Chapter 14

Theirs was a strange courtship--Spero's and Iclea's. The lovely young Norwegian lady had recently lost her mother, and being, like many of the cultivated women of Northern Europe, somewhat dubious of the dogmas of religion, she had found death a terrible mystery when it was thus brought sharply home to her. She was wandering in the dreadful labyrinth of modern doubt, vainly seeking to forget her trouble in the excitements of mountaineering, when she saw the unearthly apparition of the young French philosopher. A study of his works heightened the feeling of awe with which she already regarded him. At first there was no room for love in the passionate desire after knowledge which drew her to him. She was merely a disciple sitting at the feet of the great master. Accompanied by her father, she continued her studies under him when he returned to Paris, and for three months they were bound together wholly by intellectual interest. For several hours every day they studied side by side, and much of Iclea's time was spent in translating papers in foreign languages, bearing on subjects in which Georges was interested. One morning he arrived earlier than usual, his eyes shining with joy.

"I have settled the problem," he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece. "At least," he added, with his usual modesty, "I have settled it to my own satisfaction."

Striding up and down the room, he rapidly sketched out a system of philosophy in which the ultimate truths of modern science were transformed into the bases of religion. Iclea listened to him in silence as he went on to explain the spiritual forces still dormant in the human soul.

"We are still in our spiritual infancy," he said. "It is scarcely four thousand years since mankind began to manifest its higher powers. Our greatest conquests over nature are all of recent date, and they are the work of a few noble souls who have erected themselves above the animal conditions of life. The reign of brute force is over, and I am certain that as soon as we learn to exercise the powers of our soul we shall acquire transcendental faculties that will enable us to transport ourselves from one world to another."

"That, too, is my belief," said Iclea.

Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through which her very soul was speaking. There was a strange silence, and then their lips met.

* * * * *

For some months I lost sight of my two friends. In the ecstasy of their love they forgot for a while the problems of philosophy which had brought them together. The joys of intellectual communion were submerged and almost lost in the new, strange feeling which crowned and glorified their lives. Hand in hand the lovers wandered about Paris, which had now become to them a city in fairyland. Meeting them one evening on the banks of the Seine, I learned that they were returning to Norway with Iclea's father, and that they were to be married at Christiania on the anniversary of the mysterious apparition on the mountain which had brought them together. Georges was about to resume his interrupted studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he wished to trace to its source by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea intended to accompany him in his voyage through the air.

To my great regret I was unable to go with them to Norway, as my duties as an astronomer kept me in Paris. I anxiously awaited that extraordinary agitation of the magnetic needle which announces the existence of an Aurora Borealis in Northern Europe. When at last the magnetic perturbation occurred in the observatory, I rejoiced to think that Spero and his bride were floating high, feasting their eyes on the most gorgeous of spectacles.

But suddenly an indefinable feeling of uneasiness came over me, which grew into a dreadful presentiment of disaster. Long before the telegram arrived from Christiania I knew what had happened. Georges and Iclea were dead!

Every reader of the newspapers next morning knew as much as I did. An escape of gas which could not be stopped sent the balloon hurtling to the earth. Spero threw everything movable out of the car in a vain attempt to lighten it and break the force of the descent. The balloon still kept falling; then Iclea, with a wild courage born of love, saved Georges' life by leaping out of the car. Relieved of her weight, the balloon rose up, but Spero had now no wish to live. He jumped out with a wild cry, and his body crashed on the edge of the lake into which Iclea had fallen. There the mortal remains of the two lovers now lie, covered by a single stone. But where were their souls?

One night Georges Spero remembered his promise to me, and returned to earth.

_III.--A Soul from Mars_

Sitting alone on the top of the ancient castle of Montlhéry, I was conducting an experiment in optics by means of electrical communications with two assistants at Paris and Juvisy. I was trying to find out if the rays of different colours in the spectrum travel at the same rate. It was just on midnight before I brought the experiment to a successful conclusion. As I covered up my instruments, some one said, "You would not have brought that off, Camille, if it had not been for me. I gave you the idea of comparing the violet vibrations with the red."

I turned round with a cry of fear. Georges Spero was sitting in the moonlight on the parapet, looking at me with a smile.

"Are you afraid of me, Camille?" he said.

"You, Georges! You!" I stammered. "Is it really you? Keep still, and let me touch you."

I put my hands on his face, and stroked his hair, and felt his body. I could no longer doubt that I had him before me in the actual flesh, but he read my thoughts.

"You are mistaken, Camille," he said. "My real body is asleep on Mars."

"So you still live?" I exclaimed. "You have solved the great problem. And Iclea?"

"Let us sit here and talk," he replied. "There are many things I want to tell you."

