"The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

1850
THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION
by Edgar Allan Poe

I will bring fire to thee.
EURIPIDES Andiom.

EIROS. Why do you call me Eiros?
CHARMION. So henceforth will you always be called. You must
forget, too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.
EIROS. This is indeed no dream!
CHARMION. Dreams are with us no more; but of these mysteries anon. I
rejoice to see you looking like-life and rational. The film of the
shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart and fear
nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired; and, to-morrow,
I will myself induct you into the full joys and wonders of your
novel existence.
EIROS. True, I feel no stupor, none at all. The wild sickness and
the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad,
rushing, horrible sound, like the "voice of many waters." Yet my
senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their perception
of the new.
CHARMION. A few days will remove all this;- but I fully understand
you, and feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent
what you undergo, yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. You
have now suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in
Aidenn.
EIROS. In Aidenn?
CHARMION. In Aidenn.
EIROS. Oh, God!- pity me, Charmion!- I am overburthened with the
majesty of all things- of the unknown now known- of the speculative
Future merged in the august and certain Present.
CHARMION. Grapple not now with such thoughts. Tomorrow we will speak
of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the
exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward- but back. I
am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event
which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar
things, in the old familiar language of the world which has so
fearfully perished.
EIROS. Most fearfully, fearfully!- this is indeed no dream.
CHARMION. Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?
EIROS. Mourned, Charmion?- oh deeply. To that last hour of all,
there hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your
household.
CHARMION. And that last hour- speak of it. Remember that, beyond the
naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out
from among mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave- at that
period, if I remember aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was
utterly unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative
philosophy of the day.