“You are very patient!” he said, quietly— “And that is well! The Master awaits you.”
A tremor ran through me, and my heart began to beat violently. I was to have my wilful desires granted, then! I was actually to see and speak with the man to whom Rafel Santoris owed his prolonged youth and power, and under whose training he had passed through an ordeal which had taught him some of the deepest mysteries of life! The result of my own wishes seemed now so terrifying to me that I could not have uttered a word had I tried, I followed my escort in absolute silence; — once in my nervous agitation I slipped on the stone staircase and nearly fell, — he at once caught me by the hand and supported me, and the kindness and gentle strength of his touch renewed my courage. His wonderful eyes looked steadily into mine.
“Do not be afraid!” he said, in a low tone— “There is really nothing to fear!”
We passed the domed hall and its sparkling fountain, and in two or three minutes came to a deep archway veiled by a portiere of some rich stuff woven in russet brown and gold, — this curtain my guide threw back noiselessly, showing a closed door. Here he came to a standstill and waited — I waited with him, trying to be calm, though my mind was in a perfect tumult of expectation mingled with doubt and dread, — that closed door seemed to me to conceal some marvellous secret with which my whole future life and destiny were likely to be involved. Suddenly it opened, — I saw a beautiful octagonal room, richly furnished, with the walls lined, so it appeared, from floor to ceiling with books, — one or two great stands and vases of flowers made flashes of colour among the shadows, and a quick upward glance showed me that the ceiling was painted in fresco, then my guide signed to me to enter.
“The Master will be with you in a moment,” — he said— “Please sit down” — here he gave me an encouraging smile— “You are a little nervous — try and compose yourself! You need not be at all anxious or frightened!”
I tried to smile in response, but I felt far more ready to weep. I was possessed by a sudden hopeless and helpless depression which I could not overcome. My guide went away at once, and the door closed after him in the same mysteriously silent fashion in which it had opened. I was left to myself, — and I sat down on one of the numerous deep easy chairs which were placed about the room, trying hard to force myself into at least the semblance of quietude. But, after all, what was the use of even assuming composure when the man I had come to meet probably had the power to gauge the whole gamut of a human being’s emotion at a moment’s notice? Instinctively I pressed my hand against my heart and felt the letter my ‘lover’ had given me — surely that was no dream?
I drew a long breath like a sigh, and turned my eyes towards the window, which was set in a sort of double arch of stone, and which showed me a garden stretching far away from the edges of soft lawns and flower borders into a picturesque vista of woodland and hill. A warmth of rosy light illumined the fair scene, indicating that the glory of the sunset had begun. Impulsively I rose to go and look out — then stopped — checked and held back by a swift compelling awe — I was no longer alone. I was confronted by the tall commanding figure of a man wearing the same white garments as those of my guide, — a man whose singular beauty and dignity of aspect would have enforced admiration from even the most callous and unobservant — and I knew that I was truly at last in the presence of Aselzion. Overpowered by this certainty, I could not speak — I could only look and wonder as he drew near me. His cowl was thrown back, fully displaying his fine intellectual head — his eyes, deep blue and full of light, studied my face with a keen scrutiny which I could FEEL as though it were a searching ray burning into every nook and cranny of my heart and soul. The blood rushed to my cheeks in a warm wave — then suddenly rallying my forces I returned him glance for glance. Thus we moved, each on our own lines of spiritual attraction, closer together; till presently a slight smile brightened the gravity of his handsome features, and he extended both hands to me.
“You are welcome!” he said, in a voice that expressed the most perfect music of human speech— “Rash and undisciplined as you are, you are welcome!”
Timidly I laid my hands in his, grateful for the warm, strong clasp he gave them, — then, all at once, hardly knowing how it happened, I sank on my knees as before some saint or king, silently seeking his blessing. There was a moment’s deep stillness, — and he laid his hands on my bowed head.
“Poor child!” he said, gently— “You have adventured far for love and life! — it will be hard if you should fail! May all the powers of God and Nature help you!”
This said, he raised me with an infinitely courteous kindness, and placed a chair for me near a massive table-desk on which there were many papers — some neatly tied up and labelled, — others lying about in apparent confusion — and when we were both seated he began conversation in the simplest and easiest fashion.
“You know, of course, that I have been prepared for your arrival here,” — he said— “by one of my students, Rafel Santoris. He has been seeking you for a long time, but now he has found you he is hardly better off — for you are a rebellious child and unwilling to recognise him — is it not so?”
I felt a little more courageous now, and answered him at once.
“I am not unwilling to recognise any true thing,” I said— “But I do not wish to be deceived — or to deceive myself.”
He smiled.
