Part 6

"Because worldly strife blinds and oppresses the soul; but here in the desert a man finds only the strife of the heart which is the path of spiritual excellence. Here the spirit is free from those other kinds of strife--the strife which arises from the ears, the eyes, and the mouth. But now," he said, "you must watch me so as to learn how to make mats and ropes of palm leaves. These dried palm leaves must be split up into ribbons, and when we have a good supply of ribbons we must lay them in the trough to soak."

As he spoke he was splitting up the leaves into long, narrow strips, tearing the leaf always along the grain, and when Malchus saw how the splitting was done he took a leaf and began to tear it in the same way.

"This," the old man went on, "is the easiest part of the work. It needs no more than a little care and neatness. But when we have finished the splitting I can show you at once how to plait, for I set some other strips to soak last night, that we should not be delayed by having to wait for these to soak, for the soaking is a matter of some hours."

The hermit ceased to talk and he and Malchus continued to work on the heap of leaves till Malchus's fingers, unhardened as yet by manual work, were covered with painful cuts from the sharp-edged leaves. When the whole heap was finished, the hermit stooped and, turning back the sheepskin which lay on the floor, disclosed a stone trough from which he lifted a dripping sheaf of ribbons which had been soaking all night. These he laid on the table and, having done so, threw into the trough those which they had just split. "Now," he said, "you must watch carefully;" and choosing the most suitable strips, he began slowly but with the deftness and precision of an expert to plait the first rows of a narrow mat. Having done so, he took the work to pieces and repeated the operation three times. And when he had plaited it again a fourth time he handed the piece to Malchus. "Now," he said, "take it, and take these soaked strips, too, and sit down outside in the shadow of the cell and continue from the point at which I stopped. Take also the sheepskin there, so that you can lay the strips on it and keep them out of the sand. When you have woven to the length of your arm, let me see what you have done."

Malchus obeyed, and for three hours he sat laboring patiently at the work, while the free ends of the strips escaped repeatedly from his inexperienced fingers and worked themselves loose, and the chafing of the strips hurt the cuts in his fingers, which were becoming more and more painful. When at last he had woven an arm's length he took it in for Serapion to inspect. The old man examined it critically, and then without a word unplaited all that Malchus had done. "The weaving is very loose," he said. "See that it is closer next time."

Malchus humbly took up the unraveled strips and went out to begin again. It was now the height of noon. Sky, sand, and surrounding air radiated a sultry glow, and Malchus, becoming every hour more feeble, felt as if he were imprisoned in an oven. So far from gaining any facility in weaving, it seemed to him that he was becoming more and more clumsy and, to add to his difficulties, the strips, creased and twisted by the first weaving, would not conform to a new texture. His fingers were bleeding now; the blood was staining the strips; and when after two hours he had finished, he found that his weaving was as loose as before. When he went in despair to show this new attempt to Serapion, the old man looked up impatiently and remarked, after a scornful glance at the work, that it was no better than before. "Take it to pieces and begin again," he ordered, and Malchus, concealing his bitter discouragement, went out and did so, trying again to improve the work. But by this time the strips were so creased and strained that even the greatest adept could have made nothing of them, and when Malchus, after a long, disheartening struggle, had finished, he saw that the weaving was now looser than ever. Tears of vexation stood in his eyes. He had been at work for over six hours and he was exhausted in body and mind. The pain from his fingers aggravated the pain in his heart and he felt that if Serapion set him to do the work for a fourth time he would be unable to prevent himself from breaking into sobs. But when Serapion had again examined the work, he laid it aside without remark and, turning to Malchus, asked him, "Will you eat, my son?"

The sudden release from the long strain almost snapped the feeble cord of Malchus's self-control. Tears ran down his cheeks, but with a last effort he mastered himself. "You know best, my father," he answered, "what is right for me to do."

The hermit, without further speech, set a dish of water on the table and, bringing a shell full of salt and four small loaves from the sack, he signed to Malchus to sit down with him at the table. Then he gave Malchus one of the loaves, and himself took Malchus's dry and sandy fragment, and they began to eat together, dipping their loaves in the water to soften them.

