Source: Leskov, Nikolai - Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Other Stories - 1987

Pamphalon the Entertainer

‘Weakness is all, strength is insignificant. When a man is born, he is weak and yielding; when he dies, he is strong and hard. When a tree begins to grow, it is yielding and tender, and when it is dry and tough, it dies. Hardness and strength are the concomitants of death. Pliancy and weakness express the freshness of existence. Therefore, that which has grown hard will not prevail.’

Lao-Tse

1

During the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great there lived at Constantinople a certain nobleman, a ‘patrician and bishop’ named Hermius. Rich, high-born and distinguished, he possessed a forthright and honest character. He loved truth and detested insincerity, an attitude that ill concorded with the times in which he lived. In those far-off times there were in Byzantium (or Constantinople as it is called nowadays), just as there were in every part of the Byzantine Empire, a great many arguments about faith and piety, in the course of which the passions of men would become aroused; discord and quarrels would ensue, with the result that although everyone was preoccupied with questions of piety, there was in reality neither godliness nor peace. Indeed, among the lower orders of society at this time there prevailed a state of moral turpitude such as was too embarrassing even to be talked of, while the higher orders were characterized by a universal and dreadful hypocrisy. Everyone pretended to be Godfearing, but lived in a fashion that was thoroughly un-Christian: there were backbiting, mutual hatred, and an absence of compassion for the poor people at the lower end of the scale; the rich drowned in luxury and felt not the slightest pangs of shame that the common people should, at the very same time, be suffering the most crushing needs. People who became impoverished were taken into servitude or slavery, and it not seldom happened that poor people actually died of hunger outside the houses of feasting nobles. Moreover, the plebeians knew that these eminent folk were constantly warring among themselves, and that they were frequently the cause of one another’s undoing. Not only did they make slanderous reports about one another to the Emperor ‒ they were even in the habit of poisoning one another at feasts or in their own homes, bribing the cooks or other minions to do their dirty work for them.

At both its upper and lower levels, the entire state was filled with vice.

2

Hermius’s soul was a peaceful one. What was more, he had strengthened it with a love of human beings, as taught by Christ in His Gospels. Hermius wanted to see genuine piety, not some simulated version of it that brought no one any benefit, but merely served as a pretext for vainglory and deceit. Hermius would say: ‘If we believe that the Gospels are divine and reveal to us how we must act in order to annihilate the evil in the world, we must act in the way the Gospels show us, and not merely pay lip-service to them: such, for example, as to recite the words “and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”, and then forgive no one anything, but instead wax wrathful at the slightest offence and claim back what is owed by one’s neighbour, sparing him neither life nor limb.’

Because of this, all the other nobles began to make jokes about Hermius and poke fun at him; they would say to him: ‘No doubt you want us all to become beggars and stand around stark naked throwing our shirts to one another. Behaviour like that’s simply not acceptable in a civilized state.’ To which he would reply: ‘I’m not talking about civilized states, I’m talking about how it may be possible for us to live according to the teaching of Christ, a body of doctrine which you have termed divine.’ They would retort: ‘That’s all very well, but it’s impossible!’ And they would proceed to argue with him. Eventually, however, they started making depositions about Hermius to the Emperor, claiming that he had lost his wits and was no longer suitable to hold office.

Hermius began to notice this, and he fell into reflection. How difficult was it, he wondered, to retain one’s standing in society and yet live one’s life according to Christ’s teaching?

No sooner had Hermius begun to deliberate this notion in depth, than it appeared to him that it was quite impossible to do both of these things at the same time; one would have to choose either the one or the other: either turn one’s back on Christ’s teaching or turn one’s back on the nobility, for there was no way that they would fit together, and if at any time you were to try to fit them together by force, they would not concord for long, but would once again diverge, even further than before. ‘You’d get rid of one devil, but he’d only come back again and bring another seven with him,’ he thought. Looking at the matter from another point of view, however, Hermius reasoned that if he were to start pointing an accusing finger at everyone and arguing with all and sundry, he would end up in everyone’s bad books, and the other nobles would then slander him to the Emperor, call him a traitor to the state, and bring about his downfall.

‘I can’t please everyone,’ he thought. ‘If I side with the schemers I’ll ruin my soul, yet if I side with the guileless I won’t be of any assistance to them but will only create a lot of trouble for myself. I’ll be said to be a man of evil intent, who is out to sow unrest, and it might come to pass that I would lose patience with all the tales they told about me and would begin to justify myself; if that were to happen, my soul would grow brutalized ‒ I would start accusing my accusers and become every bit as nasty as them. No, things had better not work out like that. I don’t want to shame anyone or reproach anyone, because all that is repugnant to my soul; the best thing would be for me to give up all this; go to the Emperor and ask him to permit me to relinquish all the power that I have, and live out the rest of my days in peace somewhere, as an ordinary person.’

3

Hermius did as his reflections prompted him. When he went to see Emperor Theodosius, he made no complaints or accusations about anyone, but merely asked to be relieved of his duties. At first the Emperor tried to persuade him to remain at his post, but then gave in. Hermius was allowed to take full retirement (‘Give up all power’). At this very same time Hermius’s wife died, and the former noble, now left on his own, began to reflect in a different way. ‘May this not be a sign to me from above?’ he wondered. ‘The Emperor has freed me from the cares of my post, and the Lord has freed me from marriage. My wife has died, and there is no one in my family for whose sake I must try to increase my substance. Now I can walk faster and further towards the aim that is outlined in the Gospels. What good is wealth to me? It brings nothing but worry, and even though I’ve given up my official position, wealth would compel me to worry about it and draw me into the kind of activities that are unsuitable for someone who wants to be a disciple of Christ.’

But Hermius owned a very great deal of wealth (‘for he had great possessions’) ‒ he had a house, a village, slaves and all kinds of treasures.

Hermius set all his slaves free. As for the rest of his ‘great possessions’, he sold them and distributed the proceeds among poor people who were in need.

He acted in this way because he wanted to ‘be perfect’, and because to those who wanted to attain perfection, Christ had clearly and concisely pointed out a single path: ‘Go and sell all that thou hast . . . and come and follow me.’

Hermius followed this instruction very precisely, leaving himself without a farthing to his name, and he rejoiced that he in no way found it grievous or difficult. It was only at the outset that it cost him something of an effort; after a while he took pleasure in giving everything away, so that nothing should ensnare him or hinder him from travelling lightly towards the loftiest aim of the Gospels.

4

Having thus freed himself from power and riches, Hermius left the capital in secret and set off to look for a secluded spot where no one would prevent him from keeping himself pure and holy, and from leading a life that was pleasing in the eyes of God. After a long journey, which he made barefoot, Hermius reached the remote town of Edessa,¹ and quite unexpectedly came across ‘a certain pillar’ for himself. ‘Here it is,’ thought Hermius. ‘Here’s a place all ready for me.’ And he immediately clambered on to his ‘pillar’ by means of a frail piece of timber which someone had placed against the rock, and then pushed the timber away. It rolled far away down the precipice and broke in pieces; but Hermius remained standing where he was, and continued to stand there for thirty years. During all that time he prayed to God and tried to forget about the hypocrisy and other evils which he had seen and which had pained and angered him.

The sole item of personal property which Hermius had taken with him on to the rock was a long piece of rope which he had used to hang on by during his climb; it was to prove useful in another respect, too.

On one of the first few days of his sojourn on the rock, when he had not yet remembered to remove the length of rope, it was observed by a boy goatherd who had come there to graze his goats. The goatherd began to tug at the rope, and Hermius called to him, saying:

‘Please fetch me some water: I’m very thirsty.’

The boy hooked his water-gourd to the length of rope and said:

‘Here you are: you can keep the gourd, if you like.’

He also gave Hermius his basket, which contained a handful of black, sharp-tasting berries.

Hermius ate the berries, and said:

‘God has sent me a provider.’

As soon as the boy had arrived back in his village with his herd of goats that evening, he at once began to tell his mother of how he had seen an old man on the rock. When the boy’s mother went down to the well, she proceeded to inform the other women about what her son had told her, and it was in this fashion that people came to learn about the existence of the new stylite. The villagers flocked to see Hermius, and brought him more lentils and beans than he was able to eat. So it went on. Scarcely would Hermius have lowered the wicker basket and the gourd on the long rope than the villagers would be putting cabbage-leaves and dry, uncooked pulses into the basket and filling the gourd with water. And this was the diet on which the Byzantine noble and plutocrat Hermius was to live for the next thirty years. He ate neither bread nor anything that had been prepared over a flame, and he forgot the taste of cooked food. According to the perceptions of those days, this was thought pleasing in the eyes of God. Hermius never once regretted having given away his wealth ‒ indeed, it passed from his memory altogether. He talked to no one, and appeared stern and austere, in his silence imitating the prophet Elijah.

The villagers believed that Hermius was capable of performing miracles. This conviction was not based on anything he had said to them, but they held it none the less. Those who were sick would come to stand in his shadow, which the sun cast from the rock on to the ground, and would go away feeling that this had brought them relief. But he continued to remain silent, concentrating his mind in prayer, or reciting by memory the three million lines of Origen and the two hundred and fifty thousand lines of Gregorius, Pierus and Stephanus.

Thus Hermius passed the days, and sometimes, in the evening, when the scorching heat subsided and his face was refreshed by the coolness, he would bring his prayers and meditations about God to a close and think instead about human beings for a while. He would reflect on how during the course of those thirty years the evil in the world must be increasing and on how, under a veil of bigotry and sanctimoniousness that had replaced the true doctrine with its own inventions, all authentic virtue had probably withered away in people and become a mere form without content. So unfavourable were the impressions which the stylite had taken with him from the smooth-tongued capital he had left behind that he was in a state of despair concerning the entire world, and failed to perceive that through this despair he was degrading the aim and purpose of creation, while considering himself the most perfect of men. He would recite the works of Origen to himself, all the while thinking: ‘Well ‒ perhaps it is so: perhaps the world really is here for the sake of eternity, and the people in it are like the pupils in a school preparing to take their examinations in eternity, and show the progress they have made. But what kind of progress can they hope to be able to show when their lives are full of vanity and spite, and they learn nothing from Christ, but go on living according to the old pagan habits? What good will eternity be to them?’ It was all very well for Origen to reassure everyone that it was impossible for the Creator to have fallen into error concerning His Creation, since he had seen ‘that it was good’, and would have been well aware if there had been anything wrong with it; to Hermius it nevertheless seemed that ‘the whole world lay in sin’, and it was in vain that his intelligence sought to ascertain the presence of ‘those who were pleasing to God and deserving of Eternity’.

Hermius found it quite impossible to imagine a human being who might be worthy of Eternity ‒ to his eyes, everyone seemed wicked, everyone had arrived in life with an inclination towards evil already installed in him, and during the course of his life upon earth merely went from bad to worse.

And the stylite was at last seized by the desperate certainty that Eternity was quite empty, since there was no one worthy of entering it.

5

One evening, as night was lowering her veils, and the stylite was ‘endeavouring with all his might to learn who are they that are pleasing in the sight of God’, he inclined his head to the edge of the precipice on which he perched, and a strange thing happened to him: he felt a gentle, even breeze wafting towards him, and at the same time heard the following words:

‘Hermius, your grief and horror are in vain: there are indeed those who earn God’s pleasure, and whose names are written in the book of eternal life.’ The stylite was overjoyed to hear the sweet voice, and he said:

‘Lord, if I have acquired grace in your eyes, let there be revealed to me just one such person ‒ then my mind will be put at rest regarding the whole of earthly creation.’ Once again the gentle breathing wafted to the ear of the aged monk:

‘In order for that to come about you must forget all the people you have known, come down from your pillar and go and see my servant Pamphalon.’

With that, the breathing faded, and the monk leaned forward, wondering whether he had really heard these words, or whether it had only been a dream. Another cold night passed, and then another hot day; then twilight fell once more, and again Hermius leaned over, and heard the voice say:

‘Come down to earth, Hermius, you must go and see Pamphalon.’

‘But who is he, this Pamphalon?’

‘One of the people you want to see.’

‘And where does he live?’

‘In Damascus.’

Again Hermius gave a start, uncertain whether he was dreaming or not. Then he decided he would put the matter to the test: if yet a third time he were to hear this clear voice speaking of Pamphalon, he would cast all doubt to the winds, come down from the rock and walk to Damascus.

He determined, however, to make detailed inquiries as to what sort of man this Pamphalon was, and how he was to seek him out in Damascus.

Another hot day went by, and when the cool of the evening arrived, the name of Pamphalon sounded once more on the delicate breeze.

This time the mysterious voice said:

‘Why are you being so slow, elder? Why aren’t you coming down to earth and walking to Damascus to see Pamphalon?’

The elder replied:

‘How can I go and look for someone I don’t know?’

‘You know his name.’

‘I know his name’s Pamphalon ‒ but in a great city like Damascus there must surely be many men of that name. Which of them shall I approach?’

The voice on the delicate breeze said:

‘That is not your concern. All you need do is come down quickly from your pillar and walk to Damascus: there everyone knows the Pamphalon you want to see. Ask the first person you meet ‒ they’ll show you the way. Everyone knows him.’

