He paused, thinking earnestly, — his eyes still fixed on Lilith.
“No, I do not,” — he answered himself at last— “Frankly and honestly, I do not. I have no proofs. I am, it is true, puzzled by Lilith’s language, — but when I know her as she is, a woman, sentient and conscious of my presence, I may find out the seeming mystery. The dreams of Féraz are only dreams, — the vision I saw on that one occasion” — and a faint tremor came over him as he remembered the sweet yet solemn look of the shining One he had seen standing between him and his visitor the monk— “the vision was of course his work — the work of that mystic master of a no less mystic brotherhood. No — I have no proofs of the supernatural, and I must not deceive myself. Even the promise of Lilith fails. Poor child! — she sleeps like the daughter of Jairus, but when I, in my turn, pronounce the words ‘Maiden I say unto thee, arise’ — she will obey; — she will awake and live indeed.”
“She will awake and live indeed!”
The words were repeated after him distinctly — but by whom? He started up, — looked round — there was no one in the room, — and Lilith was immovable as the dead. He began to find something chill and sad in the intense silence that followed, — everything about him was a harmony of glowing light and purple colour, — yet all seemed suddenly very dull and dim and cold. He shivered where he stood, and pressed his hands to his eyes, — his temples throbbed and ached, and he felt curiously bewildered. Presently, looking round the room again, he saw that the picture of “Christ and His Disciples” was unveiled; — he had not noticed the circumstance before. Had Zaroba inadvertently drawn aside the curtain which ordinarily hid it from view? Slowly his eyes travelled to it and dwelt upon it — slowly they followed the letters of the inscription beneath.
“WHOM SAY YE THAT I AM?”
The question seemed to him for the moment all-paramount; he could not shake off the sense of pertinacious demand with which it impressed him.
“A good Man,” — he said aloud, staring fixedly at the divine Face and Figure, with its eloquent expression of exalted patience, grandeur and sweetness. “A good Man, misled by noble enthusiasm and unselfish desire to benefit the poor. A man with a wise knowledge of human magnetism and the methods of healing in which it can be employed, — a man too, somewhat skilled in the art of optical illusion. Yet when all is said and done, a good Man — too good and wise and pure for the peace of the rulers of the world, — too honest and clear-sighted to deserve any other reward but death. Divine? — No! — save in so far as in our highest moments we are all divine. Existing now? — a Prince of Heaven, a Pleader against Punishment? Nay, nay! — no more existing than the Soul of Lilith, — that soul for which I search, but which I feel I shall never find!”
And he drew nearer to the ivory-satin couch on which lay the lovely sleeping wonder and puzzle of his ambitious dreams. Leaning towards her he touched her hands, — they were cold, but as he laid his own upon them they grew warm and trembled. Closer still he leaned, his eyes drinking in every detail of her beauty with eager, proud and masterful eyes.
“Lilith! — my Lilith!” he murmured— “After all, why should we put off happiness for the sake of everlastingness, when happiness can be had, at any rate for a few years. One can but live and die and there an end. And Love comes but once,...Love! — how I have scoffed at it and made a jest of it as if it were a plaything. And even now while my whole heart craves for it, I question whether it is worth having! Poor Lilith! — only a woman after all, — a woman whose beauty will soon pass — whose days will soon be done, — only a woman — not an immortal Soul, — there is, there can be, no such thing as an immortal Soul.”
Bending down over her, he resolutely unclasped the fair crossed arms, and seized the delicate small hands in a close grip.
“Lilith! Lilith!” he called imperiously.
A long and heavy pause ensued, — then the girl’s limbs quivered violently as though moved by a sudden convulsion, and her lips parted in the utterance of the usual formula —
“I am here.”
“Here at last, but you have been absent long” — said El-Râmi with some reproach, “Too long. And you have forgotten your promise.”
“Forgotten!” she echoed— “O doubting spirit! Do such as I am, ever forget?”
Her thrilling accents awed him a little, but he pursued his own way with her, undauntedly.
“Then why have you not fulfilled it?” he demanded— “The strongest patience may tire. I have waited and watched, as you bade me — but now — now I am weary of waiting.”
Oh, what a sigh broke from her lips!
