the next day was very wet and stormy. from morning to night the rain fell in torrents, and a cold wind blew. el-râmi stayed indoors, reading, writing, and answering a few of his more urgent correspondents, a great number of whom were total strangers to him, and who nevertheless wrote to him out of the sheer curiosity excited in them by the perusal of a certain book to which his name was appended as author. this book was a very original literary production,—the critics were angry with it, because it was so unlike anything else that ever was written. according to the theories set forth in its pages, man, the poor and finite, was proved to be a creature of superhuman and almost god-like attributes,—a “flattering unction” indeed, which when laid to the souls of commonplace egoists had the effect of making them consider el-râmi zarânos a very wonderful person, and themselves more wonderful still. only the truly great mind is humble enough to appreciate greatness, and of great minds there is a great scarcity. most of el-râmi’s correspondents were of that lower order of intelligence which blandly accepts every fresh truth discovered as specially intended for themselves, and not at all for the world, as though indeed they were some particular and removed class of superior beings who alone were capable of understanding true wisdom. “your work has appealed to me”—wrote one, “as it will not appeal to all, because i am able to enter into the divine spirit of things as the vulgar herd cannot do!” this, as if the “vulgar herd” were not also part of the “divine spirit of things”!
“i have delighted in your book”—wrote another, “because i am a poet, and the world, with its low aims and lower desires, i abhor and despise!”
the absurdity of a man presuming to call himself a poet, and in the same breath declaring he “despises” the world,—the world which supports his life and provides him with all his needs,—never seems to occur to the minds of these poor boasters of a petty vanity. el-râmi looked weary enough as he glanced quickly through a heap of such ill-judged and egotistical epistles, and threw them aside to be for ever left unanswered. to him there was something truly horrible and discouraging in the contemplation of the hopeless, helpless, absolute stupidity of the majority of mankind. the teachings of mother nature being always straight and plain, it is remarkable what devious turnings and dark winding ways we prefer to stumble into rather than take the fair and open course. for example nature says to us—“my children, truth is simple,—and i am bound by all my forces to assist its manifestation. a lie is difficult—i can have none of it—it needs other lies to keep it going,—its ways are full of complexity and puzzle,—why then, o foolish ones, will you choose the lie and avoid the truth? for, work as you may, the truth must out, and not all the uproar of opposing multitudes can still its thunderous tongue.” thus nature;—but we heed her not,—we go on lying steadfastly, in a strange delusion that thereby we may deceive eternal justice. but eternal justice never is deceived,—never is obscured even, save for a moment, as a passing cloud obscures the sun.
“how easy after all to avoid mischief of any kind,” mused el-râmi now, as he put by his papers and drew two or three old reference volumes towards him—“how easy to live happily, free from care, free from sickness, free from every external or internal wretchedness, if we could but practise the one rule—self-abnegation. it is all there,—and the ethereal lilith may be right in her assurance as to the non-existence of evil unless we ourselves create it. at least one half the trouble in the world might be avoided if we chose. debt, for example,—that carking trouble always arises from living beyond one’s means,—therefore why live beyond one’s means? what for? show? vulgar ostentation? luxury? idleness? all these are things against which heaven raises its eternal ban. then take physical pain and sickness,—here self is to blame again,—self-indulgence in the pleasures of the table,—sensual craving—the marriage of weakly or ill-conditioned persons,—all simple causes from which spring incalculable evils. avoid the causes and we escape the evils. the arrangements of nature are all so clear and explicit, and yet we are for ever going out of our way to find or invent difficulties. the farmer grumbles and writes letters to the newspapers if his turnip-fields are invaded by what he deems a ‘destructive pest’ in the way of moth or caterpillar, and utterly ignores the fact that these insects always appear for some wise reason or other, which he, absorbed in his own immediate petty interests, fails to appreciate. his turnips are eaten,—that is all he thinks or cares about,—but if he knew that those same turnips contain a particular microbe poisonous to human life, a germ of typhoid, cholera, or the like, drawn up from the soil and ready to fructify in the blood of cattle or of men, and that these insects of which he complains are the scavengers sent by nature to utterly destroy the plague in embryo, he might pause in his grumbling to wonder at so much precaution taken by the elements for the preservation of his unworthy and ignorant being. perplexing and at times maddening is this our curse of ignorance,—but that the ‘sins of the fathers are visited on the children’ is a true saying is evident—for the faults of generations are still bred in our blood and bone.”
he turned over the first volume before him listlessly,—his mind was not set upon study, and his attention wandered. he was thinking of féraz, with whom he had scarcely exchanged a word all day. he had lacked nothing in the way of service, for swift and courteous obedience to his brother’s wishes had characterised féraz in every simple action, but there was a constraint between the two that had not previously existed. féraz bore himself with a stately yet sad hauteur,—he had the air of a proud prince in chains who, being captive, performed his prison work with exactitude and resignation as a matter of discipline and duty. it was curious that el-râmi, who had steeled himself as he imagined against every tender sentiment, should now feel the want of the impetuous confidence and grace of manner with which his young brother had formerly treated him.
