The next morning dawned cloudlessly, and a burning sun blazed intense
summer heat through all the hours of the longest and loveliest day.
Such persistent warmth brought its own languor and oppression, and
though all the doors and windows of the Château Fragonard were left
open, Madame Dimitrius found herself quite overwhelmed by the almost
airless stillness, notwithstanding a certain under-wave of freshness
which always flowed from the mountains like a breathing of the snow.
“How is Diana?” she asked of her son, as, clad in a suit of cool white
linen, he sauntered in from the garden to luncheon.
“I believe she is very well,” he answered, composedly. “She has not
complained.”
“I hope she has nothing to complain of,” said the old lady, nervously.
“You promised me, Féodor, that you would not let her suffer.”
“I promised you that if she was unhappy or in pain, I would do my best
to spare her as much as possible,” he replied. “But, up to the present,
she is neither unhappy nor in pain.”
“You are sure?”
“Sure!”
Vasho, who was in attendance, stared at him in something of questioning
terror, and his mother watched him with a mute fondness of appeal in
her eyes which, however, he did not or would not see. She could not but
feel a certain pride in him as she looked at his fine, intellectual
face, rendered just now finer and more attractive by the tension of
his inward thought. Presently he met her searching, loving gaze with a
smile.
“Do you not think, Mother mine,” he said, “that I merit some of the
compassion you extend so lavishly to Miss May, who is, after all, a
stranger in our house? Can you not imagine it possible that I, too, may
suffer? Permit yourself to remember that it is now twenty-five years
since I started on this quest, and that during that time I have not
rested day or night without having my brain at work, puzzling out my
problem. Now that I have done all which seems to me humanly possible,
have you no thought of me and my utter despair if I fail?”
“But you will not fail----”
“In every science, for one success there are a million failures,”
he replied. “And dare I complain if I am one of the million? I have
been fortunate in finding a subject who is obedient, tractable, and
eminently courageous,--sometimes, indeed, I have wondered whether her
courage will not prove too much for me! She is a woman of character--of
strong, yet firmly suppressed emotions; and she has entered a
characterless household----”
“Characterless?” repeated Madame Dimitrius, in surprised tones--“Can
_you_ say that?”
“Of course! What play of character can be expected from people who are
as self-centred as you and I? You have no thought in life beyond me,
your erratic and unworthy son,--I have no thought beyond my scientific
work and its results. Neither you nor I take interest in human affairs
or human beings generally; any writer of books venturing to describe
us, would find nothing to relate, because we form no associations. We
let people come and go,--but we do not really care for them, and if
they stayed away altogether we should not mind.”
“Well, as far as that goes, Diana tells me she is equally indifferent,”
said Madame.
“Yes,--but her indifference is hardly of her own making,” he replied.
“She is not aware of its source or meaning. Her actual character and
temperament are deep as a deep lake over which a sudden and unusual
frost has spread a temporary coating of ice. She has emotions and
passions--rigidly and closely controlled. She cares for things, without
knowing she cares. And at any moment she may learn her own power----”
“A power which _you_ have given her,” interposed his mother.
“True,--and it may be a case of putting a sword into the hand that is
eager to kill,” he answered. “However, her strength will be of the
psychological type, which gross material men laugh at. _I_ do not
laugh, knowing the terrific force hidden within each one of us, behind
the veil of flesh and blood. Heavens!--what a world it would be if we
all lived according to the spirit rather than the body!--if we all
ceased to be coarse feeders and animal sensualists, and chose only the
purest necessaries for existence in health and sanity!--it would be
Paradise regained!”
“If your experiment succeeds as you hope,” said Madame Dimitrius, “what
will happen then? You will let Diana go?”
“She will go whether I ‘let’ her or not,” he replied. “She will have
done all I require of her.”
His mother was silent, and he, as though weary of the conversation,
presently rose and left the room. Stepping out on the lawn in the
full blaze of noonday, he looked towards the dome of the laboratory,
but could scarcely fix his eyes upon its extreme brilliancy, which
was blinding at every point. He felt very keenly that it was indeed
the longest day of the year; never had hours moved so slowly,--and
despite the summer glory of the day,--so drearily. His thoughts dwelt
persistently on the bound and imprisoned form swung in solitude
under the great Wheel, which he knew must now be revolving at
almost lightning speed, churning the water beneath it into prismatic
spray,--and every now and then a strong temptation beset him to go and
unlock the door of the prison house, and see whether his victim had
wakened to the consciousness of her condition. But he restrained this
impulse.