6

Now, after the third such conversation, Hermius was no longer in any doubt that this was the voice which must be obeyed. As for the question of which Pamphalon he was to see in Damascus, it ceased to trouble him. This Pamphalon whom everyone knew must doubtless be some famous poet or warrior, or possibly a well-known noble. In short, Hermius had no more grounds for hesitation; in order to obtain the fulfilment of his request, he must go and bring it about himself.

And so it was that after thirty years of standing in the same place, Hermius had to climb down from his rocky precipice and walk to Damascus . . .

It might, of course, seem a strange thing for such a complete recluse as Hermius was to go and look for a man who lived in Damascus, as in those times the city of Damascus was, with regard to moral purity, on a level with present-day Paris or Vienna ‒ cities which are not renowned for the holy lives led by their inhabitants, but have the reputation of being nests of vice and sin; in ancient times, however, there was, in fact, nothing particularly strange about such an occurrence: the emissaries of piety were often expressly sent to those places where it was most absent.

He must walk to Damascus! At this point, however, Hermius remembered that he was naked: the rags in which he had arrived thirty years ago had rotted away and fallen from his bony frame. His skin was tanned black by the sun, his eyes were wild, his hair was bleached and tangled, and his fingernails were as long as the talons of a bird of prey . . . How, looking like that, was he to show himself in the big, prosperous city?

But the voice continued to guide him, resounding from afar:

‘It’s all right, Hermius, on you go: your nakedness will find you a covering.’

Hermius took his basket containing its dried pulses and the water-gourd and threw them down to the foot of his pillar. Then he himself clambered down by means of the very same rope which he had used to haul up the supplies of food he had been brought.

The stylite had by this time grown so emaciated that the thin and semi-rotten rope was able to take his weight. True, it creaked a bit, but that did not deter Hermius: he landed safely at the foot of his pillar and set off, tottering like a young child, as his legs had grown unused to movement and had lost their steadiness.

Hermius trudged across the hot, uninhabited desert for a very long time; on his way he encountered not a single person, and so had no cause to be ashamed of his nakedness; as he was approaching Damascus, he came across a dried-up, skeletonized corpse lying in the sand, and beside it a tattered goatskin of the type worn in those days by monks who lived in communal dwellings. Hermius covered the corpse with sand, put the goatskin over his shoulders, and rejoiced, seeing in this a provision that had been especially made for him.

The sun was already beginning to set as Hermius drew near to Damascus. The elder had been slightly vague as to his plans, and now did not know which he should do: quicken his pace, and hurry, or take his time and wait for the morning. To his eyes there seemed only a short distance left to go, but his legs were aching. He decided to try to get there while it was still light, and entered the city just as the red sun was falling behind the horizon, the dusk was thickening and everything was becoming enshrouded in gloom. It was as if he were sinking in unfathomable sin.

Hermius grew afraid ‒ he felt like turning back . . . And again the thought came into his head: was not all he had heard about his journey merely a dream, or even a temptation? What righteous man could be found in this noisy city? What source of righteousness could there be here? Would it not be better if he were to retrace his steps, climb back into his rocky cleft, and remain standing there for good?

He had already turned round, but his legs would not carry him, and in his ears once again he heard the ‘delicate breeze’ saying:

‘Go quickly and kiss Pamphalon in Damascus.’

The old man turned round again to face Damascus, and his legs carried him forward. He arrived at the city wall just as the sentinel was closing the gates.

6

With some difficulty the poor old man managed to persuade the gatesman to let him through, though in exchange for this he had to part with his basket and gourd, a transaction which left him defenceless in the midst of a city which was totally unfamiliar to him and which seemed to him quite terrifyingly sinful.

In the south the nights fall quickly; there is scarcely any twilight, and the darkness is so intense that it is impossible to see anything. The events described here took place at a time when oriental cities were as yet without street lighting, and their inhabitants locked up early in the evening. The streets were a very dangerous place after dusk, and so the householders barred all the entrances to their houses very securely, so that no evil-doer should sneak in under cover of darkness and rob them, or murder them and burn down their property. At night they would either not open up at all, or would open up only to friends or members of their domestic staff who had been delayed, and even then only when they had satisfied themselves that the person knocking really was someone they ought to let in.

The only doors that remained open late were those of the prostitutes, who were available to everyone and who, the more visits they received, the better they were pleased.

Having arrived at Damascus in total darkness, the Elder Hermius was completely at a loss as to where he should seek shelter until the morning. There were, of course, inns in the city, but Hermius could not go and knock at the door of an inn, as there he would be requested to pay for his night’s lodging, and he had no money with him.

Hermius came to a halt. After he had given some thought to the question of what a person in his situation might do, he decided to ask to be allowed to spend the night at the first house he came to.

Thus following his inner promptings, he approached the house nearest to him and knocked at its door.

From behind the door a voice asked:

‘Who’s that knocking?’

Hermius replied:

‘A poor pilgrim.’

‘Oh, one of those! There’s a lot of your sort gadding about. What do you want?’

‘I need shelter for the night.’

‘Well, you’ve come to the wrong house. Go to an inn.’

‘I’ve no money, and I can’t pay for an inn.’

‘That’s too bad. Well then, go to the house of people who know you; perhaps they’ll let you in.’

‘No one knows me here.’

‘If there’s no one who knows you here, you’d do better to stop wasting your time knocking at our doors and go away as quickly as possible.’

‘I’m asking in the name of Christ.’

‘Oh, please don’t mention that name. There’s a whole bunch of you going around: you’re forever going on about Christ, but all you do is tell lies and use that name to cover up all your evil doings. Go away, there’s no shelter for you here.’

Hermius approached a second house, and here again he began to knock.

And here again a voice from behind the closed door asked:

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m a poor pilgrim who’s exhausted . . . Please let me rest in your house!’

But again he received the same answer: go to an inn.

‘I’ve no money,’ Hermius said. He uttered the name of Christ, but it earned him nothing but reproof.

‘That’s enough, don’t come shouting that name again,’ replied the voice from behind the door of the second house. ‘Nowadays all the villains and layabouts use it to cover up their misdeeds.’

‘I beseech you,’ Hermius said. ‘Please believe me: I’ve done nobody any harm and I have no intention of doing so. I’ve just come in from the desert.’

‘Well, if you’re from the desert, you’d better stay there. You’re wasting your time coming here.’

‘I’m not here on my own account ‒ I have instructions to seek someone out.’

‘Well, go to his house, then; but leave us in peace; we’re afraid of folk who call themselves elders and go around dressed in goatskins: you yourselves may be all very holy, but each of you has seven devils tagging along behind him.’

‘Goodness!’ thought Hermius. ‘How time has changed men’s habits. The old custom of welcoming strangers seems to have passed out of use altogether. Everyone’s familiar with the desert legend that an ascetic has more devils in tow than a plain ordinary sinner, and because of that things have got worse, not better. And here I am ‒ a desert anchorite who has stood in the same place for thirty years: in the shadow of my pillar men have been cured of their illnesses, yet no one will allow me to come in under their roof, and not only may I be murdered by evil-doers ‒ I may be insulted and dishonoured by men without shame who have perverted the course of nature. No, I now see clearly that I have been subjected to the mockery of Satan, that I have been sent here not for the good of my soul, but in order to bring about my total perdition, as unto Sodom and Gomorrah.’

At this very moment, however, Hermius noticed someone quickly crossing the street in the darkness. Laughing, this person said:

‘I say, you’ve really given me a laugh, old man!’

‘In what way?’ Hermius inquired.

‘Well, I mean, you’re so stupid that you go asking men who are rich and of noble birth to let you spend the night in their homes! It’s easy to see that you’ve no understanding of life.’

The stylite thought: ‘This is doubtless a thief or a prodigal, but he’s a talkative fellow: I shall ask him what I must do, and where I may find shelter.’

‘Stay for a moment, whoever you are,’ he said. ‘Tell me, are there any men in this city who are known as philanthropists?’

‘Of course,’ the man replied. ‘There are men like that here.’

‘Where are they?’

‘You’ve just been knocking at their doors and talking to them.’

‘Their philanthropy’s not up to much in that case, then.’

‘That’s what all sham philanthropists are like.’

‘What about men who are God-fearing, do you know any of those?’

‘Yes, I know some of those, too.’

‘Where are they?’

‘It’s after sunset now; they’ll all be at prayer.’

‘I’ll go to them.’

‘Well, I don’t advise it. God help you if you disturb them with your knocking while they’re standing at prayer; their servants will throw you to the ground and inflict injuries on you.’

The elder threw up his hands:

‘What sort of a state of affairs is this?’ he said. ‘One can’t convince the philanthropists of one’s need, and one can’t call the devout away from their prayers, your night is dark, and your customs are dreadful. Oh misery me! Alack and alas!’

‘I’ll tell you what to do: instead of standing here feeling sorry for yourself and looking for people who are God-fearing ‒ go and see Pamphalon.’

‘What did you say?’ the anchorite asked, and again received the same answer:

‘Go and see Pamphalon.’

8

The anchorite was glad to hear this mention of the name Pamphalon. It meant that his journey had not been in vain. But who, he wondered, was this talking to him in the dark? If it was a guiding angel, that was good ‒ but what if it were the Devil?

‘I do want to see someone called Pamphalon,’ Hermius said. ‘In fact, I’ve been sent to find him; but I’m not sure whether he’s the Pamphalon you’re talking about.’ ‘What were you told about your Pamphalon?’

‘Much that I wouldn’t relate to just anyone; but I was informed that everyone knows him here.’

‘Well, if that’s the case, then we’re talking about the same Pamphalon. He’s the only Pamphalon whom everyone knows.’

‘Why is he so well known?’

‘Oh, because he’s an agreeable man who cheers people up wherever he goes. No festive gathering or entertainment is complete without him, and he has a friendly word for everyone. As soon as people hear the bells on the collar of his long-muzzled dog, they say, cheerfully: “There’s Pamphalon’s Acra. That means Pamphalon himself will be along in a moment or two, and then we shall all have a merry time.’”

‘Why does he go around with a dog?’

‘To add to the amusement. That Acra of his is a wonderful, intelligent and faithful dog, it helps him to cheer people up. And he also has a bird of bright plumage which he carries about inside a hoop on the end of a long pole. It, too, is a rare asset: it whistles like a pipe and hisses like a snake.’

‘But why does Pamphalon need all this ‒ a dog and a bird of bright plumage?’

‘Why, he wouldn’t be Pamphalon if he didn’t have things with which to amuse people.’

‘And who is he, this Pamphalon of yours?’

‘Do you really mean you don’t know?’

‘Yes. All I know about him is what I heard in the desert.’

The man looked surprised.

‘There’s a remarkable thing!’ he exclaimed. ‘That means our Pamphalon’s known not only in Damascus and the other cities, but also in remote parts of the desert. Well, that’s as it should be, for there’s not another soul on earth as cheerful as our Pamphalon; no one can help laughing as they watch him playing his merry pranks, winking, waggling his ears, moving his legs up and down, whistling, clicking his tongue and twisting his curly head.’

‘He moves his legs up and down and twists his head,’ the anchorite repeated. ‘He makes faces, moves his body and jumps . . . What is he, then?’

‘An entertainer.’

‘What? This Pamphalon? The one I’m looking for? He’s an entertainer?’

‘That’s right. Pamphalon’s an entertainer; he’s so universally well-known because he goes capering through the streets, spinning around like a wheel on the square, winking, moving his legs up and down and twisting his head.’

Hermius nearly dropped his anchorite’s staff and said:

‘Be gone! Be gone, devil: you have mocked at me long enough!’

But the man who had spoken in the darkness did not seem to hear this curse, and added:

‘Pamphalon is at present living just round the corner from here, and I expect the light will still be shining in his window, because in the evening he gets his entertainer’s contrivances ready before he goes off to give performances in the houses of the hetaerae. But if there’s no light in his window, then you should count along in the dark until you come to the third small house on the right, go inside and spend the night there. Pamphalon’s doors are always open.’

And with this, the speaker in the dark vanished off somewhere, as though he had never existed.

9

Struck by what he had heard about Pamphalon, Hermius remained in the darkness, thinking:

‘What shall I do now? Surely it’s impossible that the man for whose sake I was brought down from my rock and led out of the desert in order to meet should be a common entertainer? What virtues, worthy of eternal life, can be imitated from a mountebank, an actor, a conjuror who spins around on the squares and provides entertainment for revellers in houses where wine is drunk and dissolute behaviour indulged in?’

It all seemed quite incomprehensible. But the night was dark, and there was nothing for it but for Hermius to go to the house of the entertainer.

The anchorite needed shelter for the night, for even though he was accustomed to all the inclemency of the elements, to stay out on the streets at night was in those days far more dangerous than it is now. At that time thieves went plundering and desperate people roamed about, the like of whom was seen only in the days before the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah. They were worse than animals; they spared no one, and a man could expect to encounter the most infamous molestation at their hands.

Hermius remembered all this and was accordingly very relieved when no sooner had he turned the corner than he saw a welcoming light. The light was coming from one of the small houses, and in the darkness it burned as brightly as a star. This must be where the entertainer lived.

Hermius walked into the light and saw that here indeed was a very small, low house, the door of which was standing wide open; the doorway’s rush curtain was raised, so that everything inside was visible.

