it will never be possible for thee to obtain an idea of its cause,
to have a just notion of God, nor even to say that the universe is
infinite,--for thou must first be able to know what the Infinite is!"
"May not Form be, perhaps, an error of thy senses,--Substance a figment
of thy imagination?"
"Unless, indeed, that the world being a perpetual flux[1] of things,
appearance, on the contrary, be wholly true; illusion the only reality."
"But art thou sure thou dost see?--art thou even sure thou dost live?
Perhaps nothing exists!"
(_The Devil has seized Anthony, and, holding him at arms' length,
glares at him with mouth yawning as though to devour him_):
"Adore me, then!--and curse the phantom thou callest God!"
(_Anthony lifts his eyes with a last effort of hope._
_The Devil abandons him._)
[1] The original text seems to me slightly obscure. The idea of the
universe being a perpetual ebb and flow of shapes, is that of forms
passing away to reappear like waves, is that of the Nidana-Sutris:
"Individuality is only a form ... _Everything is only a flux of
aggregates_, interminably uniting and disuniting," as Barth observes in
his "Religions of India."--Trans.
VII
ANTHONY (_finds himself lying upon his back, at the verge of the cliff._
_The sky commences to blanch._)
"Is it the glow of dawn, or only an effect of moonlight?"
(_He tries to rise, falls back,--his teeth chattering_):
"I feel such a helplessness of weakness, as though all my bones were
broken!
"Why?
"Ah! the Devil!--I remember!--he even repeated to me all that I
learned from the aged Didymus respecting the opinions of Xenophanes,
Heraclitus, of Melissus, of Anaxagoras,--concerning the infinite, the
creation, the impossibility of knowing anything!
"And yet I believed that I could unite myself to God!"
(_Laughing bitterly_):
"Ah! madness! madness! Is the fault mine? Prayer has become
intolerable to me! My heart is dry as a rock! Once, it was wont to
overflow with love!...
"The sand used to smoke of mornings like the odourous dust of a
censer;--at sunset flowers of fire used to bloom upon the cross; and in
the middle of the night, it often seemed as though all beings and all
things, lying under the same awful silence, were adoring the Lord with
me. O charms of prayer, felicities of ecstasy, gifts of heaven,--what
have become of you?
"I remember a voyage I made with Ammon in search of a solitary place
suited for the establishment of a monastery. It was the last evening;
we hastened our steps, walked side by side, murmuring hymns, without
conversing. As the sun sank, the shadows of our bodies lengthened like
two obelisks, continually growing taller, and moving before us. Here
and there we planted crosses, made with fragments of our sticks, to
mark the site of a future cell. Night was tardy in her coming; and
waves of darkness overspread the earth, even while a vast rose-coloured
light still glowed in heaven.
"When I was a child, I used to amuse myself by building hermitages
with pebbles. My mother sitting beside me would watch me so attentively!
"Will she not have cursed me for having abandoned her?--will she not
have plucked out her white hair by handfuls in the despair of her
grief? And her corpse remains lying on the floor of the hut, under the
roof of reeds, between the crumbling walls. Through an orifice a hyena,
snuffing, thrusts his head, advances his mouth ... horror! horror!"
(_Sobbing_):
"No: Ammonaria will not have abandoned her! Where is she
now,--Ammonaria?
"Perhaps at the further end of a bathroom, she removes her garments
one after the other: first the mantle, then the girdle, then the first
tunic, the second lighter tunic, all her necklaces,--and the vapour
of cinnamon envelops her naked limbs. At last she lies down upon the
tepid mosaic. Her long hair spreading below the curve of her hips,
seems like a sable fleece; and the oppressiveness of the heated air
causes her to pant; her waist arched, her breasts standing out ...
What! my flesh rebels again! Even in the midst of grief am I tortured
by concupiscence. To be subjected thus unto two tortures at once is
beyond endurance! I can no longer bear myself!"
(_He leans over, and gazes into the abyss._)
"The man who should fall would be killed. Nothing easier: it were only
necessary to roll over upon my left side:--only one movement--one!"
(_Then suddenly appears_--AN AGED WOMAN. _Anthony starts to his feet in
affright. It seems to him that he beholds his mother arisen._
_But this woman is far older, and prodigiously thin._
_A shroud, knotted about her head, hangs down, together with her white
hair, so as to cover her legs, slender as crutches. The brilliancy of
her ivory-coloured teeth make her earthy skin darker still. The orbits
of her eyes are full of shadow; and far back within them two flames
vacillate, like the lamps of sepulchres._
_She exclaims_):
"Advance! What hinders thee?"
