Part 15

“Come to me, dear one! greet me, but in silence, Lest thou shouldst wake sad Memory’s sleeping ghosts; Quietly let them down, the ice-cold curtains: Quietly draw the silken veils aside.

“Come to my tent, though dark it is around us: Fear not; the stars are twinkling soft above; (Fain would my wings of silver soar to join them!): Cover thine eyes, love, from the dread black night!

“Wilt thou two clusters—grapes with warm blood swelling? Lay twixt my breasts, O lay thy golden head! Me let thine arms, mighty with youth’s keen transport, Clasp in embraces like the serpent’s coil.

“Here is no skiey vault unfathomable; Here are no stars that gleam athwart the blue.— They are a silken tent, my silky tresses; Stars, too, shine bright:—naught but mine eyes are they!

“Take thou my blood, take all that is my being: Give me my memories, my sleep of yore!— I had a dream that froze my founts of gladness— I had a dream, ... dim ghosts with muffled sobs!

“Dreams are but dreams!—Seest thou the sun’s red circle; Huge, tinged with gore o’ the early dawn?—Thy lips,— Oh, how I love them—they are crimson roses, Roses of kingly purple, ... and are mine!

“Broken my wings are: at thy feet I lay them (Soaring aloft i’ the airy void, they broke): Oh, how I love thee! Thou’rt a golden garland Glinting resplendent in my silky hair!”

The recitation over, she waved us a salute, and a gold bracelet flashed above the elbow of her bare arm. Then she sank on to the nearest sofa, covered with carpeting of a rich pattern. She received no thanks, nor did she expect any. There she lay, her hands clasped beneath her head, and the black diamonds of her eyes gazing steadfastly up to the ceiling.

“Oh, what heavenly bliss I am beginning to feel now!” was the thought that flashed upon me all at once.

Yes, the narcotic was acting already. Everything in me that was evil, or pained, or imperfect, had vanished away. I was filled with light—a chilly splendour, supremely contemptuous of all things, supremely blissful.

The chill had spread around me. There was,—in the wide-open, quiescent eyes of all those men, gazing as in a hypnotic trance upon the miracle of female beauty which they beheld,—the uncanny greenish light which certain gases in slow combustion give out. We were in an atmosphere of superhuman delight; a delight that was not earthly; the sempiternally fascinating delight of Non-Existence.

There was a hearkening to the silence, and a listening with riveted and petrified attention. The least little murmur of life gave pain. No one was allowed into the studio; black coffee was poured out by Radlowski and Gina, and brought to each of us by them. And soft and low fell slowly from our lips words as of silken tissue, containing thoughts of delicate essence, recondite and shrouded in mystery.

The unknown blonde was saying to Emma:

“At such moments as these, I never give one thought to my lover.... I wish to feel no love for him, in order that I may dream of Love itself.... I see a land such as on earth there is none: where a Not-sun shines, and where Not-flowers have fragrance! A vision!... I behold a lover who is not of the earth, and him alone I love.... In a vision.... In my slumbers!”

“There is nothing in the world,” said Emma, “so beautiful as that which is not in it.... Oh, how sweet is the craving after the love that is nowhere to be found!”

We were all experiencing an extraordinary and ecstatic glow: and in our state nothing appeared too naïve or too _exalté_.

I felt full of kindly inclination towards these people, and of deep gratitude as well, because they were all in such harmony with one another. It was almost pure ideal friendship, based on community of admirations and disdains, and mutually uniting all those of the same caste: the cool and egotistical friendship which one demigod may feel for another.

The slenderly built young man whom I have mentioned leant forward to me:

“Pray tell me something of love.”

“Love? I know one kind only.”

“And what is that?”

“The fanatical, the Pagan love of Self.”

I clasped my hands, and rested my head upon them. Looking forth into that infinite distance where all is rigid, where no motion is possible, and partly unconscious of what I was saying, I spoke thus:

“Oh! how I love myself in all my manifestations! In all my loves and abhorrences; in all my dreamings and scornings; in all those most mournful victories of my own unconquerable strength!—Ah! how willingly would I die this very night, this wonderful night of the blossoming and perishing of my desires!”

From one instant to the next, my feelings were growing stranger and stranger. Something akin to dread was now taking hold upon me. Somewhere—far, far away, as it were down at the very bottom of the gulf of Life,—I heard a carriage clatter past, and a shudder of unutterable dismay then shook me. Unwittingly, I drew closer to my next neighbour.... Presently, I was aware of the soothing, almost spiritual caress of some one’s cool white hand, passing over my forehead. As I felt it stroke me so gently, my alarms were dispelled; and again I was steeped in that phosphorescent zodiacal luminosity, as of gases in slow combustion.

And now it returned, that vision, that majestic long-forgotten vision. Once more I saw around me the endless stretches of the icy plains. The sun was not seen in the jet-black sky; and above the horizon rose the cold greenish glimmer of the Northern Lights. And lo, those cold dead dreams of mine had come to life again!

There is no more any Ego of mine.... I am beyond existence and beyond nothingness—in that world wherein dies the immemorial conflict between dream and vigil, where Wrong, robed in her queenly purple, is no longer shadowed by Vengeance, attired in pallid green; where stony Hatred no longer hugs in her fierce embrace the weeping god of love; where the marble statue of Pride no more does homage to the grim spectre, Fear; wherein there are no more wretched victories, nor the portentous delights of worshipping Self and the Power of Self!

And I am in such bliss—bliss so celestial, so divine!

That?—Oh, _that_?... It has passed away. Only ... from time to time....

