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BY
DANTE G. ROSSETTI
'Not a drop of her blood was human,
But she was made like a soft sweet woman'
Lilith's rest. Now he had made a new departure,--and in the eagerness of her desire to know why this stranger was thus freely admitted into the usually forbidden precincts, she went her way downstairs to seek Féraz, and learn from him the explanation of what seemed so mysterious. But it was now past ten o'clock at night, and Féraz was asleep,--fast locked in such a slumber that though Zaroba shook him and called him several times, she could not rouse him from his deep and almost death-like torpor. Baffled in her attempt, she gave it up at last, and descended to the kitchen to prepare her own frugal supper,--resolving, however, that as soon as she heard Féraz stirring she would put him through such a catechism, that she would find out, in spite of El-Râmi's haughty reticence, the name of the unknown visitor and the nature of his errand.
Meanwhile, El-Râmi himself and his grave companion stood by the
couch of Lilith, and looked upon her in all her peaceful beauty for some
minutes in silence. Presently El-Râmi grew impatient at the absolute
impassiveness of the monk's attitude and the strange look
in his eyes--a look which expressed nothing but solemn compassion and reverence.
"Well!" he exclaimed almost brusquely--"Now you
see Lilith, as she is."
"Not so!" said the monk quietly--"I do not see
her as she is. But I have seen her,--whereas, ... you
have not!"
El-Râmi turned upon him somewhat angrily.
"Why will you always speak in riddles?" he
said--"In plain language, what do you mean?"
"In plain language I mean what I say"--returned the
monk composedly--"And I tell you I have seen Lilith. The Soul of
Lilith is Lilith;--not this brittle casket made of earthy
materials which we now look upon, and which is preserved from decomposition
by an electric fluid. But--beautiful as it is--it is a
corpse--and nothing more."
El-Râmi regarded him with an expression of haughty amazement.
"Can a corpse breathe?" he inquired--"Can a
corpse have colour and movement? This Body was the body of a child when
first I began my experiment,--now it is a woman's
form full-grown and perfect--and you tell me it is a corpse!"
"I tell you no more than you told Féraz," said the
monk coldly--"When the boy trespassed your command and yielded
to the suggestion of your servant Zaroba, did you not assure him that
Lilith was dead?"'
El-Râmi started;--these words certainly gave him a violent
shock of amazement.
"God!" he exclaimed--"How can you know all
this?--Where did you hear it? Does the very air convey messages to you
from a distance?--Does the light copy scenes for you, or what is it
that gives you such a superhuman faculty for knowing everything you choose
to know?"
The monk smiled gravely.
"I have only one method of work, El-Râmi"--he
said--"And that method you are perfectly aware of, though you
would not adopt it when I would have led you into its mystery. 'No
man cometh to the Father, but by Me.' You know that old well-worn
text--read so often, heard so often, that its true meaning is utterly
lost sight of and forgotten. 'Coming to the Father' means the
attainment of a superhuman intuition--a superhuman knowledge,--but as you do not believe in these things, let them pass. But you were perfectly right when you told Féraz that this Lilith is dead;--of course she is dead,--dead as a plant that is dried but has its colour preserved, and is made to move its leaves by artificial means. This body's breath is artificial,--the liquid in its veins is not blood, but a careful compound of the electric fluid that generates all life,--and it might be possible to preserve it thus forever. Whether its growth would continue is a scientific question; it might and it might not,--probably it would cease if the Soul held no more communication with it. For its growth, which you consider so remarkable, is simply the result of a movement of the brain;--when you force back the Spirit to converse through its medium, the brain receives an impetus, which it communicates to the spine and nerves,--the growth and extension of the muscles is bound to follow. Nevertheless, it is really a chemically animated corpse; it is not Lilith. Lilith herself I know."
"Lilith herself you know!" echoed El-
Râmi, stupefied--"You know ...! What is it that you would imply?"
"I know Lilith"--said the monk steadily, "as you
have never known her. I have seen her as you have never seen her. She is a
lonely creature,--a wandering angel, for ever waiting,--for ever
hoping. Unloved, save by the Highest Love, she wends her flight from star
to star, from world to world,--a spirit beautiful, but incomplete as a
flower without its stem,--a bird without its mate. But her destiny is
changing,--she will not be alone for long,--the hours ripen to
their best fulfilment,--and Love, the crown and completion of her
being, will unbind her chains and send her soaring to the Highest Joy in
the glorious liberty of the free!"
While he spoke thus, softly, yet with eloquence and passion, a dark
flush crept over El-Râmi's face,--his eyes glittered and his
hand trembled--he seemed to be making some fierce inward resolve. He
controlled himself, however, and asked with a studied
indifference--
"Is this your prophecy?"
"It is not a prophecy; it is a truth;"
replied the monk gently--"If you doubt me, why not ask Her? She is here."
"Here?" El-Râmi looked about vaguely, first at the
speaker, then at the couch where the so-called "corpse" lay
breathing tranquilly--"Here, did you say? Naturally,--of
course she is here."
And his glance reverted again to Lilith's slumbering form.
"No--not here--" said the monk with a
gesture towards the
couch--"but--there!"
And he pointed to the centre of the room where the lamp shed a mellow
golden lustre, on the pansy-embroidered carpet, and where from the tall
crystal vase of Venice ware, a fresh, branching cluster of pale roses
exhaled their delicious perfume. El-Râmi stared, but could see
nothing,--nothing save the lamp-light and the nodding flowers.
"There?" he repeated
bewildered--"Where?"
"Alas for you, that you cannot see her!" said the monk
compassionately. "This blindness of your sight proves that for you
the veil has not yet been withdrawn. Lilith is there, I tell you;--she
stands close to
those roses,--her white form radiates like lightning--her hair is like the glory of the sunshine on amber,--her eyes are bent upon the flowers, which are fully conscious of her shining presence. For flowers are aware of angels' visits, when men see nothing! Round her and above her are the trailing films of light caught from the farthest stars,--she is alone as usual,--her looks are wistful and appealing,--will you not speak to her?"
El-Râmi's surprise, vexation and fear were beyond all words as he
heard this description,--then he became scornful and incredulous.
"Speak to her!" he repeated--"Nay--if you
see her as plainly as you say--let her speak!"
"You will not understand her speech--" said the
monk--"Not unless it be conveyed to you in earthly words through
that earthly medium there--" and he pointed to the fair form on
the couch--"But, otherwise you will not know what she is saying.
Nevertheless--if you wish it,--she shall speak."
"I wish nothing--" said El-Râmi quickly and
haughtily--"If you imagine you see her,--and if you can
command this creature of
your imagination to speak, why do so; but Lilith as I know her, speaks to none save me."
The monk lifted his hands with a solemn movement as of prayer--
"Soul of Lilith!" he said
entreatingly--"Angel-wanderer in the spheres beloved of
God--if, by the Master's grace I have seen the vision
clearly--speak!"
Silence followed. El-Râmi fixed his eyes on Lilith's visible
recumbent form,--no voice could make reply, he thought, save that
which must issue from those lovely lips curved close in placid
slumber,--but the monk's gaze was fastened in quite an opposite
direction. All at once a strain of music, soft as a song played on the
water by moonlight, rippled through the room. With mellow richness the
cadence rose and fell,--it had a marvellous sweet sound, rhythmical
and suggestive of words,--unimaginable words, fairies'
language,--anything that was removed from mortal speech, but that was
all the same capable of utterance. El-Râmi listened
perplexed;--he had never heard anything so convincingly, almost
painfully sweet,--till suddenly it ceased as it had
begun, abruptly, and the monk looked round at him.
"You heard her?" he inquired--"Did you
understand?"
"Understand what?" asked El-Râmi
impatiently--"I heard music--nothing more."
The monk's eyes rested upon him in grave compassion.
"Your spiritual perception does not go far, El-Râmi
Zarânos--" he said gently--"Lilith
spoke;--her voice was the music."
El-Râmi trembled;--for once his strong nerves were somewhat
shaken. The man beside him was one whom he knew to be absolutely truthful,
unselfishly wise,--one who scorned "trickery" and who had
no motive for deceiving him,--one also who was known to possess a
strange and marvellous familiarity with "things unproved and
unseen." In spite of his sceptical nature, all he dared assume
against his guest, was that he was endowed with a perfervid imagination
which persuaded him of the existence of what were really only the
"airy nothings" of his brain. The irreproachable grandeur,
purity and simplicity of the monk's life as
known among his brethren, were of an ideal perfection never before attempted or attained by man,--and as he met the steady, piercing faithful look of his companion's eyes,--clear fine eyes such as, reverently speaking, one might have imagined the Christ to have had when in the guise of humanity He looked love on all the world,--El-Râmi was fairly at a loss for words. Presently he recovered himself sufficiently to speak, though his accents were hoarse and tremulous.
"I will not doubt you;--" he said
slowly--"But if the Soul of Lilith is here present as you
say,--and if it spoke, surely I may know the purport of its
language!"
"Surely you may!" replied the monk--"Ask her in
your own way to repeat what she said just now. There--" and he
smiled gravely as he pointed to the couch--"there is your human
phonograph!"
Perplexed, but willing to solve the mystery, El-Râmi bent above
the slumbering girl, and taking her hands in his own, called her by name in
his usual manner. The reply came soon--though somewhat faintly.
"I am here!"
"How long have you been here?" asked El-Râmi.
"Since my friend came."
"Who is that friend, Lilith?"
"One that is near you now--" was the response.
"Did you speak to this friend a while ago?"
"Yes!"
The answer was more like a sigh than an assent.
"Can you repeat what you said?"
Lilith stretched her fair arms out with a gesture of weariness.
"I said I was tired--" she murmured--"Tired
of the search through Infinity for things that are not. A wayward Will bids
me look for Evil--I search, but cannot find it;--for Hell, a
place of pain and torment,--up and down, around and around the
everlasting circles I wend my way, and can discover no such abode of
misery. Then I bring back the messages of truth,--but they are
rejected, and I am sorrowful. All the realms of God are bright with beauty
save this one dark prison of Man's Fantastic Dream. Why am I bound here? I
long
to reach the light!--I am tired of the darkness!" She paused--then added--"This is what I said to one who is my friend."
Vaguely pained, and stricken with a sudden remorse, El-Râmi
asked:
"Am not I your friend, Lilith?"
A shudder ran through her delicate limbs. Then the answer came
distinctly, yet reluctantly:
"No!"
El-Râmi dropped her hands as though he had been stung;--his
face was very pale. The monk touched him on the shoulder.
"Why are you so moved?" he asked--"A spirit
cannot lie;--an angel cannot flatter. How should she call you
friend?--you, who detain her here solely for your own interested
purposes?--To you she is a 'subject' merely,--no more
than the butterfly dissected by the naturalist. The butterfly has hopes,
ambitions, loves, delights, innocent wishes, nay even a
religion,--what are all these to the grim spectacled scientist who
breaks its delicate wings? The Soul of Lilith, like a climbing flower,
strains instinctively upward,--but you--(for a certain time
only) according to the natural magnetic laws which compel the stronger to subdue the weaker, have been able to keep this, her ethereal Essence, a partial captive under your tyrannical dominance. Yes--I say 'tyrannical,'--great wisdom should inspire love,--but in you it only inspires despotism. Yet with all your skill and calculation you have strangely overlooked one inevitable result of your great Experiment."
El-Râmi looked up inquiringly but said nothing.
"How it is that you have not foreseen this thing I cannot
imagine"--continued the monk--"The body of Lilith has
grown under your very eyes from the child to the woman by the merest
material means,--the chemicals which Nature gives us, and the forces
which Nature allows us to employ. How then should you deem it possible for
the Soul to remain stationary? With every fresh experience its form
expands--its desires increase,--its knowledge widens,--and
the everlasting Necessity of Love compels its life to Love's primeval
Source. The Soul of Lilith is awakening to its fullest immortal
consciousness,--she realizes her connection with the great angelic worlds--her kindredship with those worlds' inhabitants, and as she gains this glorious knowledge more certainly, so she gains strength. And this is the result I warn you of--her force will soon baffle yours, and you will have no more influence over her than you have over the highest Archangel in the realms of the Supreme Creator."
"A woman's Soul!--only a woman's soul, remember
that!" said El-Râmi dreamily--"How should it baffle
mine? Of slighter character--of more sensitive balance--and
always prone to yield,--how should it prove so strong? Though, of
course, you will tell me that Souls, like Angels, are sexless."
"I will tell you nothing of the sort"--said the monk
quietly. "Because it would not be true. All created things have Sex,
even the Angels. 'Male and Female created He
them'--recollect that,--when it is said God made Man in
'His Own Image.'"
El-Râmi's eyes opened wide in astonishment.
"What! Is it possible you would endow God Himself with the
Feminine attributes as well as the Masculine?"
"There are Two Governing Forces of the Universe," replied
the monk deliberately--"One, the masculine, is Love,--the
other, feminine, is Beauty. These Two, reigning together, are
GOD;--just as man and wife are One. From Love and Beauty proceed Law
and Order. You cannot away with it--it is so. Love and Beauty produce
and reproduce a million forms with more than a million variations--and
when God made Man in His Own Image, it was as Male and Female. From the
very first growths of life in all worlds,--from the small, almost
imperceptible beginning of that marvellous Evolution which resulted in
Humanity,--evolution which to us is calculated to have taken thousands
of years, whereas in the Eternal countings it has occupied but a few
moments, Sex was proclaimed in the lowliest sea-plants, of which the only
remains we have are in the Silurian formations,--and was equally
maintained in the humblest
lingula inhabiting its simple bivalve shell.
Sex is proclaimed
throughout the Universe with an absolute and unswerving regularity through all grades of nature. Nay, there are even Male and Female Atmospheres which when combined produce forms of life."
"You go far,--I should say much too far in your supposed
Law!" said El-Râmi wonderingly and a little derisively.
"And you, my good friend, stop short,--and oppose yourself
against all Law, when it threatens to interfere with your
work"--retorted the monk--"The proof is, that you are
convinced you can keep the Soul of Lilith to wait upon your will at
pleasure like another Ariel. Whereas the Law is, that at the destined
moment she shall be free. Wise Shakespeare can teach you
this,--Prospero had to give his 'fine spirit' liberty in
the end. If you could shut Lilith up in her mortal frame again, to live a
mortal life, the case might be different; but that you cannot do, since the
mortal frame is too dead to be capable of retaining such a Fire-Essence as
hers is now."
"You think that?" queried El-Râmi,--
he spoke mechanically,--his thoughts were travelling elsewhere in a sudden new direction of their own.
The monk regarded him with friendly but always compassionate eyes.
"I not only think it--I know it!" he replied.
El-Râmi met his gaze fixedly.
"You would seem to know most things,"--he
observed--"Now in this matter I consider that I am more
humble-minded than yourself. For I cannot say I 'know'
anything,--the whole solar system appears to me to be in a gradually
changing condition,--and each day one set of facts is followed by
another entirely new set which replace the first and render them
useless--"
"There is nothing useless," interposed the
monk--"not even a so-called 'fact' disproved. Error
leads to the discovery of Truth. And Truth always discloses the one great
unalterable Fact,--GOD."
"As I told you, I must have proofs of God"--said
El-Râmi with a chill smile--"Proofs that satisfy me,
personally speaking. At present I believe in Force only."
"And how is Force generated?" inquired the monk.
"That we shall discover in time. And not only the How, but also
the Why. In the meantime we must prove and test all possibilities, both
material and spiritual. And as far as such proving goes, I think you can
scarcely deny that this experiment of mine on the girl Lilith is a
wonderful one?"
"I cannot grant you that;"--returned the monk
gravely--"Most Eastern magnetists can do what you have done,
provided they have the necessary Will. To detach the Soul from the body,
and yet keep the body alive, is an operation that has been performed by
others and will be performed again,--but to keep Body and Soul
struggling against each other in unnatural conflict, requires cruelty as
well as Will. It is as I before observed, the vivisection of a butterfly.
The scientist does not think himself barbarous--but his barbarity
outweighs his science all the same."
"You mean to say there is nothing surprising in my
work?"
"Why should there be?" said the monk
curtly--"Barbarism is not wonderful! What is truly a matter for marvel is Yourself. You are the most astonishing example of self-inflicted blindness I have ever known!"
El-Râmi breathed quickly,--he was deeply angered, but he had
self-possession enough not to betray it. As he stood, sullenly silent, his
guest's hand fell gently on his shoulder--his guest's eyes looked
earnest love and pity into his own.
"El-Râmi Zarânos," he said
softly--"You know me. You know I would not lie to you. Hear then
my words;--As I see a bird on the point of flight, or a flower just
ready to break into bloom, even so I see the Soul of Lilith. She is on the
verge of the Eternal Light--its rippling wave,--the great sweet
wave that lifts us upward,--has already touched her delicate
consciousness,--her aerial organism. You--with your brilliant
brain, your astonishing grasp and power over material forces--you are
on the verge of darkness,--such a gulf of it as cannot be
measured--such a depth as cannot be sounded. Why will you fall? Why do
you choose Darkness rather than Light?"
"Because my 'deeds are evil,' I suppose,"
retorted El-Râmi bitterly--"You should finish the text
while you are about it. I think you misjudge me,--however, you have
not heard all. You consider my labour as vain, and my experiment
futile,--but I have some strange results yet to show you in writing.
And what I have written I desire to place in your hands that you may take
all to the monastery, and keep my discoveries,--if they
are discoveries, among the archives. What may seem the wildest
notions to the scientists of to-day may prove of practical utility
hereafter."
He paused, and bending over Lilith, took her hand and called her by
name. The reply came rather more quickly than usual.
"I am here!"
"Be here no longer, Lilith"--said El-Râmi,
speaking with unusual gentleness,--"Go home to that fair garden
you love, on the high hills of the bright world called Alcyone. There rest,
and be happy till I summon you to earth again."
He released her hand,--it fell limply in its usual position on her
breast,--and her face
became white and rigid as sculptured marble. He watched her lying so for a minute or two, then turning to the monk, observed--
"She has left us at once, as you see. Surely you will own that I
do not grudge her her liberty?"
"Her liberty is not complete"--said the monk
quietly--"Her happiness therefore is only temporary."
El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
"What does that matter if, as you declare, her time of captivity
is soon to end? According to your prognostications she will ere long set
herself free."
The monk's fine eyes flashed forth a calm and holy triumph.
"Most assuredly she will!"
El-Râmi looked at him and seemed about to make some angry retort,
but checking himself, he bowed with a kind of mingled submissiveness and
irony, saying--
"I will not be so discourteous as to doubt your word! But--I
would only remind you that nothing in this world is
certain--"
"Except the Law of God!" interrupted
the monk with passionate emphasis--"That is immutable,--and against that, El-Râmi Zarânos, you contend in vain! Opposed to that, your strength and power must come to naught,--and all they who wonder at your skill and wisdom shall by-and-by ask one another the old question--'What went ye out for to see?' And the answer shall describe your fate--'A reed shaken by the wind!'"
He turned away as he spoke and without another look at the beautiful
Lilith, he left the room. El-Râmi stood irresolute for a moment,
thinking deeply,--then, touching the bell which would summon Zaroba
back to her usual duty of watching the tranced girl, he swiftly followed
his mysterious guest.
"'The winter is past,--the rain is over and
gone!--Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!'"
quoted the monk softly, half to himself and half to El-Râmi as he saw
the latter enter the room--"Even in this great and densely
peopled city of London, Nature sends her messengers of spring--see
here!"
And he held out on his hand a delicate
insect with shining iridescent wings that glistened like jewels.
"This creature flew in as I opened the window," he
continued, surveying it tenderly. "What quaint and charming stories
of Flower-land it could tell us if we could but understand its language! Of
the poppy-palaces, and rose-leaf saloons coloured through by the kindly
sun,--of the loves of the ladybirds and the political controversies of
the bees! How dare we make a boast of wisdom!--this tiny denizen of
air baffles us--it knows more than we do."
"With regard to the things of its own sphere it knows more,
doubtless," said El-Râmi--"but concerning
our part of creation, it knows less. These things are equally
balanced. You seem to me to be more of a poet than either a devotee or a
scientist."