ANTHONY (_stammering_):
"I fear ... to commit a sin!"
SHE (_replies_):
"But King Saul killed himself! Razias, a just man, killed himself!
Saint Pelagia of Antioch killed herself! Dommina of Aleppo and her two
daughters--all three saints--killed themselves: and remember also how
many confessors delivered themselves up to the executioner in their
impatient longing for death! That they might enjoy death more speedily,
the virgins of Miletus strangled themselves with their girdles. At
Syracuse the philosopher Hegesias preached so eloquently upon death
that men deserted the lupanars to go hang themselves in the fields. The
patricians of Borne sought for death as a new form of debauch."
ANTHONY. "Aye! the love of death is strong; and many a anchorite has
succumbed to it."
THE OLD WOMAN. "To do that which will make thee equal unto God--think!
He created thee: thou wilt destroy his work--thou! and by thy
courage,--of thy own free will! The enjoyment that Erostratus knew was
not greater than this. And moreover thy body has so long mocked thy
soul that it is full time thou shouldst take vengeance upon it. Thou
wilt not suffer. It will soon be over. Of what art thou afraid?--a
wide, black hole! Perhaps it is a void!"
[Illustration: The Old Woman: Of what art thou afraid?a wide,
black hole! Perhaps it is a void!]
(_Anthony hearkens without replying; and upon the other side appears_--
ANOTHER WOMAN--_young and marvellously beautiful. At first he takes
her to be Ammonaria. But she is taller, blond as honey, very plump,
with paint upon her cheeks and roses upon her head. Her long robe,
weighty with spangles, gleams with metallic lustre;--her fleshy lips
are sanguinolent; and her somewhat heavy eyelids are so drowned with
languor that one would almost take her to be blind._
_She murmurs_):
"Nay, live! enjoy! Solomon counsels joy! Follow the guiding of thy
heart and the desire of thine eyes!"
ANTHONY. "What joy is there for me? My heart is weary; my eyes are dim!"
SHE (_answers_):
"Seek the suburb of Racotis; push open a door that is painted
blue;--and when thou shalt be in the atrium where a fountain jet
murmurs unceasingly, a woman will present herself before thee--in
peplos of white silk striped with gold; her hair is unloosed, her
laugh like the clatter of crotali. She is skilful. In her caress thou
wilt taste the pride of initiation and the appeasement of desire.
"Hast ever pressed to thy bosom a virgin who loved thee? Dost remember
the surrenders of her modesty,--the passing away of her remorse in a
sweet flow of tears?
"Thou canst even now imagine thyself walking with her--canst thou
not?--in the wood by the light of the moon? At each pressure of your
joined hands, a sweet shuddering passes through you both,--looking
closely into each other your eyes seem to outpour into one another
something like immaterial fluid;--and thy heart fills: it bursts: it is
a suave whirl of eddying passion, an overflowing of intoxication...."
THE OLD WOMAN. "One need not possess joys in order to taste their
bitterness! Even to view them from afar off begets loathing of them.
Thou must be fatigued by the monotony of the same actions, the length
of the days, the hideousness of the world, the stupidity of the sun?"
ANTHONY. "Aye, indeed!--I loathe all that he shines upon."
THE YOUNG WOMAN. "Hermit! hermit! thou wilt find diamonds among the
flints, fountains beneath the sand, a delectation in all the hazards
thou dost despise; and there are even upon earth places of such beauty
that the sight of them would make thee desire to press the whole world
against thy heart with love!"
THE OLD WOMAN. "Each evening that thou liest down upon the earth to
slumber, thou dost hope that it may soon lie upon thee and cover thee."
THE YOUNG WOMAN. "Yet thou dost believe in the resurrection of the
flesh--which is but the translation of life into eternity!"
(_Even as she speaks, the Old Woman becomes still more fleshless; and
above her skull, from which the white hair has disappeared, a bat
circles in the air._
_The Young Woman has become fatter. Her robe gleams with shifting
colours; her nostrils palpitate, her eyes roll softly._)
THE FORMER (_opening her arms, exclaiming_):
"Come to me!--I am Consolation, repose, oblivion, eternal calm!"
THE OTHER.
"I am the sleep-giver, life, happiness inexhaustible!"
(_Anthony turns to fee from them. Each lays a hand on his shoulder._
_The Shroud parts, exposes the Skeleton of Death._
_The robe splits asunder, and leaves the whole body of Lust
exposed:--her waist is slender; her long and undulating hair flutters
in the wind._
_Anthony stands motionless between the two, considering them_):
DEATH (_says to him_):
"What matters it, whether now or at another time! Thou art mine,--like
suns, nations, cities, kings, mountain-snows, and the grasses of the
fields. I fly higher than the hawks of heaven. I run more swiftly than
the gazelle; I overtake even Hope; I vanquished the Son of God!"
