THE GOLDEN SERPENT
The afternoon was cold and gloomy, and by the time Rosalie reached the
temple the little light that ever came there had quite died away. There
were no Americans in Lucifram, no English tourists either, consequently
the sacred building from morn to eve was silent as the grave except for
matins and for evensong. But evensong was held at seven, and now it was
but four.
Rosalie’s heart was in that terrible state of aching which approaches
physical pain. Speechless, she knew herself quite helpless.
For lack of speech she must be separated from one who had suddenly grown
more helpless than herself, one whom she could not bear to part with,
one who had grown accustomed to her great defect, and had never labelled
on the door those words: “Home for the Blind—the Deaf—the
Dumb—Incurables.”
“Once I get inside there I am dumb for ever,” she cried to herself, as
she stumbled up the darkening aisle. “Oh, I cannot go—I cannot! I want
to live like other people. To be free—free—free!”
And so she knelt down beside the altar railings, and buried her face in
her hands against its golden bars.
“Oh, Serpent, let me speak! Give me a tongue like other people have. I
cannot go to that asylum—I cannot really. I cannot live without my aunt.
We are all in all to each other. What good am I if I remain a speechless
log? I might as well be dead.”
No answer. Darkness and silence. That was all. The impenetrable hardness
of it sank to Rosalie’s heart. Suddenly she got up and looked round
cautiously, with pale face and dark-rimmed eyes. There was no noise.
Nothing moved in the empty building save herself. Silent and trembling,
she took a step forward inside the railing, then another, and her hand
touched the crimson curtain. Again she looked around, assured herself
again that she was quite alone, silently drew back the heavy fold and
stepped within. The lights upon the altar, burning by day and night,
changed the dull gloom to brightness. Her wandering, awe-struck gaze
fell full upon the Serpent, its head and jewelled eyes all shining
underneath the slowly swinging lights.
Here, then, was the hidden God that all things worshipped. This was the
God who punished some, rewarded others, and wore the creeds of ages on
its three-pronged tail. Her eyes were dazzled by the brilliancy, but the
Serpent’s wisdom gleaming from those curious eyes attracted her.
“Give me what I want! Give me what I want!” she whispered, and stretched
out her white arms till her hands had clasped behind the Serpent’s head.
Then she leant forward and pressed her lips against the cruel, hardened,
lifeless fangs, and whispered yet again:
“Give me what I want—just so that I may serve you!”
As silently she unclasped her fingers, rising to her feet. She passed
down the three steps leading from the altar, and became aware, with
beating heart and sudden tumultuous fear, that she had been watched.
For, stepping from the side way, came a stranger, stopping her progress
outward to the other side of the veil.
“What is it that you want?” he said.
In his eyes there shone the priceless worth of wisdom’s jewels, giving
them in their brilliant expression something of the same impenetrable
light the Serpent’s had.
Rosalie became confused, and mixed the two together. How could she help
it, seeing both had come together? But no words were there for
utterance. She raised her hand to her mouth, her eyes to his face—eyes
that had grown in sadness and in beauty throughout a lifetime—and then
she shook her head.
“Dumb?” said he.
She nodded.
“Is that what you came to pray about?”
Again she nodded. She looked up at him, and her eyes sank. After all, it
was the secret of a life, for none knew of these daily visits to the
temple, and now a stranger had discovered it—the secret which had been
guarded so jealously all these years.
“And you come in here to pray often?”
She shook her head vehemently, and pointed outside.
“I see. You stay outside?”
Again she nodded.
Then he held the curtain aside, and she passed out, he following her.
The church without was black.
Rosalie gave a muttered cry of dismay—the building was so large, its
pews, and steps, and labyrinths all so intricate. But her companion
produced a light that glowed like a thin taper, but burnt with a clearer
and a stronger light, and plainly lit the church around them.
“Never trust to the church to give you light,” said he whimsically,
“unless, as now, you penetrate to the Holy of Holies!”
Rosalie smiled; she felt it was but polite, unaccustomed as she was to
strangers.
Together they walked down the long aisle, and once she stole a glance up
at him sideways, with great curiosity, to see what he was like. But the
stranger was looking at her, and she bent her head downward again. She
evidently did not possess the gift of sweet unconsciousness of self.
“I presume you wished to come away?” he said at the end of their
journey, before he opened the heavy doors.
She nodded.
Then he laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“The Serpent must be very cruel and hardened if he withstand such a
prayer as that you offered.”
