Ardath by Marie Corelli (best books to read in life .TXT) 📕

sped, till their two forms seemed to merge into one, … when as though oppressed by their own abandonment of joy they paused hoveringly, their embracing arms closing round one another, their lips almost touching, … their eyes reflecting each other’s ardent looks, … then, … their figures grew less and less distinct, … they appeared to melt mysteriously into the azure, pearly light that surrounded them, and finally, like faint clouds fading on the edge of a sea-horizon, they vanished! The effect of this brief voluptuous dance, and its equally voluptuous end, was simply indescribable,—the young men, who had watched it through in silence and flushed ecstasy, now sprang from their couches with shouts of rapture and unrestrained excitement, and seizing the other dancing-maidens who had till now remained in clustered, half-hidden groups behind the crystalline columns of the hall, whirled them off into the inviting pleasaunce beyond, where the little white and gold pavilions peeped through the heavy foliage, —and before Theos, in the picturesque hurry and confusion of the scene, could quite realize what had happened, the great globe in the dome was suddenly extinguished, … a firm hand closed imperiously on his own, and he was drawn along swiftly, he knew not whither!

 

A slight tremor shook him as he discovered that Sahluma was no longer by his side … the friend whom he so ardently desired to protect had gone,—and he could not tell where. He glanced about him,—in the semi-obscurity he was able to discern the sheen of the lake with its white burden of water-lilies, and the branchy outlines of the moonlit garden, … and … yes! it was Lysia whose grasp lay so warmly on his arm, … Lysia whose lovely, tempting face was so perilously near his own,—Lysia whose smile colored the soft gloom with such alluring lustre! … His heart beat,—his blood burned,—he strove in vain to imagine what fate was now in store for him. He was conscious of the beauty of the night that spread its star-embroidered splendors about him,—

conscious too of the vital youth and passion that throbbed amorously in his veins, endowing him with that keenly sweet, headstrong rapture which is said to come but once in a lifetime, and which in the very excess of its fond folly is too often apt to bring sorrow and endless remorse in its train. One moment more and he found himself in an exquisitely adorned pavilion of painted silk, faintly lit by one lamp of tenderest rose lustre, and carpeted with gold-spangled tissue. It was surrounded by a thicket of orange trees in full bloom, and the fragrance of the waxen-white flowers clung heavily to the air, breathing forth delicate suggestions of languor and sleep. The measured rush of the near waterfall alone disturbed the deep silence, with now and then the subdued and plaintive trill of a nightingale soothing itself to rest with its own song in some deep shadowed copse. Here, on a couch of heaped-up, stemless roses, such as might have been prepared for the repose of Titania, Lysia seated herself, while Theos stood gazing at her in fascinated wonderment and gradually increasing masterfulness of passion. She looked lovelier than ever in that dim, soft, mingled light of rosy lamp and silver moonbeams,—her smile was no longer cold but warmly sweet,—her eyes had lost their mocking glitter, and swam in a soft languor that was strangely bewitching,—even the Orbed Symbol on her white bosom seemed for once to drowse. Her lips parted in a faint sigh,—

a glance like fire flashed from beneath her black, silken lashes, …

 

“Theos!” she said tremulously. “Theos!” and waited.

 

He, mute and oppressed by indistinct, hovering recollections, fed his gaze on her seductive fairness for one earnest moment longer, —then suddenly advancing he knelt before her, and took her unresisting hands in his.

 

“Lysia!”—and his voice, even to his own ears, had a solemn as well as passionate thrill,—“Lysia, what wouldst thou have with me? Speak! … for my heart aches with a burden of dark memories, —memories conjured up by the wizard spell of thine eyes,—those eyes so cruel-sweet that seem to lure me to my soul’s ruin! Tell me—have we not met before? … loved before? … wronged each other and God before? … parted before? … Maybe ‘tis but a brain sick fancy,—nevertheless my spirit knows thee,—feels thee,—clings to thee,—and yet recoils from thee as one whom I did love in by-gone days of old! My thoughts of thee are strange, fair Lysia!”—and he pressed her warm, delicate fingers with unconscious fierceness,—“I would have sworn that in the Past thou didst betray me!”

 

Her low laugh stirred the silence into a faint, tuneful echo.

 

“Thou foolish dreamer!” she murmured half mockingly, half tenderly … “Thou art dazed with wine, steeped in song, bewitched with beauty, and knowest nothing of what thou sayest! Methinks thou art a crazed poet, and more fervid than Sahluma in the mystic nature of thine utterance,—thou shouldst be Laureate, not he! What if thou wert offered his place? … his fame?”

 

He looked at her, surprised and perplexed, and paused an instant before replying. Then he said slowly:

 

“So strange a thing could never be … for Sahluma’s place, once empty, could not again be filled! I grudge him not his glory-laurels,—moreover, … what is Fame compared to Love!” He uttered the last words in a low tone as though he spoke them to himself, … she heard,—and a flash of triumph brightened her beautiful face.

 

“Ah! …” and she drooped her head lower and lower till her dark, fragrant tresses touched his brow … “Then, … thou dost love me?”

 

He started. A dull pang ached in his heart,—a chill of vague uncertainty and dread. Love! … was it love indeed that he felt?

… love, … or … base desire? Love … The word rang in his ears with the same sacred suggestiveness as that conveyed by the chime of bells,—surely, Love was a holy thing, … a passion pure, impersonal, divine, and deathless,—and it seemed to him that somewhere it had been written or said … “Wheresoever a man seeketh himself, there he falleth from Love” And he, … did he not seek himself, and the gratification of his own immediate pleasure? Painfully he considered, … it was a supreme moment with him,—a moment when he felt himself to be positively held within the grasp of some great Archangel, who, turning grandly reproachful eyes upon him, demanded …

 

“Art thou the Servant of Love or the Slave of Self?” And while he remained silent, the silken sweet voice of the fairest woman he had ever seen once more sent its musical cadence through his brain in that fateful question:

 

“Thou dost love me?”

 

A deep sigh broke from him, … he moved nearer to her, … he entwined her warm waist with his arms, and stared upon her as though he drank her beauty in with his eyes. