“My name is Dorotheus, and yours Dorothea.... I suppose that we all might be gathered under one name.... I was born at Arla on the Danube, of Roman parents, schooled at Verona, then a soldier. I fought at Soissons, and was left for dead after the battle. The Franks took me and I dwelled captive among them. I planned an escape and made it. I wandered southward and came to Spain and was there long time. There it was I had a vision. I saw the world ruining down, the barbarian at the gate, and within the hold mere ill doing. Then I saw the sky above the sky, and down swung a thread by which to climb. In Spain I turned to the Church, became a catechumen, at last was baptized. Then I crossed to Africa, then I found a maze of dangers. At last, through those, I came to the monastery. I have been monk for seven years, hermit here for six.”
He ceased speaking. Dorothea sat by the entrance, and the slant gold sunshine turned her form to gold. She spoke. “I lived in Alexandria. My father was the wealthy Claudius, my mother was Verina, born of a Roman and a barbarian woman. My nurse was Anna, who knew as many stories as there are dates in a date-garden. I had for teachers Sylvanus and the old Hipparchus. When school was over and Verina was dead, I came to Claudius’s world in Alexandria—and all above was music and dancing and flowers and laughter, and all below were gins, snares, traps, and yielding doors above deep pits. The daughter of Claudius was I called—the daughter of Claudius! Riches and pomp and vanity and madness! Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher—Then I saw that that was so. Then in the night-time came true seeing. Then I saw the steadfast behind the whirling, and the clear behind the muddied, and I laid down the flowers that withered. I have been nun for six years, hermit here for four.”
No more was said that eve. She brought him food and he ate, and as the stars came out settled to sleep.
The next day he said, “You have been to me like a holy saint, come down from Heaven’s court!”
“No,” she answered. “I, Dorothea, a being full of sin but wishing good, found you before me, ill and helpless, and did what I might. So you, a being like me, finding me before you and endangered, would have done what you might. We are equals.”
The next day he stood but could not walk. “Babes have to learn,” she said. “We are babes, I suppose, more often than we think!”
Having begun to strengthen, he strengthened fast. Before long he could walk. “In a little while,” she said, “I shall go to the other side of the oasis.”
He took time to answer, then, “The hermits Dorothea and Dorotheus, and a belt of palms wide as the world between them!”
“Yes. Much alike and far apart.”
“It comes with a strange and loud sound, how much alike—”