these monasteries, these inns, the boats on the river, the villages, and what I see in the distance of fields, canals, sand, and mountains — is nothing in respect to what is in me. I carry in my heart countless cities and illimitable deserts. And evil — evil and death — spread over this immensity, cover them all, as night covers the earth. I am, in myself alone, a universe of evil thoughts."
He spoke thus because the desire for woman was in him.
The seventh month, there came from Alexandria, Bubastis and Saïs, women who had long been barren, hoping to obtain children by the intercession of the holy man and the virtues of his pillar. They rubbed their sterile bodies against the stone. There followed a procession, as far as the eye could reach, of chariots, palanquins, and litters, which stopped and pushed and jostled below the man of God. From them came sick people terrible to see. Mothers brought to Paphnutius young boys whose limbs were twisted, their eyes starting, their mouth foaming, their voices hoarse. He laid his hands upon them. Blind men approached, groping with their hands, and raising towards him a face pierced with two bleeding holes. Paralytics displayed before him the heavy immobility, the deadly emaciation, and the hideous contractions of their limbs; lame men showed him their club feet; women with cancer, holding their bosoms with
