Whilest Calidore does follow that faire mayd,
Unmindful of his vow and high beheast
Which by the Faerie Queene was on him layd.
--Spenser, “Faerie Queene,” cant. x. s. 1.
It was that grey, indistinct, struggling interval between the night and
the dawn, when Clarence stood once more in his chamber. The abstruse
calculations lying on his table caught his eye, and filled him with a
sentiment of weariness and distaste. But--“Alas, if we could be
always young! Oh, thou horrid spectre of the old, rheum-eyed man!
What apparition can the mystic chamber shadow forth more ugly and more
hateful than thou? Oh, yes, if we could be always young! But not [thinks
the neophyte now]--not to labour forever at these crabbed figures and
these cold compounds of herbs and drugs. No; but to enjoy, to love, to
revel! What should be the companion of youth but pleasure? And the gift
of eternal youth may be mine this very hour! What means this prohibition
of Mejnour’s? Is it not of the same complexion as his ungenerous
reserve even in the minutest secrets of chemistry, or the numbers of
his Cabala?--compelling me to perform all the toils, and yet withholding
from me the knowledge of the crowning result? No doubt he will still,
on his return, show me that the great mystery CAN be attained; but will
still forbid ME to attain it. Is it not as if he desired to keep my
youth the slave to his age; to make me dependent solely on himself; to
bind me to a journeyman’s service by perpetual excitement to curiosity,
and the sight of the fruits he places beyond my lips?” These, and many
reflections still more repining, disturbed and irritated him. Heated
with wine--excited by the wild revels he had left--he was unable to
sleep. The image of that revolting Old Age which Time, unless defeated,
must bring upon himself, quickened the eagerness of his desire for the
dazzling and imperishable Youth he ascribed to Zanoni. The prohibition
only served to create a spirit of defiance. The reviving day, laughing
jocundly through his lattice, dispelled all the fears and superstitions
that belong to night. The mystic chamber presented to his imagination
nothing to differ from any other apartment in the castle. What foul or
malignant apparition could harm him in the light of that blessed sun!
It was the peculiar, and on the whole most unhappy, contradiction in
Glyndon’s nature, that while his reasonings led him to doubt,--and doubt
rendered him in MORAL conduct irresolute and unsteady; he was PHYSICALLY
brave to rashness. Nor is this uncommon: scepticism and presumption are
often twins. When a man of this character determines upon any action,
personal fear never deters him; and for the moral fear, any sophistry
suffices to self-will. Almost without analysing himself the mental
process by which his nerves hardened themselves and his limbs moved,
he traversed the corridor, gained Mejnour’s apartment, and opened the
forbidden door. All was as he had been accustomed to see it, save
that on a table in the centre of the room lay open a large volume. He
approached, and gazed on the characters on the page; they were in a
cipher, the study of which had made a part of his labours. With but
slight difficulty he imagined that he interpreted the meaning of the
first sentences, and that they ran thus:--
“To quaff the inner life, is to see the outer life: to live in defiance
of time, is to live in the whole. He who discovers the elixir discovers
what lies in space; for the spirit that vivifies the frame strengthens
the senses. There is attraction in the elementary principle of light.
In the lamps of Rosicrucius the fire is the pure elementary principle.
Kindle the lamps while thou openst the vessel that contains the elixir,
and the light attracts towards thee those beings whose life is that
light. Beware of Fear. Fear is the deadliest enemy to Knowledge.” Here
the ciphers changed their character, and became incomprehensible. But
had he not read enough? Did not the last sentence suffice?--“Beware of
Fear!” It was as if Mejnour had purposely left the page open,--as if the
trial was, in truth, the reverse of the one pretended; as if the mystic
had designed to make experiment of his COURAGE while affecting but that
of his FORBEARANCE. Not Boldness, but Fear, was the deadliest enemy
to Knowledge. He moved to the shelves on which the crystal vases were
placed; with an untrembling hand he took from one of them the stopper,
and a delicious odor suddenly diffused itself through the room. The air
sparkled as if with a diamond-dust. A sense of unearthly delight,--of an
existence that seemed all spirit, flashed through his whole frame; and
a faint, low, but exquisite music crept, thrilling, through the chamber.
