And the sighs that are born in him.”
HEINE.
“From dreams of bliss2 shall men awake
One day, but not to weep:
The dreams remain; they only break
The mirror of the sleep.”
JEAN PAUL, Hesperus.
How I got through this dreary3 part of my travels, I do not know. I do not think I was upheld by the hope that any moment the light might break in upon me; for I scarcely thought about that. I went on with a dull endurance, varied4 by moments of uncontrollable sadness; for more and more the conviction grew upon me that I should never see the white lady again. It may seem strange that one with whom I had held so little communion should have so engrossed5 my thoughts; but benefits conferred awaken6 love in some minds, as surely as benefits received in others. Besides being delighted and proud that my songs had called the beautiful creature to life, the same fact caused me to feel a tenderness unspeakable for her, accompanied with a kind of feeling of property in her; for so the goblin Selfishness would reward the angel Love. When to all this is added, an overpowering sense of her beauty, and an unquestioning conviction that this was a true index to inward loveliness, it may be understood how it came to pass that my imagination filled my whole soul with the play of its own multitudinous colours and harmonies around the form which yet stood, a gracious marble radiance, in the midst of ITS white hall of phantasy. The time passed by unheeded; for my thoughts were busy. Perhaps this was also in part the cause of my needing no food, and never thinking how I should find any, during this subterraneous part of my travels. How long they endured I could not tell, for I had no means of measuring time; and when I looked back, there was such a discrepancy7 between the decisions of my imagination and my judgment8, as to the length of time that had passed, that I was bewildered, and gave up all attempts to arrive at any conclusion on the point.
A gray mist continually gathered behind me. When I looked back towards the past, this mist was the medium through which my eyes had to strain for a vision of what had gone by; and the form of the white lady had receded9 into an unknown region. At length the country of rock began to close again around me, gradually and slowly narrowing, till I found myself walking in a gallery of rock once more, both sides of which I could touch with my outstretched hands. It narrowed yet, until I was forced to move carefully, in order to avoid striking against the projecting pieces of rock. The roof sank lower and lower, until I was compelled, first to stoop, and then to creep on my hands and knees. It recalled terrible dreams of childhood; but I was not much afraid, because I felt sure that this was my path, and my only hope of leaving Fairy Land, of which I was now almost weary.
At length, on getting past an abrupt10 turn in the passage, through which I had to force myself, I saw, a few yards ahead of me, the long-forgotten daylight shining through a small opening, to which the path, if path it could now be called, led me. With great difficulty I accomplished11 these last few yards, and came forth12 to the day. I stood on the shore of a wintry sea, with a wintry sun just a few feet above its horizon-edge. It was bare, and waste, and gray. Hundreds of hopeless waves rushed constantly shorewards, falling exhausted13 upon a beach of great loose stones, that seemed to stretch miles and miles in both directions. There was nothing for the eye but mingling14 shades of gray; nothing for the ear but the rush of the coming, the roar of the breaking, and the moan of the retreating wave. No rock lifted up a sheltering severity above the dreariness15 around; even that from which I had myself emerged rose scarcely a foot above the opening by which I had reached the dismal16 day, more dismal even than the tomb I had left. A cold, death-like wind swept across the shore, seeming to issue from a pale mouth of cloud upon the horizon. Sign of life was nowhere visible. I wandered over the stones, up and down the beach, a human imbodiment of the nature around me. The wind increased; its keen waves flowed through my soul; the foam17 rushed higher up the stones; a few dead stars began to gleam in the east; the sound of the waves grew louder and yet more despairing. A dark curtain of cloud was lifted up, and a pale blue rent shone between its foot and the edge of the sea, out from which rushed an icy storm of frozen wind, that tore the waters into spray as it passed, and flung the billows in raving18 heaps upon the desolate19 shore. I could bear it no longer.
“I will not be tortured to death,” I cried; “I will meet it half-way. The life within me is yet enough to bear me up to the face of Death, and then I die unconquered.”
Before it had grown so dark, I had observed, though without any particular interest, that on one part of the shore a low platform of rock seemed to run out far into the midst of the breaking waters.
