Books: Ardath

M >> Marie Corelli >> Ardath

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"I have been dreaming!" he said, ... then with a passionate
gesture he added, "God! if the dream were true!"

He was strongly excited, and Heliobas, slipping one arm round him
in a friendly manner, led him back to the chair he had vacated,
observing him closely as he did so.

"You call THIS dreaming," he inquired with a slight smile,
pointing to the table strewn with manuscript on which the ink was
not yet dry. "Then dreams are more productive than active
exertion! Here is goodly matter for printers! ... a fair result it
seems of one morning's labor!"

Alwyn started up, seized the written sheets, and scanned them
eagerly.

"It is my handwriting!" he muttered in a tone of stupefied
amazement.

"Of course! Whose handwriting should it be?" returned Heliobas,
watching him with scientifically keen, yet kindly interest.

"Then it IS true!" he exclaimed. "True--by the sweetness of her
eyes,--true, by the love-lit radiance of her smile!--true, O thou
God whom I dared to doubt! true by the marvels of Thy matchless,
wisdom!"

And with this strange outburst, he began to read in feverish haste
what he had written. His breath came and went quickly,--his cheeks
flushed, his eyes dilated,--line after line he perused with
apparent wonder and rapture,--when suddenly interrupting himself
he raised his head and recited in a half whisper:

"With thundering notes of song sublime I cast my sins away from
me--On stairs of sound I mount--I climb! The angels wait and pray
for me!

"I heard that stanza somewhere when I was a boy ... why do I think
of it now? SHE has waited,--so she said,--these many thousand
days!"

He paused meditatively,--and then resumed his reading, Heliobas
touched his arm.

"It will take you some time to read that, Mr. Alwyn," he gently
observed. "You have written more than you know."

Alwyn roused himself and looked straight at the speaker. Putting
down his manuscript and resting one hand upon it, he gazed with an
air of solemn inquiry into the noble face turned steadfastly
toward his own.

"Tell me," he said wistfully, "how has it happened? This
composition is mine and yet not mine. For it is a grand and
perfect poem of which I dare not call myself the author! I might
as well snatch HER crown of starry flowers and call myself an
Angel!"

He spoke with mingled fervor and humility. To any ordinary
observer he would have seemed to be laboring under home strange
hallucination,--but Heliobas was more deeply instructed.

"Come, come! ... your thoughts are wide of this world," he said
kindly. "Try to recall them! I can tell you nothing, for I know
nothing. ... you have been absent many hours."

"Absent? yes!" and Alwyn's voice thrilled with an infinite
regret. "Absent from earth.. ah! would to God I might hive stayed
with her, in Heaven! My love, my love! where shal I find her if
not in the FIELD OF ARDATH?"

CHAPTER V.

A MYSTIC TRYST.

As he uttered the last words, his eyes darkened into a soft
expression of musing tenderness, and he remained silent for many
minutes, during which the entranced, almost unearthly beauty of
his face underwent a gradual change ... the mystic light that had
for a time transfigured it, faded and died away--and by degrees he
recovered all his ordinary self possession. Presently glancing at
Heliobas, who stood patiently waiting till he should have overcome
whatever emotions were at work in his mind, he smiled.

"You must think me mad!" he said. "Perhaps I am,--but if so, it is
the madness of love that has seized me. Love! ... it is a passion
I have never known before.. I have used it as a mere thread
whereon to string madrigals. a background of uncertain tint
serving to show off the brighter lines of Poesy--but now! ... now
I am enslaved and bound, conquered and utterly subdued by love!
... love for the sweetest, queenliest, most radiant creature that
ever captured or commanded the worship of man! I may SEEM mad--but
I know I am sane--I realize the actual things of this world about
me mind is--my clear, my thoughts are collected, and yet I repeat,
I LOVE! ... aye! with all the force and fervor of this strongly
beating human heart of mine;"--and he touched his breast as he
spoke. "And it comes to this, most wise and worthy Heliobas,--if
your spells have conjured up this vision of immortal youth and
grace and purity that has suddenly assumed such sovereignty over
my life--then you must do something further, ... you must find, or
teach me how to find, the living Reality of my Dream!"