“Do you not? How do you know that you have not been deceiving yourself ever since your gradual evolvement from subconscious into conscious life? Nature has not deceived you — Nature always takes herself seriously — but you — have you not tried in various moods or phases of existence, to do something cleverer than Nature? — to more or less outwit her as it were? Come, come! — don’t look so puzzled about it! — you have only done what all so-called ‘reasonable’ human beings do, and think themselves justified in doing. But now, in your present state, — which is an advancement, and not a retrogression, — you have begun to gain a little wider knowledge, with a little deeper humility — and I am inclined to have great patience with you!”
I raised my eyes and was reassured by his kindly glance.
“Now, to begin with,” — he went on— “you should know at once that we do not receive women here. It is against our rule and Order. We are not prepared for them, — we do not want them. They are never more than HALF souls!”
My heart gave an indignant bound, — but I held my peace. He looked straight at me, while with one hand he put together a few stray papers on his desk.
“Well, why do you not give me the obvious answer?” he queried— “Why do you not say that if women are half souls, men are the same, — and that the two halves must conjoin to make one? Foolish child! — you need not burn with suppressed offence at what sounds a slighting description of your sex — it is not meant as such. You ARE half souls, — and the chief trouble with you is that you seldom have the sense to see it, or to make any endeavour to form the perfect and indivisible union, — a sacred task which is left in your hands. Nature is for ever working to bring the right halves together, — man is for ever striving to scatter them apart — and though it all comes right at the last, as it must, there is no need for delay involving either months or centuries. You women were meant to be the angels of salvation, but instead of this you are the ruin of your own ‘ideals.’”
I could offer no contradiction to this, for I felt it to be true.
“As I have just said,” he went on— “this is no place for women. The mere idea that you should imagine yourself, capable of submitting to the ordeal of a student here is, on the face of it, incredible. Only for Rafel’s sake have I consented to see you and explain to you how impossible it is that you should remain—”
I interrupted him.
“I MUST remain!” I said, firmly. “Do with me whatever you like — put me in a cell and keep me a prisoner, — give me any hardship to endure and I will endure it — but do not turn me away without teaching me somethi
ng of your peace and power — the peace and power which Rafel possesses, and which I too must possess if I would help him and be all in all to him—”
Here I paused, overcome by my own emotion. Aselzion looked full at me.
“That is your desire? — to help him and to be all in all to him?” he said— “Why did you not realise this ages ago? And even now you have wavered in the allegiance you owe to him — you have doubted him, though all your inward instincts tell you that he is your soul’s true mate, and that your own heart beats towards him like a bird in a cage beating against the bars towards liberty!”
I was silent. My fate seemed in a balance, — but I left it to Aselzion, who, if his power meant anything, could read my thoughts better than I could express them. He rose from his desk and paced slowly up and down, absorbed in meditation. Presently he stopped abruptly in front of me.
“If you stay here,” he said— “you must understand what it means. It means that you must dwell as one apart in your own room, entirely alone except when summoned to receive instruction — your meals will be served there — and you will feel like a criminal undergoing punishment rather than enlightenment — and you may speak to no one unless spoken to first. Moreover” — he interrupted himself and beckoned me to follow him into another room adjoining the one we were in. Here, leading me to a window, he showed me a very different view from the sunlit landscape and garden I had lately looked upon, — a dismal square of rank grass in which stood a number of black crosses.
“These do not mark deaths,” — he said— “but failures! Failures — not in a worldly sense — but failures in making of life the eternal and creative thing it is — eternal HERE and now, — as long as we shall choose! Do you seek to be one of them?”
“No,” — I answered, quietly— “I shall not fail!”
He gave a slight, impatient sigh.
“So they all said — they whose records are here” — and he pointed to the crosses with an impressive gesture— “Some of the men who have thus left their mark with us, are at this moment among the world’s most brilliant and successful personalities — wealthy, and in great social request, — and only they themselves know where the canker lies — only they are aware of their own futility, — and they live, knowing that their life must lead into other lives, and dreading that inevitable Change which is bound by law to bring them into whatever position they have chiefly sought!”
His voice was grave and compassionate, and a faint tremor of fear ran through me.
“These were — and are — MEN!” — he continued— “And you — a woman — would boldly attempt the adventures in which they failed! Think for a moment how weak and ignorant and all unprepared you are! When you first began your psychic studies with a Teacher whom we both loved and honoured — one whom you knew by the name of Heliobas — you had scarcely lived at all in the world; — since then you have worked hard and done much, but in your close application to the conquest of difficulties you have missed many things by the way. I give you credit for patience and faith — these have accomplished much for you — and now you are at a crucial point in your career when your Will, like the rudder of a ship, trembles in your hand, and you are plunging into unknown further deeps where there may be storm and darkness. There is danger ahead for any doubting, proud, or rebellious soul, — it is but fair to warn you!”
“I am not afraid!” I said, in a low tone— “I can but die!”
