"I have not spoken of my faith,"--he rejoined in colder accents, lifting
his brilliant eyes to the darkening heaven--"I am not a Salvationist,
that I should bray forth a creed to the sound of trump and drum."
"All the same, you _have_ a creed;"--I persisted--"And I fancy it must
be a strange one! If you remember, you promised to explain it to me----"
"Are you ready to receive such an explanation?" he asked in a somewhat
ironical tone--"No, my dear friend!--permit me to say you are _not_
ready--not yet! My beliefs are too positive to be brought even into
contact with your contradictions,--too frightfully real to submit to
your doubts for a moment. You would at once begin to revert to the puny,
used-up old arguments of Voltaire, Schopenhauer and Huxley,--little
atomic theories like grains of dust in the whirlwind of My knowledge! I
can tell you I believe in God as a very Actual and Positive Being,--and
that is presumably the first of the Church articles."
"You believe in God!" I echoed his words, staring at him stupidly. He
seemed in earnest. In fact he had always seemed in earnest on the
subject of Deity. Vaguely I thought of a woman in society whom I
slightly knew,--an ugly woman, unattractive and mean-minded, who passed
her time in entertaining semi-Royalties and pushing herself amongst
them,--she had said to me one day--[4] "I hate people who believe in
God, don't you? The idea of a God makes me _sick_!"
"You believe in God!" I repeated again dubiously.
"Look!" he said, raising his hand towards the sky--"There a few drifting
clouds cover millions of worlds, impenetrable, mysterious, yet
_actual_;--down there--" and he pointed to the sea, "lurk a thousand
things of which, though the ocean is a part of earth, human beings have
not yet learned the nature. Between these upper and lower spaces of the
Incomprehensible yet Absolute, you, a finite atom of limited
capabilities stand, uncertain how long the frail thread of your life
shall last, yet arrogantly balancing the question with your own poor
brain, as to whether you,--_you_ in your utter littleness and
incompetency shall condescend to accept a God or not! I confess, that of
all astonishing things in the Universe, this particular attitude of
modern mankind is the most astonishing to me!"
"Your own attitude is?----"
"The reluctant acceptance of such terrific knowledge as is forced upon
me,--" he replied with a dark smile--"I do not say I have been an apt or
a willing pupil,--I have had to suffer in learning what I know!"
"Do you believe in hell?" I asked him suddenly--"And in Satan, the
Arch-Enemy of mankind?"
He was silent for so long that I was surprised, the more so as he grew
pale to the lips, and a curious, almost deathlike rigidity of feature
gave his expression something of the ghastly and terrible. After a pause
he turned his eyes upon me,--an intense burning misery was reflected in
them, though he smiled.
"Most assuredly I believe in hell! How can I do otherwise if I believe
in heaven? If there is an Up there must be a Down; if there is Light,
there must also be Darkness! And, ... concerning the Arch-Enemy of
mankind,--if half the stories reported of him be true, he must be the
most piteous and pitiable figure in the Universe! What would be the
sorrows of a thousand million worlds, compared to the sorrows of Satan!"
"Sorrows!" I echoed--"He is supposed to rejoice in the working of evil!"
"Neither angel nor devil can do that,"--he said slowly--"To rejoice in
the working of evil is a temporary mania which affects man only. For
actual joy to come out of evil, Chaos must come again, and God must
extinguish Himself." He stared across the dark sea,--the sun had sunk,
and one faint star twinkled through the clouds. "And so I again say--the
sorrows of Satan! Sorrows immeasurable as eternity itself,--imagine
them! To be shut out of Heaven!--to hear all through the unending æons,
the far-off voices of angels whom once he knew and loved!--to be a
wanderer among deserts of darkness, and to pine for the light celestial
that was formerly as air and food to his being,--and to know that Man's
folly, Man's utter selfishness, Man's cruelty, keep him thus exiled, an
outcast from pardon and peace! Man's nobleness may lift the Lost Spirit
almost within reach of his lost joys,--but Man's vileness drags him down
again,--easy was the torture of Sisyphus compared with the torture of
Satan! No wonder that he loathes Mankind!--small blame to him if he
seeks to destroy the puny tribe eternally,--little marvel that he
grudges them their share of immortality! Think of it as a legend
merely,"--and he turned upon me with a movement that was almost
fierce--"Christ redeemed Man,--and by his teaching, showed how it was
possible for Man to redeem the Devil!"
