“How unaccountable the chance,” cried Charney, after a short silence, “which united us in this place; naturally divided as we are by difference of birth-place, of languages, of faith, of prejudices! Yet, in spite of all these obstacles, we have met at Fenestrella, to unite in the same religious principles, the same adoration of the one supreme Being.”
“On that point, give me leave to differ with you,” said Girardi, with a smile. “To lose sight of, is not to deny. Our views have never been the same.”
“Certainly not. But which of the two, the bigot or the sceptic, was most mistaken—which the most deserving pity?”
“Yourself,” replied the old man, without hesitation—“yes, my dear young friend, yourself! All extremes are dangerous; but in superstition there is faith, passion, vitality; and in scepticism, universal night—universal death. Superstition is the pure stream diverted from its natural channel, which inundates, submerges, and displaces the vegetable soil, but conveys it elsewhere, and repairs, farther on its course, the injuries it has produced; while scepticism is drought, dearth, sterility; burning and scorching up, transmuting earth to sand, and rendering the mighty Palmyra a ruin of the desert. Not content with placing an eternal bar betwixt us and the Creator, incredulity relaxes the bonds of society and destroys the ties of kindred and affection. In depriving man of his importance as a being eternally responsible, it creates around him isolation and contempt. He is alone in the world—alone with his pride; or, as I said before, alone as a ruin in the desert.”
“Alone with his pride!” murmured Charney, reclining his elbow on the arm of the bench, and his face upon his hand. “Pride! of what?—of knowledge? of science? Oh, why should man labour to destroy the elements of his happiness by seeking to analyze them or to sound their depths? Even if indebted for his joys to a deception, why seek to raise the mask and accelerate the disenchantment of his future life? Is truth so dear to him? Does knowledge suffice the desires of his ambition? Madman! such was my own delusion. ‘I am but a worm,’ said I to myself, ‘a worm destined to annihilation’: then, raising myself in the dust where I was crawling, I felt proud of the discovery—vain of my helpless nakedness. I believed neither in virtue nor happiness; but at the thought of annihilation I stopped proudly short and accorded my unlimited faith. My degradation appeared a triumph to me, for it was assured by a discovery of my own. Was I not justified in my estimation of a theory for which I had given in exchange no less than my regal mantle—the countless treasure of my immortality?”
The old man extended his hand encouragingly towards his companion.
“Be judged by your own image of the worm,” said Girardi. “The worm, after crawling its season on the earth, fed with bitter leaves, condemned to the slime of the marsh or the dust of the road, constructs his own chrysalis—a temporary coffin—from which to emerge, transformed, purified—to flutter from flower to flower and feed upon their precious perfumes. On two radiant wings the new creature takes its flight towards the skies, even as man, the image of his Creator, rises to the bosom of his God.”
Charney replied by a negative movement of the head.