all at once, while he thus closely watched her, lilith, with a violent effort, sat up stiffly erect and turned her head slowly towards him. her features were rigidly statuesque, and white as snow,—the strange gaunt look of her face terrified him, but he could not cry out or utter a word—he was stricken dumb by an excess of fear. only his black eyes blazed with an anguish of expectation,—and the tension of his nerves seemed almost greater than he could endure.
“in the great name of god and by the passion of christ,”—said lilith solemnly, in tones that sounded far-off and faint and hollow—“do not look at this shadow of me! turn, turn away from this dust of earth which belongs to the earth alone,—and watch for the light of heaven which comes from heaven alone! o my love, my belovëd!—if you are wise, if you are brave, if you are strong, turn away from beholding this image of me, which is not myself,—and look for me where the roses are—there will i stand and wait!”
as the last word left her lips she sank back on her pillows, inert, and deathly pale; but el-râmi, dazed and bewildered though he was, retained sufficient consciousness to understand vaguely what she meant,—he was not to look at her as she lay there,—he was to forget that such a lilith as he knew existed,—he was to look for another lilith there—“where the roses are.” mechanically, and almost as if some invisible power commanded and controlled his volition, he turned sideways round from the couch, and fixed his gaze on the branching flowers, which from the crystal vase that held them lifted their pale-pink heads daintily aloft as though they took the lamp that swung from the ceiling for some little new sun, specially invented for their pleasure. why,—there was nothing there ... “nothing there!” he half muttered with a beating heart, rubbing his eyes and staring hard before him, ... nothing—nothing at all, but the roses themselves, and ... and ... yes!—a light behind them!—a light that wavered round them and began to stretch upward in wide circling rings!
el-râmi gazed and gazed, ... saying over and over again to himself that it was the reflection of the lamp, ... the glitter of that stray moonbeam there, ... or something wrong with his own faculty of vision, ... and yet he gazed on, as though for the moment all his being were made of eyes. the roses trembled and swayed to and fro delicately as the strange light widened and brightened behind their blossoming clusters,—a light that seemed to palpitate with all the wondrous living tints of the rising sun when it shoots forth its first golden rays from the foaming green hollows of the sea. upward, upward and ever upward the deepening glory extended, till the lamp paled and grew dimmer than the spark of a feeble match struck as a rival to a flash of lightning,—and el-râmi’s breath came and went in hard panting gasps as he stood watching it in speechless immobility.
suddenly, two broad shafts of rainbow luminance sprang, as it seemed, from the ground, and blazed against the purple hangings of the room with such a burning dazzle of prismatic colouring in every glittering line that it was well-nigh impossible for human sight to bear it, and yet el-râmi would rather have been stricken stone-blind than move. had he been capable of thought, he might have remembered the beautiful old greek myths which so truthfully and frequently taught the lesson that to look upon the purely divine meant death to the purely human; but he could not think,—all his own mental faculties were for the time rendered numb and useless. his eyes ached and smarted as though red-hot needles were being plunged into them, but though he was conscious of, he was indifferent to, the pain. his whole mind was concentrated on watching the mysterious radiance of those wing-shaped rays in the room,—and now ... now while he gazed, he began to perceive an outline between the rays, ... a shape, becoming every second more and more distinct, as though some invisible heavenly artist were drawing the semblance of beauty in air with a pencil dipped in morning-glory. ... o wonderful, ineffable vision!—o marvellous breaking-forth of the buds of life that are hid in the quiet ether!—where, where in the vast wealth and reproduction of deathless and delicate atoms, is the beginning of things?—where the end? ...