The dwelling was not a large one ‒ it contained only one room which, although it was not very lofty, was none the less fairly spacious. This room was entirely exposed to view, revealing the householder, his household, and all his trade. And from all that was visible it was not difficult to guess that it was not a respectable person who lived here, but a professional entertainer.

On the grey wall immediately opposite the open door hung an earthenware lamp with a long spout, at the end of which a wick soaked in fat burned with a red flame. This wick was giving off a great deal of black smoke, and fiery drops of boiling fat kept falling from it. Along the entire length of the wall hung various strange objects which it would really have been more accurate to describe as junk. Here were Saracen, Greek and Egyptian costumes; here too were multicoloured feathers, bells, rattles, tambourines, red poles and gilded hoops. In one corner a hook had been fixed to the ceiling; to this a thin pole, like a long fishing-rod, had been attached by means of a piece of rope, and on the end of this pole, affixed by another piece of rope, there was a wooden hoop, inside which a bird of bright plumage perched asleep, its head tucked under its wing. One of its legs bore a slender chain, by which it was fettered to the hoop. In another corner there were some boards which had been bent into a semi-circle, and behind it lay tambourines, drums, wooden pipes and even stranger items, the names of which the anchorite, who had not been exposed to the frivolity of city life for a long time, could not even remember.

On the floor in one corner there was a bed of rush matting, and in another stood a trunk; on this trunk, in front of a bench which served as a table, the master of the house sat immersed in some aspect of his craft.

His outward appearance was strange: he was a man no longer young, and was indeed on the elderly side; he had a swarthy face which was cheerful and good-natured, with a constant, even expression; his eyes bore a light gleam; but his face was painted, and the half-grey head was garlanded all over with little curls, on top of which sat a thin copper fillet from which jangling, glittering circlets and stars were suspended. Such was Pamphalon. He sat huddled over a bench on which various entertainer’s costumes lay strewn about, and in front of his face there were a little earthenware brazier and a soldering pipe. He was blowing through the soldering pipe on to the hot coals, fastening some small rings together, one after the other, and did not notice the stern anchorite who had now been standing for a long time staring fixedly in at him.

At that moment, however, the long-muzzled dog which had been lying in the shadow at Pamphalon’s feet sensed the presence of a trespasser, raised its head and got to its feet, uttering a growl; as it did so, the bells on its brass collar began to jangle, and at this sound the bird of bright plumage woke up, bringing its head out from under its wing. It gave a start and produced a noise which was a blend of a whistle and a sharp clacking of its beak. Pamphalon straightened up, removed his lips from the soldering pipe for a moment, and shouted:

‘Be quiet, Acra! And you too, Zoia! Don’t frighten this man of leisure who has come to summon us to entertain the bored and rich. And you, light emissary,’ he added, raising his voice ‒ ‘whoever has sent you here, come closer now and tell me without delay: what do you require?’

Hermius responded to this question with a sigh:

‘Oh, Pamphalon!’

‘Yes, yes, yes; I’m the same old Pamphalon ‒ dancer, entertainer, singer, fortune-teller and anything else you please ‒ which of my gifts do you wish to avail yourself of?’

‘You are mistaken, Pamphalon.’

‘In what am I mistaken, friend?’

‘The man who is standing outside your house has no need of those gifts of yours whatsoever. I haven’t come to summon you to perform your entertainer’s tricks.’

‘Oh well, it doesn’t matter. The night is young ‒ someone else will come and summon us to perform, and I’ll earn some money for tomorrow, both for myself and for my dog. But what can I do for you, then?’

‘Please let me have shelter for the night; I would also like to talk with you.’

When he heard these words, the entertainer looked round, put his wire rings and soldering pipe back in the trunk and, using one hand to shield his eyes, said:

‘I can’t see you properly, I don’t know who you are, and your voice doesn’t sound familiar to me . . . But please by all means make yourself at home, and as for the talk . . . You must be making fun of me.’

‘No, I am not,’ Hermius replied. ‘I’m a complete stranger here, and have come from a long way off in order to have a talk with you. T{ie light of your lamp drew me to your door, and I’ve come to ask you for shelter.’

‘Well, I’m glad that the light of my lamp doesn’t shine only for revellers. Whoever you are ‒ don’t stand out there. If you really can’t find a better place in all Damascus in which to spend the night, then I beg you, step inside so that I may put you at your ease.’

‘Thank you,’ Hermius replied. ‘May God bless you for your hospitality, even as he blessed the welcoming roof of Abraham.’

‘Oh I say, please stop making speeches! What I’m offering you is absolutely nothing, yet there you go bringing Abraham into it. Take a simpler view of the matter, old man. It will mean a great deal to me if you’ll bless me when you leave my house again after you’ve rested from yourjourney and have taken your ease, but for now just come quickly inside: while I’m here, I’ll help you to get washed ‒ but it may be that someone will summon me out to provide a nocturnal entertainment, and then I shan’t have any time to attend to you. Business is not very good here at the moment: entertainers from Syracuse have begun visiting Damascus. So sweetly do they sing and play their harps that they’ve taken all the best work from us. We can’t afford to let a single opportunity pass: we have to go running off at the double to wherever we’re summoned, and just now is the very hour when rich and well-born guests come to feast with the gay hetaerae.’

‘An accursed hour,’ thought Hermius.

But Pamphalon went on:

‘Well, come in, then, please, and don’t pay any attention to my dog: that’s Acra, my faithful hound, my companion. Acra isn’t there to frighten people, but to do the same job I do ‒ to entertain them. Enter my house, traveller.’

So saying, Pamphalon stretched out both arms towards his guest and, leading him up the steps out of the darkness of the street into the illuminated room, momentarily recoiled from him in horror.

So wild and terrible did the anchorite who entered seem to him!

The former nobleman, who had stood for thirty years exposed to the wind and the fiery sun, had practically ceased to possess a human appearance. His eyes had grown completely colourless, his sun-scorched flesh had gone black and withered, and clung to his bones, his arms and legs had dried up, and his overgrown fingernails had turned inwards and were growing into the palms of his hands; on his head there remained only a single tuft of hair, and the colour of this hair was neither white, nor yellow, nor even green, but bluish, like a duck’s egg, and this tuft stuck up in the very centre of his head like the crest of a drake.

These two quite disparate individuals stood facing each other in bewilderment: the entertainer, who had hidden the natural aspect of his features beneath a layer of paint, and the sun-bleached anchorite. They were observed by the long-muzzled dog and the bird of bright plumage. All were silent. But Hermius had not come to see Pamphalon in order to be silent, but in order to have a talk with him ‒ a profoundly significant talk.

10

Pamphalon was the first to recover his composure.

Noticing that Hermius was carrying nothing with him, Pamphalon asked him in bewilderment:

‘Where are your basket and gourd?’

‘I’ve nothing with me,’ the anchorite replied.

‘Well, thank God that today I have something to offer you in the way of hospitality.’

‘I don’t need anything,’ the elder said, interrupting him. ‘I didn’t come here for your hospitality. What I want to know is how you manage to please God.’

‘What?’

‘How do you manage to please God?’

‘What are you talking about, elder? How could I ever please God? It’s out of the question for me even to think of such a thing.’

‘Why? Everyone must think about his own salvation. Nothing is more dear to a man than his own salvation. But salvation is impossible without pleasing God.’

Pamphalon heard him out, smiled, and replied:

‘Oh, father, father! If only you knew how funny what you’re saying sounds to me. You’ve obviously been out of the world for a long time.’

‘Yes, I have: it’s thirty years since I’ve been down among men; yet what I say, I say in all sincerity and in accordance with my faith.’

‘Oh,’ replied Pamphalon, ‘I won’t argue with you. All I’ll tell you is that I’m a man who leads a very irregular life ‒ I’m an entertainer by profession and I don’t have much time for thinking about piety ‒ I hop, spin around, play musical instruments, clap my hands, wink, twist my legs and shake my head so that people will give me something for the amusement I give them. What kind of God-pleasing could I ever think about living a life like that?’

‘Why don’t you give up that way of life and start leading a better one?’

‘Ah, my dear friend, I’ve already tried that.’

‘With what results?’

‘It didn’t work out.’

‘Then try again.’

‘No, there’s no use trying now.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the other day I let slip an opportunity of improving my way of life such as it would be impossible to better.’

‘How do you know? You may think it’s impossible, but with God all things are possible.’

‘No, please don’t talk to me about that, as I really don’t want to tempt God any further, if I can’t hope to enjoy his mercy. I’ve left myself without salvation, and that’s that.’

‘So you’ve.despaired, have you?’

‘No, I haven’t despaired. I’m just a merry, carefree fellow, and to talk to me about questions of faith is simply ‒ out of place.’

Hermius shook his head, and said:

‘But what does your faith consist in, merry, carefree fellow?’

‘I have faith that I myself, on my own, am incapable of making anything good out of myself, and if in time my Creator manages to make something better out of me, then that’s his affair. He’s capable of surprising everyone.’

‘But why don’t you care about yourself?’

‘I’ve no time to.’

‘What do you mean, no time?’

‘Well, I live a frivolous life, you see, and whenever I make an effort to save myself, I fall into a state of melancholy, and instead of anything good coming of it, things work out even worse than before.’

‘You’re talking nonsense.’

‘No, it’s true. When I start to meditate, my weak character makes me anxious and I end up undoing all my good work and returning to my profession of entertainer.’

‘Well, that means you’re a lost soul, then.’

‘That may well be.’

‘And I really don’t think that you can possibly be the Pamphalon I need to see.’

‘I can’t answer that,’ the entertainer replied. ‘Only it seems to me that at this moment when I’m so fortunate as to be able to attend to your pilgrim’s requirements, I’m just the Pamphalon you do need to see; as for the other things you may require, we’ll find out about those tomorrow. Now I shall wash your feet and you will eat of what I have and go to bed, and I will go out entertaining.’

‘I need to hear your wise words.’

‘My wise words?’ Pamphalon exclaimed again.

‘Yes, I need to hear your wise words, that’s why I’ve come to see you, and I shan’t leave your side until I’ve heard them.’

Pamphalon looked at the elder, touched him by his blue top-knot, and then suddenly burst out laughing.

‘What do you find so amusing in my words, my merry fellow?’ Hermius inquired.

And Pamphalon answered:

‘Forgive me my foolishness. I burst out laughing because I’m in the habit of playing the jester. You say you won’t leave my side, and I thought that perhaps it might be a good idea if I were to take you with me around the town. It would be good for business if I could show you off around Damascus. Everyone would come out to see you, but I’m ashamed to think of you like that, even though you ought to be ashamed of laughing at me.’

‘I’m not laughing at anyone, Pamphalon.’

‘Then why did you tell me that you wanted to hear my wise words, as though you hoped to receive instruction from them? What instruction can I, a good-for-nothing entertainer, give you, a man who has the power to meditate on God and man in the holy silence of the desert? The Lord has not entirely deprived me of His most holy gift ‒ reason, and I know what a difference there is between you and myself. Don’t offend me, old man ‒ allow me to wash your feet and offer you my bed to rest on.’

‘Very well,’ said Hermius. ‘You are the master in your own house, and you must do as you wish.’

Pamphalon fetched a tub of fresh water and washed the feet of his guest. When he had finished, he offered him some food, and then showed him to his own bed, saying:

‘Tomorrow we shall talk. But now I ask you only one thing: don’t be alarmed if some revellers should come knocking at my door or throw something at the wall. All that means is that some devotees of idleness have come to summon me to entertain them.’

‘And you’ll get up and go out?’

‘Yes, I go out at any time of the night or day.’

‘And do you really go anywhere in the town?’

‘Of course: after all, I’m only a lowly entertainer, and I can’t choose the places I perform in.’

‘Poor Pamphalon!’

‘What’s to be done, father? It isn’t sages and philosophers who ask for my services, but devotees of idleness. I go on to the squares, stand outside the arenas, spin myself around at banquets, frequent the suburban groves where the rich young men go carousing and, most often of all, pass the nights in the houses of the gay hetaerae . . .’

At these last words Hermius almost burst out weeping and, in a most piteous voice, exclaimed:

‘Poor Pamphalon!’

‘What am I to do?’ the entertainer replied. ‘I really am very poor. After all, I’m a child of sin, and since I was conceived in sin, I grew up with sinners. I know no other skill besides entertaining, and I had to live in the world because it was here that my mother, who conceived me in sin and gave birth to me, lived. I should not have been able to bear it if my mother had had to stretch out her hand for bread to strangers, and I supported her by means of my entertaining.’

‘But where is your mother now?’

‘I have faith that she is with God. She died in the very same bed on which you are lying now.’

‘Are you well-loved in Damascus?’

‘I don’t know the meaning of the word “love”, but I suppose I am ‒ at least, people throw me money for the amusement I provide, and they invite me to sit at their tables. I drink costly wine at others’ expense and pay for it with my jokes.’

‘You drink wine?’

‘Oh yes ‒ I like it, there’s no question about that. And anyway, it’s impossible for a man who keeps lively company not to drink wine.’

‘Who was it who introduced you to that kind of company?’

‘Chance ‒ or perhaps it would be truer to say . . . but I can’t explain that to a pious man like yourself. In her girlhood my mother was gay and pretty. My father was a nobleman. He abandoned me, and none of the other respectable citizens would take me in ‒ I was taken in hand by another such as myself, an entertainer who beat me and knocked me about a great deal, but to whom I am none the less grateful ‒ he taught me his craft, and now there is no one who can juggle with rings better than I, no one who is so good at clicking his tongue, making faces, clapping his hands, moving his legs up and down and twisting his head.’

