Temptation of St Antony

The desert of fine white grains of sand stretched till that sharp and dark horizontal line at the far end of the field of vision where sand met the sun. The fine dry whiteness of the desert shimmered and undulated endlessly in all the directions. The only spots to arrest the eyes were the elongated illusory shadows cast by the sun along the valleys between the billowing dunes of the desert. This barren land travelled expansively through the country bearing a scythe mowing dead all the verdancy before it. It was grown with an invisible weed that exceptionally conscientiously fed on the growth of the soil. In short, it was a desert country pure and immense.

Where the sand stopped, the barrenness continued still, a rocky barrenness. It was a desert country of sandy and rocky deserts, regs of rock pavements and ergs of sand seas, plateau landforms and basin deserts. And desert mountains. In one of those desert mountains lived a hermit. He lived high up in a sickle-shaped heart of seclusion in the mountain with a threadlike thatch for a floor, the seclusion configurated by a circle of dry serrated sticks to keep off intruders human and beast. He was an unmingled hermit and he brooked no intercourse. In the horizon created by the sky darkening against the curving edge of the mountain, a horizon jagged here and there by the jutting black rocks of the mountain, stood another bristling silhouette. The silhouette of the hermit's alcove made of splints and that peculiarly workable earth material which is the stuff of these desert rocks. It was severely bare and transcended austerity.