Chapter 3. The Disciple, Hilarion
WHEN she has disappeared, Antony perceives a child on the threshold of his cell.
"It is one of the Queen's servants," he thinks.
This child is small, like a dwarf, and yet thickset, like one of the Cabiri, distorted, and with a miserable aspect. White hair covers his prodigiously large head, and he shivers under a sorry tunic, while he grasps in his hand a roll of papyrus. The light of the moon, across which a cloud is passing, falls upon him.
Antony observes him from a distance, and is afraid of him.
"Who are you?"
The child replies:
"Your former disciple, Hilarion."
Antony—"You lie! Hilarion has been living for many years in Palestine."
Hilarion—"I have returned from it! It is I, in good sooth!"
Antony, draws closer and inspects him—"Why, his f
