《安徒生童话英文版》第289章

　　Yes, this world was a dream, and the dream lasts for hours, andmay return for hours; but convent life is a life of years- long years,and many years.

　　From within comes much that renders men sinful and impure. Hefully realized the truth of this. What flames arose up in him attimes! What a source of evil, of that which we would not, welled upcontinually! He mortified his body, but the evil came from within.

　　One day, after the lapse of many years, he met Angelo, whorecognized him.

　　"Man!" exclaimed Angelo. "Yes, it is thou! Art thou happy now?Thou hast sinned against God, and cast away His boon from thee- hastneglected thy mission in this world! Read the parable of the intrustedtalent! The MASTER, who spoke that parable, spoke the truth! What hastthou gained? What hast thou found? Dost thou not fashion for thyself areligion and a dreamy life after thine own idea, as almost all do?Suppose all this is a dream, a fair delusion!"

　　"Get thee away from me, Satan!" said the monk; and he quittedAngelo.

　　"There is a devil, a personal devil! This day I have seen him!"said the monk to himself. "Once I extended a finger to him, and hetook my whole hand. But now," he sighed, "the evil is within me, andit is in yonder man; but it does not bow him down; he goes abroad withhead erect, and enjoys his comfort; and I grasped at comfort in theconsolations of religion. If it were nothing but a consolation?Supposing everything here were, like the world I have quitted, onlya beautiful fancy, a delusion like the beauty of the evening clouds,like the misty blue of the distant hills!- when you approach them,they are very different! O eternity! Thou actest like the great calmocean, that beckons us, and fills us with expectation- and when weembark upon thee, we sink, disappear, and cease to be. Delusion!away with it! begone!"

　　And tearless, but sunk in bitter reflection, he sat upon hishard couch, and then knelt down- before whom? Before the stone crossfastened to the wall? No, it was only habit that made him take thisposition.

　　The more deeply he looked into his own heart, the blacker didthe darkness seem. -"Nothing within, nothing without- this lifesquanderied and cast away!" And this thought rolled and grew like asnowball, until it seemed to crush him.

　　"I can confide my griefs to none. I may speak to none of thegnawing worm within. My secret is my prisoner; if I let the captiveescape, I shall be his!"

　　And the godlike power that dwelt within him suffered and strove.

　　"O Lord, my Lord!" he cried, in his despair, "be merciful andgrant me faith. I threw away the gift thou hadst vouchsafed to me, Ileft my mission unfulfilled. I lacked strength, and strength thoudidst not give me. Immortality- the Psyche in my breast- away withit!- it shall be buried like that Psyche, the best gleam of my life;never will it arise out of its grave!"

　　The Star glowed in the roseate air, the Star that shall surelybe extinguished and pass away while the soul still lives on; itstrembling beam fell upon the white wall, but it wrote nothing thereupon being made perfect in God, nothing of the hope of mercy, of thereliance on the divine love that thrills through the heart of thebeliever.

　　"The Psyche within can never die. Shall it live inconsciousness? Can the incomprehensible happen? Yes, yes. My beingis incomprehensible. Thou art unfathomable, O Lord. Thy whole world isincomprehensible- a wonder-work of power, of glory and of love."

　　His eyes gleamed, and then closed in death. The tolling of thechurch bell was the last sound that echoed above him, above the deadman; and they buried him, covering him with earth that had beenbrought from Jerusalem, and in which was mingled the dust of many ofthe pious dead.

　　When years had gone by his skeleton was dug up, as the skeletonsof the monks who had died before him had been; it was clad in abrown frock, a rosary was put into the bony hand, and the form wasplaced among the ranks of other skeletons in the cloisters of theconvent. And the sun shone without, while within the censers werewaved and the Mass was celebrated.

　　And years rolled by.

　　The bones fell asunder and became mingled with others. Skulls werepiled up till they formed an outer wall around the church; and therelay also his head in the burning sun, for many dead were there, and noone knew their names, and his name was forgotten also. And see,something was moving in the sunshine, in the sightless cavernous eyes!