Edith Wharton

The Hermit and the Wild Woman Edith Wharton

ONE day he resolved to set forth on a visit to the Saint of the Rock, who lived on the other sideof the mountains. Travellers had brought the Hermit report of this solitary, how he lived in greatholiness and austerity in a desert place among the hills, where snow lay all winter, and in summer thesun beat down cruelly. The Saint, it appeared, had vowed that he would withdraw from the world toa spot where there was neither shade nor water, lest he should be tempted to take his ease and thinkless continually upon his Maker; but wherever he went he found a spreading tree or a gushingspring, till at last he climbed up to the bare heights where nothing grows, and where the only watercomes from the melting of the snow in spring. Here he found a tall rock rising from the ground, andin it he scooped a hollow with his own hands, labouring for five years and wearing his fingers to thebone. Then he seated himself in the hollow, which faced the west, so that in winter he should havesmall warmth of the sun and in summer be consumed by it; and there he had sat without moving foryears beyond number. The Hermit was greatly drawn by the tale of such austerities, which in his humility he did notdream of emulating, but desired, for his soul's good, to contemplate and praise; so one day he boundsandals to his feet, cut an alder staff from the stream, and set out to visit the Saint of the Rock.