presently appeared soft curves, and glimmers of vapoury white flushed with rose, suggestive of fire seen through mountain-mist,—then came a glittering flash of gold that went rippling and ever rippling backward, like the flowing fall of lovely hair; and the dim shape grew still more clearly visible, seeming to gather substance and solidity from the very light that encircled it. had it any human likeness? yes;—yet the resemblance it bore to humanity was so far away, so exalted and ideal, as to be no more like our material form than the actual splendour of the sun is like its painted image. the stature and majesty and brilliancy of it increased,—and now the unspeakable loveliness of a face too fair for any mortal fairness began to suggest itself dimly; ... el-râmi, growing faint and dizzy, thought he distinguished white outstretched arms, and hands uplifted in an ecstasy of prayer;—nay,—though he felt himself half swooning in the struggle he made to overcome his awe and fear, he would have sworn that two star-like eyes, full-orbed and splendid with a radiant blue as of heaven’s own forget-me-nots, were turned upon him with a questioning appeal, a hope, a supplication, a love beyond all eloquence! ... but his strength was rapidly failing him;—unsupported by faith, his mere unassisted flesh and blood could endure no more of this supernatural sight, and ... all suddenly, ... the tension of his nerves gave way, and morbid terrors shook his frame. a blind frenzied feeling that he was sinking,—sinking out of sight and sense into a drear profound, possessed him, and, hardly knowing what he did, he turned desperately to the couch where lilith, the lilith he knew best, lay, and looking,——
“ah god!” he cried, pierced to the heart by the bitterest anguish he had ever known,—lilith—his lilith was withering before his very eyes! the exquisite body he had watched and tended was shrunken and yellow as a fading leaf,—the face, no longer beautiful, was gaunt and pinched and skeleton-like—the lips were drawn in and blue,—and strange convulsions shook the wrinkling and sunken breast!
in one mad moment he forgot everything,—forgot the imperishable soul for the perishing body,—forgot his long studies and high ambitions,—and could think of nothing, except that this human creature he had saved from death seemed now to be passing into death’s long-denied possession,—and throwing himself on the couch he clutched at his fading treasure with the desperation of frenzy.
“lilith!—lilith!” he cried hoarsely, the extremity of his terror choking his voice to a smothered wild moan—“lilith! my love, my idol, my spirit, my saint! come back!—come back!”
and clasping her in his arms he covered with burning kisses the thin peaked face—the shrinking flesh,—the tarnished lustre of the once bright hair.
“lilith! lilith!” he wailed, dry-eyed and fevered with agony—“lilith, i love you! has love no force to keep you? lilith, love lilith! you shall not leave me,—you are mine—mine! i stole you from death—i kept you from god!—from all the furies of heaven and earth!—you shall come back to me—i love you!”
and lo! ... as he spoke the body he held to his heart grew warm,—the flesh filled up and regained its former softness and roundness—the features took back their loveliness—the fading hair brightened to its wonted rich tint and rippled upon the pillows in threads of gold—the lips reddened,—the eyelids quivered, the little hands, trembling gently like birds’ wings, nestled round his throat with a caress that thrilled his whole being and calmed the tempest of his grief as suddenly as when of old the master walked upon the raging sea of galilee and said to it “peace, be still!”
yet this very calmness oppressed him heavily,—like a cold hand laid on a fevered brow it chilled his blood even while it soothed his pain. he was conscious of a sense of irreparable loss,—and moreover he felt he had been a coward,—a coward physically and morally. for, instead of confronting the supernatural, or what seemed the supernatural, calmly, and with the inquisitorial research of a scientist, he had allowed himself to be overcome by it, and had fled back to the consideration of the merely human, with all the delirious speed of a lover and fool. nevertheless he had his lilith—his own lilith,—and, holding her jealously to his heart, he presently turned his head tremblingly and in doubt to where the roses nodded drowsily in their crystal vase;—only the roses now were there! the marvellous wingëd brightness had fled, and the place it had illumined seemed by contrast very dark. the soul,—the immortal self—had vanished;—the subtle being he had longed to see, and whose existence and capabilities he had meant to “prove”; and he, who had consecrated his life and labour to the attainment of this one object, had failed to grasp the full solution of the mystery at the very moment when it might have been his. by his own weakness he had lost the soul,—by his own strength he had gained the body, or so he thought, and his mind was torn between triumph and regret. he was not yet entirely conscious of what had chanced to him—he could formulate no idea,—all he distinctly knew was that he held lilith, warm and living, in his arms, and that he felt her light breath upon his cheek.
