Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/52

 46 The reiterated warning is given to him in vain. The Demon of political and warlike ambition then appears to him under the form of a gigantic eagle, whose wings stir him like the cannon's roar, the trumpet's call; he yields to the temptation, and the Guardian Angel pleads no more! He determines to become great, renowned, to rule over men: military glory and political power are to console him for the domestic ruin he has spread around him, in having preferred the delusions of his own excited imagination to the love and faith of the simple but tender heart which God had confided to him in the holy bond of marriage. The love and deification of self in the delusive show of military and political glory is the lowest and last temptation into which a noble soul can fall, for individual fame is preferred to God's eternal justice, and men are willing to die, if only laurel-crowned, with joy and pride even in a bad cause.

In the third part of the comedy we are introduced into the "new world." The old world, with its customs, prejudices, oppressions, charities, laws, has been almost destroyed. The details of the struggle, which must have been long and dreadful, are not given to us; they are to be divined. Several years are supposed to have passed between the end of the second and the beginning of the third part; and we are called to witness the triumphs of the victors, and the tortures of the vanquished. The character of the "idol of the people" is an admirable conception. All that is negative and destructive in the revolutionary tendencies of European society is skillfully seized upon and incarnated in a single individual. His mission is to destroy. He possesses a great intellect, but no heart. He says: "Of the blood we shed to-day, no trace will be left to-morrow." In corroboration of this conception of the character of a modern reformer, it is well known that most of the projected reforms of the present century have proceeded from the brains of logicians and philosophers.

This man of intellect succeeds in grasping power. His appearance speaks his character. His forehead is high and angular, his head is entirely bald, his expression cold and impassible, his lips never smile,—he is of the same