The hard, stale stuff seemed to Malchus more delicious than the rarest of the delicacies he had tasted at the feasts of Alexandria. The savor of it on his tongue and in his nostrils filled all his physical being with delight; but he forced himself to eat slowly, trembling lest his gluttony should become apparent to Serapion and should discredit him in his eyes.

When they had finished, Serapion spoke again. "My son," he said, "will you eat another loaf?"

"If you will eat another, my father, I will do so," answered Malchus; "but if you will not, neither will I."

"I have had enough," Serapion replied, "for I am a hermit and I have eaten already to-day."

"Then, I, too, have had enough," said Malchus, "for I seek to become a hermit."

Serapion dropped the other two loaves into the sack again, for he knew that after so long a fast it would be better for Malchus to eat no more; and seeing that his strength was almost spent for lack of repose, he bade him lie down in the cell and sleep, "for fasting and watching," he said, "are in themselves worth nothing, but only in so far as they minister to the soul."

_Chapter Seven_

Malchus had been with Serapion for forty days and during all that time he had followed with gladness the orderly rule of life which the hermit prescribed. His thoughts and desires, surfeited of the refined sensuality of his former life, turned easily to this new life in which every privation and every act of discipline was for him a revolt against the hated past. It seemed as if his mind had been purged of desire, for during all that time he was untroubled by the lusts of the flesh; and as Serapion permitted him every evening to eat a small meal of bread and salt or of dried dates, the dreams and reveries concerning food and wine had ceased to molest him. He had soon mastered the art of plaiting palm leaves and could now make ropes, mats, and baskets which would be good enough to sell; and when the hours of prayer and meditation were over he fell to work on a mat or basket, rejoicing to see his own handiwork grow under his fingers. Only twice during these forty days had any human soul penetrated into the empty desert which inclosed them. Once when Malchus was chanting a psalm in the oratory he was surprised by the sound of a strange voice calling out a greeting which was answered by the voice of Serapion. At the sound of it Malchus forgot his chanting and, driven by curiosity, began to listen avidly to the conversation which followed the greeting. But Serapion called to him, bidding him continue his devotions, and putting a great constraint upon himself, he forced himself to continue until he had finished the appointed service. By that time there was silence in the cell, and when he came into the outer room he found Serapion alone. The old man did not speak, and Malchus, knowing that this silence was intended as a rebuke to his curiosity, took up a half-woven basket and went out. Far below him, swaying faintly above its black shadow on the immaculate sweep of the desert, a figure no larger than a weevil toiled southward toward the remoter deserts of Thebaid; and who he was and why he had come to the cell Malchus never knew.

The second visitor had come a few days later, leading an ass laden with baskets and sacks. An hour before he arrived, Malchus, who sat weaving a basket outside the cell, had seen a small dark blot moving upon the stainless face of the desert. He had watched it until it split into two blots, one larger than the other, and then tiny moving images of man and beast had grown slowly to creatures of natural size. When they had reached the foot of the slope below the cell, the driver had left his beast and climbed the sliding bank alone. He carried a leather sack slung over his left shoulder. The ass stood patiently below, flapping each ear alternately; from where he sat, Malchus could see the swarm of flies swaying like smoke about its head. The man had reached the top of the slope. It was evident that he did not see Malchus, for he approached the cell cautiously, as if hoping to escape notice. But before he could reach the door Serapion came out, and after they had greeted each other he took from the stranger the sack he was carrying, and then held out his hand. The stranger made a gesture of refusal. "Do not repay me, brother," he said, "for by accepting them as a gift you will confer a blessing on me."

"Take the payment that is your due, brother," answered Serapion; "for has not the Lord Jesus commanded us to owe no man anything?"

The stranger took the money that Serapion offered. "It shall go, then, to some one who has need of it," he said. That was the end of their talk. Serapion carried the sack into the cell, and presently brought it back empty; the stranger took it and with a brief farewell departed, and it seemed to Malchus a marvelous thing that, living alone in that inhuman desolation, the hermit should not be tempted to delay his visitor in talk.

