in the midst of the strange “summer” weather which frequently falls to the lot of england,—weather alternating between hot and cold, wet and dry, sun and cloud with the most distracting rapidity and irregularity,—there came at last one perfect night towards the end of june,—a night which could have met with no rival even in the sunniest climes of the sunniest south. a soft tranquillity hovered dove-like in the air,—a sense of perfect peace seemed to permeate all visible and created things. the sky was densely blue and thickly strewn with stars, though these glimmered but faintly, their light being put to shame by the splendid brilliancy of the full moon which swam aloft airily like a great golden bubble. el-râmi’s windows were all set open; a big bunch of heliotrope adorned the table, and the subtle fragrance of it stole out delicately to mingle with the faintly-stirring evening breeze. féraz was sitting alone,—his brother had just left the room,—and he was indulging himself in the dolce far niente as only the southern or eastern temperament can do. his hands were clasped lightly behind his head, and his eyes were fixed on the shabby little trees in the square which had done their best to look green among the whirling smuts of the metropolis and had failed ignominiously in the attempt, but which now, in the ethereal light of the moon, presented a soft outline of gray and silver like olive-boughs seen in the distance. he was thinking, with a certain serious satisfaction, of an odd circumstance that had occurred to himself that day. it had happened in this wise: since the time zaroba had taken him to look upon the beautiful creature who was the “subject” of his brother’s experiments, he had always kept the memory of her in his mind without speaking of her, save that whenever he said a prayer or offered up a thanksgiving he had invariably used the phrase—“god defend her!” he could only explain “her” to himself by the simple pronoun, because, as el-râmi had willed, he had utterly and hopelessly forgotten her name. but now, strange to say, he remembered it!—it had flashed across his mind like a beam of light or a heaven-sent signal,—he was at work, writing at his poem, when some sudden inexplicable instinct had prompted him to lift his eyes and murmur devoutly—“god defend lilith!” lilith!—how soft the sound of it!—how infinitely bewitching! after having lost it for so long, it had come back to him in a moment—how or why, he could not imagine. he could only account for it in one way—namely, that el-râmi’s will-forces were so concentrated on some particularly absorbing object that his daily influence on his brother’s young life was thereby materially lessened. and féraz was by no means sorry that this should be so.
“why should it matter that i remember her name?” he mused—“i shall never speak of her—for i have sworn i will not. but i can think of her to my heart’s content,—the beautiful lilith!”
then he fell to considering the old legend of that lilith who it is said was adam’s first wife,—and he smiled as he thought what a name of evil omen it was to the jews, who had charms and talismans wherewith to exorcise the supposed evil influence connected with it,—while to him, féraz, it was a name sweeter than honey-sweet singing. then there came to his mind stray snatches of poesy,—delicate rhymes from the rich and varied stores of one of his favourite poets, dante gabriel rossetti,—rhymes that sounded in his ears just now like the strophes of a sibylline chant or spell:
“it was lilith the wife of adam:
(sing eden bower!)
not a drop of her blood was human,
but she was made like a soft sweet woman.”
“and that is surely true!” said féraz to himself, a little startled,—“for—if she is dead, as el-râmi asserts, and her seeming life is but the result of his art, then indeed in the case of this lilith ‘not a drop of her blood is human.’”
and the poem ran on in his mind—
“lilith stood on the skirts of eden:
(alas, the hour!)
she was the first that thence was driven:
with her was hell, and with eve was heaven.”
“nay, i should transpose that,”—murmured the young man drowsily, staring out on the moonlit street—“i should say, ‘with eve was hell, and with lilith heaven.’ how strange it is i should never have thought of this poem before!—and i have often turned over the pages of rossetti’s book,—since—since i saw her;—i must have actually seen the name of lilith printed there, and yet it never suggested itself to me as being familiar or offering any sort of clue.”
he sighed perplexedly,—the heliotrope odours floated around him, and the gleam of the lamp in the room seemed to pale in the wide splendour of the moon-rays pouring through the window,—and still the delicate sprite of poesy continued to remind him of familiar lines and verses he loved, though all the while he thought of lilith, and kept on wondering vaguely and vainly what would be, what could be, the end of his brother’s experiment (whatever that was, for he, féraz, did not know) on the lovely, apparently living girl who yet was dead. it was very strange—and surely, it was also very terrible!
“the day is dark and the night
to him that would search their heart;
no lips of cloud that will part,
nor morning song in the light:
only, gazing alone
to him wild shadows are shown,
deep under deep unknown
and height above unknown height.
still we say as we go,—
‘strange to think by the way,
whatever there is to know,
that shall we know one day.’”
this passage of rhyme sang itself out with a monotonous musical gentleness in his brain,—he closed his eyes restfully,—and then—lying back thus in his chair by the open window, with the moonlight casting a wide halo round him and giving a pale spiritual beauty to his delicate classic features,—he passed away out of his body, as he would have said, and was no more on earth; or rather, as we should say, he fell asleep and dreamed. and the “dream” or the “experience” was this:—
he found himself walking leisurely upon the slopes of a majestic mountain, which seemed not so much mountain as garden, for all the winding paths leading to its summit were fringed with flowers. he heard the silvery plashing of brooks and fountains, and the rustling of thickly-foliaged trees,—he knew the place well, and realised that he was in his “star” again,—the mystic sphere he called his “home.” but he was evidently an exile or an alien in it,—he had grown to realise this fact and was sorry it should be so, yet his sorrow was mingled with hope, for he felt it would not always be so. he wandered along aimlessly and alone, full of a curiously vague happiness and regret, and as he walked he was passed by crowds of beautiful youths and maidens, who were all pressing forward eagerly as to some high festival or great assembly. they sang blithe songs,—they scattered flowers,—they talked with each other in happy-toned voices,—and he stood aside gazing at them wistfully while they went on rejoicing.
“o land where life never grows old and where love is eternal!” he mused—“why am i exiled from thy glory? why have i lost thy joy?”
he sighed;—he longed to know what had brought together so bright a multitude of these lovely and joyous beings,—his own “dear people” as he felt they were; and yet—yet he hesitated to ask one of them the least question, feeling himself unworthy. at last he saw a girl approaching,—she was singing to herself and tying flowers in a garland as she came,—her loose golden hair streamed behind her, every glistening tress seeming to flash light as she moved. as she drew near him she glanced at him kindly and paused as though waiting to be addressed,—seeing this, he mustered up his courage and spoke.
“whither are you all going?” he asked, with a sad gentleness—“i may not follow you, i know,—but will you tell me why, in this kingdom of joy, so much fresh joy seems added?”
she pointed upwards, and as his eyes obeyed her gesture he saw, in the opal-coloured sky that bent above them, a dazzling blaze of gold and crimson glory towards the south.
“an angel passes!” she replied—“below that line of light the earth swings round in its little orbit, and from the earth she comes! we go to watch her flight heavenward, and win the benediction that her passing presence gives. for look you!—all that splendour in the sky is not light, but wings!”
“wings!” echoed féraz dreamily, yet nothing doubting what she said.
“wings or rays of glory,—which you will”—said the maiden, turning her own beautiful eyes towards the flashing brilliancy; “they are waiting there,—those who come from the farthest divine world,—they are the friends of lilith.”
she bent her head serenely, and passed onward and upward, and féraz stood still, his gaze fixed in the direction of that southern light which he now perceived was never still, but quivered as with a million shafts of vari-coloured fire.
“the friends of lilith!” he repeated to himself—“angels then,—for she is an angel.”
angels!—angels waiting for lilith in the glory of the south! how long—how long would they wait?—when would lilith herself appear?—and would the very heavens open to receive her, soaring upward? he trembled,—he tried to realise the unimaginable scene,—and then, ... then he seemed to be seized and hurried away somewhere against his will ... and all that was light grew dark. he shuddered as with icy cold, and felt that earth again encompassed him,—and presently he woke—to find his brother looking at him.
