to

walter h. mudie

{201}

dmitri passed his life in doing good. in that lay all his happiness. in the whole of salonika there was no man or woman so vile, so incorrigibly steeped in iniquity, as to fail to stir his compassion. all men were his brothers: all men, he sometimes thought, were himself.

he preached in the streets and in the markets, and this is the gospel the young man brought to his hearers.

“all forms of consciousness are god. if the trees are conscious, then they are part of god. if lions are conscious, they also are god. the more alive a man is—the more conscious he is of himself and his environment—the more of god’s spirit does he possess. for god is a vast, infinite, potential intelligence that is conscious of itself only through us—and, perhaps, through forms of life that are not human, and, maybe, through certain minerals and gases that appear to have some of the attributes of consciousness. of these last things i do not speak with certainty. but sure it is that each man and woman has within him and her something of the holy spirit. god sees through our eyes and hears with our ears. therefore, we are all god: we are all the same. between the ‘wicked’ man and the ‘good’ man there is no shadow of difference. if one hates another, he is hating himself.”

his pleasant, eager smile, his vehement eyes, and his tall, athletic frame made many women desire him, but he went to bed with none, for all the grosser appetites of his body seemed to have been sublimated into an ecstatic spiritual passion that spent itself in a thousand deeds of compassionate love.{202}

they thought him mad, but they never reviled or taunted him, for he was known throughout the entire breadth of that city as a man of noble deeds and imperishable kindness.

“poor boy!” said susannah, the jewish woman who sold vegetables, “’tis a pity so fine a fellow should be wasted. those lips of his were made for kissing.”

“you say what is right,” agreed zacyntha, a lewd greek woman. “a night of love with him would but whet one’s appetite.”

strange it was that none of those women of the half-world ever attempted to tamper with him, but vileness must always recognize and fear what is pure. they gazed at him often with eyes of longing, it is true, but the gaze he gave in return was always the very negation of sex.

“a fool! a parsifal!” commented the respectable ladies, for most of them would most gladly have lost their respectability had dmitri been willing to snatch it from them.

now, in a dark street of that city it was that dmitri dwelt, inhabiting two rooms in the house of jacques laborde, a young frenchman who taught many languages. jacques and his wife, madelein, loved him for his goodness, but a time came when they were afraid on his account.

“you have noticed something, eh?” asked madelein one night, as she and her husband sat alone.

“about him?... {203}yes, yes. how can one express it? it is just as though he had begun to lose himself, as though he had spent so much of himself that there was little left to spend—less every day.”

“yes—that’s it. yet his appetite is good, he is as strong as ever, and he has never been more cheerful.”

“do you ever feel,” asked jacques, after a pause, “do you ever feel when he is talking to you, that he is giving you something of himself—merging his personality into yours?”

“that is the feeling. i don’t like it. just as though his soul was escaping from his body into mine.... sometimes, jacques, i’ve felt as though something of his personality—something ghostly, ghastly, too—had floated from him to me. it’s made a change in me. it’s coloured me faintly, like a few drops of red wine in a glass of water. is such a thing possible?”

“i don’t know,” answered her husband, uneasily. “tell me: has the change in you been for evil or for good?”

she pondered a minute.

“neither one nor the other, i think,” she answered. “the change has made me more vivid: it has sharpened me—put an edge on my feelings. perhaps, really, it has made me more myself.”

“why have you not spoken of this before?”

she laughed, nervously.

“because it was uncanny, and i was uncertain. i’m not certain even now. one gets fanciful in my condition. mamma has warned me to expect strange thoughts.”{204}

jacques clenched and unclenched his fists.

“it’s only fancy—of course it’s only fancy.”

“yet there is a change in dmitri!” urged madelein.

“yes. but if dmitri changes, we don’t.”

he put an end to the conversation by going into the kitchen to draw beer.

but when, later that evening, dmitri entered the house and looked into their room for a chat before going to bed, they were immediately startled by his appearance and manner.

“is all well with you?” asked the young greek, standing in the doorway.

“yes, indeed,” answered jacques. “and you?”

“i am so happy,” answered dmitri, “that i could almost shout with it. i am getting to the heart of the great secret at last. i am beginning to prove from my own experience that what i have always preached is true.”

his large, magnetic eyes dropped their gaze first upon jacques and then upon madelein: upon her eyes his gaze floated, and then sank into them. he was not looking at her eyes, nor yet beyond them: he was penetrating within them. the woman did not flinch, but greedily drank his gaze.

“what are you doing?” she asked, in a whisper.

