wise in faith alone--he believes and he imagines,--and there is no
question as to the strange power he has obtained through the simplest
means,--but I--I have no faith!--I seek to _prove_--I work to
_know_,--and my power is as great as his, though it is won in a
different way.”
Féraz said nothing, but sat down to the piano, allowing his hands to
wander over the keys in a dreamy fashion that sounded like the far-off
echo of a rippling mountain stream. El-Râmi waited a moment,
listening,--then glanced at his watch--it was growing late.
“Good-night, Féraz;”--he said in gentle accents--“I shall want
nothing more this evening. I am going to my work.”
“Good-night,”--answered Féraz with equal gentleness, as he went on
playing. His brother opened and closed the door softly;--he was gone.
As soon as he found himself alone, Féraz pressed the pedal of his
instrument so that the music pealed through the room in rich salvos of
sound--chord after chord rolled grandly forth, and sweet ringing notes
came throbbing from under his agile finger-tips, the while he said
aloud, with a mingling of triumph and tenderness--
“Forget! I shall never forget! Does one forget the flowers, the birds,
the moonlight, the sound of a sweet song? Is the world so fair that I
should blot from my mind the fairest thing in it? Not so! My memory
may fail me in a thousand things--but let me be tortured, harassed,
perplexed with dreams, persuaded by fantasies, I shall never forget
the name of----”
He stopped abruptly--a look of pain and terror and effort flashed into
his eyes,--his hands fell on the keys of the piano with a discordant
jangle,--he stared about him, wondering and afraid.
“The name--the name!” he muttered hoarsely--“A flower’s name--an
angel’s name--the sweetest name I ever heard! How is this?--Am I mad
that my lips refuse to utter it? The name--the name of ... My God! my
God! I _have_ forgotten it!”
And springing from his chair he stood for one instant in mute wrath,
incredulity, and bewilderment,--then throwing himself down again, he
buried his face in his hands, his whole frame trembling with mingled
terror and awe at the mystic power of El-Râmi’s indomitable Will,
which had, he knew, forced him to forget what most he desired to
remember.
XVII.
Within the chamber of Lilith all was very still. Zaroba sat there,
crouched down in what seemed to be her favourite and accustomed
corner, busy with the intricate thread-work which she wove with so
much celerity;--the lamp burned brightly,--there were odours of
frankincense and roses in the air,--and not so much as the sound of a
suppressed sigh or soft breath stirred the deep and almost sacred
quiet of the room. The tranced Lilith herself, pale but beautiful, lay
calm and still as ever among the glistening satin cushions of her
costly couch, and, just above her, the purple draperies that covered
the walls and ceiling were drawn aside to admit of the opening of a
previously-concealed window, through which one or two stars could be
seen dimly sparkling in the skies. A white moth, attracted by the
light, had flown in by way of this aperture, and was now fluttering
heedlessly and aimlessly round the lamp,--but by and by it took a
lower and less hazardous course, and finally settled on a shining
corner of the cushion that supported Lilith’s head. There the fragile
insect rested,--now expanding its velvety white wings, now folding
them close and extending its delicate feelers to touch and test the
glittering fabric on which it found itself at ease,--but never moving
from the spot it had evidently chosen for its night’s repose.
Suddenly, and without sound, El-Râmi entered. He advanced close up to
the couch, and looked upon the sleeping girl with an eager, almost
passionate intentness. His heart beat quickly;--a singular excitement
possessed him, and for once he was unable to analyse his own
sensations. Closer and closer he bent over Lilith’s exquisite
form,--doubtfully and with a certain scorn of himself, he took up a
shining tress of her glorious hair and looked at it curiously as
though it were something new, strange, or unnatural. The little moth,
disturbed, flew off the pillow and fluttered about his head in wild
alarm, and El-Râmi watched its reckless flight as it made off towards
the fatally-attractive lamp again, with meditative eyes, still
mechanically stroking that soft lock of Lilith’s hair which he held
between his fingers.
“Into the light!” he murmured--“Into the very heart of the
light!--into the very core of the fire! That is the end of all
ambition--to take wings and plunge so--into the glowing, burning
molten Creative Centre--and die for our foolhardiness? Is that
all?--or is there more behind? It is a question,--who may answer it?”
He sighed heavily, and leaned more closely over the couch, till the
soft scarcely perceptible breath from Lilith’s lips touched his cheek
warmly like a caress. Observantly, as one might study the parts of a
bird or a flower, he noted those lips, how delicately curved, how
coral-red they were,--and what a soft rose-tint, like the flush of a
pink sunrise on white flowers, was the hue which spread itself
waveringly over her cheeks,--till there,--there where the long
eyelashes curled upwards, there were fine shadows,--shadows which
suggested light,--such light as must be burning in those
sweetly-closed eyes. Then there was the pure, smooth brow, over which
little vine-like tendrils of hair caught and clung amorously,--and
then--that wondrous wealth of the hair itself which, like twin showers
of gold, shed light on either side. It was all beautiful,--a wonderful
gem of Nature’s handiwork,--a masterpiece of form and colour which,
but for him, El-Râmi, would long ere this have mouldered away to
unsightly ash and bone, in a lonely grave dug hurriedly among the
sands of the Syrian desert. He was almost, if not quite, the author of
that warm if unnatural vitality that flowed through those azure veins
and branching arteries,--he, like the Christ of Galilee, had raised
the dead to life,--ay, if he chose, he could say as the Master said to
the daughter of Jairus, “Maiden, arise!” and she would obey him--would
rise and walk, and smile and speak, and look upon the world,--if he
chose! The arrogance of Will burned in his brain;--the pride of power,
the majesty of conscious strength made his pulses beat high with
triumph beyond that of any king or emperor,--and he gazed down upon
the tranced fair form, himself entranced, and all unconscious that
Zaroba had come out of her corner, and that she now stood beside him,
watching his face with passionate and inquisitive eagerness. Just as
he reluctantly lifted himself up from his leaning position he saw her
staring at him, and a frown darkened his brows. He made his usual
imperative sign to her to leave the room,--a sign she was accustomed
to understand and to obey--but this time she remained motionless,
fixing her eyes steadily upon him.
“The conqueror shall be conquered, El-Râmi Zarânos--” she said
slowly, pointing to the sleeping Lilith--“The victorious master over
the forces unutterable shall yet be overthrown! The work has
begun,--the small seed has been sown--the great harvest shall be
reaped. For in the history of Heaven itself certain proud angels rose
up and fought for the possession of supreme majesty and power--and
they fell,--downbeaten to the darkness,--unforgiven, and are they not
in darkness still? Even so must the haughty spirit fall that contends
against God and the Universal Law.”
She spoke impressively, and with a certain dignity of manner that gave
an added force to her words,--but El-Râmi’s impassive countenance
showed no sign of having either heard or understood her. He merely
repeated his gesture of dismissal, and this time Zaroba obeyed it.
Wrapping her flowing robe closely about her, she withdrew, but with
evident reluctance, letting the velvet portière fall only by slow
degrees behind her, and to the last keeping her dark deep-set eyes
fixed on El-Râmi’s face. As soon as she had disappeared, he sprang to
where the dividing-curtain hid a massive door between the one room and
the ante-chamber,--this door he shut and locked,--then he returned to
the couch, and proceeded, according to his usual method, to will the
wandering spirit of his “subject” into speech.
“Lilith! Lilith!”
As before, he had to wait ere any reply was vouchsafed to him.
Impatiently he glanced at the clock, and counted slowly a hundred
beats.
“Lilith!”
She turned round towards him, smiled, and murmured something--her lips
moved, but whatever they uttered did not reach his ear.
“Lilith! Where are you?”
This time, her voice, though soft, was perfectly distinct.
“Here. Close to you, with your hand on mine.”
El-Râmi was puzzled. True, he held her left hand in his own, but she
had never described any actual sensation of human touch before.
“Then,--can you see me?” he asked somewhat anxiously.
The answer came sadly.
“No. Bright air surrounds me, and the colours of the air--nothing
more.”
“You are alone, Lilith?”
Oh, what a sigh came heaving from her breast!
“I am always alone!”
Half remorseful, he heard her. She had complained of solitude
before,--and it was a thought he did not wish her to dwell upon. He
made haste to speak again.
“Tell me,”--he said--“Where have you been, Lilith, and what have you
seen?”
There was silence for a minute or two, and she moved restlessly.
“You bade me seek out Hell for you”--she murmured at last--“I have
searched, but I cannot find it.”
Another pause, and she went on.
“You spoke of a strange thing,” she said--“A place of punishment, of
torture, of darkness, of horror and despair,--there is no such dreary
blot on all God’s fair Creation. In all the golden spaces of the
farthest stars I find no punishment, no pain, no darkness. I can
discover nothing save beauty, light, and--Love!”
The last word was uttered softly, and sounded like a note of music,
sweet but distant.
El-Râmi listened, bewildered, and in a manner disappointed.
“O Lilith, take heed what you say!” he exclaimed with some
passion--“No pain?--no punishment? no darkness? Then this world is
Hell and you know naught of it!”
As he said this, she moved uneasily among her pillows,--then, to his
amazement, she suddenly sat up of her own accord, and went on
speaking, enunciating her words with singular clearness and emphasis,
always keeping her eyes closed and allowing her left hand to remain in
his.
“I am bound to tell you what I know;”--she said--“But I am unable to
tell you what is not true. In God’s design I find no evil--no
punishment, no death. If there are such things, they must be in your
world alone,--they must be Man’s work and Man’s imagining.”
“Man’s work--Man’s imagining?” repeated El-Râmi--“And what is man?”
“God’s angel,” replied Lilith quickly--“With God’s own attribute of
Free-Will. He, like his Maker, doth create,--he also doth
destroy,--what he elects to do, God will not prevent. Therefore, if
Man makes Evil, Evil must exist till Man himself destroys it.”
This was a deep and strange saying, and El-Râmi pondered over it
without speaking.
“In the spaces where I roam,” went on Lilith softly--“there is no
evil. Those who are the Makers of Life in yonder fair regions seek
only what is pure. Why should pain exist, or sin be known? I do not
understand.”
“No”--said El-Râmi bitterly--“You do not understand, because you are
yourself too happy,--happiness sees no fault in anything. Oh, you have
wandered too far from earth and you forget! The tie that binds you to
this planet is over-fragile,--you have lost touch with pain. I would
that I could make you feel my thoughts!--for, Lilith, God is cruel,
not kind, ... upon God, and God alone, rests the weight of woe that
burdens the universe, and for the eternal sorrow of things there is
neither reason nor remedy.”
Lilith sank back again in a recumbent posture, a smile upon her lips.
“O poor blind eyes!” she murmured--“Sad eyes that are so tired--too
tired to bear the light!”
Her voice was so exquisitely pathetic that he was startled by its very
gentleness,--his heart gave one fierce bound against his side, and
then seemed almost to stand still.
“You pity me?” he asked tremulously.
She sighed. “I pity you”--she answered--“I pity myself.”
Almost breathlessly he asked “Why?”
“Because I cannot see you--because you cannot see me. If I could see
you--if you could see me as I am, you would know all--you would
understand all.”
“I do see you, Lilith,” he said--“I hold your hand.”
“No--not my real hand”--she said--“Only its shadow.”
Instinctively he looked at the delicate fingers that lay in his
palm--so rosy-tipped and warm. Only the “shadow” of a hand! Then where
was its substance?
“It will pass away”--went on Lilith--“like all shadows--but _I_ shall
remain--not here, not here,--but elsewhere. When will you let me go?”
“Where do you wish to go?” he asked.
“To my friends,” she answered swiftly and with eagerness--“They call
me often--I hear their voices singing ‘Lilith! Lilith!’ and sometimes
I see them beckoning me--but I cannot reach them. It is cruel, for
they love me and you do not,--why will you keep me here unloved so
long?”
He trembled and hesitated, fixing his dark eyes on the fair face,
which, in spite of its beauty, was to him but as the image of a Sphinx
that for ever refused to give up its riddle.
“Is love your craving, Lilith?” he asked slowly--“And what is your
thought--or dream--of love?”
“Love is no dream;”--she responded--“Love is reality--Love is Life. I
am not fully living yet--I hover in the Realms Between, where spirits
wait in silence and alone.”
He sighed. “Then you are sad, Lilith?”
“No. I am never sad. There is light within my solitude, and the glory
of God’s beauty everywhere.”
El-Râmi gazed down upon her, an expression very like despair
shadowing his own features.
“Too far, too far she wends her flight;”--he muttered to himself
wearily. “How can I argue on these vague and sublimated utterances! I
cannot understand her joy--she cannot understand my pain. Evidently
Heaven’s language is incomprehensible to mortal ears. And
yet;--Lilith!” he called again almost imperiously. “You talk of God as
if you knew Him. But I--I know Him not--I have not proved Him; tell me
of His Shape, His Seeming,--if indeed you have the power.”
She was silent. He studied her tranquil face intently,--the smile upon
it was in very truth divine.
“No answer!” he said with some derision. “Of course,--what answer
should there be! What Shape or Seeming should there be to a mere huge
blind Force that creates without reason, and destroys without
necessity!”
As he thus soliloquised, Lilith stirred, and flung her white arms
upward as though in ecstasy, letting them fall slowly afterwards in a
folded position behind her head.
“To the seven declared tones of Music, add seventy million more,”--she
said--“and let them ring their sweetest cadence, they shall make but a
feeble echo of the music of God’s voice! To all the shades of radiant
colour, to all the lines of noblest form, add the splendour of eternal
youth, eternal goodness, eternal joy, eternal power, and yet we shall
not render into speech or song the beauty of our God! From His glance
flows Light--from His presence rushes Harmony,--as He moves through
Space great worlds are born; and at His bidding planets grow within
the air like flowers. Oh to see Him passing ’mid the stars!----”
She broke off suddenly and drew a long deep breath, as of sheer
delight,--but the shadow on El-Râmi’s features darkened wearily.
“You teach me nothing, Lilith”--he said sadly and somewhat
sternly--“You speak of what you see--or what you think you see--but
you cannot convince me of its truth.”
Her face grew paler,--the smile vanished from her lips, and all her
delicate beauty seemed to freeze into a cold and grave rigidity.
“Love begets faith;”--she said--“Where we do not love, we doubt. Doubt
breeds Evil, and Evil knows not God.”
“Platitudes, upon my life!--mere platitudes!” exclaimed El-Râmi
bitterly--“If this half-released spirit can do no more than prate of
the same old laws and duties our preachers teach us, then indeed my
service is vain. But she shall not baffle me thus;”--and, bending over
Lilith’s figure, he unwound her arms from the indolent position in
which they were folded, took her hands roughly in his own, and,
sitting on the edge of her couch, fixed his burning eyes upon her as
though he sought to pierce her to the heart’s core with their ardent,
almost cruel lustre.
“Lilith!” he commanded--“Speak plainly, that I may fully understand
your words. You say there is no hell?”
The answer came steadily.
“None.”
“Then must evil go unpunished?”
“Evil wreaks punishment upon itself. Evil destroys itself. That is the
Law.”
“And the Prophets!” muttered El-Râmi scornfully--“Well! Go on,
strange sprite! Why--for such things are known--why does goodness
suffer for being good?”
“That never is. That is impossible.”
“Impossible?” queried El-Râmi incredulously.
“Impossible,”--repeated, the soft voice firmly. “Goodness _seems_ to
suffer, but it does not. Evil _seems_ to prosper, but it does not.”
“And God exists?”
“God exists.”
“And what of Heaven?”
“Which heaven?” asked Lilith--“There are a million million heavens.”
El-Râmi stopped--thinking,--then finally said--
“God’s Heaven.”
“You would say God’s World;”--returned Lilith tranquilly--“Nay, you
will not let me reach that centre. I see it; I feel it afar off--but
your will binds me--you will not let me go.”
“If I were to let you go, what would you do?” asked El-Râmi--“Would
you return to me?”
“Never! Those who enter the Perfect Glory return no more to an
imperfect light.”
El-Râmi paused--he was arranging other questions to ask, when her
next words startled him--
“Some one called me by my name,”--she said--“Tenderly and softly, as
though it were a name beloved. I heard the voice--I could not
answer--but I heard it--and I know that some one loves me. The sense
of love is sweet, and makes your dreary world seem fair!”
El-Râmi’s heart began to beat violently--the voice of Féraz had
reached her in her trance then after all! And she remembered it!--more
than this--it had carried a vague emotion of love to that vagrant and
ethereal essence which he called her “soul” but which he had his
doubts of all the while. For he was unable to convince himself
positively of any such thing as “Soul”;--all emotions, even of the
most divinely transcendent nature, he was disposed to set down to the
action of brain merely. But he was scientist enough to know that the
brain must gather its ideas from _something_,--something either
external or internal,--even such a vague thing as an Idea cannot
spring out of blank Chaos. And this was what especially puzzled him in
his experiment with the girl Lilith--for, ever since he had placed her
in the “life-in-death” condition she was, he had been careful to avoid
impressing any of his own thoughts or ideas upon her. And, as a matter
of fact, all she said about God, or about a present or a future state,
was precisely the reverse of what he himself argued;--the question
therefore remained--From Where and How did she get her knowledge? She
had been a mere pretty, ignorant, half-barbaric Arab child, when she
_died_ (according to natural law), and, during the six years she had
_lived_ (by scientific law) in her strange trance, her brain had been
absolutely unconscious of all external impressions, while of internal
she could have none, beyond the memories of her childhood. Yet,--she
had grown beautiful beyond the beauty of mortals, and she spoke of
things beyond all mortal comprehension. The riddle of her physical and
mental development seemed unanswerable,--it was the wonder, the
puzzle, the difficulty, the delight of all El-Râmi’s hours. But now
there was mischief done. She spoke of love,--not divine impersonal
love, as was her wont,--but love that touched her own existence with
a vaguely pleasing emotion. A voice had reached her that never should
have been allowed to penetrate her spiritual solitude, and realising
this, a sullen anger smouldered in El-Râmi’s mind. He strove to
consider Zaroba’s fault and Féraz’s folly with all the leniency,
forbearance, and forgiveness possible, and yet the strange
restlessness within him gave him no peace. What should be done? What
could be answered to those wistful words--“The sense of love is sweet,
and makes your dreary world seem fair”?
He pondered on the matter, vaguely uneasy and dissatisfied. He, and he
alone, was the master of Lilith,--he commanded and she obeyed,--but
would it be always thus? The doubt turned his blood cold,--suppose she
escaped him now, after all his studies and calculations! He resolved
he would ask her no more questions that night, and very gently he
released the little slender hands he held.
“Go, Lilith!” he said softly--“This world, as you say, is dreary--I
will not keep you longer in its gloom--go hence and rest.”
“Rest?” sighed Lilith inquiringly--“Where?”
He bent above her, and touched her loose gold locks almost
caressingly.
“Where you choose!”
“Nay, that I may not!” murmured Lilith sadly. “I have no choice--I
must obey the Master’s will.”
El-Râmi’s heart beat high with triumph at these words.
“_My_ will!” he said, more to himself than to her--“The force of
it!--the marvel of it!--_my_ will!”
Lilith heard,--a strange glory seemed to shine round her, like a halo
round a pictured saint, and the voice that came from her lips rang out
with singularly sweet clearness.
“Your will!” she echoed--“Your will--and also--God’s will!”
He started, amazed and irresolute. The words were not what he
expected, and he would have questioned their meaning, but that he saw
on the girl’s lovely features a certain pale composed look which he
recognised as the look that meant silence.
“Lilith!” he whispered.
No answer. He stood looking down upon her, his face seeming sterner
and darker than usual by reason of the intense, passionate anxiety in
his burning eyes.
“God’s will!” he echoed with some disdain--“God’s will would have
annihilated her very existence long ago out in the desert;--what
should God do with her now that I have not done?”
His arrogance seemed to be perfectly justifiable; and yet he very well
knew that, strictly speaking, there was no such thing as
“annihilation” possible to any atom in the universe. Moreover, he did
not choose to analyse the mystical reasons as to _why_ he had been
permitted by Fate or Chance to obtain such mastery over one human
soul,--he preferred to attribute it all to his own discoveries in
science,--his own patient and untiring skill,--his own studious
comprehension of the forces of Nature,--and he was nearly, if not
quite, oblivious of the fact that there is a Something behind natural
forces, which knows and sees, controls and commands, and against
which, if he places himself in opposition, Man is but the puniest,
most wretched straw that was ever tossed or split by a whirlwind. As a
rule, men of science work not for God so much as against
Him,--wherefore their most brilliant researches stop short of the
goal. Great intellects are seldom devout,--for brilliant culture
begets pride--and pride is incompatible with faith or worship. Perfect
science, combined with perfect selflessness, would give us what we
need,--a purified and reasoning Religion. But El-Râmi’s chief
characteristic was pride,--and he saw no mischief in it. Strong in his
knowledge,--defiant of evil in the consciousness he possessed of his
own extraordinary physical and mental endowments, he saw no reason why
he should bow down in humiliated abasement before forces, either
natural or spiritual, which he deemed himself able to control. And his
brow cleared, as he once more bent over his tranced “subject” and,
with all the methodical precaution of a physician, felt her pulse,
took note of her temperature, and judged that for the present she
needed no more of that strange Elixir which kept her veins aglow with
such inexplicably beauteous vitality. Then--his examination done--he
left the room; and as he drew the velvet portière behind him the
little white moth that had flown in for a night’s shelter fluttered
down from the golden lamp like a falling leaf, and dropped on the
couch of Lilith, shrivelled and dead.
