El-Râmi was silent, and Dr. Kremlin went on.
“The air is a conveyer of Sound—” he said meditatively— “The light is a conveyer of Scenes. Mark that well. The light may be said to create landscape and generate Colour. Reflexes of light make pictures, — witness the instantaneous flash, which with the aid of chemistry, will give you a photograph in a second. I firmly believe that all reflexes of light are so many letters of a marvellous alphabet, which if we could only read it, would enable us to grasp the highest secrets of creation. The seven tones of music, for example, are in Nature; — in any ordinary storm, where there is wind and rain and the rustle of leaves, you can hear the complete scale on which every atom of musical composition has ever been written. Yet what ages it took us to reduce that scale to a visible tangible form, — and even now we have not mastered the quarter-tones heard in the songs of birds. And just as the whole realm of music is in seven tones of natural Sound, so the whole realm of light is in a pictured Language of Design, Colour, and Method, with an intention and a message, which we — we human beings — are intended to discover. Yet with all these great mysteries waiting to be solved, the most of us are content to eat and drink and sleep and breed and die, like the lowest cattle, in brutish ignorance of more than half our intellectual privileges. I tell you, El-Râmi, if I could only find out and place correctly one of those light-vibrations, the rest might be easy.”
He heaved a profound sigh, — and the great Disc, circling steadily with its grave monotonous hum, might have passed for the wheel of Fate which he, poor mortal, was powerless to stop though it should grind him to atoms.
El-Râmi watched him with interest and something of compassion for a minute or two, — then he touched his arm gently.
“Kremlin, is it not time for you to rest?” he asked kindly— “You have not slept well for many nights, — you are tired out, — why not sleep now, and gather strength for future labours?”
The old man started, and a slight shiver ran through him.
“You mean — ?” he began.
“I mean to do for you what I promised—” replied El-Râmi— “You asked me for this—” and he held up the gold-stoppered flask he had brought in with him from the next room— “It is all ready prepared for you — drink it, and to-morrow you will find yourself a new man.”
Dr. Kremlin looked at him suspiciously — and then began to laugh with a sort of hysterical nervousness.
“I believe—” he murmured indistinctly and with affected jocularity— “I believe that you want to poison me! Yes — yes! — to poison me and take all my discoveries for yourself! You want to solve the great Star — problem and take all the glory and rob me — yes, rob me of my hard-earned fame! — yes — it is poison — poison!”
And he chuckled feebly, and hid his face between his hands.
El-Râmi heard him with an expression of pain and pity in his fine eyes.
“My poor old friend—” he said gently— “You are wearied to death — so I pardon you your sudden distrust of me. As for poison — see!” and he lifted the flask he held to his lips and drank a few drops— “Have no fear! Your Star-problem is your own, — and I desire that you should live long enough to read its great mystery. As for me, I have other labours; — to me stars, solar systems, aye! whole Universes are nothing, — my business is with the Spirit that dominates Matter — not with Matter itself. Enough; will you live or will you die? It rests with yourself to choose — for you are ill, Kremlin — very ill, — your brain is fagged and weak — you cannot go on much longer like this. Why did you send for me if you do not believe in me?”
The old Doctor tottered to the window — bench and sat down, — then looking up, he forced a smile.
“Don’t you see for yourself what a coward I have become?” he said— “I tell you I am afraid of everything; — of you — of myself — and worst of all, of that—” and he pointed to the Disc— “which lately seems to have grown stronger than I am.” He paused a moment — then went on with an effort— “I had a strange idea the other night, — I thought, suppose God, in the beginning, created the Universe simply to divert Himself — just as I created my Dial there; — and suppose it had happened that instead of being His servant as He originally intended, it had become His master? — that He actually had no more power over it? Suppose He were dead? We see that the works of men live ages after their death, — why not the works of God? Horrible — horrible! Death is horrible! I do not want to die, El-Râmi!” and his faint voice rose to a querulous wail— “Not yet — not yet! I cannot! — I must finish my work — I must know — I must live—”
“You shall live,” interrupted El-Râmi. “Trust me — there is no death in this!”
He held up the mysterious flask again. Kremlin stared at it, shaking all over with nervousness — then on a sudden impulse clutched it.
“Am I to drink it all?” he asked faintly.
El-Râmi bent his head in assent.
Kremlin hesitated a moment longer — then with the air of one who takes a sudden desperate resolve, he gave one eager yearning look at the huge revolving Disc, and putting the flask to his lips, drained its contents. He had scarcely swallowed the last drop, when he sprang to his feet, uttered a smothered cry, staggered, and fell on the floor motionless. El-Râmi caught him up at once, and lifted him easily in his strong arms on to the window-seat, where he laid him down gently, placing coverings over him and a pillow under his head. The old man’s face was white and rigid as the face of a corpse, but he breathed easily and quietly, and El-Râmi, knowing the action of the draught he had administered, saw there was no cause for anxiety in his condition. He himself leaned on the sill of the great open window and looked out at the starlit sky for some minutes, and listened to the sonorous plashing of the waves on the shore below. Now and then he glanced back over his shoulder at the great Dial and its shining star-patterns.
