登陆注册
5251700000079

第79章 COUNTESS SATAN(2)

"All this may appear madness to you, but it is, nevertheless, the exact truth. In short, one morning she bluntly made the offer:

" 'Become Bakounine's soul, and you shall possess me.'

"Of course I accepted, for it was too fantastically strange to refuse. Don't you think so? What an adventure! What luck! Anumber of letters between the Countess and Bakounine prepared the way; I was introduced to him at his house, and they discussed me there. I became a sort of Western prophet, a mystic charmer who was ready to nihilize the Latin races, the Saint Paul of the new religion of nothingness, and at last a day was fixed for us to meet in London. He lived in a small, one-storied house in Pimlico, with a tiny garden in front, and nothing noticeable about it.

"We were first of all shown into the commonplace parlor of all English homes, and then upstairs. The room where the Countess and I were left was small, and very badly furnished. It had a square table with writing materials on it, in the center of the room.

This was his sanctuary. The deity soon appeared, and I saw him in flesh and bone--especially in flesh, for he was enormously stout.

His broad face, with prominent cheek-bones, in spite of fat; a nose like a double funnel; and small, sharp eyes, which had a magnetic lock, proclaimed the Tartar, the old Turanian blood which produced the Attilas, the Genghis-Khans, the Tamerlanes.

The obesity which is characteristic of nomad races, who are always on horseback or driving, added to his Asiatic look. The man was certainly not a European, a slave, a descendant of the deistic Aryans, but a scion of the atheistic hordes who had several times already almost overrun Europe, and who, instead of ideas of progress, have Nihilism buried in their hearts.

"I was astonished, for I had not expected that the majesty of a whole race could be thus revived in a man, and my stupefaction increased after an hour's conversation. I could quite understand why such a Colossus had not wished for the Countess as his Egeria; she was a silly child to have dreamed of acting such a part to such a thinker. She had not felt the profoundness of that horrible, philosophy which was hidden under his material activity, nor had she seen the prophet under this hero of the barricades. Perhaps he had not thought it advisable to reveal himself to her; but he revealed himself to me, and inspired me with terror.

"A prophet? Oh! yes. He thought himself an Attila, and foresaw the consequences of his revolution; it was not only from instinct but also from theory that he urged a nation on to Nihilism. The phrase is not his, but Turgenieff's, I believe, but the idea certainly belonged to him. He got his programme of agricultural communism from Herzen, and his destructive radicalism from Pougatcheff, but he did not stop there. I mean that he went on to evil for the sake of evil. Herzen wished for the happiness of the Slav peasant; Pougatcheff wanted to be elected Emperor, but all that Bakounine wanted was to overthrow the actual order of things, no matter by what means, and to replace social concentration by a universal upheaval.

"It was the dream of a Tartar; it was true Nihilism pushed to extreme and practical conclusions. It was, in a word, the applied philosophy of chance, the indeterminate end of anarchy. Monstrous it may be, but grand in its monstrosity!

"And you must note that the typical man of action so despised by the Countess was, in Bakounine, the gigantic dreamer whom I have just shown to you. His dream did not remain a dream, but began to be realized. It was by the care of Bakounine that the Nihilistic party became an entity; a party in which there is a little of everything, you know, but on the whole, a formidable party, the advanced guard of which is true Nihilism, whose object is nothing less than to destroy the Western world, to see it blossom from under the ruins of a general dispersion, the last conception of modern Tartarism.

"I never saw Bakounine again, for the Countess's conquest would have been too dearly bought by any attempt to act a comedy with this 'Old-Man-of-the-Mountain.' And besides that, after this visit, poor Countess Satan appeared to me quite silly. Her famous Satanism was nothing but the flicker of a spirit-lamp, after the general conflagration of which the other had dreamed. She had certainly shown herself very silly, when she could not understand that prodigious monster. And as she had seduced me only by her intellect and her perversity, I was disgusted as soon as she laid aside that mask. I left her without telling her of my intention, and never saw her again, either.