"Perhaps I am!" and the monk smiled, as he carefully wafted
the pretty insect out into the darkness of the night again--"Yet
poets are often the best scientists, because they never know
they are scientists. They arrive by a sudden intuition at the facts which
it takes several Professors Dry-as-
Dust years to discover. When once you feel you are a scientist, it is all over with you. You are a clever biped who has got hold of a crumb out of the Universal Loaf, and for all your days afterwards you are turning that crumb over and over under your analytical lens. But a poet takes up the whole Loaf unconsciously, and hands portions of it about at haphazard and with the abstracted behaviour of one in a dream,--a wild and extravagant process,--but then, what would you?--his nature could not do with a crumb. No--I dare not call myself 'poet'; if I gave myself any title at all, I would say, with all humbleness, that I am a sympathizer."
"You do not sympathize with me," observed
El-Râmi gloomily.
"My friend, at the immediate moment, you do not need my sympathy.
You are sufficient for yourself. But, should you ever make a claim upon me,
be sure I shall not fail."
He spoke earnestly and cheerily, and smiled,--but El-Râmi did
not return the smile. He was bending over a deep drawer
in his writing-table, and after a little search he took out two bulky rolls of manuscript tied and sealed.
"Look there!" he said, indicating the titles with an air of
triumph.
The monk obeyed and read aloud:
"'The Inhabitants of Sirius. Their Laws, Customs, and
Progress.' Well?"
"Well!" echoed El-Râmi.--"Is such
information, gained from Lilith in her wanderings, of no
value?"
The monk made no direct reply, but read the title of the second MS.
"'The World of Neptune. How it is composed of One Thousand
Distinct Nations, united under one reigning Emperor, known at the present
era as Ustalvian the Tenth.' And again I say--well? What of all
this, except to hazard the remark that Ustalvian is a great creature, and
supports his responsibilities admirably?"
El-Râmi gave a gesture of irritation and impatience.
"Surely it must interest you?" he said. "Surely you
cannot have known these things positively--"
"Stop, stop, my friend!" interposed the
monk.--"Do you know them positively?
Do you accept any of Lilith's news as positive?
Come,--you are honest--confess you do not! You cannot believe
her, though you are puzzled to make out as to where she obtains information
which has certainly nothing to do with this world, or any external
impression. And that is why she is really a Sphinx to you still, in spite
of your power over her. As for being interested, of course I am interested.
It is impossible not to be interested in everything, even in the
development of a grub. But you have not made any discovery that is
specially new--to me. I have my own Messenger!" He
raised his eyes one moment with a brief devout glance--then resumed
quietly--"There are other 'detached' spirits,
besides that of your Lilith, who have found their way to some of the
planets, and have returned to tell the tale. In one of our monasteries we
have a very exact description of Mars obtained in this same way--its
landscapes, its cities, its people, its various nations--all very
concisely given. These are but the beginnings of
discoveries--the feeling for the Clue,--the Clue itself will be found one day."
"The Clue to what?" demanded El-Râmi. "To the
stellar mysteries, or to Life's mystery?"
"To everything!" replied the monk firmly. "To
everything that seems unclear and perplexing now. It will all be unravelled
for us in such a simple way that we shall wonder why we did not discover it
before. As I told you, my friend, I am, above all things, a
sympathizer. I sympathize--God knows how deeply and
passionately,--with what I may call the unexplained woe of the world.
The other day I visited a poor fellow who had lost his only child. He told
me he could believe in nothing,--he said that what people call the
goodness of God was only cruelty. 'Why take this boy!' he
cried, rocking the pretty little corpse to and fro on his
breast--'Why rob me of the chief thing I had to live for? Oh, if
I only knew--as positively as I know day is day, and
night is night--that I should see my living child again, and possess
his love in another world than this, should I repine as I do? No,--I
should
believe in God's wisdom,--and I should try to be a good man instead of a bad. But it is because I do not know, that I am broken-hearted. If there is a God, surely He might have given us some little certain clue by way of help and comfort!' Thus he wailed,--and my heart ached for him. Nevertheless the clue is to be had,--and I believe it will be found suddenly in some little, deeply-hidden unguessed Law,--we are on the track of it, and I fancy we shall soon find it."
"Ah!--and what of the millions of creatures who, in the
bygone eras, having no clue, have passed away without any sort of
comfort?" asked El-Râmi.
"Nature takes time to manifest her laws," replied the
monk.--"And it must be remembered that what we call
'time' is not Nature's counting at all. The method Nature has
of counting time may be faintly guessed by proven scientific
fact,--as, for instance, take the Comet which appeared in 1744. Strict
mathematicians calculated that this brilliant world (for it is a world)
needs 122,683 years to perform one single circuit! And yet the circuit of a
Comet is surely not so much
time to allow for God and Nature to declare a Meaning!"
El-Râmi shuddered slightly.
"All the same, it is horrible to think of," he
said.--"All those enormous periods,--those eternal
vastnesses! For, during the 122,683 years we die, and pass into the
Silence."
"Into the Silence or the Explanation?" queried the monk
softly.--"For there is an Explanation,--and we
are all bound to know it at some time or other, else Creation would be but
a poor and bungling business."
"If we are bound to know," said El-Râmi,
"then every living creature is bound to know, since every living
creature suffers cruelly, in wretched ignorance of the cause of its
suffering. To every atom, no matter how infinitely minute, must be given
this 'explanation,'--to dogs and birds as well as
men--nay, even to flowers must be declared the meaning of the
mystery."
"Unless the flowers know already!" suggested the monk with a
smile.--"Which is quite possible!"
"Oh, everything is 'possible' according
to your way of thinking," said El-Râmi somewhat impatiently. "If one is a visionary, one would scarcely be surprised to see the legended 'Jacob's ladder' leaning against that dark midnight sky and the angels descending and ascending upon it. And so--" here he touched the two rolls of manuscript lying on the table--"you find no use in these?"
"I personally have no use for them," responded his
guest,--"but as you desire it, I will take charge of them and
place them in safe keeping at the monastery. Every little link helps to
forge the chain of discovery, of course. By the way, while on this subject,
I must not forget to speak to you about poor old Kremlin. I had a letter
from him about two months ago. I very much fear that famous Disc of his
will be his ruin."
"Such an intimation will console him vastly!" observed
El-Râmi sarcastically.
"Consolation has nothing to do with the matter. If a man rushes
wilfully into danger, danger will not move itself out of the way for him. I
always told Kremlin that his proposed design was an unsafe one, even
before he went out to Africa fifteen years ago in search of the magnetic spar--a crystalline formation whose extraordinary reflection-power he learned from me. However, it must be admitted that he has come marvellously close to the unravelling of the enigma at which he works. And when you see him next you may tell him from me, that if he can--mind, it is a very big 'if'--if he can follow the movements of the Third Ray on his Disc he will be following the signals from Mars. To make out the meaning of those signals is quite another matter--but he can safely classify them as the light-vibrations from that particular planet."
"How is he to tell which is the Third Ray that falls, among a
fleeting thousand?" asked El-Râmi dubiously.
"It will be difficult of course, but he can try," returned
the monk.--"Let him first cover the Disc with thick, dark
drapery, and then when it is face to face with the stars in the zenith,
uncover it quickly, keeping his eyes fixed on its surface. In one minute
there will be three distinct flashes--the third is from Mars. Let him
endeavour to follow
that third ray in its course on the Disc, and probably he will arrive at something worth remark. This suggestion I offer by way of assisting him, for his patient labour is both wonderful and pathetic,--but,--it would be far better and wiser were he to resign his task altogether. Yet--who knows!--the ordained end may be the best!"
"And do you know this 'ordained end'?"
questioned El-Râmi.
The monk met his incredulous gaze calmly.
"I know it as I know yours," he replied. "As I know my
own, and the end (or beginning) of all those who are, or who have been, in
any way connected with my life and labours."
"How can you know!" exclaimed El-Râmi
brusquely.--"Who is there to tell you these things that are
surely hidden in the future?"
"Even as a picture already hangs in an artist's brain before it is
painted," said the monk,--"so does every scene of each
human unit's life hang, embryo-like, in air and space, in light and colour.
Explanations of these
things are well-nigh impossible--it is not given to mortal speech to tell them. One must see,--and to see clearly, one must not become wilfully blind." he paused,--then added--"For instance, El-Râmi, I would that you could see this room as I see it."
El-Râmi looked about half carelessly, half wonderingly.
"And do I not?" he asked.
The monk stretched out his hand.
"Tell me first,--is there anything visible between this my
extended arm and you?"
El-Râmi shook his head.
"Nothing."
Whereupon the monk raised his eyes, and in a low thrilling voice said
solemnly--
"O God with whom Thought is Creation and Creation Thought, for one
brief moment, be pleased to lift material darkness from the sight of this
man Thy subject-creature, and by Thy sovereign-power permit him to behold
with mortal eyes, in mortal life, Thy deathless Messenger!"
Scarcely had these words been pronounced than El-Râmi was
conscious of a blinding flash of fire as though sudden lightning had
struck the room from end to end. Confused and dazzled, he instinctively covered his eyes with his hand, then removing it, looked up, stupefied, speechless, and utterly overwhelmed at what he saw. Clear before him stood a wondrous Shape, seemingly human, yet unlike humanity,--a creature apparently composed of radiant colour, from whose transcendent form, great shafts of gold and rose and purple spread upward and around in glowing lines of glory. This marvellous Being stood, or rather was poised in a stedfast attitude, between him, El-Râmi, and the monk,--its luminous hands were stretched out on either side as though to keep those twain asunder--its starry eyes expressed an earnest watchfulness--its majestic patience never seemed to tire. A thing of royal stateliness and power, it stayed there immovable, parting with its radiant intangible Presence the two men who gazed upon it, one with fearless, reverent, yet accustomed eyes--the other with a dazzled and bewildered stare. Another moment and El-Râmi at all risks would have spoken,--but that the Shining Figure lifted its light-crowned head and gazed at him.
The wondrous look appalled him,--unnerved him,--the straight, pure brilliancy and limpid lustre of those unearthly orbs sent shudders through him,--he gasped for breath--thrust out his hands, and fell on his knees in a blind, unconscious, swooning act of adoration, mingled with a sense of awe and something like despair,--when a dense chill darkness as of death closed over him, and he remembered nothing more.
"What is the matter?" he asked faintly. "What are you
doing to me? I am quite well, am I not?"
"Yes, yes!" cried Féraz eagerly, delighted to hear
him speak.--"You are well,--it was a swoon that seized
you--nothing more! But I was anxious,--I found you here,
insensible--"
With an effort El-Râmi rose to his feet, steadying himself on his
brother's arm.
