on his return, show me that the great mystery CAN be attained; but will
still forbid ME to attain it. Is it not as if he desired to keep my
youth the slave to his age; to make me dependent solely on himself; to
bind me to a journeyman's service by perpetual excitement to curiosity,
and the sight of the fruits he places beyond my lips?" These, and many
reflections still more repining, disturbed and irritated him. Heated
with wine--excited by the wild revels he had left--he was unable to
sleep. The image of that revolting Old Age which Time, unless defeated,
must bring upon himself, quickened the eagerness of his desire for the
dazzling and imperishable Youth he ascribed to Zanoni. The prohibition
only served to create a spirit of defiance. The reviving day, laughing
jocundly through his lattice, dispelled all the fears and superstitions
that belong to night. The mystic chamber presented to his imagination
nothing to differ from any other apartment in the castle. What foul or
malignant apparition could harm him in the light of that blessed sun!
It was the peculiar, and on the whole most unhappy, contradiction in
Glyndon's nature, that while his reasonings led him to doubt,--and doubt
rendered him in MORAL conduct irresolute and unsteady; he was PHYSICALLY
brave to rashness. Nor is this uncommon: scepticism and presumption are
often twins. When a man of this character determines upon any action,
personal fear never deters him; and for the moral fear, any sophistry
suffices to self-will. Almost without analysing himself the mental
process by which his nerves hardened themselves and his limbs moved,
he traversed the corridor, gained Mejnour's apartment, and opened the
forbidden door. All was as he had been accustomed to see it, save
that on a table in the centre of the room lay open a large volume. He
approached, and gazed on the characters on the page; they were in a
cipher, the study of which had made a part of his labours. With but
slight difficulty he imagined that he interpreted the meaning of the
first sentences, and that they ran thus:--