Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  “I face the Sunrise!”

  With a shout of joy priests and people responded:

  “We face the Sunrise!”

  And he who seemed the highest in authority, raising his arms invokingly towards heaven, exclaimed:

  “Even so, O Mightiest among the Mighty, let us ever remember that Thy Shadow is but part of Thy Light, — that Sorrow is but the passing humour of Joy — and that Death is but the night which dawns again into Life! We face the Sunrise!”

  Then all who were assembled joined in singing a strange half-barbaric song and chorus of triumph, to the strains of which they slowly moved off and disappeared like shapes breathed on a mirror and melting away. Only the tall high priest remained, — and he stood alone, waiting, as it were, for something eagerly expected and desired. And presently the woman who had till now remained hidden among the shadows of the surrounding trees, came swiftly forward. She was very pale — her eyes shone with tears — and again I saw MY OWN FACE IN HERS. The priest turned quickly to greet her, and I distinctly heard every word he spoke as he caught her hands in his own and drew her towards him.

  “Everything in this world and the next I will resign,” he said— “for love of thee! Honour, dignity and this poor earth’s renown I lay at thy feet, thou most beloved of women! What other thing created or imagined can be compared to the joy of thee? — to the sweetness of thy lips, the softness of thy bosom — the love that trembles into confession with thy smile! Imprison me but in thine arms and I will count my very soul well lost for an hour of love with thee! Ah, deny me not! — turn me not away from thee again! — love comes but once in life — such love as ours! — early or late, but once!”

  She looked at him with tender passion and pity — a look in which I thankfully saw there was no trace of pride, resentment or affected injury.

  “Oh, my beloved!” she answered, and her voice, plaintive and sweet, thrilled on the silence like a sob of pain— “Why wilt thou rush on destruction for so poor a thing as I am? Knowest thou not, and wilt thou not remember that, to a priest of thy great Order, the love of woman is forbidden, and the punishment thereof is death? Already the people view thee with suspicion and me with scorn — forbear, O dearest, bravest soul! — be strong!”

  “Strong?” he echoed— “Is it not strong to love? — ay, the very best of strength! For what avails the power of man if he may not bend a woman to his will? Child, wherever love is there can be no death, but only life! Love is as the ever-flowing torrent of eternity in my veins — the pulse of everlasting youth and victory! What are the foolish creeds of man compared with this one Truth of Nature — Love! Is not the Deity Himself the Supreme Lover? — and wouldst thou have me a castaway from His holiest ordinance? Ah no! — come to me, my beloved! — soul of my soul — inmost core of my heart! Come to me in the silence when no one sees and no one hears — come when—”

  He broke off, checked by her sudden smile and look of rapture. Some thought had evidently, like a ray of light, cleared her doubts away.

  “So be it!” she said— “I give thee all myself from henceforth! — I will come!”

  He uttered an exclamation of relief and joy, and drew her closer, till her head rested on his breast and her loosened hair fell in a shower across his arms.

  “At last!” he murmured— “At last! Mine — all mine this tender soul, this passionate heart! — mine this exquisite life to do with as I will! O crown of my best manhood! — when wilt thou come to me?”

  She answered at once without hesitation.

  “To-night!” she said— “To-night, when the moon rises, meet me here in this very place, — this sacred grove where Memnon hears thy vows to him broken, and my vows consecrated to thee! — and as I live I swear I will be all thine! But now — leave me to pray!”

  She lifted her head and looked into his adoring eyes, — then kissed him with a strange, grave tenderness as though bidding him farewell, and with a gentle gesture motioned him away. Elated and flushed with joy, he obeyed her sign, and left her, disappearing in the same phantom-like way in which all the other figures in this weird dream-drama had made their exit. She watched him go with a wistful yearning gaze — then in apparent utter desperation she threw herself on her knees before the impassive Head on its rocky pedestal and prayed aloud:

  “O hidden and unknown God whom we poor earthly creatures symbolise! — give me the strength to love unselfishly — the patience to endure uncomplainingly! Thou, Heart of Stone, temper with thy coldest wisdom my poor throbbing heart of flesh! Help me to quell the tempest in my soul, and let me be even as thou art — inflexible, immovable, — save when the sun strikes music from thy dreaming brows and tells thee it is day! Forgive, O great God, forgive the fault of my beloved! — a fault which is not his, but mine, merely because I live and he hath found me fair, — let all be well for him, — but for me let nothing evermore be either well or ill — and teach me — even me — to face the Sunrise!”