XVIII.
The next day was very wet and stormy. From morning to night the rain
fell in torrents, and a cold wind blew. El-Râmi stayed indoors,
reading, writing, and answering a few of his more urgent
correspondents, a great number of whom were total strangers to him,
and who nevertheless wrote to him out of the sheer curiosity excited
in them by the perusal of a certain book to which his name was
appended as author. This book was a very original literary
production,--the critics were angry with it, because it was so unlike
anything else that ever was written. According to the theories set
forth in its pages, Man, the poor and finite, was proved to be a
creature of superhuman and almost god-like attributes,--a “flattering
unction” indeed, which when laid to the souls of commonplace egoists
had the effect of making them consider El-Râmi Zarânos a very
wonderful person, and themselves more wonderful still. Only the truly
great mind is humble enough to appreciate greatness, and of great
minds there is a great scarcity. Most of El-Râmi’s correspondents
were of that lower order of intelligence which blandly accepts every
fresh truth discovered as specially intended for themselves, and not
at all for the world, as though indeed they were some particular and
removed class of superior beings who alone were capable of
understanding true wisdom. “Your work has appealed to _me_”--wrote
one, “as it will not appeal to all, because I am able to enter into
the divine spirit of things as the _vulgar herd_ cannot do!” This, as
if the “vulgar herd” were not also part of the “divine spirit of
things”!
“I have delighted in your book”--wrote another, “because I am a poet,
and the world, with its low aims and lower desires, I abhor and
despise!”
The absurdity of a man presuming to call himself a poet, and in the
same breath declaring he “despises” the world,--the world which
supports his life and provides him with all his needs,--never seems to
occur to the minds of these poor boasters of a petty vanity. El-Râmi
looked weary enough as he glanced quickly through a heap of such
ill-judged and egotistical epistles, and threw them aside to be for
ever left unanswered. To him there was something truly horrible and
discouraging in the contemplation of the hopeless, helpless, absolute
stupidity of the majority of mankind. The teachings of Mother Nature
being always straight and plain, it _is_ remarkable what devious
turnings and dark winding ways we prefer to stumble into rather than
take the fair and open course. For example Nature says to us--“My
children, Truth is simple,--and I am bound by all my forces to assist
its manifestation. A Lie is difficult--I can have none of it--it needs
other lies to keep it going,--its ways are full of complexity and
puzzle,--why then, O foolish ones, will you choose the Lie and avoid
the Truth? For, work as you may, the Truth must out, and not all the
uproar of opposing multitudes can still its thunderous tongue.” Thus
Nature;--but we heed her not,--we go on lying steadfastly, in a
strange delusion that thereby we may deceive Eternal Justice. But
Eternal Justice never is deceived,--never is obscured even, save for a
moment, as a passing cloud obscures the sun.
“How easy after all to avoid mischief of any kind,” mused El-Râmi
now, as he put by his papers and drew two or three old reference
volumes towards him--“How easy to live happily, free from care, free
from sickness, free from every external or internal wretchedness, if
we could but practise the one rule--Self-abnegation. It is all
there,--and the ethereal Lilith may be right in her assurance as to
the non-existence of Evil unless we ourselves create it. At least one
half the trouble in the world might be avoided if we chose. Debt, for
example,--that carking trouble always arises from living beyond one’s
means,--therefore _why_ live beyond one’s means? What for? Show?
Vulgar ostentation? Luxury? Idleness? All these are things against
which Heaven raises its eternal ban. Then take physical pain and
sickness,--here Self is to blame again,--self-indulgence in the
pleasures of the table,--sensual craving--the marriage of weakly or
ill-conditioned persons,--all simple causes from which spring
incalculable evils. Avoid the causes and we escape the evils. The
arrangements of Nature are all so clear and explicit, and yet we are
for ever going out of our way to find or invent difficulties. The
farmer grumbles and writes letters to the newspapers if his
turnip-fields are invaded by what he deems a ‘destructive pest’ in the
way of moth or caterpillar, and utterly ignores the fact that these
insects always appear for some wise reason or other, which he,
absorbed in his own immediate petty interests, fails to appreciate.
His turnips are eaten,--that is all he thinks or cares about,--but if
he knew that those same turnips contain a particular microbe poisonous
to human life, a germ of typhoid, cholera, or the like, drawn up from
the soil and ready to fructify in the blood of cattle or of men, and
that these insects of which he complains are the scavengers sent by
Nature to utterly destroy the Plague in embryo, he might pause in his
grumbling to wonder at so much precaution taken by the elements for
the preservation of his unworthy and ignorant being. Perplexing and at
times maddening is this our curse of Ignorance,--but that the ‘sins of
the fathers are visited on the children’ is a true saying is
evident--for the faults of generations are still bred in our blood and
bone.”
He turned over the first volume before him listlessly,--his mind was
not set upon study, and his attention wandered. He was thinking of
Féraz, with whom he had scarcely exchanged a word all day. He had
lacked nothing in the way of service, for swift and courteous
obedience to his brother’s wishes had characterised Féraz in every
simple action, but there was a constraint between the two that had not
previously existed. Féraz bore himself with a stately yet sad
hauteur,--he had the air of a proud prince in chains who, being
captive, performed his prison work with exactitude and resignation as
a matter of discipline and duty. It was curious that El-Râmi, who had
steeled himself as he imagined against every tender sentiment, should
now feel the want of the impetuous confidence and grace of manner with
which his young brother had formerly treated him.
“Everything changes--” he mused gloomily, “Everything _must_ change,
of course; and nothing is so fluctuating as the humour of a boy who is
not yet a man, but is on the verge of manhood. And with Féraz my
power has reached its limit,--I know exactly what I can do, and what I
can _not_ do with him,--it is a case of ‘Thus far and no farther.’
Well,--he must choose his own way of life,--only let him not presume
to set himself in _my_ way, or interfere in _my_ work! Ye gods!--there
is nothing I would not do----”
He paused, ashamed; the blood flushed his face darkly and his hand
clenched itself involuntarily. Conscious of the thought that had
arisen within him, he felt a moment’s shuddering horror of himself. He
knew that in the very depths of his nature there was enough untamed
savagery to make him capable of crushing his young brother’s life out
of him, should he dare to obstruct his path or oppose him in his
labours. Realising this, a cold dew broke out on his forehead and he
trembled.
“O Soul of Lilith that cannot understand Evil!” he exclaimed--“Whence
came this evil thought in me? Does the evil in myself engender
it?--and does the same bitter gall that stirred the blood of Cain lurk
in the depths of my being, till Opportunity strikes the wicked hour?
_Retro me, Sathanas!_ After all, there was something in the old
beliefs--the pious horror of a devil,--for a devil there is that walks
the world, and his name is Man!”
