It was during the next nine days, counting from that Saturday early in June the first Saturday in June, as I believe — that Llantrisant and all the regions about became possessed1 either by an extraordinary set of hallucinations or by a visitation of great marvels2.
This is not the place to strike the balance between the two possibilities. The evidence is, no doubt, readily available; the matter is open to systematic3 investigation4.
But this may be said: The ordinary man, in the ordinary passages of his life, accepts in the main the evidence of his senses, and is entirely6 right in doing so. He says that he sees a cow, that he sees a stone wall, and that the cow and the stone wall are “there.”
This is very well for all the practical purposes of life, but I believe that the metaphysicians are by no means so easily satisfied as to the reality of the stone wall and the cow. Perhaps they might allow that both objects are “there” in the sense that one’s reflection is in a glass; there is an actuality, but is there a reality external to oneself? In any event, it is solidly agreed that, supposing a real existence, this much is certain — it is not in the least like our conception of it. The ant and the microscope will quickly convince us that we do not see things as they really are, even supposing that we see them at all. If we could “see” the real cow she would appear utterly7 incredible, as incredible as the things I am to relate.
Now, there is nothing that I know much more unconvincing than the stories of the red light on the sea. Several sailors, men on small coasting ships, who were working up or down the Channel on that Saturday night, spoke8 of “seeing” the red light, and it must be said that there is a very tolerable agreement in their tales. All make the time as between midnight of the Saturday and one o’clock on the Sunday morning. Two of those sailormen are precise as to the time of the apparition9; they fix it by elaborate calculations of their own as occurring at 12.20 a.m. And the story?
A red light, a burning spark seen far away in the darkness, taken at the first moment of seeing for a signal, and probably an enemy signal. Then it approached at a tremendous speed, and one man said he took it to be the port light of some new kind of navy motor-boat which was developing a rate hitherto unheard of, a hundred or a hundred and fifty knots an hour. And then, in the third instant of the sight, it was clear that this was no earthly speed. At first a red spark in the farthest distance; then a rushing lamp; and then, as if in an incredible point of time, it swelled10 into a vast rose of fire that filled all the sea and all the sky and hid the stars and possessed the land. “I thought the end of the world had come,” one of the sailors said.
And then, an instant more, and it was gone from them, and four of them say that there was a red spark on Chapel11 Head, where the old grey chapel of St. Teilo stands, high above the water, in a cleft12 of the limestone13 rocks.
And thus the sailors; and thus their tales are incredible; but they are not incredible. I believe that men of the highest eminence14 in physical science have testified to the occurrence of phenomena15 every whit16 as marvellous, to things as absolutely opposed to all natural order, as we conceive it; and it may be said that nobody minds them. “That sort of thing has always been happening,” as my friend remarked to me. But the men, whether or no the fire had ever been without them, there was no doubt that it was now within them, for it burned in their eyes. They were purged17 as if they had passed through the Furnace of the Sages5, governed with Wisdom that the alchemists know. They spoke without much difficulty of what they had seen, or had seemed to see, with their eyes, but hardly at all of what their hearts had known when for a moment the glory of the fiery18 rose had been about them.
For some weeks afterwards they were still, as it were, amazed; almost, I would say, incredulous. If there had been nothing more than the splendid and fiery appearance, showing and vanishing, I do believe that they themselves would have discredited19 their own senses and denied the truth of their own tales. And one does not dare to say whether they would not have been right. Men like Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge20 are certainly to be heard with respect, and they bear witness to all manner of apparent eversions of laws which we, or most of us, consider far more deeply founded than the ancient hills. They may be justified21; but in our hearts we doubt. We cannot wholly believe in inner sincerity22 that the solid table did rise, without mechanical reason or cause, into the air, and so defy that which we name the “law of gravitation.” I know what may be said on the other side; I know that there is no true question of “law” in the case; that the law of gravitation really means just this: that I have never seen a table rising without mechanical aid, or an apple, detached from the bough23, soaring to the skies instead of falling to the ground. The so-called law is just the sum of common observation and nothing more; yet I say, in our hearts we do not believe that the tables rise; much less do we believe in the rose of fire that for a moment swallowed up the skies and seas and shores of the Welsh coast last June.
And the men who saw it would have invented fairy tales to account for it, I say again, if it had not been for that which was within them.
They said, all of them, and it was certain now that they spoke the truth, that in the moment of the vision, every pain and ache and malady24 in their bodies had passed away. One man had been vilely25 drunk on venomous spirit, procured26 at “Jobson’s Hole” down by the Cardiff Docks. He was horribly ill; he had crawled up from his bunk27 for a little fresh air; and in an instant his horrors and his deadly nausea28 had left him. Another man was almost desperate with the raging hammering pain of an abscess on a tooth; he says that when the red flame came near he felt as if a dull, heavy blow had fallen on his jaw29, and then the pain was quite gone; he could scarcely believe that there had been any pain there.
And they all bear witness to an extraordinary exaltation of the senses. It is indescribable, this; for they cannot describe it. They are amazed, again; they do not in the least profess30 to know what happened; but there is no more possibility of shaking their evidence than there is a possibility of shaking the evidence of a man who says that water is wet and fire hot.
