 Chapter 29 of Our Death by Marie Corelli. This Libravax recording is in the public domain. Chapter 29, The Cup of Wrath and Tremblin. A flash of time, an instant of black horrid eclipse to breathe for the utterance of even a word or cry. And then within appalling roar, as of us, building of huge rocks and the tearing asunder of mighty mountains, the murky gloom was lifted, rent, devoured and swept away on all sides by a sudden bursting forth of fire. Fire leaped up alive in 20 different parts of the building, bringing aloft and spiral coils from the marble pavement that yawned crashingly open to give the impetuous flames their rapid egress. Fire climbed lively, round and round the immense columns, and ran nimbly dancing and crackling its way among the painted and big gembed decorations of the dome. Fire enwrapped the side altars and shriveled the jeweled idols at a breath. Fire unfastened and shook down the swinging lamps. The garlands, the splendid draperies of silk and cloth of gold, fire, fire everywhere. And the madly affrighted multitude, stunned by the abrupt shock of terror, stood for a moment paralyzed and inert. Then with one desperate yell of wild root fear and ferocity, they rushed headlong in a struggling, shrieking, cursing, sweltering swan toward the great closed portals of the central isle. As they did so, a tremendous weight of thunder seemed to descend solidly on the roof with a thudding burst, as though a thousand walls had been battered down at one blow. The whole edifice rocked and trembled in that terrific reverberation, and almost simultaneously the doors were violently jerked open, wrenched from their hinges and hurled, all burning and split with flame against the forward fighting crowds. The four hundred fell under the fiery mass, the charred heap of corpses, the raging remainder pressed on in frenzied haste, clamoring over piles of burning dead, trampling on, scorched, disfigured faces that perhaps for the moments since have been dear to them, each and all bent on forcing a way out to the open air in the midst of the overwhelming awfulness of the scene. Theos still retained sufficient presence of mind to remember that whatever happened his first care must be for Saluma, always for Saluma. No matter who else perished, and he now held that beloved comrade closely clasped by the arm while he eagerly glanced about him on every side for some outlet through which to make a good and swift escape. The most immediate place of safety seemed to be the inner sanctuary of Nagaya. It was untouched by the flames and its titanic pillars of brass and bronze suggested a very massive miss at nearly impregnable harbor of refuge. The king had led the other and now stood like a statue of undaunted gloomy amazement beside Lysia who on her part appeared literally frozen with terror. Her large startled eyes roving here and there in helpless anxiety alone gave any animation to the deathly rigid whiteness of her face. And she still mechanically supported the sacred ebony staff without apparently being aware of the fact that the snake deity convulsed through all these quarrels with fright had begun to make there from his rapid descent. The priests, the virgins, the poor unhappy little singing children flocked hurriedly together and guarded to the back of the great shrine in the manifest intention of reaching some private way of egress known only to themselves. But their attempts were evidently frustrated for no sooner had they gone than they've sped back again their faces scorched in blackened and uttering cries and willful lamentations they flung themselves wildly among the struggling crowds in the main body of the temple. In fought for life and the jaws of death every one for self and no one for another volumes of smoke rolled up from the ground in thick and suffocating clouds. The company by incessant sharp reports like the close firing of guns, jets of flame and showers of cinders broke forth, fountain light scattering hot destruction on every hand while a few flying sparks caught the end of the silver veil and withered it into nothingness with one bright resolute flare. Half maddened by the shrieks and dying groans that resounded everywhere about him, and yet all the time feeling as though he were some spectators set apart and condemned to watch the progress of a ghastly phantasmal gorye and hell. Theos was just evolving in his mind whether it would or would not be possible to make a determined climb for escape through one of the tall painted windows, some of which were not yet reached by the fire. When with a sudden passionate exclamation Saluma broke from his hold and rushed to the sanctuary. Quick as lightning Theos followed him followed him close as he sprang up the steps and confronted Lassie with eager outstretched arms. The dead nefrada lay near him there as a sculptured saint with the cruel wound of sacrificing her breast, but he seemed not to see that piteous corpse of faithfulness. His grief for her death had been a mere transient emotion, his stronger earthly passions reasserted their tempestuous sway, and for sweet things perished and gone to heaven he had no further care. On Lassie, and on Lassie, his living beauty alone, his eyes flamed their ardent glory. Come, come, he who had come my life, my life, let me save thee, for if I cannot save thee, let us die together. Scarcely had the words left his lips when the king without swift forward movement, like the pounce of some desert panther turned fiercely upon him. Amazement, jealousy, distrust, revenge, all gathering stormily in the black frown of his bent vindictive brows. His great chest heaved pantingly, his teeth puttered woefully through his jetty beard, and in the terrible nerve tension of the moment, the fury of that spreading conflagration was forgotten at any rate by Theos, who stricken them and rigid by a shock of alarm to poignant for expression stared aghast at the three figures before him. Saluma, Lassie, is afore on him, especially is afore on him, whose bursting wrath threatened to choke his stutterance. What sayest thou, Saluma, he demanded an assorted ferocious gasping whisper. Repeat thy words, repeat them, and his hand clutched at his dagger hill, while his restless, lowering glance flashed from Lassie to the lawyer, and from the lawyer back to Lassie again. Death encompasses us, this is no time for trifling speak, and his voice suddenly rose to a frantic shout of rage. Speak, what is this woman to thee? Everything returns Saluma with prompt impassionate fearlessness, his glorious eyes blazing a proud defiance as he spoke. Everything that woman can be or ever shall be unto man. Call her by whatsoever, name a foolish greeting joins. Virgin daughter of the center, high priestess of Nagaya, she is nevertheless mine, and mine only, I am her lover. Thou, and with a hoarse cry, is afore on him, sprang upon and seized him by the throat. Thou liest I, I, crowned king of Alkiris, I am her lover, chosen by her out of all men, and thus thou dare to pretend that she hath preferred thee, a mere singer of mad songs. To me, thou unscrupulous nape, I tell thee, she is mine, dost hear me, mine, mine, mine, and he shrieked the last word out in a perfect hurricane of passion. My queen, my mistress, part of my heart, soul of my soul, let the city burn to ashes, and the whole land be utterly consumed in death, as in life, I see as mine, and the gods themselves shall never part her from me. And suddenly, releasing his grasp, he hurls Saluma away, as he might have hurled aside a toy-figure, and appeal a reckless musical laughter echoed mockingly through the vaulted shrine. Thou liest I see his laughter, and Theos' blood grew cold, as he heard his cruel, severing ring, even so had she laughed when no jealous died. Saluma reeled backward from that king's thrust, but did not fall white and trembling, with his sad and splendid features frozen as it were into a sculptured mask of agonized beauty. He turned upon the treacherous woman, he loved the silent challenge of his eloquent eyes. Oh, that look of piteous pain and wonder, a whole lifetime's wasted opportunities seemed concentrated in its unspeakable reproach. She met it with a sort of triumphant tranquil indifference, an uncontrollable wicked smile curved the corners of her red lips. The sacred ebony staff had somehow slipped from her hands, and it now lay on the ground, a half-uncoiled serpent still clinging to it in glittering lengths that appeared to be quite motionless. Oh, I see, hast thou played me false, grab the unhappy laureate at last, as with a quick compulsive movement he caught her round-jeweled arm in a resolute grip. After all, thy vows, thy endearments, thy embraces, hast thou betrayed me, speak truly, art thou not all and all to me? Hast thou not given thyself body and soul into my keeping? Be this braggart king, I dain't no answer, one word of thine will suffice, be brave, be faithful, declare thy love for me, even as thou hast off declared it a thousand remembered times. Over the face of the beautiful priest has swept a strange expression of mingle fear, antagonism, loathing, and exaltation, her eyes wandered to the red tongue, the flames that tossed and edding rings round the temple, running every second nearer to the place where she stood, and in that one glance she seemed to recognize the hopelessness of rescue and certainty of death. A careless party acceptance of a fate manifested itself in the pallid resolve of her drawn features, but as she allowed her gaze to return and dwell on saloon, by the old malicious mirth, flashed and gave lustre to her loveliness, and she laughed again a laugh of uttermost bitter scorn. There my love for thee, she said in thrilling accents, thou boaster, let the gods who have kindled this fire in for us, bear witness to my hatred, I hate thee, I even thee, and she pointed at him, jeeringly, as he recalled from her in wide-eyed anguish and amazement. No man have I ever loved but thee have I hated most of all, all men have I despised for their folly, greed, and bane, glory. I fought them with their own weapons of avarice, cunning, cruelty, and falsehood, but thou hast been even beneath my contempt, to a scarcely worth my while to fool thee, thou werest so easily fooled. To his idle sport too roused thy passions, they were so easily roused. Poet and perjurer, singer and softest, thou to whom the genius of palsy was as a pearl, said in a swine snout, thou were not worthy to be my dupe, seeing that thou came as to me already in bonds, the dupe of thine own self, nefarter lovely, and that is played with and torture her more and most fully than wild beasts play with and torture their prey, but thou could never trifle with me, though thou who has taken so much pride in the breaking of many women's hearts, and that thou hast never stirred one throb of passion in mine, that I have loathed thy beauty while caressing thee, and longed to slay thee while embracing thee, and that even now I saw thee dead before me ere I myself am forced to die. Pausing in the swift warrant of her words, her white breast heaved violently, with the rise and fall of her panting breath, her dark, brilliant eyes dilated, while the symbolic jewel she wore and the crown of circumstance heads and her streaming hair seemed to gritter about her like so many points of lightning. At that instant, one side of the sanctuary split asunder, giving way to her bursting wreath of flames, seeing that she uttered a piercing cry and stretched out her arms. His efferonim saved me, intersect the king sprang toward her, but not before a solemn at wild with wrath had interposed himself between them. Back he exclaimed passionately, addressing the infuriated monarch, while I live, I see his mind, let her hate and deny me as she will, and sooner than see her in thine arms, oh king, I will slay her where she stands. His bold attitude was magnificent, his countenance more than beautiful in its love, betrayed despair, and for a moment this efferonim paused to resolute his scowling brows, then down his thirst while favored menstrual with an expression that hovered curiously between bitterest enmity and reluctant reverence. There seemed to be a struggling consciousness in his mind of the immortality of a poet as compared to the evanescent power of a king, and also a quick realization of the truth that let his anger be what it would, they were playing where partakers in the same evil and were mutually deceived by the same false woman. But there his saving sense of justice could prevail, a ripple of discordant delirious laughter broke once more from Lassie's lips. Her eyes shone vindictively, her whole face became animated with a sudden glow of fiendish triumph. The efferonim she cried, he wrote, warrior king, thou who hast risked thy crown and throne, and life for my sake and the love of me will lose me now, will let me perish in these raging flames to satisfy this wanton liar and unbeliever in the gods to whose disturbance of the holy ritual. We surely owe this present fiery disaster, save me oh strong and noble, the efferonim, save me and with me save the city and the people, kill Saluma. So barbarous inexorable words, they rang like a desolating yell in the ears of the bewildered fierce drunken theos, and startled him from his frigid trance of speechless misery. Uttering an inarticulate dull groan, he made a violent effort to rush forward to serve as a living shield of defense to his adored friend. To ward off the imminent blow, too late, too late, the efferonims dagger glittered in the air and rapidly descended, one gasping cry, and Saluma lay prone, beautiful as a slain adonis. The rich red blood pouring from his heart and faint, stern smile frozen on the proud lips, whose dulcet singing speech was now struck down forever with her shriek of agony, theos threw himself beside his motive. Out of camera, heedless of King priestess flames, and all the outbreaking fury of earth and heaven he bent above, that motion was form engaged, meaningly into the fair colorless space. Saluma, Saluma, no sign, no tremulous stir of breath, dead, dead, dead in his primal views, dead in the zenith of his glory, all the delicate dreaming genius turned to dust and ashes, all the ardent light of inspiration