Œuvres complètes de Gustave Flaubert, tome 5: La tentation de saint Antoine

The story opens on a barren plateau high in the Thebaid, where a solitary hermit lives in a mud‑and‑reed hut beneath a twisted palm. Saint Anthony, his long beard and goat‑skin habit, watches the sun set over a stone‑rimmed abyss while recalling the simple duties that once gave his life meaning. In this stark, sun‑blazed landscape, the narrator paints the sky in shifting hues of pearl‑gray, violet mist and burning gold, setting a mood of both awe and isolation.

Soon, the desert becomes a theater of visions: towering Egyptian tombs, flickering sarcophagi, and uncanny voices that beckon from the darkness. Anthony is plagued by monstrous apparitions—scorpions, eagles, demonic cries—and by fleeting moments of compassion from passing caravans, each encounter testing his faith and resolve. The narrative balances vivid, almost hallucinatory description with the monk’s inward questioning, inviting listeners to share his struggle between worldly temptation and spiritual endurance.