No More Learning

Various of the Poles whom Anhelli meets in
Siberia never in reality went there. But Slowacki
chose to place the poem consecrated to the sorrows
of his nation, and into which he poured his own
sadness and weariness of life, in Siberia, that land
watered by the tears of thousands of Poles, which,
at the time that the poet was writing, stood before
N
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POLAND
Polish minds as the large factor with which they
were compelled to reckon. *
Although, from time to time, Anhelli touches
. upon the Messianistic theory of Poland's salvation
and exaltation, yet its general tone is that of a
I profound melancholy that borders on despair, of
'something, indeed, not far removed from pessi-
mism that, as we have seen, is unusual in ti^e Polish -
poetry of Slowacki's generation. We have called
Anhelli a mystical poem; but its mysticism is- of j
a peculiarly indeterminate and unsatisfying--de- .
scription. In fact, with a few exceptions here and
there, "the supernatural element in Anhelli strikes
the reader as being more of a fairy-like than,
strictly speaking, a spiritual nature. This feature
weakens the work as a great national expression;
but from the artistic standpoint it creates that
weird and unearthly atmosphere that for long''
haunts our vision, as though we had wandered
to some far distant and unutterably mournful
dream-land.
"The exiles came into the land of Siberia," (so
Anhelli begins). "And, clearing a wide place, they
built them a wooden house, that they might dwell
together in harmony and brotherly love. For
some time there was great order among them and
great sadness, because they could not forget that
they were exiles, and would see their country no
more, unless it pleased God. "
Here Slowacki has the Polish Emigration in
mind. f He describes how dissensions break out ,
in their midst. Then:
"They saw a great flock of blacky birds flying
* A. Malecki, op. cit. t A. Malecki, op cit.
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? MrSTIC PILGRIMAGE IN SIBERIA 179
from the north. And beyond the birds there
appeared, as it were, a caravan, and a tribe of
people, and sledges drawn by dogs, and a herd of
reindeer with branching horns, and men on skates
carrying spears. And at their head went the king
of the tribe, who was also their priest, clad in
furs and in corals.
"Then that king, as he drew nigh to the crowd
of eMles, said to them in the language of their
own country: 'Welcome! Lo, I knew your
fathers, unhappy like you; and I beheld how
they lived in the fear of God and died, saying,
Oh, my country! my country ! '"
This king, the Shaman, the Siberian wizard-
priest, stays with the exiles to comfort them. He
is the Virgil of the poem, who leads Anhelli through
the journey where he is confronted, not so much
with individuals, as in the Divina Commedia, but
with the symbolizations of the national suffer-
ings. *
"Then the Shaman, gazing into the hearts of
that band of exiles, said within himself: 'Verily,
I have not found here what I sought. Their hearts
are weak, and they will be vanquished by sadness.
They would have been worthy men in the midst of
happiness, but misery will change them into evil
and dangerous men. Oh, God, what hast Thou
done? Dost Thou not grant to every flower to
bloom where it finds its own life and its own soil?
Why, then, must these men perish? I will, there-
fore, take one from among them, and I will love
him as a son, and when I die I will lay upon him
my burden, and a greater burden than others can
* A. Malecki, op. cit.
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POLAND
bear, that in him there shall be redemption. And
I will show him all the sorrows of this earth, and
then I will leave him alone in a great darkness,
with the load of thought and of yearning in
his heart. '
"When he had said this, he called to him a
youth of the name of Anhelli and, laying his
hands upon him, he poured into him heartfelt
love and pity for men. And, turning to the crowd
of exiles, he said: 'I will depart with this youth
to show him many sorrowful things, and you shall
remain alone to learn how to bear hunger, misery
and sadness. But keep hope. For hope shall go
forth from you to the future generations and will
give them life: but, if it dieth within you, then
the future generations will be as dead men. Keep
watch upon yourselves, for you are as men stand-
ing upon a height, and they who are to come will
behold you. But I say unto you, be at rest, not
about the morrow, but about the day which will
be the morrow of your death. For the morrow of
life is more bitter than the morrow of death. '"
"You are as men standing on the height," said
Slowacki. Here we have the Messianistic theory
of the Pole's vocation. The poet's insistence on
hope is also characteristic of the mystic national
literature and of the whole temper of his nation.