There was more amusement than pity in his voice and expression. Rosalie
felt, but did not understand it. Never had anyone in her narrow life
been able to put so much expression into a mere hand-touch. In gratitude
she could have taken and kissed it many times.
They passed out on to the high steps leading from the temple. The rain
was coming down in torrents. The street lamps glistened through it, and
the passers-by were infrequent.
“How are you going home?” he said. The outside world seemed to have
separated them.
She pointed to her feet.
“Walking? Well, hurry and don’t get wet. It would be a pity to spoil the
prayer by leaving no time for its fulfilment. Good-night!”
Then he moved away a step or two, and she stopped to put up her
umbrella. Suddenly, however, he turned round, and came with quick
strides toward her.
“See, here is my card. When you have made headway with the Serpent, and
received an answer to your prayer, come and see me!”
And he scribbled on the back of the card “Admit Bearer,” and then handed
it to her, once more leaving her standing on the steps.
Then Rosalie, having succeeded in getting up the umbrella, and gathering
up her skirts, turned in the direction of home. It was a walk of about
twenty minutes, and all the way she thought of the stranger, of his
interesting face, deep eyes and mellow voice, his hand laid so kindly on
her shoulder. She remembered, also, that sudden perceptible change when
outside the church, a mixture of harshness and coldness and pride, more
shown in his manner than his words.
“I wonder what he was doing inside the curtain?” she thought. “Perhaps
he had gone there to pray like me. I hope I did not disturb him.” Then
she sighed. “He looked a rich man, and he could say whatever he wanted
to. There could be nothing he was wanting half so much as I.”
On reaching home she was met by her aunt. As soon as they were seated at
the frugal tea, the lady explained that a Mr. Ellershaw, an acquaintance
of her dead husband, had called that afternoon to see her. On hearing
how matters stood, and the separation that was imminent, he had told her
of a post of caretaker he knew to be vacant, where the work was to look
after a large building in the city let out in flats to different
business men. There would be a certain amount of work to do in
connection with this—and he did not know whether either of them would
care for such a post; but it was there if they wished. It would ensure
them living together, four rooms in the topmost storey. Rosalie looked
across her tea-cup and nodded her head eagerly.
“You like such a prospect?” her aunt asked quietly.
She nodded again.
“It will be very hard work, and I am not as strong as I used to be.”
Rosalie held out her hands and looked at them triumphantly. Then she
pointed to herself, and smiled.
“You think you could undertake some of it?”
So together they wrote a letter accepting the post, and a week later
left their old home, with all its memories and associations, to settle
in a fifth storey dwelling amongst the skylights.
Rosalie felt her prayer in part was answered. They were not to be
separated after all. Hard as the work might be, it meant freedom and the
company she loved. She was content, went to the temple, knelt humbly and
returned thanks. Then she went on praying for a voice with a faith born
of simplicity and her own idea of God.
One day a priest found her praying there. He inquired the cause. Like
the stranger, he was not long in finding it. He put his hand upon her
head, and blessed her in the name of the Serpent’s three tails. Then he
went back to the priests’ lodgings, and kept his story for supper. He
was a jolly man, of the earth earthy, and his idea of the Serpent was
that his golden coils were lucrative. The priest was not bad-hearted; he
was simply mediocre. But he had a sense of humour—and who, indeed, but
the soured and stupid have not?—and the idea of a girl kneeling by the
altar railings (he had never seen her, as on that one unique occasion,
step beyond) praying persistently to be allowed to talk when plainly she
was physically beyond it tickled his sense of funniness. He laughed and
shook till the tears ran down his face.
“And she believes it—_that’s_ the biggest joke,” he cried. “Believes
that if she prays long enough the Serpent will weary or turn merciful,
and fulfil her prayer.”
“According to our history of the past, with its wonders and miracles,
that is not so impossible as it seems,” said one, more thoughtfully.
“She’d best jump back a hundred year or two, and cap one miracle by
another, then,” remarked a third.
“What did you say to her, James Peter?” asked a fourth.
“Oh, I blessed her, and prayed to the Serpent to look serious, and the
request was granted. ’Twas a miracle on a small scale, I can assure you.
I could have roared right out.”
“What is she like to look at?” put in a fifth.
“Pretty—sad-looking—just the sort of woman to get an idea. That is the
sort we can’t afford to quarrel with. They tip so handsomely on
Sundays.”
“Little or tall?”
