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[page 292:]
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SHADOW. — A
PARABLE.
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| Yea! though I walk through
the valley of the Shadow: — Psalm
of David. |
YE who read are
still among the living: but I who write shall have
long
since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things
shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass
away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be
some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much
to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.
The year had been a year of terror, and of feelings
more intense
than
terror for which there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies
and
signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black
wings
of the Pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless, cunning
in
the stars, it was not unknown that the heavens wore an aspect of ill;
and
to me, the Greek Oinos, among others, it was evident that now had
arrived
the alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at
the
entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is conjoined with the red ring of
the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the skies, if I mistake
not
greatly, made itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of the
earth,
but in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of mankind.
Over some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the
walls of a noble
hall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at night, a company of
seven.
And to our chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door of brass:
and the door was fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare
workmanship, was fastened from [page 293:] within. Black
draperies, likewise, in
the
gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon, the lurid stars, and the
peopleless streets — but the boding and the memory of Evil, they would
not be so excluded. There were things around us and about of which I
can
render no distinct account — things material and spiritual —
heaviness
in the atmosphere — a sense of suffocation — anxiety — and, above
all,
that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when the
senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of thought
lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. It hung upon our limbs — upon
the household furniture — upon the goblets from which we drank; and
all
things were depressed, and borne down thereby — all things save only
the
flames of the seven iron lamps which illumined our revel. Uprearing
themselves
in tall slender lines of light, they thus remained burning all pallid
and
motionless; and in the mirror which their lustre formed upon the round
table of ebony at which we sat, each of us there assembled beheld the
pallor
of his own countenance, and the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of
his
companions. Yet we laughed and were merry in our proper way — which
was
hysterical; and sang the songs of Anacreon — which are madness; and
drank
deeply — although the purple wine reminded us of blood. For there was
yet another tenant of our chamber in the person of young Zoilus. Dead,
and at full length he lay, enshrouded; — the genius and the demon of
the
scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his
countenance,
distorted with the plague, and his eyes in which Death had but half
extinguished
the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take such interest in our
merriment
as the dead may haply take in the merriment of those who are to die.
But
although I, Oinos, felt that the eyes of the departed were upon me,
still
I forced myself not to perceive the bitterness of their expression,
and,
gazing down steadily into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a
loud
and sonorous voice the songs of the son of Teios. But gradually my
songs
they ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar off among the sable
draperies
of the chamber, became weak, and undistinguishable, and so faded away.
And lo! from among those sable draperies where the sounds of the song
departed,
there came forth a dark and undefined shadow — a shadow such as the
moon,
when low in heaven, might fashion [page 294:] from the figure
of a man: but it was
the shadow neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And
quivering
awhile among the draperies of the room, it at length rested in full
view
upon the surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and
formless,
and indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor God — neither
God of Greece, nor God of Chaldæa, nor any Egyptian God. And the
shadow
rested upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature
of
the door, and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became
stationary
and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I
remember
aright, over against the feet of the young Zoilus enshrouded. But we,
the
seven there assembled, having seen the shadow as it came out from among
the draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes,
and
gazed continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length
I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling
and its appellation. And the shadow answered, "I am SHADOW, and my
dwelling
is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of
Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal." And then did we,
the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling, and
shuddering,
and aghast: for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones
of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in their
cadences
from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the
well remembered
and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends. |
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