"I do not understand you--" I said feebly, awed by the strange pain and
passion of his tone.
"Do you not? Yet my meaning is scarcely obscure! If men were true to
their immortal instincts and to the God that made them,--if they were
generous, honest, fearless, faithful, reverent, unselfish, ... if women
were pure, brave, tender and loving,--can you not imagine that in the
strong force and fairness of such a world, 'Lucifer, son of the Morning'
would be moved to love instead of hate?--that the closed doors of
Paradise would be unbarred--and that he, lifted towards his Creator on
the prayers of pure lives, would wear again his Angel's crown? Can you
not realize this, even by way of a legendary story?"
"Why yes, as a legendary story the idea is beautiful,"--I admitted--"And
to me, as I told you once before, quite new. Still, as men are never
likely to be honest or women pure, I'm afraid the poor devil stands a
bad chance of ever getting redeemed!"
"I fear so too!" and he eyed me with a curious derision--"I very much
fear so! And his chances being so slight, I rather respect him for being
the Arch-Enemy of such a worthless race!" He paused a moment, then
added--"I wonder how we have managed to get on such an absurd subject of
conversation? It is dull and uninteresting as all 'spiritual' themes
invariably are. My object in bringing you out on this voyage is not to
indulge in psychological argument, but to make you forget your troubles
as much as possible, and enjoy the present while it lasts."
There was a vibration of compassionate kindness in his voice which at
once moved me to an acute sense of self-pity, the worst enervator of
moral force that exists. I sighed heavily.
"Truly I have suffered"--I said--"More than most men!"
"More even than most millionaires deserve to suffer!" declared Lucio,
with that inevitable touch of sarcasm which distinguished some of his
friendliest remarks--"Money is supposed to make amends to a man for
everything,--and even the wealthy wife of a certain Irish 'patriot' has
not found it incompatible with affection to hold her moneybags close to
herself while her husband has been declared a bankrupt. How she has
'idolized' him, let others say! Now, considering _your_ cash-abundance,
it must be owned the fates have treated you somewhat unkindly!"
The smile that was half-cruel and half-sweet radiated in his eyes as he
spoke,--and again a singular revulsion of feeling against him moved me
to dislike and fear. And yet,--how fascinating was his company! I could
not but admit that the voyage with him to Alexandria on board 'The
Flame' was one of positive enchantment and luxury all the way. There was
nothing in a material sense left to wish for,--all that could appeal to
the intelligence or the imagination had been thought of on board this
wonderful yacht which sped like a fairy ship over the sea. Some of the
sailors were skilled musicians, and on tranquil nights or at sunset,
would bring stringed instruments and discourse to our ears the most
dulcet and ravishing melodies. Lucio himself too would often sing,--his
luscious voice resounding, as it seemed, over all the visible sea and
sky, with such passion as might have drawn an angel down to listen.
Gradually my mind became impregnated with these snatches of mournful,
fierce, or weird minor tunes,--and I began to suffer in silence from an
inexplicable depression and foreboding sense of misery, as well as from
another terrible feeling to which I could scarcely give a name,--a
dreadful _uncertainty of myself_, as of one lost in a wilderness and
about to die. I endured these fits of mental agony alone,--and in such
dreary burning moments, believed I was going mad. I grew more and more
sullen and taciturn, and when we at last arrived at Alexandria I was not
moved to any particular pleasure. The place was new to me, but I was not
conscious of novelty,--everything seemed flat, dull, and totally
uninteresting. A heavy almost lethargic stupor chained my wits, and when
we left the yacht in harbour and went on to Cairo, I was not sensible of
any personal enjoyment in the journey, or interest in what I saw. I was
only partially roused when we took possession of a luxurious dahabeah,
which, with a retinue of attendants, had been specially chartered for
us, and commenced our lotus-like voyage up the Nile. The reed-edged,
sluggish yellow river fascinated me,--I used to spend long hours
reclining at full length in a deck-chair, gazing at the flat shores, the
blown sand-heaps, the broken columns and mutilated temples of the dead
kingdoms of the past. One evening, thus musing, while the great golden
moon climbed languidly up into the sky to stare at the wrecks of earthly
ages I said--
"If one could only see these ancient cities as they once existed, what
strange revelations might be made! Our modern marvels of civilization
and progress might seem small trifles after all,--for I believe in our
days we are only re-discovering what the peoples of old time knew."
