The year 1874 finally brought the work which Flaubert himself
considered his _chef d'œuvre,_--a work on which he had labored for
twenty years, and which furnished the sharpest definition of his
mind,--a most startling work. When it was first rumored that a French
novelist had written "The Temptation of St. Antonius," at least
nine-tenths of the public entertained not the slightest doubt that the
title was to be accepted facetiously or symbolically. Who could surmise
that the work was a thoroughly serious history of the temptation of the
ancient Egyptian hermit!
No novelist, indeed no poet of any kind, had ever attempted
anything similar. It is true, Goethe had written "Die classische
Walpurgisnacht" (The Classic Walpurgis Night); Byron in the second act
of "Cain" had furnished a model for certain portions; Turgenief, in
"Visions," had treated in a masterly way, a remotely related subject
within a very small framework. A drama in seven parts, however,
consisting of one long drawn out monologue, or, more accurately
speaking, a detailed presentation of what had passed, during a night of
terror, through the brain of one single mortal who had become a prey
to hallucinations; such a work had never before been written. And yet
this work, failure though it is in some respects, displayed a quiet
grandeur, in its melancholy monotony, and an absolutely modern stamp,
attained by but few poetic works of French literature.
St. Antonius stands on the threshold of his hut on a mountain in
Egypt. A tall cross is planted in the earth; an old twisted palm-tree
bends over the edge of the precipice; the Nile forms a lake at the
foot of the mountain. The sun is setting. The hermit, exhausted from
a day passed in fasting, labor, and self-torture, feels his spiritual
strength give way, as darkness falls upon the earth. A dreary yearning
for the external world fills his heart. Now sensual, now proud, now
idyllic and laughing memories allure and torment him.
First of all Antonius yearns for his childhood, for Ammonaria, a young
maiden whom he once loved; he thinks of his charming pupil, Hilarion,
who has forsaken him; he curses his solitary life. The migratory birds
that pass over his head awaken within him the desire to fly onward
as they do. He deplores his lot; he begins to lament and groan with
anguish. Why had not he become a peaceful monk in a cell? Why had not
he chosen the calm and useful life of a priest? He wishes that he
were a grammarian or a philosopher, a toll-keeper on a bridge, a rich
married merchant, or a brave, jovial soldier; his physical strength
would then have had employment. He is overcome with despair at his
position, bursts into tears, and seeks consolation and edification in
the Holy Scriptures. Opening at the Acts of the Apostles, he reads the
passage where Peter is permitted to eat all animals, clean or unclean,
while he, Antonius, is tormenting himself with strict fasting. Turning
to the Old Testament at the same time, he reads how the right is
given to the Jews to kill all their enemies, to slaughter them by the
wholesale, while he is commanded to forgive his enemies; he reads of
Nebuchadnezzar, and envies him his festivals; of Ezekias, and shudders
with desire when he thinks of all his precious perfumes and golden
treasures; of the beautiful Queen of Sheba, and asks himself how she
could possibly hope to lead the wise Solomon into temptation; and it
seems to him that the shadows which the two arms of the cross cast on
the earth, approach each other like two horns. He calls upon God, and
the two shadows assume their old places once more. Vainly does he seek
to humiliate himself; he thinks with pride of his long martyrdom; his
heart swells when he recalls the honor that has been shown him from
every quarter, for even the emperor has written to him three times; and
then he sees that his water-jug is empty and his bread consumed. Hunger
and thirst gnaw at his vitals.
He remembers the envy and the hatred which the Church Fathers showed
toward him at the Council of Nice, and his soul cries for revenge. He
dreams of the aristocratic women who formerly visited him so often in
his wilderness, in order to confess to him and entreat him to permit
them to remain with him, the saint. He is absorbed in these dreams so
long that they become realities to him. He sees the fine ladies from
the city approach, borne in their sedan chairs; he extinguishes his
torch in hopes of dispelling the apparitions, and now for the first
time clearly beholds the visions in the dark canopy of the night
sky, like scarlet images on a ground of ebony, whirling past him in
bewildering haste.
