Lilith: A Romance

by George MacDonald

  CHAPTER XXXIX. THAT NIGHT

  Their night was a troubled one, and they brought a strange report ofit into the day. Whether the fear of their sleep came out into theirwaking, or their waking fear sank with them into their dreams, awake orasleep they were never at rest from it. All night something seemed goingon in the house--something silent, something terrible, something theywere not to know. Never a sound awoke; the darkness was one with thesilence, and the silence was the terror.

  Once, a frightful wind filled the house, and shook its inside, theysaid, so that it quivered and trembled like a horse shaking himself;but it was a silent wind that made not even a moan in their chamber, andpassed away like a soundless sob.

  They fell asleep. But they woke again with a great start. They thoughtthe house was filling with water such as they had been drinking. It camefrom below, and swelled up until the garret was full of it to the veryroof. But it made no more sound than the wind, and when it sank away,they fell asleep dry and warm.

  The next time they woke, all the air, they said, inside and out, wasfull of cats. They swarmed--up and down, along and across, everywhereabout the room. They felt their claws trying to get through thenight-gowns lady Mara had put on them, but they could not; and in themorning not one of them had a scratch. Through the dark suddenly, camethe only sound they heard the night long--the far-off howl of the hugegreat-grandmother-cat in the desert: she must have been calling herlittle ones, they thought, for that instant the cats stopped, and allwas still. Once more they fell fast asleep, and did not wake till thesun was rising.

  Such was the account the children gave of their experiences. But I waswith the veiled woman and the princess all through the night: somethingof what took place I saw; much I only felt; and there was more which eyecould not see, and heart only could in a measure understand.

  As soon as Mara left the room with the children, my eyes fell on thewhite leopardess: I thought we had left her behind us, but there shewas, cowering in a corner. Apparently she was in mortal terror of whatshe might see. A lamp stood on the high chimney-piece, and sometimesthe room seemed full of lamp-shadows, sometimes of cloudy forms. Theprincess lay on the settle by the wall, and seemed never to have movedhand or foot. It was a fearsome waiting.

  When Mara returned, she drew the settle with Lilith upon it to themiddle of the room, then sat down opposite me, at the other side of thehearth. Between us burned a small fire.

  Something terrible was on its way! The cloudy presences flickered andshook. A silvery creature like a slowworm came crawling out from amongthem, slowly crossed the clay floor, and crept into the fire. We satmotionless. The something came nearer.

  But the hours passed, midnight drew nigh, and there was no change. Thenight was very still. Not a sound broke the silence, not a rustle fromthe fire, not a crack from board or beam. Now and again I felt a sort ofheave, but whether in the earth or in the air or in the waters under theearth, whether in my own body or in my soul--whether it was anywhere,I could not tell. A dread sense of judgment was upon me. But I was notafraid, for I had ceased to care for aught save the thing that must bedone.

  Suddenly it was midnight. The muffled woman rose, turned toward thesettle, and slowly unwound the long swathes that hid her face: theydropped on the ground, and she stepped over them. The feet of theprincess were toward the hearth; Mara went to her head, and turning,stood behind it. Then I saw her face. It was lovely beyond speech--whiteand sad, heart-and-soul sad, but not unhappy, and I knew it never couldbe unhappy. Great tears were running down her cheeks: she wiped themaway with her robe; her countenance grew very still, and she wept nomore. But for the pity in every line of her expression, she would haveseemed severe. She laid her hand on the head of the princess--on thehair that grew low on the forehead, and stooping, breathed on the sallowbrow. The body shuddered.

  "Will you turn away from the wicked things you have been doing so long?"said Mara gently.

  The princess did not answer. Mara put the question again, in the samesoft, inviting tone.

  Still there was no sign of hearing. She spoke the words a third time.

  Then the seeming corpse opened its mouth and answered, its wordsappearing to frame themselves of something else than sound.--I cannotshape the thing further: sounds they were not, yet they were words tome.

  "I will not," she said. "I will be myself and not another!"

  "Alas, you are another now, not yourself! Will you not be your realself?"

  "I will be what I mean myself now."

  "If you were restored, would you not make what amends you could for themisery you have caused?"

  "I would do after my nature."

  "You do not know it: your nature is good, and you do evil!"

  "I will do as my Self pleases--as my Self desires."

  "You will do as the Shadow, overshadowing your Self inclines you?"

  "I will do what I will to do."

  "You have killed your daughter, Lilith!"

  "I have killed thousands. She is my own!"

  "She was never yours as you are another's."

  "I am not another's; I am my own, and my daughter is mine."

  "Then, alas, your hour is come!"

  "I care not. I am what I am; no one can take from me myself!"

  "You are not the Self you imagine."