"Insensible!" he repeated
vaguely.--"Insensible!--that is strange!--I must have
been very weak and tired--and overpowered. But,--where is
He--?"
"If you mean the Master," said Féraz, lowering his
voice to an almost awe-stricken whisper--"He has gone, and left
no trace,--save that sealed paper there upon your table."
El-Râmi shook himself free of his brother's hold and hurried
forward to possess himself of the indicated missive,--seizing it, he
tore it quickly open,--it contained but one
line--"Beware the end! With Lilith's love comes Lilith's
freedom."
That was all. He read it again and again--then deliberately
striking a match, he set fire to it and burnt it to ashes. A rapid glance
round showed him that the manuscripts concerning Neptune and Sirius were
gone,--the mysterious monk had evidently taken them with him as
desired. Then he turned again to his brother.
"When could he have gone?" he
de-
manded.--"Did you not hear the street-door open and shut?--no sound at all of his departure?"
Féraz shook his head.
"I slept heavily," he said apologetically. "But in my
dreams it seemed as though a hand touched me, and I awoke. The sun was
shining brilliantly--someone called 'Féraz!
Féraz!'--I thought it was your voice, and I hurried into
the room to find you, as I thought, dead,--oh! the horror of that
moment of suspense!"
El-Râmi looked at him kindly, and smiled.
"Why feel horror, my dear boy?" he
inquired.--"Death--or what we call death,--is the best
possible fortune for everybody. Even if there were no Afterwards, it would
still be an End--an end of trouble and tedium and infinite
uncertainty. Could anything be happier?--I doubt it!"
And sighing, he threw himself into his chair with an air of exhaustion.
Féraz stood a little apart, gazing at him somewhat
wistfully--then he spoke--
"I too have thought that, El-Râmi," he
said softly.--"As to whether this End, which the world and all men dread, might not be the best thing? And yet my own personal sensations tell me that life means something good for me if I only learn how best to live it."
"Youth, my dear fellow!" said El-Râmi lightly.
"Delicious youth,--which you share in common with the scampering
colt who imagines all the meadows of the world were made for him to race
upon. This is the potent charm which persuades you that life is agreeable.
But unfortunately it will pass,--this rosy morning-glory. And the
older you grow the wiser and the sadder you will be,--I, your brother,
am an excellent example of the truth of this platitude."
"You are not old," replied Féraz quickly. "But
certainly you are often sad. You overwork your brain. For example, last
night of course you did not sleep--will you sleep now?"
"No--I will breakfast," said El-Râmi, rousing
himself to seem cheerful.--"A good cup of coffee is one of the
boons of existence--and no one can make it as you do. It
will put the finishing touch to my complete recovery."
Féraz took this hint, and hastened off to prepare the desired
beverage,--while El-Râmi, left alone, sat for a few moments
wrapped in a deep reverie. His thoughts reverted to and dwelt upon the
strange and glorious Figure he had seen standing in that very room between
him and the monk,--he wondered doubtfully if such a celestial visitant
were anywhere near him now? Shaking off the fantastic impression, he got up
and walked to and fro.
"What a fool I am!" he exclaimed half-aloud--"As
if my eyes could not be as much deluded for once in a way, as
the eyes of anyone else! It was a strange shape,--a marvellously
divine-looking apparition;--but he evolved it--he is
as great a master in the art of creating phantasma as Moses himself, and
could, if he chose, make thunder echo at his will on another Mount Sinai.
Upon my word, the things that men can do are as wonderful as
the things that they would fain attempt; and the only miraculous part of
this particular man's force is that he should have
overpowered ME, seeing I am so strong. And then one other marvel,--(if it be true)--he could see the Soul of Lilith."
Here he came to a full stop in his walk, and with his eyes fixed on
vacancy he repeated musingly--
"He could see the Soul of Lilith. If that is
so--if that is possible, then I will see it too, if I die in the
attempt. To see the Soul--to look upon it and know its
form--to discern the manner of its organization, would surely be to
prove it. Sight can be deceived, we know--we look upon a star (or
think we look upon it), that may have disappeared some thirty thousand
years ago, as it takes thirty thousand years for its reflex to reach
us--all that is true--but there are ways of guarding against
deception."
He had now struck upon a new line of thought,--ideas more daring
than he had ever yet conceived began to flit through his brain,--and
when Féraz came in with the breakfast he partook of that meal with
avidity and relish, his excellent appetite entirely reassuring his brother
with regard to his health.
"You are right, Féraz," he said, as he sipped his
coffee.--"Life can be made enjoyable after a fashion, no doubt.
But the best way to get enjoyment out of it is to be always at
work--always putting a brick in to help the universal
architecture."
Féraz was silent. El-Râmi looked at him inquisitively.
"Don't you agree with me?" he asked.
"No--not entirely"--and Féraz pushed the
clustering hair off his brow with a slightly troubled
gesture.--"Work may become as monotonous and wearisome as
anything else if we have too much of it. If we are always
working--that is, if we are always obtruding ourselves into affairs
and thinking they cannot get on without us, we make an obstruction in the
way, I think--we are not a help. Besides, we leave ourselves no time
to absorb suggestions, and I fancy a great deal is learned by simply
keeping the brain quiet and absorbing light."
"'Absorbing light?'" queried his brother
perplexedly--"What do you mean?"
"Well, it is difficult to explain my meaning," said
Féraz with hesitation--
"but yet I feel there is truth in what I try to express. You see, everything absorbs something, and you will assuredly admit that the brain absorbs certain impressions?"
"Of course,--but impressions are not
'light'?"
"Are they not? Not even the effects of light? Then what is the art
of photography? However, I do not speak of the impressions received from
our merely external surroundings. If you can relieve the brain from
conscious thought,--if you have the power to shake off
outward suggestions and be willing to think of nothing personal, your brain
will receive impressions which are to some extent new, and with which you
actually have very little connection. It is strange,--but it is
so;--you become obediently receptive, and perhaps wonder where your
ideas come from. I say they are the result of light. Light can use up
immense periods of time in travelling from a far distant star into our area
of vision, and yet at last we see it,--shall not God's inspiration
travel at a far swifter pace than star-beams, and reach the human brain as
surely? This
thought has often startled me,--it has filled me with an almost apprehensive awe,--the capabilities it opens up are so immense and wonderful. Even a man can suggest ideas to his fellow-man and cause them to germinate in the mind and blossom into action,--how can we deny to God the power to do the same? And so,--imagine it!--the first strain of the glorious 'Tannhauser' may have been played on the harps of Heaven, and rolling sweetly through infinite space may have touched in fine far echoes the brain of the musician who afterwards gave it form and utterance--ah yes!--I would love to think it were so!--I would love to think that nothing,--nothing is truly ours; but that all the marvels of poetry, of song, of art, of colour, of beauty, were only the echoes and distant impressions of that Eternal Grandeur which comes hereafter!"
His eyes flashed with all a poet's enthusiasm,--he rose from the
table and paced the room excitedly, while his brother, sitting silent,
watched him meditatively.
"El-Râmi, you have no idea," he
continued--"of the wonders and delights of
the land I call my Star! You think it is a dream--an unexplained portion of a splendid trance,--and I am now fully aware of what I owe to your magnetic influence,--your forceful spell that rests upon my life;--but see you!--when I am alone--quite, quite alone, when you are absent from me, when you are not influencing me, it is then I see the landscapes best,--it is then I hear my people sing! I let my brain rest;--as far as it is possible, I think of nothing,--then suddenly upon me falls the ravishment and ecstasy,--this world rolls up as it were in a whirling cloud and vanishes, and lo! I find myself at home. There is a stretch of forest-land in this Star of mine,--a place all dusky green with shadows, and musical with the fall of silvery waters,--that is my favourite haunt when I am there, for it leads me on and on through grasses and tangles of wild flowers to what I know and feel must be my own abode, where I should rest and sleep if sleep were needful; but this abode I never reach; I am debarred from entering in, and I do not know the reason why. The other day, when wandering there, I met two maidens
bearing flowers,--they stopped, regarding me with pleased yet doubting eyes, and one said--'Look you, our lord is now returned!' And the other sighed and answered--'Nay! he is still an exile and may not stay with us.' Whereupon they bent their heads, and shrinking past me, disappeared. When I would have called them back I woke!--to find that this dull earth was once again my house of bondage."
El-Râmi heard him with patient interest.
"I do not deny, Féraz," he said slowly, "that
your impressions are very strange--"
"Very strange? Yes!" cried Féraz. "But very
true!"
He paused--then on a sudden impulse came close up to his brother,
and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"And do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that you who
have studied so much, and have mastered so much, yet receive
no such impressions as those I speak of?"
A faint flush coloured El-Râmi's olive skin.
"Certain impressions come to me at times, of course," he
answered slowly.--"And there
have been certain seasons in my life when I have had visions of the impossible. But I have a coldly-tempered organization, Féraz,--I am able to reason these things away."
"Oh, you can reason the whole world away if you choose,"
said Féraz.--"For it is nothing after all but a pinch of
star-dust."
"If you can reason a thing away it does not exist," observed
El-Râmi dryly.--"Reduce the world, as you say, to a pinch
of star-dust, still the pinch of star-dust is there--it
Exists."
"Some people doubt even that!" said Féraz,
smiling.
"Well, everything can be over-done," replied his
brother,--"even the process of reasoning. We can, if we choose,
'reason' ourselves into madness. There is a boundary-line to
every science which the human intellect dare not overstep."
"I wonder what and where is your
boundary-line?" questioned Féraz lightly.--"Have
you laid one down for yourself at all? Surely not!--for you are too
ambitious."
El-Râmi made no answer to this observation, but betook himself to
his books and papers. Féraz meanwhile set the room in order and
cleared away the breakfast,--and these duties done, he quietly
withdrew. Left to himself, El-Râmi took from the centre drawer of his
writing-table a medium-sized manuscript book which was locked, and which he
opened by means of a small key that was attached to his watch-chain, and
bending over the title-page he critically examined it. Its heading ran
thus--
"The title does not cover all the ground," he murmured as he
read.--"And yet how am I to designate it? It is a vast subject,
and presents different branches of treatment, and after all said and done,
I may have wasted my time in planning it. Most likely I have,--but
there is no scientist living who would refuse to accept it. The question
is,
shall I ever finish it?--shall I ever know positively that there IS without doubt, a Conscious, Personal Something or Someone after death who enters at once upon another existence? My new experiment will decide all--if I see the Soul of Lilith, all hesitation will be at an end--I shall be sure of everything which now seems uncertain. And then the triumph!--then the victory!"
