THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTONY OR A REVELATION OF THE SOUL BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA
established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books
Books by Gustave Flaubert in English translation:
- Madame Bovary
- Salammbo
- The Temptation of Saint Anthony
- Bouvard and Pecuchet
- Three Short Works (Dance of Death, Saint-Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul)
- Herodias
- Over Strand and Field (Travel through Brittany
- The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters
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originally published by
SIMON P. MAGEE
PUBLISHER
CHICAGO, ILL.
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
M. WALTER DUNNE
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
CHAPTER I A HOLY SAINT.
CHAPTER II. THE TEMPTATION OF LOVE AND POWER.
CHAPTER III. THE DISCIPLE, HILARION.
CHAPTER IV. THE FIERY TRIAL.
CHAPTER V. ALL GODS, ALL RELIGIONS.
CHAPTER VI. THE MYSTERY OF SPACE.
CHAPTER VII. THE CHIMERA AND THE SPHINX.
CHAPTER I A HOLY SAINT.
It is in the Thebaid, on the heights of a mountain, where a platform, shaped like a crescent, is surrounded by huge stones.
The Hermit's cell occupies the background. It is built of mud and reeds, flat-roofed and doorless. Inside are seen a pitcher and a loaf of black bread; in the centre, on a wooden support, a large book; on the ground, here and there, bits of rush-work, a mat or two, a basket and a knife.
Some ten paces or so from the cell a tall cross is planted in the ground; and, at the other end of the platform, a gnarled old palm-tree leans over the abyss, for the side of the mountain is scarped; and at the bottom of the cliff the Nile swells, as it were, into a lake.
To right and left, the view is bounded by the enclosing rocks; but, on the side of the desert, immense undulations of a yellowish ash-colour rise, one above and one beyond the other, like the lines of a sea-coast; while, far off, beyond the sands, the mountains of the Libyan range form a wall of chalk-like whiteness faintly shaded with violet haze. In front, the sun is going down. Towards the north, the sky has a pearl-grey tint; while, at the zenith, purple clouds, like the tufts of a gigantic mane, stretch over the blue vault. These purple streaks