He did not put the lights on in his rooms; he did not have the strength left to make any considered effort. He collapsed into an armchair and, staring into the night suffused with a golden light seeping from the street-lamps, he fell into reverie, following with his eyes the shadows made on the window-panes by the swaying trees.
"She must have been there," he thought, remembering her during the flagellation scene he had witnessed. He saw her again, her body covered in weals, writhing like a nest of blood-red snakes.
"She was there, she was," he kept repeating, feasting his eyes on her beauty and the shame of her nakedness, delighting in the painful certainty of his words, as if taking his revenge on her and at the same time feeling closer to her in sharing her secret.
"A medium ... for flagellation," he whispered with bitter contempt, when suddenly the front door slammed and all the lights came on.
He looked around in surprise. The door was shut and there was no one in the room; only a railway map lay open on his desk with certain routes marked out in thick, red lines. He stared at it in amazement, unable to understand who could have done this and when, for someone must have, only a moment ago, and might still be here ... The heavy door-curtains swayed in the last dying swing as if someone had just passed by. The floorboards squeaked in the other room. A chair was moved. Someone was there, passing from room to room, making the furniture tremble; he could hear the distinct rustling of someone's steps.
"Annie!" he called out, thinking it might be the maid.
There was no answer; the rustling stopped. In its place he heard a quiet, faraway singing which sounded as if it were coming from the end room. He rushed towards it but that room was empty too. Yet, the singing grew stronger and resounded clearly throughout the flat. He recognised Daisy's voice and the strange, mysterious song.
He stood stupefied with fear, searching the room with his eyes. No, there was no one there, but the sound was still flooding in though he could not say from where. One moment he heard it around him, the next it floated high above. Then, it came in like a wave and stopped again, only to re-emerge fuller and stronger but somewhere farther away, possibly in the first room. He followed it as if in a trance, but the singing had already grown faint and was coming from some distance, as if from behind the windows, echoing in the crowns of the trees swathed in darkness ... Or maybe he heard it within himself.
He was conscious and perfectly aware of what was happening around him, so without any further hesitation he decided to find out where the singing was coming from; he suspected that Daisy was at home in her rooms next door.
He knocked on the door energetically. Bagh, Daisy's black panther, answered him first with a short and angry snarl, and only after a while did the maid assure him through the closed door that Miss Daisy had gone out to town. He did not believe her and went downstairs to look for her in the communal reading-room.
"She is calling me. Yes, it's clear, she is calling me," he realised suddenly, remembering what he had been following in vain these last few days.
"Follow, do not ask, follow, do not ask," he kept repeating through his white lips and then, without any further deliberation, without the slightest hesitation or resistance he got up, calm, with cold determination, to follow the irrevocable command which was overpowering him again.
He started walking, he did not know where, as he followed the song which was calling to him from the shadows, sometimes weak as a baby's whimper, leading him to the unknown.
"I am coming. I am coming," he whispered walking faster and faster.
When he reached Piccadilly the singing voice was drowned in the noise of the crowded street. He stood helpless, looking around, when suddenly he saw her clearly, in the light of a brightly lit shop-window, walking on the other side of the street. He ran after her but could not find his way through the crowd.
"Come what may," he thought, quite unsurprised by the meeting, even certain it was the reason he was there, that it was ordained to be.
He followed her a few steps behind, keeping his distance even when the crowds had disappeared and their steps echoed along the empty streets; he followed her like a shadow, like necessity itself.
They passed through streets, empty squares and sleeping parks filled with quiet whisperings and then climbed the wide steps of a railway station. He bought a ticket to the same station she had mentioned to the cashier. He was not trying to hide from her and they entered the waiting room almost at the same time, but she looked at him as if she did not see him; her wandering eyes passed by his face as if it were an unfamiliar object, the way one looks at a stone by the roadside. He did not feel hurt; he understood that it must be like this. At times he even thought that they were one and the same person, so strangely harmonious was his feeling of identity with her soul. They wandered around side by side like two overlapping shadows, or two shafts of light which cannot be told apart.