Hope preserved the life of Poland.
The hour has struck for Anhelli to set forth on
his pilgrimage through the house of bondage of
his people. The Shaman summons him from
slumber, bidding him " ' Sleep not, but come with
me, for there are things of import in the desert. '
"Then Anhelli, clothing himself with a white
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? MTSTIC PILGRIMAGE IN SIBERIA 181
robe, followed the old man, and they walked in
the light of the stars. . . .
"And the Shaman passed with Anhelli through
the desert ways of Siberia where were the prisons.
And they saw faces of prisoners, pallid and sorrow-
ful, looking through the gratings to the sky. And
near one of the prisons they met men carrying
biers, and the Shaman stayed them, bidding
them open the coffins. When, then, they had
taken the lids off the coffins, Anhelli shuddered,
beholding that the dead were still in their fetters,
and he said: 'Shaman, I fear lest these mar-
tyred men shall not rise from the dead. Awaken
one of them, for thou hast the power of working
miracles. Wake that old man with the hoary beard
and white hair, for it seems to me that I knew
him when he was alive. ' And the Shaman, with a
stern look, said: 'Wherefore? I will raise him
from the dead, and thou wilt slay him again.
Verily, twice will I raise him up, and twice he
will die at thy hands. But let it be as thou wilt,
that thou mayest know that death shelters us
from sorrows which were waiting for us on the
road, but which found us dead. '
"Speaking thus, the Shaman looked upon the
old man in his coffin, and said: 'Arise ! ' And the
body in chains rose and sat up, gazing at the
people like a man that sleeps. "
But as Anhelli repeats to this man--Niemojow-
ski, a well-known figure in the Polish history of
Slowacki's time, and one whom the poet knew
personally--some of the tales that were told
against him, "he who had risen from the dead
died again, wailing. "
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POLAND
"Then the Shaman said: 'Anhelli, thou hast
slain him by repeating men's slanders and calum-
nies, of which he knew not before his death. But
I will raise him up a second time, and do thou
beware lest thou bring him a second time to his
death. '
"He awoke the dead man, and he rose in his
coffin, with tears streaming from his open eyelids. "
Mindful of the wizard's warning, Anhelli begs
the dead man's forgiveness, and speaks words of
raise both of him and of his equally famous
rother. " 1 Oh, unhappy ye,'" he ends. "' Lo, one
seeketh rest in a Siberian graveyard, and the other
lies under the roses and cypresses on the Seine--
separated and dead. '
"When he had heard these words, the man who
had risen from the dead cried out: 'Oh, my
brother ! ' and he fell back in the coffin, and died.
And the Shaman said to Anhelli: 'Why didst
thou tell him of his brother's death? One
moment, and he would have known it from God,
and he would have met his beloved brother in the
heavenly land. Let them close the coffins and
carry them to the cemetery. And ask me no more
to raise from the dead those who are asleep and
at rest. '
"And so the Shaman with Anhelli made their
journey through the sorrowful land, and through
the desert ways and beneath the murmuring
forests of Siberia, meeting the suffering people
and comforting them.
"And one evening they passed near still-stand-
ing water, where grew many weeping willows and
a few pines. "
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? Mr STIC PILGRIMAGE IN SIBERIA 183
And as the Shaman watched the little fish
"leaping to the afterglow," he conjures Anhelli
to bear in mind that melancholy "' is a mortal
disease. '
"' For there are two melancholies. One is
from strength, the other from weakness. The first
is as wings to men of high mind, the second a
stone to drowning men. I tell thee this because
thou art yielding to sadness, and thou wilt lose
hope. '
"While he still spoke, they came upon a throng
of Siberians who were catching fish in the lake.