‘And this craft hasn’t yet grown loathsome to you?’

‘No. I often don’t like it, especially when I see the nobles, who ought to be giving thought to the happiness of the common people, passing their time with the hetaerae instead and bringing the flower of youth into the houses of pleasure, but this is the career I was brought up in, and this is the only way I know of earning my daily bread.’

‘Poor, poor Pamphalon! Look, your hair has already begun to turn white, and yet here you are still clapping your hands, mincing your legs and twisting your head in the company of prostitutes who have lost their souls. You will lose yours, too.’

But Pamphalon replied:

‘Don’t feel sorry for me because I twist my legs and hang around in the company of the hetaerae. The hetaerae may be sinners, but they are compassionate towards us weak ones. When their guests get drunk, they themselves go and collect money from the revellers, and sometimes they even use their caresses to wheedle a little extra for us.’

And, noticing that Hermius had turned away, Pamphalon touched him gently on the shoulder and said in a tone of admonishment:

‘Believe me, esteemed old man: where there’s life there’s hope ‒ in those hetaerae there often beat hearts of gold. But it saddens us to be present at the feasts of the rich masters. One meets unpleasant people there; they are proud and arrogant, and they want enjoyment ‒ yet they won’t tolerate levity or uninhibited laughter. There they demand what human nature is ashamed of, there they threaten us with blows and injuries, there they tweak the feathers of my bird of bright plumage, there they blow and spit in the face of my dog Acra. There they make light of all the insults they inflict on the lower orders and next morning . . . they go to church simply for appearances’ sake.’

‘O woe, woe!’ Hermius whispered to himself. ‘I see that he is still very far from realizing the degree to which he has become ensnared ‒ but his nature and intelligence may be good . . . That is doubtless why I have been sent to him ‒ in order to set his gifted soul on a different path.’

And to Pamphalon he said, in a tone of exhortation:

‘Give up your loathsome craft.’

But Pamphalon replied:

‘I’d very much like to, but I can’t.’

‘Say a prayer to God, and He will help you.’

Pamphalon trembled, and said in a lowered voice:

‘A prayer! . . . How is it that you are able to read in my soul the very thing I want to forget?’

‘Aha! I expect you’ve taken a vow and broken it again?’

‘Yes, you’ve guessed it. I did that evil thing: took a vow.’

‘Why do you call a vow an evil thing?’

‘Because Christians are forbidden to swear oaths and make promises, and I, in spite of everything, am still a Christian. I took a vow and broke it. But now I know that it isn’t possible for a weak person to take a vow before the Almighty, who has pre-ordained what he is to be and who moulds him as the potter moulds the clay on his wheel. Old man, I must tell you that I had the chance of giving up my entertaining, but didn’t take it.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘I’ve heard that reply of yours before: you “couldn’t”! Why could you, and yet couldn’t?’

‘Yes, that’s it: I could and yet couldn’t ‒ because I’m ‒ careless. I couldn’t spend time thinking about my soul when there was someone who needed my help.’

The elder raised himself on his bed and, fixing his eyes on the entertainer, exclaimed:

‘What did you say? You think nothing of ruining your soul for all eternity, merely in order to help someone during this brief life? Have you any idea of what the furious flames of Hell are like, the depths of the eternal night?’

The entertainer smiled, and said:

‘No, I know nothing about that. And anyway, how could I know anything about the lives of those who are dead, when I don’t even know everything about the living? Do you have knowledge of Tartarus, old man?’

‘Of course!’

‘Yet I see that there is much upon earth that you don’t have knowledge of. I find that strange. When I tell you that I’m a ne’er-do-well, you don’t believe me. And I don’t believe that you have knowledge concerning the dead.’

‘Unhappy man! Have you even the slightest conception of God?’

‘I do ‒ only a very slight conception, it’s true ‒ but I don’t expect to be greatly condemned on that account, because, after all, I didn’t grow up in a noble family and haven’t attended lessons with the scholastics in Byzantium.’

‘It is possible to know God and serve Him without knowing the teachings of the scholastics.’

‘I agree with you; that’s the way I’ve always addressed God in my mind: “You are the Creator and I am Your creation ‒ it’s not for me to understand You, or why You have stuffed me into this chasuble of skin and thrown me down on to the earth in order to labour. All I do is drag myself about the earth and labour. I should like to know why everything has been created so ingeniously ‒ but I don’t want to be like a lazy slave, gossiping about You with all and sundry. I shall simply be obedient to You and not attempt to discover what You are thinking ‒ I shall simply take and fulfil that which Your finger has traced in my soul. And if I do evil, forgive me, because after all it was You who created me with a compassionate heart. It is by it that I live.”’

‘And in this fashion you hope to justify yourself?’

‘Oh, I don’t hope for anything ‒ I’m simply not afraid of anything.’

‘What? Aren’t you even afraid of God?’

Pamphalon shrugged his shoulders, and replied:

‘No, not really. I love Him.’

‘You’d do better to tremble!’

‘Why? Are you afraid?’

‘I used to be.’

‘But now you’ve grown out of it?’

‘I’m no longer the man I once was.’

‘I suppose you’re better than you were?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well said. The man who knows is merely a looker-on, not a doer. He who acts is invisible to himself.’

‘And have you ever felt that you were good?’

Pamphalon was silent.

‘I entreat you,’ Hermius repeated. ‘Tell me, have you ever felt that you were good?’

‘Yes,’said the entertainer. ‘I have . . .’

‘When was that?’

‘Can you imagine? It was at the very moment at which I distanced myself from Him . . .

‘Lord! What is this madman saying?’

‘I am telling you the whole truth.’

‘But how did you distance yourself from God?’

‘I did it in a single breath.’

‘But tell me, what did you do?’

Pamphalon was about to describe what had happened to him, but at that very moment the rush curtain that hung over the door was thrown back by two swarthy, braceleted female arms, and two resonant female voices said, vying with each other in chorus:

‘Pamphalon, ridiculous Pamphalon! Get up and come with us. We’ve run all the way to your house in the dark to fetch you, our hetaera sent us . . . Hurry, be quick now, our grotto and alleys are full of rich guests from Corinth. Bring your rings, and your harp, and Acra and your bird. Tonight you’ll be able to earn something by your ridiculous antics, and even make up for your lost trade a little.’

Hermius surveyed these women with their warm, glistening skins, their half-open mouths and their sultry eyes whose gaze was directed into space; he was struck by the complete absence of thought in their faces, and by the scent of their voluptuous bodies. It seemed to the anchorite that he could hear the dark mutter of the bloodun their veins, and in the distance he sensed the trampling of hooves, the sound of panting and the odour of Silenus’s acrid sweat.

Hermius shook with fear, turned to the wall and covered his head with a bast mat.

Leaning over towards him, Pamphalon said quietly:

‘You see how much time I have for thinking of lofty matters!’ ‒ and, at once exchanging his tone for one that was loud and cheerful, he replied to the women: ‘I’ll be with you this very moment, my serpents of the Nile.’

Pamphalon whistled to Acra, took the pole on which his bird of bright plumage sat inside its hoop and, snatching up his other entertainer’s paraphernalia, snuffed out the lamps and went off.

Hermius was left alone in the empty dwelling.

11

Hermius did not quickly find oblivion in sleep. For a long time he meditated on how he was to match his conception of why he had come here with what he had actually found. It was, of course, easy to see at once that the entertainer was a good-hearted fellow, but all the same he was rather frivolous: he increased the sum of pleasure by clapping his hands, kicking his legs in the air and twisting his head, and he was unwilling to renounce these devilish amusements. Would he indeed be capable of such a thing, so deeply was he immersed in this debauched existence? Consider, for example, his present whereabouts, after he had gone off with these shameless women who had left behind them in the air the mutter of their blood and the odour of Silenus’s acrid sweat.

If such were the emissaries, what must she be like whom they served in her house of depravity? . . .

The anchorite trembled.

Why, after thirty years of standing in the wilderness, had he been required to come down from his rock and walk for days and days to the point of terrible exhaustion merely in order to come to Damascus and see . . . the same loathsome spectacle of sin he had left behind in Byzantium? No, it could assuredly not have been an angel of God who had sent him here ‒ it must have been some tempter-demon! There was no point in giving further thought to the matter ‒ he must get up forthwith, and leave.

It was hard for the elder to get up ‒ his legs were tired, the way was long, the desert was hot and filled with terrors; but he did not spare his body . . . he rose and wandered through the streets and squares of Damascus in the dark. He ran past it all: the singing, the drunken chime of goblets from the houses, the ardent sighs of the nymphs, and Silenus himself ‒ all of it rose against him like a tidal wave; but his legs seemed endowed with an untold strength and vigour. He ran and ran, at last caught sight of his rock, found himself clutching at its flinty sides, and was about to crawl into his hidey-hole when someone’s horribly powerful arm yanked him downwards by the legs and placed him fairly and squarely on the ground, and an invisible voice boomed at him:

‘Stay with Pamphalon, ask him to tell you how he completed the work of his salvation.’

And together with these words Hermius received such a hefty gust of air in his face that he almost choked; he saw that it was daylight, and that he was back in Pamphalon’s dwelling once more ‒ there was the entertainer himself lying asleep on the bare floor, and his dog and his bird of bright plumage were dozing too . . .

By the head of Hermius’s bed stood two clay vessels, one containing water, and the other milk; on fresh green leaves lay soft goat’s cheese and luscious fruits.

None of these things had been here the night before . . .

The anchorite reflected that this must mean he had slept soundly; when his weary host had returned home he had not lain down to sleep straight away, but had first attended to the needs of his guest.

The entertainer had put out for his guest all the things he had obtained somewhere, so that in the morning the guest might refresh himself upon rising . . .

There had been neither cheese nor fruit in Pamphalon’s house ‒ he had evidently been given all these things at the place where he had performed his antics, entertaining the revellers at the house of the hetaera.

He had received a gift from the hetaera and had brought it home for the pilgrim.

‘My host is a very strange man,’ Hermius thought; getting up from the bed, he went over to Pamphalon, looked into his face and studied it. The evening before he had seen Pamphalon by lamplight, ready to go out entertaining, with his head swathed in a turban and his face painted, but now the entertainer was asleep; he had washed the greasepaint from his features, and his face was calm and beautiful. It seemed to Hermius that this was not a human being at all, but an angel.

‘Well I never!’ thought Hermius. ‘Perhaps I’m not mistaken after all, perhaps I haven’t been tempted, and this really is the same Pamphalon who is more perfect than I am and from whom I must learn something. Lord! How am I to find out what it is? How am I to resolve this doubt?’

And the old man began to weep, got down on his knees before the entertainer and, embracing him around the neck, began to call his name through his tears.

Pamphalon woke up and asked:

‘What do you want of me, my father?’

But seeing that the elder was weeping, Pamphalon gave a start, quickly got up and began to speak.

‘Why do I see tears on your aged countenance? Has someone offended you?’

But Hermius replied to him:

‘No one has offended me; no one, that is, except you. I came from my desert in order to learn from you things that would be advantageous to me, but you won’t tell me how it is that you have managed to please God; please don’t conceal it from me, don’t torment me: I can see that you live in frivolous surroundings, but it has been revealed to me that you are beloved of God.’

Pamphalon thought for a moment or two, and then said:

‘Believe me, old man: there is nothing in my life that could be made the object of praise. On the contrary, everything in it is bad.’

‘But it may be that you yourself aren’t aware of it.’

‘No, how could that be? I’m aware that I live ‒ as you’ve seen ‒ a frivolous life, and what’s more I have such a wretched, feeble heart that it won’t even allow me to take up a better trade.’

‘Well, tell me about that, then. What harm has your heart done you, and why will it not allow you to take up a better trade? How was it that you felt you were good, when you had done evil?’

‘Aha! Very well,’ Pamphalon replied. ‘If you really want me to, I’ll tell you about that incident ‒ but I don’t think you’d feel like coming back to my home again after I’ve told you the story. We had better go out of town, into the fields; there in the wide open spaces I shall tell you about the event which completely robbed me of all hopes of salvation.’

‘Let’s be off, for God’s sake, as soon as possible,’ Hermius replied, covering himself with his rags.

Together they left the city, and sat down on the edge of its wild, precipitous moat. Acra lay at their feet, and Pamphalon began to tell his story.

12

‘Not for anything in the world would I tell you what you ask me to relate,’ Pamphalon began. ‘But since you insist on regarding me as a good man, and since that makes me feel ashamed, because I’m not worthy to be considered such, but merit only contempt ‒ I shall tell you. I am a great sinner and drunkard, but ‒ what is worse ‒ I am a trickster, and not a simple trickster: I tricked God with regard to the vow I took before him at the very moment I was granted the opportunity of fulfilling it. Listen to me, please; and judge me sternly. In your judgement I wish to receive the healing wound I have deserved in punishment from you.