quenched in the neverlifting darkness of the grave. In the first delirious paroxysm of his grief, theos felt as though lifetime in the world were ended for him also, with this one suddenly destroyed existence. Oh thou, Mad King, he cried fiercely, thou hast slain the chief wonder of thy realm and reign, die now when thou shalt only be remembered as the murderer of Saluma, Saluma whose name shall live when thine is covered in shameful oblivion. And through the bloodstained dagger from him, peace, clamors fully said, Saluma hath gone but at a moment before me, as poet he hath received precedence, even in death. When the last hour comes for all of us, it matters not how we die, and whether I am hereafter remembered or forgotten, I care not, I have lived as a man should live, fearing nothing and conquered by none, except for chance by love, that hath brought many things there now to untimely ruin. Here is Moody Eyes lighted on Lysia, how many lovers hast thou had, fair soul, he demanded in a stern, yet tremendous voice of thousand. I would swear this dead menstrual of mine was one, for though I slew him at thy bidding, I saw the truth in his dying eyes. No matter we shall meet in Hades, and there we shall have ample time to urge our rival claims. And he suddenly laid his two strong hands on her white, uncovered shoulders, and gazed at her reproachfully, as she shrank, a little beneath his clothes scrutiny. Thou divine traitors hath not challenged the very heavens for thy sake, and lo, the prophecy is fulfilled, and thou curious must fall. How many men would have loved thee as I had loved none, not even this dead Saluma, slain like a dog to give thee pleasure. Come, let me kiss thee, once again ere death makes cold our lips, false or true, thou art nevertheless bare, and the wrath for God's no best, how I worship thy fairness. And folding his arms about her, he kissed her passionately, she clung to him like a live, serpentine thing, her eyes ablaze, her mouth glivering at whist the quest, hysterical laughter, pointing to Saluma's body, she said in a strange, excited whisper, nay hast thou slain him in very true suffer on him, slain him utterly, for I have heard that poets cannot die. They live when the whole world deems them dead, they rise from their shut graves and reinvest the earth with all the secrets of past time. Oh, my brain reels, I talk mere madness, there is no afterwards of death. No, no, no gods, no anything but blankness, forgetfulness and silence for us and for all men, how good it is, how excellently devised a jest that the whole wide universe should be but a cheat of time, a bubble blown into space to float, break and perish, all for the idle sport of some unknown and shapeless devil mystery. Shuddering, half laughing, half leaping, she clasped her hands round the monarch's throat and hid her wild eyes in his breast while he unnerved by her distraction in his own inward torture, glared about him on all sides for some glimmering chance of rescue, but could see none. The flames were now attacking the shrine on every side like a besieging army, there leaping darts of blue and crimson gleaming here and there with indescribable velocity, and still theos knelt by Saluma's corpse in dry eyed despair, endeavouring with fever's zeal to stance the oozing blood with a strip drawn from his own garments, and listening anxiously for that bleblest heartthrobber of smaller pulsation of smoldering life in the senseless stiffening clay. All at once a hideous scream assailed his ears, another and yet another rang above the crackling roar of a gradually a conquering fire, and half lifting Saluma's body in his arms he looked up, oh horror, horror, his nerves contracted, his blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins, his head swam giddily, and he thought the moment of his own death had come for surely no man could behold the sight he saw, and yet continued to live on, last sea of the captive was made captive at last, bound, helpless and prisoned and hopelessly doomed. Nagaya had claimed his own, a huge snake terrified beyond all control at the bursting breath of fire in bargaining, the shrine had turned in its brute fear to the mistress that had for years been accustomed to obey, and had now with one stealthy, noiseless spring, twisted its uppermost coil close about her waist, where its restless head alarmed eyes and darting fangs, all glistening together like a blazing cluster of gems. The more she struggled to release herself from its deathful embrace, the tighter its body contracted, and the more maddened with fright it became, shriek upon shriek broke from her lips and pierced the suffocating air, while with all his great muscular force, Saffronum became strove in desperate agony, to tear her from the awful clutch of the monster he had but lately knelt to as divine in vain, in vain. The strongest efforts were useless, the cruel, beautiful, pitiless priestess of Nagaya was condemned to suffer the same frightful death she had so often mercilessly decreed for others. Closer and closer grew the fearful python's constricting clasp, nearer and nearer swept the dancing battalion of destroying flames, from one fleeting breath of time, Theo stared aghast at the horrid scene, then making a superhuman effort, he raised Saluma's corpse entirely from the ground and staggered with his burden away, away from that burning shrine, the funeral pyre, as it vaguely seemed to him about wasted love and a dead passion. Wither should he go, down into the blazing area of the fast perishing temple, surely no safety could be found there where the fire was raging at its utmost height, yet he went on mechanically as though urged forward by some force superior to his own, always clinging to the idea that his friends still lived and that if he could only reach some place of temporary shelter he might yet be able to restore him. It was possible the wound was not fatal, far more possible to his mind than that, so gloriously famed the poet should be dead. So he dimly thought while he stumbled busily along, his forehead red with clammy dews, his limbs trembling under the wavy bore, his eyes half blinded by the hot flying sparks and drifting smoke, and his soul shaken and appalled by the gas through sights that met his view, wheresoever he turned, crushed in writhing bodies of men, women and children, half living, half dead, heaps of corpses, fast blazing to ashes, broken and fallen columns, yawning gaps in the ground from which were cast for bodies of red centers and streams of lava. All of these multitudinous horrors surrounded him, as with uncertain faltering steps, he moved on like a sick man walking in sleep hearing his precious burden. He knew nothing of where he was bound, he saw no outlet anywhere, no corner wherein the fire fiend had not set up devouring dominion, but nevertheless he steadily continued his difficult progress, clasping Saluma's corpse with a strange tenacity, and concentrating all his attention on protecting it from that withering touch of the ravenous flames, all at once as he strove to force his way over a fallen altar from which the hideous presiding stone idol had toppled headlong, killing in its descent some twenty or thirty people whose bodies they crushed beneath it, a face horribly disfigured and tortured into a mere burnt sketch of its former likeness, twisted itself up and peered at him. The face of Zavasti's, the critic, is protruding eyes, quizzing with something of their old malign expression as he perceived whose helpless form it was that was being carried by. Right is the famous Saluma gone, he gasped, his words half choking him, and their utterance as he stretched out a skinny hand and caught at the osis garments. Could you stay, stay, why burdened myself with a corpse when thou mightest rescue a living man, save me, save me. I was the poet's adverse critic, and do but I should write his eulogy now that he is no more. Pity, pity, most grittiest gentle sir, save me, if only for the sake of Saluma's future honor. Thou knowest not how warmly, how generously, how nobly I can praise the dead. The use gazed down upon him in unspeakable melancholy scorn, was it only through time serving creatures such as this miserable Zavasti's that the after-glorious perished poets was proclaimed to the world, but then was the actual worth of fame. Shuddering, he wrenched himself away and passed on silent and heedless of savage curses, the despairing scribe yelled after him as he went, and he involuntarily pressed the dead corpse of his beloved friend closer to his heart as though he thought he could re-animate it by this mute expression of tenderness. Meanwhile, the fire raged continuously, the temple was fast becoming a colored mass of flames and presently choked in giddy with the soft, furious vapors. He stopped abruptly, struggling for breath, his time had come at last, he thought he was Saluma musta, that loud muttering and rowing of thunder swept in, eddying vibrations rounding, fathered by a sharp, spitting noise, raising his staking eyes. He saw straight before him a yawning, gloomy archway, like the silent portal of a funeral vault, dark yet with a white glimmer of steps leading outward, and a dim sparkle as of stars in heaven, a rush of new vigor inspired him at this sight, and he resumed his way, stumbling over countless corpses sprung among fallen blocks of marble, and every now and then looking back in awful fascination to the fiery furnace of the body of the temple where, of all the vast members that had lately crowded it, from end to end there were only a hundred or so remaining alive, and these were fast perishing and frightful agony. The shrine of Magaya was enveloped in thick black smoke, crossed to you in bare bare flashes of flame, the bare outline of its titanic architecture was scarcely discernible. Yet the thought of that dreadful end of Lycea, the loveliest woman he had ever seen, moved him now to no emotion, whatever, save gladness, some deadly evil seen burnt out of his life. Moreover, her command had slain Saluma. Enough, no fate, however horrible, could be more so than she and her wanton wickedness deserved, but alas, her beauty, he did not think of its subtle, slumberous charm, and stung to a new sense of desperation he plunged recklessly toward the dusky aperture he had seen, which appeared to enlarge itself mysteriously as he approached, like the opening gateway of some magic cannon. Suddenly a faint groan at his feet startled him and looking down hastily, he perceived an unfortunate man lying half crushed under the ponders fragment of a split column, which had fallen across his body in such manner that any attempt to extricate him would have been worse than useless. By the bright light of the leaping flames, the oars had no difficulty in recognizing the pallid countenance of his late acquaintance, the lone professor of positivism. Mira Kabua, who was evidently very near his woeful and most positive end, struck by an impulsive compassion, he paused, yet what could he say in such a case, her rescue was impossible, all comfort seemed mockery, and while he stood silent and irresolute, he fancied the professor's smile. It was a very ghastly smile, nevertheless it hid in it a curious touch of bland and scrupulous inquiry. It is not this a very remarkable occurrence, and asked the voice so feeble and far away that it was difficult to believe it came from the lips of the suffering sage. Of course it arises from a volcanic eruption, and the mystery of the Red River is solved. Here an irrepressible moan of anguish broke through his heroic effort at equanimity. It is not a phenomenon, and the gleam of obstinate self first version lit up his poor glazing eyes, nothing is phenomenal. Only I am not able to explain, I have no time, no time to analyze my very singular sensations. A rush of blood choked his utterance, his throat rattled, he was dead, and a dreary speculative smile rose in his mouth and the likeness of a solemn sneer. At that moment a terrific swirling, surging noise, like the furious boiling of an underground whirlpool, rumbled heavily through the air, and low without sudden swift shock that sent the oars reeling forward, and almost falling under the burdensome weight he carried the earth open, disclosing a huge bit of black nothingness, an enormous chasm into which, with an appalling clamor, as of a hundred incessant peals of thunder, the whole main area of the temple, together with its massive dead and dying human being sank in less than five seconds. The ground closing instantaneously over its prey with a sullen roar, as though it were some gigantic beast, devouring food, too long denied, and instead of the vanished fame arose a mighty pillar of fire, a vast increasing volume of scarlet and gold flame that spread outward and upward, higher and higher, in tapering lines and dome-like curves of living light, while fields being hurled along resistlessly by the force of the convulsion had reached, though he knew not how the dark and quiet celled light portal with its outleading steps. The only visible last hope and chance of safety, and he now leaned against its cold stone arch, trembling in every limb, clasping the dead saluma close and looking back in a frighted awe at the tossing vortex of fury from which he had miraculously escaped. And as he looked, the host of spectral faces seemed to rise slightly out of the flames and wonder at him. Faces that were solemn, wistful, warning and beseeching by tones, they drifted through the fire and smiled and wept and vanished to reappear again and yet again. And as with painfully beating hearties drove to combat the terror that seized him at this strange spectacular delusion, all suddenly the heavy breeze of smoke that had till now hung over the inner shrine and the guy, parted like drapery drawn aside from a picture, and for a brief breathing space of direst agony, he saw Lysia once more. Lysia in a torturous wobble, as any ever depicted in a bigot's idea of his enemy's hell, round and round her writhing form, the sacred serpent was twined in all his many coils, and with both hands she grasped the creature's throat in her frenzies, driving to thrust back his quivering fangs from her breast whereon the evil eye of Rayfond