Heliobas surveyed him with some wonder and commiseration.

"A moment ago and you yourself declared your DREAM was true!" he
observed. "This," and he pointed to the manuscript on the table,
"seemed to you sufficient to prove it. Now you have altered you
opinion: . . Why? I have worked no spells upon you, and I am
entirely ignorant as to what your recent experience has been.
Moreover, what do you mean by a 'living Reality'? The flesh and
blood, bone and substance that perishes in a brief seventy years
or so and crumbles into indistinguishable dust? Surely, ... if, as
I conjecture from your words, you have seen one of the fair
inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, . . you would not drag her
spiritual and death unconscious brightness down to the level of
the 'reality of a merely human life? Nay, if you would, you could
not!"

Alwyn looked at him inquiringly and with a perplexed air.

"You speak in enigmas," he said somewhat vexedly. "However, the
whole thing is an enigma and would puzzle the most sagacious head.
That the physicial workings of the brain, in a site of trance,
should arouse in me a passion of love for an imaginary being, and,
at the same time, enable to write a poem such as must make the
fame of any man, is certainly a remarkable and noteworthy result
of scientific mesmerism!"

"Now, my dear sir," interrupted Heliobas in a tone of good-natured
remonstrance,--"do not--if you have any respect for science at
all--do not, I beg of you, talk to me of the 'physical workings'
of a DEAD BRAIN?"

"A dead brain!" echoed Alwyn. "What do you mean?"

"What I say," returned Heliobas, composedly. "'Physical workings'
of any kind are impossible unless the motive power of physical
life be in action. You, regarded as a HUMAN creature merely, had
during seven hours practically CEASED TO BE,--the vital principle
no longer existed in your body, having taken its departure
together with its inseparable companion, the Soul. When it
returned, it set the clockwork of your material mechanism in
motion again, obeying the sovereignty of the Spirit that sought to
express by material means, the utterance of heaven-inspired
thought. Thus your hand mechanically found its way to the pen--
thus you wrote, unconscious of what you were writing, yielding
yourself entirely to the guidance of the spiritual part of your
nature, which AT THAT PARTICULAR JUNCTURE was absolutely
predominant, though now weighted anew by earthy influences it has
partially relaxed its supernal sway. All this I readily perceive
and understand ... but what you did, and where you were conducted
during the time of your complete severance from the tenement of
clay in which you are again imprisoned, ... this I have yet to
learn."

While Heliobas was speaking, Alwyn's countenance had grown vaguely
troubled, and now into his deep poetic eyes there came a look of
sudden penitence.

"True!" he said softly, almost humbly, "I will tell you everything
while I remember it,--though it is not likely I shall ever forget!
I believe there must be some truth after all in what you say
concerning the Soul, ... at any rate, I do not at present feel
inclined to call your theories in question. To begin with, I find
myself unable altogether to explain what it was that happened to
me during my conversation with you last night. It was a very
strange sensation! I recollect that I had expressed a wish to be
placed under your magnetic or electric influence, and that you had
refused my request. Then an odd idea suggested itself to me--
namely, that I could if I chose COMPEL your assent,--and, filled
with this notion, I think I addressed you, or was about to address
you, in a rather peremptory manner, when--all at once--a flash of
blinding light struck me fiercely across the eyes like a scourge!
Stung with the hot pain, and dazzled by the glare, I turned away
from you and fled ... or so it seemed--fled on my own instinctive
impulse ... into DARKNESS!"

He paused and drew a long, shuddering breath, like one who has
narrowly escaped imminent destruction.