‘You have seen the impurity of my entertainer’s life and so you will be able to understand everything that I am about to tell you. I live surrounded by filth and depravity. I was telling you the truth when I said that I’m not qualified to judge about divine matters, and because of the kind of life I lead they seldom enter my thoughts, but you are perceptive ‒ there have been times when I have thought about my soul. You spend the night spinning round in front of carousers to amuse them, but when you return home towards dawn, you think: is it really worth living like this? You sin in order to earn your bread, and you eat your bread in order to be able to sin. It’s all a kind of circle. But you know, father, man is a sly creature and in every situation he seeks fig leaves with which to conceal his nakedness. That s what I m like, too, and on several occasions I’ve thought to myself: “I have become mired in sin out of necessity, and what I earn I can hardly live on; now if I were suddenly to receive the kind of windfall that would make it possible for me to buy just a very small plot of land and work it, then I would immediately give up my entertaining and live like other respectable people.” Yet I couldn’t attain to this, and it wasn’t because no money ever came my way ‒ no, I had money, but it always seemed to happen that no sooner had I saved up what I needed than I would instantly spend it; someone would be in trouble, I would feel sorry for him, and would give him all my money. If at any one time a large sum had come into my hands I would probably have abandoned my entertaining and taken up a proper trade, even though I’m all thumbs. Why did God make me this way? But if one day in his generosity he helps me ‒ then I shall take myself in hand and begin to live well, like other decent folk who are revered by monks and clerics and who all expect to see the Kingdom of God.

‘And what do you suppose? It was as if fate had been listening to my words: I suddenly had the kind of stroke of fortune I had not dared to hope for. Listen to me carefully, and be my stern judge.

‘This is what happened to me on one occasion in my life.

‘I was once summoned to entertain the guests at the house of one of the hetaerae here in Damascus, a woman named Azella. She is no longer young, but her beauty is long-lasting, and she is more beautiful, voluptuous and intelligent than any of the other women in Damascus. There were a great many guests, and they were all either foreigners from Rome or boastful magnates from Corinth. They were all getting drunk on wine, and they kept making me sing and perform for them. Some of them wanted me to make them laugh, and I served them all as they desired. But when I grew tired they didn’t want to know, and they laughed at me insultingly, pushed me and forced me to drink wine which they had doctored with an unpleasant additive; they poured cold water over me and tormented my poor Acra, pulling her by the haunches and spitting into her muzzle ‒ when she growled they beat her and even threatened to kill her. I put up with all this merely in order to earn some of their money, because, I will confess to you, I wanted to help a crippled soldier get back to his home country. But Azella, the clever hetaera, observing how I was being insulted, turned everything in my favour: she opened her tunic and made all the guests throw her some money for me; the drunken guests threw her a lot, especially one, a haughty and obese Corinthian named Or, who had a bloated belly and no neck. Or said in a loud voice:

‘“Azella, show me how much gold the others have thrown into your tunic.”

‘She showed him.

‘Or looked, and squinting at the Romans with a haughty smile, added:

‘“Listen to what I have to say, Azella: tell all these guests of yours to go away, and take from my servant here ten times the amount they have given for your entertainer.”

‘Azella said to her guests:

‘“Wise men: it is not often that fortune descends among mortals, but to Pamphalon it has never before descended ‒ not once in his life. Make way for it now, and yourselves depart in peace and go to sleep.”

‘Reluctantly the guests departed. Azella ushered me out last and handed me so much money that I was unable to count it all. In the morning, when I did manage to count it, I found that it added up to two hundred and thirty litrae of gold. I was delighted, and at the same time scared.

‘“After this,” I thought, “I really can’t go on being an entertainer. It’s as though God had heard my vow. I’ve never before managed to earn so much money in one go. It’s time everyone stopped insulting me and making fun of me. I’m not a pauper now. I put up with grave insults in order to obtain this money, but from now on there’s going to be no more of that. I’m through with entertaining! I shall find myself a small plot of land with a spring of pure water and a leafy palm tree. I shall buy that plot of land and begin to Eve decently, as do all men with whom neither clerics nor monks are ashamed to associate.”

‘And I gave myself up to various forms of day-dreaming. I began to indulge in self-admiration as I summoned up thoughts of the worthy life I would lead: I would get up early in the mornings ‒ not, as I did at present, go to bed at dawn; I wouldn’t whistle, but sing psalms instead; during the daytime I would sit by my spring, under my palm tree, think about my soul and keep an eye open for a passing traveller. And were such a traveller to appear, I would get up and go to meet him, invite him into my home, put him at his ease, give him food and drink, and then in the quietness hold a conversation with him about God beneath the starry sky. My life would change entirely for the better, and when in my old age I should lose my strength, I would no longer be an entertainer. In order to fortify my resolve even more, and so that infirmity should not creep up on me from the side, I fettered my hands with an unbreakable chain . . . I did the thing you described: I took a vow that I would become a completely different person from that moment on. But listen to what happened then, and what it was that shook the resolution of my oath and promise.’

13

‘So as not to spend any of my earnings, I did not send my impoverished soldier home, but instead buried all my money under the floor below the head of my bed, and in the morning kept my rush curtain lowered. I pretended to be ill, as I had no intention of going out carousing with the revellers. To anyone who came to summon me, I replied that I was ill and was going out of town into the mountains in order to breathe fresh air and look for medicinal herbs with which to cure myself. Then, on the sly, I went to see a procurer, a Jew named Capiton who knows all about what is for sale anywhere, and asked him to find me a good plot of land with water and the shade of a palm tree. Capiton the procurer satisfied my wish at once.

‘“I can think of the very spot for you,” he said.

‘And he described to me a piece of land that was for sale; the description was so marvellous that I scarcely dared to hope. There was a spring and a palm tree, and even a shrub of balsam which shed its fragrance for more than a whole mile around.

‘“Go,” I said, “and buy that piece of land for me as soon as possible.”

‘The Jew promised to arrange everything.

‘“There,” I thought. “Now my disorderly existence is well and truly coming to an end; now I shall say goodbye to all my shouting and whistling, I shall cast off my ridiculous costumes and put on the respectable leviton,² I shall cover my head with a head-dress and work on my plot of land during the day, and in the evenings I shall sit by my humble cottage and emulate the hospitality of Abraham.”

‘I will not, however, conceal from you that during all this time I felt uneasy. I kept thinking that none of what I had undertaken would ever come to anything.

‘On my way back from Capiton’s I was seized with terror: what if someone should have discovered that I had received money from the proud Corinthian, come to my house in my absence and stolen my money from the place under the bed where I had buried it? . . . I ran home at the double, in a state of anxiety such as I had never known before; when I reached there, I immediately got down on the floor, dug up my cache and counted the money: all the two hundred and thirty litrae of gold which Or, the proud Corinthian, had given Azella for me, were safe, and I picked them up again and reburied them; when I had finished, I lay down on the spot, guarding them like a dog.

‘Do you know who I was afraid of? I wasn’t merely afraid of those thieves who go around pilfering ‒ I was also afraid of the thief who lived eternally with me in my heart. I didn’t want to know about anyone else’s misfortune, in case it deprived me of the steadfastness that is necessary to a man who desires to amend his way of life, and who pays no attention to what happens to others. I was not to blame for their misfortunes.

‘And since my visit to Capiton and my journey back again had made me pretty tired, I was overcome by sleep; but my sleep, too, was filled with anxiety: I dreamt that I had long ago bought the plot of land Capiton had told me about, that I was living in a light and spacious house, with the spring of fresh water bubbling not far away from me, the balsam shrub exuding its scent for me, and the luxuriant palm tree casting its shade on me; but then I dreamt that something kept spoiling this beauty: in the spring I saw a vast number of leeches, enormous toads were hopping around the palm tree, and a viper was coiling itself at the foot of the balsam shrub. When I caught sight of the viper, I was so frightened that I actually woke up, and at once thought: is my money safe? It was ‒ I was lying on top of it, and no one could have taken it from me without a struggle. It then suddenly occurred to me as being probable that it was no longer a secret in Damascus that Or had given me a fortune at the house of Azella. Or, the proud Corinthian, had not showered me with money at the feast of a hetaera in order for it to remain a secret. He had naturally only done it so that everyone should envy him his wealth and put into circulation a piece of gossip which would be flattering to his pride.

Now people would discover that I had money; they would come to my house at night and rob me and beat me, and if I were to offer any resistance they would kill me. ‘Now since my rush curtain was lowered, the room had become intolerably stuffy, and I went to raise it. As I did so, I saw two young boys walking along the street carrying baskets full of bread; before them went a donkey which was loaded with more, similar baskets. The boys were driving the donkey along and talking to each other . . . about me!

‘“Look,” one of them was saying. “Our Pamphalon hasn’t raised his curtain today.”

‘“Why should he?” the other replied. “He doesn’t need to give himself airs any longer: he’s a rich man ‒ he can sleep as much as he wants to. I mean, you must have heard the things the people who came to our bakery for bread today were saying about him.”

‘“Yes, yes, I know. I was so keen to eavesdrop that the master gave me a nasty cuff on the ear. Some haughty fellow from Corinth who wanted to show up our Damascus magnates in a poor light threw Pamphalon ten thousand litrae of gold at the house of Azella the hetaera. Now he’s buying a house, and orchards and female slaves, and he’s going to spend his time lying beside a fountain.”

‘“It wasn’t ten thousand litrae of gold, it was twenty thousand,” said the other boy, correcting him. “And what’s more, the money was in a casket that had been sprinkled with pearls. He’ll probably buy a piece of land that has a church on it, surround himself with some good-looking boys with fans, gather various scholars together and make them discuss the Holy Spirit in various languages.”

‘From the conversation of these boys, who were delivering bread from a bakery, I discovered that my sudden acquisition of wealth was already known to the whole of Damascus, and that, moreover, the sum which had fallen into my hands as a result of the haughty Or’s caprice had been more than ten times exaggerated.

‘But who could know that the sum I had been given by the haughty Or was less than three hundred litrae of gold ‒ far less than the twenty thousand I was supposed to have received? Of course, only I myself could know that, because even Or had doubtless not counted what he had given me.

‘But even this was of little importance compared to the manner in which the passing boys had ended their conversation. One of them had gone on to say something which suggested that everyone was very interested in where I had hidden such a large sum as twenty thousand litrae of gold. It was a matter which would be of especial interest to the flute-player Ammun, a desperate ruffian who had served as a soldier in two armies that were at war with each other, had then become a bandit and had murdered pilgrims, had subsequently become a monk in the Nitrian, and had finally appeared among us here in Damascus with a flute and a negress whore attired in the sheepskin coat of a Nitrian brother. He had probably murdered the brother, and had sold the whore naked to a house of pleasure; but for a long time he used the sheepskin coat to wipe the dust and dirt from the feet of the revellers who in the evenings approached the dwellings of the hetaerae. He also frequently played his flute at my performances, but on most occasions the hetaerae would drive him away. For this Ammun himself was to blame, as he began to shamelessly rouge his cheeks and train his eyebrows as if he were a member of the opposite sex. Because of this the women began to regard him with loathing, as their rival. Ammun had a terrible hatred of me. I knew that he had even tried several times to get men who were drunk to attack me by night and do me harm.

‘This desire to inflict harm on me must now, of course, have intensified, and his old brigand’s habits would help him to put his evil intentions into execution. He had gold, and he took men into bondage and made them do his bidding.’

14

‘The thought of the danger Ammun presented to me flashed into my brain like lightning, and took such a hold of me that it even prevented me from drawing the bast curtain over my window and calling back the boys who had passed me, and from whom I had wanted to buy myself some fresh loaves.

‘In the days when I had capered and spun around for what people would throw me, I had always had enough to eat and had even fortified myself not infrequently by drinking my fill of wine; now that I had gold, however, I would pass the entire day without a bite of food or a sip of wine, beset, what is more, by a state of anxiety that was growing in me with the speed at which our dusk passes into dark night.

‘I had no thought of food: I was afraid for my fortune and my life. Ammun the flute-player and his bondsmen stood perpetually before the frightened eyes of my imagination. I fancied that the situation must be thus: during the daytime Ammun would have gone to see all those who were like him and who would agree to take part in the evil deed, and now, under the cover of the approaching darkness, they would all be gathering in some cave or catacomb; when darkness finally fell, they would come here in order to take my twenty thousand litrae of gold from me. But when they found I had less gold than they thought I had, they would not believe that Or the Corinthian had given me such a meagre sum, and would put me to the stake and torture me.

‘Then suddenly to my horror I remembered that I had never taken proper care to see that the locks on my poor dwelling were secure . . . During my absences I had left it merely looking as though it were locked up, and at night had often slept without even sliding the bolts into place on my doors and windows.

‘Now this would not do, and since nightfall was now very close, I would have to hurry to inspect everything and arrange things as best I could so that it would not be so easy to break into my home.

‘Just as I was deliberating how I could bar my door from the inside, and had begun to take the necessary steps to do so, my rush curtain was thrown open right before my very eyes, and a muffled-up person entered my room less by his own effort than as if some alien hand had flung him. He fell upon me, embraced me round the neck and then froze, groaning in a voice of despair:

“‘Save me, Pamphalon!”’

15

‘Still taken up with the thoughts that filled my head at that moment, and fearing Ammun, I at first suspected that this was the beginning of his attack, conducted with the kind of subterfuge at which his brigand’s mind was very skilled.