My fears had vanished, and I sat by my beloved friend.

"It seemed to me," said Georges, "that my fall from the balloon knocked me senseless. When I came to, I was lying in the darkness with the ripple of lake-water breaking on my ear. What amazed me was a strange sense of lightness that made me feel I could rise up and float away if I wanted to. Thinking this was a disorder of the mind, I did not attempt to move, but watched with wondering eyes the sky above me. It was lighted by two strange moons. When the day broke, and showed around me a world of unimaginable splendour, I knew the meaning of the two moons and of my strange feeling of lightness. I was a disembodied spirit that had been transported to Mars.

"Do you know, Camille, that the soul is able to choose its mortal covering? This is, at least, the case on Mars. For some time I wandered about in an invisible form, studying the conditions of life there. Animal strength, I found, counted for nothing. The Martians are an aerial race, with exquisite senses, which respond in a way unknown on earth to spiritual influences. Do you remember I read your thoughts when we first met, and answered them before you spoke? That is one of the Martians' gifts. Finding that these wonderful faculties were better developed in the women of Mars than in the men, I chose the feminine form for my reincarnation."

"And Iclea?" I said.

"Iclea," said Spero, "was re-born in a masculine shape. It was partly because of the mystic attraction that I felt for her that I chose the other form. Neither of us remembered our earthly existence, but a vague yet deep sentiment of our spiritual relationship made me seek her out and unite myself to her. It was your beloved muse Uriana," he added, "who revealed the ties that bound us in our former lives.

"Owing to their superior faculties, the Martians have carried every science to a perfection undreamt of on this earth. In astronomical observations, for instance, they employ a system of telephotography. For thousands of years their instruments have been photographing, on an unending roll of paper, the wild spectacle of terrestrial life.

"One day, as Iclea and I were examining recent photographs, we saw a picture of Paris during the Great Exhibition. Seizing a microscope, we looked at the figures, and recognised ourselves among them. Strange memories stirred within us, and we stared at each other in silent amazement. Suddenly I remembered the sacred words I learnt at my mother's knee. Yes, there were many mansions in our Father's house! The blood-stained planet from which we had escaped was neither the cradle nor the grave of His children.

"Then we wept as we thought of the cruelty, ignorance, misery, and grossness of existence on earth. It was, dear Camille, with no joy that I recollected the promise I had made to you. But, you see, I have carried it out. I wish to convince you, and, through you, all the rest of mankind, that the soul is immortal, and that the earth is only a temporary stage of existence in a spiritual progress in which the whole universe is included."

"But how is it possible for you, Georges," I interrupted, "to appear to me in the body you wore on earth?"

"All this," said Spero, touching his body, "is an illusion. Do you not recollect my saying that only invisible things are real? You do not see me with your eyes, or feel me with your hands, as you think you do. The impression which you have of my presence is born of the influence which my mind is exerting in an invisible way on your mind. Can't you understand? It is a kind of hypnotism. At the present moment, as I have said, I am lying asleep on Mars, but my spirit is in direct communication with yours. The form you see sitting beside you on this parapet is only an illusion of your senses. My soul is speaking to your soul."

"But could you not," I said, "give me some description of life on Mars?"

"A dream," he replied, "would be more vivid than a mere description, though it would only be a shadow of the reality. For since you have not, my dear friend, our exquisite faculties of knowledge, your mind could not clearly mirror our life. Hark! Iclea is awake, and calling me. I cannot stay any longer. Shut your eyes, and I will send you a dream."

I turned to say good-bye, but Spero had vanished. A deep drowsiness fell upon me, and just as I got off the parapet and found a safer position I fell asleep.

_IV.--The Eternal Progress_

I was sitting under a strange tree covered with gigantic red flowers. In the sky above me were two moons that shed a dim brightness on the lovely and fantastic scenery. A multitude of radiant shapes fluttered and darted through the air. They were Martians--exquisite, aerial, and divinely beautiful figures glowing with luminous tints. Airy gondolas, which seemed to be fashioned from phosphorescent flowers, passed above my head, and one of them floated down to the tree under which I was lying. In it were Iclea and Georges, but etherealised beyond the reach of human imagination.

They took me in their flying chariot as day was breaking, and we coursed, with a strange silent interchange of thoughts, over the orange-coloured land of Mars. I could not understand everything which was communicated to me, now by Iclea and now by Georges; but I perceived that all manual labour on the planet was done by means of machines directed by animals whose intelligence was on a level with my own. The Martians themselves lived only for the things of the mind; they had twelve senses instead of five, and their bodies, in which electricity played the part that blood does in our systems, were so finely and yet so strongly organised that they possessed an extraordinary power over the forces of nature. Everything on their world, seas, mountains and rivers were like their wonderful canals, works of art and science. Nature was completely plastic in their hands. There was no poverty and no crime. Deriving their food from the air which they breathe, the Martians were liberated from material cares and immersed in the joys of intellectual pursuits.

