Crucial Moments
An election in Atlantis was seldom accompanied by intense excitement.
There was no registration, for all citizens were permanently enrolled
with the population bureau; on election day all the men and women of
voting age (which means all who had passed their High Initiation)
appeared quietly at the designated polling places to cast a secret
ballot, or else--if they preferred--they sent in their vote in writing
two or three days earlier. The election boards then slowly counted
the votes, and the fate of the measure (for laws were the only things
passed on by the voters of Atlantis) was disclosed at the Hall of
Public Enlightenment.
But the Emergence proposal proved an exception to the rule. Not a
little agitation was apparent among the men and women thronging to the
election chambers; and this agitation was heightened by the members of
the Upper World Club, who used earthly political tactics by accosting
the voters before they reached the polls and showering them with final
arguments and pleas. It is doubtful whether these eleventh hour efforts
had any effect, and, indeed, the results showed that they might have
been spared; but at the time we felt that our exertions had not been in
vain, and during the election and the days of suspense that followed,
we remained unwarrantedly hopeful.
Then came the disillusioning blow. After three days, the election
results were announced in the Hall of Public Enlightenment. Out of
more than a third of a million votes cast in all Atlantis, our party
had polled nearly a hundred and fifty thousand--yet had failed by many
thousands to equal the Submergence total.
Even so, we were not wholly discouraged. As Xanocles pointed out, the
cause of Emergence had never before been able to attract one-tenth as
many voters; and we had reason to hope that we would eventually bring
the majority to our side. And no sooner had the news of our defeat
reached us than we began to plan for further campaigns, for we were
determined not to abandon the fight so long as we had breath with which
to wage it.
Yet in one respect I was already regretting my connection with
the Emergence Party. My regrets, to be sure, arose from purely
non-political motives, and could not make me alter my allegiance; but
they were none the less deep-rooted. To my surprise and chagrin, I
found that my campaigning activities were bringing me into disfavor
with Aelios. As one of Agripides’ staunch admirers and a devoted member
of the Party of Submergence, she looked with growing disapproval upon
my association with Xanocles and his kind; and during those little
conferences, which we had for the supposed purpose of discussing my
“History of the Upper World,” she would take occasion to reprove me
mildly and even to suggest that my conduct savored of disloyalty.
Of course, I would plead my right as a citizen to espouse any political
cause that appealed to me; but she would nod gravely with dissent.
“Theoretically you may have the right,” she would remind me, “but don’t
you think you are showing remarkably bad taste? Remember, you came
into our land uninvited, and have been freely received as one of us,
and given citizenship and all the privileges of a native. And how do
you show your appreciation? By taking sides with the party that would
undermine our institutions; by doing all you can to wreck the very
country that succored you.”
To this I would reply that I had no intention of wrecking the country;
that I was trying to further its interests according to my own lights.
And Aelios, while not convinced that my own lights were the right ones,
would at least admit that my motives were sincere; and having reached
this halfway point of agreement, we would invariably turn to less
provocative subjects.
But despite her disapproval of my Emergence views, I had reason to be
encouraged by her attitude toward me. I saw her, while not often, at
least often enough to be assured of her friendship; and now and then I
caught in her eyes a bright, warm light which intimated that what she
felt might be more than friendship. Yet it may merely have been that
my desires passed judgment for me, for not by a word or a gesture did
she give evidence that she regarded me otherwise than as one kindly
disposed human being may regard another; and the occasional hints of
some gentler emotion were so rare and so fleeting that I could not be
sure. And so, as best I could, I restrained my impatience, at first
never seriously believing that I could aspire to her height, then
gradually fanning faint hopes that remained concealed beneath the
mantle of my diffidence. It was long before we even approached the
subject of love; and meanwhile, we would speak of impersonal things, or
personal things securely buried in the past, and nothing in my words
would give hint of the passion flaming to life within me, while in her
words I saw the traces only of a vivid and beauty-loving mind serenely
unconscious of sex.
* * * * *
But even in Atlantis it was impossible that we should continue to see
one another and yet retain a merely placid brother-and-sister attitude.
