Cain. This is the history then, my father, is it?
This is the perfect whole?
Adam. My son, it is.
And whether a dream, or if it were a dream,
A transcript of an inward spiritual fact
(As you suggest, and I allow, might be),
Not the less true because it was a dream.
I know not—O my Cain, I cannot tell,
But in my soul I think it was a dream,
And but a dream; a thing, whence’er it came,
To be forgotten and considered not.
Cain. Father, you should have told me this before;
It is no use now. Oh God, my brother! oh God!
Adam. For what is life, and what is pain or death?
You have killed Abel: Abel killed the lamb—
An act in him prepense, in you unthought of.
One step you stirred, and lo! you stood entrapped.
Cain. My father, this is true, I know; but yet,
There is some truth beside: I cannot say,
But I have heard within my soul a voice
Asking, ‘Where is thy brother?’ and I said—
That is, the evil heart within me said—
‘Am I my brother’s keeper? go ask him.
Who was it that provoked me? should he rail,
And I not smite? his death be on his head.’
But the voice answered in my soul again,
So that the other ceased and was no more.
Scene XIII.
Adam and Cain.
Cain. My father, Abel’s dead.
Adam. My son, ’tis done, it was to be done; some good end
Thereby to come, or else it had not been.
Go, for it must be. Cain, I know your heart,
You cannot be with us. Go, then, depart;
But be not over scrupulous, my son.
Cain. Curse me, my father, ere I go. Your curse
Will go with me for good; your curse
Will make me not forget,
Alas! I am not of that pious kind,
Who, when the blot has fallen upon their life,
Can look to heaven and think it white again—
Look up to heaven and find a something there
To make what is not be, altho’ it is.
My mother—ah, how you have spoke of this!
The dead—to him ’twas innocence and joy,
And purity and safety from the world:
To me the thing seems sin—the worst of sin.
If it be so, why are we here?—the world,
Why is it as I find it? The dull stone
Cast from my hand, why comes it not again?
The broken flow’ret, why does it not live?
If it be so,
Why are we here, and why is Abel dead?
Shall this be true
Of stocks and stones and mere inanimate clay,
And not in some sort also hold for us?
Adam. My son, Time healeth all,
Time and great Nature; heed her speech, and learn.
Cain. My father, you are learned in this sort:
You read the earth, as does my mother heaven.
Both books are dark to me—only I feel
That this one thing
And this one word in me must be declared;
That to forget is not to be restored;
To lose with time the sense of what we did
Cancels not that we did; what’s done remains—
I am my brother’s murderer. Woe to me!
Abel is dead. No prayers to empty heaven,
No vegetative kindness of the earth,
Will bring back warmth into his clay again,
The gentleness of love into his face.
Therefore, for me farewell;
Farewell for me the soft,
The balmy influences of night and sleep,
The satisfaction of achievement done,
The restorative pulsing of the blood
That changes all and changes e’en the soul—
And natural functions, moving as they should,
The sweet good-nights, the sweet delusive dreams
That lull us out of old things into new.
But welcome Fact, and Fact’s best brother, Work;
Welcome the conflict of the stubborn soil,
To toil the livelong day, and at the end,
Instead of rest, recarve into my brow
The dire memorial mark of what still is.
Welcome this worship, which I feel is mine;
Welcome this duty—
—the solidarity of life
And unity of individual soul.
That which I did, I did, I who am here:
There is no safety but in this; and when
I shall deny the thing that I have done,
I am a dream.
Adam. My son,
What shall I say?
That which your soul, in marriage with the world,
Imbreeds in you, accept;—how can I say
Refuse the revelations of the soul?
Yet be not over scrupulous, my son,
And be not over proud to put aside
The due consolements of the circling years.
What comes, receive; be not too wise for God.
The past is something, but the present more;
Will not it too be past?—nor fail withal
To recognise the future in our hopes;
Unite them in your manhood each and all,
Nor mutilate the perfectness of life.
You can remember, you can also hope;
And, doubtless, with the long instructive years,
Comfort will come to you, my son, to me,
Even to your mother, comfort; but to us
Knowledge, at least—the certainty of things
Which, as I think, is consolation’s sum.