‘I was already waiting for the pain I would be bound to feel when the sharp knife in the hand of the visitor who had fallen upon me plunged into my breast; in my desire to preserve my life, I pushed the stranger away from me with such force that he went flying against the wall and, stumbling on a log, collapsed in a corner. At once surmising that it would be easier for me to deal with one person ‒ who, moreover, did not appear to be very strong ‒ than with the several who might be following him, I lost no time in closing the door and securing it with a heavy bolt; then I took a pole-axe in my hands, and began to listen. I firmly resolved to bring the pole-axe down on anyone who might appear in my dwelling, and at the same time kept a watchful eye on the newcomer whom I had flung into the corner.

‘I began to find it strange that he continued to lie motionless in the corner where he had fallen, and where he occupied no more space than a child, displaying not the slightest shiftiness towards me but, on the contrary, seeming to be entirely at one with me. He was alertly following my every movement and, breathing quickly, kept whispering:

‘“Lock up your house! . . . Hurry and lock up! . . . Hurry and lock up your house, Pamphalon!”

‘This surprised me, and I said sternly:

‘“Very well, I will lock up, but what do you want of me?”

“Hurry and give me your hand, let me have water to drink and sit me down by your lamp. Then I will tell you what I want.”

‘“Very well,” I replied. “Whatever your intentions may have been, here is my hand, and here is a cup of water and a place by my lamp.”

‘So saying, I stretched out my hand to the guest, and a light, childlike body took wing before me.

‘“You’re not a man, you’re a woman!” I shouted.

‘And my guest, who up until now had spoken in a whisper, replied to me in a female voice:

‘“Yes, Pamphalon, I’m a woman.” And with that she threw open the long, dark cloak in which she was wrapped, and I saw a young, beautiful woman whose face was familiar to me. Together with its beauty, it expressed a terrible grief. The woman’s head was covered by a fine braiding of hair, and her body gave off a strong odour of amber, but she was not immodest, though she spoke dreadful things.

‘“Look, am I not pretty?” she asked, shielding herself from the lamp with one hand.

‘“Yes,” I replied. “You’re unquestionably beautiful, and you’d do best not to waste your time on me. What do you want?”

‘She said:

‘“I see you haven’t recognized me. I’m Magna, the daughter of Ptolemy and Albina. Buy me, Pamphalon, buy Ptolemy’s daughter ‒ you’ve a lot of money now, and Magna needs gold to save her husband and deliver her children from captivity.”

‘And, the tears watering her cheeks, Magna began hastily to undo the belt of her tunic.’

16

‘Old man! I had seen a great many people before in my life, but never had I had a guest such as this one . . . She was attempting to sell herself, she was suffering, and this combination seemed to squeeze at my heart.

‘The name Magna belonged to the most beautiful, distinguished and unhappy woman in Damascus. I had known her in her childhood, but had not seen her since the time that she had left us in the company of Rufinus the Byzantine, whom she had married at the behest of her father, and of her mother, the proud Albina.

‘“Stop!” I cried. “I know you, you are indeed the virtuous Magna, the daughter of Ptolemy, in whose orchards and with whose permission on several occasions I entertained you with my performances when you were a child; from your tender hands I received coins and wheaten bread, raisins and pomegranates! Tell me at once: what has happened to you? Where is your husband, the splendid Byzantine magnate Rufinus, whom you loved so greatly? Have the waves swallowed him up, or has his young life been cut short by the sword of the barbarian Scythian who has crossed the Black Sea? Where is your family, where are your children?”

‘Magna, lowering her gaze, was silent.

‘“At least tell me when you appeared in Damascus and why you’re not with your kinsfolk here or with your former rich friends ‒ the clever Photina, the learned Taora or the wise maiden Sylvia? Why have your swift feet brought you to the poor dwelling of an inglorious entertainer whom you mocked so cruelly just now when you jokingly made me such an improbable suggestion!”

‘But Magna sadly shook her head and replied:

‘“Oh, Pamphalon, you don’t know all the terrible misfortunes that have befallen me! I wasn’t mocking you: I’ve come to sell myself in earnest. My husband and children! . . . My husband and my children are all in captivity. My grief is terrible!”

“‘Well, tell me then at once the reason for your grief, and if I can 4p anything to help you, I will do it instantly, with joy.”

‘“Very well, I will tell you everything,” Magna replied.

‘And at that very moment, anchorite, I was assailed by the temptation which caused me to forget my vow, my oath and eternal life itself.’

17

‘I had known Magna since the early days of her girlhood. I had never been in her father’s house, but only in its orchard as an entertainer, when I had been summoned there in order to amuse the child. They received few visitors, as the magnificent Ptolemy was a proud man and did not associate with people of easy morals. In his house there were none of the sort of gatherings which required the presence of an entertainer; the people who assembled there were learned theologians who talked solemnly about various lofty subjects and about the Holy Spirit. Ptolemy’s wife, Albina, the mother of the beautiful Magna, was a fitting match for her husband. The worldly women of Damascus viewed Albina with distaste, but they all acknowledged her purity. Albina’s fidelity could stand as a lesson for all. The excellent Magna took after her mother, whose attractive features she had inherited; but her youthfulness inclined her to be soft-hearted. The magnificent orchard of Ptolemy, her father, adjoined a large ravine, on the other side of which a wide field began. I often crossed this field in order to avoid having to go the long way round to the suburban house of the hetaera Azella. I would always be carrying my entertainer’s bundle and would be walking in the company of this same dog that you see here. Acra was young in those days and didn’t know all the things that an entertainer’s dog is supposed to know.

‘In my progress across the field I would stop halfway, directly opposite Ptolemy’s orchards, in order to take a rest, eat my barley cake and train my Acra. I usually sat down on the brow of the ravine, to eat and make Acra repeat out there in the wide-open spaces the lessons I had given her at home, in my narrow dwelling. Once, while I was engaged in these pursuits, I caught sight of the beautiful face of the adolescent Magna. She had concealed herself behind the branches of some trees, and from the verdure was watching with curiosity the lively tricks my Acra was performing. I observed this and, without letting Magna know that I had seen her, conceived a desire to provide her with more and better entertainment than Acra could afford her at that stage of her training. In order to impel the dog to greater agility, I gave it a few lashes of my belt; but at the very moment the dog yelped, I noticed the verdure that concealed Magna stir and move, and the girl’s beautiful face disappeared . . .

‘This made me so annoyed that I dealt Acra another couple of blows, and when she started to raise a piteous howl, I heard a voice say from the other side of the orchard fence:

‘“Cruel man! Why are you tormenting that poor animal? Why are you compelling a dog to do things that are not in its nature?”

‘I turned round and saw Magna emerging from her arboreal hiding-place; she was visible from chest-height above the leaf-grown fence, and as she addressed me her face blazed with anger.

‘“Don’t be too hard on me, young mistress,” I replied. “I’m not a cruel man, and the training of this dog is a part of my trade, which provides us both with a living.”

‘“Your trade is a contemptible one, which is needed only by contemptible idlers,” Magna retorted.

‘“Oh, mistress!” I said. “Every man lives by doing what he can to earn bread for himself, and it is good if he does not live at the expense of others or cause unhappiness to his fellow human beings.”

‘“That doesn’t apply to you,” Magna replied. “You corrupt your fellow human beings.” In her eyes I could perceive the same severity that always distinguished the gaze of her mother.

‘“No, young mistress,” I said. “You judge me so severely and talk in that fashion because you have little experience. I’m just a simple chap ‒ I could never corrupt people of higher rank.”

‘And I turned on my heel and was about to go away when she stopped me by calling my name, and said:

‘“It doesn’t become you to make judgements concerning people of higher rank. You’d do better to . . . here, catch my purse: I’m giving it to you so you can let your poor dog have enough food.”

‘So saying, she threw me her silk purse; it failed to reach my side and, as I stretched over in order to pick it up, I lost my grip and fell to the bottom of the ravine.

‘As a result of this fall I sustained the most terrible injuries.’

18

‘My consolation in the disaster which had befallen me was that on each of the ten days I spent in the little cave at the foot of the ravine the virtuous Magna came down to see me. So much sumptuous food did she bring me that there was more than enough for both myself and Acra; she herself soaked cloths in the spring with her maidenly hands, and put them against my injured shoulder, trying thus to lessen the intolerable burning caused by the bruise. As she did so, we had conversations that delighted me, and I took pleasure in both the purity of her heart and in the clear light of her intelligence. The only thing I found annoying in her was her unwillingness to make allowances for anyone else’s weakness and her excessive tendency to see everything in terms of herself.

‘“Why doesn’t everyone live as my mother and my friends Taora, Photina and Sylvia do?” she would say. “Their lives are as pure as crystal.”

‘And I saw that she deeply revered them and wished to emulate them in every respect. In spite of her youth, she wanted to reform me and make me renounce my way of life, and when I refused to do this she grew angry.

‘Then I told her how things really were.

‘“Are you really unaware,” I said, “that one vessel is required for honour, but another for abuse? You live for honour, but I live for abuse, and, like the clay, I don’t argue with the potter who has fashioned me. Life has compelled me to be an entertainer, and I shall go my way like a horse with a bridle.”

‘Magna was unable to comprehend my simple words and put it all down to habit.

‘“There is a wise saying,” she replied, “that habit arrives like a wanderer, remains like a guest and then itself becomes the master.

The tar which has been in a clean barrel makes it unfit to contain anything but more tar.”

‘It wasn’t hard for me to detect that she was growing impatient, and that in her eyes there was now little to distinguish me from a barrel of tar, and I fell silent and regretted that I could not get out of the ravine more quickly. I began to find her self-conceit annoying, and she herself began to concern herself with the question of how I was to be brought out of the ravine and returned to my dwelling.

‘To do this would not be easy, as I could not walk unaided, and the girl was not strong enough to offer me any assistance. At home she did not dare to tell her proud parents that she was talking to a man of my contemptible profession.

‘ Andjust as one action often leads a person to take another, so it was in this instance with the virtuous Magna. In order to help me, the contemptible entertainer, who because of his unworthiness was undeserving of her attention, she found herself compelled to confide in a certain youth by the name of Magistrian.

‘Magistrian was a young artist who decorated the interior walls of luxurious houses with beautiful murals. One day he took his brushes to the house of the same hetaera Azella whom I have already told you about; she wanted him to paint a scene depicting a feast of nymphs and satyrs on the walls of the new pavilion in her orchard, and as he was crossing the field near the spot where I lay in the ravine, my Aera recognized him and began to set up a piteous howling.

‘Magistrian halted but, thinking it was probably a corpse that lay at the bottom of the ravine, he began to continue quickly on his way. He would doubtless have left the scene had it not been for Magna who, observing him, managed to stop him.

‘Magna, carried away by her feelings of compassion for me, threw apart the dense green foliage and said:

‘“Passer-by! Please don’t go away without helping a fellow human being in distress. At the foot of the ravine here lies a man who has fallen and hurt himself. I myself am unable to get him out of there, but you are a strong man, and can afford him the assistance he needs.’’

‘Magistrian immediately went down into the ravine, examined me, and then ran off into the town for stretcher-bearers to carry me back to my dwelling.

‘All this he did with despatch and, when he was left alone with me, he began to ask me how it had happened that I had fallen into the ravine and hurt myself, and how had I been able to survive for two weeks without food?

‘And since Magistrian and I had long known each other and been friends, I made no attempt to fob him off with any concocted story, but told him the truth, as it had happened.

‘And hardly had I reached the point of telling him how Magna had fed me and how she had soaked cloths in the water with her own hands and had placed them against my injured shoulder, when young Magistrian’s face lit up and he exclaimed in delight:

‘“Oh Pamphalon! How lucky you are, and how I envy you your lot! I would willingly let you break my arms and legs, if only I could see that nymph, the generous Magna.”

‘I at once realized that the heart of the artist had been stricken by the powerful emotion that is called love, and I hastened to bring him to reason.

‘“You are poor of spirit,” I said. “Ptolemy’s daughter is beautiful, there can be no arguing about that, but a man’s health is what matters to him most, and in any case Ptolemy is so stern, and Magna’s mother, Albina, is so haughty, that if your soul feels the flame of this girl’s charms, nothing good can come of it for you.”

‘Magistrian turned pale, and replied:

‘“What needs to come of it? Do you really think it isn’t enough for me that she inspires me?”

‘And he continued to be inspired by her.’

19

‘When I had recovered, and arrived for my first evening at Azella’s house, Magistrian led me into the hetaera’s pavilion and showed me the murals he had painted on its walls. The pavilion was a large and spacious building, and it was divided into the “hours” of which each day of a person’s life is composed. Each division had been dedicated to the joys of life of the hour it represented. The entire building was dedicated to Saturn, a portrait of whom gleamed beneath the cupola. Near the main rotunda there were two wings in honour of the Horae, the daughters of Jupiter and Themis, and these divisions had subdivisions: here were chambers dedicated to Auge, from which the dawn was visible, Anatole, from which the sunrise could be seen, Musaea, where one could occupy oneself with study, Nymphaea, where baths were taken, Spondaea, where one could sponge oneself down, Aphrodite, where enjoyments were partaken of, and Eileithyia, where prayers were offered . . . And it was here, in a remote corner which had been set aside for solitary reveries, that the artist had with a light brush depicted a pious dream . . . The mural showed a feast, attended by well-dressed and voluptuous women, each of whom I could identify by name. They were all Damascan hetaerae. They were reclining with their guests amidst flowers, at a sumptuous table, and a young man lay asleep with his head in one of the flower-baskets. His face could not be seen, but I could tell from his toga that this was the artist, Magistrian. Above him was a scene of persecution: the lions in a circus were attacking a young girl . . . but she was standing resolutely, whispering prayers. She was Magna.

