Zanoni — Edward Bulwer-Lytton

“Why did I never recoil before from thy mysterious lore ; why did the very strangeness of thine unearthly life only fascinate me with a delightful fear? Because, if thou wert sorcerer or angel-demon, there was no peril to other but myself: and none to me, for my love was my heavenliest part ; and my ignorance in all things, except the art to love thee, repelled every thought that was not bright and glorious as thine image to my eyes.

But Now there is another! Look! why does it watch me thus, — why that never-sleeping, earnest, rebuking gaze? Have thy spells encompassed it already ? Hast thou marked it, cruel one, for the terrors of thy unutterable art? Do not madden me,—do not madden me! — unbind the spell ! “ Hark! the oars without! They come,—they come, to bear me from thee! I look round, and methinks that I see thee everywhere.

Thou speakest to me from every shadow, from every star. There, by the casement, thy lips last pressed mine ; there, there by that threshold didst thou turn again, and thy smile seemed so trustingly to confide in me! Zanoni— husband! —I will stay! I cannot part from thee! No, no!

I will go to the room where thy dear voice, with its gentle music, assuaged the pangs of travail!— where, heard through the thrilling darkness, it first whispered to my ear, ‘Viola, thou art a mother!’ A mother!—yes, I rise from my knees, —I am a mother! They come! I am firm; farewell |”

Yes; thus suddenly, thus cruelly, whether in the delirium of blind and unreasoning superstition, or in the resolve of that conviction which springs from duty, the being for whom he had resigned so much of empire and of glory forsook Zanoni. ‘This desertion, never foreseen, never anticipated, was yet but the constant fate that attends those who would place Mind beyond the earth, and yet treasure the Heart within it. IRgnorance everlastingly shall recoil from knowledge. But never yet, from nobler and purer motives of self-sacrip. 403fice, did human love link itself to another, than did the forsaking wife now abandon the absent. For rightly had she said that it was not the faithless wife, it was the faithful mother that fled from all in which her earthly happiness was centred. As long as the passion and fervor that impelled the act animated her with false fever, she clasped her infant to her breast, and was consoled, — resigned. But what bitter doubt of her own conduct, what icy pang of remorse shot through her heart, when, as they rested for a few hours on the road to Leghorn, she heard the woman who accompanied herself and Glyndon pray for safety to reach her husband’s side, and strength to share the perils that would meet her there! Terrible contrast to her own desertion! She shrunk into the darkness of her own heart, —and then no voice from within consoled her.

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CHAPTER IX.

Zukunft hast du mir gegeben,

Doch du nehmst den Augenblick.! Kassandra,

“Mesnour, behold thy work! Out, out upon our little vanities of wisdom! — out upon our ages of lore and life! To save her from Peril I left her presence, and the Peril has seized her in its grasp! ” “Chide not thy wisdom but thy passions! Abandon thine idle hope of the love of woman. See, for those who would unite the lofty with the lowly, the inevitable curse; thy very nature uncomprehended, — thy sacrifices unguessed. ‘The lowly one views but in the lofty a necromancer or a fiend. ‘Titan, canst thou weep?” “T know it now, I see it all! It was her spirit that stood beside our own, and escaped my airy clasp! O strong desire of motherhood and nature! unveiling all our secrets, piercing space and traversing worlds! — Mejnour, what awful learning lies hid in the ignorance of the heart that loves! ” “The heart,” answered the mystic, coldly; “ay, for five thousand years I have ransacked the mysteries of creation, but I have not yet discovered all the wonders in the heart of the simplest boor! ” “Yet our solemn rites deceived us not; the prophetshadows, dark with terror and red with blood, still

! Futurity hast thou given to me, — yet thou takest from me the Moment.

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foretold that, even in the dungeon, and before the deathsman, I, —I had the power to save them both! ” “But at some unconjectured and most fatal sacrifice to thyself.” “To myself! Icy sage, there is no self in love! I go. Nay, alone: I want thee not. I want now no other guide but the human instincts of affection. No cave so dark, no solitude so vast, as to conceal her. Though mine art fail me; though the stars heed me not; though space, with its shining myriads, is again to me but the azure void, —I return but to love and youth and hope! When have they ever failed to triumph and to save!”