“I will not doubt you;—” he said slowly— “But if the Soul of Lilith is here present as you say, — and if it spoke, surely I may know the purport of its language!”
“Surely you may!” replied the monk— “Ask her in your own way to repeat what she said just now. There—” and he smiled gravely as he pointed to the couch— “there is your human phonograph!”
Perplexed, but willing to solve the mystery, El-Râmi bent above the slumbering girl, and taking her hands in his own, called her by name in his usual manner. The reply came soon — though somewhat faintly.
“I am here!”
“How long have you been here?” asked El-Râmi.
“Since my friend came.”
“Who is that friend, Lilith?”
“One that is near you now—” was the response.
“Did you speak to this friend a while ago?”
“Yes!”
The answer was more like a sigh than an assent.
“Can you repeat what you said?”
Lilith stretched her fair arms out with a gesture of weariness.
“I said I was tired—” she murmured— “Tired of the search through Infinity for things that are not. A wayward Will bids me look for Evil — I search, but cannot find it; — for Hell, a place of pain and torment, — up and down, around and around the everlasting circles I wend my way, and can discover no such abode of misery. Then I bring back the messages of truth, — but they are rejected, and I am sorrowful. All the realms of God are bright with beauty save this one dark prison of Man’s Fantastic Dream. Why am I bound here? I long to reach the light! — I am tired of the darkness!” She paused — then added— “This is what I said to one who is my friend.”
Vaguely pained, and stricken with a sudden remorse, El-Râmi asked:
“Am not I your friend, Lilith?”
A shudder ran through her delicate limbs. Then the answer came distinctly, yet reluctantly:
“No!”
El-Râmi dropped her hands as though he had been stung; — his face was very pale. The monk touched him on the shoulder.
“Why are you so moved?” he asked— “A spirit cannot lie; — an angel cannot flatter. How should she call you friend? — you, who detain her here solely for your own interested purposes? — To you she is a ‘subject’ merely, — no more than the butterfly dissected by the naturalist. The butterfly has hopes, ambitions, loves, delights, innocent wishes, nay even a religion, — what are all these to the grim spectacled scientist who breaks its delicate wings? The Soul of Lilith, like a climbing flower, strains instinctively upward, — but you — (for a certain time only) according to the natural magnetic laws which compel the stronger to subdue the weaker, have been able to keep this, her ethereal Essence, a partial captive under your tyrannical dominance. Yes — I say ‘tyrannical,’ — great wisdom should inspire love, — but in you it only inspires despotism. Yet with all your skill and calculation you have strangely overlooked one inevitable result of your great Experiment.”
El-Râmi looked up inquiringly but said nothing.
“How it is that you have not foreseen this thing I cannot imagine” — continued the monk— “The body of Lilith has grown under your very eyes from the child to the woman by the merest material means, — the chemicals which Nature gives us, and the forces which Nature allows us to employ. How then should you deem it possible for the Soul to remain stationary? With every fresh experience its form expands — its desires increase, — its knowledge widens, — and the everlasting Necessity of Love compels its life to Love’s primeval Source. The Soul of Lilith is awakening to its fullest immortal consciousness, — she realizes her connection with the great angelic worlds — her kindredship with those worlds’ inhabitants, and as she gains this glorious knowledge more certainly, so she gains strength. And this is the result I warn you of — her force will soon baffle yours, and you will have no more influence over her than you have over the highest Archangel in the realms of the Supreme Creator.”
“A woman’s Soul! — only a woman’s soul, remember that!” said El-Râmi dreamily— “How should it baffle mine? Of slighter character — of more sensitive balance — and always prone to yield, — how should it prove so strong? Though, of course, you will tell me that Souls, like Angels, are sexless.”
“I will tell you nothing of the sort” — said the monk quietly. “Because it would not be true. All created things have Sex, even the Angels. ‘Male and Female created He them’ — recollect that, — when it is said God made Man in ‘His Own Image.’”
El-Râmi’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.