still gleamed distinctly with its adamantime chili stare at her feet laid black body of the king, her lover dead and wrapped in a ring of flames. Alone, all all alone, she confronted death in its most appalling shape. Her countenance was distorted yet beautiful still with the beauty of a maddened Medusa, white and glittering as a fair ghost invoked from some deadly gulf of pain. She stood a phantom figure of mingle loveliness and horror circled on every side by fire. But while straining eyes, Theos gazed upon her thus for the last time, for with the crest that seemed to rend the very heavens, the great bronze columns surrounding her which had up to the present resisted the repeated onslaughts of the flames, then together all at once unfell in a melting ruin and the victorious fire roared loudly about them, enveloping the whole shrine anew in dense clouds of smoke and jets of flame. Lycea had perished all that proud loveliness, that dazzling supremacy, that superb voluptuousness, that triumphant dominion swept away into a heap of undiscoverable ashes as if Ronam's haughty spirit too had fled, fled stained with guilt and most unroyal dishonor all for the sake of one woman's fairness, the fairness of body only, the brilliant mask of flesh that too often hides the hideousness of a devil's nature. For one moment, Theos remained stupefied by the sheer horror of that catastrophe, then recalling his bewildered wits to his aid, he peered anxiously through the archway where he rested. There seemed to be a dim red glow at the end of the downward leading steps, as well as a dusky azure tint like a patch of midnight sky. The temple was now nothing but a hissing shrieking pyramid of flames, the hot and blinding glare was almost too intense for his eyes to endure, yet so fascinated was he by the sublime terror and grandeur of the spectacle that he could scarcely make up his mind to turn away from it. The thought of Saluma, however, gave the needful spur to his flagging energies and without pausing to consider where he might be going, he slowly and hesitatingly descended the steps before him and presently reached a sort of small open court paved with black wobble. Eerie tenderly laid his burden down, a burden grown radio with each moment of its bearing, and letting his aching arms drop listlessly at his sides, he looked up dreamily, not all at once comprehending the cause of the vast lurid light that crimsoned the air like a wide aurora borealis everywhere about him. Then as the truth suddenly flashed on his mind, he uttered a loud, irrepressible cry of amazement in awe. Far as his gaze could see, east, west, north, south, the whole city of Alcures was in flames, and the burning temple of Nagaya was but a mere spark in the enormous breadth of the general conflagration. Palaces, domes, towers, and spires were tottering to red destruction, fire, fire everywhere, nothing but fire, save when a furious gust of scorching wind blew aside the masses of cindery, smoke, and show glimpses of sky, and the changeless shining of a few cold, quiet stars. He cast one desperate glance from earth to heaven, how was it possible to escape from this kindling furnace of other annihilation, where all were manifestly doomed, how could he expect to be saved? And moreover, if Solomon was indeed dead, what remained for him but to die also, calming the frenzy of his thoughts by a strong effort he began to vaguely wonder why and how it happened that the place where he now was, this small and insignificant court, had so far escaped the fire, and was as cool and somber as a sacred tomb set apart for some hero or poet? Poet, the word acted as a stimulant to his tired struggling brain, and he all at once remembered what Saluma had said to him at their first meeting, there is but one poet in Alcures, and I am he. Oh, true, true, only one poet, only one glory, of the great city that now served him as funeral pyre, only one name worth remembering in all its perishing history, the name of Saluma. Saluma, the beautiful, the gifted, the famous, the beloved. He was dead, this thought in its absorbing painfulness straightway drove out all others, and theos who had carried his comrades corpse bravely and untrinkingly through a fiery vortex of imminent peril now sank on his knees all desolate and unnerved. His hot tears dropping fast on that fair still white face that he knew would never flush to the warmth of life again. Saluma, Saluma, he whispered, my friend, my more than brother, would I could have died for thee, would thou couldst have lived to fulfill the nobler promise of thy genius? Better far thou hadst been spared to the world than I, for I am nothing, for thou worked everything, and taking the clay cold hands in his own, he kissed them reverently and with an unconscious memory, not born of his recent adventures, folded them on the dead Lloyds breast in that fashion of a cross. As he did this, an icy spasm seemed to contract his heart, seized by a sudden insufferable anxiety stirred like one spellbound into Saluma's wide open, fixed in glassy eyes, dead eyes, yet how full of mysterious significance. What, what was their weird secret there, imminent meaning? Why did their dark and frozen depths appear to retain a strange living undergream of melting, sorrowful, beseeching sweetness, like the eyes of one who crazed to be remembered, though changed after a long absence? What hard and terrible delirium was this that snatched at his whirling brain as he bent closer and closer over the marble, quiet countenance, and studied with a sort of fierce intentness every line of those delicate, classic features on which high thought had left, so marked an impressive dignity and power. What a marvelous, half-reproachful, half-appealing smile lingered on the finely curved set lips. How wonderful, how beautiful, how beloved beyond all words was this fair, dead God of Poesy on whom he gazed with such a passion of yearning. Stooping more and more, he threw his arms round the senseless form, and partly lifting it from the ground brought the wax pallet face nearer to his own, so near that the cold mouth almost touched his, then filled with an awful, unnameable misgiving. He scanned his murdered comrades' perished beauty in puzzle-big bewilderment, much as an ignorant dullard might perplexedly scan the incomparable characters of some hieroglyphic scroll, and as he looked a sharp pang shot through him like a whizzing ball of fire, a convulsion of mental agony shook his limbs. He could have shrieked aloud in the extremity of his torture, but the struggling cry died gasping in his throat. Still as done, he kept his strange death vascades fixed on Saluma's corpse, slowly absorbing the full horror of a tremendous suggestion that like a scorching lava flood swept into every subtle channel of his brain, for the dead Saluma's eyes grew into the semblance of his own eyes. The dead Saluma's face, small spectrally backed at him in the image of his own face. It was as though he beheld the picture of himself, slain and reflected in that magician's mirror. Round him, the very heavens seemed given up to fire, but he heeded it not. The world might be at an end, and that day of judgment proclaim nothing would have stirred him from where he knelt in that dreadful stillness of mystic martyrdom, drinking in that gradual glimmering consciousness of a terrific truth. The amazing yet scarcely graspable solution about supernatural enigma and enigma, through which like a man lost in the depths of a dark forest, he had wandered up and down, seeking light yet finding man. Oh God, he dumbly prayed, thou with whom all things are possible, give eyes to this blind trouble of my heart. I am but as a grain of dust before thee, a poor perishable atom, devoid of simplest comprehension. Do thou of thy supernal pity teach me what I must know? As he thought out this unuttered petition, a tense chord seemed to snap suddenly in his brain. A rush of tears came to his relief, and through the salt and bitter haze, the face of Saluma appeared to melt into a thin and spiritual brightness. A mere aerial outline of what he had once been. The glazed dark eyes seemed to flash, living, lightening into his. The whole lost personality of the dead poet seemed to envound him with a mysterious potent and corporeal influence, an influence that he felt he must now or never repel, reject and utterly resist. With a shuddering cry, he tore his reluctant arms away from the beloved corpse, with grumbling tender fingers he closed and pressed down the white eyelids of those love-expressive eyes and kissed the broad poetic brow. Whatever thou wert or art to me, Saluma, he murmured in sobbing haste, thou knowest that I loved thee, though now I leave thee farewell, and his voice broken in its strong agony, for how much easier to divide body from soul than part myself from thee. Beloved Saluma, God give thee rest, God pardon thy sins and mine, and he pressed his lips once more on the folded rigid hands, as he did so he inadvertently touched the writing tablet that hung from the dead lawyer's girdle, the red glow of the fire around him and enabled him to see distinctly what was written on it. They were about twenty lines of verse and exquisitely clear and fine calligraphy, and as he read, he knew them well, they were the last lines of the poem Murahama. He dared, trust his own strength no longer, one wild adoring lingering parting look at his dead rival and song, whom he had loved better than himself and then full of that nameless fear he fled, fled recklessly and with swift mad fury as though demons followed in pursuit, fled through the burning city as a lost and frenzied spirit might speed through the desert of hell. Everywhere about him resounded the crackling hiss of the flames and the crash of falling buildings, mighty pinnacles and lofty domes melted and vanished before his eyes in a blaze of brilliant destruction. On, on he went, meeting confused, scattered crowds of people, whose rushing white-garmented figures looked like ghosts flying before a storm. The cries and shrieks of women and children and the groans of men were mingled with the restless roaring of lines and other wild beasts burnt out of their dens in the royal arena, the distant circle of which could be dimly seen surrounded by fountain-like jets of fire. Some of these maddened animals ran against him as he sped along the blazing thoroughfares, but he made no attempt to avoid them, nor was he sensible of any other terror than that which was within himself and was purely mental. On, on, still on he went, a desperate lonely man, lost in a hideous nightmare of flame and fury, seeing nothing but one bass flying at route of molten red and gold speaking to none, utterly reckless as to his own fate only impelled on and on, but whether he knew not nor cared to know. All at once, drink gave way, his nerve seemed to break our thunder like so many over-wound heartstrings, a sudden silvery clanging of bells rang in his ears, and with them came a sound of multitude in his soft, small voices. Kyrie a laissant, Kyrie a laissant. Hush, what was that? What did it mean? Halting abruptly, he gave a wild glance round him up to the sky, where the flaring flames spread in tangled lengths and webs of light, then strayed before him to the city of Alcurus. Now a wondrous vision of red light luminous columns and cupolas, with the wet gleam of the river enfolding its blazing streets and towers, and while he yet beheld it, lo, it receded from his view, further, further, further away, till it seemed nothing but the toppling and smoldering of heavy clouds after the conflagration of the sunset. Hark, hark again, Kyrie a laissant, Kyrie a laissant, with a sense of reeling, rapture, and awe he listened. He understood he found the name he had so long forgotten. Christ had mercy upon me, he cried, and in that one urgent supplication, he uttered all the pent-up anguish of his soul, blind and dizzy with the fevered whirl of his own emotions, he stumbled forward and fell heavily over a block of stone. Stunned by the shock, he lost consciousness, but only for a moment, a dull aching in his temples roused him and making a faint effort to rise, he turned slowly and lying weirdly on his arm, and with a long deep, shuddering sigh awoke. He was on the field of our depth. Dawn had just broken. The east was one wide, shimmering stretch of warm gold, and over his legs, strips of blue and gray, like fragments of torn battle banners. Above him sparkled a morning star, light and glittering as a silver lamp, among the delicate, spreading tints of saffron and green. And beside him, her clear, pure features, flashed by the rosy expander of the sky, her hands clasped on her breast, and her sweet eyes full of uninfinite tenderness, and yearning, melt Idris. Idris, his flower-crowned angel, whom last he had seen drifting upward in the way, like a dove through the glory of the cross in heaven. End of Chapter 29. Chapter 30 of our depth by Marie Gorelli. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Entranced in amazed ecstasy, he laid quite quiet, afraid to speak or stir. This gentle presence, this fair, beseeching face, might vanish if he moved. So he dimly fancied as he gazed up at her in mute wonder and worship, his devout eyes drinking in her saintly loveliness, from the deep burnished gold of her hair to the soft white slimness of her prayerfully folded hands. And while he looked, old thoughts like home returning birds began to hover around his soul, sweet and dear remembrances, like the sunset lighting up the windows of an empty house, began to shine on the before semi-darkened nooks and crannies of his brain. Clearer and clearer grew the reflecting mirror of his consciousness, trouble and perplexity seemed passing away forever from his mind, a great and solemn peace environment him. And he began to believe he had crossed the boundary of death and had entered at last into the kingdom of heaven. Oh, let him not break this holy silence, let him rest so, with all the glory of that angel, visage shed like summer sunbeams over him. Let him absorb into his innermost being the exquisite tenderness of those innocent, hopeful, watchful, starry eyes whose radiance seemed to steal into the golden morning and give it a sacred poetry, an infinite marvel of meaning. So he mused gravely, contented, while all through the brightening skies overhead came the pale pink flushing of the dawn, like a far-fluttering and scattering of rose leaves. Everything was so still that he could hear his own heart beating forth, healthful and regular pulsations, but he was scarcely conscious of his own existence. He was only aware of the vast, beautiful halcyon calm that encircled him shelteringly and soothed all care away. Gradually, however, this deep and delicious tranquility began to yield to a sweeping rush of memory and comprehension. He knew who he was and where he was, but he did not as yet feel absolutely certain of life and life's so-called realities. For if the city of Alkiris, with all its vivid wonders, its distinct experience as its brilliant pageantry, had been indeed a dream, then sorely it was possible he might be dreaming still. Nevertheless, he was able to gather up the fragments of lost recollection consecutively enough to realize by gentle degrees his actual identity and position in the world. He was Theos Alvin, a man of the 19th century after Christ. Ah, thank God for that, after Christ, not one who had lived 5,000 years before Christ's birth, and this quiet patient maiden at his side, who was she, a vision, or an actually existent being. Unable to resist the craving desire of his heart, he spoke her name as he now remembered it, spoke it in a faint odd whisper. Theos, my beloved, oh sweet and thrilling voice, more musical than the singing of birds in a sun-filled spring. He raised himself a little and looked at her more intently. She smiled and that smile so marvelous in its pensive peace, and lofty devotion was as though all the light of an unguessed paradise had suddenly flashed upon his soul. Edras, he said again, crumbling in the excess of mingled hope and fear, hast thou then returned again from heaven to lift me out of darkness? Tell me, fair angel, do I wake or sleep? Are my senses deceived? Is this land a dream? Am I myself a dream? And thou the only manifest sweet truth in a world of drifting shadows? Speak to me, gentle saint, in what vast mystery have I been engulfed? In what timeless trance of sober wilderness? In what blind uncertainty and pain? Oh, sweet resolve, my wordless wonder, where have I strayed? What have I seen? I'll let not my rough speech fright thee back to paradise. Stay with me, comfort me. I've lost thee so long, let me not lose thee now. Smiling still, she bent over him and pressed her warm, delicate fingers lightly on his brow and lips. Then softly she rose and stood erect. Fear nothing, my beloved. She answered her silvery accent, sending a throb of holy triumph through the air. Let no trouble describe the inert shadow of misgiving dim the brightness of thy waking moments. Thou hast slept one night on the field of our death in the valley of vision, but lo, the night is past. And she pointed toward the eastern horizon, now breaking into waves of rosy gold, rising behold the dawning of thy new day. Roused by her touch and fired by her tone and the grand unworldly dignity of her look and bearing, he sprang up. But as he met the full pure splendor of her divine eyes and saw a wavering round her hair, a shining Oreo of amber radiance like a wreath of woven sunbeams, his spirit quailed within him. He remembered all his doubts of her, his disbelief, and falling at her feet he hid his face in a shame that was better than all glory, a humiliation that was sweeter than all pride. Edress, immortal edress, he passionately prayed, as thou art a crowned saint in heaven, shed light on the chaos of my soul. From the depths of penitence, past thought, and speech I plead with thee. Hear me, my edress, thou who art so maiden meek, so tender patient, hear me, help me, guide me. I am all thine. Say, didst thou not summon me to meet thee here upon this wondrous field of our death? Did I not come hither according to thy words, and have I not seen things that I am not able to express or understand? Teach me, wise and beloved one. I doubt no more. I know myself and thee, thou art an angel, but I, alas, what am I? A grain of sand in thy sight, and in God's, a mere nothing, comprehending nothing, unable even to realize the extent of my own nothingness. Edress, so edress, thou canst not love me, thou mayest pity me, perchance, and pardon, and bless me gently in Christ's dear name. But love, thy love, oh, let me not aspire to such heights of joy, where I have no place, no right, no worthiness, no worthiness, echoed Edress. What a rapture trembled through her sweet caressing voice, my theos, who is so worthy to embeck what is thine own as thou. All heaven has wandered at thy voluntary exile, thy place in God's supernal sphere, as long been vacant, thy right to dwell, bear, none have questioned. Thy throne is empty, thy crown unclaimed, thou art an angel even as I, but thou art in bonds, while I am free. How sad and strange it is to me to see thee here thus fettered to the sorrowful star, when countless eons since thou mightest have enjoyed full liberty in the eternal light of the everlasting paradise. He listened, a strong sweet hope began to kindle in him like flame, but he made no answer. Only he caught and kissed the edge of her garment, its soft gray cloudy texture brushed his lips with the odorous coolness of a furrowed rose leaf. She seemed to tremble at his action, but he dared not look up. Presently felt the pulsing pressure of her hands upon his head, and a rush of strange warm vigor thrilled through his veins like an electric flash of new and never-ending life. Thou would seek after and know the truth, she said, truth celestial, truth unchangeable, truth that permeates and underlies all the mystic inward workings of the universe, workings and secret laws and guessed by man. Vast as eternity is this truth, ungraspable in all its manifestations by the merely mortal intelligence. Nevertheless, thy spirit being chastened to noble humility and repentance hath risen to new heights of comprehension, whence thou canst sparkly penetrate into the wonders of worlds unseen. Did I not tell thee to learn from the perils of the past, the perils of the future, and understandest, thou not the lesson of that vision of Thou curious, thou hast seen the dream reflection of thy former poet fame and glory in old time. Thou worked, Saluma, an agony of shame possessed him as he heard his soul at once seized the solution of the mystery, his quickened thought plunged plummet-like straight through the depths of the bewildering phantasmagoria, in which mere reason had been of no practical avail, and straightway sounded its whole seemingly complex but actually simple meaning. He was Saluma, or rather he had been Saluma in some part stretch of long receded time, and in his dream of a single night he had loved the brilliant phantom of his former self more than his own present identity. Not less remarkable was the fact that in this strange sleep mirage he had imagined himself to be perfectly unselfish, whereas all the while he had honored, flattered, and admired the more appearance of himself more than anything or everything in the world. Even his occasional reluctant reproaches to himself in the ghostly impersonation of Saluma had been far more tender than severe. O deep and bitter ingloriousness, O speechless degradation of all the higher capabilities of man to level one's own ephemeral, shatter existence so utterly as to exclude from thought and sympathy all other things whether human or divine. And was it not possible that the specter of self might still be clinging to him? Was it dead with the dream of Saluma, or had Saluma never truly died at all? It was the fine fire-spun essence that had formed the spirit of the laureate of Al-Kiris, yet part of the living substance of his present nature. He, a world unrecognized English poet of the nineteenth century, did all Saluma's light follies, idle passions, and careless gruelities remain inherent in him. Had he the same pride of intellect, the same vainglory, the same indifference to God and man, oh no, no, he shut it at the thought, and his head sank lower and lower beneath the benediction touch of her whose tenderness revived his noblest energies and lit anew in his heart the pure bright fire of heaven-encompassing aspiration. Thou wert Saluma went on to mildly earn his voice, and all the wide, ungrudging fame given to earth's great poets in ancient days was thine. Thy name was on all men's mouths, Thou wert honored by kings, Thou wert the chief glory of great people, great though misled by their own false opinions, and the city of Al-Kiris, of which Thou wert the enshrined jewel, was mightier far than any now built upon the earth. Christ did not come to thee, save by dim types and vague prefigurements, which only praying prophets could discern. But God had spoken to thy soul in quiet moments, and thou wert neither hear him nor believe in him. I had called thee, but thou wert not listen, thou didst foolishly prefer to hearken to the clamors tempting of thine own beguiling human passions, and were it altogether death to an angel's whisper. Things of the earth earthly gained dominion over thee, by them thou wert lead astray, deceived and at last forsaken. The genius God gave thee thou dismiss use and intimately waste. Thy brief life came as thou hast seen to sudden piteous end, and the proud city of that dwelling was destroyed by fire. Not a trace of it was left to mark the spot where once it stood the foundations of Babylon were laid above it, and no man guessed that it had ever been. And thy poems, the fruit of thy heaven, sent but carelessly accepted inspiration. Who is there that remembers them? No one. Say thou, thou hast recovered them like sunken pearls from the profound ocean of limitless memory, and to the world of today thou dost repeat the self-same music to which Al-Kiris listened, entranced so many thousands of generations ago. A deep sigh that was half a grown broke from his lips. He could now take the measurement of his own utter littleness and incompetency. He could create nothing new, everything he had written, as he fancied only just lately had been written by himself before. The problem of the poem Nur-Hama was explained. He had designed it when he had played his part on the stage of life as Saluma, and perhaps not even then for the first time. In this pride-crushing knowledge there was only one consolation, namely that if his dream was a true reflection of his past and exact in details as he felt it must be, then Nur-Hama had not been given to Al-Kiris. It had been composed but not made public, hence so far it was new to the world, though not new to himself. Yet he had considered it wondrously new, a perfectly original idea, a who dares to boast of any idea as humanly original, seeing that all ideas whatsoever must be referred back to God and admitted as his and his own. What is the wisest man that ever lived but a small, pale, ill-reflecting mirror of the eternal thought that controls and dominates all things? He remembered with conscience, scook and confusion what pleasure he felt, what plastic satisfaction, what unqualified admiration when listening to his own works recited by the ghost presentment of his former self, pleasure that had certainly exceeded whatever pain he had suffered by the then enigmatic and perplexing nature of the incident. But what a foolish atom he now seemed viewed by the standard of his newly aroused higher consciousness, how poor a passive slave to the glittering beckoning phantasm of his own perishable fame. Thus on the field of our death he drained the cup of humility to the dregs. The cup which like that offered to the prophet of holy writ was full as it were with water, but the color of it was like fire, the water of tears, the fire of faith, and with that prophet he might have said, when I had drunk of it my heart uttered understanding and wisdom grew in my breast for my spirit strengthened my memory. Meanwhile Edras, still keeping her gentle hands on his bent head, went on, in such wise distal my beloved as the famous Saluma mournfully perished, and the nations remembered thee no more, but thy spiritual indestructible essence lived on and wandered dismayed and forlorn through a myriad forms of existence in the depths of perpetual darkness which must be, even as the everlasting light is, thy immortal but perverted will bore thee always further from God, further from him, and so far from me that thou wert at times beyond even, and angels can ages upon ages rolled away. The centuries between earth and earths proposed redemption past and though in heaven these measured spaces of time that appear so great to men are as a mere world's month of summer, still to me for once God's golden days seem long, I'd lost thee that were my soul's other soul, my king, my immortality's completion, and though that were to last a fallen brightness, yet I held fast to my one hope, the hope in thy diviner nature, which though sorely overcome was not and could not be wholly destroyed, I knew that fate in store for thee, I knew that thou with other o'ering spirits were bound to live again on earth when Christ had built his holy way there from to heaven, and never did I cease for it thy dear sakes to wait and watch and pray, at last I found thee, but how I trembled for thy destiny to thee had been delivered as to all the children of men, the final message of salvation, the message of love and pardon which made all the angels wonder, but thou didst utterly reject it, and with the same willful arrogance of that former self, saluma, thou wert blindly and desperately turning anew into darkness. O my beloved, that darkness might have been eternal and crowded with memories dating from the very beginning of life. Nay, let me not speak of that supernal agony since Christ hath died to quench its terrors, enough by happily chance through my desire thine own roused better will and the strength of one who hath many friends in heaven. Thy spirit was released to temporary liberty and in thy vision a deriel, which was no vision but a truth. I bade thee meet me here, and why? Soly to test thy power of obedience to a divine impulse unexplainable