  "So long as I feel myself what it pleases me to think myself, I carenot. I am content to be to myself what I would be. What I choose to seemto myself makes me what I am. My own thought makes me me; my own thoughtof myself is me. Another shall not make me!"

  "But another has made you, and can compel you to see what you have madeyourself. You will not be able much longer to look to yourself anythingbut what he sees you! You will not much longer have satisfaction in thethought of yourself. At this moment you are aware of the coming change!"

  "No one ever made me. I defy that Power to unmake me from a free woman!You are his slave, and I defy you! You may be able to torture me--I donot know, but you shall not compel me to anything against my will!"

  "Such a compulsion would be without value. But there is a light thatgoes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behindit: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and notanother's--not the Shadow's. Into the created can pour itself thecreating will, and so redeem it!"

  "That light shall not enter me: I hate it!--Begone, slave!"

  "I am no slave, for I love that light, and will with the deeper willwhich created mine. There is no slave but the creature that willsagainst its creator. Who is a slave but her who cries, 'I am free,' yetcannot cease to exist!"

  "You speak foolishness from a cowering heart! You imagine me given overto you: I defy you! I hold myself against you! What I choose to be, youcannot change. I will not be what you think me--what you say I am!"

  "I am sorry: you must suffer!"

  "But be free!"

  "She alone is free who would make free; she loves not freedom who wouldenslave: she is herself a slave. Every life, every will, every heartthat came within your ken, you have sought to subdue: you are the slaveof every slave you have made--such a slave that you do not know it!--Seeyour own self!"

  She took her hand from the head of the princess, and went two backwardpaces from her.

  A soundless presence as of roaring flame possessed the house--the same,I presume, that was to the children a silent wind. Involuntarily Iturned to the hearth: its fire was a still small moveless glow. But Isaw the worm-thing come creeping out, white-hot, vivid as incandescentsilver, the live heart of essential fire. Along the floor it crawledtoward the settle, going very slow. Yet more slowly it crept up onit, and laid itself, as unwilling to go further, at the feet of theprincess. I rose and stole nearer. Mara stood motionless, as one thatwaits an event foreknown. The shining thing crawled on to a bare bonyfoot: it showed no suffering, neither was the settle scorched where theworm had lain. Slowly, very slowly, it crept along her robe until itreached her bosom, where it disappeared among the folds.

>   The face of the princess lay stonily calm, the eyelids closed as overdead eyes; and for some minutes nothing followed. At length, on the dry,parchment-like skin, began to appear drops as of the finest dew: in amoment they were as large as seed-pearls, ran together, and began topour down in streams. I darted forward to snatch the worm from the poorwithered bosom, and crush it with my foot. But Mara, Mother of Sorrow,stepped between, and drew aside the closed edges of the robe: no serpentwas there--no searing trail; the creature had passed in by the centreof the black spot, and was piercing through the joints and marrow tothe thoughts and intents of the heart. The princess gave one writhing,contorted shudder, and I knew the worm was in her secret chamber.

  "She is seeing herself!" said Mara; and laying her hand on my arm, shedrew me three paces from the settle.

  Of a sudden the princess bent her body upward in an arch, then sprang tothe floor, and stood erect. The horror in her face made me tremble lesther eyes should open, and the sight of them overwhelm me. Her bosomheaved and sank, but no breath issued. Her hair hung and dripped; thenit stood out from her head and emitted sparks; again hung down, andpoured the sweat of her torture on the floor.

  I would have thrown my arms about her, but Mara stopped me.

  "You cannot go near her," she said. "She is far away from us, afar inthe hell of her self-consciousness. The central fire of the universe isradiating into her the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of whatshe is. She sees at last the good she is not, the evil she is. She knowsthat she is herself the fire in which she is burning, but she does notknow that the Light of Life is the heart of that fire. Her torment isthat she is what she is. Do not fear for her; she is not forsaken. Nogentler way to help her was left. Wait and watch."

  It may have been five minutes or five years that she stood thus--Icannot tell; but at last she flung herself on her face.

  Mara went to her, and stood looking down upon her. Large tears fell fromher eyes on the woman who had never wept, and would not weep.

  "Will you change your way?" she said at length.

  "Why did he make me such?" gasped Lilith. "I would have made myself--oh,so different! I am glad it was he that made me and not I myself!He alone is to blame for what I am! Never would I have made such aworthless thing! He meant me such that I might know it and be miserable!I will not be made any longer!"

  "Unmake yourself, then," said Mara.

  "Alas, I cannot! You know it, and mock me! How often have I not agonisedto cease, but the tyrant keeps me being! I curse him!--Now let him killme!"

  The words came in jets as from a dying fountain.

  "Had he not made you," said Mara, gently and slowly, "you could not evenhate him. But he did not make you such. You have made yourself what youare.--Be of better cheer: he can remake you."

  "I will not be remade!"

