Dion Pugil's hermitage is the secluded home where Josephus Famulus’s confession becomes a new life of shared work and spiritual service. Its daily routines draw Josephus out of solitude and into the care of visitors and of Dion himself; at the end, its small garden becomes the place where Dion prepares his grave, and where Josephus buries him and plants a palm that he lives to see fruit.

Setting and Shared Life

After Josephus confesses, Dion takes him along the next morning. They travel for several days before reaching Dion’s cell, where they settle together. Josephus helps with the daily chores and learns the routine of the hermitage. The life resembles the solitary existence he had maintained for years, but it is transformed by the presence of another person: he now lives in another man’s shadow and protection, no longer alone.

The hermitage is also a stopping place for people seeking counsel. Penitents and advice-seekers arrive from nearby settlements, from Ascalon, and from farther away. Josephus initially withdraws whenever they come, returning only after they have left. Dion gradually calls him back to perform simple tasks, such as bringing water. In this way, service begins not as an announced vocation but as repeated participation in the work of the place.

A Place of Confession and Instruction

Josephus becomes accustomed to sitting in on confessions and listening, unless a penitent objects. Many visitors welcome his presence rather than facing the dreaded confessor Pugil alone; the quiet, kind-looking helper makes the encounter less forbidding. By attending, Josephus learns how Dion listens, consoles, intervenes, scolds, punishes, and advises. The hermitage functions as a place of practical instruction: its teaching is carried by the repeated encounters with people who come seeking help.

That apprenticeship changes Josephus’s relation to his former role. He had expected, after his own confession, to receive a forceful reprimand and strict sermon, but Dion’s silence, friendly look, and brotherly kiss instead comfort him. At the hermitage he comes to offer others the attentive presence that he himself had needed. The place thus connects his experience as a penitent with his gradual emergence as a listener and helper.

Dion’s Decline and the Chosen Grave

Several years pass at the hermitage. Dion is sometimes so weak that Josephus must help him stand in the morning; after prayer, he may again be unable to rise unaided. On some days he sits staring into space, and he can no longer hear confessions every day. When Josephus substitutes for him, Dion sometimes speaks privately with the visitor and names Josephus as his successor. Josephus demurs, but Dion answers his resistance with a penetrating, icy look.

When Dion has a stronger day, he leads Josephus to a spot at the edge of their small garden and identifies it as the place where he is to be buried. He asks Josephus to bring the spade and says they still have a little time. From then on, Josephus digs there early each morning. When Dion feels able, he adds a few difficult spadefuls himself, yet does the work with an air of gaiety. The grave is not merely a sign of approaching death: the daily labor gives Dion a task in which he finds sustained good humor and contentment.

Death, Succession, and the Palm

Dion explains his acceptance of death as release: to be allowed to sleep when tired and to lay down a long-borne burden is, for him, a precious joy. He also reminds Joseph not to forget the young palm intended for the grave. The burial place and its future tree join the practical details of their shared work to Dion’s account of dying as a welcome passage, rather than an occasion for fear.

The next morning Dion does not appear for prayer or call Joseph. Alarmed, Joseph looks into his hut and finds him dead, his face lit by a childlike, radiant smile. Joseph buries him in the grave they prepared and plants the tree on it. He lives to see the palm bear its first fruit. The hermitage is therefore the setting both for a transfer of responsibility and for its material aftermath: Dion’s work with penitents passes to Joseph, while the palm makes the burial site part of the life that continues there.