The well-to-do and dignified1 personages who left their pews in the chancel of Llantrisant Church and came hurrying into the nave2 could give no explanation of what they had done. They felt, they said, that they had to go, and to go quickly; they were driven out, as it were, by a secret, irresistible3 command. But all who were present in the church that morning were amazed, though all exulted4 in their hearts; for they, like the sailors who saw the rose of fire on the waters, were filled with a joy that was literally5 ineffable6, since they could not utter it or interpret it to themselves.
And they too, like the sailors, were transmuted7, or the world was transmuted for them. They experienced what the doctors call a sense of bien être but a bien être raised, to the highest power. Old men felt young again, eyes that had been growing dim now saw clearly, and saw a world that was like Paradise, the same world, it is true, but a world rectified8 and glowing, as if an inner flame shone in all things, and behind all things.
And the difficulty in recording9 this state is this, that it is so rare an experience that no set language to express it is in existence. A shadow of its raptures10 and ecstasies11 is found in the highest poetry; there are phrases in ancient books telling of the Celtic saints that dimly hint at it; some of the old Italian masters of painting had known it, for the light of it shines in their skies and about the battlements of their cities that are founded on magic hills. But these are but broken hints.
It is not poetic12 to go to Apothecaries’ Hall for similes13. But for many years I kept by me an article from the Lancet or the British Medical Journal— I forget which — in which a doctor gave an account of certain experiments he had conducted with a drug called the Mescal Button, or Anhelonium Lewinii. He said that while under the influence of the drug he had but to shut his eyes, and immediately before him there would rise incredible Gothic cathedrals, of such majesty14 and splendour and glory that no heart had ever conceived. They seemed to surge from the depths to the very heights of heaven, their spires15 swayed amongst the clouds and the stars, they were fretted16 with admirable imagery. And as he gazed, he would presently become aware that all the stones were living stones, that they were quickening and palpitating, and then that they were glowing jewels, say, emeralds, sapphires17, rubies18, opals, but of hues19 that the mortal eye had never seen.
That description gives, I think, some faint notion of the nature of the transmuted world into which these people by the sea had entered, a world quickened and glorified20 and full of pleasures. Joy and wonder were on all faces; but the deepest joy and the greatest wonder were on the face of the rector. For he had heard through the veil the Greek word for “holy,” three times repeated. And he, who had once been a horrified21 assistant at High Mass in a foreign church, recognised the perfume of incense22 that filled the place from end to end.
It was on that Sunday night that Olwen Phillips of Croeswen dreamed her wonderful dream. She was a girl of sixteen, the daughter of small farming people, and for many months she had been doomed23 to certain death. Consumption, which flourishes in that damp, warm climate, had laid hold of her; not only her lungs but her whole system was a mass of tuberculosis24. As is common enough, she had enjoyed many fallacious brief recoveries in the early stages of the disease, but all hope had long been over, and now for the last few weeks she had seemed to rush vehemently25 to death. The doctor had come on the Saturday morning, bringing with him a colleague. They had both agreed that the girl’s case was in its last stages. “She cannot possibly last more than a day or two,” said the local doctor to her mother. He came again on the Sunday morning and found his patient perceptibly worse, and soon afterwards she sank into a heavy sleep, and her mother thought that she would never wake from it.
The girl slept in an inner room communicating with the room occupied by her father and mother. The door between was kept open, so that Mrs. Phillips could hear her daughter if she called to her in the night. And Olwen called to her mother that night, just as the dawn was breaking. It was no faint summons from a dying bed that came to the mother’s ears, but a loud cry that rang through the house, a cry of great gladness. Mrs. Phillips started up from sleep in wild amazement26, wondering what could have happened. And then she saw Olwen, who had not been able to rise from her bed for many weeks past, standing27 in the doorway28 in the faint light of the growing day. The girl called to her mother: “Mam! mam! It is all over. I am quite well again.”
Mrs. Phillips roused her husband, and they sat up in bed staring, not knowing on earth, as they said afterwards, what had been done with the world. Here was their poor girl wasted to a shadow, lying on her death-bed, and the life sighing from her with every breath, and her voice, when she last uttered it, so weak that one had to put one’s ear to her mouth. And here in a few hours she stood up before them; and even in that faint light they could see that she was changed almost beyond knowing. And, indeed, Mrs. Phillips said that for a moment or two she fancied that the Germans must have come and killed them in their sleep, and so they were all dead together. But Olwen called, out again, so the mother lit a candle and got up and went tottering29 across the room, and there was Olwen all gay and plump again, smiling with shining eyes. Her mother led her into her own room, and set down the candle there, and felt her daughter’s flesh, and burst into prayers and tears of wonder and delight, and thanksgivings, and held the girl again to be sure that she was not deceived. And then Olwen told her dream, though she thought it was not a dream.