by human reason. And I rejoiced as only angels can rejoice when of thine own free will thou didst keep the trist I made with thee, yet thou newest me not, or rather thou wouldst not know me till I left thee, tis ever the way of mortals to doubt their angels in disguise. Her sweet accents shook with a liquid thrill suggestive of tears, but he was silent. It seemed to him that he would be well content to hold his place forever, if forever he might hear her thus melodiously speak on. Had she not called him her other soul, her king, her immortality's completion, and on those wondrous words of hers his spirit hung, impassioned, dazzled and entranced beyond all time and space and nature and experience. After a brief pause during which his ravaged mind floated among the thousand images and vague feelings of a whole past and future merged in one splendid and celestial present, she resumed always softly and with the same exquisite tenderness of tone. I left the dearest but a moment, and in that moment, he who hath himself shared in human sorrows and sympathies, he who is the embodiment of the essence of God's love, came to my aid, plunging thy senses in deep sleep as hath been done before to many a saint and prophet of old time here on this very field of our death. He summoned up before thee the phantoms of a portion of that past, phantoms which to thee seemed far more real than the living presence of that faithful edress. Alas, my beloved, thou art not the only one on the sorrowful star who accepts a dream for reality and rejects reality as a dream. She paused again and again continued, nevertheless, in some degree, that vision of Alcurus was true, inasmuch as thou wert shown therein as in a mirror, one phase, one only of that former existence upon earth, the final episode was chosen as by the end of a man's days alone, shall he be judged. As much as thy dreaming sight was able to see, as much as that brain was able to bear appeared before thee, but that thou slumbering were yet a conscious personality among phantoms, and that these phantoms spoke to thee, charmed thee, bewildered thee, tempted thee, and swayed thee, this was the divine master's work upon thine own retrospective thought and memory. He gave the shadows of thy bar gone life, seeming color, sense, motion, and speech. He blotted out from thy remembrance his own most holy name and shedding up the present from thy gaze. He sent thy spirit back into the past. There thou perplexed and sorrowful didst, painfully, reweave the last fragments of that former history, and not till thou hast abandoned the shadow of thy self, didst thou escape from the fear of destruction. Then, when apparently all alone and utterly forsaken, the cloud of angels circled round thee, then at thy first repentant cried for help. He who has never left an earnest prayer unanswered, bade me descend hither to rake in uncomfort thee. O never was his bidding more joyously obeyed. Now I have plainly shown thee the interpretation of thy dream, and dost thou not comprehend the intention of the highest in manifesting it unto thee. Remember the words of God's prophet of old, behold the field thou thoughtest barren, how great a glory hath the moon unveiled. And I beheld and was so amazed for I was no longer myself but another, and a sort of death was in that other's soul, and yet that other was but myself in pain, and I knew not the things which were at once familiar, and my heart veiled within me for very fear. She spoke the quaint and mystic lines with a grave pure rhythmic utterance that was like the far off singing of sweet psalmody, and when she seized the stillness that followed seemed quivering with the rich vibrations of her voice, the very error was surely rendered softer and more delicate by such a soul-moving sound. But the U.S. who had listened dumbly until now began to feel a sudden sorrowful aching at his heart, a sense of coming desolation or consciousness that she would soon depart again and leave him and with a mingled reverence and passion to draw one of the fair hands that rested on his brows down into his own clasp. He met with no resistance and half happy, half agonized, he pressed his lips upon its soft and dazzling whiteness while the longing of his soul broke forth in words of fervent, irrepressible appeal. Address ye implored, if thou dost love me, give me my death here now at thy feet where I kneel, of what avail is it for me in the dark and difficult world? O deprive me of this fluctuating breath called life and let me live indeed, I understand, I know all thou hast said, I've learned my own sins as in a glass darkly, I've lived on earth before and as it seems made no good use of life and now, now I have found thee, then why must I lose thee? Thou who came us to me so sweetly at the first, may I cannot part from thee, I will not leave as me, I have no strength to follow thee, I shall but miss the way through thine abode. Thou canst not miss the way, responded address softly, look up my fears, be of good cheer, thou poet to whom heaven's greatest gifts of song are now accorded, look up and tell me, is not the way made plain? Slowly and in reverential fear he obeyed and raised his eyes, still holding her by the hand and saw behind her a distinctly marked shatter that seemed flung downward by the reflection of some brilliant light above, the shadow of a cross against which her delicate figure stood forth in shining outlines, seeing he understood, but nevertheless his mind grew more and more disquieted. A thousand misgivings crowded upon him he thought of the world. He remembered what it was he was living in an age of heresy and wanton unbelief where not only Christ's divinity was made blasphemous, maca, but where even God's existence was itself called in question. And as for angels, a sort of shock ran through his nerves as he reflected that though preachers preached concerning these supernatural beings, though the very birth of Christ rested on angels' testament, though poets wrote of them and painters strove to delineate them on their most famous canvases, each and all thus practically demonstrating the secret instinctive intuition of humanity that such celestial forms are. Yet it was most absolutely certain that not a man in the prosaic 19th century would, if asked, admit to any actual belief in their existence. Inconsistent, yes, but are not men more inconsistent than the very beasts of the field their tyranny controls. What, as a rule, do men believe in themselves, only themselves? They are in their own opinion the be all and the end all of everything. As if the supreme creative force called God were incapable of designing any higher form of thinking life, and their pygmy bodies which strut on two legs and with two eyes and a small, quickly staggered brain, professed to understand and weighing the whole foundation and plan of the universe. Growing swiftly conscious of all that in that purgatory of the present awaited him, Theos felt as though the earth chasm that had swallowed up Alcarus in his dream had opened again before him of fighting him with his black depth of nothingness and annihilation. And in a sudden agony of self distrust he gazed yearningly at the fair wistful face above him. The divine beauty that was is, after all, if he only knew how to claim it. Something he knew not what filled him without fiery rustlessness, a passion of protest and aspiration which for a moment was so strong that it seemed to him he must with one fierce effort himself free from the trammels of mortality and straight way take upon him the majesty of the mortal nature and so bear his angel love company with her so ever she went. Never had the feathers of flesh weighed upon him with such heaviness, but in spite of his feverish longing to escape some authoritative yet gentle force held in prisoner. God, he muttered, why am I thus bound? Why can't I not be free? Is that time for freedom has not come? said Edress, quickly answering his thought because thou hast work to do that is not yet done. Thy poet labors have up till now been merely repetition, the repetition of that former self. Go, the tired world waits for a new gospel of poesy, a new song that shall rouse it from its apathy and bring it closer unto God and all things high and fair. Right, for the nations wait for a trumpet voice of truth. The great poets are dead, their spirits are in heaven and there is none to replace them on that sorrowful star. Save thou, not for fame do thy work, nor for wealth, but for love and the glory of God, for love of humanity, for love of the beautiful, the pure, the holy, that the race of men hear one more faithful apostle of the divine unseen. Their earth is lost in the whittling light of a larger creation. Go, perform thy long neglected mission, that mission of all poets worthy of the name, to raise the world. Thou shalt not lack strength nor fervor so long as thou dost right for the benefit of others. Serve God and live, serve self and die, such as the eternal law of fears invisible. The less thou seeest of self, the more thou seeest of heaven. Thrust self away and lo, God and destiny with his presence go forth into the world, a king, a crown, a master of song and fear, not that I, Edras, will forsake thee, I who have loved thee since the birth of time. He met her beautiful, luminous inspired eyes with a sad interrogativeness in his own, what a hard fate was made out to him. To teach the world that scoffed at teaching, to rouse the gold-thirsty mass of men to a new sense of things divine, obeying task, o dreary impossibility, enough surely to guide his own will, a right without making any attempt to guide the wills of others. Her mandate seemed to him almost cruel, it was like driving him into a howling wilderness, when with one touch, one kiss, she might transport him into paradise. If she were in the world, if she were always with him, how then, how different, how easy life would be, again he thought of those strange and transient words of hers, my other soul, my king, immortality's completion and a sudden wild idea took swift possession of his brain. Edrasie cried, if I may not yet come to thee, then come thou to me, well thou with me, for by the force of my love, which God knoweth, let me draw thee thou fair light into my heart's gloom, hear me while I swear my faith to thee as at some holy shrine, as I live with all my soul, I do accept thy master Christ as mine, utmost good, and his cross as my proudest glory, but yet, bethink thee, Edrasie, bethink thee, of this world, his willful sin, his scorn of God, and all the evil that like a spreading thundercloud darkens it day by day, a will thou leave me desolate and alone, fight as I will, I shall often sink under blows, conquer as I may, I shall suffer the solitude of conquest unless thou art with me, so speak is there no deeper divine intention in the marvelous destiny that has brought us together, thou pure-spirited I, weak mortal, has loved the primal mover of all things, no hold upon thee, if I am, as thou sayest, thy beloved, loved by thee so long, even while forgetful of and unworthy of thy love, cannot not now, now when I am all thine persuade thee to compassionate the rest of my brief life on earth, thou art in woman's shape here on this field of our death, and yet thou art not woman, though could my love constrain thee in God's name to wear the mask of mortal body for my sake, would not our union even now make the sorrowful star seem fair? Love, love, love, come to my aid, and teach me how to shut the wings of this sweet bird of paradise in my known grasp, God spare her to me for one of thy sweet moments which are our mortal use, Christ who became a mirrored child for pity of us, let me learn from thee the mystic spell that makes thine angel mine. Carried away by his own forceful emotion, he hardly knew what he said, but an unspeakable, dizzy joy flooded his soul as he caught the look she gave him, a while sweet, amazed, half tender, half agonized, holy human look, suggested of the most marvelous possibilities, one effort, and she released her hand from his and moved a little apart, her eyes kindling with celestial sympathy in which there was the very faintest touch of self-surrender, self-surrender what, from an angel to a mortal? Ah, no, it could not be. Yet he felt filled all at once with a terrible sense of power that at the same time was mingled with the deepest humility and fear. Hush, she said, and her lovely low voice was tremulous. Hush, thou dost speak as if we were already I love thee, Theos, and truly because thou art present here, I love this that earth also, but dost thou think to what thou wouldst so eagerly persuade me to live up mortal life, to die, to pass through the darkest phase of world existence known in all the teeming spheres, nay, and a look of pathetic sorrow came over her face, how could I, even for thee, my Theos, forsake my home in heaven? Her last words were half questioning, half hesitating, her manner was of one in doubt, and Theos kneeling still surveyed her in worshiping silence, and he suddenly remembered what the monk and mystic alibis had said to him at Dariel on the morning after his trance of soul liberty, if, as I conjecture, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, you would not drag her spiritual and death unconscious brightness down to the level of the reality of a mere human life, nay, if you would, you could not and now, strange to say, he felt that he could but would not, and he was overcome with remorse and penitence for the egotistical nature of his own appeal. My love, my life, he said brokenly, forgive me, forgive my selfish prayer, self-spoke not I, yet I had thought, self- dead and buried forever, a faint sigh escaped him, believe me, sweet, I would not have the loose one hour of heaven's ecstasies, I would not have the sudden by earth's willful miseries, no not even for that lightning moment which numbers up man's mortal days, speed back to angel land my address, I will love thee till I die and leave thee afterward to Christ, be glad thou farest, dearest one, unfurl thy rainbow wings and fly from me, and wander singing through the groves of heaven, making all heaven musical, perchance in the silence of the night, I may catch the echo of thy voice