And when the fishers had seen the Shaman, they
ran to him, saying: 'Oh, our king! Thou hast
forsaken us for strangers, and we are sad because
we see thee among us no more. Stay with us this
night, and we will make thee a banquet. '
"But after the supper, when the moon rose
and threw her light over the smooth water,"
the Shaman, to revive the faith of these children
of the desert, works a miracle for them. He casts
Anhelli into a trance:
"Calling a little child from the crowd, he placed
him on the breast of Anhelli, who had laid him
down as though to sleep, and he said to the child:
'Lay thy hands on the forehead of this youth,
and call him three times by the name of Anhelli. '
And it befell that at the call of the child the soul
went forth from Anhelli, and it was of a fair form
and many hued colours, and had white wings on
its shoulders. And beholding itself freed the
spirit went on the water, and it fled across the
column of the moon's light towards the south.
"But when it was afar off and in the middle
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POLAND
of the lake, the Shaman bade the child call upon
the soul to return. And the bright spirit looked
back at the cry of the child, and it returned slowly
over the golden wave, dragging after it the ends
of its wings which were drooping for sorrow. And
when the Shaman bade it descend into the body
of the man, it wailed like a shattered harp and
trembled, but it obeyed. And Anhelli, awaking,
sat up and asked what had been wrought with
him. The fishermen answered: 'Lord, we have
seen thy soul. The Chinese kings are not clothed
in such splendour as the soul that belongs to thy
body. And we have seen nothing brighter on the
earth save the sun, and nought glittering more
brightly save the stars. The swans flying over
our land in May have not such wings. Yea, and
we even smelt scent like the scent of a thousand
flowers. '
"'What, then,' (asks Anhelli of the Shaman),
'did my soul when she was free ? ' The Shaman
answered him: 'She went over that golden road
that is cast on the water from the moon, and she
fled to yonder side like one that is in haste. ' And
at these words Anhelli drooped his head, and,
musing, he began to weep, and he said: 'She was
fain to return to my country. '"
Having comforted Anhelli, the Shaman leads
him on, he himself working fresh miracles, till,
says he:
"' Lo, we will show miracles no more nor the
power of God that is in us: but we will weep, for
we have come to the people who do not see the
sun. We may not teach them wisdom, for sorrow
has taught them more. Nor will we give them
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? MYSTIC PILGRIMAGE IN SIBERIA 185
hope, for they will not believe us. In the decree
that condemned them was inscribed: For ever!
Here are the mines of Siberia. '
"' Step carefully here, for the earth is paved
with sleeping men. Dost thou hear? They
breathe heavily, and many moan and talk in their
sleep. One speaks of his mother, another of his
sisters and brothers, and a third of his home and
of her whom he loved in his heart, and of the
meadows where the corn bowed to him as to its
lord. And they are happy now in their sleep--but
they will wake. In other mines criminals wail;
but this is only the grave of the sons of the nation,
and is filled with silence. The chain that rattles
here has a sorrowful sound, and in the vault there
are many echoes, and one echo which says: I
mourn for you. '
"While the Shaman was speaking thus piti-
fully, there came wardens and soldiers with lanterns
to awaken the sleepers to labour. Then all rose
up from the ground, and woke, and they went like
sheep with bent heads, except one who rose not,
for he had died in his sleep "--
having swallowed poisonous lead that he had
picked up from the floor of the mine in the hope
of ending his misery.
I The pilgrims wend their way through the depths
of the mines:
\ " Till they saw many men, pallid and tortured,
'whose names are known in our country. And they
came to a subterranean lake, and trod the banks
I of its dark water which stirred not, and here
and there was yellow from the light of
the lanterns. And the Shaman said: 'Is this the
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? POLAND
Sea of Galilee ? * And are these the fishers of
woe? '
"Then, one of those who sat sadly by the banks
of the black water said: 'To-day they allow us
to rest, because it is the Tsar's name-day. So we
sit here over the dark water to dream and think
and rest; for our hearts are more weary than our
bodies. And, not long since, we lost our prophet,t
whose favourite place was this rock, and to whom
these waters were dear. And seven years ago on
a certain night the spirit of prophecy took posses-
sion of him, and he felt the great convulsion that
there was in our country,!
and he told us the
whole night what he saw, laughing and weeping.