He automatically followed her to the same train compartment, but before he reached it she shut the door, so he got into the next one. He stood at the window all the way, looking with empty eyes at the ghostly landscape looming out of the cloudy night, at the moon floating slowly through the rolling clouds, falling now and again into a blue, frayed precipice. If he saw anything it was her shadow, the black silhouette of her head lying in a square of light and moving with the train - she too must have been standing by the window
They got out at a small, sleepy station, passed through the empty, silent rooms and a dark, equally empty driveway, and disappeared in the blackness of a lane flanked by rows of huge trees.
The wind roared and the trees swayed heavily. A sleepy flutter among the rustling leaves and a mournful groan filled the air. The roadside hedges stood shaking, the hard laurel leaves resounded with a sorrowful sobbing, fear flapped its wings like an owl and hid in the darkness, lying in wait.
They entered a park and an impenetrable dark, bushy thicket. Above their heads shone bright strands of clear sky, stretching like long, winding roads full of rolling clouds. In an occasional flood of moonlight the shadows of the trees crashed onto the road with a dead weight of blackness, like a row of corpses.
Zenon walked on without fear, keeping his eyes on the faint, often disappearing figure of Daisy, listening to the mournful music of the swaying trees. He was not thinking of anything in particular. The shadows, full of enigmatic flashes of light, flooded his soul with dancing, elusive visions of what was to come, and those future moments, born in some unfathomable depths, were pushing him into a dark, inexplicable fear of mystery.
They came out into an open space. A great black mansion appeared in front of them and in the moonlight Zenon could see clearly the sharp contours of ruined towers, the walls gaping with broken windows, the old ivy which clung to the crumbling garden wall. Before he could find his bearings a shaft of blinding light burst from somewhere, probably the basement, and he heard doors bang.
Daisy disappeared and he was left alone, looking around helplessly. He was surrounded by the wall of trees bending with groans under the repeated gusts of wind like a crowd lashed by whips. The London lights glowed in the sky like a distant fire, huge but dying.
Nowhere was there a sign of human presence, or lights, or voices, only the sullen silence of decaying walls full of whistling wind. Everywhere bushes lay in wait, stretching out their grasping branches, stones and piles of rubble barred the way, and here and there glistened unseeing eyes of stale water.
He slowly walked around the house but all the doors were boarded up. In the end he returned to the wide stairs with ruined columns and balustrades, where he stopped in front of the main doors, uncertain what to do next. The wind grew stronger and stronger, howling in the ruins and even occasionally bringing down an odd piece of the wall. The trees were crashing into each other, rustling and swishing in the turbid darkness as the moon sank completely in the angry sea of rolling clouds. Then he heard the terrifying sound of faint voices coming from somewhere under the ground - where he could not s
ay - as if from a grave, seeping through the walls or simply floating through space, raised from the very bottom of the night.
"Be fearless do not ask - S-O-F reveals secrets." He repeated to himself the secret formula and, bravely taking in his hand a hammer he found hanging on a chain, he struck the door.
Silence ... Only the bronze moaned, sending a long, hollow echo ...
He struck again and said, stressing each letter:
The doors opened quietly, and the moment he came in they slammed behind him with a deafening crash.
He found himself in a high, dark hall. In the centre stood a huge copper censer full of red-hot coal emitting a heavy, intoxicating scent. Behind it loomed a colossal statue covered with purple drapery. Apart from these the hall was empty. From the smooth, naked walls of shiny stone leapt images of golden letters, mysterious symbols of fire, water and air, monsters and animals twisted in convulsions, masks screaming with horror, all barely visible through the strands of smoke and the shimmering purple of darkness.
