|
|
|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
CHAPTER XI
"A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
Far sinking into splendour--without end:
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted."
WORDSWORTH.
But when, after a sleep, which, although dreamless, yet left
behind it a sense of past blessedness, I awoke in the full
morning, I found, indeed, that the room was still my own; but
that it looked abroad upon an unknown landscape of forest and
hill and dale on the one side--and on the other, upon the marble
court, with the great fountain, the crest of which now flashed
glorious in the sun, and cast on the pavement beneath a shower of
faint shadows from the waters that fell from it into the marble
basin below.
Agreeably to all authentic accounts of the treatment of
travellers in Fairy Land, I found by my bedside a complete suit
of fresh clothing, just such as I was in the habit of wearing;
for, though varied sufficiently from the one removed, it was yet
in complete accordance with my tastes. I dressed myself in this,
and went out. The whole palace shone like silver in the sun.
The marble was partly dull and partly polished; and every
pinnacle, dome, and turret ended in a ball, or cone, or cusp of
silver. It was like frost-work, and too dazzling, in the sun,
for earthly eyes like mine.
I will not attempt to describe the environs, save by saying, that
all the pleasures to be found in the most varied and artistic
arrangement of wood and river, lawn and wild forest, garden and
shrubbery, rocky hill and luxurious vale; in living creatures
wild and tame, in gorgeous birds, scattered fountains, little
streams, and reedy lakes-- all were here. Some parts of the
palace itself I shall have occasion to describe more minutely.
For this whole morning I never thought of my demon shadow; and
not till the weariness which supervened on delight brought it
again to my memory, did I look round to see if it was behind me:
it was scarcely discernible. But its presence, however faintly
revealed, sent a pang to my heart, for the pain of which, not all
the beauties around me could compensate. It was followed,
however, by the comforting reflection that, peradventure, I might
here find the magic word of power to banish the demon and set me
free, so that I should no longer be a man beside myself. The
Queen of Fairy Land, thought I, must dwell here: surely she will
put forth her power to deliver me, and send me singing through
the further gates of her country back to my own land. "Shadow of
me!" I said; "which art not me, but which representest thyself to
me as me; here I may find a shadow of light which will devour
thee, the shadow of darkness! Here I may find a blessing which
will fall on thee as a curse, and damn thee to the blackness
whence thou hast emerged unbidden." I said this, stretched at
length on the slope of the lawn above the river; and as the hope
arose within me, the sun came forth from a light fleecy cloud
that swept across his face; and hill and dale, and the great
river winding on through the still mysterious forest, flashed
back his rays as with a silent shout of joy; all nature lived and
glowed; the very earth grew warm beneath me; a magnificent
dragon-fly went past me like an arrow from a bow, and a whole
concert of birds burst into choral song.
The heat of the sun soon became too intense even for passive
support. I therefore rose, and sought the shelter of one of the
arcades. Wandering along from one to another of these, wherever
my heedless steps led me, and wondering everywhere at the simple
magnificence of the building, I arrived at another hall, the roof
of which was of a pale blue, spangled with constellations of
silver stars, and supported by porphyry pillars of a paler red
than ordinary.--In this house (I may remark in passing), silver
seemed everywhere preferred to gold; and such was the purity of
the air, that it showed nowhere signs of tarnishing.--The whole
of the floor of this hall, except a narrow path behind the
pillars, paved with black, was hollowed into a huge basin, many
feet deep, and filled with the purest, most liquid and radiant
water. The sides of the basin were white marble, and the bottom
was paved with all kinds of refulgent stones, of every shape and
hue.
In their arrangement, you would have supposed, at first sight,
that there was no design, for they seemed to lie as if cast there
from careless and playful hands; but it was a most harmonious
confusion; and as I looked at the play of their colours,
especially when the waters were in motion, I came at last to feel
as if not one little pebble could be displaced, without injuring
the effect of the whole. Beneath this floor of the water, lay
the reflection of the blue inverted roof, fretted with its silver
stars, like a second deeper sea, clasping and upholding the
first. The fairy bath was probably fed from the fountain in the
court. Led by an irresistible desire, I undressed, and plunged
into the water. It clothed me as with a new sense and its object
both in one. The waters lay so close to me, they seemed to enter
and revive my heart. I rose to the surface, shook the water from
my hair, and swam as in a rainbow, amid the coruscations of the
gems below seen through the agitation caused by my motion. Then,
with open eyes, I dived, and swam beneath the surface. And here
was a new wonder. For the basin, thus beheld, appeared to extend
on all sides like a sea, with here and there groups as of ocean
rocks, hollowed by ceaseless billows into wondrous caves and
grotesque pinnacles. Around the caves grew sea-weeds of all
hues, and the corals glowed between; while far off, I saw the
glimmer of what seemed to be creatures of human form at home in
the waters. I thought I had been enchanted; and that when I rose
to the surface, I should find myself miles from land, swimming
alone upon a heaving sea; but when my eyes emerged from the
waters, I saw above me the blue spangled vault, and the red
pillars around. I dived again, and found myself once more in the
heart of a great sea. I then arose, and swam to the edge, where
I got out easily, for the water reached the very brim, and, as I
drew near washed in tiny waves over the black marble border. I
dressed, and went out, deeply refreshed.
