Page:Zanoni.djvu/141

CHAPTER IV.

Les Intelligences Célestes se font voir, et se communiquent plus volontiers, dans le silence et dans la tranquillité de la solitude. On aura donc une petite chambre ou un cabinet secret, &c.^[1]—Les Clavicules de Rabhi Salomon, chap. 3; traduites exactement du texte Hebreu par M. Pierre Morissoneau, Professeur des Langues Orientales, et Sectateur de la Philosophie des Sages Cabalistes. (Manuscript Translation.)

The Palace retained by Zanoni was in one of the less frequented quarters of the city. It still stands, now ruined and dismantled, a monument of the splendour of a chivalry long since vanished from Naples, with the lordly races of the Norman and the Spaniard.

As he entered the rooms reserved for his private hours, two Indians, in the dress of their country, received him at the threshold with the grave salutations of the East. They had accompanied him from the far lands in which, according to rumour, he had for many years fixed his home. But they could communicate nothing to gratify curiosity or justify suspicion. They spoke no language but their own. With the exception of these two, his princely retinue was composed of the native hirelings of the city, whom his lavish

1. The Celestial Intelligences exhibit and explain themselves most freely in silence and the tranquillity of solitude. One will have then a little chamber, or a secret cabinet, &c.