  "He will not change you; he will only restore you to what you were."

  "I will not be aught of his making."

  "Are you not willing to have that set right which you have set wrong?"

  She lay silent; her suffering seemed abated.

  "If you are willing, put yourself again on the settle."

  "I will not," she answered, forcing the words through her clenchedteeth.

  A wind seemed to wake inside the house, blowing without sound or impact;and a water began to rise that had no lap in its ripples, no sob in itsswell. It was cold, but it did not benumb. Unseen and noiseless it came.It smote no sense in me, yet I knew it rising. I saw it lift at last andfloat her. Gently it bore her, unable to resist, and left rather thanlaid her on the settle. Then it sank swiftly away.

  The strife of thought, accusing and excusing, began afresh, andgathered fierceness. The soul of Lilith lay naked to the torture of pureinterpenetrating inward light. She began to moan, and sigh deep sighs,then murmur as holding colloquy with a dividual self: her queendom wasno longer whole; it was divided against itself. One moment she wouldexult as over her worst enemy, and weep; the next she would writhe as inthe embrace of a friend whom her soul hated, and laugh like a demon.At length she began what seemed a tale about herself, in a languageso strange, and in forms so shadowy, that I could but here and thereunderstand a little. Yet the language seemed the primeval shape of oneI knew well, and the forms to belong to dreams which had once been mine,but refused to be recalled. The tale appeared now and then to touch uponthings that Adam had read from the disparted manuscript, and often tomake allusion to influences and forces--vices too, I could not helpsuspecting--with which I was unacquainted.

  She ceased, and again came the horror in her hair, the sparkling andflowing alternate. I sent a beseeching look to Mara.

  "Those, alas, are not the tears of repentance!" she said. "The truetears gather in the eyes. Those are far more bitter, and not so good.Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step inthe way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self heabominates. Once with his father, he is to himself of no more account.It will be so with her."

  She went nearer and said,

  "Will you restore that which you have wrongfully taken?"

  "I have taken nothing," answered the princess, forcing out the wordsin spite of pain, "that I had not the right to take. My power to takemanifested my right."

  Mara left her.

  Gradually my soul grew aware of an invisible darkness, a somethingmore terrible than aught that had yet made itself felt. A horribleNothingness, a Negation positive infolded her; the border of its beingthat was yet no being, touched me, and for one ghastly instant I seemedalone with Death Absolute! It was not the absence of everything I felt,but the presence of Nothing. The princess dashed herself from the settleto the floor with an exceeding great and bitter cry. It was the recoilof Being from Annihilation.

  "For pity's sake," she shrieked, "tear my heart out, but let me live!"

  With that there fell upon her, and upon us also who watched with her,the perfect calm as of a summer night. Suffering had all but reached thebrim of her life's cup, and a hand had emptied it! She raised her head,half rose, and looked around her. A moment more, and she stood erect,with the air of a conqueror: she had won the battle! Dareful she had mether spiritual foes; they had withdrawn defeated! She raised her witheredarm above her head, a paean of unholy triumph in her throat--whensuddenly her eyes fixed in a ghastly stare.--What was she seeing?

  I looked, and saw: before her, cast from unseen heavenly mirror, stoodthe reflection of herself, and beside it a form of splendent beauty, Shetrembled, and sank again on the floor helpless. She knew the one whatGod had intended her to be, the other what she had made herself.

  The rest of the night she lay motionless altogether.

  With the gray dawn growing in the room, she rose, turned to Mara, andsaid, in prideful humility, "You have conquered. Let me go into thewilderness and bewail myself."

  Mara saw that her submission was not feigned, neither was it real. Shelooked at her a moment, and returned:

  "Begin, then, and set right in the place of wrong."

  "I know not how," she replied--with the look of one who foresaw andfeared the answer.

  "Open thy hand, and let that which is in it go."

  A fierce refusal seemed to struggle for passage, but she kept itprisoned.

  "I cannot," she said. "I have no longer the power. Open it for me."

  She held out the offending hand. It was more a paw than a hand. Itseemed to me plain that she could not open it.

  Mara did not even look at it.

  "You must open it yourself," she said quietly.

  "I have told you I cannot!"

  "You can if you will--not indeed at once, but by persistent effort. Whatyou have done, you do not yet wish undone--do not yet intend to undo!"

  "You think so, I dare say," rejoined the princess with a flash ofinsolence, "but I KNOW that I cannot open my hand!"

  "I know you better than you know yourself, and I know you can. You haveoften opened it a little way. Without trouble and pain
you cannot openit quite, but you CAN open it. At worst you could beat it open! I prayyou, gather your strength, and open it wide."

  "I will not try what I know impossible. It would be the part of a fool!"

  "Which you have been playing all your life! Oh, you are hard to teach!"

