His brows contracted in a sombre frown, — he was silent a moment, — then he resumed —
“Now learn from me the weaving of the web you so willingly became entangled in! Your millions of money were Mine! — the man that left you heir to them, was a wretched miser, evil to the soul’s core! By virtue of his own deeds he and his dross were Mine! and maddened by the sheer accumulation of world’s wealth, he slew himself in a fit of frenzy. He lives again in a new and much more realistic phase of existence, and knows the actual value of mankind’s cash-payments! This you have yet to learn!”
He advanced a step or two, fixing his eyes more steadily upon me.
“Wealth is like Genius, — bestowed not for personal gratification, but for the benefit of those who lack it. What have you done for your fellow-men? The very book you wrote and launched upon the tide of bribery and corruption was published with the intention to secure applause for Yourself, not to give help or comfort to others. Your marriage was prompted by Lust and Ambition, and in the fair Sensuality you wedded, you got your deserts! No love was in the union, — it was sanctified by the blessing of Fashion, but not the blessing of God. You have done without God; so you think! Every act of your existence has been for the pleasure and advancement of Yourself, — and this is why I have chosen you out to hear and see what few mortals ever hear or see till they have passed the dividing-line between this life and the next. I have chosen you because you are a type of the apparently respected and unblamable man; — you are not what the world calls a criminal, — you have murdered no-one, — you have stolen no neighbour’s goods — , your unchastities and adulteries are those of every ‘fashionable’ vice-monger, — and your blasphemies against the Divine are no worse than those of the most approved modern magazine-contributors. You are guilty nevertheless of the chief crime of the age — Sensual Egotism — the blackest sin known to either angels or devils, because hopeless. The murderer may repent, and save a hundred lives to make up for the one he snatched, — the thief may atone with honest labour, — the adulterer may scourge his flesh and do grim penance for late pardon, — the blasphemer may retrieve his blasphemies, — but for the Egoist there is no chance of wholesome penitence, since to himself he is perfect, and counts his Creator as somewhat inferior. This present time of the world breathes Egotism, — the taint of Self, the hideous worship of money, corrodes all life, all thought, all feeling. For vulgar cash, the fairest and noblest scenes of Nature are wantonly destroyed without public protest, — the earth, created in beauty, is made hideous, — parents and children, wives and husbands are ready to slay each other for a little gold, — Heaven is barred out, — God is denied, — and Destruction darkens over this planet, known to all angels as the Sorrowful Star! Be no longer blind, millionaire whose millions have ministered to Self without relieving sorrow! —— for when the world is totally corrupt, — when Self is dominant, — when cunning supersedes honesty, — when gold is man’s chief ambition, — when purity is condemned, — when poets teach lewdness, and scientists blasphemy, — when love is mocked, and God forgotten, — the End is near! I take My part in that end! — for the souls of mankind are not done with when they leave their fleshly tenements! When this planet is destroyed as a bubble broken in the air, the souls of men and women live on, — as the soul of the woman you loved lives on, — as the soul of the mother who bore her, lives on, — aye! — as all My worshippers live on through a myriad worlds, a myriad phases, till they learn to shape their destinies for Heaven! And I, with them live on, in many shapes, in many ways! — when they return to God cleansed and perfect, so shall I return! — but not till then!”
He paused again, — and I heard a faint sighing sound everywhere as of wailing voices, and the name “Ahrimanes!” was breathed suddenly upon the silence. I started up listening, every nerve strained —— Ahrimanes? — or Rimânez? I gazed fearfully at him, ... always beautiful, his countenance was now sublime, ... and his eyes shone with a lustrous flame.
466”You thought me friend!” he said— “You should have known me Foe! For everyone who flatters a man for his virtues, or humours him in his vices is that man’s worst enemy, whether demon or angel! But you judged me a fitting comrade, — hence I was bound to serve you, — I and my followers with me. You had no perception to realize this, — you, supreme scorner of the Supernatural! Little did you think of the terrifying agencies that worked the wonders of your betrothal feast at Willowsmere! Little did you dream that fiends prepared the costly banquet and poured out the luscious wine!”
At this, a smothered groan of horror escaped me, — I looked wildly round me, longing to find some deep grave of oblivious rest wherein to fall.