For truly now, to-day, to-morrow, yes,
Days many more to come, alike to you,
Whose earliest revelation of the world
Is, horrible indeed, this fatal fact—
And unto me, who, knowing not much before,
Look gropingly and idly into this,
And recognise no figure I have seen—
Alike, my son, to me, and to yourself,
Much is now dark which one day will be light;
With strong assurance fortify your soul
Of this: and that you meet me here again,
Promise me, Cain. Farewell, to meet again.
Scene XIV.
Adam’s Vision.
Adam. O Cain, the words of Adam shall be said;
Come near and hear your father’s words, my son.
I have been in the spirit, as they call it,
Dreaming, which is, as others say, the same.
I sat, and you, Cain, with me, and Eve
(We sat as in a picture people sit,
Great figures, silent, with their place content);
And Abel came and took your hand, my son,
And wept and kissed you, saying, ‘Forgive me, Cain
Ah me! my brother, sad has been thy life
For my sake, all thro’ me; how foolishly,
Because we knew not both of us were right;’
And you embraced and wept, and we too wept.
Then I beheld through eyes with tears suffused,
And deemed at first ’twas blindness thence ensuing;
Abel was gone, and you were gone, my son—
Gone, and yet not gone; yea, I seemed to see
The decomposing of those coloured lines
Which we called you, their fusion into one,
And therewithal their vanishing and end.
And Eve said to me, ‘Adam, in the day
When in the inexistent void I heard God’s voice,
An awful whisper, bidding me to be,
How slow was I to come, how loth to obey;
As slow, as sad, as lingeringly loth,
I fade, I vanish, sink, and cease to be,
By the same sovereign strong compulsion borne:
Ah, if I vanish, take me into thee!’
She spoke, nor, speaking, ceased I listening; but
I was alone, yet not alone, with her
And she with me, and you with us, my sons,
As at the first;—and yet not wholly—yea,
And that which I had witnessed thus in you,
This fusion, and mutation, and return,
Seemed in my substance working too. I slept,
I did not dream, my sleep was sweet to me.
Yes, in despite of all disquietudes,
For Eve, for you, for Abel, which indeed
Impelled in me that gaiety of soul—
Without your fears I had listened to my own—
In spite of doubt, despondency, and death,
Though lacking knowledge alway, lacking faith
Sometimes, and hope; with no sure trust in ought
Except a kind of impetus within,
Whose sole credentials were that trust itself;
Yet, in despite of much, in lack of more,
Life has been beautiful to me, my son,
And I, if I am called, will come again.
As he hath lived he dies.—My comforter,
Whom I believed not, only trusted in,
What had I been without thee? how survived?
Would I were with thee wheresoe’er thou art!
Would I might follow thee still!
But sleep is sweet, and I would sleep, my son.
Oh Cain! behold your father’s words are said!
THE SONG OF LAMECH.
Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent:
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech:
Adah, let Jubal hither lead his goats:
And Tubal Cain, O Zillah, hush the forge;
Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou,
My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.
Yea, Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.
Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent,
Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.
For Eve made answer, Cain, my son, my own,
O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned,
And He that heard me, heard, and said me nay:
My first, my only one, thou shalt not go;—
And Adam answered also, Cain, my son,
He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive:
Rob not thy mother of two sons at once;
My child, abide with us and comfort us.
Hear ye my voice; Adah and Zillah, near;
Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.
For Cain replied not. But, an hour more, sat
Where the night through he sat; his knit brows seen,
Scarce seen, amid the foldings of his limbs.
But when the sun was bright upon the field,
To Adam still, and Eve still waiting by,
And weeping, lift he up his voice and spake
Cain said, The sun is risen upon the earth;
The day demands my going, and I go.—
As you from Paradise, so I from you:
As you to exile, into exile I:
My father and my mother, I depart.
As betwixt you and Paradise of old,
So betwixt me, my parents, now, and you,
Cherubim I discern, and in their hand
A flaming sword that turneth every way,
To keep the way of my one tree of life,
The way my spirit yearns to, of my love.
Yet not, O Adam and O Eve, fear not.