With evening the slender curve of the new moon glided into the sky,
looking like the pale vision of a silver sickle, and a delicious
calm pervaded the air. His thoughts gradually took on a more human
tendency,--he allowed himself to pity his “subject.” After all,
what an arid sort of fate had been hers! The only child of one of
those painfully respectable British couples who never move out of
the conventional rut, and for whom the smallest expression or honest
opinion is “bad form,”--and herself endowed (by some freak of Nature)
with exceptional qualities of brain, what a neutral and sad-coloured
existence hers had been when love and the hope of marriage had deserted
her! No wonder she had resolved to break away and seek some outlet for
her cramped and imprisoned mentality.
“Though marriage is drab-coloured enough!” he mused--“Unless husband
and wife are prudent, and agree to live apart from each other for
so many months in the year. And now--if my experiment succeeds she
will make a fool or a lunatic of every man her eyes rest upon--except
myself!”
The days wore away slowly. As each one passed, Madame Dimitrius grew
more and more uneasy, and more and more her eyes questioned the
unresponsive face of her son. Vasho, too, could not forbear gazing with
a kind of appealing terror at his master’s composed features and easy
demeanour; it was more than devilish, he thought, that a man could
comport himself thus indifferently when he had a poor human victim shut
up within a laboratory where the two devouring elements of fire and
water held the chief sway. However, there was nothing to be done. A
figure of stone or iron was not more immovable than Dimitrius when once
bent to the resolved execution of a task, no matter how difficult such
task might be. Looking at the cold, indomitable expression of the man,
one felt that he would care nothing for the loss of a thousand lives,
if by such sacrifice he could attain the end in view. But though his
outward equanimity remained undisturbed, he was inwardly disquieted
and restless. He saw two alternatives to his possible success. His
victim might die,--in which case her body would crumble to ashes in the
process to which it was being subjected,--or she might lose her senses.
Death would be kinder than the latter fate, but he was powerless to
determine either. And even at the back of his mind there lurked a dim
suggestion of some other result which he could not formulate or reckon
with.
The longest waiting must have an end, but never to his thought did a
longer period of time stretch itself out between the evening of the
twentieth of June and that of the twenty-fourth, Midsummer Day. The
weather remained perfect; intensely warm, bright and still. Not a
cloud crossed the burning blue of the daylight, and at evening, the
young moon, slightly broadening from a slender sickle to the curve
of a coracle boat floating whitely in the deep ether, shed fairy
silver over the lake and the Alpine snows above it. During these
days, many people of note and scientific distinction called at the
Château Fragonard,--Féodor Dimitrius was a personage to be reckoned
with in many departments of knowledge, and his exquisite gardens
afforded coolness and shade to those wanderers from various lands who
were touring Switzerland in search of health and change of scene.
Near neighbours and acquaintances also came and went, but such is
the generally vague attitude of mind assumed by ordinary folk to
other than themselves, that scarcely any among the few who had met
Diana and accepted her as a chance visitor to Madame Dimitrius, now
remembered her, except the Baron and Baroness de Rousillon, who still
kept up a slight show of interest as to her whereabouts, though their
questions were lightly evaded and never fully answered. Professor
Chauvet, irritated and unhappy at receiving no news whatever of the
woman for whom he had conceived a singular but sincere affection, had
taken it into his head to go suddenly to Paris, to see after his house
and garden there, which had long been unoccupied; a fancy possessed
him that if, or when, Diana did write to him, he would answer her
from Paris, so that they might meet there or in London, without the
surveillance or comment of Dimitrius. Meanwhile, Dimitrius himself,
a figure of impenetrable reserve and cold courtesy, let his visitors
come and go as they listed, apparently living the life of a scientist
absorbed in studies too profound to allow himself to be troubled or
distracted by the opinions of the outer world.
Midsummer Day, the Feast of St. John, and a day of poetic and
superstitious observance, came at last and drifted along in a stream
of gold and azure radiance, the sun sinking round as a rose in a sky
without a cloud. To the last moment of its setting Dimitrius waited,
watch in hand. All day long he had wandered aimlessly in the garden
among his flowers, talking now and then to his gardeners, and stopping
at every point where he could see the crystal dome of his laboratory
shine clear like the uplifted minaret of some palace of the East, and
it was with the greatest difficulty that he compelled himself to walk
with a slow and indifferent mien when the moment arrived for him to
return to the Château. His heart galloped like a run-away race-horse,
while he forced his feet into a sauntering and languid pace as though
he were more than oppressed by the heat of the day,--and he stopped
for a moment to speak to his mother, whose reclining chair was in the
loggia where she could enjoy the view of the gardens and the fountains
in full play.
