CHAPTER 47. THE “ENDLESS ENDING”

 As yet I have not found Lona, but Mara is much with me. She has taught me many things, and is teaching me more.

 

Can it be that that last waking also was in the dream? that I am still in the chamber¹ of death, asleep and dreaming, not yet ripe enough to wake? Or can it be that I did not go to sleep outright² and heartily³, and so have come awake too soon? If that waking was itself but a dream, surely it was a dream of a better waking yet to come, and I have not been the sport of a false vision! Such a dream must have yet lovelier truth at the heart of its dreaming!

 

In moments of doubt I cry,

 

“Could God Himself create such lovely things as I dreamed?”

 

“Whence then came thy dream?” answers Hope.

 

“Out of my dark self, into the light of my consciousness.”

 

“But whence first into thy dark self?” rejoins Hope.

 

“My brain was its mother, and the fever in my blood its father.”

 

“Say rather,” suggests Hope, “thy brain was the violin whence it issued, and the fever in thy blood the bow that drew it forth⁴.—But who made the violin? and who guided the bow across its strings⁵? Say rather, again—who set the song birds each on its bough⁶ in the tree of life, and startled each in its order from its perch⁷? Whence came the fantasia? and whence the life that danced thereto? Didst THOU say, in the dark of thy own unconscious self, ‘Let beauty be; let truth seem!’ and straightway beauty was, and truth but seemed?”

 

Man dreams and desires; God broods and wills and quickens.

 

When a man dreams his own dream, he is the sport of his dream; when Another gives it him, that Other is able to fulfil it.

 

I have never again sought the mirror. The hand sent me back: I will not go out again by that door! “All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come.”

 

Now and then, when I look round on my books, they seem to waver as if a wind rippled⁸ their solid mass, and another world were about to break through. Sometimes when I am abroad, a like thing takes place; the heavens and the earth, the trees and the grass appear for a moment to shake as if about to pass away; then, lo, they have settled again into the old familiar face! At times I seem to hear whisperings around me, as if some that loved me were talking of me; but when I would distinguish the words, they cease, and all is very still. I know not whether these things rise in my brain, or enter it from without. I do not seek them; they come, and I let them go.

 

Strange dim memories, which will not abide⁹ identification, often, through misty¹⁰ windows of the past, look out upon me in the broad daylight, but I never dream now. It may be, notwithstanding, that, when most awake, I am only dreaming the more! But when I wake at last into that life which, as a mother her child, carries this life in its bosom¹¹, I shall know that I wake, and shall doubt no more.

 

I wait; asleep or awake, I wait.

 

Novalis says, “Our life is no dream, but it should and will perhaps become one.”

1 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

2 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

3 heartily   

adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很

参考例句：

• He ate heartily and went out to look for his horse.他痛快地吃了一顿，就出去找他的马。
• The host seized my hand and shook it heartily.主人抓住我的手，热情地和我握手。

4 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

5 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

6 bough   

n.大树枝，主枝

参考例句：

• I rested my fishing rod against a pine bough.我把钓鱼竿靠在一棵松树的大树枝上。
• Every bough was swinging in the wind.每条树枝都在风里摇摆。

7 perch   

n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于

参考例句：

• The bird took its perch.鸟停歇在栖木上。
• Little birds perch themselves on the branches.小鸟儿栖歇在树枝上。

8 rippled   

使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The lake rippled gently. 湖面轻轻地泛起涟漪。
• The wind rippled the surface of the cornfield. 微风吹过麦田，泛起一片麦浪。

9 abide   

vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受

参考例句：

• You must abide by the results of your mistakes.你必须承担你的错误所造成的后果。
• If you join the club,you have to abide by its rules.如果你参加俱乐部，你就得遵守它的规章。

10 misty   

adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的

参考例句：

• He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿，看看是不是还有雾霭。
• The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。

11 bosom   

n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的

参考例句：

• She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
• A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。