"The Fathers of Nicæa were ranged in purple robes on thrones along the wall, like the Magi; and they were entertained at a banquet, while honours were heaped upon them, especially on Paphnutius, merely because he has lost an eye and is lame since Dioclesian's persecution! Many a time the Emperor has kissed his injured eye. What folly! Moreover, the Council had such worthless members! Theophilus, a bishop of Scythia; John, another, in Persia; Spiridion, a cattle-drover. Alexander was too old. Athanasius ought to have made himself more agreeable to the Arians in order to get concessions from them!
"How is it they dealt with me? They would not even give me a hearing! He who spoke against me – a tall young man with a curling beard – coolly launched out captious objections; and while I was trying to find words to reply to him, they kept looking at me with malignant glances, barking at me like hyenas. Ah! if I could only get them all sent into exile by the Emperor, or rather smite them, crush them, behold them suffering. I have much to suffer myself!"
He sinks swooning against the wall of his cell.
"This is what it is to have fasted overmuch! My strength is going. If I had eaten, only once, a morsel of meat!"
He half-closes his eyes languidly.
"Ah! for some red flesh … a bunch of grapes to nibble, some curds that would quiver on a plate!
"But what ails me now? What ails me now? I feel my heart dilating like the sea when it swells before the storm. An overwhelming weakness bows me down, and the warm atmosphere seems to waft towards me the odour of hair. Still, there is no trace of a woman here."
He turns towards the little pathway amid the rocks.
"This is the way they come, poised in their litters on the black arms of eunuchs. They descend, and, joining together their hands, laden with rings, they kneel down. They tell me their troubles. The need of a superhuman voluptuousness tortures them. They would like to die; in their dreams they have seen gods who called them by name; and the edges of their robes fall round my feet. I repel them. 'Oh! no,' they say to me, 'not yet! What must I do?' Any penance will appear easy to them. They ask me for the most severe: to share in my own, to live with me.
"It is a long time now since I have seen any of them! Perhaps, though, this is what is about to happen? And why not? If suddenly I were to hear the mule-bells ringing in the mountains. It seems to me …"
Antony climbs upon a rock, at the entrance of the path, and bends forward, darting his eyes into the darkness.
"Yes! down there, at the very end, there is a moving mass, like people who are trying to pick their way. Here it is! They are making a mistake."
Calling out:
"On this side! Come! Come!"
The echo repeats:
"Come! Come!"
He lets his arms fall down, quite dazed.
"What a shame! Ah! poor Antony!"
And immediately he hears a whisper:
"Poor Antony."
"Is that anyone? Answer!"
It is the wind passing through the spaces between the rocks that causes these intonations, and in their confused sonorities he distinguishes voices, as if the air were speaking. They are low and insinuating, a kind of sibilant utterance:
The first– "Do you wish for women?"
The second– "Nay; rather great piles of money."
The third– "A shining sword."
The others– "All the people admire you."
"Go to sleep."
"You will cut their throats. Yes! you will cut their throats."
At the same time, visible objects undergo a transformation. On the edge of the cliff, the old palm-tree, with its cluster of yellow leaves, becomes the torso of a woman leaning over the abyss, and poised by her mass of hair.
Antony re-enters his cell, and the stool which sustains the big book, with its pages filled with black letters, seems to him a bush covered with swallows.
"Without doubt, it is the torch that is making this play of light. Let us put it out!"
He puts it out, and finds himself in profound darkness.
And, suddenly, through the midst of the air, passes first, a pool of water, then a prostitute, the corner of a temple, a figure of a soldier, and a chariot with two white horses prancing.
These images make their appearance abruptly, in successive shocks, standing out from the darkness like pictures of scarlet above a background of ebony.
Their motion becomes more rapid; they pass in a dizzy fashion. At other times they stop, and, growing pale by degrees, dissolve – or, rather, they fly away, and instantly others arrive in their stead.
Antony droops his eyelids.
They multiply, surround, besiege him. An unspeakable terror seizes hold of him, and he no longer has any sensation but that of a burning contraction in the epigastrium. In spite of the confusion of his brain, he is conscious of a tremendous silence which separates him from all the world. He tries to speak; impossible! It is as if the link that bound him to existence was snapped; and, making no further resistance, Antony falls upon the mat.
CHAPTER II.
The Temptation of Love and Power
THEN, a great shadow – more subtle than an ordinary shadow, from whose borders other shadows hang in festoons – traces itself upon the ground.
It is the Devil, resting against the roof of the cell and carrying under his wings – like a gigantic bat that is suckling its young – the Seven Deadly Sins, whose grinning heads disclose themselves confusedly.
Antony, his eyes still closed, remains languidly passive, and stretches his limbs upon the mat, which seems to him to grow softer every moment, until it swells out and becomes a bed; then the bed becomes a shallop, with water rippling against its sides.
To right and left rise up two necks of black soil that tower above the cultivated plains, with a sycamore here and there. A noise of bells, drums, and singers resounds at a distance. These are caused by people who are going down from Canopus to sleep at the Temple of Serapis. Antony is aware of this, and he glides, driven by the wind, between the two banks of the canal. The leaves of the papyrus and the red blossoms of the water-lilies, larger than a man, bend over him. He lies extended at the bottom of the vessel. An oar from behind drags through the water. From time to time rises a hot breath of air that shakes the thin reeds. The murmur of the tiny waves grows fainter. A drowsiness takes possession of him. He dreams that he is an Egyptian Solitary.
Then he starts up all of a sudden.
"Have I been dreaming? It was so pleasant that I doubted its reality. My tongue is burning! I am thirsty!"
He enters his cell and searches about everywhere at random.
"The ground is wet! Has it been raining? Stop! Scraps of food! My pitcher broken! But the water-bottle?"
He finds it.
"Empty, completely empty! In order to get down to the river, I should need three hours at least, and the night is so dark I could not see well enough to find my way there. My entrails are writhing. Where is the bread?"
After searching for some time he picks up a crust smaller than an egg.
"How is this? The jackals must have taken it, curse them!"
And he flings the bread furiously upon the ground.
This movement is scarcely completed when a table presents itself to view, covered with all kinds of dainties. The table-cloth of byssus, striated like the fillets of sphinxes, seems to unfold itself in luminous undulations. Upon it there are enormous quarters of flesh-meat, huge fishes, birds with their feathers, quadrupeds with their hair, fruits with an almost natural colouring; and pieces of white ice and flagons of violet crystal shed glowing reflections. In the middle of the table