“I am--” he said, and paused,--then went on--“I am going to the
laboratory for an hour or two. If I am late for dinner, do not wait for
me.”
Madame Dimitrius, busy with some delicate lacework, looked up at him
inquiringly.
“Are you seeing Diana this evening?” she asked.
He nodded assent.
“Give her my love and tell her how glad I am that her days of solitude
are over, and that I shall come to her to-morrow as soon as you will
allow me.”
He nodded again, and with a tender hand stroked the silver bandeaux of
the old lady’s pretty hair.
“After all, old age is quite a beautiful thing!” he said, and stooping,
he kissed her on the brow. “It is, perhaps, wrong that we should wish
to be always young?”
He passed on then, and, entering his library, rang a bell. Vasho
appeared.
“Vasho, the hour has come!” he said, whereat Vasho, the dumb, uttered
an inarticulate animal sound of terror. “Either I have succeeded, or I
have failed. Let us go and see!”
He paused for a moment, his eyes resting on the mysterious steel
instrument, which, always working in its accustomed place on its
block of crystal, struck off its tiny sparks of fire with unceasing
regularity.
“_You_ gave me the first clue!” he said, addressing it. “You were a
fluke--a chance--a stray hint from the unseen. And you will go on for
ever if nothing disturbs your balance--if nothing shakes your exact
mathematical poise. So will the Universe similarly go on for ever,
if similarly undisturbed. All a matter of calculation, equality of
distribution and exact poise--designed by a faultless Intelligence! An
Intelligence which we are prone to deny--a Divinity we dare to doubt!
Man perplexes himself with a million forms of dogma which he calls
‘religions,’ when there is truly only one religion possible for all the
world, and that is the intelligent, reasoning, devout worship of the
true God as made manifest in His works. These works none but the few
will study, preferring to delude themselves with the fantastic spectres
of their own imaginations. Yet, when we _have_ learned what in time we
must know,--the words of the Evangelist may be fulfilled: ‘I saw a new
heaven and a new earth, for the first earth and the first heaven were
passed away.... And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain.’ So we may have a joyous
world, where youth and life are eternal, and where never a heart-throb
of passion or grief breaks the halcyon calm! Shall we care for it, I
wonder? Will it not prove monotonous?--and when all is smooth sailing,
shall we not long for a storm?”
A quick sigh escaped him,--then remembering Vasho’s presence, he shook
off his temporary abstraction.
“Come, Vasho!” he said, “I must go and find this marvel of my
science--living or dead! And don’t look so terrified!--one would think
_you_ were the victim! Whatever happens, _you_ are safe!”
Vasho made expressive signs of apologetic humility and appeal, to which
Dimitrius gave no response save an indulgent smile.
“Come!” he repeated. They left the library, Dimitrius leading the way,
and walked through the long corridor to the door of the laboratory.
Gleams of gold and silver shone from the mysterious substance of which
it was composed, and curious iridescent rays flashed suddenly across
their eyes as if part of it had become transparent. “The sun’s flames
have had power here,” remarked Dimitrius. “Almost they have pierced the
metal.”
Answering to pressure in the usual manner, the portal opened and
closed behind them as they entered. For a moment it was impossible
to see anything, owing to the overwhelming brilliancy of the light
which filled every part of the domed space--a light streaked here and
there with gold and deep rose-colour. The enormous Wheel was revolving
slowly--and beneath its rim, the canopied white stretcher was suspended
over the dark water below, as it had been left four days previously.
The prisoned victim had not stirred. For two or three minutes Dimitrius
stood looking eagerly, his eyes peering through the waves of light that
played upon his sense of vision almost as drowningly as the waves of
the sea might have played upon his power of breathing. Vasho, shaken to
pieces by his uncontrollable inward terrors, had fallen on his knees
and hidden his face in his hands. Dimitrius roused him from this abject
attitude.
“Get up, Vasho! Don’t play the fool!” he said, sternly. “What ails
you? Are you afraid? Look before you, man!--there is no change in
the outline of that figure--it is merely in a condition of suspended
animation. If she were dead--understand me!--_she would not be there at
all_! The stretcher would be empty! Come,--I want your help with these
pulleys.”
Vasho, striving to steady his trembling limbs, went to his imperious
master’s assistance as the pulleys were unlocked and released.
“Now, gently!” said Dimitrius. “Let the ropes go easy--and pull
evenly!”
