Homo Sum — Complete. Georg Ebers
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tore himself violently free, and with a loud cry as if all the spirits of hell were after him he fled up the steps that led from the well, and heeded not that his water-jar was shattered into a thousand pieces against the rocky wall.
She stood looking after him as if spell-bound. Then she struck her slender hand against her forehead, threw herself down by the spring again and stared into space; there she lay motionless, only her mouth continued to twitch.
When the shadow of the palm-tree grew longer she sprang up, called her goats, and looked up, listening, to the rock-steps by which he had vanished; the twilight is short in the neighborhood of the tropics, and she knew that she would be overtaken by the darkness on the stony and fissured road down the valley if she lingered any longer. She feared the terrors of the night, the spirits and demons, and a thousand vague dangers whose nature she could not have explained even to herself; and yet she did not stir from the spot nor cease listening and waiting for his return till the sun had disappeared behind the sacred mountain, and the glow in the west had paled.
All around was as still as death, she could hear herself breathe, and as the evening chill fell she shuddered with cold.
She now heard a loud noise above her head. A flock of wild mountain goats, accustomed to come at this hour to quench their thirst at the spring, came nearer and nearer, but drew back as they detected the presence of a human being. Only the leader of the herd remained standing on the brink of the ravine, and she knew that he was only awaiting her departure to lead the others down to drink. Following a kindly impulse, she was on the point of leaving to make way for the animals, when she suddenly recollected Hermas’s threat to drive her from the well, and she angrily picked up a stone and flung it at the buck, which started and hastily fled. The whole herd followed him. Miriam listened to them as they scampered away, and then, with her head sunk, she led her flock home, feeling her way in the darkness with her bare feet.
CHAPTER II.
High above the ravine where the spring was lay a level plateau of moderate extent, and behind it rose a fissured cliff of bare, red-brown porphyry. A vein of diorite of iron-hardness lay at its foot like a green ribbon, and below this there opened a small round cavern, hollowed and arched by the cunning hand of nature. In former times wild beasts, panthers or wolves, had made it their home; it now served as a dwelling for young Hermas and his father.
Many similar caves were to be found in the holy Fountain, and other anchorites had taken possession of the larger ones among them.
That of Stephanus was exceptionally high and deep, and yet the space was but small which divided the two beds of dried mountain herbs where, on one, slept the father, and on the other, the son.
It was long past midnight, but neither the younger nor the elder cave-dweller seemed to be sleeping. Hermas groaned aloud and threw himself vehemently from one side to the other without any consideration for the old man who, tormented with pain and weakness, sorely needed sleep. Stephanus meanwhile denied himself the relief of turning over or of sighing, when he thought he perceived that his more vigorous son had found rest.
“What could have robbed him of his rest, the boy who usually slept so soundly, and was so hard to waken?”
“Whence comes it,” thought Stephanus, “that the young and strong sleep so soundly and so much, and the old, who need rest, and even the sick, sleep so lightly and so little. Is it that wakefulness may prolong the little term of life, of which they dread the end? How is it that man clings so fondly to this miserable existence, and would fain slink away, and hide himself when the angel calls and the golden gates open before him! We are like Saul, the Hebrew, who hid himself when they came to him with the crown! My wound burns painfully; if only I had a drink of water. If the poor child were not so sound asleep I might ask him for the jar.”
Stephanus listened to his son and would not wake him, when he heard his heavy and regular breathing. He curled himself up shivering under the sheep-skin which covered only half his body, for the icy night wind now blew through the opening of the cave, which by day was as hot as an oven.
Some long minutes wore away; at last he thought he perceived that Hermas had raised himself. Yes, the sleeper must have wakened, for he began to speak, and to call on the name of God.
The old man turned to his son and began softly, “Do you hear me, my boy?”
“I cannot sleep,” answered the youth.
“Then give me something to drink,” asked Stephanus, “my wound burns intolerably.”
Hermas rose at once, and reached the water-jar to the sufferer.
“Thanks, thanks, my child,” said the old man, feeling for the neck of the jar. But he could not find it, and exclaimed with surprise: “How damp and cold it is—this is clay, and our jar was a gourd.”
“I have broken it,” interrupted Hermas, “and Paulus lent me his.”
“Well, well,” said Stephanus anxious for drink; he gave the jar back to his son, and waited till he had stretched himself again on his couch. Then he asked anxiously: “You were out a long time this evening, the gourd is broken, and you groaned in your sleep. Whom did you meet?”
“A demon of hell,” answered Hermas. “And now the fiend pursues me into our cave, and torments me in a variety of shapes.”
“Drive it out then and pray,” said the old man gravely. “Unclean spirits flee at the name of God.”
“I have called upon Him,” sighed Hermas, “but in vain; I see women with ruddy lips and flowing Hair, and white marble figures with rounded limbs and flashing eyes beckon to me again and again.”
“Then take the scourge,” ordered the father, “and so win peace.”
Hermas once more obediently rose, and went out into the air with the scourge; the narrow limits of the cave did not admit of his swinging it with all the strength of his arms.
Very soon Stephanus heard the whistle of the leathern thongs through the stillness of the night, their hard blows on the springy muscles of the man and his son’s painful groaning.
At each blow the old man shrank as if it had fallen on himself. At last he cried as loud as he was able “Enough—that is enough.”
Hermas came back into the cave, his father called him to his couch, and desired him to join with him in prayer.
After the ‘Amen’ he stroked the lad’s abundant hair and said, “Since you went to Alexandria, you have been quite another being. I would I had withstood bishop Agapitus, and forbidden you the journey. Soon, I know, my Saviour will call me to himself, and no one will keep you here; then the tempter will come to you, and all the splendors of the great city, which after all only shine like rotten wood, like shining snakes and poisonous purple-berries—”
“I do not care for them,” interrupted Hermas, “the noisy place bewildered and frightened me. Never, never will I tread the spot again.”
“So you have always said,” replied Stephanus, “and yet the journey quite altered you. How often before that I used to think when I heard you laugh that the sound must surely please our Father in Heaven. And now? You used to be like a singing bird, and now you go about silent, you look sour and morose, and evil thoughts trouble your sleep.”
“That is my loss,” answered Hermas. “Pray let go of my hand; the night will soon be past, and you have the whole live-long day to lecture me in.” Stephanus sighed, and Hermas returned to his couch.
Sleep avoided them both, and each knew that the other was awake, and would willingly have spoken to him, but dissatisfaction and defiance closed the son’s lips, and the father was silent because he could not find exactly the heart-searching words that he was seeking.
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