Passionately wringing his hands, or pressing them upon his hot brow,
knelt the student alone in his chamber. He muttered wild tones. He had
yearned after the tree of knowledge; he had penetrated within its shadow,
and it had darkened his soul, yet he had not tasted of its delicious
fruit for which he so longed.
“It is vain,——it is vain!” cried Basil; “I strive, but I cannot attain.
I have cast all human bliss to the winds; I have poisoned my youth,——and
thine, too, Isilda, joy of my life!——and all in vain. No immortal gifts
are mine,——I would fain pierce into Nature’s depths, but she hides her
face from me. O my master! thou didst tell me of the world of spirits
which would surely be revealed unto me. I look up into the air, but no
sylphs breathe soft zephyrs upon my hot cheek; I wander by the streams,
but no sweet eyes, looking out from the depths of the fountains, meet my
own; I am poor, but the gnomes of the earth answer not my bidding with
treasures of silver and gold. And thou, O Fire, glorious element! art
thou indeed peopled with these wonderful beings; or are they deaf to my
voice, and invisible to my eyes alone, of all my brethren?”
And lo! as the student spoke, a bright pyramid of flame darted upward,
and a voice, like that of the fire when it answers the soft breathing of
the winds, replied,——
“I hear thee,——what wouldst thou with me?”
A paleness came over the young man’s cheek, and he drew back
involuntarily.
“Dost thou then fear me, O mortal!” said the voice again, sadly. “Look
again.”
Suddenly the pyramidal flame was cloven asunder, and there appeared in
its centre a form, smaller than that of humanity, but perfect in feminine
loveliness. Wavy wreaths of golden flame fell around her like a woman’s
beautiful hair, and about her semi-transparent form twined an amber
vesture, resembling in hue and airy substance the fire from which she
sprung. Her hands were folded submissively on her breast, and her eyes
were fixed earnestly on the young student’s face as she again repeated,——
“Dost thou fear me now?”
“How should I fear thee, beautiful vision?” cried Basil in ecstasy; “and
what am I, that thou shouldst deign to visit me thus?”
“Thinkest thou that this is the first time I have visited thee?” said the
Form. “I have been with thee, unseen, from thy childhood. When, in thy
boyish days, thou wouldst sit gazing on the beautiful element which I
rule, and from which I proceed, it was I who made it assume in thy fancy
strange and lovely shapes. It was my voice thou heardest in the musical
breathing of the flames, until thou didst love the beautiful fire; and it
became to thee the source of inspiration. All this was my doing.”
“And now at last I behold thee, glorious creature!” exclaimed the
student with rapture. “How shall I thank thee for thus watching over me
invisibly, and at last revealing thyself to me!”
“We do but the will of our Creator,” answered the Salamandrine. “I and
my kindred are His offspring, even as man; but our being differs from
thine; superior and yet how inferior! We tend thee, we influence thee,
we guide thee,——in this doing alike His command who made us, and our own
pleasure; for our natures are purer and better than thine.”
“I feel it,” said Basil. “I cannot look upon thy all-perfect loveliness
without knowing that such a form must be the visible reflection of a soul
equally pure and beautiful.”
“A _soul_!” sighed the fire-spirit; “alas! this blessing is not ours. We
see generation after generation of men perish from the face of earth; we
watch them from their cradles into their graves, and still we are the
same, our beauty unfaded, our power unchanged. Yet we know there must
come a time when the elements from which we draw our being must vanish
away, and then we perish with them, for we have no immortal souls: for us
there is no after-life!”
As the Salamandrine ceased, the vapors of the fire encircled her as with
a mist, and a wailing came from the red caverns of flame, as of spirits
in grief, the burden of which was ever,——
“Alas for us!——we have no after-life.”
“Is it even so?” said the student. “Then are ye unhappy in the midst of
your divine existence.”
The mist which veiled the Salamandrine floated aside, and she stood once
more revealed in her superhuman beauty.
