THE CHIMERA AND THE SPHINX.
Antony finds himself stretched on his back at the edge of the cliff. The
sky is beginning to grow white.
"Is this the brightness of dawn? or is it the reflection of the moon?"
He tries to rise, then sinks back, and with chattering teeth:
"I feel fatigued ... as if all my bones were broken!
"Why?
"Ah! it is the Devil! I remember; and he even repeated to me all I had
learned from old Didymus concerning the opinions of Xenophanes, of
Heraclitus, of Melissus, and of Anaxagoras, as well as concerning the
Infinite, the creation, and the impossibility of knowing anything!
"And I imagined that I could unite myself to God!"
Laughing bitterly:
"Ah! madness! madness! Is it my fault? Prayer is intolerable to me! My
heart is drier than a rock! Formerly it overflowed with love! ...
"The sand, in the morning, used to send forth exhalations on the
horizon, like the fumes of a censer. At the setting of the sun blossoms
of fire burst forth from the cross, and, in the middle of the night, it
often seemed to me that all creatures and all things, gathered in the
same silence, were with me adoring the Lord. Oh! charm of prayer, bliss
of ecstasy, gifts of Heaven, what has become of you?
"I remember a journey I made with Ammon in search of a solitude in which
we might establish monasteries. It was the last evening, and we
quickened our steps, murmuring hymns, side by side, without uttering a
word. In proportion as the sun went down, the shadows of our bodies
lengthened, like two obelisks, always enlarging and marching on in front
of us. With the pieces of our staffs we planted the cross here and there
to mark the site of a cell. The night came on slowly, and black waves
spread over the earth, while an immense sheet of red still occupied the
sky.
"When I was a child, I used to amuse myself in constructing hermitages
with pebbles. My mother, close beside me, used to watch what I was
doing.
"She was going to curse me for abandoning her, tearing her white locks.
And her corpse remained stretched in the middle of the cell, beneath the
roof of reeds, between the tottering walls. Through a hole, a hyena,
sniffing, thrusts forward his jaws! ... Horror! horror!"
He sobs.
"No: Ammonaria would not have left her!
"Where is Ammonaria now?
"Perhaps, in a hot bath she is drawing off her garments one by one,
first her cloak, then her girdle, then her outer tunic, then her inner
one, then the wrappings round her neck; and the vapour of cinnamon
envelops her naked limbs. At last she sinks to sleep on the tepid floor.
Her hair, falling around her hips, looks like a black fleece--and,
almost suffocating in the overheated atmosphere, she draws breath, with
her body bent forward and her breasts projecting. Hold! here is my flesh
breaking into revolt. In the midst of anguish, I am tortured by
voluptuousness. Two punishments at the same time--it is too much! I can
no longer endure my own body!"
He stoops down and gazes over the precipice.
"The man who falls over that will be killed. Nothing easier, by simply
rolling over on the left side: it is necessary to take only one step!
only one!"
Then appears an old woman.
Antony rises with a start of error. He imagines that he sees his mother
risen from the dead.
But this one is much older and excessively emaciated. A winding-sheet,
fastened round her head, hangs with her white hair down to the very
extremities of her legs, thin as sticks. The brilliancy of her teeth,
which are like ivory, makes her clayey skin look darker. The sockets of
her eyes are full of gloom, and in their depths flicker two flames, like
lamps in a sepulchre.
"Come forward," she says; "what keeps you back?"
_Antony_, stammering--"I am afraid of committing a sin!"
She resumes:
"But King Saul was slain! Razias, a just man, was slain! Saint Pelagius
of Antioch was slain! Dominius of Aleppo and his two daughters, three
more saints, were slain;--and recall to your mind all the confessors
who, in their eagerness to die, rushed to meet their executioners. In
order to taste death the more speedily, the virgins of Miletus strangled
themselves with their cords. The philosopher, Hegesias, at Syracuse
preached so well on the subject, that people deserted the brothels to
hang themselves in the fields. The Roman patricians sought for death as
if it were a debauch."
_Antony_--"Yes, it is a powerful passion! Many an anchorite has yielded
to it."
_The old woman_--"To do a thing which makes you equal to God--think of
that! He created you; you are about to destroy His work, you, by your
courage, freely. The enjoyment of Erostrates was not greater. And then,
your body is thus mocked by your soul in order that you may avenge
yourself in the end. You will have no pain. It will soon be over. What
are you afraid of? A large black hole! It is empty, perhaps!"