“Child, that is just what you cannot do! Grasp that fact firmly at once and for ever! You cannot die, — there is no such thing as death! If you could die and have done with all duties, cares, perplexities and struggles altogether, the eternal problem would be greatly simplified. But the idea of death is only one of a million human delusions. Death is an impossibility in the scheme of Life — what is called by that name is merely a shifting and re-investiture of imperishable atoms. The endless varying forms of this shifting and re-investiture of atoms is the secret we and our students have set ourselves to master — and some of us have mastered it sufficiently to control both the matter and spirit whereof we are made. But the way of learning is not an easy way — Rafel Santoris himself could have told you that he was all but overcome in the trial — for I spare no one! — and if you persist in your rash intention I cannot spare you simply because of your sex.”
“I do not ask to be spared,” — I said, gently— “I have already told you I will endure anything.”
A slight smile crossed his face.
“So you will, I believe!” he answered— “In the old days I can well understand your enduring martyrdom! I can see you facing lions in the Roman arena,” — as he thus spoke I started, and the warm blood rushed to my cheeks— “rather than not carry out your own fixed resolve, whether such resolve was right or wrong! I can see you preparing to drown yourself in the waters of the Nile rather than break through man’s stupid superstition and convention! Why do you look so amazed? Am I touching on some old memory? Come, let us leave these black embers of coward mortality and return to the more cheerful room.”
We re-entered the library together, and he seated himself again at his desk, turning towards me with an air of settled and impressive authority.
“What you want to learn, — and what every beginner in the study of psychic law generally wants to learn first of all, is how to obtain purely personal satisfaction and advantage,” — he said— “You want to know three things — the secret of life — the secret of youth — the secret of love! Thousands of philosophers and students have entered upon the same research, and one perhaps out of the thousand has succeeded where all the rest have failed. The story of Faust is perpetually a thing of interest, because it treats of these secrets, which according to the legend are only discoverable through the aid of the devil. WE know that there is no devil, and that everything is divinely ordained by a Divine Intelligence, so that in the deepest researches which we are permitted to make there is nothing to fear — but Ourselves! Failure is always brought about by the students, not by the study in which they are engaged, — the reason of this being that when they know a little, they think they know all, — with the result that they become intellectually arrogant, an attitude that instantly nullifies all previous attainment. The secret of life is a comparatively easy matter to understand — the secret of youth a little more difficult — the secret of love the most difficult of all, because out of love is generated both the perpetuity of life and of youth. Now your object in coming here is, down at the root of it, absolutely personal — I will not say selfish, because that sounds hard — and I will give you credit for the true womanly feeling you have, that being conscious in your own soul of Rafel Santoris as your superior and master as well as your lover, you wish to be worthy of him, if only in the steadfastness and heroism of your character. I will grant you all that. I will also grant that it is perfectly natural, and therefore right, that you should wish to retain youth and beauty and health for his sake, — and I would even urge that this desire should be SOLELY for his sake! But just now you are not quite sure whether it is for his sake, — you wish to hold, for YOURSELF, the secret of life and the power of life’s continuance — the secret of youth and the power of youth’s continuance, — and you most certainly wish to have for yourself, as well as for Rafel, the secret of love and the power of love’s continuance. None of these secrets can be disclosed to worldlings — by which term I mean those who allow themselves to be moved from their determination, and distracted by a thousand ephemeral matters. I do not say you are such an one, — but you, like all who live in the world, have your friends and acquaintances — people who are ready to laugh at you and make mock of your highest aims — people whose delight would be to block the way to your progress — and the question with me is — Are you strong enough to ensure the mental strain which will be put upon you by ignorant and vulgar opposition and even positive derision? You may be, — you are self-willed enough, though not always rightly so — for example, you want to gain knowledge apa
rt from and independently of Rafel Santoris, yet you are an incomplete identity without him! The women of your day all follow this vicious policy — the desire to be independent and apart from men — which is the suicide of their nobler selves. None of them are complete creatures without their stronger halves — they are like deformed birds with only one wing, — and a straight flight is impossible to them.”
He ceased, and I looked up.
“Whether I agree with you or not hardly matters,” — I said— “I admit all my faults and am ready to amend them. But I want to learn from you all that I may — all that you think I am capable of learning — and I promise absolute obedience—”
A slight smile lightened his eyes.
“And humility?”
I bent my head.
“And humility!”
“You are resolved, then?”
“I am resolved!”
He paused a moment, then appeared to make up his mind.
“So be it!” he said— “But on your own head be your own mischance, if any mischance should happen! I take no responsibility. Of your own will you have come here — of your own will you elect to stay here, where there is no one of your own sex with whom you can communicate — and of your own will you must accept all the consequences. Is that agreed?”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 782
