Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
in its line, as the remaining roots evidenced. At some little distance,
on both hands, we observed signs of similar avenues, which appeared to
converge with ours, towards one spot. Along these we indistinctly saw
several forms moving, which seemed, with ourselves, to approach the
common centre. Our path brought us, at last, up to a wall of yew-trees,
growing close together, and intertwining their branches so, that
nothing could be seen beyond it. An opening was cut in it like a door,
and all the wall was trimmed smooth and perpendicular. The knight
dismounted, and waited till I had provided for his horse’s comfort;
upon which we entered the place together.
It was a great space, bare of trees, and enclosed by four walls of yew,
similar to that through which we had entered. These trees grew to a
very great height, and did not divide from each other till close to the
top, where their summits formed a row of conical battlements all around
the walls. The space contained was a parallelogram of great length.
Along each of the two longer sides of the interior, were ranged three
ranks of men, in white robes, standing silent and solemn, each with a
sword by his side, although the rest of his costume and bearing was
more priestly than soldierly. For some distance inwards, the space
between these opposite rows was filled with a company of men and women
and children, in holiday attire. The looks of all were directed
inwards, towards the further end. Far beyond the crowd, in a long
avenue, seeming to narrow in the distance, went the long rows of the
white-robed men. On what the attention of the multitude was fixed, we
could not tell, for the sun had set before we arrived, and it was
growing dark within. It grew darker and darker. The multitude waited in
silence. The stars began to shine down into the enclosure, and they
grew brighter and larger every moment. A wind arose, and swayed the
pinnacles of the tree-tops; and made a strange sound, half like music,
half like moaning, through the close branches and leaves of the
tree-walls. A young girl who stood beside me, clothed in the same dress
as the priests, bowed her head, and grew pale with awe.
The knight whispered to me, “How solemn it is! Surely they wait to hear
the voice of a prophet. There is something good near!”
But I, though somewhat shaken by the feeling expressed by my master,
yet had an unaccountable conviction that here was something bad. So I
resolved to be keenly on the watch for what should follow.
Suddenly a great star, like a sun, appeared high in the air over the
temple, illuminating it throughout; and a great song arose from the men
in white, which went rolling round and round the building, now receding
to the end, and now approaching, down the other side, the place where
we stood. For some of the singers were regularly ceasing, and the next
to them as regularly taking up the song, so that it crept onwards with
gradations produced by changes which could not themselves be detected,
for only a few of those who were singing ceased at the same moment. The
song paused; and I saw a company of six of the white-robed men walk up
the centre of the human avenue, surrounding a youth gorgeously attired
beneath his robe of white, and wearing a chaplet of flowers on his
head. I followed them closely, with my keenest observation; and, by
accompanying their slow progress with my eyes, I was able to perceive
more clearly what took place when they arrived at the other end. I knew
that my sight was so much more keen than that of most people, that I
had good reason to suppose I should see more than the rest could, at
such a distance. At the farther end a throne stood upon a platform,
high above the heads of the surrounding priests. To this platform I saw
the company begin to ascend, apparently by an inclined plane or gentle
slope. The throne itself was elevated again, on a kind of square
pedestal, to the top of which led a flight of steps. On the throne sat
a majestic-looking figure, whose posture seemed to indicate a mixture
of pride and benignity, as he looked down on the multitude below. The
company ascended to the foot of the throne, where they all kneeled for
some minutes; then they rose and passed round to the side of the
pedestal upon which the throne stood. Here they crowded close behind
the youth, putting him in the foremost place, and one of them opened a
door in the pedestal, for the youth to enter. I was sure I saw him
shrink back, and those crowding behind pushed him in. Then, again,
arose a burst of song from the multitude in white, which lasted some
time. When it ceased, a new company of seven commenced its march up the
centre. As they advanced, I looked up at my master: his noble
countenance was full of reverence and awe. Incapable of evil himself,
he could scarcely suspect it in another, much less in a multitude such
as this, and surrounded with such appearances of solemnity. I was
certain it was the really grand accompaniments that overcame him; that
the stars overhead, the dark towering tops of the yew-trees, and the
wind that, like an unseen spirit, sighed through their branches, bowed
his spirit to the belief, that in all these ceremonies lay some great
mystical meaning which, his humility told him, his ignorance prevented
him from understanding.
More convinced than before, that there was evil here, I could not
endure that my master should be deceived; that one like him, so pure
and noble, should respect what, if my suspicions were true, was worse
than the ordinary deceptions of priestcraft. I could not tell how far
he might be led to countenance, and otherwise support their doings,
before he should find cause to repent bitterly of his error. I watched
the new procession yet more keenly, if possible, than the former. This
time, the central figure was a girl; and, at the close, I observed, yet
more indubitably, the shrinking back, and the crowding push. What
happened to the victims, I never learned; but I had learned enough, and
I could bear it no longer. I stooped, and whispered to the young girl
who stood by me, to lend me her white garment. I wanted it, that I
might not be entirely out of keeping with the solemnity, but might have
at least this help to passing unquestioned. She looked up, half-amused
and half-bewildered, as if doubting whether I was in earnest or not.
