“salvation is within you. the kingdom of god is within you.” dorotheus, hermit in the desert, kneeling in his cave mouth from two hours past midnight to sunrise, said that five thousand times, said it at last with an even sound like the clacking of a mill, the droning of bees or the voice of locusts. the east grew rosy, the sand ridges translucent, marvellously hued; up rushed the fiery sun. dorotheus rose from his knees, took the scourge and plied it. having done that, he next soberly got breakfast—a handful of dates, a small piece of bread broken from a long, twisted loaf, gift of the last pilgrim making round of the anchorites scattered in the desert, a measure of water from the jar in the corner. as he ate he looked across the intervening sand to the very small oasis where he cultivated a garden. the palms moved in the morning wind, tufts of green feathers cutting the absolute blue. it seemed the only motion in the world, unless it were the moving, too, of scant tufts of desert grass immediately about this cave that was no true cave but one of many ancient excavations, made, god knew how long ago, by idolatrous pharaohs, building tombs to their own reproach!
the oasis was uninhabited save by a few birds and some small and wary four-footed and creeping life. there now came from it, having done his own foraging through the night, the jackal that dorotheus had found, wounded and separated from the pack, and had tamed, naming it arla{293} after his birthplace on the danube. arla trotted across the sand, rubbed himself like a dog against his master, wagged his tail, was talked with, and at last went off to the depth of the cave, to lie there out of heat and light and sleep until the pleasant dusk came again. dorotheus uncovered with reverence, took from its shelf with clean hands the book of the gospels which was the cave’s precious possession, took, and kneeling read the parable of the wheat and the tares. when it was done, he prayed, stretched flat before a great wooden cross fastened to the cave wall. that also done, he rose, took up the palm mat that he was weaving, and with a heap of palm fronds beside him, sat again in the opening of the cave.
this time he faced from the oasis to the wider spread of the desert, two leagues of sand waves between him and the monastery in whose laura, or circle of hermitages, this cavern was numbered. he with other anchorites wove palm mats and baskets. at intervals came monks, gathering up what was done and taking to the monastery, whence all were sent in trade to the nearest city. dorotheus’s fingers, that at first had been unskilful at the work, moved now with the precisest ease. born thirty-six years before upon the danube, of christian parents, educated in italy, in verona, a soldier under odoacer, king of italy, left for dead on the field of soissons, captive among the franks, maker of a daring escape, wanderer in spain, recipient one night of a dazzling vision, turning to the church, catechumen, baptized, crossing to africa, wanderer there through dangers and strange adventures, monk at last and ascetic—he had now woven palm mats for six years, woven palm mats and made his garden and walked the desert up and down.{294}
fast and vigil and discipline had made him lean but not emaciated, deep-eyed but not dim-eyed. in the desert were all manner of hermits, and some lived but to torture themselves, and some through long disuse of mind were nigh mindless. there were others who were “moderates.” dorotheus was of these. the greater reputation clung to the self-torturers, the chained to rocks, the unsleeping, uneating, the ever-scourging, the sealed-eyes, the drawers-back from water. to most in this time these seemed the more saintly. they were the great seers of visions, hearers of voices, wrestlers with d?mons, workers of miracles.
perhaps dorotheus, too, aspired to saintship, but found it not wholly upon that road. ascetic, he yet rested human. he abode in the desert, a man of strong frame, tawny-haired, supple-fingered, with a working and a questing mind and a soul that was learning itself. for a long time he had had a life of outward adventure; now he was adventuring inward.
the sun rode high, the desert swam in heat. the sun went to the west. dorotheus put by the mat, ate again sparingly of the bread and dates, drank of the water, then taking a hoe that he had fashioned for himself crossed the glaring sand to the oasis.
here was neither heat nor glare, but shade rich and sweet, shade, and cool sliding water, and upon the side opposed to his cave the little garden like a sliver of paradise, that he had made for the love of making. dorotheus applied himself to hoeing the earth about the roots of vines which he had procured from the monastery vineyard. the grapes hung down, green yet, but when they were ripe he did not propose to eat them, nor yet to press{295} wine from them. the birds would eat them, the birds and arla the jackal.
