CHAP. XIV.
Drost Aage retired to rest in silence, but he vainly tried to sleep. Hewas uncertain whether he ought not instantly to have captured the twooverbearing Hanseatics on the ground of their former menace at Sjoeberg;here they were no longer ambassadors and privileged persons. If theyhad circulated false coin, and openly protected an outlaw upon Danishground, they might with strict justice be called to account. Theknowledge that the base Kagge still lived also disquieted him; but whatstill more banished sleep from the Drost's eyes, was the idea of themysterious Master Thrand, and his wondrous arts. That a human beingpossessed such a power over nature as to be able to imitate the thunderand lightning of the heavens, with all their terrific effects, appearedto him an amazing prodigy, and what the enthusiastic Master Laurentiushad said of the still deeper views of his master--of the preservationof youth by a mysterious art, and of the philosopher's stone, assomething actually existent in nature, had especially inspired themeditative and somewhat visionary Aage with singular musings.
The countenance and mountebank deportment of the little deformedphilosopher, had, indeed, awakened great doubts of his honesty, andwhat Aage had comprehended of his expressions appeared to him strangeand confused, as opposed to what he had been piously taught inchildhood regarding the highest and eternal truths in which, despitehis unhappy excommunication, he had been confirmed by his confessor,Master Petrus de Dacia, who had succeeded in making him at peace withhimself and the church. But the Iceland clerk's ardent enthusiasm forMaster Thrand and his worldly wisdom had not been without its effect;and Aage was forced to confess there lay an acuteness and intelligencein the little mountebank's eye which he had never seen equalled in anyof the pious and learned men he knew. Laurentius's open and ingenuouscountenance bore witness also to the truth of his testimony as to whathe had seen and admired in the disciple of the famous Roger Bacon; andthe longer Aage pondered on what he had heard, the more doubts andstrange thoughts crowded upon his mind. Master Thrand's contempt of theage in which he lived, and the confidence with which he expressedhimself respecting the only true revelation of nature with which hewas, above all, conversant, had also excited a feeling of strange andpainful uneasiness in Aage's mind. The melancholy knight had often,when oppressed by the thought of his excommunication, sought peace andtranquillity in the contemplation of nature in lonely nights under acalm and starry sky, without, however, feeling able to dispense withthe comfort and consolation of the church. He now stood, with his armsfolded, in his sleeping chamber, gazing out on the gloomy heavens."Were it possible!" said he to himself. "Am I wandering here with allmy contemporaries in thick darkness? Know we neither our own nature northat around us? Are all our purposes and energies but as the gropingsof the blind, without aim or object? Will the time come when childrenwill jeer at us as erring fools and insane dreamers, scared by what didnot exist, and amused by empty juggling? Can this be? Can even thatwhich is most high and sacred, which we have believed in and lived forwith our fathers--for which thousands of inspired martyrs have diedwith a halo of glory around their beaming countenances--for which ourpilgrims and Crusaders wend to Jerusalem, and renounce all the richesand treasures of this world--which was the spring of action in ourancestors' lives as our own, and made them heroes and conquerors inlife and death--could all that be dreaming, deception, and ignorance?Could the existence and achievements of whole centuries have been amonstrous lie? No! No! If yonder fellow be not a liar and a cheat,there is neither truth, nor life, nor redemption, nor salvation." Heshrunk with horror from his own thoughts. A sound now reached his earswhich, at this moment, almost struck him with dismay. He fancied heonce more heard the voice of the mysterious stranger close beside him.
"Darest thou not yet face the naked truth? my dear Laurentius!" soundedthe shrill voice of the philosopher, slowly and solemnly through thethin wooden partition of the adjoining chamber. "Dost thou dread toenter into the holy calling of a Leccar Brother, and priest of nature?Dost thou tremble at an initiation into the great church of the world,of which we are all originally priests; we who have eyes for truth, andcourage to announce it, despite the repeated outcry of the fools ofthirteen centuries! Look, I open unto thee the great sanctuary in thename of truth and science, and in the sight of that deity who dwells inthe breast of the initiated. Cast off the miserable prejudices of thytime! Throw down the phantom thou callest the Church, and a savingfaith, with the same strength with which thou hast rejected thesenseless fables of heathenism! Cast off all that was not given theewhen thou becamest a human being! Rid thyself of all exploded and wornout doctrines--cast off the whole puerile tissue of phantasms andvisions of crude ages, which thou callest Revelation! Divest thyself ofthy preconceptions regarding the essence of things, and of all the pompand imagery thou callest poetry! Then gaze freely around thee, and tellme what remains!"
"Nothing! nothing! learned master!" answered the voice of the youngIcelander, in a desponding tone.