They worked together, and gradually--with a smooth, swaying, noiseless
movement,--the canopied couch with its motionless occupant was swung
away from the Wheel across the water and laid at their feet. The canopy
itself sparkled all over as with millions of small diamonds,--and as
they raised and turned it back, curled in their hands and twisted like
a live thing. A still brighter luminance shone from end to end of the
closely bound and swathed figure beneath it,--a figure rigid as stone,
yet though so rigid, uncannily expressive of hidden life. Dimitrius
knelt down beside it and began to unfasten the close wrappings in
which it was so fast imprisoned, from the feet upwards, signing to
Vasho to assist him. Each one of the glistening white silken bands was
hot to the touch, and as it was unwound, cast out little sparks and
pellets of fire. The widest of these was folded over and over across
the breast, binding in the arms and hands, and as this was undone, the
faintest stir of the body was perceptible. At last Dimitrius uncovered
the face and head--and then--both he and Vasho sprang up and started
back, amazed and awestruck. Never a lovelier thing could be found on
earth than the creature which lay so passively before them,--a young
girl of beauty so exquisite that it hardly seemed human. The goddess of
a poet’s dream might be so imagined, but never a mere thing of flesh
and blood. And as they stood, staring at the marvel, the alabaster
whiteness of the flesh began to soften and flush with roseate hues,--a
faint sigh parted the reddening lips, the small, childlike hands,
hitherto lying limp on either side, were raised as though searching for
something in the air,--and then, slowly, easefully, and with no start
of surprise or fear, Diana awoke from her long trance and stretched
herself lazily, smiled, sat up for a moment, her hair falling about
her in an amber shower, and finally stepped from her couch and stood
erect, a vision of such ethereal fairness and youthful queenliness that
all unconscious of his own action, Dimitrius sank on his knees in a
transport of admiration, whispering:
“My triumph! My work! My wonder of the world!”
She, meanwhile, with the questioning air of one whose surroundings are
utterly unfamiliar, surveyed him in his kneeling attitude as though he
were a stranger. Drawing herself up and pushing back the wealth of hair
that fell about her, she spoke in the exquisitely musical voice that
was all her own, though it seemed to have gained a richer sweetness.
“Why do you kneel?” she asked. “Are you my servant?”
For one flashing second he was tempted to answer:
“Your master!”
But there was something in the stateliness of her attitude and the
dignity of her bearing that checked this bold utterance on his lips,
and he replied:
“Your slave!--if so you will it!”
A smile of vague surprise crossed her features.
“Remind me how I came here,” she said. “There is something I cannot
recall. I have been so much in the light and this place is very dark.
You are a friend, I suppose--are you not?”
A chilly touch of dread overcame him. His experiment had failed, if
despite its perfection of physical result, the brain organisation was
injured or destroyed. She talked at random, and with a lost air, as if
she had no recollection of any previous happenings.
“Surely I am your friend!” he said, rising from his knees and
approaching her more nearly. “You remember me?--Féodor Dimitrius?”
She passed one hand across her brow.
“Dimitrius?--Féodor Dimitrius?” she repeated,--then suddenly she
laughed,--a clear bright laugh like that of a happy child--“Of course!
I know you now--and I know my self. I am Diana May,--Diana May who
was the poor unloved old spinster with wrinkles round her eyes and
‘feelings’ in her stupidly warm heart!--but _she_ is dead! _I_ live!”
She lifted her arms, the silver sheen of her mysterious gleaming
garment falling back like unfurled wings.
“I live!” she repeated. “I am the young Diana!--the old Diana is dead!”
Her arms dropped to her sides again, and she turned to Dimitrius with a
bewitching smile.
“And you love me!” she said. “You love me as all men must love
me!--even _he_ loves me!” and she pointed playfully to Vasho, cowering
in fear as far back in a shadowy corner as he could, out of the arrowy
glances of her lovely eyes,--then, laughing softly again, she gathered
her robe about her with a queenly air. “Come, Dr. Féodor Dimitrius! Let
us go! I see by the way you look at me that you think your experiment
has been too much for my brain, but you are mistaken. I am quite clear
in memory and consciousness. You are the scientist who advertised for
‘a woman of mature years,’--I am Diana May who was ‘mature’ enough to
answer you, and came from London to Geneva on the chance of suiting
you,--I have submitted to all your commands, and here I am!--a success
for you, I suppose, but a still greater success for myself! I do not
know what has happened since I came into this laboratory a while
ago--nor am I at all curious,--was that my coffin!”
She indicated the stretcher with its white canopy from which she had
arisen. He was about to answer her, when she stopped him.