looking east, between the palm stems, he saw the desert waves, low and high, like coloured, solidified water, saw his own cave and the expanse beyond, and far on the horizon a smudge which would be the palms of the great oasis that held the monastery. when in his hoeing he turned, there rose before him, back wall to his garden, a small forest of palms with other trees and shrubs and linking creepers. you could not see far into it: almost at once a green gloom shut down. for reasons he had never pierced it.
it might be a quarter-mile through to the western edge of the oasis, and to the desert waves on that side, low and high, like coloured, solidified water. and thence it might be two leagues and more to the palms and the springs in the desert where was builded the convent village of st. agatha, dwelled in by a thousand nuns. and the laura of st. agatha, the circle of her women anchorites, swinging out into the desert, touched at its far eastern point, as the laura of the monastery, swinging into the desert, touched at its far western point, the little oasis and those ridges of desert stone, long since dug into by vanished kings. and eastward from the green islet the hermit dorotheus had his cave, and westward from it the hermit dorothea had hers. between them was the oasis, and each made a garden upon the edge facing his or her cavern. and between the gardens was the quarter-mile of thickly growing palms and other trees, of green gloom and netting creepers, and no track across, made by nature, or by man or woman. the quarter-mile might as well have been the diameter of the globe.{296}
but not quite so. each hermit, wandering in the desert that swept around the watered hand’s-breadth, had taken the other’s presence in gleams and intimations. perhaps each had seen the other afar; perhaps from some sand crest each had marked the other digging in a garden. perhaps through the wilderness between had come perceptions of human neighbourhood. each had knowledge that two hermitages bordered this green spot in the desert—his own and a woman’s, her own and a man’s. perhaps other threads of light, quiverings, vibrations, travelled to and fro by roads beneath and above all usual consciousness. but there was no such contact as is customary between neighbours pledged to one mode of life, and dwelling but a quarter-mile apart, no friendly passing of the time of day, no exchange of the fruits of the garden, no deeper converse and gifts of ideas. there was no close contact, no near vision nor speech together at all.
the two, man and woman, dwelled in caves beside fruit trees and cool water, and were weavers of palm mats and makers of gardens by virtue of being “moderates”—rather, in the eyes of the sixth century, a deplorable weakness than any virtue! your true ascetic from the bone outward, your unadulterate hermit-saint, your anchorite with never a laodicean smirch, abhorred oases!—these two, monk and nun, were, then, “moderates.” nevertheless, for the man to have gazed, free-willed, upon the woman, and for the woman to have gazed, free-willed, upon the man, and for the two to have stood and talked, that by either, pledged to god, and walking the sixth century, would have been taken to slant toward the unpardonable sin.
dorotheus hoed the earth around his vines, and then he{297} tended orange trees, citron and pomegranate. the sun rode low, and the palms cast hugely long shadows. the sun touched the horizon, and the sand turned into rose-coloured glass. arla the jackal came out of his den, stretched and shook himself, then trotted over the sand to the water, slipping beneath the trees. dorotheus, too, kneeled by the water and drank. then he shouldered his hoe and he and the jackal went up the sand slope to the cave. as they went they heard distantly the bell that was fastened about the neck of the goat that had followed the hermit dorothea from st. agatha. and at the turn of the night, when he waked, he heard through the thin, desert air, the crowing of a cock which she had bought with palm baskets from some desert vagrant.