“do you not feel,” he asked, slowly, “that you are not now what you were a minute ago?”{205}

“dmitri! dmitri!” exclaimed jacques; “you must not do that.”

but the greek did not move his gaze from the woman’s face.

“we are all one,” he said; “there is no real separation between any of us: it is merely these houses of flesh that keep us divided. when our bodies die, all our souls will merge into one soul.”

jacques rose timidly, and put his hand on dmitri’s arm.

“you must not do that!” he said, gently.

and because dmitri still gazed into madelein’s eyes and she into his, jacques placed himself between them and broke the spell.

“sit down, dmitri,” said jacques.

dmitri’s face had the look of a man whose soul is being disintegrated. he had lost his personality. his eyes were dull, his face was lifeless. his body, his movements, his attitude still suggested abundant strength: simply, his spirit had suffered eclipse.

“i want to give myself to my fellows,” he muttered, “but no one will take me. i am the rejected of all men. my soul is sent back to its home each time it tries to escape.”

he sat down heavily, and brooded.

there, a little later, they left him, for his mood of gladness had been transformed into one of gloom, and though next morning, as he dressed, dmitri sang out of a deep heart filled to the brim with joy, jacques looked significantly and sorrowfully at his wife. she, in turn, questioned him with her eyes. but neither spoke.{206}

a week passed.

there came a day when dmitri, feeling that almost any time now his soul might leave his body never to return, decided to stay indoors and give a final revision to the little book he had written.

his bedroom window looked upon a narrow street. across the way was a wine-shop, and even at this early hour a few men were sitting drinking at the little tables placed on the pavement. for a few minutes dmitri stood gazing lovingly and compassionately at the passers-by; then, abruptly, and with a sudden sigh, he turned away, and sat down at a small table upon which he had placed the ms. of his book.

he read steadily from the beginning. half-way through he came upon this passage.

the soul clings to its body; the spirit yearns for its companion-flesh. is it true that only death can separate them?

it is impossible for us to love others more than we love ourselves, if our souls cling to us in this despairing way. loving is giving: loving is surrender of one’s self: one’s self is one’s soul.... but my soul refuses to be surrendered. it will not leave me. even when, because of my love for others, i try to banish it from my body, it will not go, or, if it does go, it soon returns. is it refused, i wonder, by those to whom i give it?

often i feel people wanting me; often i feel them ask{207}ing for me. the magnetic ones draw me.

he sat and pondered. he recalled how, throughout the whole of his life, he had with joy spent himself upon others. a passion for giving had always been his. as a boy, he frequently had felt an aching desire to give himself to the sea—to swim out into the depths and, spreading out his arms, swoon away into nothingness, making himself a part of that water. sometimes, even, he had wanted to give himself to fire, to walk naked into a white, inviting furnace. and, always, when on the edge of a cliff, he felt the great pull of space—a quick eagerness to disappear, to dissipate himself into nothingness.... to give himself—no matter to what, if only it were greater than he—was the passion that haunted him continually. not to cease his existence; not to cast the universe from him; not to repudiate the life that had been given him. but to live more fiercely in flame, more largely and grandly as a part of a great giant ocean, more freely as an atom in illimitable space.

best of all, to give himself to humanity: not to live in one body, but in a million bodies....

as he sat, a thought came to him—a thought that thrust into and pierced him, as a sword thrusts and pierces, that shook him to the very foundations of his being.

“if one man cannot draw from me my soul, a great crowd of men may—nay, must,” he told himself; “i know that even one man or woman can take from me and absorb for a brief period something of my spirit; surely, when a thousand men and women are pulling at me like a tho{208}usand magnets, my spirit will go entirely out of me and live in them for ever.”

the argument seemed so logical and so obvious, that he wondered at himself for not thinking of it before.

he abandoned the reading of his ms., and began to pace the room. his excitement almost frenzied him, and his thoughts ran wildly.

“i must dress for the occasion. a purple robe. and a message. i shall give it out that i have a message. at the north of the citadel it shall be, and as i talk to them i shall face the east.”

he visualized the waiting crowd so vividly that his body acted as though the occasion had already arrived. he stopped walking and threw out his arms. his eyes became dilated. his lips moved. and then from his moving lips a torrent of speaking poured. he held his hearers. even the little children in his brain were awed: he saw them huddling against their mothers.... with a shudder he came to himself.

there were many newspaper offices to visit. one of them, in return for a column advertisement, agreed to publish an “interview” with him. he advertised his meeting outside the citadel in every newspaper, however obscure, for he felt he had no further use for his savings. “when my soul leaves me altogether,” he whispered, to himself, “my body will die.” he bought a scarlet robe in the bazaar.{209}

jacques and madelein watched him anxiously during the following days. several times he spoke to them of his “ending,” and told them it was near at hand. he put his small affairs carefully in order, and handed what remained of his savings to jacques.