Antony listens without saying anything in reply;--and, on the other
side, appears another woman, marvellously young and beautiful. At first,
he takes her for Ammonaria. But she is taller, fair as honey, rather
plump, with paint on her cheeks, and roses on her head. Her long robe,
covered with spangles, is studded with metallic mirrors. Her fleshly
lips have a look of blood, and her somewhat heavy eyelashes are so much
bathed in languor that one would imagine she was blind. She murmurs:
"Come, then, and enjoy yourself. Solomon recommends pleasure. Go where
your heart leads you, and according to the desire of your eyes."
_Antony_--"To find what pleasure? My heart is sick; my eyes are dim!"
She replies:
"Hasten to the suburb of Racotis; push open a door painted blue; and,
when you are in the atrium, where a jet of water is gurgling, a woman
will present herself--in a peplum of white silk edged with gold, her
hair dishevelled, and her laugh like sounds made by rattlesnakes. She is
clever. In her caress you will taste the pride of an initiation, and the
satisfaction of a want. Have you pressed against your bosom a maiden who
loved you? Recall to your mind her remorse, which vanished under a flood
of sweet tears. You can imagine yourself--can you not?--walking through
the woods beneath the light of the moon. At the pressure of your hands
joined with hers a shudder runs through both of you; your eyes, brought
close together, overflow from one to the other like immaterial waves,
and your heart is full; it is bursting; it is a delicious whirlwind, an
overpowering intoxication."
_The old woman_--"You need not experience joys to feel their bitterness!
You need only see them from afar, and disgust takes possession of you.
You must needs be wearied with the monotony of the same actions, the
duration of the days, the ugliness of the world, and the stupidity of
the sun!"
_Antony_--"Oh! yes; all that it shines upon is displeasing to me."
_The young woman_--"Hermit! hermit! you shall find diamonds among the
pebbles, fountains beneath the sand, a delight in the dangers which you
despise; and there are even places on the earth so beautiful that you
are filled with a longing to embrace them."
_The old woman_--"Every evening when you lie down to sleep on the earth,
you hope that it may soon cover you."
_The young woman_--"Nevertheless, you believe in the resurrection of the
flesh, which is the transport of life into eternity."
The old woman, while speaking, has been growing more emaciated, and,
above her skull, which has no hair upon it, a bat has been making
circles in the air.
The young woman has become plumper. Her robe changes colour; her
nostrils swell; her eyes roll softly.
The first says, opening her arms:
"Come! I am consolation, rest, oblivion, eternal peace!"
And the second offering her breast:
"I am the soother, the joy, the life, the happiness inexhaustible!"
Antony turns on his heel to fly. Each of them places a hand upon his
shoulder.
The winding-sheet flies open, and reveals the skeleton of Death. The
robe bursts open, and presents to view the entire body of Lust, which
has a slender figure, with an enormous development behind, and great,
undulating masses of hair, disappearing towards the end.
Antony remains motionless between the pair, contemplating them.
_Death_ says to him--
"This moment, or a little later--what does it matter? You belong to me,
like the suns, the nations, the cities, the kings, the snow on the
mountains, and the grass in the fields. I fly higher than the
sparrow-hawk, I run more quickly than the gazelle; I keep pace even with
hope; I have conquered God!"
_Lust_--"Do not resist; I am omnipotent. The forests echo with my sighs;
the waves are stirred by my agitations. Virtue, courage, piety, are
dissolved in the perfume of my breath. I accompany man at every step he
takes; and on the threshold of the tomb he comes back to me."
_Death_--"I will reveal to you what you tried to grasp by the light of
torches on the features of the dead--or when you rambled beyond the
Pyramids in those vast sand-heaps composed of human remains. From time
to time, a piece of skull rolled under your sandal. You took it out of
the dust; you made it slip between your fingers; and your mind, becoming
absorbed in it, was plunged into nothingness."
_Lust_--"Mine is a deeper gulf! Marble slabs have inspired impure loves.
People rush towards meetings that terrify them, and rivet the very
chains which they curse. Whence comes the witchery of courtesans, the
extravagance of dreams, the immensity of my sadness?"
_Death_--"My irony surpasses that of all other things. There are
convulsions of joy at the funerals of kings and at the extermination of
peoples; and they make war with music, plumes, flags, golden harnesses,
and a display of ceremony to pay me the greater homage."
_Lust_--"My anger is as strong as yours. I howl, I bite, I have sweats
of agony, and corpse-like appearances."