  Her voice ceased — a mist came before me for a moment — and when this cleared, the same scene was presented to me under the glimmer of a ghostly moon. And she who looked so like myself, lay dead at the foot of the great Statue, her hands clasped on her breast, her eyes closed, her mouth smiling as in sleep, while beside her raved and wept her priestly lover, invoking her by every tender name, clasping her lifeless body in his arms, covering her face with useless passionate kisses, and calling her back with wild grief from the silence into which her soul had fled. And I knew then that she had put all thought of self aside in a sense of devotion to duty, — she had chosen what she imagined to be the only way out of difficulty, — to save the honour of her lover she had slain herself. But — was it wise? Or foolish? This thought pressed itself insistently home to my mind. She had given her life to serve a mistaken creed, — she had bowed to the conventions of a temporary code of human law — yet — surely God was above all strange and unnatural systems built up by man for his own immediate convenience, vanity or advantage, and was not Love the nearest thing to God? And if those two souls were destined lovers, COULD they be divided, even by their own rashness? These questions were curiously urged upon my inward consciousness as I looked again upon the poor fragile corpse among the reeds and palms of the sluggishly flowing river, and heard the clamorous despair of the man to whom she might have been joy, inspiration and victory had not the world been then as it is not now — the man, who as the light of the moonbeams fell upon him, showed me in his haggard and miserable features the spectral likeness of Santoris. Was it right, I asked myself, that the two perfect lines of a mutual love should be swept asunder? — or if it was, as some might conceive it, right according to certain temporary and conventional views of ‘rightness.’ was it POSSIBLE to so sever them? Would it not be well if we all occasionally remembered that there is an eternal law of harmony between souls as between spheres? — and that if we ourselves bring about a divergence we also bring about discord? And again, — that if discord results by our inter-meddling, it is AGAINST THE LAW, and must by the working of natural forces be resolved into concord again, whether such resolvance take ten, a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand years? Of what use, then, is the struggle we are for ever making in our narrow and limited daily lives to resist the wise and holy teaching of Nature? Is it not best to yield to the insistence of the music of life while it sounds in our ears? For everything must come round to Nature’s way in the end — her way being God’s way, and God’s way the only way! So I thought, as in half-dreaming fashion I watched the vision of the dead woman and her despairing lover fade into the impenetrable shadows of mystery veiling the record of the light beyond.

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  Presently I became conscious of a deep murmuring sound tike the subdued hum of many thousands of voices, — and lifting my eyes I saw the wide circular sweep of a vast arena crowded with people. In the centre, and well to the front of the uplifted tiers of seats, there was a gorgeous pavilion of gold, draped wi
th gaudy coloured silk and hung with festoons of roses, wherein sat a heavily-built, brutish-looking man royally robed and crowned, and wearing jewels In such profusion as to seem literally clothed in flashing points of light. Beautiful women were gathered round him, — boys with musical instruments crouched at his feet — attendants stood on every hand to minister to his slightest call or signal, — and all eyes were fixed upon him as upon some worshipped god of a nation’s idolatry. I felt and knew that I was looking upon the ‘shadow-presentment’ of the Roman tyrant Nero; and I wondered vaguely how it chanced that he, in all the splendour of his wild and terrible career of wickedness, should be brought into this phantasmagoria of dream in which I and One Other alone seemed to be chiefly concerned. There were strange noises in my ears, — the loud din of trumpets — the softer sound of harps played enchantingly in some far-off distance — the ever-increasing loud buzzing of the voices of the multitude — and then all at once the roar as of angry wild beasts in impatience or pain. The time of this vision seemed to be late afternoon — I thought I could see a line of deep rose colour in a sky where the sun had lately set — the flare of torches glimmered all round the arena and beyond it, striking vivid brilliancy from the jewels on Nero’s breast and throwing into strong relief the groups of soldiers and people immediately around him. I perceived now that the centre of the arena, previously empty, had become the one spot on which the looks of the people began to turn — one woman stood there all alone, clad in white, her arms crossed on her breast. So still was she, — so apparently unconscious of her position, that the mob, ever irritated by calmness, grew suddenly furious, and a fierce cry arose:— “Ad leones! Ad leones!” The great Emperor stirred from his indolent, half-reclining position and leaned forward with a sudden look of interest on his lowering features, — and as he did so a man attired in the costume of a gladiator entered the arena from one of its side doors and with a calm step and assured demeanour walked up to the front of the royal dais and there dropped on one knee. Then quickly rising he drew himself erect and waited, his eyes fixed on the woman who stood as immovably as a statue, apparently resigned to some untoward fate. And again the vast crowd shouted “Ad leones! Ad leones!” There came a heavy grating noise of drawn bolts and bars — the sound of falling chains — then a savage animal roar — and two lean and ferocious lions sprang into the arena, lashing their tails, their manes bristling and their eyes aglare. Quick as thought, the gladiator stood in their path — and I swiftly recognised the nature of the ‘sport’ that had brought the Emperor and all this brave and glittering show of humanity out to watch what to them was merely a ‘sensation’ — the life of a Christian dashed out by the claws and fangs of wild beasts — a common pastime, all unchecked by either the mercy of man or the intervention of God! I understood as clearly as if the explanation had been volunteered to me in so many words, that the woman who awaited her death so immovably had only one chance of rescue, and that chance was through the gladiator, who, to please the humour of the Emperor, had been brought hither to combat and frighten them off their intended victim, — the reward for him, if he succeeded, being the woman herself. I gazed with aching, straining eyes on the wonderful dream-spectacle, and my heart thrilled as I saw one of the lions stealthily approach the solitary martyr and prepare to spring. Like lightning, the gladiator was upon the famished brute, fighting it back in a fierce and horrible contest, while the second lion, pouncing forward and bent on a similar attack, was similarly repulsed. The battle between man and beasts was furious, prolonged and terrible to witness — and the excitement became intense. “Ad leones! Ad leones!” was now the universal wild shout, rising ever louder and louder into an almost frantic clamour. The woman meanwhile never stirred from her place — she might have been frozen to the ground where she stood. She appeared to notice neither the lions who were ready to devour her, nor the gladiator who combated them in her defence — and I studied her strangely impassive figure with keen interest, waiting to see her face, — for I instinctively felt I should recognise it. Presently, as though in response to my thought, she turned towards me, — and as in a mirror I saw MY OWN REFLECTED PERSONALITY again as I had seen it so many times in this chain of strange episodes with which I was so singularly concerned though still an outside spectator. Between her Shadow-figure and what I felt of my own existing Self there seemed to be a pale connecting line of light, and all my being thrilled towards her with a curiously vague anxiety. A swirling mist came before my eyes suddenly, — and when this cleared I saw that the combat was over — the lions lay dead and weltering in their blood on the trampled sand of the arena, and the victorious gladiator stood near their prone bodies triumphant, amid the deafening cheers of the crowd. Wreaths of flowers were tossed to him from the people, who stood up in their seats all round the great circle to hail him with their acclamations, and the Emperor, lifting his unwieldy body from under his canopy of gold, stretched out his hand as a sign that the prize which the dauntless combatant had fought to win was his. He at once obeyed the signal; — but now the woman, hitherto so passive and immovable, stirred. Fixing upon the gladiator a glance of the deepest reproach and anguish, she raised her arms warningly as though forbidding him to approach her — and then fell face forward on the ground. He rushed to her side, and kneeling down sought to lift her; — then suddenly he sprang erect with a loud cry: —