Towards this I now went, scrambling20 over smooth stones, to which scarce even a particle of sea-weed clung; and having found it, I got on it, and followed its direction, as near as I could guess, out into the tumbling chaos21. I could hardly keep my feet against the wind and sea. The waves repeatedly all but swept me off my path; but I kept on my way, till I reached the end of the low promontory22, which, in the fall of the waves, rose a good many feet above the surface, and, in their rise, was covered with their waters. I stood one moment and gazed into the heaving abyss beneath me; then plunged23 headlong into the mounting wave below. A blessing24, like the kiss of a mother, seemed to alight on my soul; a calm, deeper than that which accompanies a hope deferred25, bathed my spirit. I sank far into the waters, and sought not to return. I felt as if once more the great arms of the beech-tree were around me, soothing26 me after the miseries27 I had passed through, and telling me, like a little sick child, that I should be better tomorrow. The waters of themselves lifted me, as with loving arms, to the surface. I breathed again, but did not unclose my eyes. I would not look on the wintry sea, and the pitiless gray sky. Thus I floated, till something gently touched me. It was a little boat floating beside me. How it came there I could not tell; but it rose and sank on the waters, and kept touching28 me in its fall, as if with a human will to let me know that help was by me. It was a little gay-coloured boat, seemingly covered with glistering scales like those of a fish, all of brilliant rainbow hues29. I scrambled30 into it, and lay down in the bottom, with a sense of exquisite31 repose32.
A wintry sea, bare, and waste, and gray
Then I drew over me a rich, heavy, purple cloth that was beside me; and, lying still, knew, by the sound of the waters, that my little bark was fleeting33 rapidly onwards. Finding, however, none of that stormy motion which the sea had manifested when I beheld34 it from the shore, I opened my eyes; and, looking first up, saw above me the deep violet sky of a warm southern night; and then, lifting my head, saw that I was sailing fast upon a summer sea, in the last border of a southern twilight35. The aureole of the sun yet shot the extreme faint tips of its longest rays above the horizon-waves, and withdrew them not. It was a perpetual twilight. The stars, great and earnest, like children’s eyes, bent36 down lovingly towards the waters; and the reflected stars within seemed to float up, as if longing37 to meet their embraces. But when I looked down, a new wonder met my view. For, vaguely38 revealed beneath the wave, I floated above my whole Past. The fields of my childhood flitted by; the halls of my youthful labours; the streets of great cities where I had dwelt; and the assemblies of men and women wherein I had wearied myself seeking for rest. But so indistinct were the visions, that sometimes I thought I was sailing on a shallow sea, and that strange rocks and forests of sea-plants beguiled39 my eye, sufficiently40 to be transformed, by the magic of the phantasy, into well-known objects and regions. Yet, at times, a beloved form seemed to lie close beneath me in sleep; and the eyelids41 would tremble as if about to forsake42 the conscious eye; and the arms would heave upwards43, as if in dreams they sought for a satisfying presence. But these motions might come only from the heaving of the waters between those forms and me. Soon I fell asleep, overcome with fatigue44 and delight. In dreams of unspeakable joy — of restored friendships; of revived embraces; of love which said it had never died; of faces that had vanished long ago, yet said with smiling lips that they knew nothing of the grave; of pardons implored45, and granted with such bursting floods of love, that I was almost glad I had sinned — thus I passed through this wondrous46 twilight. I awoke with the feeling that I had been kissed and loved to my heart’s content; and found that my boat was floating motionless by the grassy47 shore of a little island.
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1
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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2
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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3
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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4
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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6
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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7
discrepancy
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| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
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8
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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9
receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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10
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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11
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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12
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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13
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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14
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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15
dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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16
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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17
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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18
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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19
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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20
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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21
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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22
promontory
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| n.海角；岬 | |
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23
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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24
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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25
deferred
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| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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26
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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27
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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28
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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29
hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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30
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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31
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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32
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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33
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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34
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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35
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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36
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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37
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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38
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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39
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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40
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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41
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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42
forsake
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| vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃 | |
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43
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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44
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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45
implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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47
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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