“No, tell me nothing! Say it is my chrysalis, from which I have broken
out--a butterfly!” She smiled--“Look at poor Vasho! How frightened he
seems! Let us leave this place,--surely we have had enough of it? Come,
Dr. Dimitrius!--it’s all over! You have done with me and I with you.
Take me to my rooms!”
Her air and tone of command were not to be gainsaid. Amazed and angry
at his own sudden sense of inferiority and inefficiency, Dimitrius
signed to the trembling Vasho to open the door of the laboratory,
and held out his hand to Diana to guide her. She looked at him
questioningly.
“Must I?” she asked. “You are quite enough in love with me
already!--but if you take my hand----!”
Her eyes, brilliant and provocative, flashed disdainfully into his. He
strove to sustain his composure.
“You are talking very foolishly,” he said, with studied harshness. “If
you wish to convince me that you are the same Diana May who has shown
such resolute courage and modesty, and--and--such obedience to my will,
you must express yourself more reasonably.”
Her light laugh rippled out again.
“Oh, but I am _not_ the same Diana May!” she answered. “You have
altered all that. I was old, and a woman,--now I am young, and a
goddess!”
He started back, amazed at her voice and attitude.
“A goddess--a goddess!” she repeated, triumphantly. “Young with a youth
that shall not change--alive with a life that shall not die! Out of
the fire and the air I have absorbed the essence of all beauty and
power!--what shall trouble me? Not the things of this little querulous
world!--not its peevish men and women!--I am above them all! Féodor
Dimitrius, your science has gathered strange fruit from the Tree of
Life, but remember!--the Flaming Sword turns _every_ way!”
He gazed at her in speechless wonderment. She had spoken with
extraordinary force and passion, and now stood confronting him as
an angel might have stood in the Garden of Paradise. Her beauty was
overwhelming--almost maddening in its irresistible attraction, and his
brain whirled like a mote in a ring of fire. He stretched out his hands
appealingly:
“Diana!” he half whispered--“Diana, you are mine!--my sole creation!”
“Not so,” she replied. “You blaspheme! Nothing is yours. You have used
the forces of Nature to make me what I am,--but I am Nature’s product,
and Nature is not always kind! Let us go!”
She moved towards the door. Vasho stood ready to open it, his eyes
cast down, and his limbs trembling,--as she approached she smiled
kindly at him, but the poor negro was too scared to look at her. He
swung the portal upward, and she passed through the opening. Dimitrius
followed, not venturing to offer his hand a second time. He merely gave
instructions to Vasho to set the laboratory in order and remove every
trace of his “experiment,”--then kept close beside the erect, slight,
graceful figure in the shining garment that glided along with unerring
steps through the corridor into the familiar hall, where for a moment,
Diana paused.
“Is your mother well?” she asked.
“Quite well.”
“I am glad. You will prepare her to see me to-morrow?”
“I will!”
She passed on, up the staircase, and went straight to her own rooms. It
was plain she had forgotten nothing, and that she had all her senses
about her. As Dimitrius threw open the door of her little _salon_ she
turned on the threshold and fully confronted him.
“Thank you!” she said. “I hope you are satisfied that your experiment
has succeeded?”
He was pale to the lips, and his eyes glowed with suppressed fire,--but
he answered calmly:
“I am more than satisfied if--if you are well!”
“I am very well,” she replied, smiling. “I shall never be ill. You
ought to know that if you believe in your own discovery. You ought to
know that I am no longer made of mortal clay, ‘subject to all the ills
that flesh is heir to.’ Your science has filled me with another and
more lasting form of life!”
He was silent, standing before her with head bent, like some disgraced
school-boy.
“Good-night!” she said, then, in a gentler tone--“I do not know how
long I have been the companion of your ‘Ordeal by Fire!’--I suppose I
ought to be hungry and thirsty, but I am not. To breathe has been to me
sufficient nourishment--yet for the sake of appearances you had better
let Vasho--poor frightened Vasho!--bring me food as usual. I shall be
ready for him in an hour.”
She motioned him away, and closed the door. As she disappeared, a light
seemed to vanish with her and the dark entresol grew even darker. He
went downstairs in a maze of bewilderment, dazzled by her beauty and
conscious of her utter indifference,--and stood for a moment at the
open door of the loggia, looking out at the still, dark loveliness of
the summer evening.
“And so it is finished!” he said to himself. “All over! A completed
triumph and marvel of science! But--what have I made of her? _She is
not a woman!_ Then--_what_ is she?”