And only at dawn did he wax sad, and he cried: f
Lo, they have risen from the dead, but they
cannot roll away the stone from the sepulchre:
and having said this, he fell dead. '
"And the Shaman, turning him to Anhelli,
said: 'Why art thou thus lost in thought above
this black water, which is of human tears? '
"When he had spoken, there resounded a
great echo from an explosion in the mine, and it
was prolonged above their heads, beating like a
subterranean bell. And the Shaman said: 'Be-
hold the angel of the Lord for those who see the
* Slowacki wrote Anhelli under the influence of his journey in
Palestine, dedicating the poem to the Pole who had been his
fellow-traveller there. The Sea of Galilee was one of the spots that
he had visited, and certain of his descriptive passages, such as the
lake where Anhelli's soul is shown to the fishermen, are said to be
the poet's impressions of the scenery of the Holy Land.
f Slowacki said that this prophet was an imaginary figure, but
that at the same time he had Thomas Zan in his mind. When the
poet wrote Anhelli, Zan was still in exile, but he returned in later
years to end his days in his own country.
X Tl:e Rising of 1830, which took place eight years before
Anhelli was published.
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? MTSTIC PILGRIMAGE IN SIBERIA 187
sun no more. Oh, God, oh, God, we pray Thee
that our sufferings may be our redemption. And
we will not entreat Thee to restore the sun to
our eyes and the air to our lungs, for we know
that Thy judgment has fallen upon us--but the
newborn generation is guiltless. Have mercy, oh,
God! And forgive us that we carry our cross
with sadness and that we rejoice not as martyrs;
because Thou hast not said if our suffering will
be reckoned to us as our expiation. But speak the
word, and we shall rejoice. For what is life that
we should mourn for it? Is it the good angel that
leaves us in the hour of death? Happy are they
who may sacrifice themselves for the nation ! '"
The Shaman and Anhelli pass on where all is
sorrow. Here, they see an old man knouted to
death, there, a Russian prince toiling as a felon,
with his devoted wife ministering to him. At
last, like a second Virgil with his Dante, the guide
carries Anhelli up from the pit; and Anhelli
opens his eyes once more on the Siberian stars
and snow, asking himself if what he had beheld
was but a dreadful dream.
The scope of the poem now somewhat changes.
The national sufferings recede further into the
background, and the grief of Anhelli himself fills
the poem; a grief which, however, never ceases
to be that of the Pole, eternally mourning for his
nation. It is curious to notice that, as the poet
departs from those great tragedies with which
the heart of the Pole was filled when Slowacki
wrote, and lingers instead on a more individual
and restricted note, the artistic beauty of the
work seems to increase rather than to be impaired.
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POLAND
In the forlorn figure of the youth, desolate and
alone in the Siberian night, and painted with an
almost terrible power, there is much of SlowacH
himself. The tale of his own sad and lonely soul
is told here.
As he gazes at the angel Eloe, who sits watch-
ing the graves' of those who have died in Siberia,
Anhelli falls like a dead man. When recalled to
life by the Shaman, bidding him arise, for the
time of his rest has not yet come, Anhelli confesses
that the face of the angel reminds him of one whom
he had loved in his own country.
"' Therefore am I flooded with my tears when
I think of her and of my youth. To-day that is all
a dream. Yet the sapphire sky and the pale stars
look down on me: are those stars in truth the
same as those that saw me young and happy?
Why does not a gust of wind arise to tear me from
the earth, and to carry me into the land of peace?
Why do I live? There is not one hair on my head
of those that there were of old, even the bones
within me are renewed--and yet I still ever re-
member. And there is not one bird in the sky who
cannot sleep, if but one night of its life, in a quiet
nest. But God has forgotten me. I would fain die. '"
Thus he complains, wandering among the graves
of those who died far from their country, and whose
names are already forgotten. In the poet's first
conception, Eloe was to represent fame; not
mere renown, but rather the spiritualized memory
of the dead. But towards the end of Anhelli,
Slowacki's idea modified her into a more human
shape. *
* A. Malecki, *p. cit.
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? MTSTIC PILGRIMAGE IN SIBERIA 189
The Shaman and Anhelli then leave the
graveyard.