‘I patted Magistrian on the shoulder and said:

‘“Well done! . . . You’ve painted a very good likeness of her ‒ but why do you assume that she wouldn’t be afraid of wild animals? I know her family: Ptolemy and Albina are renowned for their nobility and pride, but fate has been merciful to them, after all, and their daughters, too, have not so far had to face any ordeals.”

‘“So what?”

‘“Well, the beautiful Magna doesn’t know anything of life’s misfortunes, and so I don’t understand why you have discerned in her the characteristic of fearlessness and resoluteness in the face of a wild beast. If it’s meant to be an allegory, life is always far more terrible than any wild beast and is capable of intimidating each and every one of us.”

‘“All except Magna!”

‘“Alas, I would say: even Magna!”

‘I spoke in this fashion so that he should not become too captivated by Magna; but he interrupted me, whispering:

‘“I was asked to design the screens for her bedroom, and while I was drawing with my stick of charcoal, I talked with her . . . She inquired about you . . .”

‘The artist paused.

‘“She finds it a pity that you occupy yourself with a trade such as entertaining. I said to her: ‘Mistress! Not every man is so fortunate as to be able to lead his life in the fashion he chooses. Fate is inexorable: it can compel a mortal to drink from the muddiest spring, at the bottom of which there are leeches and vipers.’ At that she gave me a scornful smile.”

‘“A smile?” I asked. “In that I recognize the daughter of Ptolemy and the proud Albina. You know, I . . . I should like it better if she had made no response at all, or ‒ given a quiet sigh of compassion.”

‘“Yes,” said Magistrian. “But she also said: ‘It is better to die than to live in dishonour’, and I believe that she is capable of that.”

‘“You are hasty with your judgements,” I replied. “It may be better to die than to live in dishonour, no one is arguing with that; but could it be said by a mother who has children?”

‘“Why not? Remember what the mother of the Maccabees did!”

‘“Yes. The Maccabees were killed. But if their mother had been threatened with having her children made into entertainers such as myself, and say she had been Magna ‒ God knows which she would have preferred: shame or death in exchange for their deliverance?”

‘“Why do you say that?” Magistrian exclaimed.’

20

‘Rufinus the Byzantine was of noble birth and very elegant in appearance; he was, however, the most dreadful hypocrite, and was such a skilful dissembler that even in Byzantium it was considered he went too far. The vain Corinthian Or and all the others who squandered their money and their energies at the feasts of Azella the hetaera were, in my opinion, better men than Rufinus. He had arrived in Damascus with an open letter of introduction, and had been received by Ptolemy in royal fashion. Rufinus, like the dissembler he was, would spend the entire daytime at home, asleep, but told everyone he was reading books on theology; in the evenings he would go out of town, ostensibly for edifying consultations with an aged anchorite who at that time lived near Damascus, standing on a rock during the day and moaning in an open grave by night. Rufinus would go to him in order to pray, standing in his shadow at sunset; but from thence winged Aeolus would invariably lead him under the roof of Azella, where he always appeared with a facial disguise, thanks to Magistrian’s art. It was for this reason that we were well acquainted with him, since, being my friend, Magistrian made no secret to me of the fact that he was the author of Rufinus’s disguise, and on several occasions we had a good laugh together on the subject of this Byzantine duplicity. Azella also knew about it, since when they had seen their clients off at the end of the night, they would often chat with us, and they took a liking to us, finding that we simple folk possessed both heart and intelligence, qualities they did not always encounter in their rich and noble clients.

‘It should be said that Azella was in love with my artist; it was a hopeless love, as Magistrian only had thoughts for Magna, whose pure image he carried inseparably with him. The sensitive Azella had guessed this secret, and it made her behaviour with him all the more tender and graceful. On those occasions when Magistrian and I stayed in Azella’s house, she would often, at sunrise, as she was seeing off her clients, tell us what she thought of each of them, and she never concealed from us her especial distaste for Rufinus, calling him an infamous dissembler, capable of deceiving anyone and of committing the very basest acts. But she understood the others, too. Once, after Or the Corinthian had been senselessly throwing his money away, she said to us:

‘“He’s a poor peacock . . . Everyone has a tweak at his feathers, and when he comes here with Rufinus the Byzantine, you might do worse than give Rufinus’s cloak a shake.’’

‘This meant that Rufinus could be a thief . . . Azella was never mistaken, and both Magistrian and I knew it.

‘But Ptolemy and Albina had their own opinion of the Byzantine, their good-hearted daughter was obedient to her parents’ wishes, and her destiny was sealed. Magna became the wife of Rufinus, who took her, together with a rich dowry provided by Ptolemy, and carried her off to Byzantium.’

21

‘Ptolemy and Albina were soon punished by fate. The dissembling Rufinus turned out not to have much money, and to be less famous than he had given himself out to be in Damascus. Worst of all, however, he proved to be dishonest, and was so heavily in debt that Magna’s rich dowry all went on settlements with the creditors who were pressing him. Magna soon found herself in poverty, and there were rumours that she was receiving cruel treatment at the hands of her husband. Rufinus made her ask for more silver and gold from her parents, and when she was unwilling to do this, he dealt roughly with her. Rufinus spent all the money that Magna’s parents sent her in an ignominious fashion, forgetting all about the debts he had to pay and about the two children Magna had borne him. Like many other Byzantine nobles, he was having an affair with another woman in Byzantium, and in order to keep her happy robbed and humiliated his wife.

‘The proud Ptolemy was so grieved by this that he became subject to frequent illnesses, and soon died, leaving his widow only the most meagre of incomes. Albina gave it all to her daughter, hoping to save her, and spent all her own money on gifts to the retainer of the exarch Valentus, who was himself a greedy voluptuary and was looking for a chance to possess the lovely Magna. Rufinus had apparently given his consent to this. It was even said that he had forced his wife to comply with this suit of Valentus’s, adjuring her to agree to it for the family’s sake, as Valentus was threatening to abandon Rufinus and all his dependants to the mercies of his creditors.

‘Albina was unable to cope with this experience and soon passed away into eternity, leaving Magna and her children in the most wretched poverty. Yet still Magna did not yield to the depraved pursuit of Valentus, who thereupon, in a fit of rage, carried out his threat.

‘Rufinus’s creditors had him sent to gaol, and took poor Magna and her children into slavery. In order to make this experience of slavery even more bitter, the creditors separated Magna from her children; they sent the infants away to a village to be looked after by a eunuch, and gave Magna into the charge of a brothel-keeper, who in exchange for her pledged himself to pay them three litrae of gold a day.

‘In vain did poor Magna cry and wail and seek protection. She was told: “There is one law above us all. Our law protects the wealthy. They are the strongest in the land. If our former ruler Hermius were still in office there might have been a chance that he, being a just and merciful man, would have intervened and not allowed this to happen; but he has gone strange in the head: he has renounced the world in order to devote his entire attention to his soul. Cruel old man! May Heaven pardon him his anchorite’s vanity.”

As he spoke these words, the entertainer noticed that the anchorite who was sitting beside him trembled and clutched him by the hand. Pamphalon asked him: ‘What is it, are you sorry for them?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry . . . sorry . . . Both for them and for myself,’ Hermius replied. ‘Continue your story.’

And Pamphalon went on.

22

‘In order to avoid unpleasant gossip in the capital and be more confident of obtaining his money, the brothel-keeper did not allow Magna to remain in Byzantium, but sent her to Damascus, where everyone knew her as a virtuous and inaccessible woman and where men would therefore doubtless now be eager to possess her. ‘Magna, being a slave, was kept under careful observation, and all the means of escape were removed from her. She was unable even to take her own life ‒ but she had no thoughts of suicide, because she was a mother and was desperate to find her children and rescue them from the eunuch who held them in captivity.

‘So she was brought to Damascus under guard and in secret, and on the following day ‒ the very same day on which I shut myself up in my house and lay in bed on top of my gold ‒ it became known that Magna’s keeper was charging five litrae of gold a night to any man who wished to possess her.’

23

‘The man who had undertaken to make money out of Magna naturally lost no time in seeing to it that his venture was as profitable as possible, and to this end he sent a female courier out to the houses of all the rich men in Damascus, who informed them of the exquisite goods he had to offer.

‘The dissolute men went flocking to the brothel-keeper’s house, and throughout the day it was only by means of her tears that Magna could protect herself. When evening came, however, the brothel-keeper threatened to have a word with the eunuch who had taken her children into custody and instruct him to castrate them, and she decided to comply . . . After that, her strength left her; she fell into a deep sleep and dreamt that someone came quietly to her side and said: “Rejoice, Magna! You have this day acquired the one thing all your life you have been lacking. You have stayed pure, but have taken pride in your virtue, like your mother; you have condemned fallen women without perceiving what it was that brought them to their fall. That was a grievous fault. But now, when you yourself are ready to fall and know what a horrible experience that is, now your pride, which was offensive to God, has been shattered, and now God will keep you pure.’’

‘Just then, a timid client knocked at the door of the house where Magna was being held; concealing his face in the folds of his simple cloak, he quietly summoned the brothel-keeper, whispering:

‘“Oh, I’m a shy man, but I’m dying of desire. Take me to Magna at once ‒ I’ll give you ten litrae of gold.”

‘The brothel-keeper was pleased, but before he took the stranger to Magna, he said to him:

‘“I feel bound to tell you, sir, that this woman is of noble birth, and keeping her in bondage is costing me a lot of money which I’m not getting back from her, since she has succeeded in moving to pity all the men I have taken in to her. I cannot be held to blame if you listen to what she says to you and her words soften your heart. I must have my gold, as I’m a poor man and paid a high price for her.”

‘“Don’t worry about that,” the stranger replied, still keeping his face hidden. “Here, take your ten litrae of gold. I’m not that sort of fellow: I know what women’s tears signify.”

‘As the brothel-keeper took the ten litrae of gold he pulled a cord which overturned a brass cup containing a brass ball. The ball rolled along a canvas duct to the canopied partition where Magna was kept, and fell with a loud clang into a basin, also of brass, which stood by the head of her bed. After this, the brothel-keeper immediately led his client in to her.’

24

‘The stranger entered the remote apartment, which reeked of spikenard and amber, and there by the light of a flower-shaped lamp he saw Magna lying asleep. She had not been woken by the sound of the ball falling into the basin, because just at that time she was having the dream in which she saw her high-minded fortitude vanishing into thin air and in which she was now saved because of her recognition of her own weakness.

‘The brothel-keeper reproached Magna for not having heard the signal and, pointing to the stranger, said to her coarsely:

‘“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear the ball! Here’s someone to whom I’ve given up all authority over you until tomorrow. If you’re sensible you’ll do as he wants you to. And if I lose any more money because of your behaviour I’ll take you to a place where your clients will be grim soldiers, and you won’t get any mercy from them.” ‘So saying, the brothel-keeper picked up the brass ball and went out. The client shut the door behind him and, turning round, said to Magna quietly:

‘“Don’t be afraid, ill-fated Magna. I have come to rescue you.” And he threw off his cloak.

‘Magna recognized Magistrian, and burst into sobs.

‘“There’s no need for tears, lovely Magna. Now is not the time for weeping and despair. Be calm, and have faith that if Heaven has preserved you for this hour, your salvation must now be assured, if only you will agree to help me so that I can get you out of captivity and return you to your children and husband.”

‘“Agree?” Magna exclaimed. “Why, kind youth, how could I possibly fail to?”

‘“Then hurry and do as I tell you. I shall now turn away so I can’t see you ‒ let us exchange costumes as quickly as possible.”

‘And so Magna put on Magistrian’s cloak and tunic, and all the rest of his male apparel, and he said to her:

‘“Be quick now, make yourself scarce! Hide your face in the folds of my cloak, just as I did when I came in, and walk boldly out of this house. Your despicable master will himself show you out through his accursed doorway.”

‘Magna followed his instructions and left the house without incident. No sooner was she outside, however, than she began to quake inwardly: where was she to run to, where was she to conceal herself, and what would happen to the poor youth when on the morrow their deception was uncovered? Magistrian would be put to the rack for infringing the rights of creditors; he would not, of course, have enough money to pay off the whole of the debt for the sake of which Magna had been given into bondage, and he would be thrown into gaol for life and be tortured, while she herself would still not be able to see her children, as she would not have the means to buy them out of captivity.

‘It was then that this woman conceived the idea that was to deprive me forever of the chance to mend my ways and lead a respectable life.’

25

‘When Magna revealed to me the disasters which had befallen her, and told me about the risk Magistrian was exposing himself to for her sake, an abyss seemed to open up before me. I knew that Magistrian could never from his own meagre resources have found the ten litrae of gold which he had paid for Magna and which still would not rescue her from her degrading situation, as they represented only a fraction of the price of her bondage, and yet left nothing over with which to buy the freedom of her children from the eunuch in Byzantium. But where could Magistrian have obtained these litra of gold? He worked in Azella’s house; there the hetaera, who was in love with him, always kept a chest full of her treasures . . . My soul was gripped by a sense of horror . . . I thought: what if his love for poor Magna had driven him mad and he had stolen the treasure-chest? From this day on the name of Magistrian would be without honour: he was a thief!

