass; she galloped among the rocks.
He shouted imprecations at her; she disappeared."
ANTHONY (_aside_).
"What can be their motive?"
APOLLONIUS.
"At Taxilla, the capital of five thousand fortresses, Phraortes, King of the Ganges, showed us his guard of black men, whose stature was five cubits, and under a pavilion of green brocade in his gardens, an enormous elephant, which the queens amused themselves by perfuming.
It was the elephant of Porus which had taken flight after the death of Alexander."
DAMIS.
"And which had been found again in a forest."
ANTHONY.
"Their speech is superabundant, like that of drunken men!"
APOLLONIUS.
"Phraortes seated us at his own table."
DAMIS.
"How strange a country that was!
During their drinking carousels, the lords used to amuse-themselves by shooting arrows under the feet of a dancing child.
But I do not approve...."
APOLLONIUS.
"When I was ready to depart, the king gave me a parasol, and he said to me: 'I have a stud of white camels upon the Indus.
When thou shalt have no further use for them, blow in their ears.
They will come back.'
"We descended along the river, marching at night by the light of the fire-flies, which glimmered among the bamboos.
The slave whistled an air to drive away the serpents; and our camels bent down in passing below the branches of the trees, as if passing under low gates.
"One day a black child, who held a golden caduceus in his hand, conducted us to the College of the Sages.
Iarchas, their chief, spoke to me of my ancestors, told me of all my thoughts, of all my actions, of all my existences.
In former time he had been the River Indus; and he reminded me that I had once been a boatman upon the Nile, in the time of King Sesostris."
DAMIS.
"As for me, they told me nothing; so that I know not who or what I have been."
ANTHONY.
"They have a vague look, like shadows!"
APOLLONIUS.
"Upon the shores of the sea we met with the milk-gorged Cynocephali, who were returning from their expedition to the Island Taprobana.
The tepid waves rolled blond pearls to our feet.
The amber crackled beneath our steps.
Whale-skeletons were whitening in the crevasses of the cliffs.
At last the land became narrow as a sandal;
and after casting drops of ocean water toward the sun, we turned to the right to return.
"So we returned through the Region of Aromatics, by way of the country of the Gangarides, the promontory of Comaria, the country of the Sachalites, of the Adramites and of the Homerites; then, across the Cassanian mountains, the Red Sea, and the Island Topazos, we penetrated into Ethiopia through the country of the Pygmies."
ANTHONY (_to himself_).
"How vast the world is!"
DAMIS.
"And after we had returned home, we found that all those whom we used to know, were dead."
(_Anthony lowers his head.
Silence.
_) APOLLONIUS (_continues_).
"Then men began to talk of me the world over.
"The plague was ravaging Ephesus; I made them stone an old mendicant there."
DAMIS.
"And forthwith the plague departed."
ANTHONY.
"What!
Does he drive away pestilence?"
APOLLONIUS.
"At Cnidos, I cured the man that had become enamored of Venus."
DAMIS.
"Aye!
a fool who had even vowed to espouse her!
To love a woman is at least comprehensible; but to love a statue--what madness!
The Master placed his hand upon the young man's heart; and the fire of that love was at once extinguished."
ANTHONY.
"How!
does he also cast out devils?"
APOLLONIUS.
"At Tarentum they were carrying the dead body of a young girl to the funeral pyre."
DAMIS.
"The Master touched her lips; and she arose and called her mother."
ANTHONY.
"What!
he raises the dead!"
APOLLONIUS.
"I predicted to Vespasian his accession to power."
ANTHONY.
"What!
he foretells the future!"
DAMIS.
"At Corinth there was a ..."
APOLLONIUS.
"It was when I was at table with him, at the waters of Baia ..."
ANTHONY.
"Excuse me, strangers--it is very late ..."
DAMIS.
"At Corinth there was a young man called Menippus ..."
ANTHONY.
"No!
no!
--go ye away!"
APOLLONIUS.
"A dog came in, bearing a severed hand in his mouth."
DAMIS.
"One evening, in one of the suburbs, he met a woman."
ANTHONY.
"Do ye not hear me?
Begone!"
APOLLONIUS.
"He wandered in a bewildered way around the couches ..."
ANTHONY.
"Enough!"
APOLLONIUS.
"They sought to drive him out."
DAMIS.
"So Menippus went with her to her house; they loved one another."
APOLLONIUS.
"And gently beating the mosaic pavement with his tail, he laid the severed hand upon the knees of Flavius."
DAMIS.
"But next morning, during the lessons in the school, Menippus was pale."
ANTHONY (_starting up in anger_).
"Still continuing!
Ah!
then let them continue till they be weary, inasmuch as there is no ..."
DAMIS.
"The Master said to him: 'O beautiful youth, thou dost caress a serpent; by a serpent thou art caressed!
And when shall be the nuptials?'
We all went to the wedding."
ANTHONY.
"Assuredly I am doing wrong, to hearken to such a story!"
DAMIS.
"Servants were hurrying to and fro in the vestibule; doors were opening; nevertheless there was no sound made either by the fall of the footsteps nor the closing of the doors.
The Master placed himself beside Menippus.
And the bride forthwith became angered against the philosophers.
But the vessels of gold, the cupbearers, the cooks, the panthers disappeared; the roof receded and vanished into air; the walls crumbled down; and Apollonius stood alone with the woman at his feet, all in tears.
She was a vampire who satisfied the beautiful young men in order to devour their flesh, for nothing is more desirable for such phantoms than the blood of amorous youths."
APOLLONIUS.
"If thou shouldst desire to learn the art ..."
ANTHONY.
"I do not wish to learn anything!"
APOLLONIUS.
"The same evening that we arrived at the gates of Rome ..."
ANTHONY.
"Oh!
yes!
--speak to me rather of the City of Popes!"
APOLLONIUS.
"A drunken man accosted us, who was singing in a low voice.
The song was an epithalamium of Nero; and he had the power to cause the death of whosoever should hear it with indifference.
In a box upon his shoulders he carried a string taken from the Emperor's cithara.
I
shrugged my shoulders.
He flung mud in our faces.
Then I unfastened my girdle and placed it in this hand."
DAMIS.
"In sooth, thou wert most imprudent!"
APOLLONIUS.
"During the night the Emperor summoned me to his house.
He was playing at osselets with Sporus, supporting his left arm upon a table of agate.
He turned and, knitting his brows, demanded: 'How comes it that thou dost not fear me?'
'Because,' I replied, 'the God who made thee terrible, also made me intrepid."
ANTHONY (_to himself_).
"There is something inexplicable that terrifies me!"
(_Silence.
_) DAMIS (_breaking the silence with his shrill voice_).
"Moreover, all Asia can tell thee ..."
ANTHONY (_starting up_).