_Death_--"It is I who make you serious; let us embrace each other!"
Death chuckles; Lust roars. They seize each other's figures, and sing
together:
"I hasten the dissolution of matter."
"I facilitate the scattering of germs!"
"Thou destroyest that I may renew!"
"Thou engenderest that I may destroy!"
"Active my power!"
"Fruitful my decay!"
And their voices, whose echoes, rolling forth, fill the horizon, become
so powerful that Antony falls backward.
A shock, from time to time, causes him to half open his eyes; and he
perceives, in the midst of the darkness, a kind of monster before him.
It is a death's-head with a crown of roses. It rises above the torso of
a woman white as mother-of-pearl. Beneath, a winding-sheet, starred with
points of gold, makes a kind of train;--and the entire body undulates,
like a gigantic worm holding itself erect.
The vision grows fainter, and then fades away.
_Antony_, rises again--"This time, once more, it was the Devil, and
under his two-fold aspect--the spirit of voluptuousness and the spirit
of destruction. Neither terrifies me. I thrust happiness aside, and feel
that I am eternal.
"Thus, death is only an illusion, a veil, masking at certain points the
continuity of life. But substance, being one, why is there a variety of
forms? There must be somewhere primordial figures, whose bodies are only
images. If one could see, one would know the bond between mind and
matter, wherein Being consists!
"There are those figures which were painted at Babylon on the wall of
the temple of Belus, and they covered a mosaic in the port of Carthage.
I, myself, have sometimes seen in the sky what seemed like forms of
spirits. Those who traverse the desert meet animals passing all
conception ..."
And, opposite him, on the other side of the Nile, lo! the Sphinx
appears.
It stretches out its feet, shakes the fillets on its forehead, and lies
down upon its belly.
Jumping, flying, spirting fire through its nostrils, and striking its
wings with its dragon's tail, the Chimera with its green eyes, winds
round, and barks. The curls of its head, thrown back on one side,
intermingle with the hair on its haunches; and on the other side they
hang over the sand, and move to and fro with the swaying of its entire
body.
The Sphinx is motionless, and gazes at the Chimera:
"Here, Chimera; stop!"
_The Chimera_--"No, never!"
_The Sphinx_--"Do not run so quickly; do not fly so high; do not bark so
loud!"
_The Chimera_--"Do not address me, do not address me any more, since you
remain forever silent!"
_The Sphinx_--"Cease casting your flames in my face and flinging your
yells in my ears; you shall not melt my granite!"
_The Chimera_--"You will not get hold of me, terrible Sphinx!"
_The Sphinx_--"You are too foolish to live with me!"
_The Chimera_--"You are too clumsy to follow me!"
_The Sphinx_--"And where are you going that you run so quickly?"
_The Chimera_--"I gallop into the corridors of the labyrinth; I hover
over the mountains; I skim along the waves; I yelp at the bottoms of
precipices; I hang by my jaws on the skirts of the clouds. With my
trailing tail I scratch the coasts, and the hills have taken their curb
according to the form of my shoulders. But as for you, I find you
perpetually motionless; or, rather, with the end of your claw tracing
letters on the sand."
_The Sphinx_--"That is because I keep my secret! I reflect and I
calculate. The sea returns to its bed; the blades of corn balance
themselves in the wind; the caravans pass; the dust flies off; the
cities crumble;--but my glance, which nothing can turn aside, remains
concentrated on the objects which cover an inaccessible horizon."
_The Chimera_--"As for me, I am light and joyous! I discover in men
dazzling perspectives, with Paradises in the clouds and distant
felicities. I pour into their souls the eternal insanities, projects of
happiness, plans for the future, dreams of glory, and oaths of love, as
well as virtuous resolutions. I drive them on perilous voyages and on
mighty enterprises. I have carved with my claws the marvels of
architecture. It is I that hung the little bells on the tomb of
Porsenna, and surrounded with a wall of Corinthian brass the quays of
the Atlantides.
"I seek fresh perfumes, larger flowers, pleasures hitherto unknown. If
anywhere I find a man whose soul reposes in wisdom, I fall upon him and
strangle him."
_The Sphinx_--"All those whom the desire of God torments, I have
devoured.
"The strongest, in order to climb to my royal forehead, mount upon the
stripes of my fillets as on the steps of a staircase. Weariness takes
possession of them, and they fall back of their own accord."