At this moment he heard a voice in the corridor calling on his name;
and presently there was a knock at the door without. “Are you there,
signor?” said the clear tones of Maestro Paolo. Glyndon hastily reclosed
and replaced the vial, and bidding Paolo await him in his own apartment,
tarried till he heard the intruder’s steps depart; he then reluctantly
quitted the room. As he locked the door, he still heard the dying
strain of that fairy music; and with a light step and a joyous heart he
repaired to Paolo, inly resolving to visit again the chamber at an hour
when his experiment would be safe from interruption.
As he crossed his threshold, Paolo started back, and exclaimed, “Why,
Excellency! I scarcely recognise you! Amusement, I see, is a great
beautifier to the young. Yesterday you looked so pale and haggard; but
Fillide’s merry eyes have done more for you than the Philosopher’s
Stone (saints forgive me for naming it) ever did for the wizards.”
And Glyndon, glancing at the old Venetian mirror as Paolo spoke, was
scarcely less startled than Paolo himself at the change in his own mien
and bearing. His form, before bent with thought, seemed to him taller by
half the head, so lithesome and erect rose his slender stature; his
eyes glowed, his cheeks bloomed with health and the innate and pervading
pleasure. If the mere fragrance of the elixir was thus potent, well
might the alchemists have ascribed life and youth to the draught!
“You must forgive me, Excellency, for disturbing you,” said Paolo,
producing a letter from his pouch; “but our Patron has just written to
me to say that he will be here to-morrow, and desired me to lose not a
moment in giving to yourself this billet, which he enclosed.”
“Who brought the letter?”
“A horseman, who did not wait for any reply.”
Glyndon opened the letter, and read as follows:--
“I return a week sooner than I had intended, and you will expect me
to-morrow. You will then enter on the ordeal you desire, but remember
that, in doing so, you must reduce Being as far as possible into Mind.
The senses must be mortified and subdued,--not the whisper of one
passion heard. Thou mayst be master of the Cabala and the Chemistry; but
thou must be master also over the Flesh and the Blood,--over Love
and Vanity, Ambition and Hate. I will trust to find thee so. Fast and
meditate till we meet!”
Glyndon crumpled the letter in his hand with a smile of disdain. What!
more drudgery,--more abstinence! Youth without love and pleasure! Ha,
ha! baffled Mejnour, thy pupil shall gain thy secrets without thine aid!
“And Fillide! I passed her cottage in my way,--she blushed and sighed
when I jested her about you, Excellency!”
“Well, Paolo! I thank thee for so charming an introduction. Thine must
be a rare life.”
“Ah, Excellency, while we are young, nothing like adventure,--except
love, wine, and laughter!”
“Very true. Farewell, Maestro Paolo; we will talk more with each other
in a few days.”
All that morning Glyndon was almost overpowered with the new sentiment
of happiness that had entered into him. He roamed into the woods, and
he felt a pleasure that resembled his earlier life of an artist, but a
pleasure yet more subtle and vivid, in the various colours of the
autumn foliage. Certainly Nature seemed to be brought closer to him; he
comprehended better all that Mejnour had often preached to him of the
mystery of sympathies and attractions. He was about to enter into the
same law as those mute children of the forests. He was to know THE
RENEWAL OF LIFE; the seasons that chilled to winter should yet bring
again the bloom and the mirth of spring. Man’s common existence is as
one year to the vegetable world: he has his spring, his summer, his
autumn, and winter,--but only ONCE. But the giant oaks round him go
through a revolving series of verdure and youth, and the green of the
centenarian is as vivid in the beams of May as that of the sapling by
its side. “Mine shall be your spring, but not your winter!” exclaimed
the aspirant.
Wrapped in these sanguine and joyous reveries, Glyndon, quitting the
woods, found himself amidst cultivated fields and vineyards to which his
footstep had not before wandered; and there stood, by the skirts of a
green lane that reminded him of verdant England, a modest house,--half
cottage, half farm. The door was open, and he saw a girl at work with
her distaff. She looked up, uttered a slight cry, and, tripping gayly
into the lane to his side, he recognised the dark-eyed Fillide.
