At times it was as if a legion of spirits besieged his door: "Open
unto me! Open unto me! My sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled!"
And one result, certainly, of this constant prepossession was, that
it kept him on the alert concerning theories of the divine assistance
to man, and the world,--theories of inspiration. On the Feast of
Pentecost, on the afternoon of the thirtieth of May, news of the
death of Charles the Ninth had gone abroad promptly, with large
rumours as to the manner of it. Those streams of blood blent
themselves fantastically in Gaston's memory of the event with the
gaudy colours of the season--the crazy red trees in blossom upon the
heated sky above the old grey walls; like a fiery sunset, it might
seem, as he looked back over the ashen intervening years. To
Charles's successor (he and [136] the Queen-mother now delightfully
secure from fears, however unreasonable, of Charles's jerking dagger)
the day became a sweet one, to be noted unmistakably by various pious
and other observances, which still further fixed the thought of that
Sunday on Gaston's mind, with continual surmise as to the tendencies
of so complex and perplexing a scene.
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