"You now see, Camille," said Spero, resorting at last to language which I could clearly understand, "that life on Mars has developed as peacefully and nobly as it began. There is no break between our vegetable kingdom and our animal kingdom. We are nourished, like your plants, trees, and herbs, by the air which we breathe. Ten million years ago your world was also a scene of innocence and tranquil felicity. The land was overgrown with a wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the gentle winds of heaven, and primitive forms of animal life had spread from the depths of the sea along the shallow shores, and were there learning to extract from the air a nourishment similar to that which they obtained from the water. But by a woeful chance, one of your primitive animals--a deaf, blind, sexless clot of jelly--then had its body pierced by a drop of sea-water thicker than usual, and it found that this way of feeding was quicker than simple respiration. Such was the origin of the first digestive tube, which has exercised so baleful an influence on the course of terrestrial life, and turned the earth into a vast slaughterhouse."

"Is there no hope for us?" I said.

"No," he replied; "the earth is a shipwrecked planet. None of the higher organisms there will ever rise to our level. How can they alter the structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force? And the grossness of their blood-fed senses! How can all the fine powers of the immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded instruments of knowledge?"

"But even if our earth is a shipwrecked planet," I exclaimed, "there is at least some means of escaping from it. You and Iclea, for instance----"

"Yes, there is a way of escape," said Spero, "the Uranian way. By soaring aloft into the serene region of spiritual ideas, a terrestrial soul can still free itself from its animality. Some save themselves by their high moral qualities, others are purified and uplifted by their imagination and intellect. Virtue and science are the wings that enable earth-born spirits to mount the skies. The destiny of a soul is determined by its works and aspirations. Lovers of knowledge sojourn awhile on Mars, which is only the first stage in the eternal progress. Spirits animated by divine feelings rise at once into high regions of starry splendour. The Uranian way is open to all, and the day will arrive when every inhabitant of your wild, dark planet will recognise that he, too, is a citizen of heaven. Then Urania will at last inspire and direct him, and point out the path by which he can ascend from the blood-stained earth to the fairer mansions prepared for him in the skies."

As he was speaking our aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by the shore of an enchanted sea. I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and shadowed me with them, and murmured, "Do you wish to return to earth?"

"No," I cried, running up to clasp her in my arms.

I awoke with a sudden shock. I was lying on the top of the tower of Montlhéry; the sun was rising, and the vast circle of country below me shone clear and distinct in the morning light.

"Was it a dream?" I said to myself. "Surely not. The earth is not the only home of life in the universe. Urania, the celestial muse, is now unfolding before our astonished eyes the panoramas of infinity, and we know at last that we are not the children of the earth, but citizens of the heavens."

* * * * *

DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ

Undine

Friedrich Heinrich Karl Fouqué, Baron de la Motte, was born at Brandenburg, in Prussia, Feb. 12, 1777, and died in Berlin January 23, 1843. The mixed nationality indicated by his name is accounted for by his descent from a French Huguenot family. He served as a Prussian cavalryman in the two campaigns against Napoleon of 1792 and 1813, but during the long interval between devoted himself actively to intellectual culture and literary pursuits. He began his career as an author by translating the "Numancia" of Cervantes, but his admiration of the ancient Norse sagas and the old German legends led him into the composition of exquisitely beautiful and tender, though exceedingly fantastic, romances which speedily gained immense popularity. In these productions fairy and magical elements predominate. His masterpiece is "Undine," published in 1814, the other best-known works being "Sintram," "Aslauga's Knight," and "The Two Captains." In all Fouqué's stories the marks of genius appear in his brilliant imagination and pure and fascinating diction.

_I.--The Water Sprite_

About a century ago an aged fisherman sat mending his nets by his cottage door, in front of a lovely lake. Behind his dwelling stretched a sombre forest, reputed to be haunted by goblin creatures. Through this gloomy solitude the pious old fisherman frequently passed, religiously dispelling all terrors by singing hymns as he went with his fish to a town near the border of the forest.

One evening he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and presently appeared a knight riding on a splendid steed, and clad in resplendent armour. The stranger stopped, and besought shelter for the night, and the good old fisherman accorded him a most cheery welcome, taking him into the cottage, where sat his aged wife by a scanty fire. Soon the three were freely conversing. The knight told of his travels and revealed that he was Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten, where he had a castle by the Rhine.

A splash against the window surprising the guest he was informed by his host, with some little show of vexation, that little tricks were often played by a foster-child of the old couple, named Undine, a girl of eighteen.

