like the shadow of a tree trunk. He raised his head. Serapion stood
there gazing at him. Malchus felt the heart leap in his breast, but
he neither moved nor spoke. He remembered the fierceness with which
Serapion had rejected him in the desert and he expected that now he
would be still more angry. But the old man was contemplating him
calmly and with a look in which there was no trace of anger, and
presently Malchus heard the quiet voice which had stirred him so
deeply when they had talked in Alexandria.
"What do you seek?"
"I seek to become a hermit," Malchus replied.
"While I watched you just now," said Serapion, "the evil spirits were
hovering about your head in the likeness of flies. If I had not
rebuked them they would have settled on you."
"I am ready to war with evil spirits," Malchus answered, "and with
God's help I shall overcome them."
"I have told you," said the hermit, "that, being a man long
accustomed to ease and luxury, it is impossible for you to become a
hermit. If you wish to fly from your former life, return at least to
the village on Lake Mareotis where we entered the desert, and work
for your living there in the fields."
But still Malchus persisted. "Tell me what I ought to do to become a
hermit, and I will do it."
"I have told you," answered the old man, quietly, "that it is not
possible for you to become a hermit, but if you wish to lead the holy
life, go to a desert monastery; there they will receive you. Here I
live alone and often I eat only once in five days, and even then I do
not eat a full meal."
He said this to dissuade Malchus from his impossible ambition. But
Malchus replied: "For the last four days, my father, I have eaten
nothing. There on the sand are the remains of the loaf which I last
tasted before the end of our journey."
The old man, gazing at Malchus, knew that what he said was true.
"Rise up," he said, "and get the bread which you threw away, and come
into the cell."
Malchus obeyed. The doorway of the cell opened into a little room
whose floor was the bare sand, and its walls the same rough stones as
the exterior. A table stood near the door, on it a mug and two
earthenware dishes, and a bench beside it; on the floor lay a
sheepskin and a great heap of dried palm leaves, and from pegs in the
wall hung a full sack and a goatskin containing water. A doorless
opening led to a small inner chamber having an altar and a wooden
crucifix, and, at the height of a man standing, a little window
guarded by two wooden bars.
Malchus stood in the doorway with his fragment of loaf in his hand,
waiting to be invited to enter; but Serapion took no notice of him.
He was lifting down the water skin from its peg and, untying the
neck, he poured some water into a dish. Then, going to the sack, he
took out a little loaf and, dipping it in the water, began to eat.
Malchus expected that he would invite him to eat, too, but Serapion
had, it seemed, forgotten him, and Malchus, unable to endure the
sight of another man eating, turned away his eyes and leaned his
weary body against the door-post.
When Serapion and finished eating he stood up and began to chant the
psalm called "De Profundis." Malchus stood upright and, as Serapion
proceeded to chant the same psalm many times over, he joined in the
chanting. When Serapion had chanted the psalm twelve times he fell
on his knees and began to pray aloud, saying prayers up to the number
of twelve. He did all these things in order to test the patience and
forbearance of Malchus. But Malchus joined gladly in the psalms and
prayers, for he felt that he was now receiving direction and help in
what he should do.
When they had finished it was already late in the evening and, as
Serapion seemed again to have forgotten him, Malchus resolved to
return to his place outside. It seemed to him now a terrible thing
to be going back to that state of spiritual torpor which came upon
him in his loneliness whenever he had conquered the fierce obsession
of bodily hunger; and so he turned, before leaving his cell, to
Serapion.
"Will you not give me some rule, my father," he asked, "for
meditation and prayer, for it is hard, without experience, to know
how best to turn the soul to God."
Serapion was silent. He was considering the case of this young man
so stubbornly determined to take upon himself the hard life of the
hermit. He considered how he had fasted for four days and then, when
bitterly disappointed in his hope of food, had been glad to join in
the long psalm-singing and prayers, and how he had lain in the open
unprotected for four nights and was ready now to go back
uncomplaining to his place. And seeing so much good will waiting
only for guidance to express itself in good works, the hermit was
touched and, stretching out his hand in the dark, he took Malchus by
the cloak and drew him back into the cell and toward the doorway of
the small inner chamber. "Go in," he said, "and twelve times
throughout the night you shall recite the psalm which we recited this
evening. This you must do standing, but between every repetition
kneel down and meditate upon the words until they become the very
words of your soul crying to God."