LUST. "Resist not! I am the Omnipotent! The forests re-echo with my
sighs; the waters tremble with my agitations. Virtue, courage, piety,
dissolve in the perfume of my mouth. Man I accompany in every step
that he makes; and even from the threshold of the tomb he turns to me!"
DEATH. "I will find for thee that which thou hast vainly sought for,
by the gleam of torches, upon the faces of the dead,--or among those
awful sands that are formed of human remains, where thou wast wont to
wander beyond the Pyramids. From time to time, the fragment of a skull
rolled under thy sandal. Thou didst take up the dust: thou didst let it
trickle through thy fingers; and thy thought, blending with it, sank
into nothingness."
LUST. "My gulf is deeper! Marbles have inspired loves. Men rush to
conjunctures that terrify. Fetters are riveted that the fettered curse.
Whence the bewitchment of courtesans, the extravagance of dreams, the
immensity of my sadness?"
DEATH. "Mine irony depasseth all others! There are convulsions of
delight at the funerals of kings, at the extermination of a whole
people; and war is made with music, with plumes, with harness of
gold,--with vast display of ceremony that my due of homage may be
greater!"
[Illustration: Death: Mine irony depasseth all others!]
LUST. "My rage equals thine! I also yell; I bite! I, too, have sweats
of agony, and aspects cadaverous!"
DEATH. "It is I that make thee awful! Let us intertwine!"
[Illustration: Death: It is I that make thee awful! Let us
intertwine!]
(_Death laughs mockingly; Lust roars. They clasp each other about the
waist, and chant alternately_):
"I hasten the dissolution of matter!"
"I facilitate the dispersion of germs!"
"Thou dost destroy for my renovations!"
"Thou dost engender for my destructions!"
"Ever-active my power!"
"Fecund, my putrefaction!"
(_And their voices, whose rolling echoes fill the horizon, deepen and
become so mighty that Anthony falls backward as if thunder-stricken. A
shock from time to time causes him to reopen his eyes; and he perceives
in the midst of the darkness a manner of monster before him._
_It is a skull, crowned with roses, dominating the torso of a woman
nacreously white. Below, a shroud starred with specks of gold forms
something like a tail; and the whole body undulates, after the fashion
of a gigantic worm erect on end._
_The vision attenuates,--disappears._)
ANTHONY (_rising to his feet_):
"The Devil yet again, and under his two-fold aspect: the spirit of
fornication, and the spirit of destruction.
"Neither affrights me! I repel happiness; and I know myself to be
eternal.
"Thus death is only an illusion, a veil-masking betimes the continuity
of life.
"But Substance being unique, wherefore should forms be varied?
"Somewhere there must be primordial figures, whose bodily forms are
only symbols. Could I but see them, I would know the link between
matter and thought; I would know in what Being consists.
[Illustration: Anthony: Somewhere there must be primordial
figures, whose bodily forms are only symbols.]
"Such were the figures painted at Babylon upon the walls of the
temple of Belus; and others like them covered a mosaic in the port of
Carthage. I myself have sometime beheld in the sky, as it were, forms
of spirits. Those who cross the desert meet with animals surpassing all
conception...."
[Illustration: I myself have sometime beheld in the sky, as it
were, forms of spirits.]
(_And opposite, upon the further side of the Nile, suddenly appears
the Sphinx.[1] He stretches his paws, shakes the bandelets upon his
forehead, and crouches upon his belly._
_Leaping, flying, spitting fire through her nostrils, lashing her
winged sides with her dragon-tail, the green-eyed Chimera circles,
barks._
_The thick curls of her head tossed back upon one side mingle with
the hair of her loins; on the other side they hang down to the sand,
quivering with the swinging of her body, to and fro._)
THE SPHINX (_remaining motionless, and gazing at the Chimera_):
"Hither, Chimera! rest awhile!"
THE CHIMERA. "No! never!"
THE SPHINX. "Do not run so fast, do not fly so high, do not bark so
loudly!"
THE CHIMERA. "DO not call me!--call me no more; since thou must remain
forever dumb."
THE SPHINX. "Cease casting thy flames in my face, and uttering thy
yells in my ear: thou canst not melt my granite."
THE CHIMERA. "Thou shalt not seize me, terrible sphinx!"
THE SPHINX. "Thou art too mad to dwell with me!"
THE CHIMERA. "Thou art too heavy to follow me!"