“i will keep it for you,” said jacques.

“no: it is yours. in a day or two i shall have no further use for money. only the husk of me will remain.”

jacques looked at him very sternly.

“have i been a good friend to you, dmitri?” he asked.

“why, yes. always. you and madelein have always been my best friends.”

“well, then, tell me what you are going to do. why do you hand me your money? why do you speak of only the husk of you remaining? what is the meaning of your advertisements in the newspapers?”

dmitri smiled.

“do not be anxious about me, jacques,” he entreated; “no harm will come to me—only a great good. the most wonderful thing that can happen to anybody is about to happen to me.”

and jacques’ further persuasion had no power to make dmitri speak.

as dmitri, clad in his purple robe, walked through the streets of salonika on the evening appointed for his meeting outside the citadel, he was followed by a large crowd of friendly people; indeed, he walked in the midst of the cro{210}wd, talking as he went. he bore himself regally, and his face shone with joy.

he had only a mere handful of disciples, but there were very many, both rich and poor, who liked him, and there were still more who were driven by curiosity to that high ground outside the city walls, which looks towards the jagged mountains above hortiach.

having arrived at the place he had selected for the delivery of his message, his disciples went among the assembled people, directing them where to sit. men and women, to the number of nearly a thousand, seated themselves in a semicircle on the higher slopes of the hill; on the hill’s summit stood dmitri, looking down upon the faces lit by the sun in its setting.

bareheaded, he stood and raised both arms for silence. the eager speech of his beholders died suddenly. dmitri stood for a long minute without a word: then, just when the silence was becoming uncomfortable, he spoke in his golden voice.

“many of you have come here from curiosity; a few have come because of their love. but i have the same message for everyone. all the great teachers of the world have loved their fellows: no man can teach or be taught without love. because i desire to teach you something now, i ask any of you who hate me, or secretly jeer at me, or despise me, to kill that hate and that mockery and that contempt. indeed, no man among you can hate me without also hating himself. for we are all one. we are not a thousand di{211}fferent souls, but one soul. there is only one soul in all the wide world, but each of your bodies contains a part of that soul: the great, brooding spirit of the universe is split up into millions of parts. of those millions of parts i possess but one. it is the dearest thing i have: it is the only thing i have. my body is nothing—just dust. it is the same with you all: your bodies are merely the prisons of your souls.

“many of you will not understand me now, but i ask you, when i am gone from among you, to consider my words. you will all, however, understand this: no man gives unless he loves. if i want to give you something, it is because i love you. i do want to give you something. i want to give you myself: my soul. it is yours. take it.”

he paused. the blank faces of the men and women hurt him. they thought him mad. he could see that many of the people were whispering to each other. some were even smiling.

“listen!” he shouted, passionately. “i want to give you myself so that i may prove to you that we are all one—that our souls are one soul. if my soul can depart from my body into your bodies, then you will know that we are, in truth, all one, and that to hate or hurt your neighbour is to hurt and hate yourselves, and that to injure yourselves by wickedness is to injure all the souls in all the world.

“i ask all who love me, and who have unde{212}rstood the words i have spoken, to make themselves ready to receive me.”

with excitement and passion, he attempted to confuse his mind and reduce it to chaos by inviting a multitude of varied thoughts. he stiffened his muscles and opened his eyes to their widest. he willed his soul to depart. madness painted his face a ghastly white, his features became convulsed, the veins in his forehead stood out horribly....

and now the onlookers stared in fascination. a few murmured with fear and disgust.

for a minute and more dmitri stood in silence, goading himself on to unrestrainable madness. his mind broke. he began to paw the air with his hands. and then, smiling stupidly, he sat down and played with his fingers.

his disciples rushed upon him.

“the miracle has come to pass!” exclaimed one.

“poor dmitri!” said a man who was not a disciple; “he gets worse and worse! his madness is incurable.”

hundreds of men and woman crowded round him, but jacques was one of the first to reach his side. with the help of others, he led dmitri from the crowd and took him home.

a month passed.

dmitri came downstairs to the room in which jacques and madelein were sitting. his face had no meaning. his eyes were empty.{213}

he sat down at the table, and tears began to run down his cheeks.

jacques stared at him for some little time in profound distress.

“we must get rid of him,” he said, aloud, to madelein, “if only for your sake.”

“yes,” answered his wife, sorrowfully; “i can bear him no longer. he must go.”