Malchus groped his way into the little oratory and stood before the
altar. To spend the night within four walls, undisturbed by the fear
of prowling beasts, was for him the most blessed ease. Though his
body was feeble from fasting and his brain dizzy from lack of sleep,
his soul was warm with happiness at the prospect of passing the night
as Serapion had instructed him, for it seemed now that he had been
rescued from his own doubt and ignorance and that Serapion was
beginning to relent toward him. He was glad that he had been set to
perform not only a discipline of the soul, but also a discipline of
the body. Once during the night, as he knelt in meditation, it
seemed to him that his soul floated away from his body, and he saw
his body bowed down before the altar and, standing upon the altar
above him, the figure of a man with wings. Great wings they were,
curving high above his shoulders and reaching downward to his heels,
and every feather of them was plumed with rays of light. The figure
grew clearer, brighter, it seemed to pulsate with the intensity of
its brightness. Then Malchus's soul began to return to his body, his
body roused itself with a little shudder, and he sat up on his heels
and stared at the dark altar with a dazed mind. But the memory of
the vision filled him with encouragement and he raised his aching
body and stood again to recite the psalm.
When the daylight returned an unearthly peace had settled upon him.
The voice of Serapion called him from the outer chamber, and Malchus
found him standing at his table before a heap of dried palm leaves.
"My father," he said to the old man, "I feel that my soul is at rest."
The hermit looked up from a palm leaf which he was tearing into
strips. "For a little while," he replied, "that is well."
"And it is not always well for the soul to be at rest?"
"No, my son, for it is by war and strife, and not by rest, that the
soul advances in spiritual excellence."
"Is it then wrong to pray to be delivered from strife?"
"When strife comes upon us we must pray, not that the strife may be
removed, but that we may have patience to overcome the strife."
"And what if I find myself for a long time at peace?"
"Then you must pray to God to let the strife return to you."
"But if strife is good, why do they that seek God fly from the towns
and villages where, as I well know, there is endless strife for the
soul?"
"Because worldly strife blinds and oppresses the soul; but here in
the desert a man finds only the strife of the heart which is the path
of spiritual excellence. Here the spirit is free from those other
kinds of strife--the strife which arises from the ears, the eyes, and
the mouth. But now," he said, "you must watch me so as to learn how
to make mats and ropes of palm leaves. These dried palm leaves must
be split up into ribbons, and when we have a good supply of ribbons
we must lay them in the trough to soak."
As he spoke he was splitting up the leaves into long, narrow strips,
tearing the leaf always along the grain, and when Malchus saw how the
splitting was done he took a leaf and began to tear it in the same
way.
"This," the old man went on, "is the easiest part of the work. It
needs no more than a little care and neatness. But when we have
finished the splitting I can show you at once how to plait, for I set
some other strips to soak last night, that we should not be delayed
by having to wait for these to soak, for the soaking is a matter of
some hours."
The hermit ceased to talk and he and Malchus continued to work on the
heap of leaves till Malchus's fingers, unhardened as yet by manual
work, were covered with painful cuts from the sharp-edged leaves.
When the whole heap was finished, the hermit stooped and, turning
back the sheepskin which lay on the floor, disclosed a stone trough
from which he lifted a dripping sheaf of ribbons which had been
soaking all night. These he laid on the table and, having done so,
threw into the trough those which they had just split. "Now," he
said, "you must watch carefully;" and choosing the most suitable
strips, he began slowly but with the deftness and precision of an
expert to plait the first rows of a narrow mat. Having done so, he
took the work to pieces and repeated the operation three times. And
when he had plaited it again a fourth time he handed the piece to
Malchus. "Now," he said, "take it, and take these soaked strips,
too, and sit down outside in the shadow of the cell and continue from
the point at which I stopped. Take also the sheepskin there, so that
you can lay the strips on it and keep them out of the sand. When you
have woven to the length of your arm, let me see what you have done."