THE SPHINX. "Yet whither goest thou, that thou shouldst run so fast?"
THE CHIMERA. "I gallop in the corridors of the Labyrinth--I hover above
the mountains--I graze the waves in my flight--I yelp at the bottom of
precipices--I suspend myself with my mouth from the skirts of clouds--I
sweep the shores with my dragging tail; and the curves of the hills
have taken their form from the shape of my shoulders! But thee I find
perpetually immobile, or perhaps making strange designs with thy claws
upon the sand."
THE SPHINX. "It is because I keep my secret;--I dream and calculate.
"The sea returns to its bed; the wheat bends back and forth in the
wind; the caravans pass by; the dust flies; cities crumble; and yet
my gaze, which naught can deviate, remains fixed, gazing through all
intervening things, upon a horizon that none may reach."
[Illustration: The Sphinx: ... and yet my gaze, which naught
can deviate, remains fixed, gazing through all intervening
things, upon a horizon that none may reach. The Chimera: I am
light and joyous!]
THE CHIMERA. "I am light and joyous! I offer to the eyes of men
dazzling perspectives with Paradise in the clouds above, and
unspeakable felicity afar off. Into their souls I pour the eternal
madnesses; projects of happiness, plans for the future, dreams of glory
and vows of love, and all virtuous resolutions.
"I urge men to perilous voyages and great enterprises. I have chiselled
with my claws the wonders of architecture. It was I who suspended the
little bells above the tomb of Porsenna, and surrounded the quays of
Atlantis with a wall of orichalcum.
"I seek for new perfumes, for vaster flowers, for pleasures never felt
before. If I perceive in any place a man whose mind reposes in wisdom,
I fall upon him, and strangle him."
THE SPHINX. "All those tormented by the desire of God, I have devoured.
"In order to climb up to my royal brow, the strongest ascend upon the
flutings of my bandelets as upon the steps of a stairway. Then a great
lassitude comes upon them, and they fall backward."
(_Anthony begins to tremble._
_He is no longer before his cabin, but in the desert itself, with those
two monsters beside him, whose breath is hot upon his shoulders._)
THE SPHINX. "O thou Fantasy, bear me away upon thy wings that my
sadness may be lightened!"
THE CHIMERA. "O thou Unknown, I am enamoured of thine eyes! Like a
hyena in heat I turn about thee, soliciting those fecundations whereof
the desires devour me!
"Ope thy mouth, lift thy feet--mount upon my back!"
THE SPHINX. "My feet, since they have been outstretched, can move no
more. The lichen, like an eruption, has formed upon my jaws. By dint of
long dreaming I have no longer aught to say."
THE CHIMERA. "Thou liest, hypocrite Sphinx! Wherefore dost thou always
call me and always disown me!"
THE SPHINX. "It is thou, indomitable caprice, that dost forever pass
and repass, whirling in thy course!"
THE CHIMERA. "Is the fault mine? What? Let me be!"
(_She barks._)
THE SPHINX. "Thou movest away! thou dost escape me!"
(_He growls._)
THE CHIMERA. "Essay!--Thou crushest me!"
THE SPHINX. "Nay!--impossible!"
(_And gradually sinking down he disappears in the sand; while the
Chimera, ramping with tongue protruding, departs, describing circles on
her way._
_The breath of her mouth has produced a fog._
_Through this mist Anthony perceives wreathings of clouds, undecided
curves._
_At last he can distinguish something like the appearance of human
bodies._
_And first_:--
THE ASTOMI--_approach, like bubbles of air traversed by sunlight. They
cry_):
"Do not breathe too hard! The drops of rain bruise us, false notes
excoriate us, darknesses blind us! Composed wholly of breezes and of
perfumes, we float along, we roll along:--a little more than Dreams,
yet not quite beings...."
THE NISNAS
(_have only one eye, one cheek, one hand, one leg, half a body, half a
heart. They say_):
"We live quite in our halves of houses, with our halves of wives and
our halves of children!"
THE BLEMMYES
(_who have no head at all_):
"Our shoulders are all the broader;--and there is no ox, rhinoceros, or
elephant able to carry what we carry.
"Something dimly resembling features--as it were a vague
face--imprinted upon our breasts: that is all! We think digestions; we
subtleize secretions. God, in our belief, floats peacefully within the
interior chyles.
"We go straight upon our way, through all mires, crossing all morasses,
skirting the edges of all abysses: and we are the most laborious, the
most happy, the most virtuous of all peoples!"
THE PYGMIES:
"We, good little men, swarm upon the world like vermin upon the hump of
a dromedary.