Lucio drew his cigar from his mouth and looked at it meditatively. Then
he glanced up at me with a half-smile--
"Would you like to see a city resuscitated?" he inquired--"Here, in this
very spot, some six thousand years ago, a king reigned, with a woman not
his queen but his favourite, (quite a lawful arrangement in those days)
who was as famous for her beauty and virtue, as this river is for its
fructifying tide. Here civilization had progressed enormously,--with the
one exception that it had not outgrown faith. Modern France and England
have beaten the ancients in their scorn of God and creed, their contempt
for divine things, their unnameable lasciviousness and blasphemy. This
city"----and he waved his hand towards a dreary stretch of shore where a
cluster of tall reeds waved above the monster fragment of a fallen
column,--"was governed by the strong pure faith of its people more than
anything,--and the ruler of social things in it was a woman. The king's
favourite was something like Mavis Clare in that she possessed
genius,--she had also the qualities of justice, intelligence, love,
truth and a most noble unselfishness,--she made this place happy. It was
a paradise on earth while she lived,--when she died, its glory ended. So
much can a woman do if she chooses,--so much does she _not_ do, in her
usual cow-like way of living!"
"How do you know all this you tell me of?" I asked him.
"By study of past records"--he replied--"I read what modern men declare
they have no time to read. You are right in the idea that all 'new'
things are only old things re-invented or re-discovered,--if you had
gone a step further and said that some of men's present lives are only
the continuation of their past, you would not have been wrong. Now, if
you like, I can by my science, show you the city that stood here long
ago,--the 'City Beautiful' as its name is, translated from the ancient
tongue."
I roused myself from my lounging attitude and looked at him amazedly. He
met my gaze unmoved.
"You can show it to me!" I exclaimed--"How can you do such an impossible
thing?"
"Permit me to hypnotize you,"--he answered smiling,--"My system of
hypnotism is, very fortunately, not yet discovered by meddlesome
inquirers into occult matters,--but it never fails of its effect,--and I
promise you, you shall, under my influence, see not only the place, but
the people."
My curiosity was strongly excited, and I became more eager to try the
suggested experiment than I cared to openly show. I laughed however,
with affected indifference.
"I am perfectly willing!" I said--"All the same, I don't think you can
hypnotize me,--I have much too strong a will of my own----" at which
remark I saw a smile, dark and saturnine, hover on his lips--"But you
can make the attempt."
He rose at once, and signed to one of our Egyptian servants.
"Stop the dahabeah, Azimah," he said--"We will rest here for the night."
Azimah, a superb-looking Eastern in picturesque white garments, put his
hands to his head in submission and retired to give the order. In
another few moments the dahabeah had stopped. A great silence was around
us,--the moonlight fell like yellow wine on the deck,--in the far
distance across the stretches of dark sand, a solitary column towered so
clear-cut against the sky that it was almost possible to discern upon it
the outline of a monstrous face. Lucio stood still, confronting
me,--saying nothing, but looking me steadily through and through, with
those wonderful mystic, melancholy eyes that seemed to penetrate and
burn my very flesh. I was attracted as a bird might be by the basilisk
eyes of a snake,--yet I tried to smile and say something indifferent. My
efforts were useless,--personal consciousness was slipping from me
fast,--the sky, the water and the moon whirled round each other in a
giddy chase for precedence;--I could not move, for my limbs seemed
fastened to my chair with weights of iron, and I was for a few minutes
absolutely powerless. Then suddenly my vision cleared (as I thought)--my
senses grew vigorous and alert, ... I heard the sound of solemn marching
music, and there,--there in the full radiance of the moon, with a
thousand lights gleaming forth from high cupolas, shone the 'City
Beautiful'!
[4] Said in the author's hearing by one of the 'lady leaders' of
'smart' society.