"Yes, assuredly!" was the answer; "thou thyself remainest, and greateternal nature, and, if thou wilt, a great and mighty deity, which isthe soul and life of this nature of which thou art thyself a part--alltruth, all wisdom lie slumbering and buried there. Wake it if thoucanst! Call forth deity in thyself and in nature! Rule it by thatmighty art! Ask boldly, and force it to respond!"
"That I am not able to do, my wise master!" said the voice of the youngIcelander, within the partition; "but could I wake lifeless nature, andforce her to solve the mysteries I gaze upon, would she answer aughtelse than what the dead have ever answered the living, what the deadVola[11] answered Odin in our ancient poems, what the spirit of Samuelanswered Saul in the presence of the Witch of Endor:--'Thou shalt die!to-morrow thou shalt die!'"
"Well," resumed the philosopher, "were the answer not much morecheering, if it were but truth could a philosopher, a Leccar Brother, apriest of nature and truth demand or wish it otherwise? You _will_ haveflattery, you _will_ all of you be cheated and deceived--therefore youcling so fast to that flattering lie, but hate and persecute truth asungodliness, heresy, or devilry--therefore are popes and bishops, likethe prophets and evangelists of old, still able to lead the whole humanrace blindfold round in an eternal circle of error from one age toanother until they have their eyes opened, and see that they standwhere their blind fathers stood, by the closed book of nature, whichamid their dreaming they have forgotten to open through the lapse ofages. Look! there thou standest, my pupil! and art ready to despair,because all that fair jugglery hath vanished and been blown away by mybreath as it were a spider's web, or bubbles of air! and thou seestnought but one enormous lifeless body which I call nature.--But look!the lifeless body wakes! 'Tis deity, and yet our slave,--obedient tothe mightier manifestation of deity within us. Only through our meanscan nature's deity awake to consciousness and self-knowledge. In us,and in our will alone lives the only true God we should obey. Courage,Laurentius!--courage! Truth must make its way--the slumbering anddisguised god of nature must be wakened and unveiled. It must open tous its vast recesses, it must restore to us what it hath robbed andhidden--the philosopher's stone must be found, even though its workingsshould seem to us eternal death and petrifaction."
All was again hushed in the adjoining chamber; Aage had thrown open awindow, and the cool night air streamed in upon him; the sky had becomeclear--Aage raised his eyes towards the starry vault, he grasped thecross-hilt of his sword, a heavy load oppressed his heart, he bent hisknee in silent devotion, and rose, feeling that his prayer was answeredby the return of a calm and cheerful frame of mind. "To God be thanksand praise! I know better however," he said, with a feeling ofconsolation. "He, within there, is a liar and deceiver, as surely as_He_ above is love itself! and He whom He sent unto us was the way, thetruth, and the life!" Aage was now about to betake himself to rest, butthe voice of the learned Master Thrand again caught his ear. The youngIcelander he heard no more. German was now spoken, but in a lowwhispering tone, and the talk seemed to be on worldly
matters. Aagetried not to overhear anything; it was repugnant to his feelings, andappeared to him dishonourable and unworthy, to become a concealedwitness to the secrets of others. He thought of knocking to give noticeof his presence and the thinness of the partition; but, at this moment,he heard the name of "Grand" mentioned, and he started. The whisperingcontinued for a long time afterwards, and he caught words which causedhim the greatest uneasiness. The talk was of the king and JunkerChristopher, of the outlaws, of death, and downfall; but what it was hecould neither hear nor comprehend, with any distinctness. At last allbecame silent. He conjectured that his foreign neighbour had left theinn, and towards morning Aage fell asleep. When he was awakened at dawnby his squire, in order to embark in a Swedish vessel, he had dreamtthe most marvellous things. He fancied he had beheld an entirelychanged world; without monasteries and monks, without fortifiedcastles, without the images of the Madonna and the saints, withoutkings and thrones, even without women and children, and with nothingbut men, with keen staring eyes and diminutive and deformed bodies,like Master Thrand's. At last it seemed to him that the sun was burntout and hung, like a great black coal, over his head; that the moon andall the stars were pulled down and used instead of stones, for fencesand inclosures round small withered cabbage gardens. All trees andflowers were torn up and peeled into fibres; all birds and animals layslaughtered and cut open; and the little hump-backed men sat, withgreat spectacles, examining the putrified carcases. All that hebeheld,--the whole subverted and disjointed world, seemed to him atlast metamorphosed into one enormous mass of stone, and a terrificvoice sounded over the petrified world, and cried "Behold! _This_ isthy world! _this_ is thy God! _this_ is the philosopher's stone!" Amidhis dismay at hearing this voice, Aage awakened, just as his brisksquire knocked at his door, still so confused by his dream that hecould not distinguish between what he had dreamed, and what he thoughthe had heard from behind the partition.