Antony begins to tremble. He is not before his cell, but in the desert,
having at either side of him those two monstrous animals, whose jaws
graze his shoulders.
_The Sphinx_--"O Fantasy, bear me on thy wings to enliven thy sadness!"
_The Chimera_--"O Unknown One, I am in love with thine eyes! I turn
round thee, soliciting allayment of that which devours me!"
_The Sphinx_--"My feet cannot raise themselves. The lichen, like a
ringworm, has grown over my mouth. By dint of thinking, I have no longer
anything to say."
_The Chimera_--"You lie, hypocritical Sphinx! How is it that you are
always addressing me and abjuring me?"
_The Sphinx_--"It is you, unmanageable caprice, who pass and whirl
about."
_The Chimera_--"Is that my fault? Come, now, just let me be!"
It barks.
_The Sphinx_--"You move away; you avoid me!"
The Sphinx grumbles.
_The Chimera_--"Let us make the attempt! You crush me!"
_The Sphinx_--"No; impossible!"
And sinking, little by little, it disappears in the sand, while the
Chimera, crawling, with its tongue out, departs with a winding movement.
The breath issuing from its mouth has produced a fog.
In this fog Antony traces masses of clouds and imperfect curves.
Finally, he distinguishes what appear to be human bodies.
And first advances the group of Astomi, like air-balls passing across
the sun.
"Don't puff too strongly! The drops of rain bruise us; the false sounds
excoriate us; the darkness blinds us. Composed of breezes and of
perfumes, we roll, we float--a little more than dreams, not entirely
beings."
The Nisnas have but one eye, one cheek, one hand, one leg, half a body,
and half a heart. And they say, in a very loud tone:
"We live quite at our ease in our halves of houses with our halves of
wives and our halves of children."
_The Blemmyes_, absolutely bereft of heads--
"Our shoulders are the largest;--and there is not an ox, a rhinoceros,
or an elephant that is capable of carrying what we carry.
"Arrows, and a sort of vague outline are imprinted on our breasts--that
is all! We reduce digestion to thought; we subtilise secretions. For us
God floats peacefully in the internal chyle.
"We proceed straight on our way, passing through every mire, running
along the verge of every abyss; and we are the most industrious, happy,
and virtuous people."
_The Pygmies_--"Little good-fellows, we swarm over the world, like
vermin on the hump of a dromedary.
"We are burnt, drowned, or run over; but we always reappear more full of
life and more numerous--terrible from the multitude of us that exists!"
_The Sciapodes_--"Kept on the ground by our flowing locks, long as
creeping plants, we vegetate under the shelter of our feet, which are as
large as parasols; and the light reaches us through the spaces between
our wide heels. No disorder and no toil! To keep the head as low as
possible--that is the secret of happiness!"
Their lifted thighs, resembling trunks of trees, increase in number. And
now a forest appears in which huge apes rush along on four paws. They
are men with dogs' heads.
_The Cynocephali_--"We leap from branch to branch to suck the eggs, and
we pluck the little birds; then we put their nests upon our heads after
the fashion of caps.
"We do not fail to snatch away the worst of the cows, and we destroy the
lynxes' eyes. Tearing the flowers, crushing the fruits, agitating the
springs, we are the masters--by the strength of our arms and the
fierceness of our hearts.
"Be bold, comrades, and snap your jaws!"
Blood and milk flow from their lips. The rain streams over their hairy
backs.
Antony inhales the freshness of green leaves which are agitated as the
branches of the trees dash against each other. All at once appears a
large black stag with a bull's head, carrying between his two ears a
mass of white horns.
_The Sadhuzag_--"My seventy-four antlers are hollow like flutes. When I
turn myself towards the south wind, sounds go forth from them that draw
around me the ravished beasts. The serpents come winding to my feet; the
wasps stick in my nostrils; and the parrots, the doves, and the ibises
alight upon my branches. Listen!"
He bends back his horns, from which issues an unutterably sweet music.
Antony presses both his hands above his heart. It seems to him as if
this melody were about to carry off his soul.
_The Sadhuzag_--"But, when I turn towards the north wind, my horns, more
bushy than a battalion of spears, emit a howling noise. The forests
thrill; the rivers swell; the husks of the fruit burst, and blades of
grass stand erect like a coward's hair. Listen!"
He bows down his branches, from which now come forth discordant cries.
