"Yet would they have made any? They would not hear me! The one who spoke against me—a tall young man with a curly beard—uttered the most captious objections to my argument; and while I was seeking words to express my views they all stared at me with their wicked faces, and barked like hyenas. Ah! why cannot I have them all exiled by the Emperor! or rather have them beaten, crushed, and see them suffer! I suffer enough myself."
(He leans against his cabin in a fainting condition.)
"It is because I have fasted too long; my strength is leaving me. If I could eat—only once more—a piece of meat." (He half closes his eyes with languor.)
"Ah! some red flesh—a bunch of grapes to bite into ... curdled milk that trembles on a plate!...
"But what has come upon me? What is the matter with me? I feel my heart enlarging like the sea, when it swells before the storm. An unspeakable feebleness weighs down upon me, and the warm air seems to waft me the perfume of a woman's hair. No woman has approached this place; nevertheless?—"
(He gazes toward the little pathway between the rocks.)
"That is the path by which they come, rocked in their litters by the black arms of the eunuchs. They descend and joining their hands, heavy with rings, kneel down before me. They relate to me all their troubles. The desire of human pleasure tortures them; they would gladly die; they have seen in their dreams God calling to them ... and all the while the hems of their robes fall upon my feet. I repel them from me. 'Ah! no!' they cry, 'not yet! What shall I do?' They gladly accept any penitence I impose on them. They ask for the hardest of all; they beg to share mine and to live with me.
"It is now a long time since I have seen any of them! Perhaps some of them will come! why not? If I could only hear again, all of a sudden, the tinkling of mule-bells among the mountains. It seems to me...."
(Anthony clambers upon a rock at the entrance of the pathway, and leans over, darting his eyes into the darkness.)
"Yes! over there, far off I see a mass moving, like a band of travellers seeking the way. She is there!... They are making a mistake." (Calling.)