and fancy thou art near, and trust me, address, trust me, for my faith will not falter, my hope shall not waver, and though in the world I may, I must have tribulation yet will I believe in him who hath by simple love overcome the world. He seized a great quiet seemed to fall upon him, the quiet of a deep and passive resignation, address through nearer to him, timidly as a shy bird yet with a wonderful smile, quivering on her lips at clear depths of her starry eyes very gently she placed her arms about his neck and looked down at him with divinely compassionate tenderness thou beloved one she said, thou whose spirit was formerly equal to mine, and to all angels in God's sight, though through pride it fell, learned that thou art nearer to me now than thou has been for a myriad ages, between us are renewed the strong speed ties that shall never more be broken unless, and her voice faltered, as thou have thine own free will break them again in spite of all my prayers, for because thou art immortal even as I, though thou art pent up in mortality even so must I will remain immortally unfettered and what thou dost firmly elect to do God will not prevent the dream of thy past was a lesson, not a command thou art free to forget or remember it as thou wilt while on earth, since it is only after death that memory is ineffacable and with its companion remorse constitutes hell. Obey God or disobey him, he will not force thee either way, constrained love hath no value, only this is the universal law, that whose whoever disobeys is disobedience recoils on his own head as of necessity it must whereas obedience is the working in perfect harmony with all nature and of equal necessity brings its own reward cling to the cross for one moment the moment called by mortal's life and it shall lift thee straightway into highest heaven, there will I wait for thee, and there thou shalt make me thine own forever. Eastside engaged her riskfully, alas my address not till then he murmured, she bent over him and kissed his forehead, a caress as brief and light as the passing flutter of a bird's wing, not whispering unless the longing of that love compels. He started, what did she mean? His eyes flashed eager inquiry into her so soft and brilliantly clear with the light of an eternal peace dwelling in their liquid mysterious loveliness and meeting his questioning look the angelic smile brightened more gloriously round her lips but there was now something altogether unearthly in her beauty a wondrous inward luminousness began to figure her face in form. He saw her garments white into a sparkling radiance as of sunbeams on snow the halo round her bright hair deepened into flame like glory her stature grew loftier and became as it were endowed with supreme and splendid majesty and the exquisite fairness of her countenance wax-warmly transparent with the delicate hue of a white rose through which the pink color faintly fleshed as soft suggestions of rodeo at light is gazed wealth upon speakable wondering adoration mingled with a sense of irrepressible sorrow and heaviness of heart he felt she was about to leave him and was did not a part of his soul from soul just then the sun stepped loyally forth from between the red and gold curtains of the east in that blaze of earth's life radiance her figure became respondently invested with vivid rays of rosy lust that far surpassed the amber shining of the orb of day far dazzled with and utterly overcome he yet strove to keep his straining eyes steadily upon her, conscious that her smile still blessed him with its tenderness he made a wild effort to drag himself nearer to her to touch once more the glittering edge of her robe to detain her one little moment longer or how wistfully, how fondly she looked upon him almost it seemed as if she might after all consent to stay he stretched out his arms with apathetic gesture of love, fear and soul passionate supplication he cried half despairingly or by the strength of that angelhood have pity on the weakness of my manhood surely she heard or it seemed to hear and yet she gave no answer, no sign, no promise no gesture of farewell only a look of divine, compassionating perfect love, a look so pure so penetrating, so true, so rapturous that flesh and blood could bear the glory of her transfigured presence no longer and blind with the burning effulgence of her beauty her eyes uncovered his face he knew now if he had never known it before what was meant by an angel standing in the sun footnote Revelation chapter 1917 moreover he also knew that what humanity caused miracles are possible and do happen and that instead of being violations of the law of nature as we understand it they are but confirmations of that law in its deeper depths, depths which controlled by spiritual force alone not has yet been sounded by the most searching scientists and what is material force but the visible manifestation of the spiritual behind it he who accepts the material and denies the spiritual is in the untenable position of one who admits in effect and denies a cause and if both spiritual material be accepted then how can we reasonably dare to set a limit to the manifestations of either the one or the other when he at last looked up at his advantage he was alone, alone on the field of our death, the field that was barren and very true now she, his angel had been drawn away as it seemed into the sunlight absorbed like a paradise pearl into those rays of life giving gold that lived and warmed the reddening earth and heaven slowly and dizzily he rose to his feet and gazed about it and begged the wilderness he had passed one night on the field one night only and he felt as though he had lived through years of experience now the vision was ended that was the reality had fled and the world was all the unsatisfying things it grudgingly offers the world in which alkyris have been a city magnificent in those centuries gone and in which he too had played his part before and had one thing to be forgotten as soon as dead, fame how he had longed and thirsted for it and what a foolish undesirable distinction it seemed to him now setting his thoughts by a few moments of calm reflection he remembered what he had in charge to do to redeem his plans to use and expend whatever force was in him for the good the help, the consolment and the love of others not to benefit himself this was his task and the very comprehension of it gave him a rush of vigor and energy that at once lifted the cloud of love, loneliness from his soul my address he whispered thou shalt have no cause to weep for me in heaven again with God's help I will win back my lost heritage as he spoke the words his eyes caught a glimpse of something white on the turf where but a moment since his angel love had stood he stooped toward it it was one half open bud of the wonderful our death flowers that had covered the field in such singular perfusion on the previous night when she first appeared one only might he not gather it he hesitated then very gently and reverently broke it off and tenderly poured to his lips what a beautiful blossom it was this fragrance was unlike that of any other flower its whiteness was more pure and soft than that of that rare as a little vice on alpine snows in his partially disclosed golden center had an almost luminous brightness as he held it in his hand all sorts of vague delicious thoughts came sweeping across his brain thoughts that seemed to set themselves to music wild and strange and new and suggestive of the sweetest noblest influences a thrill of expectation stirred in him as a great and good things to be done grand changes to be wrought in the complex web of human destiny brought about by the quickening and development of a pure unselfish spiritual force that might with saving benefit flow into the perplexed and weary intelligence of man and jured in the great unconscious of a circling widening ever present supreme power that with all surrounding love was ever on their side of work done for love's sake he gently shut the flower within his breast resolving to carry it with him whereas whoever he went as a token a proof of the signs and wonders of the prophet's field and now he prepared to quit the scene of his mystic vision in which he had followed with precedent pain the brief bright career the useless fame the evil love passion and final fate of his former self and crossing the field with lingering tread he looked back many times to the fallen block of stone where he had sat when he had first perceived God's made an address stepping softly through the bloom when should he again meet her alas not till death the beautiful unbeneficent herald of true liberty and him to those lofty heights of paradise where she had habitation not to then unless unless and his heartbeat without a sudden tumult as he recollected her last words unless the longing of that love compels good love compeler he wanted to come to him once more while yet he lived on earth perhaps and yet if he indeed had such power of love would it be generous or just exerted no for to draw her down from heaven to earth seemed to him now a sort of sacrilege dear to him was her joy than his own but suppose the possibility of her being actually happy with him and mortal existence suppose that love when absolutely pure unselfishly mutual helpful and steadfast have it in its gift to make even the sorrowful star a heaven in miniature what then he would not trust himself to think of this the mere shadowy suggestion of such supreme delight filled with a strong passion of yearning to which in his accepted creed of self-abnegation he dared not yield firmly restraining resisting renouncing his own designs he mentally raised a holy shrine for her in his soul a shrine of pure faith warm with the eternal aspirations and blight with truth wherein he hallowed the memory of her beauty with a sense of devout love like gladness she was safe she was content she blossomed flower like in the highest gardens of God where all things fared well enough for him to worship her at a distance to keep the clear reflection of her loveliness in his mind and to live so that he might deserve to follow and find her when his work on earth was done moreover heaven to him was no longer a vague mythical realm ill defined by the prosy descriptions of church preachers it was an actual world to which he was linked in which he had possessions of which he was a native and for the perpetuation and enlargement of her splendor all worlds existed arrived at the boundary of the field the spot marked by the broken half buried pillar of red granite alibis had mentioned the palms thinking dreamily of the words of asdriss who in answer to his angel visitance inquiry why art thou described it had replied because thou hast forsaken me and yet I did according to thy words and I went into the field and though I had seen and yet see that I am not able to express whereupon the angel had said stand up manfully and I will advise thee stand up manfully yes this is what he theos all meant to do he would stand up manfully against the howling iconoclasm and atheism of the age he would be poet henceforth in the true meaning of the word namely maker he would make not break the grand ideal hopes and have been climbing ambitions of humanity he would endeavor his utmost best to be that hierarch and pontiff of the world as a modern rugged apostle of truth as nobody said who Prometheus like can shape new symbols and bring new fire from heaven to fix them into the deep infinite faculties of man with a brief silent prayer he turned away at last and walked slowly in the lovely silence of the early eastern morning back to the place from whence he had last night wandered the emerges of Al-Zir near the ruins of Babylon he soon came inside of it and also perceived Al-Zir himself stripping over a small plot of ground in front of his dwelling gathering herbs when he approached the old man looked up and smiled giving him a silent expressively courteous morning greeting by his manner it was evident that he thought his guest had really been out for an early stroll near the heat of the day set in and yet Al-Qurus how real had seemed that dream existence in that dream city the figure of Al-Zir looked scarcely more substantial than the phantom forms of Saluma, Zephalanum, Chosroul, Zuriel, or Zabastis while I see his exquisite face in seductive form the fraudous pence of beauty in all the local characteristics of the place we stand on the dreamers memory as faithfully as scenes flashed by the sun on the place of photography through the pictures were perhaps now slightly fading into the sonnet melody of pale negatives but still would not everything that happened in the actual world emerge into that same undecided dimness with the lapse of time he thought so and smiled at the thought the transitory nature of earthly things was a subject for joy to him now not regret with a kindly word or two to his venerable host he went through the open door of the hermitage and entered the little room he had left only a few hours previously it appeared to him as familiar and unfamiliar as Al-Qurus itself till raising his eyes he saw the great crucifix against the wall of the sacred symbol whose meaning he had forgotten and hopelessly longed for in his dream and from which before his visit to the field of our death he had turned with a sense of bitter scorn and proud rejection but now, now he gazed upon in unspeakable remorse in tenderest desire to atone the sweet grave patient eyes of the holy figure seemed to meet his with a wondrous challenge of love, longing and most fraternal sympathetic comprehension of his nature he paused looking and that preeminently false words of George Herbert suddenly occurred to him by savior sentence joy oh blasphemy, sentence joy nay, whether he recreated it and invested it with divine certainties beyond all temporal change or abandonishment yielding to it swift impulse he threw himself on his knees and with clasp hands leaned his brows against the feet of the sculptured Christ there he rested in wordless peace his whole soul entranced in a divine passion of faith and hope and love there with the our death flower in his breast he consecrated his life to the highest good and there in absolute