BOOK SEVENTH.
CHAPTER 5. THE TWO MEN CLOTHED IN BLACK.
(continued)
"Oh, yes!" continued the priest, in a voice which seemed
to proceed from the depths of his being, "behold here a
symbol of all. She flies, she is joyous, she is just born; she
seeks the spring, the open air, liberty: oh, yes! but let her
come in contact with the fatal network, and the spider issues
from it, the hideous spider! Poor dancer! poor, predestined
fly! Let things take their course, Master Jacques, 'tis fate!
Alas! Claude, thou art the spider! Claude, thou art the fly
also! Thou wert flying towards learning, light, the sun.
Thou hadst no other care than to reach the open air, the
full daylight of eternal truth; but in precipitating thyself
towards the dazzling window which opens upon the other
world,--upon the world of brightness, intelligence, and
science--blind fly! senseless, learned man! thou hast not
perceived that subtle spider's web, stretched by destiny betwixt
the light and thee--thou hast flung thyself headlong into it, and
now thou art struggling with head broken and mangled wings
between the iron antennae of fate! Master Jacques! Master
Jacques! let the spider work its will!"
"I assure you," said Charmolue, who was gazing at him
without comprehending him, "that I will not touch it. But
release my arm, master, for pity's sake! You have a hand
like a pair of pincers."
The archdeacon did not hear him. "Oh, madman!" he
went on, without removing his gaze from the window. "And
even couldst thou have broken through that formidable web,
with thy gnat's wings, thou believest that thou couldst have
reached the light? Alas! that pane of glass which is further
on, that transparent obstacle, that wall of crystal, harder than
brass, which separates all philosophies from the truth, how
wouldst thou have overcome it? Oh, vanity of science! how
many wise men come flying from afar, to dash their heads
against thee! How many systems vainly fling themselves
buzzing against that eternal pane!"
He became silent. These last ideas, which had gradually
led him back from himself to science, appeared to have calmed
him. Jacques Charmolue recalled him wholly to a sense of
reality by addressing to him this question: "Come, now,
master, when will you come to aid me in making gold? I am
impatient to succeed."
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