Ardath by Marie Corelli (reading in the dark .txt) 📖

“You are certain of what you say?” he demanded.

“Positively certain!” returned Heliobas.

There was a silence, during which a little tinkling bell resounded in the outer corridor, followed by the tread of sandaled feet on the stone pavement. Heliobas closed the Bible and returned it to its shelf.

“That was the dinner-bell,” he announced cheerfully. “Will you accompany me to the refectory, Mr. Alwyn? … we can talk further of this matter afterwards.” Alwyn roused himself from the fit of abstraction into which he had fallen, and gathering together the loose sheets of his so strangely written manuscript, he arranged them all in an orderly heap without speaking. Then he looked up and met the earnest eyes of Heliobas with an expression of settled resolve in his own.

“I shall set out for Babylon tomorrow,” he said quietly. “As well go there as anywhere! … and on the result of my journey I shall stake my future! In the mean time—” He hesitated, then suddenly extending his hand with a frank grace that became him well,” In spite of my brusquerie last night, I trust we are friends?”

“Why, most assuredly we are!” returned Heliobas, heartily pressing the proffered palm. “You had your doubts of me and you have them still; but what of that! I take no offence at unbelief. I pity those who suffer from its destroying influence too profoundly to find room in my heart for anger. Moreover, I never try to convert anybody. … it is so much more satisfactory when sceptics convert themselves, as you are unconsciously doing! Come, … shall we join the brethren?”

Over Alwyn’s face flitted a transient shade of uneasiness and hauteur.

“I would rather they knew nothing about all this,” he began.

“Make your mind quite easy on that score,” rejoined Heliobas.

“None of my companions here are aware of your recent departure, except my very old personal friend Hilarion, who, with myself, saw your body while in its state of temporary death. But he is one of those remarkably rare wise men who know when it is best to be silent; then again, he is ignorant as to the results of your soul-transmigration, and will, as far as I am concerned, remain in ignorance. Your confidence I assure you is perfectly safe with me —as safe as though it had been received under the sacred seal of confession.”

With this understanding Alwyn seemed relieved and satisfied, and thereupon they left the apartment together.

CHAPTER VI.

“NOURHALMA” AND THE ORIGINAL ESDRAS.

Later on in the afternoon of the same day, when the sun, poised above the western mountain-range, appeared to be lazily looking about him with a drowsy, golden smile of farewell before descending to his rest, Alwyn was once more alone in the library.

Twilight shadows were already gathering in the corners of the long, low room, but he had moved the writing-table to the window, in order to enjoy the magnificence of the surrounding scenery, and sat where the light fell full upon his face as he leaned back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, in an attitude of pleased, half-meditative indolence. He had just finished reading from beginning to end the poem he had composed in his trance … there was not a line in it he could have wished altered,—not a word that would have been better omitted,—the only thing it lacked was a title, and this was the question on which he now pondered. The subject of the poem itself was not new to him—it was a story he had known from boyhood, … an old Eastern love-legend, fantastically beautiful as many such legends are, full of grace and passionate fervor—a theme fitted for the nightingale-utterance of a singer like the Persian Hafiz—though even Hafiz would have found it difficult to match the exquisitely choice language and delicately ringing rhythm in which this quaint idyll of long past ages was now most perfectly set like a jewel in fine gold. Alwyn himself entirely realized the splendid literary value of the composition—he knew that nothing more artistic in conception or more finished in treatment had appeared since the St. Agnes Eve of Keats—and as he thought of this, he yielded to a growing sense of self-complacent satisfaction which gradually destroyed all the deeply devout humility he had at first felt concerning the high and mysterious origin of his inspiration. The old inherent pride of his nature reasserted itself—he reviewed all the circumstances of his “trance” in the most practical manner—and calling to mind how the poet Coleridge had improvised the delicious fragment of Kubla Khan in a dream, he began to see nothing so very remarkable in his own unconscious production of a complete poem while under mesmeric or magnetic influences.

“After all,” he mused, “the matter is simple enough when one reasons it out. I have been unable to write anything worth writing for a long time, and I told Heliobas as much. He, knowing my apathetic condition of brain, employed his force accordingly, though he denies having done so, … and this poem is evidently the result of my long pent-up thoughts that struggled for utterance yet could not before find vent in words. The only mysterious part of the affair is this ‘Field of Ardath,’ … how its name haunts me! … and how HER face shines before the eyes of my memory! That SHE should be a phantom of my own creation seems impossible—for when have I, even in my wildest freaks of fancy, ever imagined a creature half so fair!”

His gaze rested dreamily on the opposite snow-clad peaks, above which large fleecy clouds, themselves like moving mountains, were slowly passing, their edges glowing with purple and gold as they neared the sinking sun. Presently rousing himself, he took up a pen and first of all addressing an envelope to “THE HONBLE. FRANCIS VILLIERS,

“Constitutional Club,

“LONDON”

he rapidly wrote off the following letter: “MONASTERY OF LARS,

“PASS OF DARIEL, CAUCASUS.”

