Zanoni — Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The letter fell from Glyndon’s hand. A sort of stupor succeeded to the various emotions which had chased each other in the perusal, —a stupor resembling that which follows the sudden destruction of any ardent and long-nursed hope in the human heart, whether it be of love, of avarice, of ambition. The loftier world for which he had so thirsted, sacrificed, and toiled, was closed upon him “ forever,” and by his own faults of rashness and presumption. But Glyndon’s was not of that nature which submits long to condemn itself. His indignation began to kindle against Mejnour, who owned he had tempted, and who now abandoned him, — abandoned him to the presence of a spectre. The mystic’s reproaches stung rather than humbled him. What crime had he committed to deserve language so harsh and disdainful? Was it so deep a debasement to feel pleasure in the smile and the eyes of Fillide? Had not Zanoni himself confessed love for Viola; had he not fled with her as his companion? Glyndon never paused to consider if there are no distinctions between one kind of love and another. Where, too, was the great offence of yielding to a temptation which only existed for the brave? Had not the mystic volume which Mejnour had purposely left open, bid him but “ Beware of fear”? Was not, then, every wilful provocative held out to the strongest influences of the human mind, in the prohibition to enter the chamber, in the possession of the key which excited his curiosity, in the volume which seemed to dictate the mode by which the curiosity was to be gratified? As rapidly these thoughts passed over him, he began to consider the whole conduct of Mejnour either as a perfidious design to entrap him to his own misery, or as the trick of an 2impostor, who knew that he could not realize the great 22p. 338 professions he had made. On glancing again over the more mysterious threats and warnings in Mejnour’s letter, they seemed to assume the language of mere parable and allegory, — the jargon of the Platonists and Pythagoreans. By little and little, he began to consider that the very spectra he had seen — even that one phantom so horrid in its aspect — were but the delusions which Mejnour’s science had enabled him to raise. The healthful sunlight, filling up every cranny in his chamber, seemed to laugh away the terrors of the past night. His pride and his resentment nerved his habitual courage; and when, having hastily dressed himself, he rejoined Paolo, it was with a flushed cheek and a haughty step. “So, Paolo,” said he, “the Padrone, as you call him, told you to expect and welcome me at your village feast?” “He did so by a message from a wretched old cripple. This surprised me at the time, for I thought he was far distant; but these great philosophers make a joke of two or three hundred leagues.” “Why did you not tell me you had heard from Mejnour? ” “ Because the old cripple forbade me.” “Did you not see the man afterwards during the dance } ” “No, Excellency.” “ Humph! ” “ Allow me to serve you,” said Paolo, piling Glyndon’s plate, and then filling his glass. “I wish, signor, now the Padrone is gone, — not,” added Paolo, as he cast rather a frightened and suspicious glance round the room, “ that I mean to say anything disrespectful of him,—I1 wish, I say, now that he is gone, that you