Antony feels as if he were torn asunder, and his horror is increased on
seeing the Mantichor, a gigantic red lion with a human figure and three
rows of teeth:
"The silky texture of my scarlet hair mingles with the yellowness of the
sands. I breathe through my nostrils the terror of solitudes. I spit
forth the plague. I devour armies when they venture into the desert. My
nails are twisted like gimlets; my teeth are cut like a saw; and my
hair, wriggled out of shape, bristles with darts which I scatter, right
and left, behind me. Hold! hold!"
The Mantichor casts thorns from his tail, which radiate, like arrows, in
all directions. Drops of blood flow, spattering over the foliage.
The Catoblepas appears, a black buffalo, with a pig's head hanging to
the earth, and connected with his shoulders by a slender neck, long and
flabby as an empty gut. He is wallowing on the ground; and his feet
disappear under the enormous mane of hard hairs that descend over his
face:
"Fat, melancholy, savage, I remain continually feeling the mire under my
stomach. My skull is so heavy that it is impossible for me to carry it.
I roll it around slowly; and, opening my jaws, I snatch with my tongue
the poisonous herbs that are moistened with my breath. I once devoured
my paws without noticing it.
"No one, Antony, has ever seen my eyes, or those who have seen them are
dead. If I but raised my eyelids--my eyelids red and swollen--that
instant you would die."
_Antony_--"Oh! that thing! ... Well! well! As if I had any such longing!
Its stupidity attracts me. No! no! I will not!" He looks fixedly on the
ground. But the grass lights up, and, in the twistings of the flames,
stands erect the Basilisk, a huge, violet serpent, with a trilobate
crest and two teeth--one above, the other below:
"Take care! You are about to fall into my jaws! I drink fire. I am fire
myself; and from every quarter I suck it in--from clouds, from pebbles,
from dead trees, from the hair of animals, and from the surface of
marshes. My temperature supports the volcanoes. I cause the lustre of
precious stones and the colour of metals."
_The Griffin_, a lion with a vulture's beak, white wings, red paws, and
blue neck--"I am the master of the profound splendours. I know the
secret of the tombs where the old kings sleep. A chain, which issues
from the wall, keeps their heads erect. Near them, in basins of
porphyry, women whom they have loved float upon black liquids. Their
treasures are ranged in halls, in lozenges, in hillocks, and in
pyramids; and, lower, far below the tombs, after long journeys in the
midst of suffocating darkness, are rivers of gold with forests of
diamonds, meadows of carbuncles, and lakes of quicksilver. With my back
against the door of the vault, and my claws in the air, I watch with my
flaming eyes those who may think fit to come there. The immense plain,
even to the furthest point of the horizon, is quite bare and whitened
with travellers' bones. For you the bronze doors will open, and you will
inhale the vapour of the mines; you will descend into the caverns ...
Quick! quick!"
He digs the earth with his claws, crowing like a cock.
A thousand voices reply to him. The forest trembles.
And all sorts of horrible beasts arise: the Tragelaphus, half-stag,
half-ox; the Myrmecoleo, a lion in front, an ant behind, whose genitals
are turned backwards; the python, Aksar, of sixty cubits, who frightened
Moses; the great weasel, Pastinaca, which kills trees by its odour; the
Presteros, which renders idiotic those who touch it; the Mirag, a horned
hare dwelling in the islands of the sea. The Copard Phalmant bursts his
belly by dint of howling; the Senad, a bear with three heads, tears its
little ones with its mouth; the dog, Cepus, scatters on the rocks the
blue milk of its dugs. Mosquitoes begin to buzz, toads to jump, and
serpents to hiss. Lightnings flash; down comes the hail.
Then there are squalls, which reveal anatomical marvels. There are
alligators' heads with roebucks' feet, owls with serpents' tails, swine
with tigers' muzzles, goats with asses' rumps, frogs covered with hair
like bears, chameleons large as hippopotami, calves with two heads, one
of which weeps while the other bellows, four f[oe]tuses holding each
other by the navel and spinning like tops, and winged bellies which
flutter like gnats.
They rain down from the sky; they spring out of the ground; they glide
from the rocks. Everywhere eyes flash, mouths roar; the breasts bulge
out; the claws lengthen; the teeth gnash; the flesh quivers. Some of
them bring forth their young; others with a single bite, devour one
another.
Suffocating from their very numbers, multiplying by their contact, they
climb on top of one another; and they all keep stirring about Antony
with a regular swaying motion, as if the soil were the deck of a vessel.
He feels close to his calves the trailing of slugs, and on his hands the
cold touch of vipers; and spiders spinning their webs enclose him in
their network.