He rose and paced the room impatiently,--what a long day it seemed,
and with what dreary persistence the rain washed against the windows!
He looked out into the street,--there was not a passenger to be
seen,--a wet dingy grayness pervaded the atmosphere and made
everything ugly and cheerless. He went back to his books, and
presently began to turn over the pages of the quaint Arabic volume
into which Féraz had unwisely dipped, gathering therefrom a crumb of
knowledge, which, like all scrappy information, had only led him to
discontent.
“All these old experiments of the Egyptian priests were simple
enough--” he murmured as he read,--“They had one substratum of
science,--the art of bringing the countless atoms that fill the air
into temporary shape. The trick is so easy and natural that I fancy
there must have been a certain condition of the atmosphere in earlier
ages which _of itself_ shaped the atoms,--hence the ideas of nymphs,
dryads, fauns, and water-sprites; these temporary shapes which dazzled
for some fleeting moments the astonished human eye and so gave rise to
all the legends. To shape the atoms as a sculptor shapes clay, is but
a phase of chemistry,--a pretty experiment--yet what a miracle it
would always seem to the uninstructed multitude!”
He unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took from it a box full of red
powder, and two small flasks, one containing minute globules of a
glittering green colour like tiny emeralds,--the other full of a pale
amber liquid. He smiled as he looked at these ingredients,--and then
he gave a glance out through the window at the dark and rainy
afternoon.
“To pass the time, why not?” he queried half aloud. “One needs a
little diversion sometimes even in science.”
Whereupon he placed some of the red powder in a small bronze vessel
and set fire to it. A thick smoke arose at once and filled the room
with cloud that emitted a pungent perfume, and in which his own figure
was scarcely discernible. He cast five or six of the little green
globules into this smoke; they dissolved in their course and melted
within it,--and finally he threw aloft a few drops of the amber
liquid. The effect was extraordinary, and would have seemed incredible
to any onlooker, for through the cloud a roseate Shape made itself
slowly visible,--a Shape that was surrounded with streaks of light and
rainbow flame as with a garland. Vague at first, but soon growing more
distinct, it gathered itself into seeming substance, and floated
nearly to the ground,--then rising again, balanced itself lightly like
a blown feather sideways upon the dense mist that filled the air. In
form this “coruscation of atoms,” as El-Râmi called it, resembled a
maiden in the bloom of youth,--her flowing hair, her sparkling eyes,
her smiling lips, were all plainly discernible;--but, that she was a
mere phantasm and creature of the cloud was soon made plain, for
scarcely had she declared herself in all her rounded laughing
loveliness than she melted away and passed into nothingness like a
dream. The cloud of smoke grew thinner and thinner, till it vanished
also so completely that there was no more left of it than a pale blue
ring such as might have been puffed from a stray cigar. El-Râmi,
leaning lazily back in his chair, had watched the whole development
and finish of his “experiment” with indolent interest and amusement.
“How admirably the lines of beauty are always kept in these
effects,”--he said to himself when it was over,--“and what a fortune I
could make with that one example of the concentration of atoms if I
chose to pass as a Miracle-maker. Moses was an adept at this kind of
thing; so also was a certain Egyptian priest named Borsa of Memphis,
who just for that same graceful piece of chemistry was judged by the
people as divine,--made king,--and loaded with wealth and
honour;--excellent and most cunning Borsa! But we--we do not judge any
one “divine” in these days of ours, not even God,--for He is supposed
to be simply the lump of leaven working through the loaf of
matter,--though it will always remain a question as to why there is
any leaven or any loaf at all existing.”
He fell into a train of meditation, which caused him presently to take
up his pen and write busily many pages of close manuscript. Féraz
came in at the usual hour with supper,--and then only he ceased
working, and shared the meal with his young brother, talking
cheerfully, though saying little but commonplaces, and skilfully
steering off any allusion to subjects which might tend to increase
Féraz’s evident melancholy. Once he asked him rather abruptly why he
had not played any music that day.
“I do not know”--answered the young man coldly--“I seem to have
forgotten music--with other things.”
He spoke meaningly;--El-Râmi laughed, relieved and light at heart.
Those “other things” meant the name of Lilith, which his will had
succeeded in erasing from his brother’s memory. His eyes sparkled, and
his voice gathered new richness and warmth of feeling as he said
kindly--
“I think not, Féraz,--I think you cannot have forgotten music. Surely
it is no extraneous thing, but part of you,--a lovely portion of your
life which you would be loath to miss. Here is your little neglected
friend,”--and, rising, he took out of its case an exquisitely-shaped
mandolin inlaid with pearl--“The dear old lute,--for lute it is,
though modernised,--the same-shaped instrument on which the rose and
fuchsia-crowned youths of old Pompeii played the accompaniment to
their love songs; the same, the very same on which the long-haired,
dusky-skinned maids of Thebes and Memphis thrummed their strange
uncouth ditties to their black-browed warrior kings. I like it better
than the violin--its form is far more pleasing--we can see Apollo with
a lute, but it is difficult to fancy the Sun-god fitting his graceful
arm to the contorted positions of a fiddle. Play something,
Féraz”--and he smiled winningly as he gave the mandolin into his
brother’s hands--“Here,”--and he detached the plectrum from its place
under the strings--“With this little piece of oval tortoiseshell, you
can set the nerves of music quivering,--those silver wires will answer
to your touch like the fibres of the human heart struck by the
_tremolo_ of passion.”
He paused,--his eyes were full, of an ardent light, and Féraz looked
at him wonderingly. What a voice he had!--how eloquently he
spoke!--how noble and thoughtful were his features!--and what an air
of almost pathetic dignity was given to his face by that curiously
snow-white hair of his, which so incongruously suggested age in youth!
Poor Féraz!--his heart swelled within him; love and secret admiration
for his brother contended with a sense of outraged pride in
himself,--and yet--he felt his sullen _amour-propre_, his instinct of
rebellion, and his distrustful reserve all oozing away under the spell
of El-Râmi’s persuasive tongue and fascinating manner,--and to escape
from his own feelings, he bent over the mandolin and tried its chords
with a trembling hand and downcast eyes.
“You speak of passion,” he said in a low voice--“but you have never
known it.”
“Oh, have I not!” and El-Râmi laughed lightly as he resumed his
seat--“Nay, if I had not I should be more than man. The lightning has
flashed across my path, Féraz, I assure you, only it has not killed
me; and I have been ready to shed my blood drop by drop, for so slight
and imperfect a production of Nature as--a woman! A thing of white
flesh and soft curves, and long hair and large eyes, and a laugh like
the tinkle of a fountain in our Eastern courts,--a thing with less
mind than a kitten, and less fidelity than a hound. Of course there
are clever women and faithful women,--but then we men seldom choose
these; we are fools, and we pay for our folly. And I also have been a
fool in my time,--why should you imagine I have not? It is flattering
to me, but why?”
Féraz looked at him again, and in spite of himself smiled, though
reluctantly.
“You always seem to treat all earthly emotions with scorn--” he
replied evasively, “And once you told me there was no such thing in
the world as love.”