"Darkness!" he went on in low accents that thrilled with the
memory of a past feat--"dense, horrible, frightful darkness!--
darkness that palpitated heavily with the labored motion of unseen
things!--darkness that clung and closed about me in masses of
clammy, tangible thickness,--its advancing and resistless weight
rolled over me like a huge waveless ocean--and, absorbed within
it, I was drawn down--down--down toward some hidden, impalpable
but All Supreme Agony, the dull unceasing throbs of which I felt,
yet could not name. 'O GOD!' I cried aloud, abandoning myself to
wild despair, 'O GOD! WHERE ARE THOU?' Then I heard a great
rushing sound as of a strong wind beaten through with wings, and a
Voice, grand and sweet as a golden trumpet blown suddenly in the
silence of night, answered: 'HERE! ... AND EVERYWHERE!' With that,
a slanting stream of opaline radiance cleft the gloom with the
sweep of a sword-blade, and I was caught up quickly ... I know not
how ... for I saw nothing!"

Again he pushed and looked wistfully at Heliobas, who in turn
regarded him with gentle steadfastness.

"It was wonderful--terrible!" ... he continued slowly--"yet
beautiful! ... that Invisible Strength that rescued, surrounded, and
uplifted me; and--" here he hesitated, and a faint flush colored
his cheeks and stole up to the roots of his clustering hair--
"dream or no dream, I feel I cannot now altogether reject the idea
of an existing Divinity. In brief ... I believe in God!"

"Why?" asked Heliobas quietly.

Alwyn met his gaze frankly and with a soft brightening of his
handsome features.

"I cannot give you any logical reasons," he said. "Moreover,
logical reasoning would not now affect me in a matter which seems
to me more full of conviction than any logic. I believe, ...
simply because I believe!"

Heliobas smiled--a very warm and kindly smile--but said nothing,
and Alwyn resumed his narrative.

"As I tell you, I was caught up,--snatched out of that black
profundity with inconceivable swiftness,--and when the ascending
movement ceased, I found myself floating lightly like a wind-blown
leaf through twining arches of amber mist, colored here and there
with rays of living flame ... I heard whispers, and fragments of
song and speech, all sweeter than the sweetest of our known music,
... and still I saw nothing. Presently some one called me by name
--'THEOS! ... THEOS!' I strove to answer, but I had no words
wherewith to match that silver-toned, far-reaching utterance; and
once again the rich vibrating notes pealed through the vaporous
fire-tinted air--'THEOS, MY BELOVED! HIGHER! ... HIGHER! ... All
my being thrilled and quivered to that call. I yearned to obey,
... I struggled to rise--my efforts were in vain; when, to my joy
and wonder, a small, invisible hand, delicate yet strong, clasped
mine, and I was borne aloft with breathless, indescribable,
lightning-like rapidity--on ... on ... and ever upward, till at
last, alighting on a smooth, fair turf, thick-grown with fragrant
blossoms of strange loveliness and soft hues, I beheld Her! ...
and she bade me welcome."

"And who," questioned Heliobas, in tones of hushed reverence, "Who
was this Being that thus enchants your memory?"

"I know not!" replied Alwyn, with a dreamy smile of rapture on his
lips and in his eyes. "And yet her face ... oh! the entrancing
beauty of that face! ... was not altogether unfamiliar. I felt
that I must have loved and lost her ages upon ages ago! Crowned
with white flowers, and robed in a garb that seemed spun from
midsummer moonbeams, she stood ... a smiling Maiden-Sweetness in a
paradise of glad sights and sounds, ... ah! Eve, with the first
sunrise radiance on her brows, was not more divinely fair! ...
Venus, new-springing from the silver sea-foam, was not more
queenly glorious! 'I WILL REMIND THEE OF ALL THOU HAST FORGOTTEN,'
she said, and I understood her soft, half-reproachful accents. 'IT
IS NOT YET TOO LATE! THOU HAST LOST MUCH AND SUFFERED MUCH, AND
THOU HAST BLINDLY ERRED, BUT NOTWITHSTANDING ALL THESE THINGS,
THOU ART MY BELOVED SINCE THESE MANY THOUSAND DAYS!'"