“everything changes—” he mused gloomily, “everything must change, of course; and nothing is so fluctuating as the humour of a boy who is not yet a man, but is on the verge of manhood. and with féraz my power has reached its limit,—i know exactly what i can do, and what i can not do with him,—it is a case of ‘thus far and no farther.’ well,—he must choose his own way of life,—only let him not presume to set himself in my way, or interfere in my work! ye gods!—there is nothing i would not do——”
he paused, ashamed; the blood flushed his face darkly and his hand clenched itself involuntarily. conscious of the thought that had arisen within him, he felt a moment’s shuddering horror of himself. he knew that in the very depths of his nature there was enough untamed savagery to make him capable of crushing his young brother’s life out of him, should he dare to obstruct his path or oppose him in his labours. realising this, a cold dew broke out on his forehead and he trembled.
“o soul of lilith that cannot understand evil!” he exclaimed—“whence came this evil thought in me? does the evil in myself engender it?—and does the same bitter gall that stirred the blood of cain lurk in the depths of my being, till opportunity strikes the wicked hour? retro me, sathanas! after all, there was something in the old beliefs—the pious horror of a devil,—for a devil there is that walks the world, and his name is man!”
he rose and paced the room impatiently,—what a long day it seemed, and with what dreary persistence the rain washed against the windows! he looked out into the street,—there was not a passenger to be seen,—a wet dingy grayness pervaded the atmosphere and made everything ugly and cheerless. he went back to his books, and presently began to turn over the pages of the quaint arabic volume into which féraz had unwisely dipped, gathering therefrom a crumb of knowledge, which, like all scrappy information, had only led him to discontent.
“all these old experiments of the egyptian priests were simple enough—” he murmured as he read,—“they had one substratum of science,—the art of bringing the countless atoms that fill the air into temporary shape. the trick is so easy and natural that i fancy there must have been a certain condition of the atmosphere in earlier ages which of itself shaped the atoms,—hence the ideas of nymphs, dryads, fauns, and water-sprites; these temporary shapes which dazzled for some fleeting moments the astonished human eye and so gave rise to all the legends. to shape the atoms as a sculptor shapes clay, is but a phase of chemistry,—a pretty experiment—yet what a miracle it would always seem to the uninstructed multitude!”
he unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took from it a box full of red powder, and two small flasks, one containing minute globules of a glittering green colour like tiny emeralds,—the other full of a pale amber liquid. he smiled as he looked at these ingredients,—and then he gave a glance out through the window at the dark and rainy afternoon.
“to pass the time, why not?” he queried half aloud. “one needs a little diversion sometimes even in science.”
whereupon he placed some of the red powder in a small bronze vessel and set fire to it. a thick smoke arose at once and filled the room with cloud that emitted a pungent perfume, and in which his own figure was scarcely discernible. he cast five or six of the little green globules into this smoke; they dissolved in their course and melted within it,—and finally he threw aloft a few drops of the amber liquid. the effect was extraordinary, and would have seemed incredible to any onlooker, for through the cloud a roseate shape made itself slowly visible,—a shape that was surrounded with streaks of light and rainbow flame as with a garland. vague at first, but soon growing more distinct, it gathered itself into seeming substance, and floated nearly to the ground,—then rising again, balanced itself lightly like a blown feather sideways upon the dense mist that filled the air. in form this “coruscation of atoms,” as el-râmi called it, resembled a maiden in the bloom of youth,—her flowing hair, her sparkling eyes, her smiling lips, were all plainly discernible;—but, that she was a mere phantasm and creature of the cloud was soon made plain, for scarcely had she declared herself in all her rounded laughing loveliness than she melted away and passed into nothingness like a dream. the cloud of smoke grew thinner and thinner, till it vanished also so completely that there was no more left of it than a pale blue ring such as might have been puffed from a stray cigar. el-râmi, leaning lazily back in his chair, had watched the whole development and finish of his “experiment” with indolent interest and amusement.
“how admirably the lines of beauty are always kept in these effects,”—he said to himself when it was over,—“and what a fortune i could make with that one example of the concentration of atoms if i chose to pass as a miracle-maker. moses was an adept at this kind of thing; so also was a certain egyptian priest named borsa of memphis, who just for that same graceful piece of chemistry was judged by the people as divine,—made king,—and loaded with wealth and honour;—excellent and most cunning borsa! but we—we do not judge any one “divine” in these days of ours, not even god,—for he is supposed to be simply the lump of leaven working through the loaf of matter,—though it will always remain a question as to why there is any leaven or any loaf at all existing.”
he fell into a train of meditation, which caused him presently to take up his pen and write busily many pages of close manuscript. féraz came in at the usual hour with supper,—and then only he ceased working, and shared the meal with his young brother, talking cheerfully, though saying little but commonplaces, and skilfully steering off any allusion to subjects which might tend to increase féraz’s evident melancholy. once he asked him rather abruptly why he had not played any music that day.