His eyes sparkled, and dipping his pen in the ink he prepared to write,
but ere he did so the message which the monk had left for him to read,
recurred with a chill warning to his memory,--
"Beware the end! With Lilith's love comes Lilith's
freedom."
He considered the words for a moment apprehensively,--and then a
proud smile played round his mouth.
"For a Master who has attained to some degree of wisdom, his
intuition is strangely erroneous this time," he
muttered.--"For if there be any dream of love in Lilith, that
dream, that love is Mine! And being mine, who shall dispute
possession,--who shall take her from me? No one,--not even
God,--for He does not break through the laws of Nature. And by those laws I have kept Lilith--and even so I will keep her still."
Satisfied with his own conclusions, he began to write, taking up the
thread of his theory of religion where he had left it on the previous day.
He had a brilliant and convincing style, and was soon deep in an elaborate
and eloquent disquisition on the superior scientific reasoning contained in
the ancient Eastern faiths, as compared with the modern scheme of
Christianity, which limits God's power to this world only, and takes no
consideration of the fate of other visible and far more splendid
spheres.
kept to himself. He thought of her as a poet may think of an ideal goddess seen in a mystic dream,--but he never ventured to ask a question concerning her. And even if he had wished to do so,--even if he had indulged the idea of encouraging Zaroba to follow up the work she had begun by telling him all she could concerning the beautiful tranced girl, that course was now impossible. For Zaroba seemed stricken dumb as well as deaf,--what had chanced to her he could not tell,--but a mysterious silence possessed her; and though her large black eyes were sorrowfully eloquent, she never uttered a word. She came and went on various household errands, always silently and with bent head,--she looked older, feebler, wearier and sadder, but not so much as a gesture escaped her that could be construed into a complaint. Once Féraz made signs to her of inquiry after her health and well-being--she smiled mournfully, but gave no other response, and turning away, left him hurriedly. He mused long and deeply upon all this,--and though he felt sure that Zaroba's strange but resolute
speechlessness was his brother's work, he dared not speculate too far or inquire too deeply. For he fully recognised El-Râmi's power,--a power so scientifically balanced, and used with such terrible and unerring precision, that there could be no opposition possible unless one were of equal strength and knowledge. Féraz knew he could no more compete with such a force than a mouse can wield a thunderbolt,--he therefore deemed it best to resign himself to his destiny and wait the course of events.
"For," he said within himself, "it is not likely one
man should be permitted to use such strange authority over natural forces
long,--it may be that God is trying him,--putting him to the
proof, as it were, to find out how far he will dare to go,--and
then--ah then!--what then? If his heart were
dedicated to the service of God I should not fear--but--as it
is,--I dread the end!"
His instinct was correct in this,--for in spite of his poetic and
fanciful temperament, he had plenty of quick perception, and he saw plainly
what El-Râmi himself was not very willing to recognise,--namely,
that in all
the labour of his life, so far as it had gone, he, El-Râmi, had rather opposed himself to the Unseen Divine, than striven to incorporate himself with it. He preferred to believe in Natural Force only; his inclination was to deny the possibility of anything behind That. He accepted the idea of Immortality to a certain extent, because Natural Force was forever giving him proofs of the perpetual regeneration of life--but that there was a Primal Source of this generating influence,--One, great and eternal, who would demand an account of all lives, and an accurate summing-up of all words and actions,--in this, though he might assume the virtue of faith, Féraz very well knew he had it not. Like the greater majority of scientists and natural philosophers generally, what Self could comprehend, he accepted,--but all that extended beyond Self,--all that made of Self but a grain of dust in a vast infinitude,--all that forced the Creature to prostrate himself humbly before the Creator and cry out "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!" this he tacitly and proudly rejected. For which reasons the gentle,
dreamy Féraz had good cause to fear,--and a foreboding voice forever whispered in his mind that man without God was as a world without light,--a black chaos of blank unfruitfulness.
With the ensuing week the grand "reception" to which
El-Râmi and his brother had been invited by Lord Melthorpe came off
with great éclat. Lady Melthorpe's "crushes" were among
the most brilliant of the season, and this one was particularly so, as it
was a special function held for the entertainment of the distinguished
Crown Prince of a great nation. True, the distinguished Crown Prince was
only "timed" to look in a little after midnight for about ten
minutes, but the exceeding brevity of his stay was immaterial to the
fashionable throng. All that was needed was just the piquant
flavour,--the "passing" of a Royal Presence,--to make
the gathering socially complete. The rooms were crowded--so much so
indeed that it was difficult to take note of any one person in particular,
yet in spite of this fact, there was a very general movement of interest
and admiration when El-Râmi entered with his
young and handsome brother beside him. Both had a look and manner too distinctly striking to escape observation:--their olive complexions, black melancholy eyes, and slim yet stately figures, were set off to perfection by the richness of the Oriental dresses they wore; and the grave composure and perfect dignity of their bearing offered a pleasing contrast to the excited pushing, waddling, and scrambling indulged in by the greater part of the aristocratic assemblage. Lady Melthorpe herself, a rather pretty woman attired in a very æsthetic gown, and wearing her brown hair all towzled and arranged "à la Grecque" in diamond bandeaux, caught sight of them at once, and was delighted. Such picturesque-looking creatures were really ornaments to a room, she thought with much interior satisfaction; and wreathing her face with smiles, she glided up to them.
"I am so charmed, my dear El-Râmi!" she said, holding
out her jewelled hand.--"So charmed to see
you--you so very seldom will come to me! And
your brother! So glad! Why did you never tell me you had
a brother? Naughty man! What is your brother's name? Féraz? Delightful!--it makes me think of Hafiz and Sadi and all those very charming Eastern people. I must find someone interesting to introduce to you. Will you wait here a minute--the crowd is so thick in the centre of the room that really I'm afraid you will not be able to get through it--do wait here, and I'll bring the Baroness to you--don't you know the Baroness? Oh, she's such a delightful creature--so clever at palmistry! Yes--just stay where you are,--I'll come back directly!"
And with sundry good-humoured nods her ladyship swept away, while
Féraz glanced at his brother with an expression of amused
inquiry.
"That is Lady Melthorpe?" he asked.
"That is Lady Melthorpe," returned
El-Râmi--"our hostess, and Lord Melthorpe's wife; his,
'to have and to hold, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in
sickness and in health, to love, honour and cherish till death do them
part,'" and he smiled somewhat satirically.--"It
seems odd, doesn't
it?--I mean, such solemn words sound out of place sometimes. Do you like her?"
Féraz made a slight sign in the negative.
"She does not speak sincerely," he said in a low tone.
El-Râmi laughed.
"My dear boy, you mustn't expect anyone to be
'sincere' in society. You said you wanted to 'see
life'--very well, but it will never do to begin by viewing it in
that way. An outburst of actual sincerity in this human
mêlée"--and he glanced comprehensively over the
brilliant throng--"would be like a match to a gunpowder
magazine--the whole thing would blow up into fragments and be
dispersed to the four winds of heaven, leaving nothing behind but an evil
odour."
"Better so," said Féraz dreamily, "than that
false hearts should be mistaken for true."
El-Râmi looked at him wistfully;--what a beautiful youth he
really was, with all that glow of thought and feeling in his dark eyes! How
different was his aspect to that of the jaded, cynical, vice-worn young men
of fashion, some of whom were pushing their way past at that moment,--men in the twenties who had the air of being well on in the forties, and badly preserved at that--wretched, pallid, languid, exhausted creatures who had thrown away the splendid jewel of their youth in a couple of years' stupid dissipation and folly. At that moment Lord Melthorpe, smiling and cordial, came up to them and shook hands warmly, and then introduced with a few pleasant words a gentleman who had accompanied him as,--"Roy Ainsworth, the famous artist, you know!"
"Oh, not at all!" drawled the individual thus described,
with a searching glance at the two brothers from under his drowsy
eyelids.--"Not famous by any means--not yet. Only trying to
be. You've got to paint something startling and shocking nowadays before
you are considered 'famous';--and even then, when you've
outraged all the proprieties, you must give a banquet, or take a big house
and hold receptions, or have an electrically lit-up skeleton in your
studio, or something of that sort, to keep the public
attention fixed upon you. It's such a restless age."
El-Râmi smiled gravely.
"The feverish outburst of an unnatural vitality immediately
preceding dissolution," he observed.
"Ah!--you think that? Well--it may be,--I'm sure I
hope it is. I personally should be charmed to believe in the
rapidly-approaching end of the world. We really need a change of planet as
much as certain invalids require a change of air. Your brother,
however"--and here he flashed a keen glance at
Féraz--"seems already to belong to quite a different
sphere."
Féraz looked up with a pleased yet startled expression.
"Yes,--but how did you know it?" he asked.
It was now the artist's turn to be embarrassed. He had used the words
"different sphere" merely as a figure of speech, whereas this
intelligent-looking young fellow evidently took the phrase in a literal
sense. It was very odd!--and he hesitated what to answer, so
El-Râmi came to the rescue.
"Mr. Ainsworth only means that you do not look quite like other
people, Féraz, that's all. Poets and musicians often carry their own
distinctive mark."
"Is he a poet?" inquired Lord Melthorpe with
interest.--"And has he published anything?"
El-Râmi laughed good-humouredly.
"Not he! Why dear Lord Melthorpe, we are not all called upon to
give the world our blood and brain and nerve and spirit. Some few reserve
their strength for higher latitudes. To give greedy Humanity everything of
one's self is rather too prodigal an expenditure."
"I agree with you," said a chill yet sweet voice close to
them.--"It was Christ's way of work,--and quite too unwise
an example for any of us to follow."
Lord Melthorpe and Mr. Ainsworth turned quickly to make way for the
speaker,--a slight fair woman, with a delicate thoughtful face full of
light, languor, and scorn, who, clad in snowy draperies adorned here and
there with the cold sparkle of diamonds, drew near them at the moment.
El-Râmi and
his brother both noted her with interest,--she was so different from the other women present.