"And, when they came to the house of the
exiles, they heard a great tumult and laughter
and clamour, and the rattling of cups and foul
songs: and the Shaman stood at the windows and
listened, ere he entered that pit of misery. And,
when he appeared amidst the band, they were
silent, because they knew that man who was
mighty in God, and they dared not defy him. And
lifting his flashing eyes, the Shaman spoke, on fire
for grief: 'What have ye done without me? I
have seen your Golgotha. Woe unto you! The
stormy winds scatter the seeds of the oak and
strew them over the earth; but cursed shall be
the wind that carries your speech and your counsel
to your country. You shall die. The great day* is
drawing nigh, and none of you shall live to behold
the eve of that day. The Siberian day and the sun
of destruction draw nigh. Why have you not
hearkened to my counsels, and lived peacefully
in harmony and brotherly love, as befits those
who have no country ? '"
Where, in Anhelli, Slowacki describes, as he does
more than once, the evils reigning among the
exiles, it is his note of warning, for all its some-
what fantastic setting, against those moral dangers
threatening a nation suffering and living in
abnormal ways, f
In answer to his reproaches, the exiles set upon
the Shaman and slay him. As he lies dying, he
calls Anhelli and gives him his last charge.
"' Take my reindeer and go to the north. Thou
* The day of Poland's resurrection. t Op. cit.
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? 190 POLAND
wilt find a dwelling and peace in the snow. And
thou shalt live on the milk of the reindeer. Be not
sorrowful unto death for the destruction of thy
country: but weep at the thought that thou
shalt see her no more. All is a sorrowful dream. '"
He further tells Anhelli to take with him
Ellenai, a woman once a sinner, who had minis-
tered to the wizard's last moments, and to live
with her as with a sister.
"As he spoke thus, Anhelli heard a trampling
on the snow, and said : ' Some one approaches;
or is it death that walks heavily? ' But it was a
reindeer that stood above his dying master, and
whose wondering eyes filled with great tears;
and the Shaman turned away from him, weep-
He dies: and Anhelli leads Ellenai away:
"Both turned to the north, and behind them
went the Shaman's reindeer, knowing that they
were following new masters. But Anhelli was
silent, for his heart was full of tears and of grief.
So they went, Anhelli with the woman and with
the Shaman's reindeer to the far northern desert;
and, finding an empty hut hewn out in the ice,
they dwelt in it. " And the heart of the woman
"from continual prayer was full of tears, sadness,
and heavenly hopes. "
"Then the Siberian day came on, and the sun
did not set, but ran through the sky like a horse
at the race with a fiery mane and a white brow.
The terrible light never ceased, and the noise of
the ice was like unto the voice of God speaking
on the heights to the sorrowful and forsaken
people.
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? MTSTIC PILGRIMAGE IN SIBERIA 191
"And her long sadness and yearning led the
exiled woman to her death, and she laid her down
on a bed of leaves among her reindeer to die. And
it was at the setting of the sun, because for some -\
time past nights had begun in the land of Siberia,
and the sun remained ever longer beneath the
horizon. Turning her sapphire eyes filled with
tears on Anhelli, Ellenai said: 'I loved thee, my
brother, and I leave thee. I loved thee, but the
grave ends all. Forget me not, for who will re-
member me after death save one reindeer which
I milked? '
"Then the dying woman began to recite
litanies to the Mother of God and, even as she
uttered the words Rose of gold, she died. And a
fresh rose fell on the white bosom of the dead
woman and lay there, and the strong fragrance
of the rose filled the hut. But Anhelli sat at the
side of the couch and wept. And lo, at midnight
came a great rustling, and Anhelli thought that
the reindeer made this rustling, drawing out
moss to eat from under the bed of death: but a , 'fc-
cloud, as of the spirits of darkness, poised over the sy
hut with loud laughter, and dark faces appeared
through the clefts of the ice roof and cried: 'She V
is ours. ' But that wondrous rose put on the wings
of a dove and flew on high, and looked upon them
with the eyes of a pure angel. So those dark spirits
and the cloud of them arose from the roof, crying
sad curses into the dark sky; and again there was
silence as befits the place where a dead body
rests.
"And three hours after midnight Anhelli heard
a knocking at the door, which was of ice, and,
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POLAND
putting aside the block of ice, he went out under
the moon. And he saw the angel who had recalled
to him his love for a woman and his first love on
the earth. And Eloe said to him: 'Give me thy
dead sister: I will take her and bury her pitifully.