When he had finished weaving the basket, Malchus returned to the cell and found the hermit standing by the table, which was covered with many little loaves of bread and a jar of oil. "By God's mercy," he said, "Brother Apollonius has brought us enough food for thirty days, and so I shall be spared the journey to the monastery in Nitria, which is the nearest place where bread can be obtained. That brother was once a merchant in Alexandria, but, being desirous to lead the holy life, he left his business and departed to Nitria; and since he was unable either to learn any handicraft or to watch and fast to any great degree, he took upon himself to go at regular intervals to Alexandria and buy there the things required by the brethren; and besides this, he carries pomegranates and raisins and eggs and other needful things to them that are sick among the hermits that live round about Nitria. Nor is that all; for when that is done, he goes forth, as now, to visit the hermits who live many miles beyond, bringing to them the things without which a man cannot live. But for this he is unwilling to receive payment, doing it for God's sake, and often when I have been absent from this cell, or praying in the oratory, I have afterward found food set upon the window-sill or left at the door. So has Brother Apollonius found for himself a way in which he can serve God and benefit the faithful."

While he was speaking, Serapion had taken from the sack the loaves which still remained there. There were only three of them. "See!" he said to Malchus. "If Brother Apollonius had not come to-day, I should have had to set out for Nitria to-morrow." Then with Malchus's help he dropped all the new loaves into the sack till it hung from its peg full-bellied as the carcass of a hind which a hunter has slung by the feet from the wall of his cabin.

"But the water skin, too, is almost empty," said Malchus.

"To-morrow," replied Serapion, "I am going to refill it."

He spoke as if it were an easy matter, and Malchus supposed, therefore, that there must be some spring not far off. But Serapion told him that the nearest spring was five miles away; "and this spring," he said, "is dry for two months of the year, and when last I filled the skin from it, on the day before I started for Alexandria, I saw that it was beginning to run dry. It will be quite dry by this time and so I must go to the river."

"But the river is many miles away," said Malchus.

"It is fifteen miles from here," answered the old man, "and as there is no moon at present I shall have to start early so as to reach the river before nightfall. At the first hint of daylight I shall start back, and before sunset I shall be here."

"I will come and help you," said Malchus, "for the skin, when full, must be a heavy load."

But the hermit would not allow Malchus to accompany him, and next day, when Malchus had finished his prayers, he found that Serapion was gone and the skin was gone from the wall, and, running out-of-doors, he espied, far off, the small figure which had grown so familiar to him during the long journey from Alexandria. Already it was halfway across the plain which extended, smooth as a sea of milk, from the foot of the steep descent beneath him to the next great wave of the desert. For a long time Malchus stood watching it with a strange sinking at the heart. Then he turned to his plaiting, and when he looked again Serapion had vanished over the next crest.

For the first time Malchus was face to face with utter solitude, and at the sense of it a profound loneliness descended upon him. He discovered now that, even during the hours when he had been unable to see or hear Serapion, he had always, by some unknown sense, felt the comfort of his companionship. For little by little, without being aware of it, he had fastened upon the old man all those bonds of human affection which he had so ruthlessly severed when he fled from Alexandria. Serapion had become for him his father, his mother, and his dear friend, and, deprived of him, he was deprived of everything. Everything but himself, for now, as in a fever, he had become sharply aware of himself as a thing separate from all else. At the same time vivid memories of his former life began to assail him. One after another they flowed through his mind, each with its own keen emotion; and last of all the face of Helena flashed upon his inner eye with the heart-shaking clearness of reality. He cried out aloud and, not knowing what he did, sprang to his feet and ran into the cell, as though to take refuge from some specter or prowling beast. There he fell on his knees and hid his face in his hands. The discovery that he had not, after all, escaped from the past, that he bore it still stored up within him and ready to spring to life and torture him in his moments of weakness, filled him with bitter discouragement. Crouching there immovable, he prayed passionately for strength, and after a while strength came to him and he rose from his knees and returned to his weaving. He had by now become so expert that he could work blindfold, and he sat now with his head cloth drawn over his face to keep off the flies which through the hot hours incessantly plagued every living thing. But now the hot, veering note of their buzzing brought comfort to him, for it raised a screen of sound between him and the huge silence which inclosed him, and soon the busy monotony of manual labor lulled his heart into resignation, and at last even into contentment. He was completing the largest mat he had yet made, and when he had finished the last rows he secured the loose ends and, standing up, spread it out on the sand. The texture was beautifully close and even. Malchus heaved a sigh of accomplishment and surveyed it with pleasure. But as he did so there came into his mind the occasion on which he had first completed a mat of sound workmanship and had carried it proudly to Serapion. Serapion had examined it carefully, nodding his head many times over it, and had then, without comment, spent an hour in pulling it to pieces. The ruthless destruction of his handiwork had pained Malchus deeply, and for the first time his heart had risen in revolt against the hermit; but he had controlled his tongue and had gone out and lain for an hour sulking behind the cell. By that time his pride had submitted and he was at peace again. In the evening Serapion had recited many times over the verses which contain that command of the Lord Jesus, "Set not your affections upon things of the earth"; and when Malchus had learned it by heart Serapion had set him to meditate upon it, "and do not forget, my son," he had said, "that to cast off the world of men is nothing, for unless a man has also cast off the smallest earthly delight, his soul is still of this world." And next morning, as Malchus went out to work, Serapion had looked up and said to him, "You have now mastered the art of plaiting leaves."