“Only Lilith could decipher the meaning of it all,” he mused. “Perhaps, — some day — it might be possible to ask her. But then, do I in truth believe what she tells me?-would he believe? The transcendentally uplifted soul of a woman! — ought we to credit the message obtained through so ethereal a means? I doubt it. We men are composed of such stuff that we must convince ourselves of a fact by every known test before we finally accept it, — like St. Thomas, unless we put our rough hand into the wounded side of Christ, and thrust our fingers into the nail-prints, we will not believe. And I shall never resolve myself as to which is the wisest course, — to accept everything with the faith of a child, or dispute everything with the arguments of a controversialist. The child is happiest; but then the question arises — Were we meant to be happy? I think not, — since there is nothing that can make us so for long.”
His brow clouded and he stood absorbed, looking at the stars, yet scarcely conscious of beholding them. Happiness! It had a sweet sound, — an exquisite suggestion; and his thoughts clung round it persistently as bees round honey. Happiness! — What could engender it? The answer came unbidden to his brain— “Love!” He gave an involuntary gesture of irritation, as though someone had spoken the word in his ear.
“Love!” he exclaimed half aloud. “There is no such thing — not on earth. There is Desire, — the animal attraction of one body for another, which ends in disgust and satiety. Love should have no touch of coarseness in it, — and can anything be coarser than the marriage-tie? — the bond which compels a man and woman to live together in daily partnership of bed and board, and reproduce their kind like pigs, or other common cattle. To call that love is a sacrilege to the very name, — for Love is a divine emotion, and demands divinest comprehension.”
He went up to where Kremlin lay reclined, — the old man slept profoundly and peacefully, — his face had gained colour and seemed less pinched and meagre in outline. EI-Râmi felt his pulse, — it beat regularly and calmly. Satisfied with his examination, he wheeled away the great telescope into a corner, and shut the window against the night air, �
� then he lay down himself on the floor, with his coat rolled under him for a pillow, and composed himself to sleep till morning.
CHAPTER XI.
THE next day dawned in brilliant sunshine; the sea was as smooth as a lake, and the air pleasantly warm and still. Dr. Kremlin’s servant Karl got up in a very excellent humour, — he had slept well, and he awoke with the comfortable certainty of finding his eccentric master in better health and spirits, as this was always the case after one of El-Râmi’s rare visits. And Karl, though he did not much appreciate learning, especially when the pursuit of it induced people, as he said, to starve themselves for the sake of acquiring wisdom, did feel in his own heart that there was something about El-Râmi that was not precisely like other men, and he had accordingly for him not only a great attraction, but a profound respect.
“If anybody can do the Herr Doctor good, he can—” he thought, as he laid the breakfast-table in the little dining-room whose French windows opened out to a tiny green lawn fronting the sea,— “Certainly one can never cure old age, — that is an ailment for which there is no remedy; but however old we are bound to get, I don’t see why we should not be merry over it and enjoy our meals to the last. Now let me see — what have I to get ready—” and he enumerated on his fingers— “Coffee — toast — rolls, — butter — eggs — fish, — I think that will do; — and if I just put these few roses in the middle of the table to tempt the eye a bit,” — and he suited the action to the word— “There now! — if the Herr Doctor can be pleased at all—”
“Breakfast, Karl! breakfast!” interrupted a clear cheerful voice, the sound of which made Karl start with nervous astonishment. “Make haste, my good fellow! My friend here has to catch an early train.”
Karl turned round, stared, and stood motionless, open-mouthed, and struck dumb with sheer surprise. Could it be the old Doctor who spoke? Was it his master at all, — this hale, upright, fresh-faced individual who stood before him, smiling pleasantly and giving his orders with such a brisk air of authority? Bewildered and half afraid, he cast a desperate glance at El-Râmi, who had also entered the room, and who, seeing his confusion, made him a quick secret sign.
“Yes — be as quick as you can, Karl,” he said. “Your master has had a good night, and is much better, as you see. We shall be glad of our breakfast; I told you we should, last night. Don’t keep us waiting!”
“Yes, sir — no, sir!” stammered Karl, trying to collect his scattered senses and staring again at Dr. Kremlin, — then, scarcely knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, he scrambled out of the room into the passage, where he stood for a minute stupefied and inert.
“It must be devil’s work!” he ejaculated amazedly. “Who but the devil could make a man look twenty years younger in a single night? Yes — twenty years younger, — he looks that, if he looks a day. God have mercy on us! — what will happen next — what sort of a service have I got into? — Oh, my poor mother!”
This last was Karl’s supremest adjuration, — when he could find nothing else to say, the phrase “Oh, my poor mother!” came as naturally to his lips as the familiar “D — n it!” from the mouth of an old swaggerer in the army or navy. He meant nothing by it, except perhaps a vague allusion to the innocent days of his childhood, when he was ignorant of the wicked ways of the wicked world, and when “Oh, my poor mother!” had not the most distant idea as to what was going to become of her hopeful first-born.
