“I believe you, monk, and no longer fear either deceit or ill-will from you.  I have often heard talk of the hermits of the Thebaid.  Marvellous things have been told concerning Anthony and Paul.  Your name is not unknown to me, and I have heard say that, though you are still young, you equal in virtue the oldest anchorites.  As soon as I saw you, and without knowing who you were, I felt that you were no ordinary man.  Tell me! can you do for me that which neither the priests of Isis, nor of Hermes, nor of the celestial Juno, nor the Chaldean soothsayers, nor the Babylonian magi have been able to effect?  Monk, if you love me, can you prevent me from dying?”

“Woman, whosoever wishes to live shall live.  Flee from the abominable delights in which thou diest for ever.  Snatch from the devils, who will burn it most horribly, that body which God kneaded with His spittle and animated with his own breath.  Thou art consumed with weariness; come, and refresh thyself at the blessed springs of solitude; come and drink of those fountains which are hidden in the desert, and which gush forth to heaven.  Careworn soul, come, and possess that which thou desirest!  Heart greedy for joy, come and taste true joys—­poverty, retirement, self-forgetfulness, seclusion in the bosom of God.  Enemy of Christ now, and to-morrow His well-beloved, come to Him!  Come, thou whom I have sought, and thou wilt say, ‘I have found love!’”

Thais seemed lost in meditation on things afar.

“Monk,” she asked, “if I adjure all pleasures and do penance, is it true that I shall be born again in heaven, my body intact in all its beauty?”

“Thais, I bring thee eternal life.  Believe me, for that which I announce to thee is the truth.”

“Who will assure me that it is the truth?”

“David and the prophets, the Scriptures, and the wonders that thou shalt behold.”

“Monk, I should like to believe you, for I must confess that I have not found happiness in this world.  My lot in life is better than that of a queen, and yet I have many bitternesses and misfortunes, and I am infinitely weary of my existence.  All women envy me, and yet sometimes I have envied the lot of a toothless old woman who, when I was a child, sold honey-cakes under one of the city gates.  Often has the idea flashed across my mind that only the poor are good, happy, and blessed, and that there must be great gladness in living humble and obscure.  Monk, you have agitated a storm in my soul, and brought to the surface that which lay at the bottom.  Who am I to believe, alas! and what is to become of me—­and what is life?”

Whilst she thus spoke, Paphnutius was transfigured; celestial joy beamed in his face.