For He that asked me, Where is Abel? He
Who called me cursed from the earth, and said
A fugitive and vagabond thou art,
He also said, when fear had slain my soul,
There shall not touch thee man nor beast. Fear not.
Lo, I have spoke with God, and He hath said.
Fear not;—and let me go as He hath said.
Cain also said (O Jubal, touch thy string),—
Moreover, in the darkness of my mind,
When the night’s night of misery was most black,
A little star came twinkling up within,
And in myself I had a guide that led,
And in myself had knowledge of a soul.
Fear not, O Adam and O Eve: I go.
Children of Lamech, listen to my speech.
For when the years were multiplied, and Cain
Eastward of Eden, in this land of Nod,
Had sons, and sons of sons, and sons of them,
Enoch and Irad and Mehujael
(My father, and my children’s grandsire he),
It came to pass, that Cain, who dwelt alone,
Met Adam, at the nightfall, in the field:
Who fell upon his neck, and wept, and said,
My son, has not God spoken to thee, Cain?
And Cain replied, when weeping loosed his voice,
My dreams are double, O my father, good
And evil. Terror to my soul by night,
And agony by day, when Abel stands
A dead, black shade, and speaks not, neither looks,
Nor makes me any answer when I cry—
Curse me, but let me know thou art alive.
But comfort also, like a whisper, comes,
In visions of a deeper sleep, when he,
Abel, as him we knew, yours once and mine,
Comes with a free forgiveness in his face,
Seeming to speak, solicitous for words,
And wearing ere he go the old, first look
Of unsuspecting, unforeboding love.
Three nights are gone I saw him thus, my Sire.
Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.
For Adam said, Three nights ago to me
Came Abel, in my sleep, as thou hast said,
And spake, and bade,—Arise my father, go
Where in the land of exile dwells thy son;
Say to my brother, Abel bids thee come,
Abel would have thee; and lay thou thy hand,
My father, on his head, that he may come;
Am I not weary, father, for this hour?
Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear;
Children of Lamech, listen to my speech:
And, son of Zillah, sound thy solemn string.
For Adam laid upon the head of Cain
His hand, and Cain bowed down, and slept, and died.
And a deep sleep on Adam also fell,
And, in his slumber’s deepest, he beheld,
Standing before the gate of Paradise,
With Abel, hand in hand, our father Cain.
Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear;
Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.
Though to his wounding he did slay a man,
Yea, and a young man to his hurt he slew,
Fear not, ye wives, nor sons of Lamech fear:
If unto Cain was safety given and rest,
Shall Lamech surely and his people die?
GENESIS XXIV.
Who is this man
that walketh in the field,
O Eleazar,
steward to my lord?
And Eleazar
answered her and said,
Daughter of Bethuel,
it is other none
But my lord Isaac,
son unto my lord,
Who, as his wont is,
walketh in the field,
In the hour of evening,
meditating there.
Therefore Rebekah
hasted where she sat,
And from her camel
’lighting to the earth,
Sought for a veil
and put it on her face,
But Isaac also,
walking in the field,
Saw from afar
a company that came,
Camels, and a seat
as where a woman sat;
Wherefore he came
and met them on the way.
Whom, when Rebekah
saw, she came before,
Saying, Behold
the handmaid of my lord,
Who, for my lord’s sake,
travel from my land.
But he said, O
thou blessed of our God,
Come, for the tent
is eager for thy face.
Shall not thy husband
be unto thee more than
Hundreds of kinsmen
living in thy land?
And Eleazar answered,
Thus and thus,
Even according
as thy father bade,
Did we; and thus and
thus it came to pass:
Lo! is not this
Rebekah, Bethuel’s child?
And, as he ended,
Isaac spoke and said,
Surely my heart
went with you on the way,
When with the beasts
ye came unto the place.
Truly, O child
of Nahor, I was there,
When to thy mother
and thy mother’s son
Thou madest answer,
saying, I will go.
And Isaac brought her
to his mother’s tent.
JACOB.
My sons, and ye the children of my sons,
Jacob your father goes upon his way,
His pilgrimage is being accomplished.
Come near and hear him ere his words are o’er.
