Books: Ardath

M >> Marie Corelli >> Ardath

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"My name is EDRIS!"--she said, and as the pure bell-like tone of
her voice smote the air with its silvery sound, the mysterious
music of the organ and the invisible singers throbbed away,--
away,--away,--into softer and softer echoes, that died at last
tremulously and with a sigh, as of farewell, into the deepest
silence.

"EDRIS!"--In a trance of passionate awe and rapture he caught her
hand,--the warm, delicate hand that yielded to his strong clasp in
submissive tenderness,--pulsations of terror, pain, and wild joy,
all commingled, rushed through him,--with adoring, wistful gaze he
scanned every feature of that love-smiling countenance,--a
countenance no longer lustrous with Heaven's blinding glory, but
only most maiden-like and innocently fair,--dazzled, perplexed,
and half afraid, he could not at once grasp the true comprehension
of his ineffable delight! He had no doubt of her identity--he knew
her well! she was his own heartworshipped Angel,--but on what
errand had she wandered out of paradise? Had she come once more,
as on the Field of Ardath, to comfort him for a brief space with
the beauty of her visible existence, or did she bring from Heaven
the warrant for his death?

"Edris!" he said, as softly as one may murmur a prayer, "Edris, my
life, my love! Speak to me again! make me sure that I am not
dreaming! Tell me where I have failed in my sworn faith since we
parted; teach me how I must still further atone! Is this the hour
appointed for my spirit's ransom?--has this dear and sacred hand I
hold, brought me my quittance of earth?--and have I so soon won
the privilege to die?"

As he spoke, she rose and stood erect, with all the glistening
light of the stained window falling royally about her,--and he
obeying her mute gesture, rose also and faced her in wondering
ecstasy, half expecting to see her vanish suddenly in the sun-rays
that poured through the Cathedral, even as she had vanished before
like a white cloud absorbed in clear space. But no! She remained
quiet as a tame bird,--her eyes met his with beautiful trust and
tenderness,--and when she answered him, her low, sweet accents
thrilled to his heart with a pathetic note of HUMAN affection, as
well as of angelic sympathy!

"Theos, my Beloved, I am ALL THINE!" she said, a holy rapture
vibrating through her exquisite voice.--"Thine now, in mortal life
as in immortal!--one with thee in nature and condition,--pent up
in perishable clay, even as thou art,--subject to sorrow, and
pain, and weariness,--willing to share with thee thine earthly
lot,--ready to take my part in thy grief or joy! By mine own
choice have I come hither,--sinless, yet not exempt from sin, but
safe in Christ! Every time thou hast renounced the desire of thine
own happiness, so much the nearer hast thou drawn me to thee;
every time thou hast prayed God for my peace, rather than thine
own, so much the closer has my existence been linked with thine!
And now, O my Poet, my lord, my king!--we are together forever
more,--together in the brief Present, as in the eternal Future!--
the solitary heaven-days of Edris are past, and her mission is not
Death, but Love!"

Oh, the transcendent beauty of that warm flush upon her face!--the
splendid hope, faith, and triumph of her attitude! What strange
miracle was here accomplished!--an Angel had become human for the
sake of love, even as light substantiates itself in the colors of
flowers!--the Eden lily had consented to be gathered,--the
paradise dove had fluttered down to earth! Breathless, bewildered,
lifted to a height of transport beyond all words, Alwyn gazed upon
her in entranced, devout silence,--the vast cathedral seemed to
swing round and round in great glittering circles, and nothing was
real, nothing steadfast, but that slight, sweet maiden in her soft
gray robes, with the Ardath-blossoms gleaming white against her
breast! Angel she was,--angel she ever would be,--and yet--what
did she SEEM? Naught but:

"A child-like woman, wise and very fair,
Crowned with the garland of her golden hair!"

This, and no more,--and yet in this was all earth and all heaven
comprised!--He gazed and gazed, overwhelmed by the amazement of
his own bliss,--he could have gazed upon her so in speechless
ravishment for hours, when, with a gesture of infinite grace and
appeal, she stretched out her hands toward him:

"Speak to me, dearest one!" she murmured wistfully--"Tell me,--am
I welcome?"

"O exquisite humility!--O beautiful maiden-timid hesitation! Was
she,--even she, God's Angel, so far removed from pride, as to be
uncertain of her lover's reception of such a gift of love? Roused
from his half-swooning sense of wonder, he caught those gentle
hands, and laid them tenderly against his breast,--tremblingly,
and all devoutly, he drew the lovely, yielding form into his arms,
close to his heart,--with dazzled sight he gazed down into that
pure, perfect face, those clear and holy eyes shining like new-
created stars beneath the soft cloud of clustering fair hair!

