Paulus shivered at these words, for he was cold.  Early in that morning when he had taken upon himself Hermas’ guilt he had abjured wearing his sheepskin; now his body, accustomed to the warm wrap, suffered severely, and his blood coursed with fevered haste through his veins since the efforts, night-watches, and excitement of the last few days.  He drew his little coat close around him with a shiver and muttered, “I feel like a sheep that has been shorn in midwinter, and my head burns as if I were a baker and had to draw the bread out of the oven; a child might knock me down, and my eyes are heavy.  I have not even the energy to collect my thoughts for a prayer, of which I am in such sore need.  My goal is undoubtedly the right one, but so soon as I seem to be nearing it, my weakness snatches it from me, as the wind swept back the fruit-laden boughs which Tantalus, parched with thirst, tried to grasp.  I fled from the world to this mountain, and the world has pursued me and has flung its snares round my feet.  I must seek a lonelier waste in which I may be alone—­quite alone with my God and myself.  There, perhaps I may find the way I seek, if indeed the fact that the creature that I call “I,” in which the whole world with all its agitations in little finds room—­and which will accompany me even there—­does not once again frustrate all my labor.  He who takes his Self with him into the desert, is not alone.”

Paulus sighed deeply and then pursued his reflections:  “How puffed up with pride I was after I had tasted the Gaul’s rods in place of Hermas, and then I was like a drunken man who falls down stairs step by step.  And poor Stephanus too had a fall when he was so near the goal!  He failed in strength to forgive, and the senator who has just now left me, and whose innocent son I had so badly hurt, when we parted forgivingly gave me his hand.  I could see that he did forgive me with all his heart, and this Petrus stands in the midst of life, and is busy early and late with mere worldly affairs.”

For a time he looked thoughtfully before him, and then he went on in his soliloquy, “What was the story that old Serapion used to tell?  In the Thebaid there dwelt a penitent who thought he led a perfectly saintly life and far transcended all his companions in stern virtue.  Once he dreamed that there was in Alexandria a man even more perfect than himself; Phabis was his name, and he was a shoemaker, dwelling in the White road near the harbor of Kibotos.  The anchorite at once went to the capital and found the shoemaker, and when he asked him, ’How do you serve the Lord?  How do you conduct your life?’ Phabis looked at him in astonishment.  ’I? well, my Saviour!  I work early and late, and provide for my family, and pray morning and evening in few words for the whole city.’  Petrus, it seems to me, is such an one as Phabis; but many roads lead to God, and we—­and I—­”

Again a cold shiver interrupted his meditation, and as morning approached the cold was so keen that he endeavored to light a fire.  While he was painfully blowing the charcoal Hermas came up to him.