That memory now rose to rebuke his pleasure in the mat which he had just finished, but this time he did not revolt against the rebuke; he only lamented his failure to progress in the attainment of perfection, and in order to purge from his heart the smallest taint of pride, he sat down and sternly set himself to pick the beautiful mat to pieces. It was a slow process, not only because the mat was large, but also because he was taking care not to strain the ribbons, for he was determined to weave them into baskets. And when at last he had quite undone the work of many days, he set to work at once on the first of the baskets and worked on until it was finished.

By that time the sun had set. Arched immeasurably above the earth, the sky, deep beyond deep, was one great flame of scarlet. Blood-red and luminous, the desert from horizon to horizon blazed it back until in that world of sultry, all-pervading glow the very air seemed red. It was a moment of mysterious intensity, the symbol, it seemed, of that august sacrifice in which the divine blood had been poured upon the world as an atonement for the sins of man. Malchus, caught into a holy exaltation, stood with uplifted arms; the huge gray crucifix of his shadow extended down the long slope from his feet. "Redeem me also, O blessed Lord," he prayed; "burn out my sins with the fire of thy blood."

The moment faded. The face of the desert grew ashen-gray and soon the earth-floored, heaven-roofed furnace had changed to a pallid and desolate cavern from whose emptiness the chilled heart recoiled. Malchus lowered his arms, and as he did so a sudden draught fluttered past him and within a few feet from where he stood a little whirlwind troubled the sand. It grew, and soon a grim and threatening wraith rose upward to a giant's height and towered above him. The whirling sand had gathered itself into a human body. Malchus, speaking aloud the name of Christ, made the Sign of the Cross, and the life went out of the wraith and it collapsed into dust before his eyes. But the sight of it had troubled him. It was as if it had arisen, hard upon the divine mystery of the sunset, as a sign of that other mystery in which are hidden the powers of darkness and evil. A cold spasm shook his body, and, gathering together his work, he retreated into the cell and by the last vestiges of twilight ate his single meal of bread and salt.

He ate slowly because he dreaded the long, empty hours of darkness which lay before him; for now, for the first time, he realized complete isolation. He stared at the darkness of the cell and it seemed to him that it was thick and spongy, a gloom grown palpable. But the silence was more terrible than the darkness; its infinity and its horrible imminence shriveled his soul; its intensity seemed every moment to be on the point of concentrating into some terrible climax. Later in the night, he knew, it would break in those shrieks and howls which were even more harrowing than silence itself, and he found himself dreading the moment when the first howl should come. Yet silence and darkness and all the fears of the night could do nothing, he well knew, against the perfect safety to be found in prayer, and his mind turned to the oratory. But he felt a strange reluctance to move. If he moved, he felt, he would loose all these waiting terrors that had gathered silently about the cell. He controlled himself sternly and, standing up, repeated aloud the psalm which begins, "Save me, O God; for the waters are come even unto my soul." The sound of his own voice reassured him and the silence moved farther away.