“I am weary too” — she said— “The angels are weary. God is weary. All Creation is weary — of Doubt.”
For a moment he was abashed, — but only for a moment; in himself he considered Doubt to be the strongest part of his nature, — a positive shield and buckler against possible error.
“You cannot wait,” — went on Lilith, speaking slowly and with evident sadness— “Neither can we. We have hoped, — in vain! We have watched — in vain! The strong man’s pride will not bend, nor the stubborn spirit turn in prayer to its Creator. Therefore what is not bent must be broken, — and what voluntarily refuses Light must accept Darkness. I am bidden to come to you, my beloved, — to come to you as I am, and as I ever shall be, — I will come — but how will you receive me?”
“With ecstasy, with love, with welcome beyond all words or thoughts!” cried El — Râmi in passionate excitement. “O Lilith, Lilith! you who read the stars, cannot you read my heart? Do you not see that I — I who have recoiled from the very thought of loving, — I, who have striven to make of myself a man of stone and iron rather than flesh and blood, am conquered by your spells, victorious Lilith! — conquered in every fibre of my being by some subtle witchcraft known to yourself alone. Am I weak? — am I false to my own beliefs? I know not, — I am only conscious of the sovereignty of beauty which has mastered many a stronger man than I. What is the fiercest fire compared to this fever in my veins? I worship you, Lilith! I love you! — more than the world, life, time and hope of heaven, I love you!”
Flushed with eagerness and trembling with his own emotion, he rained kisses on the hands he held, but Lilith strove to withdraw them from his clasp. Pale as alabaster she lay as usual with fast-closed eyes, and again a deep sigh heaved her breast.
“You love my Shadow,” — she said mournfully— “not Myself.”
But El-Râmi’s rapture was not to be chilled by these words. He gathered up a glittering mass of the rich hair that lay scattered on the pillow and pressed it to his lips.
“O Lilith mine, is this ‘Shadow’?” he asked— “All this gold in which I net my heart like a willingly caught bird, and make an end of my boasted wisdom? Are these sweet lips, these fair features, this exquisite body, all ‘shadow’? Then blessed must be the light that casts so gracious a reflection! Judge me not harshly, my Sweet, — for if indeed you are Divine, and this Beauty I behold is the mere reflex of Divinity, let me see the Divine Form of you for once, and have a guarantee for faith through love! If there is another and a fairer Lilith than the one whom I now behold, deny me not the grace of so marvellous a vision! I am ready! — I fear nothing — to-night I could face God Himself undismayed!”
He paused abruptly — he knew not why. Something in the chill and solemn look of Lilith’s face checked his speech.
“Lilith — Lilith!” he began again whisper — ingly— “Do I ask too much? Surely not — not if you love me! And you do love me — I feel, I know you do!”
There was a long pause, — Lilith might have been made of marble for all the movement she gave. Her breathing was so light as to be scarcely perceptible, and when she answered him at last, her voice sounded strangely faint and far-removed. “Yes, I love you” — she said— “I love you as I have loved you for a thousand ages, and as you have never loved me. To win your love has been my task — to repel my love has been yours.
&nb
sp; He listened, smitten by a vague sense of compunction and regret.
“But you have conquered, Lilith” — he answered— “yours is the victory. And have I not surrendered, willingly, joyfully? O my beautiful Dreamer, what would you have me do?”
“Pray!” said Lilith, with a sudden passionate thrill in her voice— “Pray! Repent!”
El-Râmi drew himself backward from her couch, impatient and angered.