the day of dorothea had been much like the day of dorotheus. details might differ, but essentials did not. before cockcrow she kneeled upon the sand before the cave, she lay upon her face and prayed. “salvation is from within.... the kingdom of god is within you.... o god, let the kingdom dawn!” prayed dorothea. when she rose the east was a pearl, and all the desert sand a pearl, and the trees of the oasis grey pearl above a rope of mist. she took the scourge of cords and used it, laid it by and prayed again, “o god, the long pilgrimage through the desert!—o god, let me lift and cleave to thee!” sunrise brightened the sand, gave its poised waves a thousand hues, then up came the red globe, and the day, or short or long, was here. dorothea got her breakfast—a few raisins, a little bread, a measure of water from the jar in the corner. across the sand, at the edge of the oasis, the goat even i cropped its meal, and the cock welcome strutted and clapped its wings. dorothea was so “moderate” that she smiled to{298} see them both. likewise her moderation was such that both the cave and she herself were clean.
the nun as well as the monk had a book of the gospels, the acts and the epistles. her cell, as his cell, had fastened to the wall a great wooden cross. dorothea, standing before the sloping shelf upon which it was laid, read the first pages of the gospel of saint john, then stretched herself upon the rocky floor before the cross. “in the beginning.... o light that shineth in darkness—”
she, also, wove palm mats and baskets; she, also, across the sand, at the edge of the oasis that faced her cell, made a garden. her morning rites performed, she crossed the glaring sand to the shadow of the palms. she wished water to reach a spot that was more arid than it should be, and she dug with a spade, which she had begged from the convent, a canal through which it might flow. she worked with strength and expertness where at first she had worked weakly and unskilfully. practice in digging, as in other things, was like a waking memory....
this was her birthday. she was thirty-four years old.... she saw the house in alexandria in which she was born, and the wealthy claudius, her father, vaunting his marble statues, his gems, and his descent from vigilius and eudocia, martyred in rome three hundred years ago, and her mother verina, a fair-haired, silent woman, born across the middle sea, of a roman father and a barbarian mother, and the nurse anna with her endless story-telling, merry and sad, and other house slaves for whom she felt fondness, and her teachers sylvanus and old hipparchus.
upon her knees she took out the black earth with her hands and heaped it in a wide basket. the cock welcome pecked after her, and the bell of even i made not far away a{299} rhythmic sound.... all her old, alexandrian, gay companions when she passed from the schoolroom to the world. alexandrian life—alexandrian life.... the daughter of claudius—the daughter of claudius....
the trench that she was making was growing deeper. she worked with strong, sweeping, ordered movements. behind her stood the thickly growing palms and netting vines of that undisturbed belt between her garden and the garden of the hermit dorotheus.... she found that without conscious thought she had turned so that the barrier wood was before her. she was sitting back upon her heels, the spade lying idle beside her, and she was gazing through the wood. what was a quarter-mile of tree-thronged space?... the daughter of claudius—the daughter of claudius....
she sprang to her feet, left the garden and went back to the cave. she opened again the book upon its shelf and read, “the night is far spent, the day is at hand. let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. but put ye on the lord jesus christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” she closed the book, took the basket she was weaving and sat with it in the cave mouth. alexandria ... and all the crises of her life there—claudius’s daughter—claudius’s daughter! she wove the palm shreds in and out. her fingers had been trained in fine work and upon the lute—she wove the basket very skilfully. perhaps, in practising, she remembered, too, how one made baskets. at any rate, now she had been digging in the earth of this oasis, now she had been making palm baskets, now she had fasted, watched{300} and prayed, hermit in this cave, for four torrid summers and four winters of balm. thirty-four to-day. “lord, lord, let me not think of me and my years—”
at sunset she heard the jackal bark. had she not heard it she would have been startled, so much was its voice a part of this disk of earth she lived upon. she expected it as dorotheus, on the other side of the oasis, listened for the bell of even i and the crowing of the cock welcome. he did not know their names, nor she that the jackal was named arla. from pilgrims going the round of the desert anchorites each had gained knowledge that the oasis stood between the cells of the hermit dorothea and the hermit dorotheus. each knew that the other was “moderate,” not bitterly, keenly, marvellously ascetic. each knew how he—how she—disappointed the pilgrims.