“Nor is there--” said El-Râmi quickly--“Not ideal love--not
everlasting love. Love in its highest, purest sense, belongs to other
planets--in this its golden wings are clipped, and it becomes nothing
more than a common and vulgar physical attraction.”
Féraz thrummed his mandolin softly.
“I saw two lovers the other day--” he said--“They seemed divinely
happy.”
“Where did you see them?”
“Not here. In the land I know best--my Star.”
El-Râmi looked at him curiously, but forbore to speak.
“They were beautiful--” went on Féraz. “They were resting together on
a bank of flowers in a little nook of that lovely forest where there
are thousands of song-birds sweeter than nightingales. Music filled
the air,--a rosy glory filled the sky,--their arms were twined around
each other,--their lips met, and then--oh, then their joy smote me
with fear, because,--because _I_ was alone--and they were--together!”
His voice trembled. El-Râmi’s smile had in it something of
compassion.
“Love in your Star is a dream, Féraz--” he said gently--“But love
here--here in this phase of things we call Reality,--means,--do you
know what it means?”
Féraz shook his head.
“It means Money. It means lands, and houses and a big balance at the
bank. Lovers do not subsist here on flowers and music,--they have
rather more vulgar and substantial appetites. Love here is the
disillusion of Love--there, in the region you speak of, it may
perchance be perfect----”
A sudden rush of rain battering at the windows, accompanied by a gust
of wind, interrupted him.
“What a storm!” exclaimed Féraz, looking up--“And you are
expecting----”
A measured rat-tat-tat at the door came at that moment, and El-Râmi
sprang to his feet. Féraz rose also, and set aside his mandolin.
Another gust of wind whistled by, bringing with it a sweeping torrent
of hail.
“Quick!” said El-Râmi, in a somewhat agitated voice--“It is--you know
who it is. Give him reverent greeting, Féraz--and show him at once in
here.”
Féraz withdrew,--and, when he had disappeared, El-Râmi looked about
him vaguely with the bewildered air of a man who would fain escape
from some difficult position, could he but discover an egress,--a
slight shudder ran through his frame, and he heaved a deep sigh.
“Why has he come to me!” he muttered, “Why--after all these years of
absolute silence and indifference to my work, does he seek me now?”
XIX.
Standing in an attitude more of resignation than expectancy, he
waited, listening. He heard the street-door open and shut again,--then
came a brief pause, followed by the sound of a firm step in the outer
hall,--and Féraz re-appeared, ushering in with grave respect a man of
stately height and majestic demeanour, cloaked in a heavy travelling
ulster, the hood of which was pulled cowl-like over his head and
almost concealed his features.
“Greeting to El-Râmi Zarânos--” said a rich mellow voice, “And so
this is the weather provided by an English month of May! Well, it
might be worse,--certes, also, it might be better. I should have
disburdened myself of these ‘lendings’ in the hall, but that I knew
not whether you were quite alone--” and, as he spoke, he threw off his
cloak, which dripped with rain, and handed it to Féraz, disclosing
himself in the dress of a Carthusian monk, all save the disfiguring
tonsure. “I was not certain,” he continued cheerfully--“whether you
might be ready or willing to receive me.”
“I am always ready for such a visitor--” said El-Râmi, advancing
hesitatingly, and with a curious diffidence in his manner--“And more
than willing. Your presence honours this poor house and brings with it
a certain benediction.”
“Gracefully said, El-Râmi!” exclaimed the monk with a keen flash of
his deep-set blue eyes--“Where did you learn to make pretty speeches?
I remember you of old time as brusque of tongue and obstinate of
humour,--and even now humility sits ill upon you,--’tis not your
favourite practised household virtue.”
El-Râmi flushed, but made no reply. He seemed all at once to have
become even to himself the merest foolish nobody before this his
remarkable-looking visitor with the brow and eyes of an inspired
evangelist, and the splendid lines of thought, aspiration, and
endeavour marking the already noble countenance with an expression
seldom seen on features of mortal mould. Féraz now came forward to
proffer wine and sundry other refreshments, all of which were
courteously refused.
“This lad has grown, El-Râmi--” said the stranger, surveying Féraz
with much interest and kindliness,--“since he stayed with us in Cyprus
and studied our views of poesy and song. A promising youth he
seems,--and still your slave?”
El-Râmi gave a gesture of deprecation.
“You mistake--” he replied curtly--“He is my brother and my
friend,--as such he cannot be my slave. He is as free as air.”
“Or as an eagle that ever flies back to its eyrie in the rocks out of
sheer habit--” observed the monk with a smile--“In this case you are
the eyrie, and the eagle is never absent long! Well--what now, pretty
lad?” this, as Féraz, moved by a sudden instinct which he could not
explain to himself, dropped reverently on one knee.
“Your blessing--” he murmured timidly. “I have heard it said that your
touch brings peace,--and I--I am not at peace.”
The monk looked at him benignly.
“We live in a world of storm, my boy--” he said gently--“where there
is no peace but the peace of the inner spirit. That, with your youth
and joyous nature, you should surely possess,--and, if you have it
not, may God grant it you! ’Tis the best blessing I can devise.”
And he signed the Cross on the young man’s forehead with a gentle
lingering touch,--a touch under which Féraz trembled and sighed for
pleasure, conscious of the delicious restfulness and ease that seemed
suddenly to pervade his being.
“What a child he is still, this brother of yours!” then said the monk,
turning abruptly towards El-Râmi--“He craves a blessing,--while you
have progressed beyond all such need!”
El-Râmi raised his dark eyes,--eyes full of a burning pain and
pride,--but made no answer. The monk looked at him steadily--and
heaved a quick sigh.
“_Vigilate et orate ut non intretis in tentationem!_” he
murmured,--“Truly, to forgive is easy--but to forget is difficult. I
have much to say to you, El-Râmi,--for this is the last time I shall
meet you ‘before I go hence and be no more seen.’”
Féraz uttered an involuntary exclamation.
“You do not mean,” he said almost breathlessly--“that you are going to
die?”
“Assuredly not!” replied the monk with a smile--“I am going to live.
Some people call it dying--but we know better,--we know we cannot
die.”
“We are not sure--” began El-Râmi.
“Speak for yourself, my friend!” said the monk cheerily--“_I_ am
sure,--and so are those who labour with me. I am not made of
perishable composition any more than the dust is perishable. Every
grain of dust contains a germ of life--I am co-equal with the dust,
and I contain my germ also, of life that is capable of infinite
reproduction.”
El-Râmi looked at him dubiously yet wonderingly. He seemed the very
embodiment of physical strength and vitality, yet he only compared
himself to a grain of dust. And the very dust held the seeds of
life!--true!--then, after all, was there anything in the universe,
however small and slight, that could die _utterly_? And was Lilith
right when she said there was _no_ death? Wearily and impatiently
El-Râmi pondered the question,--and he almost started with nervous
irritation when the slight noise of the door shutting told him that
Féraz had retired, leaving him and his mysterious visitant alone
together.
Some minutes passed in silence. The monk sat quietly in El-Râmi’s own
chair, and El-Râmi himself stood close by, waiting, as it seemed, for
something; with an air of mingled defiance and appeal. Outside, the
rain and wind continued their gusty altercation;--inside, the lamp
burned brightly, shedding warmth and lustre on the student-like
simplicity of the room. It was the monk himself who at last broke the
spell of the absolute stillness.