“MY DEAR VILLIERS:—Start not at the above address! I am not yet vowed to perpetual seclusion, silence or celibacy! That I of all men in the world should be in a Monastery will seem to you, who know my prejudices, in the last degree absurd—nevertheless here I am,—though here I do not remain, as it is my fixed intention tomorrow at daybreak to depart straightway from hence en route for the supposed site and ruins of Babylon. Yes,—Babylon! why not?

Perished greatness has always been a more interesting subject of contemplation to me than existing littleness—and I dare say I shall wander among the tumuli of the ancient fallen city with more satisfaction than in the hot, humanity-packed streets of London, Paris, or Vienna—all destined to become tumuli in their turn.

Moreover. I am on the track of an adventure,—on the search for a new sensation, having tried nearly all the old ones and found them NIL. You know my nomadic and restless disposition … perhaps there is something of the Greek gipsy about me—a craving for constant change of scene and surroundings,—however, as my absence from you and England is likely to be somewhat prolonged, I send you in the mean time a Poem—there! ‘Season your admiration for a while,’ and hear me out patiently. I am perfectly aware of all you would say concerning the utter folly and uselessness of writing poetry at all in this present age of milk-and-watery-literature, shilling sensationals, and lascivious society dramas,—and I have a very keen recollection too of the way in which my last book was maltreated by the entire press—good heavens! how the critics yelped like dogs about my heels, snapping, sniffing, and snarling!

I could have wept then like the sensitive fool I was. … I can laugh now! In brief, my friend—for you ARE my friend and the best of all possible good fellows—I have made up my mind to conquer those that have risen against me—to break through the ranks of pedantic and pre-conceived opinions—and to climb the heights of fame, regardless of the little popular pipers of tame verso that obstruct my path and blow their tin whistles in the public ears to drown, if possible, my song. I WILL be heard! …

and to this end I pin my faith on the work I now transmit to your care. Have it published immediately and in the best style—I will cover all expenses. Advertise sufficiently, yet with becoming modesty, for ‘puffery’ is a thing I heartily despise,—and were the whole press to turn round and applaud me as much as it has hitherto abused and ridiculed me, I would not have one of its penny lines of condescendingly ignorant approval quoted in connection with what must be a perfectly unostentatious and simple announcement of this new production from my pen. The manuscript is exceptionally clear, even for me who do not as a male write a very bad scrawl—so that you can scarcely have much bother with the proof-correcting—though even were this the case, and the printers turned out to be incorrigible blockheads and blunderers, I know you would grudge neither time nor trouble expended in my service.

Good Frank Villiers! how much I owe you!—and yet I willingly incur another debt of gratitude by placing this matter in your hands, and am content to borrow more of your friendship, but only believe me, in order to repay it again with the truest interest!

By the way, do you remember when we visited the last Paris Salon together, how fascinated we were by one picture—the head of a monk whose eyes looked out like a veritable illumination from under the folds of a drooping white cowl? … and on referring to our catalogues we found it described as the portrait of one ‘Heliobas,’ an Eastern mystic, a psychist formerly well known in Paris, but since retired into monastic life? Well! I have discovered him here; he is apparently the Superior or chief of this Order—though what Order it is and when founded is more than I can tell. There are fifteen monks altogether, living contentedly in this old, half-ruined habitation among the barren steeps of the frozen Caucasus,—splendid, princely looking fellows all of them, Heliobas himself being an exceptionally fine specimen of his race.

I have just dined with the whole community, and have been fairly astonished by the fluent brilliancy and wit of their conversation.

They speak all languages. English included, and no subject comes amiss to them, for they are familiar with the latest political situations in all countries,—they know all about the newest scientific discoveries (which, by-the-by, they smile at blandly, as though these last were mere child’s play), and they discuss our modern social problems and theories with a Socratic-like incisiveness and composure such as our parliamentary howlers would do well to imitate. Their doctrine is.. but I will not bore you by a theological disquisition,—enough to say it is founded on Christianity, and that at present I don’t quite know what to make of it! And now, my dear Villiers, farewell! An answer to this is unnecessary; besides I can give you no address, as it is uncertain where I shall be for the next two or three months. If I don’t get as much pleasure as I anticipate from the contemplation of the Babylonian ruins, I shall probably take up my abode in Bagdad for a time and try to fancy myself back in the days of ‘good Haroun Alrascheed’. At any rate, whatever becomes of me, I know I have entrusted my Poem to safe hands—and all I ask of you is that it may be brought out with the least possible delay,—for its IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION seems to me just now the most vitally important thing in the world, except … except the adventure on which I