“Aye!” he continued— “The festival was fitted to the time of the world to-day! — Society, gorging itself blind and senseless, and attended by a retinue from Hell! My servants looked like men! — for truly there is little difference ‘twixt man and devil! ’Twas a brave gathering! — England has never seen so strange a one in all her annals!”
The sighing, wailing cries increased in loudness, — my limbs shook under me, and all power of thought was paralysed in my brain. He bent his piercing looks upon me with a new expression of infinite wonder, pity and disdain.
“What a grotesque creation you men have made of Me!” he said— “As grotesque as your conception of God! With what trifling human attributes you have endowed me! Know you not that the changeless, yet ever-changing Essence of Immortal Life can take a million million shapes and yet remain unalterably the same? Were I as hideous as your Churches figure me, — could the eternal beauty with which all angels are endowed, ever change to such loathsomeness as haunts mankind’s distorted imaginations, perchance it would be well, — for none would make of me their comrade, and none would cherish me as friend! As fits each separate human nature, so seems my image, — for thus is my fate and punishment commanded. Yet even in this mask of man I wear, men own me their superior, — think you not that when the Supreme Spirit of God wore that same mask on earth, men did not know Him for their Master? Yea, they did know! — and knowing, murdered Him, — as they ever strive to murder all divine things as soon as their divinity is recognised. Face to face I stood with Him upon the mountain-top, and there fulfilled my vow of temptation. Worlds and kingdoms, supremacies and powers! —— what were they to the Ruler of them all! ‘Get thee hence, Satan!’ said the golden-sounding Voice; — ah! — glorious behest! — happy respite! — for I reached the very gate of Heaven that night, and heard the angels sing!”
His accents sank to an infinitely mournful cadence.
“What have your teachers done with me and my eternal sorrows?” he went on— “Have not they, and the unthinking churches, proclaimed a lie against me, saying that I rejoice in evil? O man to whom, by God’s will and because the world’s end draws nigh, I unveil a portion of the mystery of my doom, learn now once and for all, that there is no possible joy in evil! — it is the despair and the discord of the Universe, — it is Man’s creation, — My torment, — God’s sorrow! Every sin of every human being adds weight to my torture, and length to my doom, — yet my oath against the world must be kept! I have sworn to tempt, — to do my uttermost to destroy mankind, — but man has not sworn to yield to my tempting. He is free! — let him resist and I depart; — let him accept me, I remain! Eternal Justice has spoken, — Humanity, through the teaching of God made human, must work out its own redemption, — and Mine!”
Here, suddenly advancing he stretched out his hand, — his figure grew taller, vaster and more majestic.
“Come with me now!” he said in a low penetrating voice that sounded sweet, yet menacing— “Come! — for the veil is down for you to-night! You shall understand with WHOM you have dwelt so long in your shifting cloud-castle of life! — and in What company you have sailed perilous seas! — one, who proud and rebellious, like you, errs less, in that he owns GOD as his Master!”
At these words a thundering crash assailed my ears, — all the windo
ws on either side of the saloon flew open, and showed a strange glitter as of steely spears pointed aloft to the moon, — ... then, ... half-fainting, I felt myself grasped and lifted suddenly and forcibly upwards, ... and in another moment found myself on the deck of ‘The Flame,’ held fast as a prisoner in the fierce grip of hands invisible. Raising my eyes in deadly despair, — prepared for hellish tortures, and with a horrible sense of conviction in my soul that it was too late to cry out to God for mercy, — I saw around me a frozen world! — a world that seemed as if the sun had never shone upon it. Thick glassy-green walls of ice pressed round the vessel on all sides and shut her in between their inflexible barriers! — fantastic palaces, pinnacles, towers, bridges and arches of ice formed in their architectural outlines and groupings the semblance of a great city, — over all the coldly glistening peaks, the round moon, emerald-pale, looked down, — and standing opposite to me against the mast, I beheld, ... not Lucio, ... but an Angel!