But in her perplexity, she permitted me to unfasten it, and slip it
down from her shoulders.
I easily got possession of it; and, sinking down on my knees in the
crowd, I rose apparently in the habit of one of the worshippers.
Giving my battle-axe to the girl, to hold in pledge for the return of
her stole, for I wished to test the matter unarmed, and, if it was a
man that sat upon the throne, to attack him with hands bare, as I
supposed his must be, I made my way through the crowd to the front,
while the singing yet continued, desirous of reaching the platform
while it was unoccupied by any of the priests. I was permitted to walk
up the long avenue of white robes unmolested, though I saw questioning
looks in many of the faces as I passed. I presume my coolness aided my
passage; for I felt quite indifferent as to my own fate; not feeling,
after the late events of my history, that I was at all worth taking
care of; and enjoying, perhaps, something of an evil satisfaction, in
the revenge I was thus taking upon the self which had fooled me so
long. When I arrived on the platform, the song had just ceased, and I
felt as if all were looking towards me. But instead of kneeling at its
foot, I walked right up the stairs to the throne, laid hold of a great
wooden image that seemed to sit upon it, and tried to hurl it from its
seat. In this I failed at first, for I found it firmly fixed. But in
dread lest, the first shock of amazement passing away, the guards would
rush upon me before I had effected my purpose, I strained with all my
might; and, with a noise as of the cracking, and breaking, and tearing
of rotten wood, something gave way, and I hurled the image down the
steps. Its displacement revealed a great hole in the throne, like the
hollow of a decayed tree, going down apparently a great way. But I had
no time to examine it, for, as I looked into it, up out of it rushed a
great brute, like a wolf, but twice the size, and tumbled me headlong
with itself, down the steps of the throne. As we fell, however, I
caught it by the throat, and the moment we reached the platform, a
struggle commenced, in which I soon got uppermost, with my hand upon
its throat, and knee upon its heart. But now arose a wild cry of wrath
and revenge and rescue. A universal hiss of steel, as every sword was
swept from its scabbard, seemed to tear the very air in shreds. I heard
the rush of hundreds towards the platform on which I knelt. I only
tightened my grasp of the brute’s throat. His eyes were already
starting from his head, and his tongue was hanging out. My anxious hope
was, that, even after they had killed me, they would be unable to undo
my gripe of his throat, before the monster was past breathing. I
therefore threw all my will, and force, and purpose, into the grasping
hand. I remember no blow. A faintness came over me, and my
consciousness departed.
CHAPTER XXIV
“We are ne’er like angels till our passions die.”
DECKAR.
“This wretched _Inn_, where we scarce stay to bait,
We call our _Dwelling-Place_:
We call one _Step a Race_:
But angels in their full enlightened state,
Angels, who _Live_, and know what ‘tis to _Be_,
Who all the nonsense of our language see,
Who speak _things_, and our _words_, their ill-drawn _pictures_, scorn,
When we, by a foolish figure, say,
_Behold an old man dead!_ then they
Speak properly, and cry, _Behold a man-child born!_”
COWLEY.
I was dead, and right content. I lay in my coffin, with my hands folded
in peace. The knight, and the lady I loved, wept over me.
Her tears fell on my face.
“Ah!” said the knight, “I rushed amongst them like a madman. I hewed
them down like brushwood. Their swords battered on me like hail, but
hurt me not. I cut a lane through to my friend. He was dead. But he had
throttled the monster, and I had to cut the handful out of its throat,
before I could disengage and carry off his body. They dared not molest
me as I brought him back.”
“He has died well,” said the lady.
My spirit rejoiced. They left me to my repose. I felt as if a cool hand
had been laid upon my heart, and had stilled it. My soul was like a
summer evening, after a heavy fall of rain, when the drops are yet
glistening on the trees in the last rays of the down-going sun, and the
wind of the twilight has begun to blow. The hot fever of life had gone
by, and I breathed the clear mountain-air of the land of Death. I had
never dreamed of such blessedness. It was not that I had in any way
ceased to be what I had been. The very fact that anything can die,
implies the existence of something that cannot die; which must either
take to itself another form, as when the seed that is sown dies, and
arises again; or, in conscious existence, may, perhaps, continue to
lead a purely spiritual life. If my passions were dead, the souls of
the passions, those essential mysteries of the spirit which had
imbodied themselves in the passions, and had given to them all their
glory and wonderment, yet lived, yet glowed, with a pure, undying fire.
They rose above their vanishing earthly garments, and disclosed
themselves angels of light. But oh, how beautiful beyond the old form!
I lay thus for a time, and lived as it were an unradiating existence;
my soul a motionless lake, that received all things and gave nothing
back; satisfied in still contemplation, and spiritual consciousness.