THE PUOSCltlBED. 321 



itself in the numerous lines of his face, his look soon acquired that 

 fixity which seems to indicate the presence of an object invisible <o 

 the ordinary sight. Certainly his eyes contemplated then the distant 

 pictures that the tomb reserves for us. Never, perhaps, had this 

 extraordinary man borne so fantastic an appearance. A terrible 

 struggle, tearing and violently agitating his soul, reacted upon his 

 external appearance, and, however powerful he might seem to be, 

 he bent as a plant which bows to the breeze, forerunner of the 

 storms. Godfrey remained silent, motionless, fascinated. An inex- 

 plicable power seemed to have nailed him to the floor. As when 

 our attention is so powerfully arrested as to make us forget our- 

 selves, in the spectacle of a conflagration, or of a battle, he no longer 

 felt his own existence. 



" Dost thou wish that I should tell thee the destiny, to meet which 

 thou art on the road, poor angel of love ? Listen then. To me it 

 has been given to see the immense spaces, the endless abysses, in 

 which are to be swallowed up all human creatures, this shoreless sea 

 to which runs a great flood of men and angels. In overrunning the 

 vast regions of eternal punishments, I was preserved from death by 

 the mantle of an immortal being, by this vestment of glory and 

 genius so little regarded by the world, — I, poor and feeble. When I 

 journeyed by the mansions of light where the blessed throng, the 

 love of a woman, the wings of an angel, supported me. Borne upon 

 her heart, I was enabled to taste these ineffable pleasures whose 

 grasp is more dangerous for us mortals than all the sufferino-s of 

 this bad world. In accomplishing my pilgrimage through the sombre 

 regions below, I had arrived from dolour to dolour, from crime to 

 crime, from punishments to punishments, from atrocious silences to 

 agonizing cries, upon the gulf superior to all the circles of the infernal 

 regions. Already 1 could distinguish from afar oflP the light of the 

 paradise which shone at an enormous distance. I was in the night, 

 but on the limits of the day. I was flying, carried away by my 

 guide, drawn onward by a power similar to that which, in our 

 dreams, transports us into spheres invisible to the eyes of the flesh. 

 The glory with which our brows were circled put to flight all the 

 shades upon our passage, like an impalpable dust. Far from us the 

 suns of all the universe scarcely yielded the feeble light of the o-low- 

 worms of my country. I was about to attain the fields of air, where^ 

 towards paradise, the masses of light are multiplied, where the pure,, 

 clear azure is easy to cleave, whei'e innumerable worlds spring forth 

 like flowers in a meadow. There, upon the last circular line which 

 still belonged to the phantoms that I was leaving behind me, like to 

 afilictions that one is willing to forget, I saw a tall shade. It was 

 standing erect, in an eager, ardent attitude, and seemed to devour 

 the immeasurable space at a glance. Its feet remained attached by 

 the power of God upon the furthest point of this line. There the 

 shade accomplished, without respite, the painful tension, painful 

 because ceaseless, by which we project our strength when we wish 

 to spring forwards, as birds ready to take their flight. I recognised 

 a man. lie saw us not, heard us not. All his muscles were quiver- 

 ing, panting. It seemed as if, that by each particle of time, he 