"I am delighted to see you!" said Lord Melthorpe as he held
out his hand in greeting.--"It is so seldom we have the honour!
Mr. Ainsworth you already know,--let me introduce my Oriental friends
here,--El-Râmi Zarânos and his brother Féraz
Zarânos,--Madame Irene Vassilius--you must have heard of
her very often."
El-Râmi had indeed heard of her,--she was an authoress of
high repute, noted for her brilliant satirical pen, her contempt of
press-criticism, and her influence over, and utter indifference to, all
men. Therefore he regarded her now with a certain pardonable curiosity as
he made her his profoundest salutation, while she returned his look with
equal interest.
"It is you who said that we must not give ourselves wholly away to
the needs of Humanity, is it not?" she said, letting her calm eyes
dwell upon him with a dreamy yet searching scrutiny.
"I certainly did say so, Madame," replied
El-Râmi.--"It is a waste of life,--and Humanity is always ungrateful."
"You have proved it? But perhaps you have not tried to deserve its
gratitude."
This was rather a home thrust, and El-Râmi was surprised and
vaguely annoyed at its truth. Irene Vassilius still stood quietly observing
him,--then she turned to Roy Ainsworth.
"There is the type you want for your picture," she said,
indicating Féraz by a slight gesture.--"That boy,
depicted in the clutches of your Phryne, would make angels weep."
"If I could make you weep I should have achieved
something like success," replied the painter, his dreamy eyes
dilating with a passion he could not wholly conceal.--"But
icebergs neither smile nor shed tears,--and intellectual women are
impervious to emotion."
"That is a mistaken idea,--one of the narrow notions common
to men," she answered, waving her fan idly to and
fro.--"You remind me of the querulous Edward Fitzgerald, who
wrote that he was glad
Mrs. Barrett-Browning was dead, because there would be no more 'Aurora Leighs.' He condescended to say she was a 'woman of Genius,' but what was the use of it? She and her Sex, he said, would be better minding the Kitchen and their Children. He and his Sex always consider the terrible possibilities to themselves of a badly cooked dinner and a baby's screams. His notion about the limitation of Woman's sphere, is Man's notion generally."
"It is not mine," said Lord Melthorpe.--"I think
women are cleverer than men."
"Ah, you are not a reviewer!" laughed Madame
Vassilius--"so you can afford to be generous. But as a rule men
detest clever women, simply because they are jealous of them."
"They have cause to be jealous of you," said Roy
Ainsworth.--"You succeed in everything you touch."
"Success is easy," she replied
indifferently.--"Resolve upon it, and carry out that
resolve--and the thing is done."
El-Râmi looked at her with new interest.
"Madame, you have a strong will!" he
observed.--"But permit me to say that all your sex are not like yourself, beautiful, gifted, and resolute at one and the same time. The majority of women are deplorably unintelligent and uninteresting."
"That is precisely how I find the majority of men!" declared
Irene Vassilius, with that little soft laugh of hers which was so sweet,
yet so full of irony.--"You see, we view things from different
standpoints. Moreover, the deplorably unintelligent and uninteresting women
are the very ones you men elect to marry, and make the mothers of the
nation. It is the way of masculine wisdom,--so full of careful
forethought and admirable calculation!" She laughed again, and
continued--"Lord Melthorpe tells me you are a Seer,--an
Eastern prophet arisen in these dull modern days--now will you solve
me a riddle that I am unable to guess,--Myself?--and tell me if
you can, who am I and what am I?"
"Madame," replied El-Râmi bowing profoundly, "I
cannot in one moment unravel so complex an Enigma."
She smiled, not ill-pleased, and met his
dark, fiery, penetrating glance unreservedly,--then, drawing off her long loose glove, she held out her small beautifully-shaped white hand.
"Try me," she said lightly, "for if there is any truth
in 'brain-waves' or reflexes of the mind, the touch of my
fingers ought to send electric meanings through you. I am generally judged
as of a frivolous disposition because I am small in stature, slight in
build, and have curly hair--all proofs positive, according to the
majority, of latent foolishness. Colossal women, however, are always
astonishingly stupid, and fat women lethargic--but a mountain of good
flesh is always more attractive to man than any amount of intellectual
perception. Oh, I am not posing as one of the 'misunderstood';
not at all--I simply wish you to look well at me first and take in my
'frivolous' appearance thoroughly, before being misled by the
messages of my hand."
El-Râmi obeyed her in so far that he fixed his eyes upon her more
searchingly than before,--a little knot of fashionable loungers had
stopped to listen, and now watched her
face with equal curiosity. No rush of embarrassed colour tinged the cool fairness of her cheeks--her expression was one of quiet, half-smiling indifference--her attitude full of perfect self-possession.
"No one who looks at your eyes can call you frivolous,
Madame," said El-Râmi at last.--"And no one who
observes the lines of your mouth and chin could suspect you of latent
foolishness. Your physiognomy must have been judged by the merest
surface-observers. As for stature, we are aware that goes for
naught,--most of the heroes and heroines of history have been small
and slight in build. I will now, if you permit me, take your
hand."
She laid it at once in his extended palm,--and he slowly closed his
own fingers tightly over it. In a couple of minutes, his face expressed
nothing but astonishment.
"Is it possible!" he muttered--"can I
believe--" he broke off hurriedly, interrupted by a chorus of
voices exclaiming--"Oh, what is it?--do tell
us!" and so forth.
"May I speak, Madame?" he inquired,
bending towards Irene, with something of reverence.
She smiled assent.
"If I am surprised," he then said slowly, "it is
scarcely to be wondered at, for it is the first time I have ever chanced
across the path of a woman whose life was so perfectly ideal. Madame, to
you I must address the words of Hamlet--'pure as ice, chaste as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.' Such an existence as yours,
stainless, lofty, active, hopeful, patient, and independent, is a reproach
to men, and few will love you for being so superior. Those who do love you,
will probably love in vain,--for the completion of your existence is
not here--but Elsewhere."
Her soft eyes dilated wonderingly,--the people immediately around
her stared vaguely at El-Râmi's dark impenetrable face.
"Then shall I be alone all my life as I am now?" she asked,
as he released her hand.
"Are you sure you are alone?" he said with a grave
smile.--"Are there not more companions in the poet's so-called
solitude, than in the crowded haunts of men?"
She met his earnest glance, and her own face grew radiant with a certain
sweet animation that made it very lovely.
"You are right," she replied simply--"I see you
understand."
Then with a graceful salutation, she prepared to move away--Roy
Ainsworth pressed up close to her.
"Are you satisfied with your fortune, Madame Vassilius?" he
asked rather querulously.
"Indeed I am," she answered. "Why should I not
be?"
"If loneliness is a part of it," he said audaciously,
"I suppose you will never marry?"
"I suppose not," she said with a ripple of laughter in her
voice.--"I fear I should never be able to acknowledge a man my
superior!"
She left him then, and he stood for a moment looking after her with a
vexed air,--then he turned anew towards El-Râmi, who was just
exchanging greetings with Sir Frederick Vaughan. This latter young man
appeared highly embarrassed and nervous,
and seemed anxious to unburden himself of something which apparently was difficult to utter. He stared at Féraz, pulled the ends of his long moustache, and made scrappy remarks on nothing in particular, while El-Râmi observed him with amused intentness.
"I say, do you remember the night we saw the new Hamlet?" he
blurted out at last.--"You know--I haven't seen you
since--"
"I remember most perfectly," said El-Râmi
composedly--"'To be or not to be' was the question
then with you, as well as with Hamlet--but I suppose it is all happily
decided now as 'to be.'"
"What is decided?" stammered Sir Frederick--"I
mean, how do you know everything is decided, eh?"
"When is your marriage to take place?" asked
El-Râmi.
Vaughan almost jumped.
"By Jove!--you are an uncanny fellow!" he
exclaimed.--"However, as it happens, you are right. I'm engaged
to Miss Chester."
"It is no surprise to me, but pray allow me to congratulate
you!" and El-Râmi smiled.--"You have lost no time
about it, I must say! It is only a fortnight since you first saw the lady
at the theatre. Well!--confess me a true prophet!"
Sir Frederick looked uncomfortable, and was about to enter into an
argument concerning the pros and
cons of prophetic insight, when Lady
Melthorpe suddenly emerged from the circling whirlpool of her fashionable
guests and sailed towards them with a swan-like grace and languor.
"I cannot find the dear Baroness," she said plaintively.
"She is so much in demand! Do you know, my dear El-Râmi, she is
really almost as wonderful as you are! Not quite--oh, not quite, but
nearly! She can tell you all your past and future by the lines of your
hand, in the most astonishing manner! Can you do that also?"
El-Râmi laughed.
"It is a gipsy's trick," he said,--"and the
bonâ-fide gipsies who practise it in
country lanes for the satisfaction of servantgirls, get arrested by the
police for 'fortune-
telling.' The gipsies of the London drawing-rooms escape scot-free."
"Oh, you are severe!" said Lady Melthorpe, shaking her
finger at him with an attempt at archness--"You are really very
severe! You must not be hard on our little amusements,--you know in
this age, we are all so very much interested in the
supernatural!"
El-Râmi grew paler, and a slight shudder shook his frame. The
Supernatural! How lightly people talked of that awful Something, that like
a formless Shadow waits behind the portals of the grave!--that
Something that evinced itself, suggested itself, nay, almost declared
itself, in spite of his own doubts, in the momentary contact of a hand with
his own, as in the case of Irene Vassilius. For in that contact he had
received a faint, yet decided thrill through his nerves--a peculiar
sensation which he recognised as a warning of something spiritually above
himself,--and this had compelled him to speak of an
"Elsewhere" for her, though for himself he persisted in
nourishing the doubt that an "Elsewhere" existed. Roy
Ainsworth, the artist, observing him closely, noted how stern and almost melancholy was the expression of his handsome dark face,--then glancing from him to his brother, was surprised at the marked difference between the two. The frank, open, beautiful features of Féraz seemed to invite confidence, and acting on the suggestion made to him by Madame Vassilius, he spoke abruptly.
"I wish you would sit to me," he said.
"Sit to you? For a picture, do you mean?" And Féraz
looked delighted yet amazed.
"Yes. You have just the face I want. Are you in town?--can
you spare the time?"
"I am always with my brother"--began Féraz
hesitatingly.
