Part 3
"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 the _Wisest_ of 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? The _Devil_ indeed 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!"
(_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 should _He_ come? 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. 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._)
[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.
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[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 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._