“You wonder,” he said slowly--“at the reason of my coming here,--to
you who are a recreant from the mystic tie of our brotherhood,--to
you, who have employed the most sacred and venerable secrets of our
Order, to wrest from Life and Nature the material for your own
self-interested labours. You think I come for information--you think I
wish to hear from your own lips the results of your scientific scheme
of supernatural ambition,--alas, El-Râmi Zarânos!--how little you
know me! Prayer has taught me more science than Science will ever
grasp,--there is nothing in all the catalogue of your labours that I
do not understand, and you can give me no new message from lands
beyond the sun. I have come to you out of simple pity,--to warn you
and if possible to save.”
El-Râmi’s dark eyes opened wide in astonishment.
“To warn me?” he echoed--“To save? From what?--Such a mission to me is
incomprehensible.”
“Incomprehensible to your stubborn spirit,--yes, no doubt it is--”
said the monk, with a touch of stern reproach in his accents,--“For
you will not see that the Veil of the Eternal, though it may lift
itself for you a little from other men’s lives, hangs dark across your
own, and is impervious to your gaze. You will not grasp the fact that,
though it may be given to you to read other men’s passions, you cannot
read your own. You have begun at the wrong end of the mystery,
El-Râmi,--you should have mastered yourself first, before seeking to
master others. And now there is danger ahead of you--be wise in
time,--accept the truth before it is too late.”
El-Râmi listened, impatient and incredulous.
“Accept what truth?” he asked somewhat bitterly--“Am I not searching
for truth everywhere? and seeking to prove it? Give me any sort of
truth to hold, and I will grasp it as a drowning sailor grasps the
rope of rescue!”
The monk’s eyes rested on him in mingled compassion and sorrow.
“After all these years--” he said--“are you still asking Pilate’s
question?”
“Yes--I am still asking Pilate’s question!” retorted El-Râmi with
sudden passion--“See you--I know who you are,--great and wise, a
master of the arts and sciences, and with all your stores of learning,
still a servant of Christ, which to me is the wildest, maddest
incongruity. I grant you that Christ was the holiest man that ever
lived on earth,--and if I swear a thing in His name I swear an oath
that shall not be broken. But in His Divinity, I cannot, I may not, I
dare not believe!--except in so far that there is divinity in all of
us. One man, born of woman, destined to regenerate the world!--the
idea is stupendous,--but impossible to reason!”
He paced the room impatiently.
“If I could believe it--I say ‘if,’”--he continued, “I should still
think it a clumsy scheme. For every human creature living should be a
reformer and regenerator of his race.”
“Like yourself?” queried the monk calmly. “What have _you_ done, for
example?”
El-Râmi stopped in his walk to and fro.
“What have I done?” he repeated--“Why--nothing! You deem me proud and
ambitious,--but I am humble enough to know how little I know. And as
to proofs,--well, it is the same story--I have proved--nothing.”
“So! Then are your labours wasted?”
“Nothing is wasted,--according to _your_ theories even. Your
theories--many of them--are beautiful and soul-satisfying, and this
one of there being no waste in the economy of the universe is, I
believe, true. But I cannot accept all you teach. I broke my
connection with you because I could not bend my spirit to the level of
the patience you enjoined. It was not rebellion,--no! for I loved and
honoured you--and I still revere you more than any man alive, but I
cannot bow my neck to the yoke you consider so necessary. To begin all
work by first admitting one’s weakness!--no!--Power is gained by
never-resting ambition, not by a merely laborious humility.”
“Opinions differ on that point”--said the monk quietly--“I never
sought to check your ambition--I simply said--Take God with you. Do
not leave Him out. He IS. Therefore His existence must be included in
everything, even in the scientific examination of a drop of dew.
Without Him you grope in the dark--you lack the key to the mystery. As
an example of this, you are yourself battering against a shut door,
and fighting with a Force too strong for you.”
“I must have proofs of God!” said El-Râmi very deliberately--“Nature
proves her existence; let God prove His!”
“And does He not prove it?” inquired the monk with mingled passion and
solemnity--“Have you to go farther than the commonest flower to find
Him?”
El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders with an air of light disdain.
“Nature is Nature,”--he said--“God--an there be a God--is God. If God
works through Nature He arranges things very curiously on a system of
mutual destruction. You talk of flowers,--they contain both poisonous
and healing properties,--and the poor human race has to study and toil
for years before finding out which is which. Is that just of
Nature--or God? Children never know at all,--and the poor little
wretches die often through eating poison-berries of whose deadly
nature they were not aware. That is what I complain of--we are not
aware of evil, and we are not made aware. We have to find it out for
ourselves. And I maintain that it is wanton cruelty on the part of the
Divine Element to punish us for ignorance which we cannot help. And so
the plan of mutual destructiveness goes on, with the most admirable
persistency; the eater is in turn eaten, and, as far as I can make
out, this seems to be the one Everlasting Law. Surely it is an odd and
inconsequential arrangement? As for the business of creation, that is
easy, if once we grant the existence of certain component parts of
space. Look at this, for example”--and he took from a corner a thin
steel rod about the size of an ordinary walking cane--“If I use this
magnet, and these few crystals”--and he opened a box on the table,
containing some sparkling powder like diamond dust, a pinch of which
he threw up into the air--“and play with them thus, you see what
happens!”
And with a dexterous steady motion he waved the steel rod rapidly
round and round in the apparently empty space where he had tossed
aloft the pinch of powder, and gradually there grew into shape out of
the seeming nothingness a round large brilliant globe of prismatic
tints, like an enormously magnified soap-bubble, which followed the
movement of the steel magnet rapidly and accurately. The monk lifted
himself a little in his chair and watched the operation with interest
and curiosity--till presently El-Râmi dropped the steel rod from
sheer fatigue of arm. But the globe went on revolving steadily by
itself for a time, and El-Râmi pointed to it with a smile--
“If I had the skill to send that bubble-sphere out into space,
solidify it, and keep it perpetually rolling,” he said lightly, “it
would in time exhale its own atmosphere and produce life, and I should
be a very passable imitation of the Creator.”
At that moment the globe broke, and vanished like a melting snowflake,
leaving no trace of its existence but a little white dust which fell
in a round circle on the carpet. After this display, El-Râmi waited
for his guest to speak, but the monk said nothing.
“You see,” continued El-Râmi--“it requires a great deal to satisfy
_me_ with proofs. I must have tangible Fact, not vague Imagining.”
The monk raised his eyes,--what searching calm eyes they were!--and
fixed them full on the speaker.
“Your Sphere was a Fact,”--he said quietly--“Visible to the eye, it
glittered and whirled--but it was not tangible, and it had no life in
it. It is a fair example of other Facts,--so called. And you could not
have created so much as that perishable bubble, had not God placed the
materials in your hands. It is odd you seem to forget that. No one can
work without the materials for working,--the question remains, from
Whence came those materials?”
El-Râmi smiled with a touch of scorn.
