Suddenly at that thought,--through this space, in which nothing save one mellow translucent light had been discernible,--a swift succession of shadowy landscapes seemed to roll: trees, mountains, cities, seas, glided along like the changes of a phantasmagoria; and at last, settled and stationary, he saw a cave by the gradual marge of an ocean shore,--myrtles and orange-trees clothing the gentle banks.On a height, at a distance, gleamed the white but shattered relics of some ruined heathen edifice; and the moon, in calm splendour, shining over all, literally bathed with its light two forms without the cave, at whose feet the blue waters crept, and he thought that he even heard them murmur.He recognised both the figures.Zanoni was seated on a fragment of stone; Viola, half-reclining by his side, was looking into his face, which was bent down to her, and in her countenance was the expression of that perfect happiness which belongs to perfect love."Wouldst thou hear them speak?"whispered Mejnour; and again, without sound, Glyndon inly answered, "Yes!" Their voices then came to his ear, but in tones that seemed to him strange; so subdued were they, and sounding, as it were, so far off, that they were as voices heard in the visions of some holier men from a distant sphere.
"And how is it," said Viola, "that thou canst find pleasure in listening to the ignorant?""Because the heart is never ignorant; because the mysteries of the feelings are as full of wonder as those of the intellect.If at times thou canst not comprehend the language of my thoughts, at times also I hear sweet enigmas in that of thy emotions.""Ah, say not so!" said Viola, winding her arm tenderly round his neck, and under that heavenly light her face seemed lovelier for its blushes."For the enigmas are but love's common language, and love should solve them.Till I knew thee,--till I lived with thee; till I learned to watch for thy footstep when absent: yet even in absence to see thee everywhere!--I dreamed not how strong and all-pervading is the connection between nature and the human soul!...
"And yet," she continued, "I am now assured of what I at first believed,--that the feelings which attracted me towards thee at first were not those of love.I know THAT, by comparing the present with the past,--it was a sentiment then wholly of the mind or the spirit! I could not hear thee now say, 'Viola, be happy with another!'""And I could not now tell thee so! Ah, Viola, never be weary of assuring me that thou art happy!""Happy while thou art so.Yet at times, Zanoni, thou art so sad!""Because human life is so short; because we must part at last;because yon moon shines on when the nightingale sings to it no more! A little while, and thine eyes will grow dim, and thy beauty haggard, and these locks that I toy with now will be grey and loveless.""And thou, cruel one!" said Viola, touchingly, "I shall never see the signs of age in thee! But shall we not grow old together, and our eyes be accustomed to a change which the heart shall not share!"Zanoni sighed.He turned away, and seemed to commune with himself.
Glyndon's attention grew yet more earnest.
"But were it so," muttered Zanoni; and then looking steadfastly at Viola, he said, with a half-smile, "Hast thou no curiosity to learn more of the lover thou once couldst believe the agent of the Evil One?""None; all that one wishes to know of the beloved one, I know--THAT THOU LOVEST ME!"
"I have told thee that my life is apart from others.Wouldst thou not seek to share it?""I share it now!"
"But were it possible to be thus young and fair forever, till the world blazes round us as one funeral pyre!""We shall be so, when we leave the world!"Zanoni was mute for some moments, and at length he said,--"Canst thou recall those brilliant and aerial dreams which once visited thee, when thou didst fancy that thou wert preordained to some fate aloof and afar from the common children of the earth?""Zanoni, the fate is found."
"And hast thou no terror of the future?"
"The future! I forget it! Time past and present and to come reposes in thy smile.Ah, Zanoni, play not with the foolish credulities of my youth! I have been better and humbler since thy presence has dispelled the mist of the air.The future!--well, when I have cause to dread it, I will look up to heaven, and remember who guides our fate!"As she lifted her eyes above, a dark cloud swept suddenly over the scene.It wrapped the orange-trees, the azure ocean, the dense sands; but still the last images that it veiled from the charmed eyes of Glyndon were the forms of Viola and Zanoni.The face of the one rapt, serene, and radiant; the face of the other, dark, thoughtful, and locked in more than its usual rigidness of melancholy beauty and profound repose.
"Rouse thyself," said Mejnour; "thy ordeal has commenced! There are pretenders to the solemn science who could have shown thee the absent, and prated to thee, in their charlatanic jargon, of the secret electricities and the magnetic fluid of whose true properties they know but the germs and elements.I will lend thee the books of those glorious dupes, and thou wilt find, in the dark ages, how many erring steps have stumbled upon the threshold of the mighty learning, and fancied they had pierced the temple.Hermes and Albert and Paracelsus, I knew ye all;but, noble as ye were, ye were fated to be deceived.Ye had not souls of faith, and daring fitted for the destinies at which ye aimed! Yet Paracelsus--modest Paracelsus--had an arrogance that soared higher than all our knowledge.Ho, ho!--he thought he could make a race of men from chemistry; he arrogated to himself the Divine gift,--the breath of life.(Paracelsus, "De Nat.
Rer.," lib.i.)
He would have made men, and, after all, confessed that they could be but pygmies! My art is to make men above mankind.But you are impatient of my digressions.Forgive me.All these men (they were great dreamers, as you desire to be) were intimate friends of mine.But they are dead and rotten.They talked of spirits,--but they dreaded to be in other company than that of men.Like orators whom I have heard, when I stood by the Pnyx of Athens, blazing with words like comets in the assembly, and extinguishing their ardour like holiday rockets when they were in the field.Ho, ho! Demosthenes, my hero-coward, how nimble were thy heels at Chaeronea! And thou art impatient still! Boy, Icould tell thee such truths of the past as would make thee the luminary of schools.But thou lustest only for the shadows of the future.Thou shalt have thy wish.But the mind must be first exercised and trained.Go to thy room, and sleep; fast austerely, read no books; meditate, imagine, dream, bewilder thyself if thou wilt.Thought shapes out its own chaos at last.
Before midnight, seek me again!"