“Hist!” she said, archly putting her finger to her lip; “do not speak
loud,--my mother is asleep within; and I knew you would come to see me.
It is kind!”
Glyndon, with a little embarrassment, accepted the compliment to his
kindness, which he did not exactly deserve. “You have thought, then, of
me, fair Fillide?”
“Yes,” answered the girl, colouring, but with that frank, bold
ingenuousness, which characterises the females of Italy, especially
of the lower class, and in the southern provinces,--“oh, yes! I have
thought of little else. Paolo said he knew you would visit me.”
“And what relation is Paolo to you?”
“None; but a good friend to us all. My brother is one of his band.”
“One of his band!--a robber?”
“We of the mountains do not call a mountaineer ‘a robber,’ signor.”
“I ask pardon. Do you not tremble sometimes for your brother’s life? The
law--”
“Law never ventures into these defiles. Tremble for him! No. My father
and grandsire were of the same calling. I often wish I were a man!”
“By these lips, I am enchanted that your wish cannot be realised.”
“Fie, signor! And do you really love me?”
“With my whole heart!”
“And I thee!” said the girl, with a candour that seemed innocent, as she
suffered him to clasp her hand.
“But,” she added, “thou wilt soon leave us; and I--” She stopped short,
and the tears stood in her eyes.
There was something dangerous in this, it must be confessed. Certainly
Fillide had not the seraphic loveliness of Viola; but hers was a beauty
that equally at least touched the senses. Perhaps Glyndon had never
really loved Viola; perhaps the feelings with which she had inspired
him were not of that ardent character which deserves the name of love.
However that be, he thought, as he gazed on those dark eyes, that he had
never loved before.
“And couldst thou not leave thy mountains?” he whispered, as he drew yet
nearer to her.
“Dost thou ask me?” she said, retreating, and looking him steadfastly
in the face. “Dost thou know what we daughters of the mountains are? You
gay, smooth cavaliers of cities seldom mean what you speak. With you,
love is amusement; with us, it is life. Leave these mountains! Well! I
should not leave my nature.”
“Keep thy nature ever,--it is a sweet one.”
“Yes, sweet while thou art true; stern, if thou art faithless. Shall I
tell thee what I--what the girls of this country are? Daughters of men
whom you call robbers, we aspire to be the companions of our lovers or
our husbands. We love ardently; we own it boldly. We stand by your side
in danger; we serve you as slaves in safety: we never change, and we
resent change. You may reproach, strike us, trample us as a dog,--we
bear all without a murmur; betray us, and no tiger is more relentless.
Be true, and our hearts reward you; be false, and our hands revenge!
Dost thou love me now?”
During this speech the Italian’s countenance had most eloquently aided
her words,--by turns soft, frank, fierce,--and at the last question she
inclined her head humbly, and stood, as in fear of his reply, before
him. The stern, brave, wild spirit, in which what seemed unfeminine
was yet, if I may so say, still womanly, did not recoil, it rather
captivated Glyndon. He answered readily, briefly, and freely,
“Fillide,--yes!”
Oh, “yes!” forsooth, Clarence Glyndon! Every light nature answers “yes”
lightly to such a question from lips so rosy! Have a care,--have a care!
Why the deuce, Mejnour, do you leave your pupil of four-and-twenty to
the mercy of these wild cats-a-mountain! Preach fast, and abstinence,
and sublime renunciation of the cheats of the senses! Very well in
you, sir, Heaven knows how many ages old; but at four-and-twenty, your
Hierophant would have kept you out of Fillide’s way, or you would have
had small taste for the Cabala.
And so they stood, and talked, and vowed, and whispered, till the girl’s
mother made some noise within the house, and Fillide bounded back to the
distaff, her finger once more on her lip.
“There is more magic in Fillide than in Mejnour,” said Glyndon to
himself, walking gayly home; “yet on second thoughts, I know not if I
quite so well like a character so ready for revenge. But he who has the
real secret can baffle even the vengeance of a woman, and disarm all
danger!”
Sirrah! dost thou even already meditate the possibility of treason?
Oh, well said Zanoni, “to pour pure water into the muddy well does but
disturb the mud.”