“why in the world do you go to sleep with the window wide open?” asked el-râmi—“here i find you, literally bathed in the moonlight—and moonlight drives men mad, they say,—so fast too in the land of nod that i could hardly waken you. shut the window, my dear boy, if you must sleep.”
féraz sprang up quickly,—his eyes felt dazzled still with the remembrance of that “glory of the angels in the south.”
“i was not asleep,”—he said—“but certainly i was not here.”
“ah!—in your star again of course!” murmured el-râmi with the faintest trace of mockery in his tone. but féraz took no offence—his one anxiety was to prevent the name of “lilith” springing to his lips in spite of himself.
“yes—i was there”—he answered slowly. “and do you know all the people in the land are gathering together by thousands to see an angel pass heavenward? and there is a glory of her sister-angels, away in the southern horizon like the splendid circle described by dante in his paradiso. thus—
“‘there is a light in heaven whose goodly shine
makes the creator visible to all
created, that in seeing him alone
have peace. and in a circle spreads so far
that the circumference were too loose a zone
to girdle in the sun!’”
he quoted the lines with strange eagerness and fervour,—and el-râmi looked at him curiously.
“what odd dreams you have!” he said, not unkindly—“always fantastic and impossible, but beautiful in their way. you should set them down in black and white, and see how earth’s critics will bespatter your heaven with the ink of their office pens! poor boy!—how limply you would fall from ‘paradise’!—with what damp dejected wings!”
féraz smiled.
“i do not agree with you”—he said—“if you speak of imagination,—only in this case i am not imagining,—no one can shut out that paradise from me at any time—neither pope nor king, nor critic. thought is free, thank god!”
“yes—perhaps it is the only thing we have to be really thankful for,”—returned el-râmi—“well—i will leave you to resume your ‘dreams’—only don’t sleep with the windows open. summer evenings are treacherous,—i should advise you to get to bed.”
“and you?” asked féraz, moved by a sudden anxiety which he could not explain.
“i shall not sleep to-night,”—said his brother moodily—“something has occurred to me—a suggestion—an idea which i am impatient to work out without loss of time. and, féraz,—if i succeed in it—you shall know the result to-morrow.”
this promise, which implied such a new departure from el-râmi’s customary reticence concerning his work, really alarmed féraz more than gratified him.
“for heaven’s sake be careful!” he exclaimed—“you attempt so much,—you want so much,—perhaps more than can in law and justice be given. el-râmi, my brother, leave something to god—you cannot, you dare not take all!”
“my dear visionary,” replied el-râmi gently—“you alarm yourself needlessly, i assure you. i do not want to take anything except what is my own,—and, as for leaving something to god, why, he is welcome to what he makes of me in the end—a pinch of dust!”
“there is more than dust in your composition—” cried féraz impetuously—“there is divinity! and the divinity belongs to god, and to god you must render it up, pure and perfect. he claims it from you, and you are bound to give it.”
a tremor passed through el-râmi’s frame, and he grew paler.
“if that be true, féraz,” he said slowly and with emphasis—“if it indeed be true that there is divinity in me,—which i doubt!—why, then let god claim and take his own particle of fire when he will, and as he will! good-night!”
féraz caught his hands and pressed them tenderly in his own.
“good-night!” he murmured—“god does all things well, and to his care i commend you, my dearest brother.”
and as el-râmi turned away and left the room he gazed after him with a chill sense of fear and desolation,—almost as if he were doomed never to see him again. he could not reason his alarm away, and yet he knew not why he should feel any alarm,—but, truth to tell, his interior sense of vision seemed still to smart and ache with the radiance of the light he had seen in his “star” and that roseate sunset-flush of “glory in the south” created by the clustering angels who were “the friends of lilith.” why were they there?—what did they wait for?—how should lilith know them or have any intention of joining them, when she was here,—here on the earth, as he, féraz, knew,—here under the supreme dominance of his own brother? he dared not speculate too far; and, trying to dismiss all thought from his mind, he was proceeding towards his own room, there to retire for the night, when he met zaroba coming down the stairs. her dark withered face had a serene and almost happy expression upon it,—she smiled as she saw him.