The door flew open, and a lovely girl glided, laughing, into the room. Without the slightest token of shyness she gazed at the knight for a few moments, then asked why he had come to the poor cottage.

"Have you come through the wild forest?"

He confessed that he had, and she instantly demanded a recital of his adventures. With a slight shudder at his own recollections of the strange creatures he had encountered, Huldbrand consented, but a reproof from the fisherman at her obtrusiveness angered Undine. The girl sprang up and rushed forth into the night, exclaiming, "Sleep alone in your smoky old hut!"

In great alarm, the fisherman and Huldbrand rose to follow the girl, but she had vanished in the darkness. Remarking that she had acted so before, the old fisherman invited Huldbrand to sit by the fire and talk awhile, and began to relate how Undine had come to live with them.

The couple had lost their only child, a wonderfully beautiful little girl. At the age of three, when sitting in her mother's lap at the edge of the lake, she seemed to be attracted by some lovely apparition in the water, for, suddenly stretching out her hands and laughing, she had in a moment sprung into the lake. No trace of the child could ever be found. But the same evening a lovely little girl, three or four years old, with water streaming from her golden tresses, suddenly entered the cottage, smiling sweetly at the fisherman and his wife. They hastily undressed the little stranger and put her to bed. She uttered not a word, but simply smiled. In the morning she talked a little, confusedly telling how she had been in a boat on the lake with her mother, and had fallen in, and could recollect nothing more. She could say nothing as to who she was or whence she came. But she talked often of golden castles and crystal domes.

While the fisherman was talking thus to the knight, he was suddenly interrupted by the noise of rushing water. Floods seemed to be bursting forth, and he and his guest, going hastily to the door, saw by the moonlight that the brook which issued from the forest was surging in a wild torrent over its margin, while a roaring wind was lashing the lake. In great alarm both shouted, "Undine! Undine!" But there was no response, and the two ran off in different directions in search of the fugitive.

It was Huldbrand who discovered the girl. Clambering down some rocks at the edge of the stream, thinking Undine might have fallen there, he was hailed by the sweet voice of the girl herself.

"Venture not," she cried. "The old man of the stream is full of tricks."

Looking across at a tiny isle in the stream, the knight saw her nestling in the grass, smiling, and in an instant he had crossed.

"The fisherman is distressed at your absence," said he. "Let us go back."

Looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes, the girl replied. "If you think so, well; whatever you think is right to me."

Taking Undine in his arms, Huldbrand bore her over the stream to the cottage, where she was received with joy. Dawn was breaking, and breakfast was prepared under the trees. Undine flung herself on the grass at Huldbrand's feet, and at her renewed request the knight told the story of his forest adventures.

"It is now about eight days since I rode into the city on the other side of the forest to join in a great tournament. In one of the intervals between the jousts I noticed a lovely lady among the spectators. I learned that she was Bertalda, foster-daughter of a great duke, and each evening I became her partner in the dances.

"This Bertalda was a wayward girl, and each day pleased me less and less; but I continued in her company, and asked her jestingly to give me a glove. She said she would do so if I would explore alone the haunted forest. As an honourable knight I could not decline the challenge, and yesterday I set out on the enterprise. Before I had penetrated very far within the glades, I saw what looked like a bear in the branches of an oak; but the creature, in a harsh, human voice, growled that it was getting branches with which to roast me at night. My horse was scared at this, and other grim apparitions, but at last I emerged from the forest, and saw the lake and this cottage."

When he had finished, the fisherman spoke of the best way by which the visitor could return to the city; but, with sly laughter, Undine declared that the knight could not depart, for if he attempted now to cross the deluged wood, he would be overwhelmed.

_II.--"I Have No Soul!"_

Huldbrand, detained at the cottage by the increasing overflow of the stream, enjoyed the most perfect satisfaction with his sojourn.

The old folks with pleasure regarded the two young people as being betrothed, and Huldbrand assumed that he was accepted by the girl, whom he had come to look upon as not being in reality one of this poor household, but one of some illustrious family, and when, one evening, an aged priest appeared at the cottage, driven in by the storm, Huldbrand addressed to him a request that he should on the spot at once unite him and the maiden, as they were pledged to each other. A discussion arose, but matters were at length settled, and the old wife produced two consecrated tapers. Lighting these, the priest, with brief, solemn ceremony, celebrated the nuptials.

Undine had been quiet and grave during these proceedings, but a singular change took place in her demeanour as soon as the rite had been performed. She began at intervals to indulge in wild freaks, teasing the priest, and indulging in a variety of silly tricks. At length the priest gently expostulated with Undine, exhorting her so to attune her soul that it might always be in concord with that of her husband.