Malchus obeyed, and for three hours he sat laboring patiently at the
work, while the free ends of the strips escaped repeatedly from his
inexperienced fingers and worked themselves loose, and the chafing of
the strips hurt the cuts in his fingers, which were becoming more and
more painful. When at last he had woven an arm's length he took it
in for Serapion to inspect. The old man examined it critically, and
then without a word unplaited all that Malchus had done. "The
weaving is very loose," he said. "See that it is closer next time."
Malchus humbly took up the unraveled strips and went out to begin
again. It was now the height of noon. Sky, sand, and surrounding
air radiated a sultry glow, and Malchus, becoming every hour more
feeble, felt as if he were imprisoned in an oven. So far from
gaining any facility in weaving, it seemed to him that he was
becoming more and more clumsy and, to add to his difficulties, the
strips, creased and twisted by the first weaving, would not conform
to a new texture. His fingers were bleeding now; the blood was
staining the strips; and when after two hours he had finished, he
found that his weaving was as loose as before. When he went in
despair to show this new attempt to Serapion, the old man looked up
impatiently and remarked, after a scornful glance at the work, that
it was no better than before. "Take it to pieces and begin again,"
he ordered, and Malchus, concealing his bitter discouragement, went
out and did so, trying again to improve the work. But by this time
the strips were so creased and strained that even the greatest adept
could have made nothing of them, and when Malchus, after a long,
disheartening struggle, had finished, he saw that the weaving was now
looser than ever. Tears of vexation stood in his eyes. He had been
at work for over six hours and he was exhausted in body and mind.
The pain from his fingers aggravated the pain in his heart and he
felt that if Serapion set him to do the work for a fourth time he
would be unable to prevent himself from breaking into sobs. But when
Serapion had again examined the work, he laid it aside without remark
and, turning to Malchus, asked him, "Will you eat, my son?"
The sudden release from the long strain almost snapped the feeble
cord of Malchus's self-control. Tears ran down his cheeks, but with
a last effort he mastered himself. "You know best, my father," he
answered, "what is right for me to do."
The hermit, without further speech, set a dish of water on the table
and, bringing a shell full of salt and four small loaves from the
sack, he signed to Malchus to sit down with him at the table. Then
he gave Malchus one of the loaves, and himself took Malchus's dry and
sandy fragment, and they began to eat together, dipping their loaves
in the water to soften them.
The hard, stale stuff seemed to Malchus more delicious than the
rarest of the delicacies he had tasted at the feasts of Alexandria.
The savor of it on his tongue and in his nostrils filled all his
physical being with delight; but he forced himself to eat slowly,
trembling lest his gluttony should become apparent to Serapion and
should discredit him in his eyes.
When they had finished, Serapion spoke again. "My son," he said,
"will you eat another loaf?"
"If you will eat another, my father, I will do so," answered Malchus;
"but if you will not, neither will I."
"I have had enough," Serapion replied, "for I am a hermit and I have
eaten already to-day."
"Then, I, too, have had enough," said Malchus, "for I seek to become
a hermit."
Serapion dropped the other two loaves into the sack again, for he
knew that after so long a fast it would be better for Malchus to eat
no more; and seeing that his strength was almost spent for lack of
repose, he bade him lie down in the cell and sleep, "for fasting and
watching," he said, "are in themselves worth nothing, but only in so
far as they minister to the soul."
_Chapter
Seven_
Malchus had been with Serapion for forty days and during all that
time he had followed with gladness the orderly rule of life which the
hermit prescribed. His thoughts and desires, surfeited of the
refined sensuality of his former life, turned easily to this new life
in which every privation and every act of discipline was for him a
revolt against the hated past. It seemed as if his mind had been
purged of desire, for during all that time he was untroubled by the
lusts of the flesh; and as Serapion permitted him every evening to
eat a small meal of bread and salt or of dried dates, the dreams and
reveries concerning food and wine had ceased to molest him. He had
soon mastered the art of plaiting palm leaves and could now make
ropes, mats, and baskets which would be good enough to sell; and when
the hours of prayer and meditation were over he fell to work on a mat
or basket, rejoicing to see his own handiwork grow under his fingers.