“it is a night for dreams,—” she said, sinking her harsh voice to a soft almost musical cadence—“and as the multitude of the stars in heaven, so are the countless heart-throbs that pulsate in the world at this hour to the silver sway of the moon. all over the world!—all over the world!—” and she swung her arms to and fro with a slow rhythmical movement, so that the silver bangles on them clashed softly like the subdued tinkling of bells;—then, fixing her black eyes upon féraz with a mournful yet kindly gaze she added—“not for you—not for you, gentlest of dreamers! not for you! it is destined that you should dream,—and, for you, dreaming is best,—but for me—i would rather live one hour than dream for a century!”
her words were vague and wild as usual,—yet somehow féraz chafed under the hidden sense of them, and he gave a slight petulant gesture of irritation. zaroba, seeing it, broke into a low laugh.
“as god liveth,—” she muttered—“the poor lad fights bravely! he hates the world without ever having known it,—and recoils from love without ever having tasted it! he chooses a thought, a rhyme, a song, an art, rather than a passion! poor lad—poor lad! dream on, child!—but pray that you may never wake. for to dream of love may be sweet, but to wake without it is bitter.”
like a gliding wraith she passed him and disappeared. féraz had a mind to follow her down stairs to the basement where she had the sort of rough sleeping accommodation her half-savage nature preferred, whenever she slept at all out of lilith’s room, which was but seldom,—yet on second thoughts he decided he would let her alone.
“she only worries me—” he said to himself half vexedly as he went to his own little apartment—“it was she who first disobeyed el-râmi, and made me disobey him also, and though she did take me to see the wonderful lilith, what was the use of it? her matchless beauty compelled my adoration, my enthusiasm, my reverence, almost my love—but who could dare to love such a removed angelic creature? not even el-râmi himself,—for he must know, even as i feel, that she is beyond all love, save the love divine.”
he cast off his loose eastern dress, and prepared to lie down, when he was startled by a faint far sound of singing. he listened attentively;—it seemed to come from outside, and he quickly flung open his window, which only opened upon a little narrow backyard such as is common to london houses. but the moonlight transfigured its ugliness, making it look like a square white court set in walls of silver. the soft rays fell caressingly too on the bare bronze-tinted shoulders of féraz, as half undressed, he leaned out, his eyes upturned to the halcyon heavens. surely, surely there was singing somewhere,—why, he could distinguish words amid the sounds!
away, away!
where the glittering planets whirl and swim
and the glory of the sun grows dim
away, away!
to the regions of light and fire and air
where the spirits of life are everywhere
come, oh come away!
trembling in every limb, féraz caught the song distinctly, and held his breath in fear and wonder.
away, away!
come, oh come! we have waited long
and we sing thee now a summoning song
away, away!
thou art freed from the world of the dreaming dead,
and the splendours of heaven are round thee spread—
come away!—away!
the chorus grew fainter and fainter—yet still sounded like a distant musical hum on the air.
“it is my fancy”—murmured féraz at last, as he drew in his head and noiselessly shut the window—“it is the work of my own imagination, or what is perhaps more probable, the work of el-râmi’s will. i have heard such music before,—at his bidding—no, not such music, but something very like it.”
he waited a few minutes, then quietly knelt down to pray,—but no words suggested themselves, save the phrase that once before had risen to his lips that day,—“god defend lilith!”
he uttered it aloud,—then sprang up confused and half afraid, for the name had rung out so clearly that it seemed like a call or a command.
“well!” he said, trying to steady his nerves—“what if i did say it? there is no harm in the words ‘god defend her.’ if she is dead, as el-râmi says, she needs no defence, for her soul belongs to god already.”
he paused again,—the silence everywhere was now absolutely unbroken and intense, and repelling the vague presentiments that threatened to oppress his mind, he threw himself on his bed and was soon sound asleep.
