Louis Lambert — Honoré de Balzac, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley

They fell into the abyss, into the dust of the lower worlds, and suddenly saw the earth as it were a crypt, of which the prospect was made clear to them by the light they brought back in their souls, for it still wrapped them in a halo, and through it they still vaguely heard the vanishing harmonies of heaven. This was the spectacle which of old fell on the mind’s eye of the prophets. Ministers ofp. 178 various religions, all calling themselves true, kings consecrated by force and fear, warriors and conquerors sharing the nations, learned men and rich lording it over a refractory and suffering populace whom they trampled underfoot —-these were all attended by their followers and their - women, all were clad in robes of gold, silver, and azure, covered with pearls and gems torn from the bowels of the earth or from the depths_of the sea by the perennial toil of sweating and blaspheming humanity. But in the eyes of the exiles this wealth and splendor, harvested with blood, were but filthy rags.

‘‘What do ye here in motionless ranks?” asked Wilfrid.

They made no answer.

‘‘What do ye here in motionless ranks ?”’

But they made no answer.

Wilfrid laid his hands on them and shouted—

‘*What do ye here in motionless ranks ?”’

By a common impulse they all opened the robes and showed him their bodies, dried up, eaten by worms, corrupt, falling to dust, and consumed by horrible diseases. ‘‘Ye lead the nations to death,’’ said Wilfrid; ‘tye have defiled the earth, perverted the Word, prostituted justice. Ye have eaten the herb of the field, and now ye would kill the lambs! Do ye think that there is justification in showing your wounds? J shall warn those of my brethren who atill can hear the Voice, that they may slake their thirst at the springs that you have hidden.”’

‘‘Let us save our strength for prayer,’’ said Minna. ‘‘It is not your mission to be a prophet, nor a redeemer, nor an evangelist. We are as yet only on the margin of the lowest sphere; let us strive to cleave through space on the pinicns of prayer.”’

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“You are my sole love!”

‘You are my sole strength!’’

““We have had a glimpse of the higher mysteries; we are, each to the other, the only creatures here below with whom joy and grief are conceivable. Come then, we will pray; we know the road, we will walk in it.”

“Give me your hand,’’ said the girl. ‘‘If we always walk together, the path will seem less rough and not so long.”’ :

“Only with you,’’ said the young man, ‘‘could I traverse that vast desert without allowing myself to repine.’’

‘‘And we will go to heaven together!’’ said she.

The clouds fell, forming a dark canopy. Suddenly the lovers found themselves kneeling by a dead body, which old David was protecting from prying curiosity, and insisted on burying with his own hands.

Outside, the first summer of the nineteenth century was in all its glory; the lovers fancied they could hear a voice in the sunbeams. They breathed heavenly perfume from the new-born flowers, and said as they took each other by the hand—

‘“The vast ocean that gleams out there is an image of that we saw above!”’

‘‘Whither are you going ?’’ asked Pastor Becker.

‘‘We mean to go to God,”’ said they. ‘‘Come with us, father.’’

GENEVA AND PARIS,
December, 18383—November, 1835.

LOUIS LAMBERT

DEDICATION

**Ht nune et semper dilectee dicatum”

OUIS LAMBERT was born in 1797 at Montoire, a little town in the Vendomois, where his father owned a tannery of no great magnitude, and intended that his son should succeed him; but his precocious bent for study modified the paternal decision. For, indeed, the tanner and his wife adored Louis, their only child, and never contradicted him in anything.