Only twice during these forty days had any human soul penetrated into
the empty desert which inclosed them. Once when Malchus was chanting
a psalm in the oratory he was surprised by the sound of a strange
voice calling out a greeting which was answered by the voice of
Serapion. At the sound of it Malchus forgot his chanting and, driven
by curiosity, began to listen avidly to the conversation which
followed the greeting. But Serapion called to him, bidding him
continue his devotions, and putting a great constraint upon himself,
he forced himself to continue until he had finished the appointed
service. By that time there was silence in the cell, and when he
came into the outer room he found Serapion alone. The old man did
not speak, and Malchus, knowing that this silence was intended as a
rebuke to his curiosity, took up a half-woven basket and went out.
Far below him, swaying faintly above its black shadow on the
immaculate sweep of the desert, a figure no larger than a weevil
toiled southward toward the remoter deserts of Thebaid; and who he
was and why he had come to the cell Malchus never knew.
The second visitor had come a few days later, leading an ass laden
with baskets and sacks. An hour before he arrived, Malchus, who sat
weaving a basket outside the cell, had seen a small dark blot moving
upon the stainless face of the desert. He had watched it until it
split into two blots, one larger than the other, and then tiny moving
images of man and beast had grown slowly to creatures of natural
size. When they had reached the foot of the slope below the cell,
the driver had left his beast and climbed the sliding bank alone. He
carried a leather sack slung over his left shoulder. The ass stood
patiently below, flapping each ear alternately; from where he sat,
Malchus could see the swarm of flies swaying like smoke about its
head. The man had reached the top of the slope. It was evident that
he did not see Malchus, for he approached the cell cautiously, as if
hoping to escape notice. But before he could reach the door Serapion
came out, and after they had greeted each other he took from the
stranger the sack he was carrying, and then held out his hand. The
stranger made a gesture of refusal. "Do not repay me, brother," he
said, "for by accepting them as a gift you will confer a blessing on
me."
"Take the payment that is your due, brother," answered Serapion; "for
has not the Lord Jesus commanded us to owe no man anything?"
The stranger took the money that Serapion offered. "It shall go,
then, to some one who has need of it," he said. That was the end of
their talk. Serapion carried the sack into the cell, and presently
brought it back empty; the stranger took it and with a brief farewell
departed, and it seemed to Malchus a marvelous thing that, living
alone in that inhuman desolation, the hermit should not be tempted to
delay his visitor in talk.
When he had finished weaving the basket, Malchus returned to the cell
and found the hermit standing by the table, which was covered with
many little loaves of bread and a jar of oil. "By God's mercy," he
said, "Brother Apollonius has brought us enough food for thirty days,
and so I shall be spared the journey to the monastery in Nitria,
which is the nearest place where bread can be obtained. That brother
was once a merchant in Alexandria, but, being desirous to lead the
holy life, he left his business and departed to Nitria; and since he
was unable either to learn any handicraft or to watch and fast to any
great degree, he took upon himself to go at regular intervals to
Alexandria and buy there the things required by the brethren; and
besides this, he carries pomegranates and raisins and eggs and other
needful things to them that are sick among the hermits that live
round about Nitria. Nor is that all; for when that is done, he goes
forth, as now, to visit the hermits who live many miles beyond,
bringing to them the things without which a man cannot live. But for
this he is unwilling to receive payment, doing it for God's sake, and
often when I have been absent from this cell, or praying in the
oratory, I have afterward found food set upon the window-sill or left
at the door. So has Brother Apollonius found for himself a way in
which he can serve God and benefit the faithful."
While he was speaking, Serapion had taken from the sack the loaves
which still remained there. There were only three of them. "See!"
he said to Malchus. "If Brother Apollonius had not come to-day, I
should have had to set out for Nitria to-morrow." Then with
Malchus's help he dropped all the new loaves into the sack till it
hung from its peg full-bellied as the carcass of a hind which a
hunter has slung by the feet from the wall of his cabin.
"But the water skin, too, is almost empty," said Malchus.