night in the desert was a lovely thing. the daughter of claudius lay and admired—the daughter of verina gave mystic meanings to the large bright stars and the ebony and ivory of the sand—the nursling of anna heard the palm tops telling stories—the pupil of old hipparchus heard again read plotinus and porphyry—the christian nun thought, “if it were healed how lovely were the world!” she slept, till welcome waked her with his crowing.
however rapidly might move the hermit’s inner world, however packed and thronged the spiritual time, outwardly one desert hour, one desert day, was highly like another. nor did the inner world move always swiftly, smoothly, and into spiritual time came dry seasons. the desert disease was listlessness, attacking body and mind, listlessness, and strange spells of homesickness and of craving for red pottage.... the regimen for that was the scourge and prayer.{301}
dorotheus thought that what came upon him was that listlessness. he had known it before, and the homesickness and the craving for red pottage, known them and valorously fought them, as witnessed scars upon his shoulders no less than strong wrestlings in prayer stored up—somewhere. these moods did not come so often now, and he was prepared to fight them when they came. but this time, do what he would, the listlessness clung. moreover, he began to see d?mons. he forced himself to work in the garden, though his arms trembled, and the palm trees seemed to be walking to and fro. then came common sense in a flash. “and i have seen soldiers by the hundred take fever—!” but immediately upon that he merely saw and heard d?mons again; moreover, he grew heated and began to break down the vines and the bushes, “do nothing” having given place to “do everything.” he would carry the palm grove up to the cave, then there would be no hot sand to cross!
dorothea studied the four gospels and prayed, stretched before the cross. she worked at basket-making, and finished the ditch in the garden that carried the water where she would. when the sun began to sink she walked in the desert, she and her long shadow on the sand. even i and the cock would stay by the grass and the black earth and the water.
as she turned, arla the jackal came out of the oasis. welcome, much alarmed, took to a tree, the bell of even i began to jangle. but arla left them both alone and went straight to dorothea. he was only a greyish-yellow, sizable, part dog, part wolf, and she presently saw that there was no wolf to-day. “dog, dog! what is it?” she asked.{302}
arla went from her toward the palms, came back and pulled at her robe. “what is it? what has happened?” but he could not tell her, could only tell that something had happened, and that she should come with him. after awhile, she, being “moderate,” went.
dark was now rushing over the desert. the oasis belt, through which she had never gone, was darker than dark, thick with tree and bush and vine, uneven-floored, with sudden threads and pools of water. small, living things rustled and scampered. arla went through easily; the hermit behind him now struck against trees, now stumbled and fell. but some old ease of movement through woodland coming up from the very deep past, she followed on through the dark.
the palms thinned and they came into what she recognized must be the other hermit’s garden, then they stepped out of the oasis. here was the star-roofed desert, and a slope of sand to such a ridge as that in which she had her cell. with a loping gait the jackal mounted this slope and she followed. before she reached the cave she heard dorotheus raving in fever.
sometimes anchorites went mad. “is there here a madman?” thought dorothea, and her heart beat harder. but she followed arla, and saw that the hermit lay outside of the cave and paid no attention to her footsteps, nor to the jackal who now stood whining beside him. here, under open sky, was yet pale light. she saw for the first time the look of the hermit dorotheus. stooping, she put her hand upon his bare, outflung arm. the touch burned her. he was tossing from side to side, talking to men, his companions, crying out about great rivers they must surely reach.{303}
the hermit from beyond the oasis went into his cave, felt for and found the water jar and the hollowed gourd beside it, came forth and kneeling gave him to drink, then laved with the cool fluid his burning limbs. his ravings sank, he lay muttering. dorothea took the water jar down to the garden, found the spring he used, drew water, and bore the jar upon her shoulder up the slope. now was only starlight, and the voice and heavy turnings of the sick man.
she sat upon the sand at a little distance, and when the fever mounted she gave him water, and bathed with water face and breast. for the rest she watched the stars and said her prayers. arla had gone down to his prowling in the desert, under the palm trees, in the thickets. she prayed kneeling, she prayed stretched upon her face. the night wore by, she heard across the palm tops the crowing of her cock. here came the light—and now what must she do? “lord, lord, thy will?”