Not as my father’s or his father’s days,
As Isaac’s days or Abraham’s, have been mine;
Not as the days of those that in the field
Walked at the eventide to meditate,
And haply, to the tent returning, found
Angels at nightfall waiting at their door.
They communed, Israel wrestled with the Lord.
No, not as Abraham’s or as Isaac’s days,
My sons, have been Jacob your father’s days,
Evil and few, attaining not to theirs
In number, and in worth inferior much.
As a man with his friend, walked they with God,
In His abiding presence they abode,
And all their acts were open to His face.
But I have had to force mine eyes away,
To lose, almost to shun, the thoughts I loved,
To bend down to the work, to bare the breast,
And struggle, feet and hands, with enemies;
To buffet and to battle with hard men,
With men of selfishness and violence;
To watch by day, and calculate by night,
To plot and think of plots, and through a land
Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset,
To win with art safe wisdom’s peaceful way.
Alas! I know, and from the onset knew,
The first-born faith, the singleness of soul,
The antique pure simplicity with which
God and good angels communed undispleased,
Is not; it shall not any more be said,
That of a blameless and a holy kind,
The chosen race, the seed of promise, comes.
The royal, high prerogatives, the dower
Of innocence and perfectness of life,
Pass not unto my children from their sire,
As unto me they came of mine; they fit
Neither to Jacob nor to Jacob’s race.
Think ye, my sons, in this extreme old age
And in this failing breath, that I forget
How on the day when from my father’s door,
In bitterness and ruefulness of heart,
I from my parents set my face, and felt
I never more again should look on theirs,
How on that day I seemed unto myself
Another Adam from his home cast out,
And driven abroad unto a barren land,
Cursed for his sake, and mocking still with thorns
And briers that labour and that sweat of brow
He still must spend to live? Sick of my days,
I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die;
But at Luz God came to me; in my heart
He put a better mind, and showed me how,
While we discern it not, and least believe,
On stairs invisible betwixt His heaven
And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth
Celestial messengers of loftiest good
Upward and downward pass continually.
Many, since I upon the field of Luz
Set up the stone I slept on, unto God,
Many have been the troubles of my life;
Sins in the field and sorrows in the tent,
In mine own household anguish and despair,
And gall and wormwood mingled with my love.
The time would fail me should I seek to tell
Of a child wronged and cruelly revenged
(Accursed was that anger, it was fierce,
That wrath, for it was cruel); or of strife
And jealousy and cowardice, with lies
Mocking a father’s misery; deeds of blood,
Pollutions, sicknesses, and sudden deaths.
These many things against me many times,
The ploughers have ploughed deep upon my back,
And made deep furrows; blessed be His name
Who hath delivered Jacob out of all,
And left within his spirit hope of good.
Come near to me, my sons: your father goes,
The hour of his departure draweth nigh.
Ah me! this eager rivalry of life,
This cruel conflict for pre-eminence,
This keen supplanting of the dearest kin,
Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold
Of vantage-place; the stony hard resolve,
The chase, the competition, and the craft
Which seems to be the poison of our life,
And yet is the condition of our life!
To have done things on which the eye with shame
Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize!—
Alas! what of all these things shall I say?
Take me away unto Thy sleep, O God!
I thank Thee it is over, yet I think
It was a work appointed me of Thee.
How is it? I have striven all my days
To do my duty to my house and hearth,
And to the purpose of my father’s race,
Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied.
JACOB’S WIVES.
These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words
Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears,
When, in the shade at eventide, he sat
By the tent door, a palm-tree overhead,
A spring beside him, and the sheep around.
And Rachel spake and said, The nightfall comes—
Night, which all day I wait for, and for thee.
And Leah also spake, The day is done;
My lord with toil is weary and would rest.
And Rachel said, Come, O my Jacob, come;
And we will think we sit beside the well,
As in that day, the long long years agone,
When first I met thee with my father’s flock.
And Leah said, Come, Israel, unto me;
And thou shalt reap an harvest of fair sons,
E’en as before I bare thee goodly babes;
For when was Leah fruitless to my lord?