“Repent!” he cried aloud— “And why should I repent? What have I done that calls for repentance? For what sin am I to blame? For doubting a God who, deaf to centuries upon centuries of human prayer and worship, will not declare Himself? and for striving to perceive Him through the cruel darkness by which we are surrounded? What crime can be discovered there? The world is most infinitely sad, — and life is most infinitely dreary, — and may I not strive to comfort those amid the struggle who fain would ‘prove’ and hold fast to the things beyond? Nay! — let the heavens open and cast forth upon me their fiery thunderbolts I will not repent! For, vast as my Doubt is, so vast would be my Faith, if God would speak and say to His creatures but once— ‘Lo! I am here!’ Tortures of hell-pain would not terrify me, if in the end His Being were made clearly manifest — a cross of endless woe would I endure, to feel and see Him near me at the last, and more than all, to make the world feel and see Him, — to prove to wondering, trembling, terror-stricken, famished, heart-broken human beings that He exists, — that He is aware of their misery, — that He cares for them, that it is all well for them, — that there is Eternal Joy hiding itself somewhere amid the great star-thickets of this monstrous universe — that we are not desolate atoms whirled by a blind fierce Force into life against our will, and out of it again without a shadow of reason or a glimmer of hope. Repent for such thoughts as these? I will not! Pray to a God of such inexorable silence? I will not! No, Lilith — my Lilith whom I snatched from greedy death — even you may fail me at the last, — you may break your promise, — the promise that I should see with mortal eyes your own Immortal Self — who can blame you for the promise of a dream, poor child! You may prove yourself nothing but woman; woman, poor, frail, weak, helpless woman, to be loved and cherished and pitied and caressed in all the delicate limbs, and kissed in all the dainty golden threads of hair, and then — then — to be laid down like a broken flower in the tomb that has grudged me your beauty all this while, — all this may be, Lilith, and yet I will not pray to an unproved God, nor repent of an unproved sin!”
He uttered his words with extraordinary force and eloquence — one would have thought he was addressing a multitude of hearers instead of that one tranced girl, who, though beautiful as a sculptured saint on a sarcophagus, appeared almost as inanimate, save for the slow parting of her lips when she spoke.
“O superb Angel of the Kingdom!” she murmured— “It is no marvel that you fell!”
He heard her, dimly perplexed; but strengthened in his own convictions by what he had said, he was conscious of power, — power to defy, power to endure, power to command. Such a sense of exhilaration and high confidence had not possessed him for many a long day, and he was about to speak again, when Lilith’s voice once more stole musically on the silence.
“You would reproach God for the world’s misery. Your complaint is unjust. There is a Law, — a Law for the earth as for all worlds; and God cannot alter one iota of that Law without destroying Himself and His Universe. Shall all Beauty, all Order, all Creation come to an end because wilful Man is wilfully miserable? Your world trespasses against the Law in almost everything it does — hence its suffering. Other worlds accept the Law and fulfil it, — and with them, all is well.”
“Who is to know this Law?” demanded El-Râmi impatiently. “And how can the world trespass against what is not explained?”
“It is explained;” — said Lilith— “The explanation is in every soul’s inmost consciousness. You all know the Law and feel it — but knowing, you ignore it. Men were intended by Law — God’s Law — to live in brotherhood; but your world is divided into nations all opposed to each other, — the result is Evil. There is a Law of Health, which men can scarcely be forced to follow — the majority disobey it; again, the result is Evil. There is a Law of ‘Enough’ — men grasp more than enough, and leave their brother with less than enough, — the result is Evil. There is a Law of Love — men make it a Law of Lust, — the result is Evil. All Sin, all Pain, all Misery, are results of the Law’s transgression, — and God cannot alter the Law, He Himself being part of it and its fulfilment.”
“And is Death also the Law?” asked El-Râmi— “Wise Lilith! — Death, which concludes all things, both in Law and Order?”
“There is no death.” — responded Lilith— “I have told you so. What you call by that name is Life.”
“Prove it!” exclaimed El-Râmi excitedly, “Prove it, Lilith! Show me Yourself! If there is another You than this beloved beauty of your visible form, let me behold it, and then — then will I repent of doubt, — then will I pray for pardon!”
“You will repent indeed,” — said Lilith sorrowfully— “And you will pray as children pray when first they learn ‘Our Father.’ Yes, I will come to you; — watch for me, O my erring Belovëd! — watch! — for neither my love nor my promise can fail. But O remember that you are not ready — that your will, your passion, your love, forces me hither ere the time, — that if I come, it is but to depart again — forever!”
“No, no!” cried El-Râmi desperately— “Not to depart, but to remain! — to stay with me, my Lilith, my own — body and soul, — forever!”