Meantime, while he went down into the kitchen and bustled about there, getting the coffee, frying the fish, boiling the eggs, and cogitating with his own surprised and half-terrified self, Dr. Kremlin and his guest had stepped out into the little garden together, and they now stood there on the grass-plot surveying the glittering wide expanse of ocean before them. They spoke not a word for some minutes, — then, all at once, Kremlin turned round and caught both El-Râmi’s hands in his own and pressed them fervently — there were tears in his eyes.
“What can I say to you?” he murmured in a voice broken by strong emotion— “How can I thank you? You have been as a god to me; — I live again, — I breathe again, — this morning the world seems new to my eyes, — as new as though I had never seen it before. I have left a whole cycle of years, with all their suffering and bitterness, behind me, and I am ready now to commence life afresh.”
“That is well!” said El-Râmi gently, cordially returning the pressure of his hands. “That is as it should be. To see your strength and vitality thus renewed, is more than enough reward for me.”
“And do I really look younger? — am I actually changed in appearance?” asked Kremlin eagerly.
El-Râmi smiled. “Well, you saw poor Karl’s amazement” — he replied. “He was afraid of you, I think — and also of me. Yes, you are changed, though not miraculously so. Your hair is as gray as ever, — the same furrows of thought are on your face; — all that has occurred is the simple renewal of the tissues, and revivifying of the blood, — and this gives you the look of vigour and heartiness you have this morning.”
“But will it last? — will it last?” queried Kremlin anxiously.
“If you follow my instructions, of course it will—” returned El-Râmi— “I will see to that. I have left with you a certain quantity of the vital fluid, — all you have to do is to take ten drops every third night, or inject it into your veins if you prefer that method; — then, — as I told you, — you cannot die, except by violence.”
“And no violence comes here” — said Kremlin with a smile, glancing round at the barren yet picturesque scene— “I am as lonely as an unmated eagle on a rock, — and the greater my solitude the happier I am. The world is very beautiful — that I grant, — but the beings that inhabit it spoil it for me, albeit I am one of them. And so I cannot die, except by violence? Almost I touch immortality! Marvellous El-Râmi! You should be a king of nations!”
“Too low a destiny!” replied El-Râmi— “I had rather be a ruler of planets.”
“Ah, there is your stumbling-block!” said Kremlin, with sudden seriousness,— “You soar too high — you are never contented.”
“Content is impossible to the Soul,” returned El-Râmi,— “Nothing is too high or too low for its investigation. And whatever can be done, should be done, in order that the whole gamut of life may be properly understood by those who are forced to live it.”
“And do not you understand it?”
“In part — yes. But not wholly. It is not sufficient to have traced the ripple of a brain-wave through the air and followed its action and result with exactitude, — nor is it entirely satisfactory to have all the secrets of physical and mental magnetism, and attraction between bodies and minds, made clear and easy without knowing the reason of these things. It is like the light-vibrations on your Disc, — they come — and go; but one needs to know why and whence they come and go. I know much — but I would fain know more.”
“But is not the pursuit of knowledge infinite?”
“It may be — if infinity exists. Infinity is possible — and I believe in it, — all the same I must prove it.”
“You will need a thousand life-times to fulfil such works as you attempt!” exclaimed Kremlin.
“And I will live them all;” — responded El-Râmi composedly— “I have sworn to let nothing baffle me, and nothing shall!”
Dr. Kremlin looked at him in vague awe, — the dark haughty handsome face spoke more resolvedly than words.
“Pardon me, El-Râmi” — he said with a little diffidence— “It seems a very personal question to put, and possibly you may resent it, still I have often thought of asking it. You are a very handsome and very fascinating man — you would be a fool if you were not perfectly aware of your own attractiveness, — well, now tell me — have you never loved anybody? — any woman?”
The sleepy brilliancy of El-Râmi’s fine eyes lightened with sudden laughter.
“Loved a woman? — I?” he exclaimed— “The Fates forbid! What should I do with the gaze
lles and kittens and toys of life, such as women are? Of all animals on earth, they have the least attraction for me. I would rather stroke a bird’s wings than a woman’s hair, and the fragrance of a rose pressed against my lips is sweeter and more sincere than any woman’s kisses. As the females of the race, women are useful in their way, but not interesting at any time — at least, not to me.”
“Do you not believe in love then?” asked Kremlin.
“No. Do you?”
“Yes,” — and Kremlin’s voice was very tender and impressive— “I believe it is the only thing of God in an almost godless world.”
El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders.
“You talk like a poet. I, who am not poetical, cannot so idealize the physical attraction between male and female, which is nothing but a law of nature, and is shared by us in common with the beasts of the field.”
“I think your wisdom is in error there” — said Kremlin slowly— “Physical attraction there is, no doubt — but there is something else — something more subtle and delicate, which escapes the analysis of both philosopher and scientist. Moreover it is an imperative spiritual sense, as well as a material craving, — the soul can no more be satisfied without love than the body.”
“That is your opinion—” and El-Râmi smiled again,— “But you see a contradiction of it in me. I am satisfied to be without love, — and certainly I never look upon the ordinary woman of the day, without the disagreeable consciousness that I am beholding the living essence of sensualism and folly.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 249