5 Witness the destruction of Foyers, to the historical shame and disgrace of Scotland and Scotsmen. Back
XLI
Crowned with a mystic radiance as of trembling stars of fire, that sublime Figure towered between me and the moonlit sky; the face, austerely grand and beautiful, shone forth luminously pale, — the eyes were full of unquenchable pain, unspeakable remorse, unimaginable despair! The features I had known so long and seen day by day in familiar intercourse were the same, — the same, yet transfigured with ethereal splendour, while shadowed by an everlasting sorrow! Bodily sensations I was scarcely conscious of; — only the Soul of me, hitherto dormant, was awake and palpitating with fear. Gradually I became aware that others were around me, and looking, I saw a dense crowd of faces, wild and wonderful, — imploring eyes were turned upon me in piteous or stern agony, — and pallid hands were stretched towards me more in appeal than menace. And I beheld as I gazed, the air darkening, and anon lightening with the shadow and the brightness of wings! — vast pinions of crimson flame began to unfurl and spread upwards all round the ice-bound vessel, — upwards till their glowing tips seemed well-nigh to touch the moon. And He, my Foe, who leaned against the mast, became likewise encircled with these shafted pinions of burning rose, which like finely-webbed clouds coloured by a strong sunset, streamed outward flaringly from his dark Form and sprang aloft in a blaze of scintillant glory. And a Voice infinitely sad, yet infinitely sweet, struck solemn music from the frozen silence.
470”Steer onward, Amiel! Onward, to the boundaries of the world!”
With every spiritual sense aroused, I glanced towards the steerman’s wheel, — was that Amiel whom I had instinctively loathed? — that Being, stern as a figure of deadliest fate, with sable wings and tortured countenance? If so, I knew him now for a fiend in very truth! — if burning horror and endless shame can so transfigure the soul of man! A history of crime was written in his anguished looks, ... what secret torment racked him no living mortal might dare to guess! With pallid skeleton hands he moved the wheel; — and as it turned, the walls of ice around us began to split with a noise of thunder.
“Onward Amiel!” said the great sad Voice again— “Onward where never man hath trod, — steer on to the world’s end!”
The crowd of weird and terrible faces grew denser, — the flaming and darkening of wings became thicker than driving storm-clouds rent by lightning, — wailing cries, groans and dreary sounds of sobbing echoed about me on all sides, ... again the shattering ice roared like an earthquake under the waters, ... and, unhindered by her frozen prison-walls, the ship moved on! Dizzily, and as one in a mad dream I saw the great glittering bergs rock and bend forward, — the massive ice-city shook to its foundations, ... glistening pinnacles dropped and vanished, ... towers lurched over, broke and plunged into the sea, — huge mountains of ice split up like fine glass, yawning asunder with a green glare in the moonlight as the ‘Flame’ propelled, so it seemed, by the demon-wings of her terrific crew, cut through the frozen passage with the sharpness of a sword and the swiftness of an arrow! Whither were we bound? I dared not think, — I deemed myself dead. The world I saw was not the world I knew, — I believed I was in some spirit-land beyond the grave, whose secrets I should presently realize perchance too well! On, — on we went, — I keeping my strained sight fixed for the most part on the supreme Shape that always confronted me, — that Angel-Foe whose eyes were wild with an eternity of sorrows! Face to face with such an Immortal Despair, I stood confounded and slain forever in my own regard, — a worthless atom, meriting naught but annihilation. The wailing cries and groans had ceased, — and we sped on in an awful silence, — while countless tragedies, — unnameable histories, — were urged upon me in the dumb eloquence of the dreary faces round me, and the expressive teaching of their terrific eyes!