"No doubt they both took me for a spy from the 'Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery.' In that case, they must have thought me very clever to have escaped discovery, and all I have to do is to look out, lest any affiliated members of their society recognize me!"Then he smiled and, turning to the waiter who had just come in, said: "Open another bottle of champagne, and make the cork pop!

It will, at any rate, remind us of the day when we ourselves shall be blown up with dynamite."

同类推荐
  • The Autobiography of Ben Franklin

    The Autobiography of Ben Franklin

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佩玉斋类稿

    佩玉斋类稿

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 祖庭指南

    祖庭指南

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Paul Prescott's Charge

    Paul Prescott's Charge

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 深雪偶谈

    深雪偶谈

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 宝重《弟子规》

    宝重《弟子规》

    今天这个时代,依然可用狄更斯《双城记》刚刚开始的几句话来描述:“这是最好的时代,这是最坏的时代;这是最聪明的时代,这是最愚蠢的时代;这是信任的时代,这是欺骗的时代……”
  • 兰盆献供仪

    兰盆献供仪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 我的心愿契约

    我的心愿契约

    面对生活中感情的变质、深重的执念或是猝不及防的失去,我们总是无能为力。给你一个机会,神秘网站可以满足你一个愿望,帮助你挽回感情,失而复得,放下执念等等,但你将会因此付出未知的代价。你,准备好了吗?
  • 四六鸳鸯谱

    四六鸳鸯谱

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 魔幻星球

    魔幻星球

    一个在幻境中寻找真实、力量、勇气以及正义的星球。在这里有你意想不到的魔法生灵,也有让你匪夷所思的美妙画面,更有邪恶和正义之间水火不容的交锋。邪恶的心在这充满魔幻色彩的星球上是怎么寻找它失落的岁月的,正义的力量又是如何一次次的化解危难。
  • 重生别样修仙

    重生别样修仙

    重生了,看着前世的自己,为了一个男人最后牺牲了自己的性命,想着前世的种种,重生之后自己觉醒了,以后就做自己,随心所欲,管你是仙尊也好,师傅也罢,我都不理睬,我只要我的飞升之路!
  • 为了出名我太难了

    为了出名我太难了

    这个世界里,谁不想成为闪闪惹人爱的大明星?早早不想。本是锦衣玉食姿貌优越的天才少女,干嘛去做吃累受罪整日讨好别人的艺人活计。早早这辈子也不想。可是瘦小可怜又无助的咸鱼之身怎么架得住家破人亡巨债压身...一定要成为能改变一个世界的大明星呀。哎鸭,还是先努力在水深火热的娱乐圈活下来叭_(:з」∠)_
  • 重生之超级法师

    重生之超级法师

    几十年前,他灭倭寇,闯鬼寺,锁妖龙,名震一方。然师门被灭,爱人离去,令他心如死灰。几十年后,他获新生,拾旧梦,诛心魔,转战都市。他是个法师,这是他的故事。
  • 丝绸之路重镇宁夏固原:回族民俗

    丝绸之路重镇宁夏固原:回族民俗

    传统行政区划意义上的“固原”,指位于宁夏回族自治区南部、清水河上游西岸、有着“贫瘠甲天下”之称的大片黄土丘陵地区,也就是人们通常说的“固原地区”或“西海固地区”。包括固原市原州区、海原县、西吉县、隆德县、彭阳县、泾源县。由于其悠久的历史、独特的地理位置、恶劣的自然环境、众多的回族人口,使“西海固”这一独特的自然文化地理概念闻名于世。
  • 西方哲学史(古代哲学)

    西方哲学史(古代哲学)

    由伯兰特·罗素著的《西方哲学史(古代哲学)》是在哲学与社会生活的相互作用和密切联系中讲述西方哲学发展的历史,而不是单纯地讲西方哲学自身的发展,不是讲纯哲学概念或哲学问题的发展。在此书中,总是试图把每一个哲学家看作是时代的产物,又考察他们对时代的影响。