Voices which resound from the obscurity proffer him beautiful women,
heaps of gold, and scenes of splendor. This is the beginning of the
temptation, the thirst of animal instincts. Then he dreams that he
is the confidant of the emperor, the prime minister, with the reins
of power in his hands. The emperor crowns him with his diadem. He
avenges himself cruelly on his enemies among the Church Fathers, wades
in their blood, and suddenly finds himself in the midst of one of
Nebuchadnezzar's festivals, in a glittering palace, where the viands
and drinks form mountains and streams. Anointed, and decorated with
precious stones, the emperor sits upon his throne, while Antonius from
afar reads upon his brow his haughty, ambitious thoughts. He penetrates
him so thoroughly, that suddenly he himself becomes Nebuchadnezzar, and
amidst all his revelling feels the need of becoming an animal. Flinging
himself down, he creeps on the ground, bellowing like a steer, and then
he scratches his hand on a stone and awakens. He lashes himself so
long in punishment for this vision, that the pain becomes a rapturous
delight, and suddenly the Queen of Sheba appears before him. Her hair
is powdered blue; she is all radiant with gold and diamonds, and she
offers herself to him with wanton coquetry. She is all women in one,
and he knows that if he were to touch her shoulder with one finger a
stream of liquid fire would shoot through his veins. There she stands,
all fragrant with the perfume of the Orient. Her words ring upon his
ear like singularly captivating music, and, seized with burning desire,
he stretches forth his arms toward her. Then he controls himself and
orders her from his presence. She and her whole train vanish. And now
the devil assumes the form of his pupil, Hilarion, who comes to shake
his faith.
The little, withered Hilarion, to his alarm, calls his attention to the
fact that in fancy he has been mastered by the enjoyments which in real
life he has renounced, assuring him that God is no Moloch, who forbids
the enjoyment of life, and that the endeavor to understand God is worth
more than all the self-torture in the world. He first points out to
Antonius the contradictions between the Old and the New Testament;
then the various contradictions of the New. And Hilarion grows. Then
there arise in the brain of Antonius recollections of all the heresies
of which he has heard and read in Alexandria and elsewhere, and has
victoriously overcome: the hundreds upon hundreds of heresies of the
early Christian sects; views, of which one is more monstrous than
the other, are howled in his ears by the heretics themselves. They
clamor about him like so many hyenas. Each one belches out its madness
upon him. Hysterical women and the sweethearts of the martyrs cast
themselves wailing upon the ashes of the dead. Antonius sees heretics
who emasculate themselves, heretics who bum themselves. Apollonius of
Tyre reveals himself to him as a miracle-worker in no respect inferior
to Christ. And Hilarion continues to grow. Following in the train of
the heretics come the gods of the different religions in a monstrous
procession, from the most abhorrent and grotesque stone idols and
wooden fetiches of ancient times, to the bloodthirsty gods of Eastern
lands, and the gods of beauty of Greece. They all move swiftly past,
and uttering a loud wail of lamentation, disappear with a wild leap in
the great vacuum. He sees gods that fall into a swoon, others that are
whirled away, others that are crushed, tom to pieces, and precipitated
into a black hole; gods that are drowned or dissolved into air, and
gods that are guilty of self-destruction. Among them looms up Buddha,
who in everything that he narrates concerning himself bears the most
startling resemblance to the Saviour. Finally Crepitus, that Roman god
of digestion, and Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, make the leap down into
the abyss.
A terrible silence, a deep night ensues.
"They are all gone," says Antonius.
"I still remain," replies a voice.
And Hilarion stands before him, by far larger than before,
transfigured, beautiful as an archangel, radiant as the sun, and so
tall that Antonius is compelled to throw back his head in order to see
him.
"Who are you?"
Hilarion replies: "My kingdom is as large as the world, and my desire
knows no bounds. I am always marching forward, freeing minds and
weighing worlds, without fear, without pity, without love, and without
God. They call me Science."