she might find the first neighbour cell of this laura, summon its inmate to come nurse his fellow-hermit, or if he would not do that urge him to go bring help from the monastery. doubtless that was the best thing to do, even imperatively the thing to do. monk would help monk, and the nun might return to her cave. if there were sin in this night’s contact prayer and penance might atone.... to find the next hermitage—that might be an all day’s work! she did not know how this laura was placed—all day, and more than all day in the wild ocean of the desert. then to make that anchorite attend, to make him follow as she had followed arla! if he were of the intenser saintliness, hard work would a woman have to make him know that she was not a prince among d?mons, masking{304} so! “retro me, sathanas! retro me, sathanas!” if such an one came to see that she was human, even nun as he was monk, then still might be as great horror, as obdurate a stopping of eyes and ears. the very saintly had almost all vowed never to view again, never to speak again with a woman. if she found one who perforce listened, he might not conceive it his duty to interrupt his penance, leave his cell.... nevertheless, she must go in search of a man to come—
now sprang the rose in the east. dorotheus’s voice had sunk away. she found when she went to him that he was lying in a stupor. in the year she had spent in the convent village, before she came forth into the desert, she had seen and helped with illness enough. there came memories, too, of sickness in the great alexandrian household, together with old tellings of anna the nurse. she thought it not unlikely that she looked at a dying man. “lord, lord, thy will?”
dorotheus lay a long while, very ill, as ill as a man can be. after the first night and day he lay in the cave. dorothea, a strong woman, had dragged and lifted him there. he lay where the light from the entrance fell upon him, in a wave of sunlight, or of moonlight or starlight. sometimes, at night, he lay in firelight from a heap of twigs and dried palm fronds. that was when she thought that he would die in some moment between the coming and the going of the stars. she had found no fire in his cave, but flints from which, long and patiently striking them together, she obtained a spark with which to set alight shredded palm fibre. embers once secured, she nursed them, fencing with stones and feeding at need, and so kept by her fire.
food—always there were dates enough, and she{305} brought the ripened grapes with other small fruits from the garden. in her own garden grew lentils, and she had in her cave a measure of grain. in the scant moments when he slept she hastened down to the palms and across to her own demesne, whence she brought back with her, in her woven baskets, all of use that she could carry. even i followed her, and at last welcome, though he kept a distance between him and arla. her cave and garden came and dwelled in dorotheus’s cave and garden. she found two stones that would answer for millstones, and she ground the grain between them, and with water and salt made thin cakes and baked them before her fire. the sick man took from her fingers the crumbled food that should give him strength to fight the long fever. she pressed the grapes and strained the juice into a water cup and gave it to him when the fever sank and she thought his heart would stop. days passed, days and days.
when he burned with fever she brought the water jar, cool-filled from the desert spring and bathed him as she would bathe a child. she nursed him as she would nurse a child, finding nothing too low for her to do. she nursed him as she would have nursed her own child, wanting only his recovery. perhaps he was like a child to her. perhaps here was human interest where for so long in the desert the soul had been strained toward upper realms. perhaps the bow, unbending, rested, with fondness for its rest.
for dorotheus, unconscious, unresisting, asceticism was sent to the winds. he was lapped in care. his frame was cooled or warmed at need. food and water were put between his lips. his bed was made of soft, clean sand; he was watched beside by day and by night. the cavern was deep and shadowy, with outlets more than one. the{306} moving air refreshed it, even when the desert withered beneath the sun.
the hermit, lying there ill, became her consuming interest. she slept only when she must. she toiled for him, watched him. by now her will would have resisted another’s coming to take her work—anchorite or pilgrim or monk from the monastery, or any desert wanderer. but it was the heated season, and unhealthful for wandering, and no one came.
desiring to keep her strength, she put from herself any rigour of privation, fasting, discipline, prescribed prayers. “there will be time for all that,” she said, “for, o high god, i am yet far from thee!” so she nursed dorotheus in the cave by the little oasis. and after a long time the fever broke.