"Welcome!" he echoed, in a tone that thrilled with passionate awe
and ecstasy;--"My Edris! My Saint! My Queen! Welcome, more welcome
than the first flowers seen after winter snows!--welcome, more
welcome than swift rescue to one in dire peril!--welcome, my
Angel, into the darkness of mortal things, which haply so sweet a
Presence shall make bright! O sacred innocence that I am not
worthy to shield! ... O sinless beauty that I am all unfitted to
claim or possess! Welcome to my life, my heart, my soul! Welcome,
sweet Trust, sweet Hope, sweet Love, that as Christ lives, I will
never wrong, betray, or resign again through all the glory spaces
of far Eternity!"

As he spoke, his arms closed more surely about her,--his lips met
hers,--and in the mingled human and divine rapture of that moment,
there came a rushing noise, as of thousands of wings beating the
air, followed by a mighty wave of music that rolled approachingly
and then departingly through and through the Cathedral arches--and
a Voice, clear and resonant as a silver clarion, proclaimed aloud:

"Those whom GOD hath joined together, let no MAN put asunder!"

Then, with a surging, jubilant sound, like the sea in a storm, the
music seemed to tread past in a measured march of stately
harmony,--and presently there was silence once more,--the silence
and sunshine of the morning pouring through the rose windows of
the church and sparkling on the Cross above the Altar,--the
silence of a love made perfect,--of twin souls made ONE!

And then Edris drew herself gently from her lover's embrace and
raised her head,--putting her hand confidingly in his, a lovely
smile played on her sweetly parted lips:

"Take me, Theos," she said softly, "Lead me,--into the World!"

* * * * * *

Slowly the great side-doors of the Cathedral swung back on their
hinges,--and out on the steps in a glorious blaze of sunlight came
Poet and Angel together. The one, a man in the full prime of
splendid and vigorous manhood,--the other, a maiden, timid and
sweet, robed in gray attire with a posy of white flowers at her
throat. A simple girl, and most distinctly human,--the fresh, pure
color reddened in her cheeks,--the soft springtide wind fanned her
gold hair, and the sunbeams seemed to dance about her in a bright
revel of amaze and curiosity. Her lustrous eyes dwelt on the busy
Platz below with a vaguely compassionate wonder--a look that
suggested some far foreknowledge of things, that at the same time
were strangely unfamiliar. Hand in hand with her companion she
stood,--while he, holding her fast, drunk in the pureness of her
beauty, the love-light of her glance, the holy radiance of her
smile, till every sense in him was spiritualized anew by the
passionate faith and reverence in his heart, the marvellous glory
that had fallen upon his life, the nameless rapture that possessed
his soul!--To have knelt at her feet, and bowed his head before
her in worshipping silence, would have been to follow the
strongest impulse in him,--but she had given him a higher duty
than this. He was to "LEAD HER,"--lead her "into the world!"--the
dreary, dark world, so unfitted to receive such brightness,--she
had come to him clad in all the sacred weakness of womanhood; and
it was his proud privilege to guard and shelter her from evil,--
from the evil in others, but chiefly from the evil in himself. No
taint must touch that spotless life with which God had entrusted
him!--sorrow might come--nay, MUST come, since, so long as
humanity errs, so long must angels grieve,--sorrow, but not sin! A
grand, awed sense of responsibility filled him,--a responsibility
that he accepted with passionate gratitude and joy ... he had
attained a vaster dignity than any king on any throne, ... and all
the visible Universe was transfigured into a golden pageant of
loveliness and light, fairer than the fabled Valley of Avilion!

Yet still he kept her close beside him on the steps of the mighty
Dom, half-longing, half-hesitating to take her further, and ever
and anon assailed by a dreamy doubt as to whether she might not
even now pass away from him suddenly and swiftly, as a mist fading
into heaven,--when all at once the sound of beating drums and
martial trumpets struck loudly on the quiet morning air. A
brilliant regiment of mounted Uhlans emerged from an opposite
street, and cantered sharply across the Platz and over the Rhine-
bridge, with streaming pennons, burnished helmets and
accoutrements glistening in a long compact line of silvery white,
that vanished as speedily as it had appeared, like a winding flash
of meteor flame. Alwyn drew a deep, quick breath; the sight of
those armed soldiers roused him to the fact that he was actually
in the turmoil of present daily events,--that his supernal
happiness was no vision, but REALITY,--that Edris, his Spirit-
love, was with him in tangible human guise of flesh and blood,--
though how such a mysterious marvel had been accomplished, he knew
no more than scientists know how the lovely life of green leaf and
perfect flower can still be existent in seeds that have lain
dormant and dry in old tombs for thousands of years! And as he
looked at her proudly,--adoringly,--she raised her beautiful,
innocent, questioning eyes to his.