"Days--which the world counts as years!" murmured Heliobas. "You
saw no one but her?"

"No one--we were alone together. A vast woodland stretched before
us, she took my hand and led me beneath broad-arching trees to
where a lake, silvered by some strange radiance, glittered
diamond-like in the stirring of a balmy wind. Here she bade me
rest--and sank gently on the flowery bank beside me. Then viewing
her more closely I greatly feared her beauty--for I saw a wondrous
halo wide and dazzling--a golden aureole that spread itself around
her in scintillating points of light--light that reflected itself
also on me and bathed me in its luminous splendor. And as I gazed
at her in speechless awe, she leaned toward me nearer and nearer,
her deep, pure eyes burning softly into mine ... her hands touched
me--her arms closed round me ... her bright head lay in all its
shining loveliness on my breast! A tremulous ecstasy thrilled me
as with fire ... I gazed upon her as one might gaze on some
fluttering, rare-plumaged bird ... I dare not move or speak ... I
drank her sweetness down into my soul! Now and then a sound as of
distant harps playing broke the love-weighted silence ... and thus
we remained together a heavenly breathing-space of wordless
rapture; till suddenly and swiftly, as though she had received an
invisible summons, she arose, her looks expressing a saintly
patience, and laying her two hands upon my brows--'Write,' she
said, 'WRITE AND PROCLAIM A MESSAGE OF HOPE TO THE SORROWFUL STAR!
WRITE AND LET THINE UTTERANCE BE A TRUE ECHO OF THE ETERNAL MUSIC
WITH WHICH THESE SPHERES ARE FILLED! WRITE TO THE RHYTHMIC BEAT OF
THE HARMONIES WITHIN THEE ... FOR LO! ONCE MORE AS IN AFORETIME MY
CHANGELESS LOVE RENEWS IN THEE THE POWER OF PERFECT SONG!' With
that she moved away serenely and beckoned me to follow ... I
obeyed in haste and trembling ... long rays of rosy light swept
after her like trailing wings, and as she walked, the golden
nimbus round her form glowed with a thousand brilliant and
changeful hues like the rainbows seen in the spray of falling
water! Through lush green grass thick with blossom,--under groves
heavy with fragrant leaves and laden with the songs of birds ...
over meadows cool and mountain-sheltered, on we went--she, like
the goddess of advancing Spring, I eagerly treading in her radiant
footsteps ... and presently we came to a place where two paths
met, ... one all overgrown with azure and white flowers, that
ascended away and away into undiscerned distance, ... the other
sloping deeply downward, and full of shadows, yet dimly illumined
by a pale, mysterious splendor like frosty moonlight streaming on
sad-colored seas. Here she turned and faced me, and I saw her
divine eyes droop with the moisture of unshed tears. 'THEOS! ...
THEOS!' ... she cried, and the passionate cadence of her voice was
as the singing of a nightingale in lonely woodlands ... 'AGAIN ...
AGAIN WE MUST PART! ... PART! ... OH, MY BELOVED! ... MY BELOVED!
HOW LONG WILT THOU SEVER ME FROM THY SOUL AND LEAVE ME ALONE AND
SORROWFUL AMID THE JOYS OF HEAVEN?' As she thus spoke a sense of
utter shame and loss and failure overwhelmed me, ... pierced to
the very core of my being by an unexplained yet most bitter
remorse, I cast myself down in deep abasement before her, ... I
caught her glittering robe ... I strove to say 'Forgive!' but I
was speechless as a convicted traitor in the presence of a wronged
queen! All at once the air about us was rent by a great noise of
thunder intermingled with triumphal music,--she drew her sheeny
garment from my touch in haste, and stooping to me where I knelt,
she kissed my forehead ... 'THY ROAD LIES THERE'--she murmured in
quick, soft tones, pointing to the vista of varying light and
shadow,--'MINE, YONDER!' and she looked toward the flower-
garlanded avenue--'HASTEN! ... IT IS TIME THOU WERT FAR HENCE! ...
RETURN TO THINE OWN STAR LEST ITS PORTALS BE CLOSED ON THEE
FOREVER AND THOU BE PLUNGED INTO DEEPER DARKNESS! SEEK THOU THE
FIELD OF ARDATH!--AS CHRIST LIVES, I WILL MEET THEE THERE!
FAREWELL!' With these words she left me, passing away, arrayed in
glory, treading on flowers, and ever ascending till she
disappeared! ... while I, stricken with a great repentance, went
slowly, as she bade me, down into the shadow, and a rippling
breeze-like melody, as of harps and lutes most tenderly attuned,
followed me as I descended. And now," said Alwyn, interrupting his
narrative and speaking with emphatic decision, "surely there
remains but one thing for me to do--that is, to find the 'Field of
Ardath.'"