it was night when she felt that his brow and hands were moist, that he lay relaxed and at rest, breathing naturally. he slept, and she went without the cave and faced a crescent moon. “jackal, jackal—even i—welcome! he will live! he will live! o moon and palm trees! he will live!”
dorotheus slept, and when he waked he was conscious, but like a little child for weakness. as though he were that, dorothea nursed him still. several days passed; he strengthened, mind and will began their return. she kneeled beside him with fruit and a thin barley cake. he put her hand away. “eat!” she said. “eat!”
“i have been ill. who are you?”
“dorothea, from the other cave, across the oasis. i have nursed you, brother. eat now!”
“it is sin.”
“when you are well, do as you will. now you must get strength. eat—eat!{307}”
she was now the stronger willed, and he obeyed. he looked at her wonderingly, then closed his eyes and slept.
he waked and slept, waked and slept. he had lain close to death’s door and lain there long, and now he recovered tardily. “why will you not go away?” he asked.
“if i did, you would die. i will go when you can stand and walk and get food for yourself.”
“it is not much to die.... i bid you, then, go get some brother—”
“the desert is hot iron to cross. he might not come, nor know how to nurse you if he came.” dorothea, weaving baskets in the light, began to sing a hymn of the church. she sang low and sweet, verse after verse, hymn and psalm. the tears came out of dorotheus’s eyes, he made a movement with his hands, and gave up commanding.
day by day now he strengthened. usually he lay silent, and she moved or sat in silence. in the cool of the day she sat without the cave, and at night she lay without it. as he strengthened, less and less did she come about him. but she sang at her work, rich chants of the church.
now he could lift himself, sit propped against the cave wall, put his hand upon arla beside him, watch through the entrance even i and welcome, and the changing desert hues. suddenly, one afternoon he began to speak.
“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{308} 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{309} 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—”
“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{310} “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 d?mons and marvels. said one: “this morning we saw eugenius who in carthage always went blindfold for fear his eyes should behold women! now three d?mons 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 d?mons 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.{311} 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—”
they stood beneath the trees, a space of black and white between them. “two men—two women—ascetics of the lord—dwelling so, would sometimes come this near, would sometimes speak together!... youth and the riot of youth we have put away. as though we were two men, as though we were two women, we are fellow-travellers to the city of god.... would christ say, ‘speak no word—shut your eyes, turn your head’?”
“if it were sin—but it is not!—are we so different, you and i?”
“we are one. you are my soul, rich and good—”
“and you are my soul, rich and good—”
“where does christ say, ‘woman is of the d?mon, but man of the angel’?—let us meet as one, above man and woman, equal and unharming each the other!{312}”
“i will come to your garden once a month, and do you come to mine once a month. we will talk together a little while—a little while! and if we sin, i know it not!”
in this fashion they lived for a year. twice twelve times they saw each other, in the freshness of the morning or the last gold of the afternoon. they sat or stood, a space of earth between, and they talked for an hour. then the one who was the visitor turned east or west, and another fortnight went by. the year was thus made of long gold beads with jewels in between.
then came a time of struggle and suffering. then one of the jewels turned suddenly fire red....
then the two met for the last time in this desert or this oasis. “we thought that we were strong, but we have yet to grow.... oh, far and far to grow!”
“we do not know what is strength.”
“no.... how right or how wrong...”
“dorothea—dorothea—dorothea!”
“shut eyes, dorotheus—now i am gone—i am gone!... farewell, dorotheus!”
the two were apart, and night was rushing over the desert. night held, starry and high and still. then came first light, divinity of dawn in the desert. dorotheus in his cavern, dorothea in hers prayed, then ate and drank. then each took a staff, and the one summoned arla and the other even i and welcome. the sun was not yet up, but the sky was a rose garden. dorotheus and dorothea turned their backs upon the oasis, and the one went steadfastly east, and the other west.