"To-morrow," replied Serapion, "I am going to refill it."
He spoke as if it were an easy matter, and Malchus supposed,
therefore, that there must be some spring not far off. But Serapion
told him that the nearest spring was five miles away; "and this
spring," he said, "is dry for two months of the year, and when last I
filled the skin from it, on the day before I started for Alexandria,
I saw that it was beginning to run dry. It will be quite dry by this
time and so I must go to the river."
"But the river is many miles away," said Malchus.
"It is fifteen miles from here," answered the old man, "and as there
is no moon at present I shall have to start early so as to reach the
river before nightfall. At the first hint of daylight I shall start
back, and before sunset I shall be here."
"I will come and help you," said Malchus, "for the skin, when full,
must be a heavy load."
But the hermit would not allow Malchus to accompany him, and next
day, when Malchus had finished his prayers, he found that Serapion
was gone and the skin was gone from the wall, and, running
out-of-doors, he espied, far off, the small figure which had grown so
familiar to him during the long journey from Alexandria. Already it
was halfway across the plain which extended, smooth as a sea of milk,
from the foot of the steep descent beneath him to the next great wave
of the desert. For a long time Malchus stood watching it with a
strange sinking at the heart. Then he turned to his plaiting, and
when he looked again Serapion had vanished over the next crest.
For the first time Malchus was face to face with utter solitude, and
at the sense of it a profound loneliness descended upon him. He
discovered now that, even during the hours when he had been unable to
see or hear Serapion, he had always, by some unknown sense, felt the
comfort of his companionship. For little by little, without being
aware of it, he had fastened upon the old man all those bonds of
human affection which he had so ruthlessly severed when he fled from
Alexandria. Serapion had become for him his father, his mother, and
his dear friend, and, deprived of him, he was deprived of everything.
Everything but himself, for now, as in a fever, he had become sharply
aware of himself as a thing separate from all else. At the same time
vivid memories of his former life began to assail him. One after
another they flowed through his mind, each with its own keen emotion;
and last of all the face of Helena flashed upon his inner eye with
the heart-shaking clearness of reality. He cried out aloud and, not
knowing what he did, sprang to his feet and ran into the cell, as
though to take refuge from some specter or prowling beast. There he
fell on his knees and hid his face in his hands. The discovery that
he had not, after all, escaped from the past, that he bore it still
stored up within him and ready to spring to life and torture him in
his moments of weakness, filled him with bitter discouragement.
Crouching there immovable, he prayed passionately for strength, and
after a while strength came to him and he rose from his knees and
returned to his weaving. He had by now become so expert that he
could work blindfold, and he sat now with his head cloth drawn over
his face to keep off the flies which through the hot hours
incessantly plagued every living thing. But now the hot, veering
note of their buzzing brought comfort to him, for it raised a screen
of sound between him and the huge silence which inclosed him, and
soon the busy monotony of manual labor lulled his heart into
resignation, and at last even into contentment. He was completing
the largest mat he had yet made, and when he had finished the last
rows he secured the loose ends and, standing up, spread it out on the
sand. The texture was beautifully close and even. Malchus heaved a
sigh of accomplishment and surveyed it with pleasure. But as he did
so there came into his mind the occasion on which he had first
completed a mat of sound workmanship and had carried it proudly to
Serapion. Serapion had examined it carefully, nodding his head many
times over it, and had then, without comment, spent an hour in
pulling it to pieces. The ruthless destruction of his handiwork had
pained Malchus deeply, and for the first time his heart had risen in
revolt against the hermit; but he had controlled his tongue and had
gone out and lain for an hour sulking behind the cell. By that time
his pride had submitted and he was at peace again. In the evening
Serapion had recited many times over the verses which contain that
command of the Lord Jesus, "Set not your affections upon things of
the earth"; and when Malchus had learned it by heart Serapion had set
him to meditate upon it, "and do not forget, my son," he had said,
"that to cast off the world of men is nothing, for unless a man has
also cast off the smallest earthly delight, his soul is still of this
world." And next morning, as Malchus went out to work, Serapion had
looked up and said to him, "You have now mastered the art of plaiting
leaves."