ambles and the remnants of
fish. Over the uniformity of white houses the plan of the streets casts,
as it were, a black network. The markets, filled with herbage, exhibit
green bouquets, the drying-sheds of the dyers, plates of colours, and
the gold ornaments on the pediments of temples, luminous points--all
this contained within the oval enclosure of the greyish walls, under the
vault of the blue heavens, hard by the motionless sea. But the crowd
stops and looks towards the eastern side, from which enormous whirlwinds
of dust are advancing.

It is the monks of the Thebaid who are coming, clad in goats' skins,
armed with clubs, and howling forth a canticle of war and of religion
with this refrain:

"Where are they? Where are they?"

Antony comprehends that they have come to kill the Arians.

All at once, the streets are deserted, and one sees no longer anything
but running feet.

And now the Solitaries are in the city. Their formidable cudgels,
studded with nails, whirl around like monstrances of steel. One can hear
the crash of things being broken in the houses. Intervals of silence
follow, and then the loud cries burst forth again. From one end of the
streets to the other there is a continuous eddying of people in a state
of terror. Several are armed with pikes. Sometimes two groups meet and
form into one; and this multitude, after rushing along the pavements,
separates, and those composing it proceed to knock one another down. But
the men with long hair always reappear.

Thin wreaths of smoke escape from the corners of buildings. The leaves
of the doors burst asunder; the skirts of the walls fall in; the
architraves topple over.

Antony meets all his enemies one after another. He recognises people
whom he had forgotten. Before killing them, he outrages them. He rips
them open, cuts their throats, knocks them down, drags the old men by
their beards, runs over children, and beats those who are wounded.
People revenge themselves on luxury. Those who cannot read, tear the
books to pieces; others smash and destroy the statues, the paintings,
the furniture, the cabinets--a thousand dainty objects whose use they
are ignorant of, and which, for that very reason, exasperate them. From
time to time they stop, out of breath, and then begin again. The
inhabitants, taking refuge in the court-yards, utter lamentations. The
women lift their eyes to Heaven, weeping, with their arms bare. In order
to move the Solitaries they