“A week, and we shall be as we were before,” said Dorothea; and blew upon the fire to make hot coals for the baking of the barley cakes.
When the week had passed he was strong enough to walk down the slope of sand to the palm trees. The eighth morning, waking, he found the water jar filled, bread made and left in fair quantity, the fire stored. But Dorothea was not there, nor Even I nor Welcome.... He went down to the garden, and beyond it into the palm belt, and he heard from the other side the bell of Even I. In the night-time, lying awake, he heard, at the turn to morning, the cock crowing beyond the palms.
That very day came pilgrims with two monks for guides, going about the desert for their sins, visiting the blessed anchorites who had put behind them every lust of the flesh. The pilgrims looked somewhat slightingly upon “moderates.” Yet was a “moderate” doing more than their hearts would let them do. “Moderates” rarely worked miracles, and their blessing was as silver to the extreme ascetic’s gold. Yet blessings were blessings—let them get this one, and go on to the saint who for twenty years had not risen from his knees, whom the ravens fed! They went down on their own knees before Dorotheus, who said: “Brothers, the Kingdom and the King is within you. May God bless you, and give you strength to turn your eyes upon yourselves!” They had to be satisfied with that, which did not even ring silver.
Nor could they draw any relation of dæmons and marvels. Said one: “This morning we saw Eugenius who in Carthage always went blindfold for fear his eyes should behold women! Now three dæmons take the shape of women and beset him night and day! He rolls himself in thorns, and he fastens himself to a cross he has made, and the air is full of whistlings from his scourge of wire. So he keeps the dæmons ten paces away—”
Another cast up his eyes. “Women are the worst foes of the saintly!”
One of the monks said, “On the other side of this oasis there is a cave and a woman hermit.”
His fellow, turning upon him, spoke harshly. “We who take pilgrims from cave to cave are commanded not to speak of that laura of women, brides of Christ, that approaches on yonder side.—You have sinned!”
The other beat his breast. “I have sinned!” The pilgrims stared at the palm trees and the western rim of the desert. With an ejaculation the older monk herded them toward the distant cave of that ascetic who for twenty years had not risen from his knees, whom the ravens fed. Dorotheus, having given the blessing asked, remained silent, sitting with his hands clasped and his eyes upon the sand. Pilgrims and monks were accustomed to respect abstraction. They went away, were presently but a little group of parti-coloured dots in the immense and blinding desert.
Days passed, weeks passed, months passed. Dorotheus, recovered, dwelled alone in his cave, his garden and the desert. Across the palm belt dwelled Dorothea. The one had Arla, the other Even I and Welcome.
It was winter in this land, clear and warm, perfect weather. Suddenly, one day, one afternoon, each went inland from a garden, met the other, midway in that grove of palms. “Loneliness!... What harm in meeting so, in speaking so?—when all the while I feel a presence, and you feel a presence—only they are where they cannot talk together—”