“What! Is it possible you would endow God Himself with the Feminine attributes as well as the Masculine?”
“There are Two Governing Forces of the Universe,” replied the monk deliberately— “One, the masculine, is Love, — the other, feminine, is Beauty. These Two, reigning together, are GOD; — just as man and wife are One. From Love and Beauty proceed Law and Order. You cannot away with it — it is so. Love and Beauty produce and reproduce a million forms with more than a million variations — and when God made Man in His Own Image, it was as Male and Female. From the very first growths of life in all worlds, — from the small, almost imperceptible beginning of that marvellous Evolution which resulted in Humanity, — evolution which to us is calculated to have taken thousands of years, whereas in the Eternal countings it has occupied but a few moments, Sex was proclaimed in the lowliest sea-plants, of which the only remains we have are in the Silurian formations, — and was equally maintained in the humblest lingula inhabiting its simple bivalve shell. Sex is proclaimed throughout the Universe with an absolute and unswerving regularity through all grades of nature. Nay, there are even Male and Female Atmospheres which when combined produce forms of life.”
“You go far, — I should say much too far in your supposed Law!” said El-Râmi wonderingly and a little derisively.
“And you, my good friend, stop short, — and oppose yourself against all Law, when it threatens to interfere with your work” — retorted the monk— “The proof is, that you are convinced you can keep the Soul of Lilith to wait upon your will at pleasure like another Ariel. Whereas the Law is, that at the destined moment she shall be free. Wise Shakespeare can teach you this, — Prospero had to give his ‘fine spirit’ liberty in the end. If you could shut Lilith up in her mortal frame again, to live a mortal life, the case might be different; but that you cannot do, since the mortal frame is too dead to be capable of retaining such a Fire-Essence as hers is now.”
“You think that?” queried El-Râmi, — he spoke mechanically, — his thoughts were travelling elsewhere in a sudden new direction of their own.
The monk regarded him with friendly but always compassionate eyes.
“I not only think it — I know it!” he replied.
El-Râmi met his gaze fixedly.
“You would seem to know most things,” — he observed— “Now in this matter I consider that I am more humble-minded than yourself. For I cannot say I ‘know’ anything, — the whole solar system appears to me to be in a gradually changing condition, — and each day one set of facts is followed by another entirely new set which replace the first and render them useless—”
“There is nothing useless,” interposed the monk— “not even a so-called ‘fact’ disproved. Error leads to the discovery of Truth. And Truth always discloses the one great unalterable Fact, — GOD.”
“As I told you, I must have proofs of God” — said El-Râmi with a chill smile— “Proofs that satisfy me, personally speaking. At present I believe in Force only.”
“And how is Force generated?” inquired the monk.
“That we shall discover in time. And not only the How, but also the Why. In the meantime we must prove and test all possibilities, both material and spiritual. And as far as such proving goes, I think you can scarcely deny that this experiment of mine on the girl Lilith is a wonderful one?”
“I cannot grant yo
u that;” — returned the monk gravely— “Most Eastern magnetists can do what you have done, provided they have the necessary Will. To detach the Soul from the body, and yet keep the body alive, is an operation that has been performed by others and will be performed again, — but to keep Body and Soul struggling against each other in unnatural conflict, requires cruelty as well as Will. It is as I before observed, the vivisection of a butterfly. The scientist does not think himself barbarous — but his barbarity outweighs his science all the same.”
“You mean to say there is nothing surprising in my work?”
“Why should there be?” said the monk curtly— “Barbarism is not wonderful! What is truly a matter for marvel is Yourself. You are the most astonishing example of self-inflicted blindness I have ever known!”
El-Râmi breathed quickly, — he was deeply angered, but he had self-possession enough not to betray it. As he stood, sullenly silent, his guest’s hand fell gently on his shoulder — his guest’s eyes looked earnest love and pity into his own.