El-Râmi heard him, and smiled rather sadly.
"Féraz is his own master," he said gently, "and
his time is quite at his own disposal."
"Then come and let us talk it over," said Ainsworth, taking
Féraz by the arm. "I'll pilot you through this crowd, and
we'll make for some quiet corner where we can sit down. Come
along!"
Out of old habit Féraz glanced at his brother for permission, but
El-Râmi's head was turned away; he was talking to Lord Melthorpe. So,
through the brilliant throng of fashionable men and women, many of whom
turned to stare at him as he passed, Féraz went, half-eager,
half-reluctant, his large fawn-like eyes flashing an innocent wonderment on
the scene around him,--a scene different from everything to which he
had been accustomed. He was uncomfortably conscious that there was
something false and even deadly beneath all this glitter and
show,--but his senses were dazzled for the moment, though the
poet-soul of him instinctively recoiled from the noise and glare and
restless movement of the crowd. It was his first entry into so-called
"society";--and, though attracted and interested, he was
also somewhat startled and abashed--for he felt instinctively that he
was thrown upon his own resources,--that, for the present at any rate,
his brother's will no longer influenced him, and with the sudden sense of
liberty came the sudden sense of fear.
exchange friendly chit-chat,--men who had been standing all the evening found space to sit down beside their favoured fair ones, and indulge themselves in talking a little pleasant nonsense,--even the hostess herself was at last permitted to occupy an arm-chair and take a few moments' rest. Some of the guests had wandered into the music-saloon, a quaintly decorated oak-panelled apartment which opened out from the largest drawing-room. A string band had played there till Royalty had come and gone, but now "sweet harmony" no longer "wagged her silver tongue," for the musicians were at supper. The grand piano was open, and Madame Vassilius stood near it, idly touching the ivory keys now and then with her small white, sensitive-looking fingers. Close beside her, comfortably ensconced in a round deep chair, sat a very stout old lady with a curiously large hairy face and a beaming expression of eye, who appeared to have got into her pink silk gown by some cruelly unnatural means, so tightly was she laced, and so much did she seem in danger of bursting. She perspired profusely and
smiled perpetually, and frequently stroked the end of her very pronounced moustache with quite a mannish air. This was the individual for whom Lady Melthorpe had been searching,--the Baroness von Denkwald, noted for her skill in palmistry.
"Ach! it is warm!" she said in her strong German accent,
giving an observant and approving glance at Irene's white-draped
form.--"You are ze one womans zat is goot to look at. A peach
mit ice-cream,--dot is yourself."
Irene smiled pensively, but made no answer.
The Baroness looked at her again, and fanned herself rapidly.
"It is sometings bad mit you?" she asked at
last.--"You look sorrowful? Zat Eastern mans--he say tings
disagreeable? You should pelieve me,--I have told you of
your hand--ach! what a
fortune!--splendid!--fame,--money, title,--a grand
marriage--"
Irene lifted her little hand from the keyboard of the piano, and looked
curiously at the lines in her pretty palm.
"Dear Baroness, there must be some mis-
take," she said slowly.--"I was a lonely child,--and some people say that as you begin, so will you end. I shall never marry--I am a lonely woman, and it will always be so."
"Always, always--not at all!" and the Baroness shook
her large head obstinately. "You will marry; and Gott in Himmel save
you from a husband such as mine! He is dead--oh yes--a goot
ting;--he is petter off--and so am I. Moch petter!"
And she laughed, the rise and fall of her ample neck causing quite a
cracking sound in the silk of her bodice.
Madame Vassilius smiled again,--and then again grew serious. She
was thinking of the "Elsewhere" that El-Râmi had spoken
of,--she had noticed that all he said had seemed to be uttered
involuntarily,--and that he had hesitated strangely before using the
word "Elsewhere." She longed to ask him one or two more
questions,--and scarcely had the wish formed itself in her mind, than
she saw him advancing from the drawing-room, in company with Lord
Melthorpe, Sir Frederick Vaughan, and the pretty frivolous
Idina Chester, who, regardless of all that poets write concerning the unadorned simplicity of youth, had decked herself, American fashion, with diamonds enough for a dowager.
"It's too lovely!" the young lady was saying as she
entered.--"I think, Mr. El-Râmi, you have made me out a
most charming creature! Unemotional, harmless and
innocently worldly'--that was it, wasn't it?
'Well now, I think that's splendid! I had an idea you were
going to find out something horrid about me;--I'm so glad I'm
harmless! You're sure I'm harmless?"
"Quite sure!" said El-Râmi with a slight smile.
"And there you possess a great superiority over most
women."
And he stepped forward in obedience to Lady Melthorpe's signal, to be
introduced to the 'dear' Baroness, whose shrewd little eyes
dwelt upon him curiously.
"Do you believe in palmistry?" she asked him, after the
ordinary greetings were exchanged.
"I'm afraid not," he answered politely--"though I
am acquainted with the rules of the art as practised in the East, and I
know
that many odd coincidences do occur. But,--as an example--take my hand--I am sure you can make nothing of it."
He held out his open palm for her inspection--she bent over it, and
uttered an exclamation of surprise. There were none of the usual
innumerable little criss-cross lines upon it--nothing, in fact, but
two deep dents from left to right, and one well-marked line running from
the wrist to the centre.
"It is unnatural!" cried the Baroness in
amazement.--"It is a malformation! There is no hand like
it!"
"I believe not," answered El-Râmi
composedly.--"As I told you, you can learn nothing from
it--and yet my life has not been without its adventures. This hand of
mine is my excuse for not accepting palmistry as an absolutely proved
science."
"Must everything be 'proved' for you?" asked
Irene Vassilius suddenly.
"Assuredly, Madame!"
"Then have you 'proved' the Elsewhere of which you
spoke to me?"
El-Râmi flushed a little,--then paled again.
"Madame, the message of your inner spirit, as conveyed first
through the electric medium of the brain, and then through the magnetism of
your touch, told me of an 'Elsewhere.' I may not personally or
positively know of any 'elsewhere,' than this present state of
being,--but your interior Self expects an
'Elsewhere,'--apparently knows of it better than I do, and
conveys that impression and knowledge to me, apart from any consideration
as to whether I may be fitted to understand or receive it."
These words were heard with evident astonishment by the little group of
people who stood by, listening.
"Dear me! How ve--ry curious!" murmured
Lady Melthorpe.--"And we have always looked upon dear Madame
Vassilius as quite a free-thinker,"--here she smiled
apologetically, as Irene lifted her serious eyes and looked at her
steadily--"I mean, as regards the next world and all those
interesting subjects. In some of her books, for instance, she is terribly
severe on the clergy."
"Not more so than many of them deserve,
I am sure," said El-Râmi with sudden heat and asperity.--"It was not Christ's intention, I believe, that the preachers of His Gospel should drink and hunt, and make love to their neighbours' wives ad libitum, which is what a great many of them do. The lives of the clergy nowadays offer very few worthy examples to the laity."
Lady Melthorpe coughed delicately and warningly. She did not like plain
speaking,--she had a "pet clergyman" of her
own,--moreover, she had been bred up in the provinces among
"county" folk, some of whom still believe that at one period of
the world's history "God" was always wanting the blood of bulls
and goats to smell "as a sweet savour in His nostrils." She
herself preferred to believe in the possibility of the Deity's having
"nostrils," rather than take the trouble to consider the effect
of His majestic Thought as evinced in the supremely perfect order of the
Planets and Solar Systems.
El-Râmi, however, went on regardlessly.
"Free-thinkers," he said, "are for the most part
truth-seekers. If everybody gave way
to the foolish credulity attained to by the believers in the 'Mahatmas' for instance, what an idiotic condition the world would be in! We want free-thinkers,--as many as we can get,--to help us to distinguish between the False and the True. We want to separate the Actual from the Seeming in our lives,--and there is so much Seeming and so little Actual that the process is difficult."
"Why, dat is nonsense!" said the Baroness von
Denkenwald.--"Mit a Fact, zere is no mistake--you prove
him. See!" and she took up a silver penholder from the table near
her.--"Here is a pen,--mit ink it is used to
write--zere is what you call ze Actual."
El-Râmi smiled.
"Believe me, my dear Madame, it is only a pen so long as you elect
to view it in that light. Allow me!"--and he took it from her
hand, fixing his eyes upon her the while. "Will you place the tips of
your fingers--the fingers of the left hand--yes--so! on my
wrist? Thank you!"--this, as she obeyed with a rather vague
smile on her big fat
face.--"Now you will let me have the satisfaction of offering you this spray of lilies--the first of the season," and he gravely extended the silver penholder.--"Is not the odour delicious!"
"Ach! it is heavenly!" and the Baroness smelt at the
penholder with an inimitable expression of delight. Everybody began to
laugh--El-Râmi silenced them by a look.
"Madame, you are under some delusion," he said
quietly.--"You have no lilies in your hand, only a
penholder."
She laughed.
"You are very funny!" she said--"but I shall not
be deceived. I shall wear my lilies."
And she endeavoured to fasten the penholder in the front of her
bodice,--when suddenly El-Râmi drew his hand away from hers. A
startled expression passed over her face, but in a minute or two she
recovered her equanimity and twirled the penholder placidly between her
fingers.
"Zere is what you call ze Actual," she said, taking up the
conversation where it had previously been interrupted.--"A
pen-
holder is always a penholder--you can make nothing more of it."
But here she was surrounded by the excited onlookers--a flood of
explanations poured upon her, as to how she had taken that same penholder
for a spray of lilies, and so forth, till the old lady grew quite hot and
angry.
"I shall not pelieve you!" she said
indignantly.--"It is impossible. You haf a joke--but I do
not see it. Irene"--and she looked appealingly to Madame
Vassilius, who had witnessed the whole scene--"it is not true,
is it?"
"Yes, dear Baroness, it is true," said Irene
soothingly.--"But it is a nothing after all. Your eyes were
deceived for the moment--and Mr. El-Râmi has shown us very
cleverly, by scientific exposition, how the human sight can be
deluded--he conveyed an impression of lilies to your brain, and you
saw lilies accordingly. I quite understand,--it is only through the
brain that we receive any sense of sight. The thing is easy of
comprehension, though it seems wonderful."
"It is devilry!" said the Baroness solemnly, getting up and
shaking out her voluminous pink train with a wrathful gesture.