And Rachel said, Ah come! as then thou cam’st,
Come once again to set thy seal of love;
As then, down bending, when the sheep had drunk,
Then settedst it, my shepherd—O sweet seal!—
Upon the unwitting, half-foretasting lips,
Which, shy and trembling, thirsted yet for thine
As cattle thirsted never for the spring.
And Leah answered, Are not these their names—
As Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah—four?
Like four young saplings by the water’s brim,
Where straining rivers through the great plain wind—
Four saplings soon to rise to goodly trees—
Four trees whose growth shall cast an huger shade
Than ever yet on river-side was seen.
And Rachel said, And shall it be again
As, when dissevered far, unheard, alone,
Consumed in bitter anger all night long,
I moaned and wept, while, silent and discreet,
One reaped the fruit of love that Rachel’s was
Upon the breast of him that knew her not?
And Leah said, And was it then a wrong
That, in submission to a father’s word,
Trembling yet hopeful, to that bond I crept,
Which God hath greatly prospered, and my lord,
Content, in after-wisdom not disowned,
Joyful, in after-thankfulness approved?
And Rachel said, But we will not complain,
Though all life long, an alien, unsought third,
She trouble our companionship of love.
And Leah answered, No, complain we not,
Though years on years she loiter in the tent,
A fretful, vain, unprofitable wife.
And Rachel answered, Ah! she little knows
What in old days to Jacob Rachel was.
And Leah said, And wilt thou dare to say,
Because my lord was gracious to thee then,
No deeper thought his riper cares hath claimed,
No stronger purpose passed into his life?
That, youth and maid once fondly, softly touched,
Time’s years must still the casual dream repeat,
And all the river far, from source to sea,
One flitting moment’s chance reflection bear?
Also she added, Who is she to judge
Of thoughts maternal, and a father’s heart?
And Rachel said, But what to supersede
The rights which choice bestowed hath Leah done?
What which my handmaid or which hers hath not?
Is Simeon more than Naphtali? is Dan
Less than his brother Levi in the house?
That part that Billah and that Zilpah have,
That, and no more, hath Leah in her lord;
And let her with the same be satisfied.
Leah asked then, And shall these things compare
(Fond wishes, and the pastime, and the play)
With serious aims and forward-working hopes—
Aims as far-reaching as to earth’s last age,
And hopes far-travelling as from east to west?
Rachel replied, That love which in his youth,
Through trial proved, consoles his perfect age;
Shall this with project and with plan compare?
Is not for-ever shorter than all time,
And love more straitened than from east to west?
Leah spake further, Hath my lord not told
How, in the visions of the night, his God,
The God of Abraham and of Isaac, spake
And said, Increase, and multiply, and fill
With sons to serve Me this thy land and mine;
And I will surely do thee good, and make
Thy seed as is the sand beside the sea,
Which is not numbered for its multitude?
Shall Rachel bear this progeny to God?
But Rachel wept and answered, And if God
Hath closed the womb of Rachel until now,
Shall He not at His pleasure open it?
Hath Leah read the counsels of the Lord?
Was it not told her, in the ancient days,
How Sarah, mother of great Israel’s sire,
Lived to long years, insulted of her slave,
Or e’er to light the Child of Promise came,
Whom Rachel too to Jacob yet may bear?
Moreover, Rachel said, Shall Leah mock,
Who stole the prime embraces of my love,
My first long-destined, long-withheld caress?
But not, she said, methought, but not for this,
In the old days, did Jacob seek his bride;—
Where art thou now, O thou that sought’st me then?
Where is thy loving tenderness of old?
And where that fervency of faith to which
Seven weary years were even as a few days?
And Rachel wept and ended, Ah, my life!
Though Leah bare thee sons on sons, methought
The child of love, late-born, were worth them all.
And Leah groaned and answered, It is well:
She that hath kept from me my husband’s heart
Will set their father’s soul against my sons.
Yet, also, not, she said, I thought, for this,
Not for the feverish nor the doating love,
Doth Israel, father of a nation, seek;
Nor to light dalliance, as of boy and girl,
Incline the thoughts of matron and of man,
Or lapse the wisdom of maturer mind.