But the circle of monsters begins to open; the sky suddenly becomes
blue, and the unicorn makes its appearance:
"Off I gallop! Off I gallop!
"I have hoofs of ivory, teeth of steel, a head coloured purple, a body
like snow, and the horn on my forehead has the varied hues of the
rainbow.
"I travel from Chaldea to the Tartar desert, on the banks of the Ganges,
and into Mesopotamia. I outstrip the ostriches. I run so rapidly that I
draw the wind along with me. I rub my back against the palm-trees; I
roll myself in the bamboos. With one bound I jump across the rivers.
Doves fly above my head. Only a virgin can bridle me.
"Off I gallop! Off I gallop!"
Antony watches him flying away.
And, keeping his eyes still raised, he perceives all the birds that are
nourished by the wind: the Gouith, the Ahuti, the Alphalim, the Jukneth
from the mountains of Caff, and the Homai of the Arabs, which are the
souls of murdered men. He hears the parrots utter human speech, then the
great web-footed Pelasgians, who sob like children or chuckle like old
women.
A briny breath of air strikes his nostrils. A seashore is now before
him.
At a distance rise waterspouts, lashed up by the whales; and at the
extremity of the horizon the beasts of the sea, round, like leather
bottles, flat, like strips of metal, or indented, like saws, advance,
crawling over the sand:
"You are about to come with us into our unfathomable depths, never
penetrated by man before. Different races dwell in the country of the
ocean. Some are in the abode of the tempests; others swim openly in the
transparency of the cold waves, browse like oxen over the coral plains,
sniff in with their nostrils the ebbing tide, or carry on their
shoulders the weight of the ocean-springs."
Phosphorescences flash from the hairs of the seals and from the scales
of the fishes. Sea-hedgehogs turn around like wheels; Ammon's horns
unroll themselves like cables; oysters make sounds with the fastenings
of their shells; polypi spread out their tentacles; medusae quiver like
crystal balls; sponges float; anemones squirt out water; and mosses and
seaweed shoot up.
And all kinds of plants spread out into branches, twist themselves into
tendrils, lengthen into points, and grow round like fans. Pumpkins
present the appearance of bosoms, and creeping plants entwine themselves
like serpents.
The Dedaims of Babylon, which are trees, have as their fruits human
heads; mandrakes sing; and the root Baaras runs into the grass.
And now the plants can no longer be distinguished from the animals.
Polyparies, which have the appearance of sycamores, carry arms on their
branches. Antony fancies he can trace a caterpillar between two leaves;
it is a butterfly which flits away. He is on the point of walking over
some shingle when up springs a grey grasshopper. Insects, like petals of
roses, garnish a bush; the remains of ephemera make a bed of snow upon
the soil.
* * * * *
And, next, the plants are indistinguishable from the stones.
Pebbles bear a resemblance to brains, stalactites to udders, and
iron-dust to tapestries adorned with figures. In pieces of ice he can
trace efflorescences, impressions of bushes and shells--so that one
cannot tell whether they are the impressions of those objects or the
objects themselves. Diamonds glisten like eyes, and minerals palpitate.
And he is no longer afraid! He lies down flat on his face, resting on
his two elbows, and, holding in his breath, he gazes around.
Insects without stomachs keep eating; dried-up ferns begin to bloom
afresh; and limbs which were wanting sprout forth again.
Finally, he perceives little globular bodies as large as pins' heads,
and garnished all round with eyelashes. A vibration agitates them.
_Antony_, in ecstasy--
"O bliss! bliss! I have seen the birth of life; I have seen the
beginning of motion. The blood beats so strongly in my veins that it
seems about to burst them. I feel a longing to fly, to swim, to bark, to
bellow, to howl. I would like to have wings, a tortoise-shell, a rind,
to blow out smoke, to wear a trunk, to twist my body, to spread myself
everywhere, to be in everything, to emanate with odours, to grow like
plants, to flow like water, to vibrate like sound, to shine like light,
to be outlined on every form, to penetrate every atom, to descend to the
very depths of matter--to be matter!"
The dawn appears at last; and, like the uplifted curtains of a
tabernacle, golden clouds, wreathing themselves into large volutes,
reveal the sky.
In the very middle of it, and in the disc of the sun itself, shines the
face of Jesus Christ.
Antony makes the sign of the Cross, and resumes his prayers.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Temptation of St. Antony, by Gustave Flaubert