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第70章

zanoni-第70章

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around; there were other worlds than that one human heart。





CHAPTER 4。IX。



There is a principle of the soul; superior to all nature; through

which we are capable of surpassing the order and systems of the

world。  When the soul is elevated to natures better than itself;

THEN it is entirely separated from subordinate natures; exchanges

this for another life; and; deserting the order of things with

which it was connected; links and mingles itself with another。

Iamblichus。



〃Adon…Ai!  Adon…Ai!appear; appear!〃



And in the lonely cave; whence once had gone forth the oracles of

a heathen god; there emerged from the shadows of fantastic rocks

a luminous and gigantic column; glittering and shifting。  It

resembled the shining but misty spray which; seen afar off; a

fountain seems to send up on a starry night。  The radiance lit

the stalactites; the crags; the arches of the cave; and shed a

pale and tremulous splendour on the features of Zanoni。



〃Son of Eternal Light;〃 said the invoker; 〃thou to whose

knowledge; grade after grade; race after race; I attained at

last; on the broad Chaldean plains; thou from whom I have drawn

so largely of the unutterable knowledge that yet eternity alone

can suffice to drain; thou who; congenial with myself; so far as

our various beings will permit; hast been for centuries my

familiar and my friend;answer me and counsel!〃



From the column there emerged a shape of unimaginable glory。  Its

face was that of a man in its first youth; but solemn; as with

the consciousness of eternity and the tranquillity of wisdom;

light; like starbeams; flowed through its transparent veins;

light made its limbs themselves; and undulated; in restless

sparkles; through the waves of its dazzling hair。  With its arms

folded on its breast; it stood distant a few feet from Zanoni;

and its low voice murmured gently; 〃My counsels were sweet to

thee once; and once; night after night; thy soul could follow my

wings through the untroubled splendours of the Infinite。  Now

thou hast bound thyself back to the earth by its strongest

chains; and the attraction to the clay is more potent than the

sympathies that drew to thy charms the Dweller of the Starbeam

and the Air。  When last thy soul hearkened to me; the senses

already troubled thine intellect and obscured thy vision。  Once

again I come to thee; but thy power even to summon me to thy side

is fading from thy spirit; as sunshine fades from the wave when

the winds drive the cloud between the ocean and the sky。〃



〃Alas; Adon…Ai!〃 answered the seer; mournfully; 〃I know too well

the conditions of the being which thy presence was wont to

rejoice。  I know that our wisdom comes but from the indifference

to the things of the world which the wisdom masters。  The mirror

of the soul cannot reflect both earth and heaven; and the one

vanishes from the surface as the other is glassed upon its deeps。

But it is not to restore me to that sublime abstraction in which

the intellect; free and disembodied; rises; region after region;

to the spheres;that once again; and with the agony and travail

of enfeebled power I have called thee to mine aid。  I love; and

in love I begin to live in the sweet humanities of another。  If

wise; yet in all which makes danger powerless against myself; or

those on whom I can gaze from the calm height of indifferent

science; I am blind as the merest mortal to the destinies of the

creature that makes my heart beat with the passions which obscure

my gaze。〃



〃What matter!〃 answered Adon…Ai。  〃Thy love must be but a mockery

of the name; thou canst not love as they do for whom there are

death and the grave。  A short time;like a day in thy

incalculable life;and the form thou dotest on is dust!  Others

of the nether world go hand in hand; each with each; unto the

tomb; hand in hand they ascend from the worm to new cycles of

existence。  For thee; below are ages; for her; but hours。  And

for her and theeO poor; but mighty one!will there be even a

joint hereafter!  Through what grades and heavens of

spiritualised being will her soul have passed when thou; the

solitary loiterer; comest from the vapours of the earth to the

gates of light!〃



〃Son of the Starbeam; thinkest thou that this thought is not with

me forever; and seest thou not that I have invoked thee to

hearken and minister to my design?  Readest thou not my desire

and dream to raise the conditions of her being to my own?  Thou;

Adon…Ai; bathing the celestial joy that makes thy life in the

oceans of eternal splendour;thou; save by the sympathies of

knowledge; canst conjecture not what I; the offspring of mortals;

feeldebarred yet from the objects of the tremendous and sublime

ambition that first winged my desires above the claywhen I see

myself compelled to stand in this low world alone。  I have sought

amongst my tribe for comrades; and in vain。  At last I have found

a mate。  The wild bird and the wild beast have theirs; and my

mastery over the malignant tribes of terror can banish their

larvae from the path that shall lead her upward; till the air of

eternity fits the frame for the elixir that baffles death。〃



〃And thou hast begun the initiation; and thou art foiled!  I know

it。  Thou hast conjured to her sleep the fairest visions; thou

hast invoked the loveliest children of the air to murmur their

music to her trance; and her soul heeds them not; and; returning

to the earth; escapes from their control。  Blind one; wherefore?

canst thou not perceive?  Because in her soul all is love。  There

is no intermediate passion with which the things thou wouldst

charm to her have association and affinities。  Their attraction

is but to the desires and cravings of the INTELLECT。  What have

they with the PASSION that is of earth; and the HOPE that goes

direct to heaven?〃



〃But can there be no mediumno linkin which our souls; as our

hearts; can be united; and so mine may have influence over her

own?〃



〃Ask me not;thou wilt not comprehend me!〃



〃I adjure thee!speak!〃



〃When two souls are divided; knowest thou not that a third in

which both meet and live is the link between them!〃



〃I do comprehend thee; Adon…Ai;〃 said Zanoni; with a light of

more human joy upon his face than it had ever before been seen to

wear; 〃and if my destiny; which here is dark to mine eyes;

vouchsafes to me the happy lot of the humble;if ever there be a

child that I may clasp to my bosom and call my own〃



〃And is it to be man at last; that thou hast aspired to be more

than man?〃



〃But a child;a second Viola!〃 murmured Zanoni; scarcely heeding

the Son of Light; 〃a young soul fresh from heaven; that I may

rear from the first moment it touches earth;whose wings I may

train to follow mine through the glories of creation; and through

whom the mother herself may be led upward over the realm of

death!〃



〃Beware;reflect!  Knowest thou not that thy darkest enemy

dwells in the Real?  Thy wishes bring thee near and nearer to

humanity。〃



〃Ah; humanity is sweet!〃 answered Zanoni。



And as the seer spoke; on the glorious face of Adon…Ai there

broke a smile。





CHAPTER 4。X。



Aeterna aeternus tribuit; mortalia confert

Mortalis; divina Deus; peritura caducus。

〃Aurel。 Prud。 contra Symmachum;〃 lib。 ii。



(The Eternal gives eternal things; the Mortal gathers mortal

things:  God; that which is divine; and the perishable that which

is perishable。)



EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF ZANONI TO MEJNOUR。



Letter 1。



Thou hast not informed me of the progress of thy pupil; and I

fear that so differently does circumstance shape the minds of the

generations to which we are descended; from the intense and

earnest children of the earlier world; that even thy most careful

and elaborate guidance would fail; with loftier and purer natures

than that of the neophyte thou hast admitted within thy gates。

Even that third state of being; wh

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