"Why? Where?"
"Somewhere—in the world. I don't know where," I answered.
He began to question me.
"I will not explain anything," I said.
I went out from his cell and sat down near it on the bench underneath the old pine tree. I sat there on purpose, for it was the bench on which those who were driven away, or went of their own free will, sat, as if to announce the fact of their departure.
The brothers passed me, and looked at me sideways; some even spat at me. I forgot to say that there had been a rumor that Anthony had taken me as his lover. The Neophytes envied me and the monks envied that gentleman of mine. And they slandered both of us.
The brothers passed, saying to each other:
"Ah, they have driven him away; thanked be the Lord!"
Father Assaf, a sly and malicious old man, who acted as the Abbot's spy, and was known in the monastery as a half-witted hypocrite, attacked me with vile words, so that I said to him:
"Go away, old man. If not I will take you by the ear and put you away."