Soon the barriers of ice were passed, — and the ‘Flame’ floated out beyond them into a warm inland sea, calm as a lake, and bright as silver in the broad radiance of the moon. On either side were undulating shores, rich with lofty and luxuriant verdure, — I saw the distant hazy outline of dusky purple hills, — I heard the little waves plashing against hidden rocks, and murmuring upon the sand. Delicious odours filled the air; — a gentle breeze blew, ... was this the lost Paradise? — this semi-tropic zone concealed behind a continent of ice and snow? Suddenly, from the tops of the dark branching trees, came floating the sound of a bird’s singing, — and so sweet was the song, so heart-whole was the melody, that my aching eyes filled with tears. Beautiful memories rushed upon me, — the value and graciousness of life, — life on the kindly sunlit earth, — seemed very dear to my soul! Life’s opportunities, — its joys, its wonders, its blessings, all showered down upon a thankless race by a loving Creator, — these appeared to me all at once as marvellous! Oh for another chance of such life! — to redeem the past, — to gather up the wasted gems of lost moments, — to live as a man should live, in accordance with the will of God, and in brotherhood with his fellow-men! ... The unknown bird sang on in a cadence like that of a mavis in spring, only more tunefully, — surely no other woodland songster ever sang half so well! And as its dulcet notes dropped roundly one by one upon the mystic silence, I saw a pale Creature move out from amid the shadowing of black and scarlet wings, — a white woman-shape, clothed in her own long hair. She glided to the vessel’s edge, and there she leaned, with anguished face upturned, — it was the face of Sibyl! And even while I looked upon her, she cast herself wildly down upon the deck and wept! My soul was stirred within me, ... I saw in very truth all that she might have been, — I realized what an angel a little guiding love and patience might have made her, ... and at last I pitied her! I never pitied her before!
And now many familiar faces shone upon me like white stars in a mist of rain, — all faces of the dead, — all marked with unquenchable remorse and sorrow. One figure passed before me drearily, in fetters glistening with a weight of gold, — I knew him for my college-friend of olden days; another, crouching on the ground in fear, I recognised as him who had staked his last possession at play, even to his immortal soul, — I even saw my father’s face, worn and aghast with grief, and trembled lest the sacred beauty of Her who had died to give me birth, should find a place among these direful horrors. But no! — thank God I never saw her! —— her spirit had not lost its way to Heaven!
Again my eyes reverted to the Mover of this mystic scene, — that Fallen Splendour whose majestic shape now seemed to fill both earth and sky. A fiery glory blazed about him, ... he raised his hand, ... the ship stopped, — and the dark Steersman rested motionless on the wheel. Round us the moonlit landscape was spread like a glittering dream of fairyland, — and still the unknown bird of God sang on with such entrancing tenderness as must have soothed hell’s tortured souls.
“Lo, here we pause!” said the commanding Voice— “Here, where the distorted shape of Man hath never cast a shadow! — here, — where the arrogant mind of Man hath never conceived a sin! — here, where the godless greed of Man hath never
defaced a beauty, or slain a woodland thing! — here, the last spot on earth left untainted by Man’s presence! Here is the world’s end! — when this land is found, and these shores profaned, — when Mammon plants its foot upon this soil, — then dawns the Judgment-Day! But, until then, ... here, where only God doth work perfection, angels may look down undismayed, and even fiends find rest!”
A solemn sound of music surged upon the air, — and I who had been as one in chains, bound by invisible bonds and unable to stir, was suddenly liberated. Fully conscious of freedom I still faced the dark gigantic figure of my Foe, — for his luminous eyes were now upon me, and his penetrating voice addressed me only.
“Man, deceive not thyself!” he said— “Think not the terrors of this night are the delusion of a dream or the snare of a vision! Thou art awake, — not sleeping, — thou art flesh as well as spirit! This place is neither hell nor heaven nor any space between, — it is a corner of thine own world on which thou livest. Wherefore know from henceforth that the Supernatural Universe in and around the Natural is no lie, — but the chief Reality, inasmuch as God surroundeth all! Fate strikes thine hour, — and in this hour ’tis given thee to choose thy Master. Now, by the will of God, thou seest me as Angel; — but take heed thou forget not that among men I am as Man! In human form I move with all humanity through endless ages, — to kings and counsellors, to priests and scientists, to thinkers and teachers, to old and young, I come in the shape their pride or vice demands, and am as one with all. Self finds in me another Ego; — but from the pure in heart, the high in faith, the perfect in intention, I do retreat with joy, offering naught save reverence, demanding naught save prayer! So am I, — so must I ever be, — till Man of his own will releases and redeems me. Mistake me not, but know me! — and choose thy Future for truth’s sake and not out of fear! Choose and change not in any time hereafter, — this hour, this moment is thy last probation, — choose, I say! Wilt thou serve Self and Me? or God only?”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 371