And now I began to discern faint, gracious forms, here and there
throughout the building. Some walked together in earnest
conversation. Others strayed alone. Some stood in groups, as if
looking at and talking about a picture or a statue. None of them
heeded me. Nor were they plainly visible to my eyes. Sometimes
a group, or single individual, would fade entirely out of the
realm of my vision as I gazed. When evening came, and the moon
arose, clear as a round of a horizon-sea when the sun hangs over
it in the west, I began to see them all more plainly; especially
when they came between me and the moon; and yet more especially,
when I myself was in the shade. But, even then, I sometimes saw
only the passing wave of a white robe; or a lovely arm or neck
gleamed by in the moonshine; or white feet went walking alone
over the moony sward. Nor, I grieve to say, did I ever come much
nearer to these glorious beings, or ever look upon the Queen of
the Fairies herself. My destiny ordered otherwise.
In this palace of marble and silver, and fountains and moonshine,
I spent many days; waited upon constantly in my room with
everything desirable, and bathing daily in the fairy bath. All
this time I was little troubled with my demon shadow I had a
vague feeling that he was somewhere about the palace; but it
seemed as if the hope that I should in this place be finally
freed from his hated presence, had sufficed to banish him for a
time. How and where I found him, I shall soon have to relate.
The third day after my arrival, I found the library of the
palace; and here, all the time I remained, I spent most of the
middle of the day. For it was, not to mention far greater
attractions, a luxurious retreat from the noontide sun. During
the mornings and afternoons, I wandered about the lovely
neighbourhood, or lay, lost in delicious day-dreams, beneath some
mighty tree on the open lawn. My evenings were by-and-by spent
in a part of the palace, the account of which, and of my
adventures in connection with it, I must yet postpone for a
little.
The library was a mighty hall, lighted from the roof, which was
formed of something like glass, vaulted over in a single piece,
and stained throughout with a great mysterious picture in
gorgeous colouring.
The walls were lined from floor to roof with books and books:
most of them in ancient bindings, but some in strange new
fashions which I had never seen, and which, were I to make the
attempt, I could ill describe. All around the walls, in front of
the books, ran galleries in rows, communicating by stairs. These
galleries were built of all kinds of coloured stones; all sorts
of marble and granite, with porphyry, jasper, lapis lazuli,
agate, and various others, were ranged in wonderful melody of
successive colours. Although the material, then, of which these
galleries and stairs were built, rendered necessary a certain
degree of massiveness in the construction, yet such was the size
of the place, that they seemed to run along the walls like cords.
Over some parts of the library, descended curtains of silk of
various dyes, none of which I ever saw lifted while I was there;
and I felt somehow that it would be presumptuous in me to venture
to look within them. But the use of the other books seemed free;
and day after day I came to the library, threw myself on one of
the many sumptuous eastern carpets, which lay here and there on
the floor, and read, and read, until weary; if that can be
designated as weariness, which was rather the faintness of
rapturous delight; or until, sometimes, the failing of the light
invited me to go abroad, in the hope that a cool gentle breeze
might have arisen to bathe, with an airy invigorating bath, the
limbs which the glow of the burning spirit within had withered no
less than the glow of the blazing sun without.
One peculiarity of these books, or at least most of those I
looked into, I must make a somewhat vain attempt to describe.
If, for instance, it was a book of metaphysics I opened, I had
scarcely read two pages before I seemed to myself to be pondering
over discovered truth, and constructing the intellectual machine
whereby to communicate the discovery to my fellow men. With some
books, however, of this nature, it seemed rather as if the
process was removed yet a great way further back; and I was
trying to find the root of a manifestation, the spiritual truth
whence a material vision sprang; or to combine two propositions,
both apparently true, either at once or in different remembered
moods, and to find the point in which their invisibly converging
lines would unite in one, revealing a truth higher than either
and differing from both; though so far from being opposed to
either, that it was that whence each derived its life and power.
Or if the book was one of travels, I found myself the traveller.
New lands, fresh experiences, novel customs, rose around me. I
walked, I discovered, I fought, I suffered, I rejoiced in my
success. Was it a history? I was the chief actor therein. I
suffered my own blame; I was glad in my own praise. With a
fiction it was the same. Mine was the whole story. For I took
the place of the character who was most like myself, and his
story was mine; until, grown weary with the life of years
condensed in an hour, or arrived at my deathbed, or the end of
the volume, I would awake, with a sudden bewilderment, to the
consciousness of my present life, recognising the walls and roof
around me, and finding I joyed or sorrowed only in a book. If
the book was a poem, the words disappeared, or took the
subordinate position of an accompaniment to the succession of
forms and images that rose and vanished with a soundless rhythm,
and a hidden rime.
In one, with a mystical title, which I cannot recall, I read of a
world that is not like ours. The wondrous account, in such a
feeble, fragmentary way as is possible to me, I would willingly
impart. Whether or not it was all a poem, I cannot tell; but,
from the impulse I felt, when I first contemplated writing it, to
break into rime, to which impulse I shall give way if it comes
upon me again, I think it must have been, partly at least, in
verse.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|
|
|