He was looking around unable to find anybody, terrified by the dead silence which pressed on his soul like a gravestone, when suddenly the slab on which he was standing moved and began to float gently in a barely perceptible descent. He did not even stir but closed his eyes paralysed by fear and frozen by icy shivers. But he soon regained his senses when his hands felt a wall. Enveloped in total, impenetrable darkness he did not know what had happened to him or where he was, except that now he was in a low, narrow corridor. He bent down and bravely moved onward, holding on to the walls.
A chorus of low, muffled voices reached him again from afar like waves crashing against distant rocks. They moaned in the empty space with a faint quiver, coming closer and closer. He ran towards the sound, at once terrified and curious.
The corridor ended abruptly at a cold and slippery wall and the voices dissolved into silence. He was groping feverishly for a door when suddenly the floor gave way beneath him and he felt as if he were falling at incredible speed.
When he came to he found himself sitting on a stone bench. Carefully, he examined the walls around him. They were cold and smooth as if made of porphyry. The room was narrow but high, for even standing on the bench he could not reach the ceiling. One wall seemed to be colder than the others, as if made of glass, full of strange dents and hard, twisted lines, but with no sign of any doors or windows.
He collapsed in utter exhaustion, crushed by the weight of the terrible, stony silence. It seemed to him he had become a part of that petrified silence and, as in a dream, he saw the wall in front of him begin to emerge slowly from the night, growing more and more transparent and green like water; through it he could see the faint contours of the sea-bed, fantastic grottoes, the bizarre flora and fauna of a monstrous nature, the scattered reflections of ghostly apparitions.
He was sure it was a dream and did not dare to move in case the vision vanished. He stared with heavy eyes into the depths, from the middle of which emerged a rock swathed in flames, like a fiery ejaculation, a torch blazing in the wind, its wreathing flames a nest of red serpents. In the greenish twilight of the sea-bed lay enormous boulders, trees with branches like claws swayed from side to side, everything quivered with a mysterious motion.
Yes, this cave could only be a dream. Bristling with stalactites hanging like monstrous icicles, its green twilight began to shimmer with a golden drizzle like swarms of luminous butterflies, from which stepped out a silent procession of heavy figures. They moved through the emerald depths as if under water, floating around the vision of blazing flames. Then came the sound of a thousand harps plucked in unison and the figures scattered, freezing on the stones like rusty toads. Soon after, another long procession emerged, clad in white, barefoot, with bare female breasts and the heads of snakes, birds and animals - the entire infernal court of the sinister Seth. They marched slowly, rhythmically, carrying on their shoulders a long, black bier. Having passed the burning rock they stopped, put the bier in front of it and spread out on each side in two rows like a pair of white wings.
Suddenly, there was a terrifying clap of thunder and a golden rod of lightning shot through the cave. Everybody fell on their faces; the rock exploded with flames that leapt high into the air like a volcano before quietly subsiding, billowing golden clouds of incense. Slowly, amidst the dead silence of becoming, rose the figure of Baphomet. He emerged from the weak, pale, trembling flames like an angry cloud from the smouldering depths until he appeared in the full splendour of his terrifying presence.
The golden half-moons of his horns shone on his narrow, hairless skull. Naked, slender and youthful, he was sitting with his knees wide open and between them, like a venomous snake, writhed a blood-red streak of lightning. The crooked claws at the end of his long arms touched the shrouded bier lying at his golden hoofs. The carbuncles of his eyes flashed with light as they swept over the heads of those lying before him in the dust of humility. His was a terrifying beauty - cold as a steel blade and poisoned with a deathly charm. There was a fierce sweetness in his tightly drawn lips and his angrily knitted eyebrows were like bows strung with vengeance and wrath. In the sinewy face and the high, proud brow there lay the hidden suffering of eternal rebellion, the unending night of unavenged wrongs and endless wanderings. His stooped and taut body seemed ready to leap at any moment, as if he appeared only to plunge back into the abyss and roam the icy deserts of silence, and run forever, without end, always .. .