“love is enough!” he murmured, kissing the hair that lay in golden clusters against his breast—“waken, my lilith!—waken!—and in our perfect joy we will defy all gods and angels!”
she stirred in his clasp,—he bent above her, eager, ardent, expectant,—her long eyelashes trembled,—and then,—slowly, slowly, like white leaves opening to the sun, the lids upcurled, disclosing the glorious eyes beneath, eyes that had been closed to earthly things for six long years,—deep, starry violet-blue eyes that shone with the calm and holy lustre of unspeakable purity and peace,—eyes that in their liquid softness held all the appeal, hope, supplication and eloquent love, he had seen (or fancied he had seen) in the strange eyes of the only half-visible soul! the soul indeed was looking through its earthly windows for the last time, had he known it,—but he did not know it. raised to a giddy pinnacle of delight as suddenly as he had been lately plunged into an abyss of grief and terror, he gazed into those newly-opened wondrous worlds of mute expression with all a lover’s pride, passion, tenderness and longing.
“fear nothing, lilith!” he said—“it is i! i whose voice you have answered and obeyed,—i, your lover and lord! it is i who claim you, my belovëd!—i who bid you waken from death to life!”
oh, what a smile of dazzling rapture illumined her face!—it was as if the sun in all his glory had suddenly broken out of a cloud to brighten her beauty with his purest beams. her childlike, innocent, wondering eyes remained fixed upon el-râmi,—lifting her white arms languidly she closed them round about him with a gentle fervour that seemed touched by compassion,—and he, thrilled to the quick by that silent expression of tenderness, straightway ascended to a heaven of blind, delirious ecstasy. he wanted no word from her ... what use of words!—her silence was the perfect eloquence of love! all her beauty was his own—his very own! ... he had willed it so,—and his will had won its way,—the iron will of a strong wise man without a god to help him!—and all he feared was that he might die of his own excess of triumph and joy! ... hush! ... hush! ... music again!—that same deep sound as of the wind among trees, or the solemn organ-chord that closes the song of departing choristers. it was strange,—very strange!—but, though he heard, he scarcely heeded it; unearthly terrors could not shake him now,—not now, while he held lilith to his heart, and devoured her loveliness with his eyes, curve by curve, line by line, till with throbbing pulses, and every nerve tingling in his body, he bent his face down to hers, and pressed upon her lips a long, burning, passionate kiss! ...
but, even as he did so, she was wrenched fiercely out of his hold by a sudden and awful convulsion,—her slight frame writhed and twisted itself away from his clasp with a shuddering recoil of muscular agony—once her little hands clutched the air, ... and then, ... then, the brief struggle over, her arms dropped rigidly at her sides, and her whole body swerved and fell backward heavily upon the pillows of the couch, stark, pallid and pulseless! ... and he,—he, gazing upon her thus with a vague and stupid stare, wondered dimly whether he were mad or dreaming? ...
what ... what was this sudden ailment? ... this ... this strange swoon? what bitter frost had stolen into her veins? ... what insatiable hell-fire was consuming his? those eyes, ... those just unclosed, innocent lovely eyes of lilith, ... was it possible, could it be true that all the light had gone out of them?—gone, utterly gone? and what was that clammy film beginning to cover them over with a glazing veil of blankness? ... god! ... god! ... he must be in a wild nightmare, he thought! ... he should wake up presently and find all this seeming disaster unreal,—the fantastic fear of a sick brain ... the “clangour and anger of elements” imaginative, not actual, ... and here his reeling terror found voice in a hoarse, smothered cry—
“lilith! ... lilith! ...”
but stop, stop! ... was it lilith indeed whom he thus called? ... that? ... that gaunt, sunken, rigid form, growing swiftly hideous! ... yes—hideous, with those dull marks of blue discoloration coming here and there on the no longer velvety fair skin!
“lilith! ... lilith!”
the name was lost and drowned in the wave of solemn music that rolled and throbbed upon the air, and el-râmi’s distorted mind, catching at the dread suggestiveness of that unearthly harmony, accepted it as a sort of invisible challenge.