“Rightly are you called Supreme Master!” he said--“for your faith is
marvellous--your ideas of life both here and hereafter, beautiful. I
wish I could accept them. But I cannot. Your way does not seem to me
clear or reasonable,--and I have thought it out in every direction.
Take the doctrine of original sin for example--what _is_ original sin,
and why should it exist?”
“It does not exist--” said the monk quickly--“except in so far that
_we_ have created it. It is we, therefore, who must destroy it.”
El-Râmi paused, thinking. This was the same lesson Lilith had taught.
“If we created it--” he said at last, “and there is a God who is
omnipotent, why were we _allowed_ to create it?”
The monk turned round in his chair with ever so slight a gesture of
impatience.
“How often have I told you, El-Râmi Zarânos,” he said,--“of the gift
and responsibility bestowed on every human unit--Free-Will. You, who
seek for proofs of the Divine, should realise that this is the only
proof we have in ourselves of our close relation to ‘the image of
God.’ God’s Laws exist,--and it is our first business in life to know
and understand these--afterwards, our fate is in our own hands,--if we
transgress law, or if we fulfil law, we know, or ought to know, the
results. If we choose to make evil, it exists till we destroy it--good
we cannot _make_, because it is the very breath of the Universe, but
we can choose to breathe _in_ it and _with_ it. I have so often gone
over this ground with you that it seems mere waste of words to go over
it again,--and if you cannot, will not see that you are creating your
own destiny and shaping it to your own will, apart from anything that
human or divine experience can teach you, then you are blind indeed.
But time wears on apace,--and I must speak of other things;--one
message I have for you that will doubtless cause you pain.” He waited
a moment--then went on slowly and sadly--“Yes,--the pain will be
bitter and the suffering long,--but the fiat has gone forth, and ere
long you will be called upon to render up the Soul of Lilith.”
El-Râmi started violently,--flushed a deep red, and then grew deadly
pale.
“You speak in enigmas--” he said huskily and with an effort--“What do
you know--how have you heard----”
He broke off,--his voice failed him, and the monk looked at him
compassionately.
“Judge not the power of God, El-Râmi Zarânos!” he said
solemnly--“for it seems you cannot even measure the power of man.
What!--did you think your secret experiment safely hid from all
knowledge save your own?--nay! you mistake. I have watched your
progress step by step--your proud march onward through such mysteries
as never mortal mind dared penetrate before,--but even these wonders
have their limits--and those limits are, for you, nearly reached. You
must set your captive free!”
“Never!” exclaimed El-Râmi passionately. “Never, while I live! I defy
the heavens to rob me of her!--by every law in nature, she is mine!”
“Peace!” said the monk sternly--“Nothing is yours,--except the fate
you have made for yourself. _That_ is yours; and that must and will be
fulfilled. That, in its own appointed time, will deprive you of
Lilith.”
El-Râmi’s eyes flashed wrath and pain.
“What have you to do with my fate?” he demanded--“How should you know
what is in store for me? You are judged to have a marvellous insight
into spiritual things, but it is not insight after all so much as
imagination and instinct. These may lead you wrong,--you have gained
them, as you yourself admit, through nothing but inward, concentration
and prayer--_my_ discoveries are the result of scientific
exploration,--there is no science in prayer!”
“Is there not?”--and the monk, rising from his chair, confronted
El-Râmi with the reproachful majesty of a king who faces some
recreant vassal--“Then with all your wisdom you are
ignorant,--ignorant of the commonest laws of simple Sound. Do you not
yet know--have you not yet learned that Sound vibrates in a million
million tones through every nook and corner of the Universe? Not a
whisper, not a cry from human lips is lost--not even the trill of a
bird or the rustle of a leaf. All is heard--all is kept,--all is
reproduced at will for ever and ever. What is the use of your modern
toys, the phonograph and the telephone, if they do not teach you the
fundamental and eternal law by which these adjuncts to civilisation
are governed? God--the great, patient, loving God--hears the huge
sounding-board of space re-echo again and yet again with rough curses
on His Name,--with groans and wailings; shouts, tears, and laughter
send shuddering discord through His Everlasting Vastness, but amid it
all there is a steady strain of music,--full, sweet, and pure--the
music of perpetual prayer. No science in prayer! Such science there
is, that by its power the very ether parts asunder as by a lightning
stroke--the highest golden gateways are unbarred,--and the
connecting-link ’twixt God and Man stretches itself through Space,
between and round all worlds, defying any force to break the current
of its messages.”
He spoke with fervour and passion,--El-Râmi listened silent and
unconvinced.
“I waste my words, I know--” continued the monk--“For you, Yourself
suffices. What your brain dares devise,--what your hand dares attempt,
that you will do, unadvisedly, sure of your success without the help
of God or man. Nevertheless--you may not keep the Soul of Lilith.”
His voice was very solemn yet sweet; El-Râmi, lifting his head,
looked full at him, wonderingly, earnestly, and as one in doubt. Then
his mind seemed to grasp more completely his visitor’s splendid
presence,--the noble face, the soft commanding eyes,--and
instinctively he bent his proud head with a sudden reverence.
“Truly you are a god-like man--” he said slowly--“God-like in
strength, and pure-hearted as a child. I would trust you in many
things, if not in all. Therefore,--as by some strange means you have
possessed yourself of my secret,--come with me,--and I will show you
the chiefest marvel of my science--the life I claim--the spirit I
dominate. Your warning I cannot accept, because you warn me of what is
impossible. Impossible--I say, impossible!--for the human Lilith,
God’s Lilith, _died_--according to God’s will; _my_ Lilith lives,
according to My will. Come and see,--then perhaps you will understand
how it is that I--I, and not God any longer,--claim and possess the
Soul I saved!”
With these words, uttered in a thrilling tone of pride and passion, he
opened the study door and, with a mute inviting gesture, led the way
out. In silence and with a pensive step, the monk slowly followed.
XX.
Into the beautiful room, glowing with its regal hues of gold and
purple, where the spell-bound Lilith lay, El-Râmi led his thoughtful
and seemingly reluctant guest. Zaroba met them on the threshold and
was about to speak,--but at an imperative sign from her master she
refrained, and contented herself merely with a searching and
inquisitive glance at the stately monk, the like of whom she had never
seen before. She had good cause to be surprised,--for, in all the time
she had known him, El-Râmi had never permitted any visitor to enter
the shrine of 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 earthly 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 transgressed 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 for
ever. 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 realises 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.
XXI.
He found him quietly seated in the study, close beside the window,
which he had thrown open for air. The rain had ceased,--a few stars
shone out in the misty sky, and there was a fresh smell of earth and
grass and flowers, as though all were suddenly growing together by
some new impetus.
“‘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 sympathiser.”
“You do not sympathise 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 _sympathiser_. I
sympathise--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 steadfast 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.
XXII.
When he came to himself, it was full daylight. His head was resting
on some one’s knee,--some one was sprinkling cold water on his face
and talking to him in an incoherent mingling of Arabic and
English,--who was that some one? Féraz? Yes!--surely it was Féraz!
Opening his eyes languidly, he stared about him and attempted to rise.
“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 demanded.--“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--some one 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 any one 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 organisation, 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 _Tannhäuser_ 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!”