“Not unhappy,” she answered, with a radiant and celestial smile,——“not
unhappy, since we are the servants of our beneficent Creator; we perform
His will, and in that consists our happiness. We suffer no pain, no care;
doing no sin, we have no sorrow; our life is a life of love to each other
and to man, whose ministers we are. Are we not then happy?”
“It may be so,” said Basil, thoughtfully. “Ye are the creatures of Him
who never made aught but good.” And he bowed his head in deep meditation,
while there arose from the mystic fire an ethereal chorus; melodiously it
pealed upon the opened ears of the enraptured student.
The spirits sang of praise; of the universal hymn which nature lifts up
to the Origin of all good; of the perfect harmony of all His works, from
the mighty planets that roll through illimitable space, down to the fresh
green moss that springs up at the foot of the wayfaring child; of the
world of spirits,——those essences which people the earth and float in the
air like motes in the sunbeam, invisible, but yet powerful; how the good
spirits strive with the fallen ones for dominion over man, and how the
struggle must continue until evil is permitted to be overcome of good,
and the earth becomes all holy, worthy to be the habitation of glorified
beings.
“Happy art thou, O man!” they sang. “Even in thy infirmity, what is like
unto thee? And earthly life is thine, half the sorrow of which thou mayst
remove by patience and love; an earthly death is thine, which is the
entrance to immortality. It is ours to guide thee to that gate of heaven
which we ourselves may never enter.”
And all the spirits sang in a strain that died away as the fire sunk
smouldering down, “Blessed art thou, O man!——strong in thy weakness,
happy in thy sufferings. Thrice blessed art thou!”
The student was roused from his trance by a light footstep. A hand was
laid on his shoulder, and a soft woman’s voice whispered,——
“Art thou then here all alone, and in darkness, my Basil?”
“All was light with me,——the darkness came with thee,” answered the
student, harshly, like one roused from delicious slumbers by an unwelcome
hand;——and yet the hand was none other than Isilda’s.
“Once thou used to call me thy light of life, Basil,” murmured the girl.
“I would not come to anger thee.”
It was too dark to discern faces; but as Isilda turned to depart, Basil
thought she was weeping, and his heart melted. What would he not have
given, at the moment, for the days of old,——the feelings of old, when
he would have drawn her to his bosom, and soothed her there with the
assurances of never-ending love. But now he dared not; the link between
him and earth was broken. He thought of the immortal gift just acquired,
and he would not renounce its ecstatic joys,——no, not even for Isilda. He
took her hand kindly, but coldly, saying,——
“Forgive me; I have been studying,——dreaming; I did not mean to say thou
wert unwelcome.”
“Bless thee for that, my Basil, my beloved!” cried the girl, weeping,
as she pressed his hand passionately to her heart and her lips. “Thou
couldst not be unkind to me,——to thy betrothed wife.”
Basil turned away; he could not tell her that the tie was now only a
name; and Isilda went on,——
“Thou hast not looked the same of late; thou art too anxious; or thou
hast some hidden sorrow upon thee. Tell it to me, my Basil,” she
continued, caressingly. “Who should share and lighten it but I, who love
thee so?”
“Dost thou indeed love me so well, Isilda?”
“Thou art my all,——my life,——my soul! It were death itself to part from
thee,” cried the girl, in a burst of impassioned feeling, as she knelt
beside the bending form of her lover, and strove to wind her arms round
his neck. She hardly dared to do so now to him who had once wooed that
fondness with so many prayers.
“Woe is me, alas!” muttered the student. “Must thou also be sacrificed,
Isilda?”
She did not hear his words, but she felt him unclasp her arms from his
neck; and Isilda sank insensible at Basil’s feet.
The die was cast. Slowly the student laid her down,——her, the once
beloved,——on the cold floor. He called “Margareta!” and before his sister
entered, went out into the open air.