"No, Madame," said El-Râmi earnestly, with a glance at
her which somehow had the effect of quieting her ruffled feelings.
"It is merely science. Science was looked upon as
'devilry' in ancient times,--but we in our generation are
more liberal-minded."
"But what shall it lead to, all zis science?" demanded the
Baroness, still with some irritation.--"I see not any use in it.
If one deceive ze eye so quickly, it is only to make peoples angry to find
demselves such fools!"
"Ah, my dear lady, if we could all know to what extent exactly we
could be fooled,--not only as regards our sight, but our other senses
and passions, we should be wiser and more capable of self-government than
we are. Every step that helps us to the attainment of such knowledge is
worth the taking."
"And you have taken so many of those steps," said Irene
Vassilius, "that I suppose it would be difficult to deceive
you?"
"I am only human, Madame," returned El-Râmi, with a
faint touch of bitterness in
his tone, "and therefore I am capable of being led astray by my own emotions as others are."
"Are we not getting too analytical?" asked Lord Melthorpe
cheerily. "Here is Miss Chester wanting to know where your brother
Féraz is. She only caught a glimpse of him in the
distance,--and she would like to make his closer
acquaintance."
"He went with Mr. Ainsworth," began El-Râmi.
"Yes--I saw them together in the conservatory," said
Lady Melthorpe. "They were deep in conversation--but it is time
they gave us a little of their company--I'll go and fetch them
here."
She went, but almost immediately returned, followed by the two
individuals in question. Féraz looked a little flushed and
excited,--Roy Ainsworth calm and nonchalant as usual.
"I've asked your brother to come and sit to me to-morrow,"
the latter said, addressing himself at once to El-Râmi. "He is
quite willing to oblige me,--and I presume you have no
objection?"
"Not the least in the world!" responded El-Râmi with
apparent readiness, though the keen observer might have detected a slight
ring of satirical coldness in his tone.
"He is a curious fellow," continued Roy, looking at
Féraz where he stood, going through the formality of an introduction
to Miss Chester, whose bold bright eyes rested upon him in frank and
undisguised admiration. "He seems to know nothing of life."
"What do you call 'life'?" demanded
El-Râmi, with harsh abruptness.
"Why, life as we men live it, of course," answered Roy,
complacently.
"'Life, as we men live it!'" echoed
El-Râmi. "By Heaven, there is nothing viler under the sun than
life lived so! The very beasts have a more decent and self-respecting mode
of behaviour,--and the everyday existence of an ordinary 'man
about town' is low and contemptible as compared to that of an
honest-hearted Dog!"
Ainsworth lifted his languid eyes with a stare of amazement;--Irene
Vassilius smiled.
"I agree with you!" she said softly.
"Oh, of course!" murmured Roy
sar-
castically--"Madame Vassilius agrees with everything that points to, or suggests the utter worthlessness of Man!"
Her eyes flashed.
"Believe me," she said, with some passion, "I would
give worlds to be able to honour and revere men,--and there are some
whom I sincerely respect and admire,--but I frankly admit that the
majority of them awaken nothing in me but the sentiment of contempt. I
regret it, but I cannot help it."
"You want men to be gods," said Ainsworth, regarding her
with an indulgent smile; "and when they can't succeed, poor wretches,
you are hard on them. You are a born goddess, and to you it comes quite
naturally to occupy a throne on Mount Olympus, and gaze with placid
indifference on all below,--but to others, the process is difficult.
For example, I am a groveller. I grovel round the base of the mountain and
rather like it. A valley is warmer than a summit, always."
A faint sea-shell pink flush crept over Irene's cheeks, but she made no
reply. She was watching Féraz, round whom a bevy of
pretty women were congregated, like nineteenth-century nymphs round a new Eastern Apollo. He looked a little embarrassed, yet his very diffidence had an indefinable grace and attraction about it which was quite novel and charming to the jaded fashionable fair ones who for the moment made him their chief object of attention. They were pressing him to give them some music, and he hesitated, not out of any shyness to perform, but simply from a sense of wonder as to how such a spiritual, impersonal and divine thing as Music could be made to assert itself in the midst of so much evident frivolity. He looked appealingly at his brother,--but El-Râmi regarded him not. He understood this mute avoidance of his eyes,--he was thrown upon himself to do exactly as he chose,--and his sense of pride stimulated him to action. Breaking from the ring of his fair admirers, he advanced towards the piano.
"I will play a simple prelude," he said, "and if you
like it, you shall hear more."
There was an immediate silence. Irene Vassilius moved a little apart and
sat on a
low divan, her hands clasped idly in her lap;--near her stood Lord Melthorpe, Roy Ainsworth, and El-Râmi;--Sir Frederick Vaughan and his fiancée, Idina Chester, occupied what is known as a "flirtation chair" together; several guests flocked in from the drawing-rooms, so that the salon was comparatively well-filled. Féraz poised his delicate and supple hands on the keyboard,--and then--why, what then? Nothing!--only music!--music divinely pure and sweet as a lark's song,--music that spoke of things as yet undeclared in mortal language,--of the mystery of an angel's tears--of the joy of a rose in bloom,--of the midsummer dreams of a lily enfolded within its green leaf-pavilion,--of the love-messages carried by silver beams from bridegroom-stars to bride-satellites,--of a hundred delicate and wordless marvels the music talked eloquently in rounded and mystic tone. And gradually, but invincibly, upon all those who listened, there fell the dreamy nameless spell of perfect harmony,--they did not understand, they could not grasp the far-off heavenly meanings which the sounds con-
veyed, but they knew and felt such music was not earthly. The quest of gold, or thirst of fame, had nothing to do with such composition--it was above and beyond all that. When the delicious melody ceased, it seemed to leave an emptiness in the air,--an aching regret in the minds of the audience; it had fallen like dew on arid soil, and there were tears in many eyes, and passionate emotions stirring many hearts, as Féraz pressed his finger-tips with a velvet-like softness on the closing chord. Then came a burst of excited applause which rather startled him from his dreams. He looked round with a faint smile of wonderment, and this time chanced to meet his brother's gaze earnestly fixed upon him. Then an idea seemed to occur to him, and playing a few soft notes by way of introduction, he said aloud, almost as though he were talking to himself--
"There are in the world's history a few old legends and stories,
which, whether they are related in prose or rhyme, seem to set themselves
involuntarily to music. I will tell you one now, if you care to hear
it,--the Story of the Priest Philemon."
There was a murmur of delight and expectation, followed by profound
silence as before.
Féraz lifted his eyes,--bright stag-like eyes, now flashing
with warmth and inspiration,--and pressing the piano pedals, he played
a few slow solemn chords like the opening bars of a church chant; then, in
a soft, rich, perfectly modulated voice, he began.
Here Féraz paused,--and touching the keys of the piano with
a caressing lightness,
played a soft minor melody, which like a silver thread of sound, accompanied his next words.
"And so, by gradual and almost imperceptible degrees, the wise
priest Philemon forgot the world;--forgot men, and women, and little
children,--forgot the blueness of the skies, the verdure of the
fields,--forgot the grace of daisies growing in the
grass,--forgot the music of sweet birds singing in the
boughs,--forgot indeed everything, except--himself!--and his
prayers, and his wisdom, and his burning desire to approach more closely
every hour to that wondrous goal of the Divine from whence all life doth
come, and to which all life must, in due time, return."
Here the musical accompaniment changed to a plaintive tenderness.
"But by-and-by, news of the wise priest Philemon began to spread
in the town near where he had his habitation,--and people spoke of his
fastings and his watchings with awe and wonder, with hope and
fear,--until at last there came a day when a great crowd of the sick
and sorrowful and oppressed, surrounded his abode, and called upon him to
pray for them, and give them comfort.
"'Bestow upon us some of the Divine
Consolation!' they cried, kneeling in the dust and weeping as they
spoke--'for we are weary and worn with labour,--we suffer
with harsh wounds of the heart and spirit,--many of us have lost all
that makes life dear. Pity us, O thou wise servant of the Supreme--and
tell us out of thy stores of heavenly wisdom whether we shall ever regain
the loves that we have lost!'
"Then the priest Philemon rose up in haste and wrath, and going
out before them said--
"'Depart from me, ye accursed crew of wicked worldlings! Why
have ye sought me out, and what have I to do with your petty miseries? Lo,
ye have brought the evils of which ye complain upon yourselves, and justice
demands that ye should suffer. Ask not from me one word of pity--seek
not from me any sympathy for sin. I have severed myself from ye all, to
escape pollution,--my life belongs to God, not to Humanity!'
"And the people hearing him were wroth, and went their way
homewards, sore at heart,
and all uncomforted. And Philemon the priest, fearing lest they might seek him out again, departed from that place for ever, and made for himself a hut in the deep thickness of the forest where never a human foot was found to wander save his own. Here in the silence and deep solitude he resolved to work and pray, keeping his heart and spirit sanctified from every soiling touch of nature that could separate his thoughts from the Divine."
Again the music changed, this time to a dulcet rippling passage of notes
like the slowing of a mountain stream,--and Féraz
continued,--
"One morning, as, lost in a rapture of holy meditation, he prayed
his daily prayer, a small bird perched upon his window-sill, and began to
sing. Not a loud song, but a sweet song--full of the utmost tenderness
and playful warbling,--a song born out of the leaves and grasses and
gentle winds of heaven,--as delicate a tune as ever small bird sang.
The priest Philemon listened, and his mind wandered. The bird's singing was
sweet; oh, so sweet, that it recalled to him many things he had imagined
long ago forgotten,--almost
he heard his mother's voice again,--and the blithe and gracious days of his early youth suggested themselves to his memory like the lovely fragments of a poem once familiar, but now scarce remembered. Presently the bird flew away, and the priest Philemon awoke as from a dream,--his prayer had been interrupted; his thoughts had been drawn down to earth from heaven, all through the twittering of a foolish feathered thing not worth a farthing! Angry with himself he spent the day in penitence,--and on the following morning betook himself to his devotions with more than his usual ardour. Stretched on his prayer-mat he lay entranced; when suddenly a low sweet trill of sound broke gently through the silence,--the innocent twittering voice of the little bird once more aroused him,--first to a sense of wonder, then of wrath. Starting up impatiently he looked about him, and saw the bird quite close, within his reach,--it had flown inside his hut, and now hopped lightl