Yes, from time to time, I cast away all traces of kisses in the Past—put aside my wreath of purple velvet flowers—and go, walking tranquilly and slowly, by the cold light of the moon, to kneel at the grave where my dreams lie buried, and press my brow to the base of the tombstone that covers them, ... and muse.

Once, I hung up a wreath of snow-white lilies there; now, I do so no more. I never carry any flowers to that tomb now.

Nor do I ever strive to roll away the grey stone from the sepulcher—that stone, with its black fretwork of ferns graven upon it of old.

Then I go home, and again array myself in my purple velvet flowers....

Fragrance, beyond words, wild and fatal perfume of withered roses! Sweet, most sweet and ardent lips—lips now lost for ever!... Ah, that houri, with arms like pale dead gold!

All this—I can no longer say whether it was a dream or not....

Ah! but what is this? Have the cool white lilies blossomed once again in my deserted garden?

A dream!—A dream!

That hand, of pure white tint, Full fain a bell would swing That nevermore may ring, For the long rift within’t.

But why then am I so immensely, so divinely happy?

Those eyes, dim, sweet, and sad, of him who once was mine!—I can no longer say whether it was all a dream, or not. My ice-plains once more, my ice-plains!—No—before these—still farther back!... still farther! Another, and a far different, sweet smell: a fresh delicious perfume—of meadows in flower, of willow catkins, of the lilacs in blossom.—Yellow marigolds! (O heavens, those strange far-off memories!) ... O sunshine, O green fields, O adorable bygone days!... O my childhood!

Tears flow in torrents—tears for the sunshine, for life, for happiness.—Do not wipe my eyes, for they are dropping pearls! Why brush those pearls away?

That hand, of pure white tint, Oh, let it never swing The bell which cannot ring For the deep rift that’s in’t.

I awoke long after daybreak.

Gina was bending over me.

“Let us leave the place,” she said; “you are a little shaken. A usual thing the first time. You must accustom yourself.”

A tall woman, draped from head to foot in a long mantle of white fur, was waiting for us. Her complexion was of a muddy yellowish hue; her eyes were dull and sodden. It took me more than one glance to make sure who she was.

We were accompanied to the carriage by a grey-haired gentleman whom—so far as I could remember—I had never seen before.

I put up my hands to my eyes, unwilling now to look upon the world any more.

And with this my canticle of love comes to an end.

I had asked Smilowicz to let the Professor know I was going to call upon him: and I have been there to-day.

What a curious feeling I had in beholding once more those solemn-looking apartments, lined all round with books up to the very ceiling and the same beautiful old man, now a little older!

He welcomed me with joy.

“My prodigal daughter,” he said, “is ever so much dearer to me now than before!”

To have kept complete silence about the rupture which had taken place, would not have satisfied his kindness.

“You must not fancy I am quite disinterested in wishing you back again,” he said. “I have something special in view.”

“What may that be, Professor?”

“I have just received permission from the Russian Government to publish a scientific journal, and it has confirmed me in my status as editor. As my secretary, you would be useful, and I ask you to accept the position.”

“I should do so with pleasure, but my occupation prevents me.”

“Your office? You will give it up: it is no fitting situation for you. I have been thinking it over: this is just what will serve most to bring your abilities into full play. You will have to do the ‘Intelligence’ columns, make summaries, and write translations—at first. And it will be necessary to read very, very much. I have by me a great number of new and highly interesting works, which I must show you.—Well, what do you say?”

I said yes.

During our conversation, I was under the same impression that I had, when I went to see Mme. Smilowicz. I was no longer ‘up-to-date,’ for I had long given up reading.—Obojanski talked at length to me about various changes that had latterly taken place in his field of science.

Those last years had been lost for me. My abandonment of the “Ice-plains” had cost me dear. I had learned nothing by having become acquainted with Life; I was not capable of forming any synthetic views about it. The more we know of it, the less is it possible to comprehend it in any systematized generalization.—Everything in Life contradicts everything else: Science is by far more consistent.

“But,” Obojanski asked, “to what am I to ascribe your return?”

“To Smilowicz.”

“I don’t mean that. There must have been something deeper down—some change in your mind and views, eh?”

He no doubt expected to hear some romantic phrases about the barrenness of life spent as in those years, and of its failure to give me happiness.

Instead of which, I made him this unforeseen reply:

“Well, on the whole, it is because I prefer to return to you whom I have left, rather than to the Church!”

And Obojanski eyed me in bewilderment.

THE END.

_A Selection from the Catalogue of_

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

❧

Complete Catalogues sent on application

The

Rose of Jericho

By

Ruth Holt Boucicault

It is a remarkable fact that stories of the stage seldom reflect its romance and glamour. This story has caught both and at the same time is faithful to that mimic world. We have here lifelike character portrayal, a heroine of courage and fascination, and that struggle against odds, new and unusual, which is indispensable to any vital story.

The Comédienne

By

Wladyslaw Reymont

“The Comédienne” is the tale of a Polish girl who rebels against her drab existence in a remote hamlet, and joins a company of provincial players. Against the colorful background of this theatrical life her tragic story is woven.

The character and development of this strange young Slavic woman and the settings and personalities of her environment are described with graphic strength by Wladyslaw Reymont.

THE STRANGENESS

OF NOEL CARTON

By

WILLIAM CAINE

Noel Carton, driven to desperation by his vulgar little wife who, in buying his position, is forced to accept him with it, determines to bury himself in the writing of a novel, in the vain hope of forgetting. At the same time he elects to keep a secret journal. In his novel he subconsciously draws the portraits of the living people surrounding him.

How this novel becomes inextricably entangled with his own journal is the basis for this extraordinarily original story which leads to an astounding climax.

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G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS New York London

Transcriber’s note:

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.

2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.

3. The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.