Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
of my meal, by invisible hands. I had scarcely to do more than look
towards anything I wanted, when it was brought me, just as if it had
come to me of itself. My glass was kept filled with the wine I had
chosen, until I looked towards another bottle or decanter; when a fresh
glass was substituted, and the other wine supplied. When I had eaten
and drank more heartily and joyfully than ever since I entered Fairy
Land, the whole was removed by several attendants, of whom some were
male and some female, as I thought I could distinguish from the way the
dishes were lifted from the table, and the motion with which they were
carried out of the room. As soon as they were all taken away, I heard a
sound as of the shutting of a door, and knew that I was left alone. I
sat long by the fire, meditating, and wondering how it would all end;
and when at length, wearied with thinking, I betook myself to my own
bed, it was half with a hope that, when I awoke in the morning, I
should awake not only in my own room, but in my own castle also; and
that I should walk, out upon my own native soil, and find that Fairy
Land was, after all, only a vision of the night. The sound of the
falling waters of the fountain floated me into oblivion.
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And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,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