“I felt a bit queer afterwards,” said one of them, “and I steadied myself by the mast, and I can’t tell how I felt as I touched it. I didn’t know that touching31 a thing like a mast could be better than a big drink when you’re thirsty, or a soft pillow when you’re sleepy.”
I heard other instances of this state of things, as I must vaguely32 call it, since I do not know what else to call it. But I suppose we can all agree that to the man in average health, the average impact of the external world on his senses is a matter of indifference33. The average impact; a harsh scream, the bursting of a motor tyre, any violent assault on the aural34 nerves will annoy him, and he may say “damn.” Then, on the other hand, the man who is not “fit” will easily be annoyed and irritated by someone pushing past him in a crowd, by the ringing of a bell, by the sharp closing of a book.
But so far as I could judge from the talk of these sailors, the average impact of the external world had become to them a fountain of pleasure. Their nerves were on edge, but an edge to receive exquisite35 sensuous36 impressions. The touch of the rough mast, for example; that was a joy far greater than is the joy of fine silk to some luxurious37 skins; they drank water and stared as if they had been fins38 gourmets39 tasting an amazing wine; the creak and whine40 of their ship on its slow way were as exquisite as the rhythm and song of a Bach fugue to an amateur of music.
And then, within; these rough fellows have their quarrels and strifes and variances41 and envyings like the rest of us; but that was all over between them that had seen the rosy42 light; old enemies shook hands heartily43, and roared with laughter as they confessed one to another what fools they had been.
“I can’t exactly say how it has happened or what has happened at all,” said one, “but if you have all the world and the glory of it, how can you fight for fivepence?”
The church of Llantrisant is a typical example of a Welsh parish church, before the evil and horrible period of “restoration.”
This lower world is a palace of lies, and of all foolish lies there is none more insane than a certain vague fable44 about the medi?val freemasons, a fable which somehow imposed itself upon the cold intellect of Hallam the historian. The story is, in brief, that throughout the Gothic period, at any rate, the art and craft of church building were executed by wandering guilds45 of “freemasons,” possessed of various secrets of building and adornment46, which they employed wherever they went. If this nonsense were true, the Gothic of Cologne would be as the Gothic of Colne, and the Gothic of Arles like to the Gothic of Abingdon. It is so grotesquely47 untrue that almost every county, let alone every country, has its distinctive48 style in Gothic architecture. Arfon is in the west of Wales; its churches have marks and features which distinguish them from the churches in the east of Wales.
The Llantrisant church has that primitive49 division between nave50 and chancel which only very foolish people decline to recognise as equivalent to the Oriental iconostasis and as the origin of the Western rood-screen. A solid wall divided the church into two portions; in the centre was a narrow opening with a rounded arch, through which those who sat towards the middle of the church could see the small, red-carpeted altar and the three roughly shaped lancet windows above it.
The “reading pew” was on the outer side of this wall of partition, and here the rector did his service, the choir51 being grouped in seats about him. On the inner side were the pews of certain privileged houses of the town and district.
On the Sunday morning the people were all in their accustomed places, not without a certain exultation52 in their eyes, not without a certain expectation of they knew not what. The bells stopped ringing, the rector, in his old-fashioned, ample surplice, entered the reading-desk, and gave out the hymn53: “My God, and is Thy Table spread.”
And, as the singing began, all the people who were in the pews within the wall came out of them and streamed through the archway into the nave. They took what places they could find up and down the church, and the rest of the congregation looked at them in amazement54.
Nobody knew what had happened. Those whose seats were next to the aisle55 tried to peer into the chancel, to see what had happened or what was going on there. But somehow the light flamed so brightly from the windows above the altar, those being the only windows in the chancel, one small lancet in the south wall excepted, that no one could see anything at all.
“It was as if a veil of gold adorned56 with jewels was hanging there,” one man said; and indeed there are a few odds57 and scraps58 of old painted glass left in the eastern lancets.
But there were few in the church who did not hear now and again voices speaking beyond the veil.
收听单词发音 |
1
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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3
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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sages
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| n.圣人( sage的名词复数 )；智者；哲人；鼠尾草（可用作调料） | |
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6
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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8
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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9
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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11
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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13
limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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15
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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16
whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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discredited
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| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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21
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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24
malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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vilely
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| adv.讨厌地，卑劣地 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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29
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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30
profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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31
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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32
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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33
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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34
aural
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| adj.听觉的，听力的 | |
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35
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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38
fins
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| [医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌 | |
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39
gourmets
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| 讲究吃喝的人，美食家( gourmet的名词复数 ) | |
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40
whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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41
variances
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| n.变化( variance的名词复数 )；不和；差异；方差 | |
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42
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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43
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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44
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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45
guilds
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| 行会，同业公会，协会( guild的名词复数 ) | |
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46
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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47
grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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48
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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49
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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50
nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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51
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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52
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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53
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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54
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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55
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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56
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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57
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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58
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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