"This is a city?" she asked--"a city of men who labor for good,
and serve each other?"

"Alas, not so, my sweet!" he answered, his voice trembling with
its own infinite tenderness; "there is no city on the sad Earth
where men do not labor for mere vanity's sake, and oppose each
other!"

Her inquiring gaze softened into a celestial compassion.

"Come,--let us go!" she said gently. "We twain, made one in love
and faith, must hasten to begin our work!--darkness gathers and
deepens over the Sorrowful Star,--but we, perchance, with Christ's
most holy Blessing, may help to lift the Shadows into Light!"

* * * * * * *

Away in a sheltered mountainous retreat, apart from the louder
clamor of the world, the Poet and his heavenly companion dwell in
peace together. Their love, their wondrous happiness, no mortal
language can define,--for spiritual love perfected as far exceeds
material passion as the steadfast glory of the sun outshines the
nickering of an earthly taper. Few, very few, there are who
recognize, or who attain, such joy,--for men chiefly occupy
themselves with the SEMBLANCES of things, and therefore fail to
grasp all high realities. Perishable beauty,--perishable fame,--
these are mere appearances; imperishable Worth is the only
positive and lasting good, and in the search for imperishable
Worth alone, the seeker must needs encounter Angels unawares!

But for those whose pleasure it is to doubt and deny all spiritual
life and being, the history of Theos Alwyn can be disposed of with
much languid ease and cold logic, as a foolish chimera scarce
worth narrating. Practically viewed, there is nothing wonderful in
it, since it can all be traced to a powerful exertion of magnetic
skill. Tranced into a dream bewilderment by the arts of the mystic
Chaldean, Heliobas,--tricked into visiting the Field of Ardath,
what more likely than that a real earth-born maiden, trained to
her part, should have met the dreamer there, and, with the secret
aid of the hermit Elezar, continued his strange delusion? What
more fitting as a sequel to the whole, than that the same maiden
should have been sent to him again in the great Rhine Cathedral,
to complete the deception and satisfy his imagination by linking
her life finally with his?--It is a perfectly simple explanation
of what some credulous souls might be inclined to consider a
mystery,--and let the dear, wise, oracular people who cannot admit
any mystery in anything, and who love to trace all seeming
miracles to clever imposture, accept this elucidation by all
means,--they will be able to fit every incident of the story into
such an hypothesis, with most admirable and consecutive neatness!
Al-Kyris was truly a Vision,--the rest was,--What? Merely the
working of a poetic imagination under mesmeric influence!

So be it! The Poet knows the truth,--but what are Poets? Only the
Prophets and Seers! Only the Eyes of Time, which clearly behold
Heaven's Fact beyond this world's Fable. Let them sing if they
choose, and we will hear them in our idle hours,--we will give
them a little of our gold,--a little of our grudging praise,
together with much of our private practical contempt and
misprisal! So say the unthinking and foolish--so will they ever
say,--and hence it is, that though the fame of Theos Alwyn widens
year by year, and his sweet clarion harp of Song rings loud
warning, promise, hope, and consolation above the noisy tumult of
the whirling age, people listen to him merely in vague wonderment
and awe, doubting his prophet utterance, and loth to put away
their sin. But he, never weary in well-doing, works on, ... ever
regardless of Self, caring nothing for Fame, but giving all the
riches of his thought for Love. Clear, grand, pure, and musical,
his writings fill the time with hope and passionate faith and
courage,--his inspiration fails not, and can never fail, since
Edris is his fount of ecstasy,--his name, made glorious by God's
blessing, shall never, as in his perished Past, be again
forgotten!

And what of Edris? What of the "Flower-crowned Wonder" of the
Field of Ardath, strayed for a while out of her native Heaven?
Does the world know her marvellous origin? Perhaps the mystic
Heliobas knows,--perhaps even good Frank Villiers has hazarded a
reverent guess at his friend's great secret--but to the
uninstructed, what does she seem?

Nothing but a WOMAN, MOST PURE WOMANLY; a woman whose influence on
all is strangely sweet and lasting,--whose spirit overflows with
tenderest sympathy for the many wants and sorrows of mankind,--
whose voice charms away care,--whose smile engenders peace,--whose
eyes, lustrous and thoughtful, are unclouded by any shadow of
sin,--and on whose serene beauty the passing of years leaves no
visible trace. That she is fair and wise, joyous, radiant, and
holy is apparent to all,--but only the Poet, her lover and lord,
her subject and servant, can tell how truly his Edris is not so
much sweet woman as most perfect Angel! A Dream of Heaven made
human! ... Let some of us hesitate ere we doubt the Miracle; for
we are sleepers and dreamers all,--and the hour is close at hand
when--we shall Wake.

THE END.