  “Great Emperor! I asked of thee a living love! — and this is dead!”

  A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd. The Emperor leaned forward from his throne and smiled.

  “Thank your Christian God for that!” he said— “Our pagan deities are kinder! They give us love for love!”

  The gladiator gave a wild gesture of despair and turned his face upward to the light — THE FACE OF SANTORIS!

  “Dead! — dead!” — he cried— “Of what use then is life? Dark are the beloved eyes! — cold is the generous heart! — the fight has been in vain — my victory mocks me with its triumph! The world is empty!”

  Again the laughter of the populace stirred the air.

  “Go to, man!” — and the rough voice of Nero sounded harshly above the murmurous din— “The world was never the worse for one woman the less! Wouldst thou also be a Christian? Take heed! Our lions are still hungry! Thy love is dead, ’tis true, but WE have not killed her! She trusted in her God, and He has robbed thee of thy lawful possession. Blame Him, not us! Go hence, with thy laurels bravely won! Nero commends thy prowess!”

  He flung a purse of gold at the gladiator’s feet — and then I saw the whole scene melt away into a confused mass of light and colour till all was merely a pearl-grey haze floating before my eyes. Yet I was hardly allowed a moment’s respite before another scene presented itself like a painting upon the curtain of vapour which hung so persistently in front of me — a scene which struck a closer chord upon my memory than any I had yet beheld.

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  The cool, spacious interior of a marble-pillared hall or studio slowly disclosed itself to my view — it was open to an enchanting vista of terraced gardens and dark undulating woods, and gay parterres of brilliant blossom were spread in front of it like a wonderfully patterned carpet of intricate and exquisite design. Within it was all the picturesque grace and confusion of an artist’s surroundings; and at a great easel, working assiduously, was one who seemed to be the artist himself, his face turned from me towards his canvas. Posed before him, in an attitude of indolent grace, was a woman, arrayed in clinging diaphanous drapery, a few priceless jewels gleaming here and there like stars upon her bosom and arms — her hair, falling in loose waves from a band of pale blue velvet fastened across it, was of a warm brown hue like an autumn leaf with the sun upon it, and I could see that whatever she might be according to the strictest canons of beauty, the man who was painting her portrait considered her more than beautiful. I heard his voice, in the low, murmurous yet perfectly distinct way in which all sounds were conveyed to me in this
dream pageant — it was exactly as if persons on the stage were speaking to an audience.

  “If we could understand each other,” — he said— “I think all would be well with us in time and eternity!”

  There was a pause. The picturesque scene before me seemed to glow and gather intensity as I gazed.

  “If you could see what is in my heart,” — he continued— “you would be satisfied that no greater love was ever given to woman than mine for you! Yet I would not say I give it to you — for I have striven against it.” He paused — and when he spoke again his words were so distinct that they seemed close to my ears.

  “It has been wrung out of my very blood and soul — I can no more resist it than I can resist the force of the air by which I live and breathe. I ought not to love you, — you are a joy forbidden to me — and yet I feel, rightly speaking, that you are already mine — that you belong to me as the other half of myself, and that this has been so from the beginning when God first ordained the mating of souls. I tell you I FEEL this, but cannot explain it, — and I grasp at you as my one hope of joy! — I cannot let you go!”