VI.
The year 1874 finally brought the work which Flaubert himself considered his chef d'œuvre,—a work on which he had labored for twenty years, and which furnished the sharpest definition of his mind,—a most startling work. When it was first rumored that a French novelist had written "The Temptation of St. Antonius," at least nine-tenths of the public entertained not the slightest doubt that the title was to be accepted facetiously or symbolically. Who could surmise that the work was a thoroughly serious history of the temptation of the ancient Egyptian hermit!
No novelist, indeed no poet of any kind, had ever attempted anything similar. It is true, Goethe had written "Die classische Walpurgisnacht" (The Classic Walpurgis Night); Byron in the second act of "Cain" had furnished a model for certain portions; Turgenief, in "Visions," had treated in a masterly way, a remotely related subject within a very small framework. A drama in seven parts, however, consisting of one long drawn out monologue, or, more accurately speaking, a detailed presentation of what had passed, during a night of terror, through the brain of one single mortal who had become a prey to hallucinations; such a work had never before been written. And yet this work, failure though it is in some respects, displayed a quiet grandeur, in its melancholy monotony, and an absolutely modern stamp, attained by but few poetic works of French literature.
St. Antonius stands on the threshold of his hut on a mountain in Egypt. A tall cross is planted in the earth; an old twisted palm-tree bends over the edge of the precipice; the Nile forms a lake at the foot of the mountain. The sun is setting. The hermit, exhausted from a day passed in fasting, labor, and self-torture, feels his spiritual strength give way, as darkness falls upon the earth. A dreary yearning for the external world fills his heart. Now sensual, now proud, now idyllic and laughing memories allure and torment him.
First of all Antonius yearns for his childhood, for Ammonaria, a young maiden whom he once loved; he thinks of his charming pupil, Hilarion, who has forsaken him; he curses his solitary life. The migratory birds that pass over his head awaken within him the desire to fly onward as they do. He deplores his lot; he begins to lament and groan with anguish. Why had not he become a peaceful monk in a cell? Why had not he chosen the calm and useful life of a priest? He wishes that he were a grammarian or a philosopher, a toll-keeper on a bridge, a rich married merchant, or a brave, jovial soldier; his physical strength would then have had employment. He is overcome with despair at his position, bursts into tears, and seeks consolation and edification in the Holy Scriptures. Opening at the Acts of the Apostles, he reads the passage where Peter is permitted to eat all animals, clean or unclean, while he, Antonius, is tormenting himself with strict fasting. Turning to the Old Testament at the same time, he reads how the right is given to the Jews to kill all their enemies, to slaughter them by the wholesale, while he is commanded to forgive his enemies; he reads of Nebuchadnezzar, and envies him his festivals; of Ezekias, and shudders with desire when he thinks of all his precious perfumes and golden treasures; of the beautiful Queen of Sheba, and asks himself how she could possibly hope to lead the wise Solomon into temptation; and it seems to him that the shadows which the two arms of the cross cast on the earth, approach each other like two horns. He calls upon God, and the two shadows assume their old places once more. Vainly does he seek to humiliate himself; he thinks with pride of his long martyrdom; his heart swells when he recalls the honor that has been shown him from every quarter, for even the emperor has written to him three times; and then he sees that his water-jug is empty and his bread consumed. Hunger and thirst gnaw at his vitals.
He remembers the envy and the hatred which the Church Fathers showed toward him at the Council of Nice, and his soul cries for revenge. He dreams of the aristocratic women who formerly visited him so often in his wilderness, in order to confess to him and entreat him to permit them to remain with him, the saint. He is absorbed in these dreams so long that they become realities to him. He sees the fine ladies from the city approach, borne in their sedan chairs; he extinguishes his torch in hopes of dispelling the apparitions, and now for the first time clearly beholds the visions in the dark canopy of the night sky, like scarlet images on a ground of ebony, whirling past him in bewildering haste.
Voices which resound from the obscurity proffer him beautiful women, heaps of gold, and scenes of splendor. This is the beginning of the temptation, the thirst of animal instincts. Then he dreams that he is the confidant of the emperor, the prime minister, with the reins of power in his hands. The emperor crowns him with his diadem. He avenges himself cruelly on his enemies among the Church Fathers, wades in their blood, and suddenly finds himself in the midst of one of Nebuchadnezzar's festivals, in a glittering palace, where the viands and drinks form mountains and streams. Anointed, and decorated with precious stones, the emperor sits upon his throne, while Antonius from afar reads upon his brow his haughty, ambitious thoughts. He penetrates him so thoroughly, that suddenly he himself becomes Nebuchadnezzar, and amidst all his revelling feels the need of becoming an animal. Flinging himself down, he creeps on the ground, bellowing like a steer, and then he scratches his hand on a stone and awakens. He lashes himself so long in punishment for this vision, that the pain becomes a rapturous delight, and suddenly the Queen of Sheba appears before him. Her hair is powdered blue; she is all radiant with gold and diamonds, and she offers herself to him with wanton coquetry. She is all women in one, and he knows that if he were to touch her shoulder with one finger a stream of liquid fire would shoot through his veins. There she stands, all fragrant with the perfume of the Orient. Her words ring upon his ear like singularly captivating music, and, seized with burning desire, he stretches forth his arms toward her. Then he controls himself and orders her from his presence. She and her whole train vanish. And now the devil assumes the form of his pupil, Hilarion, who comes to shake his faith.
The little, withered Hilarion, to his alarm, calls his attention to the fact that in fancy he has been mastered by the enjoyments which in real life he has renounced, assuring him that God is no Moloch, who forbids the enjoyment of life, and that the endeavor to understand God is worth more than all the self-torture in the world. He first points out to Antonius the contradictions between the Old and the New Testament; then the various contradictions of the New. And Hilarion grows. Then there arise in the brain of Antonius recollections of all the heresies of which he has heard and read in Alexandria and elsewhere, and has victoriously overcome: the hundreds upon hundreds of heresies of the early Christian sects; views, of which one is more monstrous than the other, are howled in his ears by the heretics themselves. They clamor about him like so many hyenas. Each one belches out its madness upon him. Hysterical women and the sweethearts of the martyrs cast themselves wailing upon the ashes of the dead. Antonius sees heretics who emasculate themselves, heretics who bum themselves. Apollonius of Tyre reveals himself to him as a miracle-worker in no respect inferior to Christ. And Hilarion continues to grow. Following in the train of the heretics come the gods of the different religions in a monstrous procession, from the most abhorrent and grotesque stone idols and wooden fetiches of ancient times, to the bloodthirsty gods of Eastern lands, and the gods of beauty of Greece. They all move swiftly past, and uttering a loud wail of lamentation, disappear with a wild leap in the great vacuum. He sees gods that fall into a swoon, others that are whirled away, others that are crushed, tom to pieces, and precipitated into a black hole; gods that are drowned or dissolved into air, and gods that are guilty of self-destruction. Among them looms up Buddha, who in everything that he narrates concerning himself bears the most startling resemblance to the Saviour. Finally Crepitus, that Roman god of digestion, and Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, make the leap down into the abyss.
A terrible silence, a deep night ensues.
"They are all gone," says Antonius.