“Oh, tall! Medium, at any rate. Couldn’t smile if she tried. Sacred
liver of the Serpent! What a sermon for one of you fellows with a love
of sentiment to preach on Sunday.”
“Wait till the woman is made whole, and sitting in the congregation.
Then our fortunes are secured,” said another drily.
And in this respect the priests of the Serpent were very different from
our own. Amongst themselves they never acted the hypocrite—the heathen
idolaters!
So next day, when Rosalie went to pray, one or two passed in and out
silently to behold the phenomenon. After a time they grew accustomed,
and took no further notice of her. After all, a woman might as well
spend her time in an attitude of humble devotion. Experience generally
proved those to make the best sort of wives.
Rosalie and her aunt had been established a little over six months in
the new home, and the work was so hard and unaccustomed that it was
beginning to tell on both of them.
The older woman was little better than a breakdown before she came, and
gradually without much complaint, but growing silence, she sank into the
bed of weakness more. It was a sickness from which she never rose.
She had been too old to face these sudden changes, was not made of the
stuff that endures, or not enduring, fights. So then this cloud had only
risen in mockery to sink the heavier. Where was Rosalie’s prayer of love
and thanksgiving?
The last week of her aunt’s illness was very strange and unreal to
Rosalie—strange and unreal when, after the second funeral within a year,
she sat alone in the little empty four-roomed storey.
Her hands, roughened, though not coarsened, by hard work, were clasped
between her knees. Her head had sunk forward on her breast, her open
eyes saw nothing.
Vaguely she hoped that she might be the next to go, thought of her
prayer for speech, and dashed the bitter tears from her dull eyes. What
of her prayer? Perhaps to the Serpent it sounded nothing more than
clamorous presumption and self-will.
Again she had been offered the shelter of the Home for Deaf and Dumb by
those who recognised her sad position. Was she ungrateful? Many poor
waifs there were, she knew, in that great city, with none to help them
to the scantiest food and shelter.
“I can’t believe you’re either kind or just, and I won’t pray to you any
more!” she cried inwardly, jumping up fiercely at last. “I wasn’t made
to be without a tongue. I wasn’t! I wasn’t! You haven’t the power to
give me one; that’s what it really is.”
But no bricks and mortar fell to punish such an outburst.
“What have I done that I should be left here alone?” she continued. “I
want to go along with aunt and uncle. You know I do. I can’t live here
alone.”
But there was no answer. Gradually a calmer spirit came over her,
together with a wish to find out that sphinx-like secret that wrapped
itself in icy silence.
“What’s the good of making me want to talk if you won’t let me?” she
asked.
Out of the vast silence a voice seemed to shape itself at last.
“Give up! Sacrifice!” it said.
It was such a very beautiful voice, and yet so very cold, that Rosalie
shrank from it. Sacrifice was such a heathenish thing! Besides, what was
there to sacrifice in the way of a tongue—she hadn’t got one, not a
serviceable one, at any rate.
“The Serpent’s will comes first with all believers,” cried the same
voice out of the silence.
“I wish we could agree,” said Rosalie, with no disrespect, and then fell
a-thinking.
Yes. After all, it came to the old, old thing. A clashing of wills—one
human, one divine—if such it could be called. And therein lay the only
sacrifice that God or the Serpent ever needed. It meant the sacrifice of
will.
Slowly and clearly the truth unfolded itself. If her faith were pure and
unselfish, she must be willing to give up longing and praying for that
which was beyond her, and still love and serve the Serpent even without
reward.
And to what path did her duty point? The thankful acceptance of a
shelter that was offered, a gentle surrender without bitterness into
God’s hands. An ending of a prayer He thought fit not to answer.
It meant a great deal to Rosalie. The priest had laughed at her
simpleness in expecting the performance of a miracle. Perhaps would all
else had they heard it; but to her it was a very real thing, the outcome
of real belief, that left a shattered feeling of disappointment when the
ending came.
“I thought the Serpent always answered prayer when it was real,” she
said, and felt suddenly like one moving uncertainly in unknown lands
amongst a host of strangers.
The time was drawing round to autumn again, and now that her aunt had
been removed, arrangements were being made for her going. Within the
week, she had been told, she would go the Home. Those who had interested
themselves on her behalf did not like to think of the lonely girl. The
doctor who had attended the aunt and uncle had very kindly made it his
business to remove all delays, such as often took place for those who
were admitted.
Another woman, older and stronger, and more accustomed to the work, was
engaged. She had been there for some time before her aunt’s death.