“what, good death! brother death, are you there?” he muttered fiercely, shaking his clenched fist at vacancy—“are you here, and are you everywhere? nay, we have crossed swords before now in desperate combat ... and i have won! ... and i will win again! hands off, rival death! lilith is mine!”
and, snatching from his breast a phial of the liquid with which he had so long kept lilith living in a trance, he swiftly injected it into her veins, and forced some drops between her lips ... in vain ... in vain! no breath came back to stir that silent breast—no sign whatever of returning animation evinced itself, only ... at the expiration of the few moments which generally sufficed the vital fluid for its working, there chanced a strange and terrible thing. wherever the liquid had made its way, there the skin blistered, and the flesh blackened, as though the whole body were being consumed by some fierce inward fire; and el-râmi, looking with strained wild eyes at this destructive result of his effort to save, at last realised to the full all the awfulness, all the dire agony of his fate! the soul of lilith had departed for ever; ... even as the cyprian monk had said, it had outgrown its earthly tenement, ... its cord of communication with the body had been mysteriously and finally severed,—and the body itself was crumbling into ashes before his very sight, helped into swifter dissolution by the electric potency of his own vaunted “life-elixir”! it was horrible ... horrible! ... was there no remedy?
staring himself almost blind with despair, he dashed the phial on the ground, and stamped it under his heel in an excess of impotent fury, ... the veins in his forehead swelled with a fulness of aching blood almost to bursting, ... he could do nothing, ... nothing! his science was of no avail;—his will,—his proud inflexible will was “as a reed shaken in the wind!” ... ha! ... the old stock phrase! ... it had been said before, in old times and in new, by canting creatures who believed in prayer. prayer!—would it bring back beauty and vitality to that blackening corpse before him? ... that disfigured, withering clay he had once called lilith! ... how ghastly it looked! ... shuddering violently he turned away,—turned,—to meet the grave sweet eyes of the pictured christ on the wall, ... to read again the words, “whom say ye that i am?” the letters danced before him in characters of flame, ... there seemed a great noise everywhere as of clashing steam-hammers and great church-bells,—the world was reeling round him as giddily as a spun wheel.
“robber of the soul of lilith!” he muttered between his set teeth—“whoever you be, whether god or devil, i will find you out! i will pursue you to the uttermost ends of vast infinitude! i will contest her with you yet, for surely she is mine! what right have you, o force unknown, to steal my love from me? answer me! prove yourself god, as i prove myself man! declare something, o mute inflexible! do something other than mechanically grind out a reasonless, unexplained life and death for ever! o lilith!—faithless angel!—did you not say that love was sweet?—and could not love keep you here,—here, with me, your lover, lilith?”
involuntarily and with cowering reluctance, his eyes turned again towards the couch,—but now—now ... the horror of that decaying beauty, interiorly burning itself away to nothingness, was more than he could bear ... a mortal sickness seized him,—and he flung up his arms with a desperate gesture as though he sought to drag down some covering wherewith to hide himself and his utter misery.
“defeated, baffled, befooled!” he exclaimed frantically—“conquered by the invisible and invincible after all! conquered! i! ... who would have thought it! hear me, earth and heaven!—hear me, o rolling world of human wretchedness, hear me!—for i have proved a truth! there is a god!—a jealous god—jealous of the soul of lilith!—a god tyrannical, absolute, and powerful—a god of infinite and inexorable justice. o god, i know you!—i own you—i meet you! i am part of you as the worm is!—and you can change me, but you cannot destroy me! you have done your worst,—you have fought against your own essence in me, till light has turned to darkness and love to bitterness;—you have left me no help, no hope, no comfort; what more remains to do, o terrible god of a million universes! ... what more? gone—gone is the soul of lilith—but where? where in the vast unknowable shall i find my love again? ... teach me that, o god! ... give me that one small clue through the million million intricate webs of star-systems, and i too will fall blindly down and adore an imaginary good in visible and all-paramount evil! ... i too will sacrifice reason, pride, wisdom and power and become as a fool for love’s sake! ... i too will grovel before an unproved symbol of divinity as a savage grovels before his stone fetish, ... i will be weak, not strong, i will babble prayers with the children, ... only take me where lilith is, ... bring me to lilith ... angel lilith! ... love lilith! ... my lilith! ... ah god! god! have mercy ... mercy! ...”
his voice broke suddenly in a sharp jarring shriek of delirious laughter,—blood sprang to his mouth,—and with a blind movement of his arms, as of one in thick darkness seeking light, he fell heavily face forward, insensible on the couch where the body he had loved, deprived of its soul, lay crumbling swiftly away into hideous disfigurement and ashes.