humility and pure childlike devotion he crucified himself forever End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 of Our Death by Marie Carelli this Libra Box recording is in the public domain Part 3 Poet and Angel oh golden hair oh gladness of an hour made flesh and blood who speaks of glory and the force of love and thou not near my maiden minded dove with all the cornice all the beauty sheen of thy wrapped face oh fearless virgin queen a queen of peace art thou and on thy head the golden light of all thy hair is shed most nimbus-like and most suggestive too of the golden garland dead our thoughts are free and mine have found at last their apt solution and from out the past there seems to shine as were a beacon fire and all the land is lit with large desire of land and glory all the quivering sea is big with waves that wait thou mourns decree as I thy vessel wait thy beckoning smile Eric McKay Chapter 31 Fresh Walls It was a dismal March evening London lay swathed in a melancholy fog a fog too dense to be more than temporarily disturbed even by the sudden gusts of the bitter east wind rain fell steadily sometimes changing to sleep that drove in sharp showers on those slippery roads and pavements bewildering the tired horses in the minds of those ill-fated foot passengers whom business certainly not pleasure forced to encounter the inconveniences of the weather against one house in particular an old-fashioned irregular building situated in a somewhat out-of-the-way but picturesque part of Kensington the cold wet blast blue with specially keen ferocity as though it were angered by the sounds within sounds that in truth rather resembled a lone cross groaning curious short grunts and plaintive cries interspersed with an occasional pathetic long-drawn wine suggested dimly the idea that somebody was playing or trying to play on a refractory stringed instrument the well-worn composition known as Rath's Cavatina and in fact had the vexed wind been able to break through the wall and embody itself into a substantial being it would have discovered the producer half fierce half mournful noise in the person of the honorable Frank Villiers who with that amazingly serious ardor so often displayed by amateur lovers of music was persistently endeavoring to combat the difficulties of the violon cello he adored his big instrument the more unmanageable it became in his hands the more he loved it its grumbling complaints at his unskillful touch delighted him when he could succeed in awakening the peevish doll sob from its troubled depths he felt the positive thrill of almost professional triumph and he refused to be daunted in his efforts by the frequently barbaric clamor his off-bowing rung from the tortured strings he tried every sort of music easy and intricate and his happiest hours were those when with glass in eye and brow knitted in anxious scrutiny he could peer his way through the labyrinth of a sonata or a stranger much too complex for anyone but a trained artist enjoying to the full the mental excitement of the discordant struggle and comfortably conscious that as his residence was detached no obtrusive neighbor could either warn him to desist or set up an opposition nuisance next door by constant practice on the distressingly over popular piano one thing very much in his favor was that he never manifested any desire to perform in public no one had ever heard him play he pursued his favorite amusement in solitude and was amply satisfied if when questioned on the subject of music he could find an opportunity to say with a conscious modest air my instrument is the cello that was quite enough self assertion for him and if anyone ever urged him to display his talent he would allude the request with such charming grace and diffidence that many people imagined he must really be a great genius who only lacked the necessary insolence and a plumb to make that genius known the cello apart billiards was very generally recognized as a discerning dilettante in most matters artistic he was an excellent judge of literature painting and sculpture his house though small was a perfect model of taste and design and adornment he knew where to pick up choice bits of antique furniture dainty porcelain bronzes and wood carvings while in the acquisition of rare books he was justly considered a notable connoisseur his delicate and dastidious instincts were displayed in the very arrangement of his numerous volumes none replaced on such high shelves as to be out of hand reach all were within close touch and ready to command ranged and low carved oak cases or on revolving stands while a few particularly rare editions and first folios were shedding curious little side niches with locked glass doors somewhat resembling small shrines such as are used for the reception of sacred relics the apartment he called his den where he now sat practicing the cavatina for about the 200th time was perhaps the most fascinating look in the whole house in as much as it contained a little bit of everything arranged with that perfect attention to detail which makes each object small and great appear not only ornamental but positively necessary. In one corner a quaint old jar overflowed with the brightness of fresh yellow daffodils in another a long tapering Venetian vase held feathery clusters of African grass and fern here the medallion of a Greek philosopher a Roman emperor gleamed whitely against the somberly painted wall there a rambrant portrait flashed out from the semi obscure background of some rich carefully disposed fold of drapery while a few admirable cast from the antique lit up the deeper shadows of the room such as the immortally youthful head of the Apollo Belvedere the wisy serene countenance of the palisthenia that Gertrude loved and the cupid of praxiteles. Judging from his outward appearance only few would have given billiards credit for being the man of penetrative and almost classic refinement he really was he looked far more athletic than aesthetic broad-shouldered and deep-gested with a round blunt head firmly set on a full throw he had on the whole a somewhat obstinate and pugilistic air which totally belied his nature his features open and ready were without being handsome, decidedly attractive, the mouth was rather large yet good-tempered, the eyes bright blue and sparklingly suggestive of a native inborn love of humor. There was something fresh and pecan't in the very expression of naïve bewilderment with which he now adjusted his eyeglass a wholly unnecessary appendage and set himself strenuously to examine anew the chords of that extraordinary piece of music which others thought so easy in which he found so puzzling he could manage this simple melody fairly well but the chords they are the very devil he murmured plantedly staring at the score and hitching up his unruly instrument more securely against his knee perhaps the bow wants a little rosin this was one of his minor weaknesses he would never quite admit that false notes were his own fault they couldn't be you know he mildly argued addressing the uptrusive neck of the cellar which had a curious stubborn way of poking itself into his gin and causing him to wonder how it got there surely the manner in which he held it had nothing to do with this awkward occurrence I'm not such a fool as not to understand how to find the right notes after all my practice there's something wrong with the strings or the bridge has gone awry or and this was his last resource the bow wants more rosin thus he hugged himself in deliciously willful ignorance of his own shortcomings and shut his ears to the whispered reproaches of musical conscience had he been married his wife would no doubt have lost no time in enlightening him she would have told him he was a wretched player that his scrapings on that cellar were enough to drive one mad and sundry other assurances of the perfectly conjugal type of frankness that as a chance he was a happy bachelor a free and independent man with more than sufficient means to gratify his particular tastes and whims he was partner in a steadily prosperous banking concern and had just enough to do to keep him pleasantly and profitably occupying asked why he did not marry he replied with blunt and almost brutal honesty that he had never yet met a woman whose conversation he could stand for more than an hour silly or clever he said they are all possessed of the same infinite tedium either they say nothing or they say everything they are always at the two extremes and announce themselves as dunces or blue stockings one wants the just medium the dainty commingling of simplicity and wisdom that shall yet be pure womanly and this is precisely the jewel far above rubies that one cannot find I've given up the search long ago and am entirely resigned to my lot I like women very well I may say very much as friends but to take one on chance as a comrade for life no thank you such was his fixed opinion and consequent rejection of matrimony and for the rest he studied art and literature and became an authority on both so much so that on one occasion he kept a goodly number of people away from visiting the royal academy exhibition he having voted it a disgrace to art English artists occupied the last grade in the whole school of painting he had said indignantly with that decisive manner of his somehow or other carry conviction the very Dutch surpassed them and instead of trying to raise their standard each year sees them groveling in lower depths the academy is becoming a mere gallery of portraits painted to please the caprices of vain men and women at a thousand or two thousand guineas apiece ugly portraits to woodeny portraits utterly uninteresting portraits of prosaic nobodies who cares to see number 154 Mrs. Flummery in her presentation and dress except Mrs. Flummery's own particular friends or 283 Ms. Smocks, eldest daughter Professor A.T. Smocks or 516 Baines Brice Esquire who is Baines Brice nobody ever heard of him before he may be a retired portrait butcher for all anyone knows portraits even of celebrities are a mistake take Algernon Charles Swinburne for instance the man who went left to himself writes some of the grandest lines in the English language he had his portrait in the academy and everybody ran away from it it was such an unutterable hideous disappointment it was a positive libel of course Swinburne has fine eyes and still a finer brow but instead of idealizing the poet in him the silly artist painted him as if he had no more intellectual distinction than a bill sticker English heart poo don't speak to me about it go to Spain Italy Bavaria see what they can do and then say a misery for the sins of the RA's thus he would talk in his criticisms carried weight with a tolerably large circle of influential and wealthy persons who when they called upon him and saw the perfection of his house and the rarity of his art collections came at once to the conclusion that it would be wise as well as advantageous to themselves to consult him before purchasing pictures books statues or china so that he occupied the powerful position of being able with the word to start an artist's reputation or depreciated as he chose a distinction he had not desired and which was often a source of trouble to him because there were so few so very few whose work he felt he could conscientiously approve and encourage he was eminently good natured and sympathetic he would not give pain to others without being infinitely more pained himself and yet for all his amiability there was a stubborn instinct in him which brought bade him to promote by word or look the fatal 19th century spread of mediocrity either a thing must be truly great and capable of being measured by the highest standards or for him it had no value this rule he carried out in all branches of art except his own cello playing that was not great that would never be great but it was his pet pastime he chose it in preference to the billiards betting and bar lounging that make up the amusements of the hopeful manhood of London and as has already been said he never inflicted it upon others he rubbed the rosin now thoughtfully up and down his bow and glanced at the quaint old clock and importation from Nernberg that ticked solemnly in one corner near the deep bay window across which the heavy olive green plush curtains were drawn to shut out the penetrating chill of the wind it wanted ten minutes to nine he given orders to his man servant that he was in no account to be disturbed that evening no matter what visitors called before him none were to be admitted he had made up his mind to have a long and energetic practice and he felt the secret satisfaction as he heard the steady patter of the rain outside the very weather favored his desire for solitude no one was likely to venture forth on such a night still gravely rubbing his bra his eyes traveled from the clock in the corner to a photograph on the mantel shelf of a man's face dark hearty beautiful yet repellent in its beauty and with a certain hard sternness in its outline the face of the ozal wind from this portrait his glance wandered to the table where amid a picturesque litter of books and papers lay a square simply bound volume with an ivory leaf cutter thrust in it to mark the place where the reader left off and its title plainly lettered in gold at the back Neur Haama I wonder where he is he mused his thoughts naturally reverting to the author of the book he cannot know what all London knows or surely he would be back here like a shot it is six months ago now since I received his letter and that poem in manuscript from Tiflis in Armenia and not another line has he sent to tell me of his whereabouts curious fellow he is but by Job what a genius no wonder he has besieged fame and taken it by storm I don't remember any similar instance except that of Byron in which such an unprecedented reputation was made so suddenly and in Byron's case it was more the domestic scandal about him than his actual merit that made him the rage now the world knows literally nothing about Alvin's private life or character there's no woman in his history that I know of no vice he hasn't outraged the law upset more flouted at decency or done anything that according to modern fashions