Zenon beheld the vision with growing horror; he felt he was not asleep and yet he could not believe it. He was struggling for his sanity, he wanted to run away but the cold, unyielding nightmare was everywhere around him. He wanted to scream in a surge of maddening horror, but his voice died in his throat like a strangled nestling. He hurled himself on the transparent, vitreous wall, beating and kicking it, but it did not even make a sound; he only hurt his hands and knees, and fell onto the floor utterly exhausted.
After some time he raised his head; the wall was still glowing with light, and he heard a drawn out, monotonous chant of strange words, falling like heavy flowers and weaving themselves into a solemn wreath of feverish whispers:
"Lord of night and silence!"
"Be with us!" answered the echoes.
"Lord of the frightened and the oppressed!" the chant intensified with passion.
Zenon got up and put his face against the wall; the cave was almost entirely filled with darkness but for the central figure of Baphomet, which shone brightly like a petrified streak of lightning. Drawn from the shadowy depths into this sphere of light floated the solemn, plaintive psalmody:
"... who redeems the cursed."
"The only one."
"He who comforts the ravished."
"Immortal vengeance."
"He who is equal in power."
"Painful shadow. "
"Light eternal pushed into the abyss."
"Fettered power!"
"Merciful power!"
"Holy power!"
Zenon suddenly recognised this strange litany. It had the same melody he had heard at the seance, the same words; until now he had been unable to recall where and when he had heard them.
But, as the chant continued, something stirred in the crowded and turbulent darkness. He could not make out the hazy contours. Misty, whitish shadows formed into a procession, floated around the figure, languished like trembling lights, and one of the shadows leaned over the bier. He clearly heard steps on the sharp gravel, whisperings, the hiss of flames, an invisible commotion.
Suddenly, the air was filled with a long, mournful roar.
"It's Bagh, Bagh!" he whispered, seeing the panther's silhouette leaping onto the bier. The shadowy pall fell off and a tall, naked figure rose slowly. He shuddered; he would have given his life to be able to see the face ... All he could see was a slender, naked body, swathed in a cloak of long, rustcoloured hair, standing between Baphomet's knees.
A strong, sonorous voice rang out with a question:
&
nbsp; "What do you want?"
"To die for Him," answered boldly another voice.
"Do you want to be wedded to Death?"
"I am wedded to vengeance and mystery."
"Do you curse A?"
"I do."
"Do you curse OF,
"I do."
"Do you curse M?"
"I do," were the clear, fearless answers.
He no longer paid any attention to the litany of terrible oaths and the pledges which turned his blood into ice, as he listened to the voice making them. He realised he had heard it before and, oblivious to the terrifying rite, he tried to remember the occasion, until in the end it dawned on him that it was Daisy, that it was she who was being sacrificed to Baphomet in this mysterious ceremony. But he was not surprised, for by now he was incapable of such a reaction.
The darkness paled and the cave gradually began to fill with light.
Daisy was sitting between Baphomet's knees in a position which mirrored his, her hands touching the panther stretched at her feet. Above her head, enveloped in the golden haze of incense, loomed the green-red, sad face of Satan, and his long arms seemed to be enfolding her in a tender embrace. That was all he could see clearly, for the rest whirled before his dazzled eyes like a dancing pageant of dimly remembered nightmares and apparitions. He did not know from where the visions came and could not tell if they were happening inside his mind.
There was the half-human, half-animal cortege of the dreaded god Seth leading a white lamb; the creature was killed with a heavy, stone knife by a man with a dog's head and then, accompanied by gruesome chants and curses, thrown to the panther.
There were the seven magic herbs sprinkled with the blood of an innocent babe, burnt and scattered to the seven corners of the world.
There was a procession of gigantic reptiles and toads dragging on ropes of hay a wooden cross, which amidst infernal giggling, spitting and swearing was torn to pieces, trampled and thrown under the golden hoofs.
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