Rosalie, in this new and quiet mood, recognised the kindness that had
been shown to her on all sides. But though she was truly thankful, she
could raise no enthusiasm. The next day, when afternoon came, she
dressed herself as carefully as her worn clothes would allow, and went
once more towards the temple.
But with what different feelings! For two years past she had gone always
with the same earnest prayer, with no doubt of its acceptance, and now
she was going to give up the prayer and everything that made her life
worth living.
It was just such another wet, dull day as that a year ago when, with
excess of feeling, she had drawn aside the sacred curtain and stept
within the Holy Place.
To-day, as usual, she went and knelt beside the railings. All was
growing dark. The same silence, the same utter emptiness, pervaded the
temple now, as then. Now, as then, the great longing seized her to pass
within the veil. So silently she rose, drew back the curtain stealthily,
and stept within. The Serpent’s steadfast gaze demanded her first
glance. Then she looked round, but perceived no stranger. Assured, she
ascended the steps and knelt beside the gorgeous table. With tenderness
and love, the outcome of simplicity and pure devotion, she clasped her
hands once more about the Serpent’s head, kneeling before it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her lips close to the terrible mouth. “I
made a god of my own tongue instead of you. But now I understand. And,
oh! Serpent, teach me the right way to live, and keep me from growing
bitter.”
Then, as before, she imprinted a light kiss, tender and loving, on the
unkissable mouth, and silently bowed her head some minutes on the table.
Then on a sudden Rosalie rose, her eyes wide open, and stared at the
golden god. They stared in wonderment, but growing understanding. The
light of dawning wisdom was in her eyes.
One minute, two minutes, three, passed away. She turned round suddenly,
emerged into the church, dark now as once before about a year ago. A
light was in her hand; she cared not how she came by it, but partly
knew.
A priest from one of the choir stalls was watching her, with a feeble
candle in his hand.
He called out “Treason! Blasphemy!” to see a woman thus emerge from
behind the sacred curtain. It was James Peter.
Rushing forward, he slipped over a footstool, and fell down heavily. His
light was extinguished. Down the vast aisle, with the lightness of a
spirit, Rosalie ran. Her eyes were laughing, a flush was on her once
pale cheek.
James Peter, rising, followed her. He puffed and groaned at every
priestly step.
But when the door was open she turned and nodded to him in the distance.
The door closed. He was in darkness. He had followed solely upon her
light.
Not till the lights were brought for Evensong did he extricate himself
from the toils of the massive building. Then he told his tale.
“I tell you she turned round at the door and called to me ‘Bon soir,
monsieur! Adieu!’” he cried for the third time to his companions.
“Good Lord! What does it mean?” said one.
“Was she not dumb?” asked a second.
“As dumb as the Serpent!” replied James Peter. “She went into the Holy
Place, and is cured.”
“A woman in the Holy Place!”
“Yes! I called ‘Blasphemy!’ but the damned footstool tripped me! Had it
not been for that I had caught her and brought her up before the great
High Priest.”
“A footstool tripped you!”
“Don’t speak so sneeringly, brother Thomas John. I said a footstool
tripped me.”
“And you lost the woman?”
“What could I do without a light?”
“Strike matches.”
“I followed her eyes till the door closed, and forgot about them.
Besides, not being a smoker, I never carry any.”
“Did you say you found a woman in the Holiest Place?” asked others,
crowding round.
“I did not find her there, I saw her coming out.”
“Coming out! And never stopped her?”
“No!”
“But we must find her. What is her address?”
“I don’t know. What’s the punishment when we have found her?”
“In olden times it was to have her tongue torn out by the roots.”
“But the Serpent had just given her one, I tell you.”
“Nowadays, I expect, the punishment will be modified. Strict silence on
penalty of death, maybe.”
“But if the Serpent has given her a tongue, who then dare take it away?”
“How has the Serpent given her one?”
“I tell you, before she was dumb.”
“Impossible! No woman was ever so afflicted—worse luck!”
“I tell you she was dumb, and is cured. She said to me at the door, ‘Bon
soir, monsieur. Adieu!’ Very pretty words,” and he mimicked the tone and
gesture.
“This is sheer madness. There is no sense in the words!” cried another.
“Is it necessary for women to speak sense?” asked James Peter.
All the others laughed. He looked dangerous. And so they talked, and all
gesticulated. But the mistake was on the part of James Peter—in part, at
least.
He never heard the lady speak. It was his own imagination which coined
strange words without meaning.