“i do not know”—answered the young man coldly—“i seem to have forgotten music—with other things.”
he spoke meaningly;—el-râmi laughed, relieved and light at heart. those “other things” meant the name of lilith, which his will had succeeded in erasing from his brother’s memory. his eyes sparkled, and his voice gathered new richness and warmth of feeling as he said kindly—
“i think not, féraz,—i think you cannot have forgotten music. surely it is no extraneous thing, but part of you,—a lovely portion of your life which you would be loath to miss. here is your little neglected friend,”—and, rising, he took out of its case an exquisitely-shaped mandolin inlaid with pearl—“the dear old lute,—for lute it is, though modernised,—the same-shaped instrument on which the rose and fuchsia-crowned youths of old pompeii played the accompaniment to their love songs; the same, the very same on which the long-haired, dusky-skinned maids of thebes and memphis thrummed their strange uncouth ditties to their black-browed warrior kings. i like it better than the violin—its form is far more pleasing—we can see apollo with a lute, but it is difficult to fancy the sun-god fitting his graceful arm to the contorted positions of a fiddle. play something, féraz”—and he smiled winningly as he gave the mandolin into his brother’s hands—“here,”—and he detached the plectrum from its place under the strings—“with this little piece of oval tortoiseshell, you can set the nerves of music quivering,—those silver wires will answer to your touch like the fibres of the human heart struck by the tremolo of passion.”
he paused,—his eyes were full, of an ardent light, and féraz looked at him wonderingly. what a voice he had!—how eloquently he spoke!—how noble and thoughtful were his features!—and what an air of almost pathetic dignity was given to his face by that curiously snow-white hair of his, which so incongruously suggested age in youth! poor féraz!—his heart swelled within him; love and secret admiration for his brother contended with a sense of outraged pride in himself,—and yet—he felt his sullen amour-propre, his instinct of rebellion, and his distrustful reserve all oozing away under the spell of el-râmi’s persuasive tongue and fascinating manner,—and to escape from his own feelings, he bent over the mandolin and tried its chords with a trembling hand and downcast eyes.
“you speak of passion,” he said in a low voice—“but you have never known it.”
“oh, have i not!” and el-râmi laughed lightly as he resumed his seat—“nay, if i had not i should be more than man. the lightning has flashed across my path, féraz, i assure you, only it has not killed me; and i have been ready to shed my blood drop by drop, for so slight and imperfect a production of nature as—a woman! a thing of white flesh and soft curves, and long hair and large eyes, and a laugh like the tinkle of a fountain in our eastern courts,—a thing with less mind than a kitten, and less fidelity than a hound. of course there are clever women and faithful women,—but then we men seldom choose these; we are fools, and we pay for our folly. and i also have been a fool in my time,—why should you imagine i have not? it is flattering to me, but why?”
féraz looked at him again, and in spite of himself smiled, though reluctantly.
“you always seem to treat all earthly emotions with scorn—” he replied evasively, “and once you told me there was no such thing in the world as love.”
“nor is there—” said el-râmi quickly—“not ideal love—not everlasting love. love in its highest, purest sense, belongs to other planets—in this its golden wings are clipped, and it becomes nothing more than a common and vulgar physical attraction.”
féraz thrummed his mandolin softly.
“i saw two lovers the other day—” he said—“they seemed divinely happy.”
“where did you see them?”
“not here. in the land i know best—my star.”
el-râmi looked at him curiously, but forbore to speak.
“they were beautiful—” went on féraz. “they were resting together on a bank of flowers in a little nook of that lovely forest where there are thousands of song-birds sweeter than nightingales. music filled the air,—a rosy glory filled the sky,—their arms were twined around each other,—their lips met, and then—oh, then their joy smote me with fear, because,—because i was alone—and they were—together!”
his voice trembled. el-râmi’s smile had in it something of compassion.
“love in your star is a dream, féraz—” he said gently—“but love here—here in this phase of things we call reality,—means,—do you know what it means?”
féraz shook his head.
“it means money. it means lands, and houses and a big balance at the bank. lovers do not subsist here on flowers and music,—they have rather more vulgar and substantial appetites. love here is the disillusion of love—there, in the region you speak of, it may perchance be perfect——”
a sudden rush of rain battering at the windows, accompanied by a gust of wind, interrupted him.
“what a storm!” exclaimed féraz, looking up—“and you are expecting——”
a measured rat-tat-tat at the door came at that moment, and el-râmi sprang to his feet. féraz rose also, and set aside his mandolin. another gust of wind whistled by, bringing with it a sweeping torrent of hail.
“quick!” said el-râmi, in a somewhat agitated voice—“it is—you know who it is. give him reverent greeting, féraz—and show him at once in here.”
féraz withdrew,—and, when he had disappeared, el-râmi looked about him vaguely with the bewildered air of a man who would fain escape from some difficult position, could he but discover an egress,—a slight shudder ran through his frame, and he heaved a deep sigh.
“why has he come to me!” he muttered, “why—after all these years of absolute silence and indifference to my work, does he seek me now?”