“El-Râmi Zarânos,” he said softly— “You know me. You know I would not lie to you. Hear then my words; — As I see a bird on the point of flight, or a flower just ready to break into bloom, even so I see the Soul of Lilith. She is on the verge of the Eternal Light — its rippling wave, — the great sweet wave that lifts us upward, — has already touched her delicate consciousness, — her aerial organism. You — with your brilliant brain, your astonishing grasp and power over material forces — you are on the verge of darkness, — such a gulf of it as cannot be measured — such a depth as cannot be sounded. Why will you fall? Why do you choose Darkness rather than Light?”
“Because my ‘deeds are evil,’ I suppose,” retorted El-Râmi bitterly— “You should finish the text while you are about it. I think you misjudge me, — however, you have not heard all. You consider my labour as vain, and my experiment futile, — but I have some strange results yet to show you in writing. And what I have written I desire to place in your hands that you may take all to the monastery, and keep my discoveries, — if they are discoveries, among the archives. What may seem the wildest notions to the scientists of to-day may prove of practical utility hereafter.”
He paused, and bending over Lilith, took her hand and called her by name. The reply came rather more quickly than usual.
“I am here!”
“Be here no longer, Lilith” — said El-Râmi, speaking with unusual gentleness,— “Go home to that fair garden you love, on the high hills of the bright world called Alcyone. There rest, and be happy till I summon you to earth again.”
He released her hand, — it fell limply in its usual position on her breast, — and her face became white and rigid as sculptured marble. He watched her lying so for a minute or two, then turning to the monk, observed —
“She has left us at once, as you see. Surely you will own that I do not grudge her her liberty?”
“Her liberty is not complete” — said the monk quietly— “Her happiness therefore is only temporary.”
El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
“What does that matter if, as you declare, her time of captivity is soon to end? According to your prognostications she will ere long set herself free.”
The monk’s fine eyes flashed forth a calm and holy triumph.
“Most assuredly she will!”
El-Râmi looked at him and seemed about to make some angry retort, but checking himself, he bowed with a kind of mingled submissiveness and irony, saying —
“I will not be so discourteous as to doubt your word! But — I would only remind you that nothing in this world is certain—”
“Except the Law of God!” interrupted the monk with passionate emphasis— “That is immutable, — and against that, El-Râmi Zarânos, you contend in vain! Opposed to that, your strength and power must come to naught, — and all they who wonder at your skill and wisdom shall by-and-by ask one another the old question— ‘What went ye out for to see?’ And the answer shall describe your fate— ‘A reed shaken by the wind!’”
He turned away as he spoke and without another look at the beautiful Lilith, he left the room. El-Râmi stood irresolute for a moment, thinking deeply, — then, touching the bell which would summon Zaroba back to her usual duty of watching the tranced girl, he swiftly followed his mysterious guest.
CHAPTER II.
HE found him quietly seated in the study, close beside the window, which he had thrown open for air. The rain had ceased, — a few stars shone out in the misty sky, and there was a fresh smell of earth and grass and flowers, as though all were suddenly growing together by some new impetus.
“‘The winter is past, — the rain is over and gone! — Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!’” quoted the monk softly, half to himself and half to El-Râmi as he saw the latter enter the room— “Even in this great and densely peopled city of London, Nature sends her messengers of spring — see here!”
And he held out on his hand a delicate insect with shining iridescent wings that glistened like jewels.
“This creature flew in as I opened the window,” he continued, surveying it tenderly. “What quaint and charming stories of Flower-land it could tell us if we could but understand its language! Of the poppy-palaces, and rose-leaf saloons coloured through by the kindly sun, — of the loves of the ladybirds and the political controversies of the bees! How dare we make a boast of wisdom! — this tiny denizen of air baffles us — it knows more than we do.”
“With regard to the things of its own sphere it knows more, doubtless,” said El-Râmi— “but concerning our part of creation, it knows less. These things are equally balanced. You seem to me to be more of a poet than either a devotee or a scientist.”
