Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/49

Rh himself to his race by stringent laws and duties. The drama opens when he is about to contract marriage. The Angels desire to aid him, to open a way into the Future for him through the accomplishment of his duties; the Demons tempt him to embrace falsehood.

Voice of the Guardian Angel. "Peace be to men of good will! Blessed is the man who has still a heart: he may yet be saved! Pure and true wife, reveal thyself to him! And a child be born to their House!"

Thus the words once heard by the shepherds, and which then announced a new epoch to humanity, open the Drama. They are words spoken only to men of good will,—men who sincerely seek the truth,—who, in great or new epochs, are able to comprehend it, or willing to embrace it. The number of those who have preserved a heart during the excited passions of such eras is always very small, and without it they cannot be saved, for love and self-abnegation are the essence of Christianity.

To instill new life and hope into the disappointed man, the Angel ordains that a pure and good woman shall join her fate with his, and that innocent young souls shall descend and dwell with them. Domestic love and quiet bliss are the counsel of the heavenly visitant.

Immediately after the chant of the Angel, the voice of the Demon is heard seducing the Count from the safe path of humble human duties. The glories of the ideal realm are spread before him; Nature is invoked with all her entrancing charms; ambitious desires of terrestrial greatness are awakened in his soul; he is filled with vague hopes of paradisiacal happiness, which the Demon whispers him it is quite possible to establish on earth. In the temptations so cunningly set before him by the Father of Lies, three widely-spread metaphysical systems are shadowed forth: 1st. The Ideal or Poetic; 2d. The Pantheistic; 3d. The Anthropotheistic, which deifies man. The vast symbolism of this drama is recommended to the attention of the reader.

Abiding by the counsel of the Angel, our hero marries, thus involving another in his fate. He makes a