Heliobas smiled gravely. "Nay, if you consider the whole episode a
dream," he observed, "why trouble yourself? Dreams are seldom
realized, ... and as to the name of Ardath, have you ever heard it
before?"

"Never!" replied Alwyn. "Still--if there is such a place on this
planet I will most certainly journey thither! Maybe YOU know
something of its whereabouts?"

"Finish your story," said Heliobas, quietly evading the question.
"I am curious to hear the end of your strange adventure."

"There is not much more to tell," and Alwyn sighed a little as he
spoke. "I wandered further and further into the gloom, oppressed
by many thoughts and troubled by vague fears, till presently it
grew so dark that I could scarcely see where I was going, though I
was able to guide myself in the path that stretched before me by
means of the pale luminous rays that frequently pierced the
deepening obscurity, and these rays I now noticed fell ever
downwards in the form of a cross. As I went on I was pursued as it
were by the sound of those delicate harmonies played on invisible,
sweet strings; and after a while I perceived at the extreme end of
the long, dim vista a door standing open, through which I entered
and found myself alone in a quiet room. Here I sat down to rest,--
the melody of the distant harps and lutes still floated in soft
echoes on the silence ... and presently words came breaking
through the music, like buds breaking from their surrounding
leaves.. words that I was compelled to write down as quickly as I
heard them ... and I wrote on and on, obeying that symphonious and
rhythmical dictation with a sense of growing ease and pleasure,
... when all suddenly a dense darkness overcame me, followed by a
gradual dawning gray and golden light ... the words dispersed into
fragmentary half-syllables ... the music died away, ... I started
up amazed ... to find myself here! ... here in this monastery of
Lars, listening to the chanting of the Angelus!"

He ceased, and looked wistfully out through the window at the
white encircling rim of the opposite snow-mountains, now bathed in
the full splendor of noon. Heliobas advanced and laid one hand
kindly on his shoulder. ...

"And do not forget," he said, "that you have brought with you from
the higher regions a Poem that will in all probability make your
fame! 'Fame! fame! next grandest word to God!' ... so wrote one of
your craft, and no doubt you echo the sentiment! Have you not
desired to blazon your name on the open scroll of the world? Well!
... now you can have your wish--the world waits to receive your
signature!"

"That is all very well!" and Alwyn smiled rather dubiously as he
glanced at the manuscript on the table beside him. "But the
question is,--considering how it was written,--can I, dare I call
this poem MINE?"

"Most assuredly you can," returned Heliobas. "Though your
hesitation is a worthy one, and as rare as it is worthy. Well
would it be for all poets and artists were they to pause thus, and
consider before rashly calling their work their own! Self-
appreciation is the death-blow of genius. The poem is as much
yours as your life is yours--no more and no less. In brief, you
have recovered your lost inspiration; the lately dumb oracle
speaks again:--and are you not satisfied?"