ought to have made him famous no he is simply produced a perfect poem stately grand pure and pathetic and all of a sudden some secret spring in the human heart is touched some long closed valve opened and low and behold all intellectual society is raving about him his name is in everybody's mouth his book is in everyone's hands I don't altogether like his being made the subject of a craze experience shows me it's a kind of thing that doesn't last in fact it can't last the reaction invariably sets in and the English public is of all publics the most insane in its periodical frenzies and the most capricious now it is oligarch for shilling sensational then it discusses itself horse over a one-sided theological made up out of theories long ago propounded and exhaustively set forth by Voltaire and others of his school and on it revels in the gross descriptions of shameless vice depicted in an accurately translated romance of the pair of slums now it writes thousands of letters to a black man to sympathize with him because he has been called black could anything be more absurd it is even followed the departure of an elephant from the zoo in weeping crowds however I wish all the crazes to which it is subject were as harmless and wholesome as the one that has seized it for Alwyn's book for if true poetry were brought to the front instead of being as it often is sneered at and kept in the background we should have a chance of regaining the lost divine arc that wherever it has been worthily followed has proved the glory of the greatest nations and then we should not have to put up with such detestable inanities as are produced every day by persons calling themselves poets who are scarcely fit to write modders for dessert crackers and we might escape for good and all from the inflection of magazine verse which is emphatically a positive affront to the human intelligence ah me what wretched upholders we are of Shakespeare's standard Keats was our last splendor then there is an unfilled gap bridged in part by Tennyson and now comes Alwyn blazing abroad like a veritable meteor only I believe he will do more than merely flair across the heavens he promises to become a notable fixed star eerie smile somewhat pleased with his own skill and metaphor and having rubbed his brow enough he drew it lingeringly across his wings along sweet shuttering sound rewarded him like the upward wave of a wind among high trees and he heard it with much gratification he would try the cavatina again now he decided on bringing his music stand closer he settled himself in readiness to begin just then the Nernberg clock commenced striking the hour accompanying each stroke with a very soft and mellow little chime of bells that sent those through the quiet room a bright flame started up from the glowing fire in the great flinging ruddy flashes along the walls a wrapping guest of rain dashed once at the windows the tune for clock seized and all was still billiards waited a moment then with heedful earnestness started the first bar of Wrath's off-murdered composition when a knock at the door disturbed him and considerably ruffled his equanimity come in he called testily his man servant appeared a half-pleased half guilty look on his day countenance please sir a gentleman called well you said I was out no sir these praise I thought you might be at home to him sir confound you exclaimed billiards petulantly throwing down his bow and discussed what business had you to think anything about it didn't I tell you I wasn't at home anybody come come billiards set up mellow voice outside with a ripple of suppressed laughter in its tone don't be inhospitable I'm sure you are at home to me and passing by the servant who had once retired the speaker entered the apartment lifted his head and smiled billiards sprang from his chair in delighted astonishment all when he cried and the two friends whose friendship dated from boyhood clasped each other's hands and were for a moment both silent half ashamed of those affectionate emotions to which impulsive women may freely give them but to whom men may not yield without being supposed to lose somewhat of the dignity of manhood by jove said billiards at last drawing a deep breath this is a surprise only a few minutes ago I was considering whether we should not have to note you down in the newspaper as one of the mysterious disappearances grown common of late where do you come from old fellow from Paris just directly responded all when divesting himself of his overcoat and stepping outside the door to hang it on and evidently familiar mail in the passage and then re-entering but from Baghdad in the first instance I visited that city sacred to fairy lore and from thence journey to Damascus like one of our favorite merchants from the Arabian Knights then I went to Beirut and Alexandria from which latter place I took ship homeward stopping at delicious Venice while on my way then you did the holy land I suppose queried billiards regarding him with sudden and growing inquisitiveness my dear fellow certainly not the holy land invested by touts and overrun by tourists would neither appeal to my imagination nor my sentiments present state of vulgar abuse and un-christian sacrilege it is better left unseen by those who wish to revere its associations don't you think so he smiled as he put the question and drawing up an old fashioned oak chair to the fire seated himself the years meanwhile stared at him in unmitigated amazement what had come to the fellow he wondered how had he managed to invest himself with such an overpowering distinction of look and grace of bearing he'd always been a handsome man yes but there was certainly something more than handsome about him now there was a singular magnetism in the flash of the fine soft eyes a marvelous sweetness in the firm lines of the perfect mouth a royal grandeur and freedom in the very poise of his well-knit figure and noble head that certainly had not before been apparent in him for over that was an odd remark for him to make about wishing to revere the associations of the holy land very odd considering his formally skeptical theories rousing himself from his momentary bewilderment billiards remember the duties of hospitality have you dined all when he asked with his hand on the bell excellently was the response accompanied by a bright upward glance I went to that big hotel opposite the park had dinner left the surplus of my luggage in charge selected one small portmanteau took a handsome and came on here resolved to pass one night at least under your roof one night interrupt the billiards you're very much mistaken if you think you're going to get off so easily you'll not escape from me for a month I tell you consider yourself a prisoner good send for the luggage tomorrow left Alvin flinging himself back in his chair in an attitude of lazy comfort I give in I've resigned myself to my fate but what of the cellar and he pointed to the bulgy looking casket of sweet sleeping sounds sleeping generally so far as billiards was concerned but ready to wake at the first touch of the master hand billiards glanced at it with a comical air of admiring vanquishment oh never mind the cellar he said indifferently that can bear being put by for a while it's a most curious instrument sometimes it seems to sound better when I have let it rest a while just like a human thing you know it gets occasionally tired of me I suppose but I say why didn't you come straight here bag baggage and all what business had you to stop on the way at any hotel do you call that friendship Alvin laugh at his mock injured tone I apologize billiards I really do but I felt it would be scarcely civil of me to come down upon you for bed, board and lodging you previous notice and at the same time I wanted to take you by surprise as I did besides I wasn't sure whether I should find you in town of course I knew I should be welcome if you were rather I sent the billiards shortly and with affected gruffness if you were sure of nothing else in this world you might be sure that he paused squared his shoulders and put up his eyeglass through which he scanned his friend with such a persistently scrutinizing air that Alvin was somewhat amused what are you staring at me for he demanded am I so bronzed where you are rather brown admitted billiards slowly but that doesn't surprise me the fact is it's very odd and I can't altogether explain it but somehow I find you changed positively very much changed food changed in appearance do you mean how look here upon this picture and on this quoted billiards dramatically taking down Alvin's image from the mantle shelf and mentally comparing it with the smiling original no two heads were ever more alike and yet more distinctly unlike here and he tapped the photograph you have the appearance of a modern time or a resties but now as you actually are I see more resemblance in your face to that and he pointed to the serene and splendid bust of the Apollo then to this counterfeit presentment of your former cell and flush but not so much at the implied compliment as at the words former self but quickly shaking off his embarrassment he glanced round at the Apollo and lifted his eyebrows incredulously then all I can say my dear boy is that that eyeglass of yours represents objects to your own view in a classic light which is entirely deceptive for I failed to trace the faintest similitude between my own features and that of that sun born lord of laurels oh you may not trace it so there is calmly but nevertheless others will some people say that no man knows what he really is like and that even his own reflection in the glass deceives him besides it is not so much the actual contour for features that impresses when it is the look you have the look of the Greek god the look of conscious power and inward happiness he spoke seriously thoughtfully surveying his friend with a vague feeling of admiration akin to reverence all and stooped and stirred the fire into a brighter blaze well so far my looks do not blind me he said gently after a pause I am conscious of both power and joy why naturally and there is laid one hand affectionately on his shoulder of course the face of the whole world has changed for you now that you have won such tremendous fame Alvin sprang upright so suddenly that theirs was quite startled fame who says I am famous and his eyes flash forth an amazed almost hearty resentment his friends stared then laughed outright who says it why all London says it do you mean to tell me Alvin that you have not seen the English papers and magazines containing all the critical reviews and discussions on your poem of Alvin winced at the title what a host of strange memories it recalled I have seen nothing he replied hurriedly I have made it a point to look at no papers thus I should chance on my own name coupled as it has been before with the languid abuse common to criticism in this country not that I should have cared now and a slight smile played on his lips in fact I have ceased to care moreover as I know modern success in literature is chiefly commanded by the praise of a click or the services of log rollers and as I am not included in any of the journalistic rings I have neither hoped nor expected any particular favor or recognition from the public then said there is excitedly seizing him by the hand let me be the first to congratulate you it is often the way that when we no longer especially crave a thing that thing is suddenly thrust upon us whether we will or has happened in your case learned therefore my dear fellow that your poem which you sent to me from Tiflis and which was published under my supervision about four months ago has already run through six editions and is now in its seven seven editions of a poem a poem mark you in four months isn't bad or over the demand continues and along in the short of it is that your name is actually at the present moment the most celebrated in all London in fact you are very generally acknowledged the greatest poet of the day and continue failures bringing his friends hand with uncommon further I say God bless you old boy if ever a man deserves success you do no harm is magnificent such a genius as yours will raise the literature of the age to a higher standard than it has known since the death of Adam is you can't imagine how sincerely I rejoice at your triumph all in the silent he returned his companions cordial hand pressure almost unconsciously he stood leaning against the mantelpiece and looking gravely down into the fire his first emotion was one of repugnance of rejection what did he need of this will of the wisp called fame dancing again across his path this transitory torch of world fame in London what was it what could it be compared to the brilliancy of the fame he had once enjoyed as laureate of alcarus as this thought passed across his mind he gave a quick interrogative glance at Villiers who was observing him with much wondering intentness and his handsome face lighted with sudden laughter dear old boy he said with a very tender inflection in his mellow mirthful voice you are the best beloved fellows and I thank you heartily for your news which if it seems satisfactory to you ought certainly to be satisfactory to me but tell me frankly if I am as famous as you say how did I become so how was it worked out worked out Villiers was completely taken back by the oddity of this question come continued all in persuasively his fine eyes sparkling with mischievous good humor you can't make me believe that this poem took to me suddenly of its own accord it is not so romantic so poetry loving so independent or so generous as that how was my celebrity first started in my book which as all the disadvantage of being a poem instead of a novel has so suddenly leaped into high favor and renown why then some leading critic or other must have thought that I myself was dead the whimsical merriment of his face seemed to reflect on that of Villiers you're too quick-witted all when positively you are he remonstrated with a frankly humorous smile but as it happens you're perfectly right not one critic but three three of our most influential men too thought you were dead and that no harm was a posthumous work of perished genius in the chapter 31