n to kindle against
Mejnour, who owned he had tempted, and who now abandoned him,--abandoned
him to the presence of a spectre. The mystic's reproaches stung rather
than humbled him. What crime had he committed to deserve language so
harsh and disdainful? Was it so deep a debasement to feel pleasure in
the smile and the eyes of Fillide? Had not Zanoni himself confessed
love for Viola; had he not fled with her as his companion? Glyndon never
paused to consider if there are no distinctions between one kind of
love and another. Where, too, was the great offence of yielding to a
temptation which only existed for the brave? Had not the mystic volume
which Mejnour had purposely left open, bid him but "Beware of fear"? Was
not, then, every wilful provocative held out to the strongest influences
of the human mind, in the prohibition to enter the chamber, in the
possession of the key which excited his curiosity, in the volume which
seemed to dictate the mode by which the curiosity was to be gratified?
As rapidly these thoughts passed over him, he began to consider the
whole conduct of Mejnour either as a perfidious design to entrap him to
his own misery, or as the trick of an imposter, who knew that he could
not realise the great professions he had made. On glancing again over
the more mysterious threats and warnings in Mejnour's letter, they
seemed to assume the language of mere parable and allegory,--the jargon
of the Platonists and Pythagoreans. By little and little, he began to
consider that the very spectra he had seen--even that one phantom so
horrid in its aspect--were but the delusions which Mejnour's science had
enable him to raise. The healthful sunlight, filling up every cranny
in his chamber, seemed to laugh away the terrors of the past night. His
pride and his resentment nerved his habitual courage; and when, having
hastily dressed himself, he rejoined Paolo, it was with a flushed cheek
and a haughty step.

"So, Paolo," said he, "the Padrone, as you call him, told you to expect
and welcome me at your village feast?"

"He did so by a message from a wretched old cripple. This surprised
me at the time, for I thought he was far distant; but these great
philosophers make a joke of two or three hundred leagues."

"Why did you not tell me you had heard from Mejnour?"

"Because the old cripple forbade me."

"Did you not see the man afterwards during the dance?"

"No, Excellency."

"Humph!"

"Allow me to serve you,"