_Hilarion_--"I have returned from it! It is I, in good sooth!"
_Antony_, draws closer and inspects him--"Why, his figure was bright as the dawn, open, joyous. This one is quite sombre, and has an aged look."
_Hilarion_--"I am worn out with constant toiling."
_Antony_--"The voice, too, is different. It has a tone that chills you."
_Hilarion_--"That is because I nourish myself on bitter fare."
_Antony_--"And those white locks?"
_Hilarion_--"I have had so many griefs."
_Antony_, aside--"Can it be possible? ..."
_Hilarion_--"I was not so far away as you imagined. The hermit, Paul, paid you a visit this year during the month of Schebar. It is just twenty days since the nomads brought you bread. You told a sailor the day before yesterday to send you three bodkins."
_Antony_--"He knows everything!"
_Hilarion_--"Learn, too, that I have never left you. But you spend long intervals without perceiving me."
_Antony_--"How is that? No doubt my head is troubled! To-night especially ..."
_Hilarion_--"All the deadly sins have arrived. But their miserable snares are of no avail against a saint like you!"
_Antony_--"Oh! no! no! Every minute I give way! Would that I were one of those whose souls are always intrepid and their minds firm--like the great Athanasius, for example!"
_Hilarion_--"He was unlawfully ordained by seven bishops!"
_Antony_--"What does it matter? If his virtue ..."
_Hilarion_--"Come, now! A haughty, cruel man, always mixed up in intrigues, and finally exiled for being a monopolist."
_Antony_--"Calumny!"
_Hilarion_--"You will not deny that he tried to corrupt Eustatius, the treasurer of the bounties?"
_Antony_--"So it is stated, and I admit it."
_Hilarion_--"He burned, for revenge, the house of a.r.s.enius."
_Antony_--"Alas!"
_Hilarion_--"At the Council of Nicaea, he said, speaking of Jesus, "The man of the Lord.""
_Antony_--"Ah! that is a blasphemy!"
_Hilarion_--"So limited is he, too, that he acknowledges he knows nothing as to the nature of the Word."
_Antony_, smiling with pleasure--"In fact, he has not a very lofty intellect."
_Hilarion_--"If they had put you in his place, it would have been a great satisfaction for your brethren, as well as yourself. This life, apart from others, is a bad thing."
_Antony_--"On the contrary! Man, being a spirit, should withdraw himself from perishable things. All action degrades him. I would like not to cling to the earth--even with the soles of my feet."
_Hilarion_--"Hypocrite! who plunges himself into solitude to free himself the better from the outbreaks of his l.u.s.ts! You deprive yourself of meat, of wine, of stoves, of slaves, and of honours; but how you let your imagination offer you banquets, perfumes, naked women, and applauding crowds! Your chast.i.ty is but a more subtle kind of corruption, and your contempt for the world is but the impotence of your hatred against it! This is the reason that persons like you are so lugubrious, or perhaps it is because they lack faith. The possession of the truth gives joy. Was Jesus sad? He used to go about surrounded by friends; He rested under the shade of the olive, entered the house of the publican, multiplied the cups, pardoned the fallen woman, healing all sorrows. As for you, you have no pity, save for your own wretchedness. You are so much swayed by a kind of remorse, and by a ferocious insanity, that you would repel the caress of a dog or the smile of a child."
_Antony_, bursts out sobbing--"Enough! Enough! You move my heart too much."
_Hilarion_--"Shake off the vermin from your rags! Get rid of your filth!
Your G.o.d is not a Moloch who requires flesh as a sacrifice!"
_Antony_--"Still, suffering is blessed. The cherubim bend down to receive the blood of confessors."
_Hilarion_--"Then admire the Montanists! They surpa.s.s all the rest."
_Antony_--"But it is the truth of the doctrine that makes the martyr."
_Hilarion_--"How can he prove its excellence, seeing that he testifies equally on behalf of error?"
_Antony_--"Be silent, viper!"
_Hilarion_--"It is not perhaps so difficult. The exhortations of friends, the pleasure of outraging popular feeling, the oath they take, a certain giddy excitement--a thousand things, in fact, go to help them."
Antony draws away from Hilarion. Hilarion follows him--"Besides, this style of dying introduces great disorders. Dionysius, Cyprian, and Gregory avoided it. Peter of Alexandria has disapproved of it; and the Council of Elvira ..."
_Antony_, stops his ears--"I will listen to no more!"
_Hilarion_, raising his voice--"Here you are again falling into your habitual sin--laziness. Ignorance is the froth of pride. You say, "My conviction is formed; why discuss the matter?" and you despise the doctors, the philosophers, tradition, and even the text of the law, of which you know nothing. Do you think you hold wisdom in your hand?"
_Antony_--"I am always hearing him! His noisy words fill my head."
_Hilarion_--"The endeavours to comprehend G.o.d are better than your mortifications for the purpose of moving him. We have no merit save our thirst for truth. Religion alone does not explain everything; and the solution of the problems which you have ignored might render it more una.s.sailable and more sublime. Therefore, it is essential for each man"s salvation that he should hold intercourse with his brethren--otherwise the Church, the a.s.sembly of the faithful, would be only a word--and that he should listen to every argument, and not disdain anything, or anyone.
Balaam the soothsayer, aeschylus the poet, and the sybil of c.u.mae, announced the Saviour. Dionysius the Alexandrian received from Heaven a command to read every book. Saint Clement enjoins us to study Greek literature. Hermas was converted by the illusion of a woman that he loved!"
_Antony_--"What an air of authority! It appears to me that you are growing taller ..."
In fact, Hilarion"s height has progressively increased; and, in order not to see him, Antony closes his eyes.
_Hilarion_--"Make your mind easy, good hermit. Let us sit down here, on this big stone, as of yore, when, at the break of day, I used to salute you, addressing you as "Bright morning star"; and you at once began to give me instruction. It is not finished yet. The moon affords us sufficient light. I am all attention."
He has drawn forth a calamus from his girdle, and, cross-legged on the ground, with his roll of papyrus in his hand, he raises his head towards Antony, who, seated beside him, keeps his forehead bent.
"Is not the word of G.o.d confirmed for us by the miracles? And yet the sorcerers of Pharaoh worked miracles. Other impostors could do the same; so here we may be deceived. What, then, is a miracle? An occurrence which seems to us outside the limits of Nature. But do we know all Nature"s powers? And, from the mere fact that a thing ordinarily does not astonish us, does it follow that we comprehend it?"
_Antony_--"It matters little; we must believe in the Scripture."
_Hilarion_--"Saint Paul, Origen, and some others did not interpret it literally; but, if we explain it allegorically, it becomes the heritage of a limited number of people, and the evidence of its truth vanishes.
What are we to do, then?"