She is mine. ' And Eloe, kneeling over the sleeping
figure, laid under her the ends of her swan wings,
and, soaring to the moon, departed. Anhelli,
therefore, returned to the empty hut, and mourned
because she was there no more.
"Then about the time when the earth begins
to turn from the sun and sleeps in darkness,
Jehovah called two of the eternal Cherubim before
His throne, and said: 'Go ye to the plains of
Siberia. ' And they went down into the misty
land, hiding their brightness within them. And
they came to the place where the shed of the exiles
had been, but they found no trace of it, for the
storms had brought it to the ground. And of
those thousand men there remained but ten, pale
and terrible to behold. "
Starving in the snow, they had eaten human
flesh, the bodies of their comrades. The leader of
the survivors, with the blood of his countrymen on
his lips, cries: "' Has God remembered us? Has
He granted us to die in our land and on the earth
where we were born? '
"' Return,' [reply the angels], 'and pray to
God, for we will show you the sign of His wrath
which was once the sign of pardon. ' And, stretch-
ing out their hands, the angels pointed to a mighty
rainbow which ran across half of the clouded skies.
And a terrible fear took possession of the man-
eaters at the sight of this beautiful and flashing
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? MTSTIC PILGRIMAGE IN SIBERIA 193
thing. And, marvelling, they pronounced the
name of Christ, and fell dead.
"That same day, before the setting of the sun,
Anhelli sat on a block of ice in a desert place, and
he saw two youths drawing nigh. Because of the
light wind that came forth from them, he felt
that they were from God, and he awaited what
they would announce to him, expecting that it
was death. And when they had greeted him like
unto mortal men, he said: 'I know you. You
are angels. Do you come hither to console me?
Or to quarrel with my sadness which I have learned
in the solitude of silence? '
"And the youths said to him: 'Behold, we
have come to announce to thee that the sun of
to-day will rise again, but to-morrow's shall show
itself no more over the earth. We have come to
announce to thee the winter darkness and a greater
horror than any men have ever known, solitude
in darkness. We have come to announce to thee
that thy brothers are dead, having eaten of human
corpses and being maddened with human blood:
and thou art the last. And we are the same who
ages ago came to the hut of the wheelwright,*
and sat at his table in the shade of the sweet
smelling lime-trees. Your nation was then as a
man who waketh and saith to himself: Lo, a
fair thing awaits me at midday, and in the evening
I shall rejoice. We announced hope unto you,
and now we have come to announce the end and
sorrow* and God hath not bidden us reveal the
future. '
"And Anhelli, answering, said to them: 'Are
* Piast, the. founder of the first Ppljsh dynasty,
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:09 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005782621 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? i94
POLAND
you not making mockery of me, speaking of Piast
and the beginning now when I look for death, and
have seen only misery in my life? Have ye come
to terrify me, crying: Darkness is coming? Why
would you terrify one who suffers? Is not the
terror of the grave enough? Depart! and tell
God that if the sacrifice of my soul is accepted I
will give it, and will agree that she shall die. My
heart is so sorrowful that the angelic lights of the
future world are abhorrent to me, and I am
indifferent as to Eternity, and I would fain
sleep. '
"And the angels interrupted him, saying:
'Thou dost ruin thyself. The desire of a man is
his judgment upon him. And knowest thou not
that perchance some life, yea, perchance the life
and the fate of millions may depend on thy calm? '
And Anhelli humbled himself and said: 'Angels,
forgive me! I will suffer as of old. My native
language and human speech shall be silent within
me as a harp with torn strings. To whom shall I
speak? Darkness shall be my companion and my
country. But the horrors of the earth are nought,
my anguish for my country is a greater horror.
Why have I struggled and suffered torment for a
thing that was madness? Why did I not live at
rest? I cast myself into a river of woe, and its
waves have carried me far, and now I shall return
no more. '
"And again the angels interrupted him, saying:
'Thou didst blaspheme against thine own soul,
and now thou blasphemest against the will which
was in thee when thou didst consecrate thyself
to thy country. Therefore we warn thee from the
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:09 GMT / http://hdl. handle.