"No!" said Alwyn quickly, with a sudden brightening of his eyes as
he met the keenly searching glance that accompanied this question.
"No! for I love! ... and the desire of love burns in me as
ardently as the desire of fame!" He paused, and in quieter tones
continued, "You see I speak freely and frankly to you as though--
," and he laughed a little, "as though I were a good Catholic, and
you my father-confessor! Good heavens! if some of the men I know
in London were to hear me, they would think me utterly crazed! But
craze or no craze, I feel I shall never be satisfied now till I
find out whether there IS anywhere is the world a place called
Ardath. Can you, will you help me in the search? I am almost
ashamed to ask you, for you have already done so much for me, and
I really owe to your wonderful power my trance or soul-liberty, or
whatever it may be called. ..."

"You owe me nothing," interposed Heliobas calmly, "not even
thanks. Your own will accomplished your freedom, and I am not
responsible for either your departure or your return. It was a
predestined occurrence, yet perfectly scientific and easy of
explanation. Your inward force attracted mine down upon you in one
strong current, with the result that your Spirit instantly parted
asunder from your body, and in that released condition you
experienced what you have described. But _I_ had no, more to do
with that experience than I shall have with your journey to the
'field of Ardath,' should you decide to go there."

"There IS an Ardath then!" cried Alwyn excitedly.

Heliobas eyed him with something of scorn. "Naturally! Are you
still so much of a sceptic that you think an ANGEL would have
bidden you seek a place that had no existence? Oh, yes! I see you
are inclined to treat your ethereal adventure as a mere dream,--
but _I_ know it was a reality, more real than anything in this
present world." And turning to the loaded bookshelves he took down
a large volume, and spread it open on the table.

"You know this book?" he asked.

Alwyn glanced at it. "The Bible! Of course!" he replied
indifferently. "Everybody knows it!"

"Pardon!" and Heliobas smiled. "It would be more correct to say
nobody knows it. To read is not always to understand. There are
meanings and mysteries in it which have never yet been penetrated,
and which only the highest and most spiritually gifted intellects
can ever hope to unravel. Now" ... and he turned over the pages
carefully till he came to the one he sought, "I think there is
something here that will interest you--listen!" and he read aloud,
"'The Angel Uriel came unto me and said: Go into a field of
flowers where no house is builded and eat only the flowers of the
field--taste no flesh, drink no wine, but eat flowers only. And
pray unto the Highest continually, and then will I come and talk
to thee. So I went my way into the field which is called ARDATH,
... '"

"The very place!" exclaimed Alwyn, eagerly bending over the sacred
book; then drawing back with a gesture of disappointment he added,
"But you are reading from Esdras, the Apocrypha! an utterly
unreliable source of information!"

"On the contrary, as reliable as any history ever written,"
rejoined Heliobas calmly. "Study it for yourself, ... you will see
that the prophet was at that time resident in Babylon; the field
he mentions was near the city ..."

"Yes--WAS!" interrupted Alwyn incredulously.

"Was and IS," continued Heliobas. "No earthquake has crumbled it,
no sea has invaded it, and no house has been 'builded' thereon. It
is, as it was then, a waste field, lying about four miles west of
the Babylonian ruins, and there is nothing whatever to hinder you
from journeying thither when you please."

Alwyn's expression as he heard this was one of stupefied
amazement. Part of his so-called "dream" had already proved itself
true--a "field of Ardath" actually existed!

"You are certain of what you say?" he demanded.

"Positively certain!" returned Heliobas.

There was a silence, during which a little tinkling bell resounded
in the outer corridor, followed by the tread of sandaled feet on
the stone pavement. Heliobas closed the Bible and returned it to
its shelf.

"That was the dinner-bell," he announced cheerfully. "Will you
accompany me to the refectory, Mr. Alwyn? ... we can talk further
of this matter afterwards." Alwyn roused himself from the fit of
abstraction into which he had fallen, and gathering together the
loose sheets of his so strangely written manuscript, he arranged
them all in an orderly heap without speaking. Then he looked up
and met the earnest eyes of Heliobas with an expression of settled
resolve in his own.