She said she woke up in the deep darkness, and she knew the life was fast going from her. She could not move so much as a finger, she tried to cry out, but no sound came from her lips. She felt that in another instant the whole world would fall from her — her heart was full of agony. And as the last breath was passing her lips, she heard a very faint, sweet sound, like the tinkling30 of a silver bell. It came from far away, from over by Ty-newydd. She forgot her agony and listened, and even then, she says, she felt the swirl31 of the world as it came back to her. And the sound of the bell swelled32 and grew louder, and it thrilled all through her body, and the life was in it. And as the bell rang and trembled in her ears, a faint light touched the wall of her room and reddened, till the whole room was full of rosy33 fire. And then she saw standing before her bed three men in blood-coloured robes with shining faces. And one man held a golden bell in his hand. And the second man held up something shaped like the top of a table. It was like a great jewel, and it was of a blue colour, and there were rivers of silver and of gold running through it and flowing as quick streams flow, and there were pools in it as if violets had been poured out into water, and then it was green as the sea near the shore, and then it was the sky at night with all the stars shining, and then the sun and the moon came down and washed in it. And the third man held up high above this a cup that was like a rose on fire; “there was a great burning in it, and a dropping of blood in it, and a red cloud above it, and I saw a great secret. And I heard a voice that sang nine times, ‘Glory and praise to the Conqueror34 of Death, to the Fountain of Life immortal35.’ Then the red light went from the wall, and it was all darkness, and the bell rang faint again by Capel Teilo, and then I got up and called to you.”
The doctor came on the Monday morning with the death certificate in his pocket-book, and Olwen ran out to meet him. I have quoted his phrase in the first chapter of this record: “A kind of resurrection of the body.” He made a most careful examination of the girl; he has stated that he found that every trace of disease had disappeared. He left on the Sunday morning a patient entering into the coma36 that precedes death, a body condemned37 utterly38 and ready for the grave. He met at the garden gate on the Monday morning a young woman in whom life sprang up like a fountain, in whose body life laughed and rejoiced as if it had been a river flowing from an unending well.
Now this is the place to ask one of those questions — there are many such — which cannot be answered. The question is as to the continuance of tradition; more especially as to the continuance of tradition among the Welsh Celts of today. On the one hand, such waves and storms have gone over them. The wave of the heathen Saxons went over them, then the wave of Latin medi?valism, then the waters of Anglicanism; last of all the flood of their queer Calvinistic Methodism, half Puritan, half pagan. It may well be asked whether any memory can possibly have survived such a series of deluges39. I have said that the old people of Llantrisant had their tales of the Bell of Teilo Sant; but these were but vague and broken recollections. And then there is the name by which the “strangers” who were seen in the market-place were known; that is more precise. Students of the Graal legend know that the keeper of the Graal in the romances is the “King Fisherman,” or the “Rich Fisherman”; students of Celtic hagiology know that it was prophesied40 before the birth of Dewi (or David) that he should be “a man of aquatic41 life,” that another legend tells how a little child, destined42 to be a saint, was discovered on a stone in the river, how through his childhood a fish for his nourishment43 was found on that stone every day, while another saint, Ilar, if I remember, was expressly known as “The Fisherman.” But has the memory of all this persisted in the church-going and chapel-going people of Wales at the present day? It is difficult to say. There is the affair of the Healing Cup of Nant Eos, or Tregaron Healing Cup, as it is also called. It is only a few years ago since it was shown to a wandering harper, who treated it lightly, and then spent a wretched night, as he said, and came back penitently44 and was left alone with the sacred vessel45 to pray over it, till “his mind was at rest.” That was in 1887.
Then for my part — I only know modern Wales on the surface, I am sorry to say — I remember three or four years ago speaking to my temporary landlord of certain relics46 of Saint Teilo, which are supposed to be in the keeping of a particular family in that country. The landlord is a very jovial47, merry fellow, and I observed with some astonishment48 that his ordinary, easy manner was completely altered as he said, gravely, “That will be over there, up by the mountain,” pointing vaguely49 to the north. And he changed the subject, as a Freemason changes the subject.
There the matter lies, and its appositeness to the story of Llantrisant is this: that the dream of Olwen Phillips was, in fact, the Vision of the Holy Graal.
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1
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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exulted
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| 狂喜，欢跃( exult的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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transmuted
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rectified
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| [医]矫正的，调整的 | |
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recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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similes
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| （使用like或as等词语的）明喻( simile的名词复数 ) | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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sapphires
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| n.蓝宝石，钢玉宝石( sapphire的名词复数 )；蔚蓝色 | |
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rubies
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| 红宝石( ruby的名词复数 )； 红宝石色，深红色 | |
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hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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tuberculosis
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| n.结核病，肺结核 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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swirl
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| v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形 | |
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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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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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coma
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| n.昏迷，昏迷状态 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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deluges
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| v.使淹没( deluge的第三人称单数 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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aquatic
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| adj.水生的，水栖的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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penitently
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45
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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46
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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47
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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48
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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49
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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