"We are burned, drowned, crushed; and we always reappear, more
vivacious and countless than before--terrible by reason of our numbers!"
THE SCIAPODS:
"Fettered to the earth by our hair, long as lianas, we vegetate beneath
the shelter of our feet, broad as parasols; and the light comes to us
through the thickness of our heels. No annoyances for us, no work! The
head as low as possible--That is the secret of happiness."
[Illustration: The Sciapods: The head as low as possibleThat is
the secret of happiness.]
(_Their lifted thighs,--resembling the trunks of trees,--multiply._
_And a forest appears. Great apes clamber through it on all
fours:--these are men with the heads of dogs._)
THE CYNOCEPHALI:
"We leap from branch to branch in search of eggs to suck; and we pluck
the little fledglings alive; then we put their nests upon our heads in
lieu of caps.
"We tear off the teats of cows; and we put out the eyes of lynxes:
we let fall our dung from the heights of the trees--we parade our
turpitude in the full light of the sun.
"Lacerating the flowers, crushing the fruits, befouling the springs,
violating women, we are the masters of all,--by the strength of our
arms, and the ferocity of our hearts.
"Ho! companions!--gnash with your jaws!"
(_Blood and milk pour down their chops. The rain streams over their
hairy backs._
_Anthony inhales the freshness of the green leaves._
_There is a movement among them, a clashing of branches; and all of
a sudden appears a huge black stag, with the head of a bull, having
between his ears a thicket of white horns._)
THE SADHUZAG:
"My seventy-four antlers are hollow like flutes.
"When I turn me toward the wind of the South, there issue from them
sounds that draw all the ravished animals around me. The serpents twine
about my legs; the wasps cluster in my nostrils; and the parrots, the
doves, the ibises, alight upon the branches of my horns.
"Listen!"
(_He throws back his horns, whence issues a music of sweetness
ineffable._
_Anthony presses both hands upon his heart. It seems to him as though
his soul were being borne away by the melody._)
THE SADHUZAG:
"But when I turn me toward the wind of the North, my antlers, more
thickly bristling than a battalion of lances, give forth a sound of
howlings: the forests are startled with fear; the rivers remount toward
their sources; the husks of fruits burst open; and the bending grasses
stand erect on end, like the hair of a coward.
"Listen!"
(_He bends his branching antlers forward: hideous and discordant cries
proceed from them. Anthony feels as though his heart were torn asunder._
_And his horror augments upon beholding_)--
THE MARTICHORAS
(_A gigantic red lion, with human face, and three rows of teeth_):
"The gleam of my scarlet hair mingles with the reflection of the great
sands. I breathe through my nostrils the terror of solitudes. I spit
forth plague. I devour armies when they venture into the desert.
"My claws are twisted like screws, my teeth shaped like saws; and my
curving tail bristles with darts which I cast to right and left, before
and behind!
"See! see!"
(_The Martichoras shoots forth the keen bristles of his tail, which
irradiate in all directions like a volley of arrows. Drops of blood
rain down, spattering upon the foliage._)
THE CATOBLEPAS
(_A black buffalo with a pig's head, falling to the ground, and
attached to his shoulders by a neck long, thin, and flaccid as an empty
gut._
_He wallows flat upon the ground, and his feet entirely disappear
beneath the enormous mane of coarse hair which covers his face_):
"Fat, melancholy, fierce--thus I continually remain, feeling against
my belly the warmth of the mud. So heavy is my skull that it is
impossible for me to lift it. I roll it slowly all around me,
open-mouthed; and with my tongue I tear up the venemous plants bedewed
with my breath. Once, I even devoured my own feet without knowing it!
"No one, Anthony, has ever beheld mine eyes,--or at least, those who
have beheld them are dead. Were I to lift my eyelids--my pink and
swollen eyelids, thou wouldst forthwith die!"
ANTHONY. "Oh, that one! Ugh! As though I could desire it?--Yet his
stupidity fascinates me! No, no! I will not!"
(_He gazes fixedly upon the ground._
_But the weeds take fire; and amidst the contorsions of the flames,
arises_)--
THE BASILISK
(_A great violet serpent, with trilobate crest, and two fangs, one
above, one below_):
"Beware, lest thou fall into my jaws! I drink fire. I am fire!--and I
inhale it from all things: from clouds, from flints, from dead trees,
the fur of animals, the surface of marshes. My temperature maintains
the volcanoes: I lend glitter to jewels: I give colours to metals!"
THE GRIFFIN
(_A lion with a vulture's beak, and white wings, red paws and blue
neck_):
"I am the master of deep splendours. I know the secrets of the tombs
wherein the Kings of old do slumber.