  Defiance reappeared on the face of the princess. She turned her back onMara, saying, "I know what you have been tormenting me for! You have notsucceeded, nor shall you succeed! You shall yet find me stronger thanyou think! I will yet be mistress of myself! I am still what I havealways known myself--queen of Hell, and mistress of the worlds!"

  Then came the most fearful thing of all. I did not know what it was; Iknew myself unable to imagine it; I knew only that if it came near me Ishould die of terror! I now know that it was LIFE IN DEATH--life dead,yet existent; and I knew that Lilith had had glimpses, but only glimpsesof it before: it had never been with her until now.

  She stood as she had turned. Mara went and sat down by the fire. Fearingto stand alone with the princess, I went also and sat again by thehearth. Something began to depart from me. A sense of cold, yet not whatwe call cold, crept, not into, but out of my being, and pervaded it. Thelamp of life and the eternal fire seemed dying together, and I aboutto be left with naught but the consciousness that I had been alive.Mercifully, bereavement did not go so far, and my thought went back toLilith.

  Something was taking place in her which we did not know. We knew we didnot feel what she felt, but we knew we felt something of the miseryit caused her. The thing itself was in her, not in us; its reflex, hermisery, reached us, and was again reflected in us: she was in the outerdarkness, we present with her who was in it! We were not in the outerdarkness; had we been, we could not have been WITH her; we should havebeen timelessly, spacelessly, absolutely apart. The darkness knowsneither the light nor itself; only the light knows itself and thedarkness also. None but God hates evil and understands it.

  Something was gone from her, which then first, by its absence, she knewto have been with her every moment of her wicked years. The source oflife had withdrawn itself; all that was left her of conscious being wasthe dregs of her dead and corrupted life.

  She stood rigid. Mara buried her head in her hands. I gazed on the faceof one who knew existence but not love--knew nor life, nor joy, norgood; with my eyes I saw the face of a live death! She knew life only toknow that it was dead, and that, in her, death lived. It was not merelythat life had ceased in her, but that she was consciously a dead thing.She had killed her life, and was dead--and knew it. She must DEATH ITfor ever and ever! She had tried her hardest to unmake herself, andcould not! she was a dead life! she could not cease! she must BE! In herface I saw and read beyond its misery--saw in its dismay that the dismaybehind it was more than it could manifest. It sent out a livid gloom;the light that was in her was darkness, and after its kind it shone. Shewas what God could not have created. She had usurped beyond her sharein self-creation, and her part had undone His! She saw now what she hadmade, and behold, it was not good! She was as a conscious corpse, whosecoffin would never come to pieces, never set her free! Her bodily eyesstood wide open, as if gazing into the heart of horror essential--herown indestructible evil. Her right hand also was now clenched--uponexistent Nothing--her inheritance!

  But with God all things are possible: He can save even the rich!

  Without change of look, without sign of purpose, Lilith walked towardMara. She felt her coming, and rose to meet her.

  "I yield," said the princess. "I cannot hold out. I am defeated.--Notthe less, I cannot open my hand."

  "Have you tried?"

  "I am trying now with all my might."

  "I will take you to my father. You have wronged him worst of thecreated, therefore he best of the created can help you."

  "How can HE help me?"

  "He will forgive you."

  "Ah, if he would but help me to cease! Not even that am I capable of! Ihave no power over myself; I am a slave! I acknowledge it. Let me die."

  "A slave thou art that shall one day be a child!" answeredMara.--"Verily, thou shalt die, but not as thou thinkest. Thou shaltdie out of death into life. Now is the Life for, that never was againstthee!"

  Like her mother, in whom lay the motherhood of all the world, Mara puther arms around Lilith, and kissed her on the forehead. The fiery-coldmisery went out of her eyes, and their fountains filled. She lifted, andbore her to her own bed in a corner of the room, laid her softly uponit, and closed her eyes with caressing hands.

  Lilith lay and wept. The Lady of Sorrow went to the door and opened it.

  Morn, with the Spring in her arms, waited outside. Softly they stole inat the opened door, with a gentle wind in the skirts of their garments.It flowed and flowed about Lilith, rippling the unknown, upwaking sea ofher life eternal; rippling and to ripple it, until at length she who hadbeen but as a weed cast on the dry sandy shore to wither, should knowherself an inlet of the everlasting ocean, henceforth to flow into herfor ever, and ebb no more. She answered the morning wind with revivingbreath, and began to listen. For in the skirts of the wind had comethe rain--the soft rain that heals the mown, the many-woundedgrass--soothing it with the sweetness of all music, the hush that livesbetween music and silence. It bedewed the desert places around thecottage, and the sands of Lilith's heart heard it, and drank it in. WhenMara returned to sit by her bed, her tears were flowing softer than therain, and soon she was fast asleep.