How it was with her I do not know, but I was the son of a world whose
passions burn gustily and strong; and I was becoming almost painfully
obsessed with the thought of her, and would be given to long fits of
melancholy in her absence, while at times in her presence I would
be tantalized by her passionless calm, and would feel the old sweet
primitive prompting to slip my arms about her, and enfold her as one
might enfold the Ultimate. But always I would restrain myself, for how
be sure of the reaction of this daughter of an alien civilization?
How be sure that embraces and caresses would not be repulsive to the
Atlanteans? And so, though possessed by the thought of her, as by some
exquisite perfume that provokes and allures, I repressed my eagerness
for many, many months, awaiting that opportunity which in the end, I
felt sure, time and circumstance must provide.
And in the end my patience was rewarded, and I was favored
unexpectedly by one of those occasions which life, if left quietly to
itself, seems usually to offer to lovers.
It was after one of my rare and delightful afternoons with Aelios, that
the supreme event occurred. We had been strolling together about the
city, and had gone for a moment’s rest into the “Temple of the Stars,”
that majestic edifice in which Rawson and I had been trapped so long
before. Seated on a stone bench in the darkness, we gazed awe-stricken
at the spectacle above us--the whole glittering panorama of the
night-skies, almost as I had beheld them so many times on earth. And as
I peered up at the image of those heavens I could hardly hope to see
again, a sad and reminiscent mood came over me; I could fancy myself
once more on earth, and was wistful for all that earth contained;
I missed the friends I had known, the sparkle of the sunshine, the
magnificence of white-throated mountains: I longed for the bluster and
cannonade of tempests, the icy tingling of the snow, the splashing and
foamy turbulence of the ocean. And Aelios, although she had never known
these things and could scarcely imagine what they meant, was strangely
responsive to my mood, and seemed even to feel my melancholy. She asked
me gently about the world I had left, and how it felt to wander among
the great cities of the earth, and how it felt to hear the purling
of mountain brooklets or to sit on a grassy knoll with the great sun
blazing in the blue above. And, remembering all that I had seen and
heard before my captivity in Atlantis, I described to Aelios what my
life had been, and told of my adventures and wanderings, my happy
childhood and youth and early manhood; and I drew upon my imagination
for gorgeous pictures of the upper world, and painted the home I had
lost as little less than a Paradise.
“Ah, now I see why you’ve joined the Emergence Party,” Aelios remarked,
her face glowing dimly in the near-starlight, and her eyes soft with a
kindly luster. “Of course, you must sometimes wish yourself back among
all those wonderful scenes you left.”
“Sometimes, indeed, I am sorry,” said I, in low tones and
reminiscently. “Sometimes I almost wish to be again in my native land.
But there are other times when I am glad, very glad to be here, and
when I would not go back to my own country if I could--not if you
offered me the whole world.”
“And when is that?” asked Aelios. “When you are in the beautiful
buildings here, or look at the exquisite statuary?”
“Yes, sometimes then,” I replied. “But not only then. There are other
exquisite things that make me wish to stay.”
“Yes, I can understand,” she declared, apparently still innocent of the
trend of my remarks. “The paintings, for example, or the colonnades,
or----”
“No, not only that,” I interrupted. “There is something more personal,
more human--something that--” Here I hesitated, hardly able to proceed,
for I realized that I was approaching an embarrassing climax.
“You mean then, that you like the people here?” she volunteered, still
with perfect candor.
“Yes, indeed I like the people!” I vowed, fervently. “And one person in
particular!”
If this remark had been intended to evoke a telltale reply, it was to
fail signally. “Oh, I am glad you are so attached to your friends!” she
responded, whether innocently or with calculating cleverness I could
not say, since the darkness concealed any blush that may have suffused
her face.
“But don’t you understand, Aelios?” I persisted. “Don’t you know whom
in particular I mean?”
The note of surprise in her answer was either genuine or else was born
of remarkably skilful acting. “How should I know whom you mean? Am I
with you often enough to know all your friends?”
She was making matters difficult for me. But, having reached this
tactical position, I was determined not to surrender. “Why, Aelios,”
I countered, “whom should you imagine that I have for my particular
friend? Whom but yourself?”
“Myself?” she repeated, in sheer astonishment. “Myself?”
