The Temptation of St. Anthony

by Gustave Flaubert

"This way! Come! Come!"

(Echo repeats: Come! Come! he lets his arms fall, stupefied.)

"What shame for me! Alas! poor Anthony."

(And all of a sudden he hears a whisper:—"Poor Anthony"!)

"Who is there? Speak!"

(The wind passing through the intervals between the rocks, makes modulations; and in those confused sonorities he distinguishes Voices, as though the air itself were speaking. They are low, insinuating, hissing.)

The First: "Dost thou desire women?"

The Second: "Great heaps of money, rather!"

The Third: "A glittering sword?" (and)