【英文原著类】THAIS(塞斯).pdf

THAIS
THAIS
by ANATOLE FRANCE
Translated By Robert B. Douglas
1
THAIS
PART THE FIRST
THE LOTUS
In those days there were many hermits living in the desert. On both
banks of the Nile numerous huts, built by these solitary dwellers, of
branches held together by clay, were scattered at a little distance from each
other, so that the inhabitants could live alone, and yet help one another in
case of need. Churches, each surmounted by a cross, stood here and there
amongst the huts, and the monks flocked to them at each festival to
celebrate the services or to partake of munion. There were also,
here and there on the banks of the river, monasteries, where the cenobites
lived in separate cells, and only met together that they might the better
enjoy their solitude.
Both hermits and cenobites led abstemious lives, taking no food till
after sunset, and eating nothing but bread with a little salt and hyssop.
Some retired into the desert, and led a still more strange life in some cave
or tomb.
All lived in temperance and chastity; they wore a hair shirt and a hood,
slept on the bare ground after long watching, prayed, sang psalms, and, in
short, spent their days in works of penitence. As an atonement for original
sin, they refused their body not only all pleasures and satisfactions, but
even that care and attention which in this age are deemed indispensable.
They believed that the diseases of our members purify our souls, and the
flesh could put on no adornment more glorious than wounds and ulcers.
Thus, they thought they fulfilled the words of the prophet, "The desert
shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."
Amongst the inhabitants of the holy Thebaid, there were some who
passed their days in asceticism and contemplation; others gained their
livelihood by plaiting palm fibre, or by working at harvest-time for the
neighbouring farmers. The Gentiles wrongly suspected some of them of
living by brigandage, and allying themselves to the nomad