Not knowing where she was, she turned her
eyes on all sides, as if to recognise the surrounding scene; this
singular lake, those flames reflected from its glassy surface, the pale
hues of its banks, the romantic cabins, the bulrushes that sadly waved
their drooping heads, the storks whose melancholy cries blended with the
shrill voices of the dwarfs, everything conspired to persuade them that
the Angel of Death had opened the portal of some other world.
Gulchenrouz on his part, lost in wonder, clung to the neck of his cousin:
he believed himself in the region of phantoms, and was terrified at the
silence she preserved; at length addressing her:
"Speak," said he, "where are we? do you not see those spectres that are
stirring the burning coals? are they Monker and Nakir, come to throw us
into them? does the fatal bridge cross this lake, whose solemn stillness
perhaps conceals from us an abyss, in which for whole ages we shall be
doomed incessantly to sink?"
"No, my children!" said Sutlememe, going towards them, "take comfort! the
exterminating Angel, who conducted our souls hither after yours, hath
assured us that the chastisement of your indolent and voluptuous life
shall be restricted to a certain series of years, which you must pass in
this dreary abode, where the sun is scarcely visible, and where the soil
yields neither fruits nor flowers.
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