‘Meanwhile, poor Magna, who was continuing to make the air resound with her sighs and moans, once more repeated the words with which she had begun when she had so unexpectedly entered my dwelling.

‘“Pamphalon!” she wailed. “I have heard that you have become a wealthy man, that some proud Corinthian has given you incalculable riches. I have come to sell myself to you: take me as your slave, but give me money so that I may buy my children out of captivity and save Magistrian, who is going to perdition because of me.”

‘Anchorite! You have lived your life in the desert and so will perhaps not understand the sense of sorrow I experienced at hearing despair speak through the lips of this woman, whom I had known as a pure creature, proud of her virtue! You have

risen above all human passions, and they have no power to shake you, but I have always been soft-hearted, and at the sight of such terrible calamities experienced by a fellow human being I ruined myself . . . and once again light-mindedly forgot about the salvation of my soul. ‘I began to sob, and through my sobs, I said:

‘“As God is merciful, unhappy Magna, desist! My heart will not bear this! I may be a simple man, an entertainer ‒ it’s true that I pass my life in the company of hetaerae, idlers and prodigals, that I’m a barrel of tar, but I won’t buy what madness and sorrow have driven you to offer me.’’

‘But Magna was suffering so dreadfully that she did not take in what I was saying.

“‘You are refusing me!” she exclaimed in horror. “Oh, how wretched I am! Where am I to obtain the gold I need to prevent the mutilation of my children?” And she wrung her hands above her head and fell to the ground.

‘This filled me with even greater horror . . . I trembled as I saw how misery had degraded her to the point where she sought to sell men her caresses as if this would bring her happiness.’

26

‘I hastened to console her.

‘“No!” I cried. “I’m not refusing you at all! I am your friend and I will prove it to you by helping you in your misery. Only never mention again the reason why you came here. Get rid of that braiding of your hair, which makes you look like a hetaera; wash from your shoulders with clean water that aroma of sweet smelling nard, with which people who desire your disgrace have covered them, and then tell me: how much does your husband owe?”

‘She sighed and said quietly:

‘“Ten thousand litrae of gold.”

‘I saw that she had been deceived: the riches the extravagant Or had given me were a paltry amount compared with the sum required to pay her debt and redeem her children.

‘Magna got up without saying anything, picked up the cloak which Magistrian had taken off, and once more began to hide her head in its folds.

‘I guessed that she was about to leave me with some bad aim in view, and exclaimed:

‘“Are you going, mistress Magna?”

‘“Yes, I’m going back where I came from.”

‘“You’re going to try to set Magistrian free, aren’t you?”

‘She merely nodded silently to demonstrate that this was so.

“‘Don’t do it,” I said. “It won’t be any good. Magistrian is so noble-spirited and devoted to you that he won’t come out of there, and by going back you’ll merely make things more confused. All I have is two hundred and thirty litrae of gold . . . That’s the amount I received from Or the Corinthian. If people think I have more than that, it’s either as the result of a rumour, or because that braggart Or has been boasting. But you must look on these two hundred and thirty litrae of gold as your own. Don’t raise any objections, mistress Magna, don’t raise a single word in objection! This gold is yours, but you will have to find a lot more in order to pay your husband’s debt. I don’t know where to get any more, but the night has only just begun . . . Magistrian will be safe until tomorrow. Your keeper firmly believes that the two of you are locked in each other’s embrace. Stay here with me and put your mind at rest. My Aera won’t let anyone near you in my absence, and I will go right now and tell of your misfortune to your highly-placed friends Taora, Photina and Maid Sylvia, whose virtue is renowned in all Damascus . . . Their servants all know me and will, in exchange for gifts, allow me to visit their mistresses. They are rich and chaste, and they will be generous with their gold. You will be able to buy your children out of captivity.”

‘But Magna quickly interrupted me:

‘“Pamphalon, don’t go troubling Taora, or Photina, or the maiden Sylvia ‒ none of them will do anything to meet your request.”

“‘You are wrong,” I retorted. “Taora, Sylvia and Photina are virtuous women, they are quick to apprehend all forms of depravity, and many are the hetaerae who have been expelled from Damascus on their say-so.”

‘“That doesn’t mean anything,” Magna replied. She revealed to me that before the calamity which had befallen her family had reached its present degree of misery, she had gone to ask for help from the highly-placed ladies I had mentioned, but they had left all her pleas unanswered.

‘“And since now,” she added, “to all that has been added the disgrace into which I have fallen, any request I make of them will seem to them like an insult to their honour. I was once as they are, and I know that it is not from them that a fallen woman may expect deliverance.”

‘“Well, even so, wait here with me for what merciful Heaven may send us,” I said and, putting out the lamp, locked up the entrance to my dwelling, in which Magna remained under the protection of Acra, and then dashed off along the dark alley ways of Damascus as fast as my legs would carry me.’

27

‘I did not heed Magna’s warning and with the help of servants managed to obtain entry to the house of Taora, Sylvia and Photina . . . It embarrasses me now to recall what I heard from their lips . . . Magna was right in everything she had told me about those women. My words merely provoked them to fiery anger, and I was thrown out of their house for having dared to enter it with such a plea . . . Two of them, Taora and Photina, ordered me to be thrown out with the mere mention that I deserved a good hiding; but the maid Sylvia ordered me to be flogged in her presence, and her servants beat me with a copper switch ‒ I emerged from her chamber bleeding all over and my throat parched. Thus, tormented by thirst, I stumbled into Azella’s kitchen, in order to ask for a little wine and water, so that I could continue my journey. I had no idea where I would go.

‘No sooner had I appeared in the covered passage, however, than I was met by Azella’s confidante, the blonde Ada. She was carrying a pitcher of some cooling drink as if it were specially intended for me, and I said to her:

“‘Be merciful, fair Ada: refresh my lips ‒ I am dying of thirst. ” ‘She smiled and said, in jest:

‘“What sort of dying will you be doing now, Sir Pamphalon? You aren’t poor any more and you can afford slaves who will cool your water for you.”

‘But I replied to her:

‘ “No, Ada, I’m rich no longer, thank God ‒ now I’m as poor as I was before, and what’s more . . . I have to admit ‒ I’m badly injured.”

‘She tilted the jug for me to drink ‒ as I drank, Ada stood bending towards me; she had observed on my shoulders the blood which was oozing from the cuts inflicted by the copper switch I had been beaten with in the presence of the maiden Sylvia. The blood was seeping through my thin tunic, and Ada cried in alarm:

‘“O unhappy man! Indeed, you are covered in blood! You must have been set upon by nocturnal thieves! . . . O luckless man! It’s a good thing you came in under our roof to escape from them. Stay here and wait for a little until I return: as soon as I have taken this cooled drink to the guests I shall come back and wash your wounds . . .”

‘“Very well,” I said. “I’ll wait for you.”

‘And she added:

‘“Perhaps you would like me to whisper a word about this in Azella’s ear? She’s at present feasting with some friends of the governor of Damascus: perhaps he will send some men out to find those who did this to you?”

‘“No,” I replied. “That isn’t necessary. Just bring me some water and a clean tunic.”

‘Once I had put on a clean tunic, I intended to go and see Ammun, the former monk, who involved himself in all kinds of business, and offer to place myself in bondage to him for my entire lifetime, if only he would give me money enough to free Magna’s children from the captivity in which they were being held by the eunuch.

‘Ada soon returned, bringing with her the things I needed.

‘But she had also told her mistress about me, and no sooner had she finished wiping my wounds clean with a cool sponge and covering my shoulders with the linen tunic she had brought than, in the portico where I lay leaning sideways against a tree, appeared Azella, dressed in extravagant attire.’

28

‘Azella was covered in gold and pearls, one of which was of enormous value. This rare pearl had been given to her by a great magnate from Egypt.

‘Azella approached me with concern and made me tell her everything that had happened to me. I proceeded to give her a brief account, and when I reached the subject of Magna’s misfortunes I noticed that Azella’s gaze grew serious; Ada, too, began to look into the distance and I saw the tears stream down her face.

‘Then I thought: “Now is the time to reveal the secret of Magistrian,” and I suddenly said, without warning:

‘“Azella, are these all the treasures you possess?”

‘ “No, I have more,” Azella replied. “But what business is it of yours?”

‘ “It’s very much my business, and I beseech you: tell me where you keep them, and are they all intact?”

‘“I keep them in my treasure-chest, and they are all intact.”

‘ “O, joy!” I shouted, all my pain forgotten. “It’s all intact! But then where did Magistrian get hold often litrae of gold?”

‘“Magistrian?”

‘“Yes.”

‘When I told her what Magistrian had done, Azella began to whisper:

‘“There’s a man who truly loves! My Ada saw him leaving Ammun’s house . . . I understand it all now: he sold himself into bondage with Ammun in order to set Magna free!”

‘And Azella the hetaera began quietly to sob, and to remove her gold bracelets and necklaces and her enormous Egyptian pearl, and said:

‘‘‘Take all this, take it and hurry, rescue poor Magna’s children from the eunuch before he mutilates them!”

‘I did as she urged: I took her treasures, added to them the money I had been given by Or the Corinthian and sent Magna off with it all to buy back her husband and her two sons from captivity. And it all worked out successfully, except that I had to say goodbye forever to any prospect of improving my way of life and thus to any hope of eternal blessedness. So I am still even now an entertainer ‒ I’m a comedian, a dissolute fellow ‒ I caper, I play, I beat my tambourine, I whistle, I move my legs up and down and shake my head. In short, I’m a barrel, a tar-barrel, I’m a good-for-nothing who’s beyond redemption. That’s my story, anchorite, the story of how I lost the chance of improving my way of life and how I broke the vow I made to God.’

29

Hermius rose, reached for his goatskin, and said to the entertainer:

‘You have put my mind at rest.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘You have made me happy.’

‘In what way?’

‘You have shown me that eternity will not be empty.’

‘Of course it won’t!’

‘Why won’t it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because by the path of mercy will enter many of those whom the world despises and whom even I, a proud anchorite, forgot in my self-admiration. Go home, Pamphalon, and carry on doing what you have been doing, and I shall move on.’

They bowed to each other and went their separate ways. Arriving back in his desert, Hermius was surprised to see a nest of crows in the cleft where he had formerly stood. The inhabitants of the village told him that they had tried to frighten these birds off, but that they would not leave the rock.

‘That’s as it should be,’ Hermius replied to them. ‘Don’t stop them building their nests. Rocks are places for birds to live in ‒ human beings must serve other human beings. You have many cares ‒ I want to help you. I am infirm, but I will do what I can. Entrust your goats to me, I will drive them out and graze them, and when I return with the herd, give me bread and cheese.’

The villagers agreed, and Hermius began to drive the herd of goats and instruct the local children out in the open air. And when all the village had fallen asleep, he would come out, sit down on the hillside and turn his eyes towards Damascus, where he had got to know Pamphalon. Now the elder liked to think about the good Pamphalon, and each time he cast his mind back to Damascus he seemed to see the entertainer running through its streets with his dog Acra. On his forehead there was a copper wreath, and it was an extraordinary thing: from day to day this wreath grew brighter and brighter, and finally one evening it shone so brilliantly that Hermius was unable to look at it. In amazement the old man shielded his eyes with his hand, but the radiance penetrated from all sides. And through his closed eyelids, Hermius saw that not only was the entertainer glowing with radiant light ‒ he was rising higher and higher into the sky, leaving the earth behind and soaring straight towards the incandescent, scarlet sun.

What was he doing? He would be burnt to a frazzle, there would be nothing left of him! Hermius rushed after Pamphalon, in order to hold him back or at least not be parted from him; but suddenly, in the hot light of the setting sun, a barrier arose between them . . . It was a paling or lattice, in which each bar was different. Hermius saw that these bars were some kind of symbols ‒ smudged across the whole of the sky as if in charcoal and soot stood the word ‘self-conceit’, written in large, Hebrew letters.

‘This is as far as I go!’ thought Hermius, and he stopped. But Pamphalon took his entertainer’s cloak, waved it about and in a trice wiped the word from the entire, vast space, and Hermius saw himself in a fabled world and felt himself flying at a great height, holding on to Pamphalon’s hand, and they were both talking to each other.

‘How were you able to wipe out the sin of my life?’ Hermius asked Pamphalon as they flew.

Pamphalon replied:

‘I don’t know how I managed to do it: I just saw that you were in difficulty, and I wanted to help you as best I could. That’s the way I always did everything when I was on earth, and that’s the way I’m going now to the other abode.’

No more of their words were heard by the chronicler of this legend. A cool veil of cloud covered the trail of their passage from earth in dense shadow, and in the rubicund glow of the sunset their departed souls fused together.

Notes

1. the remote town of Edessa: the capital of one of the Roman provinces in Northern Mesopotamia, where there were three hundred monasteries, and where in the fourth century a.d. lived one of the Fathers of the Christian Church, Ephraim of Syria. ↩

2. leviton: a tunic worn by peasants in the early Christian era. ↩