“Perhaps I am!” and the monk smiled, as he carefully wafted the pretty insect out into the darkness of the night again— “Yet poets are often the best scientists, because they never know they are scientists. They arrive by a sudden intuition at the facts which it takes several Professors Dry-as — Dust years to discover. When once you feel you are a scientist, it is all over with you. You are a clever biped who has got hold of a crumb out of the Universal Loaf, and for all your days afterwards you are turning that crumb over and over under your analytical lens. But a poet takes up the whole Loaf unconsciously, and hands portions of it about at haphazard and with the abstracted behaviour of one in a dream, — a wild and extravagant process, — but then, what would you? — his nature could not do with a crumb. No — I dare not call myself ‘poet’; if I gave myself any title at all, I would say, with all humbleness, that I am a sympathizer.”
“You do not sympathize with me,” observed El-Râmi gloomily.
“My friend, at the immediate moment, you do not need my sympathy. You are sufficient for yourself. But, should you ever make a claim upon me, be sure I shall not fail.”
He spoke earnestly and cheerily, and smiled, — but El-Râmi did not return the smile. He was bending over a deep drawer in his writing-table, and after a little search he took out two bulky rolls of manuscript tied and sealed.
“Look there!” he said, indicating the titles with an air of triumph.
The monk obeyed and read aloud:
“‘The Inhabitants of Sirius. Their Laws, Customs, and Progress.’ Well?”
“Well!” echoed El-Râmi.— “Is such information, gained from Lilith in her wanderings, of no value?”
The monk made no direct reply, but read the title of the second MS.
“‘The World of Neptune. How it is composed of One Thousand Distinct Nations, united under one reigning Emperor, known at the present era as Ustalvian the Tenth.’ And again I say — well? What of all this, except to hazard the remark that Ustalvian is a great creature, and supports his responsibilities admirably?”
El-Râmi gave a gesture of irritation and impatience.
“Surely it must interest you?” he said. “Surely you cannot have known these things positively—”
“Stop, stop, my friend!” interposed the monk.— “Do you know them positively? Do you accept any of Lilith’s news as positive? Come, — you are honest — confess you do not! You cannot believe her, though you are puzzled to make out as to where she obtains information which has certainly nothing to do with this world, or any external impression. And that is why she is really a Sphinx to you still, in spite of your power over her. As for being interested, of course I am interested. It is impossible not to be interested in everything, even in the development of a grub. But you have not made any discovery that is specially new — to me. I have my own Messenger!” He raised his eyes one moment with a brief devout glance — then resumed quietly— “There are other ‘detached’ spirits, besides that of your Lilith, who have found their way to some of the planets, and have returned to tell the tale. In one of our monasteries we have a very exact description of Mars obtained in this same way — its landscapes, its cities, its people, its various nations — all very concisely given. These are but the beginnings of discoveries — the feeling for the Clue, — the Clue itself will be found one day.”
“The Clue to what?” demanded El-Râmi. “To the stellar mysteries, or to Life’s mystery?”
“To everything!” replied the monk firmly. “To everything that seems unclear and perplexing now. It will all be unravelled for us in such a simple way that we shall wonder why we did not discover it before. As I told you, my friend, I am, above all things, a sympathizer. I sympathize — God knows how deeply and passionately, — with what I may call the unexplained woe of the world. The other day I visited a poor fellow who had lost his only child. He told me he could believe in nothing, — he said that what people call the goodness of God was only cruelty. ‘Why take this boy!’ he cried, rocking the pretty little corpse to and fro on his breast— ‘Why rob me of the chief thing I had to live for? Oh, if I only knew — as positively as I know day is day, and night is night — that I should see my living child again, and possess his love in another world than this, should I repine as I do? No, — I should believe in God’s wisdom, — and I should try to be a good man instead of a bad. But it is because I do not know, that I am broken-hearted. If there is a God, surely He might have given us some little certain clue by way of help and comfort!’ Thus he wailed, — and my heart ached for him. Nevertheless the clue is to be had, — and I believe it will be found suddenly in some little, deeply-hidden unguessed Law, — we are on the track of it, and I fancy we shall soon find it.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 258
