Читать книгу Кельтские сумерки. Уровень 1 / The Celtic Twilight - Уильям Батлер Йейтс - Страница 14

I

Once, a woman from Mayo told me a story. She said, “I knew a maid who hanged herself [96]because of her love for God. She felt lonely without the priest and her community, so she used a scarf to hang herself from the banister. As soon as she died, she turned as white as a lily. They gave her a Christian burial, and the priest said that she was immediately with the Lord after her death. So, it doesn’t matter what you do for the love of God.” I understand why she enjoys telling this story. She herself has a strong love for all things holy. She once told me that she sees everything described in a sermon with her own eyes. She described the gates of Purgatory as they appeared to her. One day, she asked me which month and flower were the most beautiful. When I said I didn’t know, she replied, “The month of May because of the Virgin Mary, and the lily of the valley because it never sinned, but came pure out of the rocks.” Then she asked, “Why are there the three cold months of winter?” I didn’t know the answer to that either, so she said, “It’s the sin of humanity and God’s punishment.”

She thinks the fairies are pleasant and beautiful. She never calls them Fallen Angels[97]. They are like regular people, but more attractive. She often watches them drive their wagons[98] through the sky, one after another, in a long line. Even though they once knocked her down[99], she doesn’t think badly of them. She saw them most frequently when she worked in King’s County. One morning, she told me, “Last night, I was waiting for the master until a quarter past eleven. Then I heard a loud noise on the table. I laughed so much that I almost died. It was a sign that I was staying up too late. They wanted the place to themselves.” Once, I told her about someone who saw fairies and fainted. She said, “It couldn’t have been a fairy, but something evil. Nobody faints at the sight of fairies. It must have been a demon. Fairies are the best neighbors. If you treat them well, they will treat you well, but they don’t like it when you cross their path.” Another time she said to me, “They are always kind to the poor.”

II

There is, however, a man in a Galway village who can see nothing but wickedness. Some people think he is very holy, but others think he is a little crazy. He says, “I know a priest who was looking on the ground like he was searching for something, and a voice said to him, ‘If you want to see them, you will see plenty of them,’ and his eyes opened, and he saw many of them on the ground. Sometimes they sing and dance, but they always have split feet[100]. One night, after walking back from Kinvara, he felt one coming beside him. He could feel the horse the fairies was riding, but it didn’t sound like a horse’s hooves[101]. So he stopped, turned around, and loudly said, ‘Go away!’ and the fairies left and never bothered him again. He thinks they are fallen angels, and after their fall, God created Hell[102]”

“I saw Hell once. It was like a vision. It had a tall metal wall around it with an archway[103] and a straight path leading into it. Inside the wall, there were pathways, and on the left, there were five big furnaces[104] where souls were kept with heavy chains. I quickly turned and left, but as I turned, I looked at the wall again and couldn’t see an end to it.

“Another time, I saw Purgatory. It seemed to be in a flat place without any walls, just a bright fire, and souls standing in it. They suffer almost as much as in Hell, but there are no devils there, and they have hope for Heaven.”

“ And I heard a voice calling to me from there, saying, ‘Help me get out of here!’ When I looked, it was a man I knew from the army, an Irishman from this county. “

“I reached out my hand at first, but then I shouted, ‘I’d rather be burned in the flames than come within three yards of you.’ So he said, ‘Well, help me with your prayers,’ and that’s what I do.

1902.