white and heavy tears.

At this sight he began to weep, and believing that this vision came from
God, he no longer hesitated. He rose, seized a knotted stick, the symbol
of the Christian faith, and left his cell, carefully closing the door,
lest the animals of the desert and the birds of the air should enter,
and befoul the copy of the Holy Scriptures which stood at the head of
his bed. He called Flavian, the deacon, and gave him authority over the
other twenty-three disciples during his absence; and then, clad only in
a long cassock, he bent his steps towards the Nile, intending to follow
the Libyan bank to the city founded by the Macedonian monarch. He walked
from dawn to eve, indifferent to fatigue, hunger, and thirst; the sun
was already low on the horizon when he saw the dreadful river, the
blood-red waters of which rolled between the rocks of gold and fire.

He kept along the shore, begging his bread at the door of solitary
huts for the love of God, and joyfully receiving insults, refusals, or
threats. He feared neither robbers nor wild beasts, but he took great
care to avoid all the towns and villages he came near. He was afraid
lest he should see children playing at knuckle-bones before their
father's house, or meet, by the side of the well, women in blue smocks,
who might put down their pitcher and smile at him. All things are
dangerous for the hermit; it is sometimes a danger for him to read in
the Scriptures that the Divine Master journeyed from town to town and
supped with His disciples. The virtues that the anchorites embroider so
carefully on the tissue of faith, are as fragile as they are beautiful;
a breath of ordinary life may tarnish their pleasant colours. For that
reason, Paphnutius avoided the towns, fearing lest his heart should
soften at the sight of his fellow men.