The last words sounded like a defiance flung at some invisible opponent. He stopped, trembling — for a sudden and mysterious wave of sound filled the room, like a great wind among the trees, or the last grand chord of an organ-symphony. A chill fear assailed him, — he kept his eyes fixed on the beautiful form of Lilith with a strained eagerness of attention that made his temples ache. She grew paler and paler, — and yet,...absorbed in his intent scrutiny he could not move or speak. His tongue seemed tied to the roof of his mouth, — he felt as though he could scarcely breathe All life appeared to hang on one supreme moment of time, which like a point of light wavered between earth and heaven, mortality and infinity. He, — one poor atom in the vast Universe, — stood, audaciously waiting for the declaration of God’s chiefest Secret! Would it be revealed at last? — or still withheld?
CHAPTER V.
ALL at once, while he thus closely watched her, Lilith with a violent effort, sat up stiffly erect and turned her head slowly towards him. Her features were rigidly statuesque, and white as snow, — the strange gaunt look of her face terrified him, but he could not cry out or utter a word — he was stricken dumb by an excess of fear. Only his black eyes blazed with an anguish of expectation, — and the tension of his nerves seemed almost greater than he could endure.
“In the great Name of God and by the Passion of Christ,” — said Lilith solemnly, in tones that sounded far-off and faint and hollow— “do not look at this Shadow of Me! Turn, turn away from this dust of Earth which belongs to the Earth alone, — and watch for the light of Heaven which comes from Heaven alone! O my love, my belovëd! — if you are wise, if you are brave, if you are strong, turn away from beholding this Image of Me, which is not Myself, — and look for me where the roses are — there will I stand and wait!”
As the last word left her lips she sank back on her pillows, inert, and deathly pale; but El-Râmi, dazed and bewildered though he was, retained sufficient consciousness to understand vaguely what she meant, — he was not to look at her as she lay there, — he was to forget that such a Lilith as he knew existed, — he was to look for another Lilith there— “where the roses are.” Mechanically, and almost as if some invisible power commanded and controlled his volition, he turned sideways round from the couch, and fixed his gaze on the branching flowers, which from the crystal vase that held them, lifted their pale-pink heads daintily aloft as though
they took the lamp that swung from the ceiling for some little new sun, specially invented for their pleasure. Why, — there was nothing there;...”Nothing there!” he half-muttered with a beating heart, rubbing his eyes and staring hard before him,...nothing — nothing at all, but the roses themselves, and...and...yes! — a Light behind them! — a light that wavered round them and began to stretch upward in wide circling rings!
El-Râmi gazed and gazed,...saying over and over again to himself that it was the reflection of the lamp,..the glitter of that stray moonbeam there,...or something wrong with his own faculty of vision,...and yet he gazed on, as though for the moment, all his being were made of eyes. The roses trembled and swayed to and fro delicately as the strange Light widened and brightened behind their blossoming clusters, — a light that seemed to palpitate with all the wondrous living tints of the rising sun when it shoots forth its first golden rays from the foaming green hollows of the sea. Upward, upward and ever upward the deepening glory extended, till the lamp paled and grew dimmer than the spark of a feeble match struck as a rival to a flash of lightning, — and El-Râmi’s breath came and went in hard panting gasps as he stood watching it in speechless immobility.
Suddenly, two broad shafts of rainbow luminance sprang, as it seemed from the ground, and blazed against the purple hangings of the room with such a burning dazzle of prismatic colouring in every glittering line, that it was well-nigh impossible for human sight to bear it, and yet El-Râmi would rather have been stricken stone-blind than move. Had he been capable of thought, he might have remembered the beautiful old Greek myths which so truthfully and frequently taught the lesson that to look upon the purely divine, meant death to the purely human; but he could not think, — all his own mental faculties were for the time rendered numb and useless. His eyes ached and smarted as though red-hot needles were being plunged into them, but though he was conscious of, he was indifferent to the pain. His whole mind was concentrated on watching the mysterious radiance of those wing-shaped rays in the room, — and now...now while he gazed, he began to perceive an Outline between the rays,...a Shape, becoming every second more and more distinct, as though some invisible heavenly artist were drawing the semblance of Beauty in air with a pencil dipped in morning-glory.... O wonderful, ineffable Vision! — O marvellous breaking forth of the buds of life that are hid in the quiet ether! — where, where in the vast wealth and reproduction of deathless and delicate atoms, is the Beginning of things? — where the End? ...
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 277