Gustave Flaubert - The Temptation of St. Anthony

Anthony closes his eyelids.

They multiply, surround him, besiege him. An unspeakable fear takes possession of him; and he feels nothing more of living sensation, save a burning contraction of the epigastrium. In spite of the tumult in his brain, he is aware of an enormous silence which separates him from the world. He tries to speak; – impossible! He feels as though all the bands of his life were breaking and dissolving; – and, no longer able to resist, Anthony falls prostrate upon his mat. )

( Then a great shadow, subtler than any natural shadow, and festooned by other shadows along its edges, defines itself upon the ground.

It is the Devil, leaning upon the roof of the hut, and bearing beneath his wings – like some gigantic bat suckling its little ones – the Seven Deadly Sins, whose grimacing heads are dimly distinguishable.

With eyes still closed, Anthony yields to the pleasure of inaction; and stretches his limbs upon the mat.

It seems to him quite soft, and yet softer – so that it becomes as if padded; it rises up; it becomes a bed. The bed becomes a shallop; water laps against its sides.

To right and left rise two long tongues of land, overlooking low cultivated plains, with a sycamore tree here and there. In the distance there is a tinkling of bells, a sound of drums and of singers. It is a party going to Canopus to sleep upon the temple of Serapis, in order to have dreams. Anthony knows this; and impelled by the wind, his boat glides along between the banks. Papyrus-leaves and the red flowers of the nymphæa, larger than the body of a man, bend over him. He is lying at the bottom of the boat; one oar at the stem, drags in the water. From time to time, a lukewarm wind blows; and the slender reeds rub one against the other, and rustle. Then the sobbing of the wavelets becomes indistinct. A heavy drowsiness falls upon him. He dreams that he is a Solitary of Egypt.

Then he awakes with a start. )

"Did I dream? It was all so vivid that I can scarcely believe I was dreaming! My tongue burns. I am thirsty."

( He enters the cabin, and gropes at random in the dark. )

"The ground is wet; can it have been raining? What can this mean! My pitcher is broken into atoms! But the goatskin?" ( He finds it. )

"Empty! – completely empty! In order to get down to the river, I should have to walk for at least three hours; and the night is so dark that I could not see my way.

"There is a gnawing in my entrails. Where is the bread!"

( After long searching, he picks up a crust not so large as an egg. )

"What? Have the jackals taken it? Ah! malediction!"

( And he flings the bread upon the ground with fury.

No sooner has the action occurred than a table makes its appearance, covered with all things that are good to eat.

The byssus cloth, striated like the bandelets of the sphinx, produces of itself luminous undulations. Upon it are enormous quarters of red meats; huge fish; birds cooked in their plumage, and quadrupeds in their skins; fruits with colors and tints almost human in appearance; while fragments of cooling ice, and flagons of violet crystal reflect each other's glittering. Anthony notices in the middle of the table a boar smoking at every pore – with legs doubled up under its belly, and eyes half closed – and the idea of being able to eat so formidable an animal greatly delights him. Then many things appear which he has never seen before – black hashes, jellies, the color of gold, ragouts in which mushrooms float like nenuphars upon ponds, dishes of whipt cream light as clouds.

And the aroma of all this comes to him together with the salt smell of the ocean, the coolness of mountains, the great perfumes of the woods. He dilates his nostrils to their fullest extent; his mouth waters; he thinks to himself that he has enough before him for a year, for ten years, for his whole life!

As he gazes with widely-opened eyes at all these viands, others appear; they accumulate, forming a pyramid crumbling at all its angles. The wines begin to flow over – the fish palpitate – the blood seethes in the dishes – the pulp of the fruit protrudes like amorous lips – and the table rises as high as his breast, up to his very chin at last – now bearing only one plate and a single loaf of bread, placed exactly in front of him.

He extends his hand to seize the loaf. Other loaves immediately present themselves to his grasp. )

"For me!.. all these! But …" ( Anthony suddenly draws back. )

"Instead of one which was there, lo! there are many! It must be a miracle, then, the same as our Lord wrought!

"Yet for what purpose?.. Ah! all the rest of these things are equally incomprehensible! Demon, begone from me! depart! begone!"

( He kicks the table from him. It disappears. )

"Nothing more? – no!" ( He draws a lung breath. )

"Ah! the temptation was strong! But how well I delivered myself from it!"

( He lifts his head, and at the same time stumbles over some sonorous object. )

"Why! what can that be?" ( Anthony stoops down. )

"How! a cup! Some traveller must have lost it here. There is nothing extraordinary…"

( He wets his finger, and rubs. )

"It glitters! – metal! Still, I cannot see very clearly…"

( He lights his torch, and examines the cup. )

"It is silver, ornamented with ovules about the rim, with a medal at the bottom of it."

( He detaches the medal with his nail! )

"It is a piece of money worth about seven or eight drachmas – not more! It matters not! even with that I could easily buy myself a sheepskin."

( A sudden flash of the torch lights up the cup. )

"Impossible! gold? Yes, all gold, solid gold!"

( A still larger piece of money appears at the bottom. Under it he perceives several others. )

"Why, this is a sum … large enough to purchase three oxen … and a little field!"

( The cup is now filled with pieces of gold. )

"What! what!.. a hundred slaves, soldiers, a host … enough to buy…"

( The granulations of the rim, detaching themselves form a necklace of pearls. )

"With such a marvel of jewelry as that, one could win even the wife of the Emperor!"

( By a sudden jerk, Anthony makes the necklace slip down over his wrist. He holds the cup in his left hand, and with his right lifts up the torch so as to throw the light upon it. As water streams overflowing from the basin of a fountain, so diamonds, carbuncles, and sapphires, all mingled with broad pieces of gold bearing the effigies of Kings, overflow from the cup in never ceasing streams, to form a glittering hillock upon the sand. )

"What! how! Staters, cycles, dariacs, aryandics; Alexander, Demetrius, the Ptolemies, Cæsar! – yet not one of them all possessed so much! Nothing is now impossible! no more suffering for me! how these gleams dazzle my eyes! Ah! my heart overflows! how delightful it is! yes – yes! – more yet! never could there be enough! Vainly I might continually fling it into the sea, there would always be plenty remaining for me. Why should I lose any of it? I will keep all, and say nothing to any one about it; I will have a chamber hollowed out for me in the rock, and lined with plates of bronze, and I will come here from time to time to feel the gold sinking down under the weight of my heel; I will plunge my arms into it as into sacks of grain! I will rub my face with it, I will lie down upon it!"

( He flings down the torch in order to embrace the glittering heap, and falls flat upon the ground.