And Leah ended, Father of my sons,
Come, thou shalt dream of Rachel if thou wilt,
So Leah fold thee in a wife’s embrace.
These are the words of Jacob’s wives, who sat
In the tent door, and listened to their speech,
The spring beside him, and above the palm,
While all the sheep were gathered for the night.
THE NEW SINAI.
Lo, here is God, and there is God!
Believe it not, O Man;
In such vain sort to this and that
The ancient heathen ran:
Though old Religion shake her head,
And say in bitter grief,
The day behold, at first foretold,
Of atheist unbelief:
Take better part, with manly heart,
Thine adult spirit can;
Receive it not, believe it not,
Believe it not, O Man!
As men at dead of night awaked
With cries, ‘The king is here,’
Rush forth and greet whome’er they meet,
Whoe’er shall first appear;
And still repeat, to all the street,
‘’Tis he,—the king is here;’
The long procession moveth on,
Each nobler form they see,
With changeful suit they still salute
And cry, ‘’Tis he, ’tis he!’
So, even so, when men were young,
And earth and heaven were new,
And His immediate presence He
From human hearts withdrew,
The soul perplexed and daily vexed
With sensuous False and True,
Amazed, bereaved, no less believed,
And fain would see Him too:
‘He is!’ the prophet-tongues proclaimed;
In joy and hasty fear,
‘He is!’ aloud replied the crowd,
‘Is here, and here, and here.’
‘He is! They are!’ in distance seen
On yon Olympus high,
In those Avernian woods abide,
And walk this azure sky:
‘They are! They are!’—to every show
Its eyes the baby turned,
And blazes sacrificial, tall,
On thousand altars burned:
‘They are! They are!’—On Sinai’s top
Far seen the lightnings shone,
The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke,
And God said, ‘I am One.’
God spake it out, ‘I, God, am One;’
The unheeding ages ran,
And baby-thoughts again, again,
Have dogged the growing man:
And as of old from Sinai’s top
God said that God is One,
By Science strict so speaks He now
To tell us, There is None!
Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven’s
A Mécanique Céleste!
And heart and mind of human kind
A watch-work as the rest!
Is this a Voice, as was the Voice,
Whose speaking told abroad,
When thunder pealed, and mountain reeled,
The ancient truth of God?
Ah, not the Voice; ’tis but the cloud,
The outer darkness dense,
Where image none, nor e’er was seen
Similitude of sense.
’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense
That wrapt the Mount around;
While in amaze the people stays,
To hear the Coming Sound.
Is there no prophet-soul the while
To dare, sublimely meek,
Within the shroud of blackest cloud
The Deity to seek?
’Midst atheistic systems dark,
And darker hearts’ despair,
That soul has heard perchance His word,
And on the dusky air
His skirts, as passed He by, to see
Hath strained on their behalf,
Who on the plain, with dance amain,
Adore the Golden Calf.
’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense;
Though blank the tale it tells,
No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth,
Is there—within it dwells;
Within the sceptic darkness deep
He dwells that none may see,
Till idol forms and idol thoughts
Have passed and ceased to be:
No God, no Truth! ah though, in sooth
So stand the doctrine’s half:
On Egypt’s track return not back,
Nor own the Golden Calf.
Take better part, with manlier heart,
Thine adult spirit can;
No God, no Truth, receive it ne’er—
Believe it ne’er—O Man!
But turn not then to seek again
What first the ill began;
No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith
God’s self-completing plan;
Receive it not, but leave it not,
And wait it out, O Man!
‘The Man that went the cloud within
Is gone and vanished quite;
He cometh not,’ the people cries,
‘Nor bringeth God to sight:
Lo these thy gods, that safety give,
Adore and keep the feast!’
Deluding and deluded cries
The Prophet’s brother-Priest:
And Israel all bows down to fall
Before the gilded beast.
Devout, indeed! that priestly creed,
O Man, reject as sin;
The clouded hill attend thou still,
And him that went within.
He yet shall bring some worthy thing
For waiting souls to see:
Some sacred word that he hath heard
Their light and life shall be;
Some lofty part, than which the heart
Adopt no nobler can,
Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe
And thou shalt do, O Man!
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