* * * * *
For a moment there was silence; but this time I felt that there could
be no doubt about the blush that mounted to her face. And at length she
turned to me with softly, smoldering eyes and the assurance of victory
entered my heart and then swiftly receded as she murmured, bashfully,
“I am pleased, very much pleased, to know you feel that way. It is a
great compliment to me, and I am very proud--for nothing in Atlantis is
held more precious than friendship.”
“Oh, but it is not only friendship!” I remonstrated, wondering if it
were possible that she still misunderstood. “It’s not only friendship,
Aelios! It is love!”
“Love?” she echoed, in low tones of surprise; and another long silence
followed, while I waited eagerly for the words that did not come, and
she averted her head so that not even the dimly glowing eyes were
visible. Then, when the suspense was becoming embarrassing, I found
hesitating speech, which gradually grew more fluent and assured; and
all the pent-up emotions of months welled forth and forced a passionate
torrent from my tongue, so vehement as to surprise even myself. I told
her how immeasurably dear she had become; how she had been for me
the central light of all this strange world; how she had soothed my
loneliness, dispersed my despair, and given me hope and a reason for
living; how my life could have meaning and beauty only if she had a
share in it, while without her all things would be desolate and blank.
All this and much more I poured forth in an eager rhapsody, not pausing
to reflect that I was but repeating the sentiments of a million lovers;
and the strength of my feelings perhaps lent wings to my commonplace
words, and gave them a power that no analysis could reveal. Or perhaps
it was that Atlantean lovers never expressed themselves as do lovers on
earth; for even in the darkness I was aware that Aelios was listening,
listening intently, listening almost with a breathless interest, as
though she had never heard or imagined words such as mine.
After I had finished, she seemed still held in some spell of
speechlessness. For several tense seconds, slow-dragging portentous
seconds that seemed minutes long, I waited for her to brook silence.
But when her response came, it was in passionless tones that contrasted
oddly with my emotion; and with an accentuation so feeble as to
resemble a whisper, she declared, “All this that you say seems strange
to me, very, very strange. You speak of love, but I fear I do not
understand. Perhaps love in your land is not the same as here, for I am
sure that what you speak of is not what we would call love.”
“And what would you call love?” I asked.
“It is something that hardly needs a name. It is like none of those
momentary attachments that men and women sometimes feel. It is
something that wraps one’s whole being in a mighty flame, and is born
chiefly of a kinship of the mind and heart; and when it comes, it need
not be much spoken of, but can never be forgotten or lost.”
“That’s just what I feel toward you, Aelios!” I assured her, fervently.
“But I do not know if it is what I feel toward you,” she returned,
simply. “I do not know--I cannot yet be sure.”
“But you think that perhaps--that perhaps sometime--” I gasped, wild
hope springing to life within me.
“Yes, perhaps sometime--I cannot say,” she murmured, slowly.
But in her tones was the assurance of that which her expressed words
denied; and, with the exultation of unlooked for success, I at last
flung myself free of restraint, and my arms found their way about her
slim, resisting form.
But somehow she slipped free of my clasp, and stood dimly outlined
before me in the shadows, herself no more than a shadow in this unreal
world.
“Not yet, my lover, not yet,” she forbade, in gentle tones that gave no
indication of the hurt feelings I had feared.
“But when, Aelios?” I demanded, baffled, but far from discouraged.
“When--when may we get married?”
“Not yet, not yet for a while--if ever,” she decided. “We must wait,
we must wait until we are both quite certain.” She paused, then
added casually, “Besides, remember, you have a duty to perform--an
all-important duty with which neither your own pleasure nor your love
must interfere.”
“But what after I have performed that duty? What after my work is
completed? Will you then--”
“I will then be willing to listen to you again,” was all she would
vouchsafe. “Come, let us be going now.”
And she started for the door, while I followed awkwardly, since she
knew the way much better than I. And, once outside, she began speaking
impersonally about the art of the colonnades and marble galleries, and
seemed to have forgotten entirely the subject that had been absorbing
us. But in her eyes was an unusual sparkle, and in her cheeks an
unwonted glow; and after I had left her and she had gone tripping out
of sight, I pursued my way thoughtfully homeward, my steps made buoyant
by a hope I once would not have dared to entertain.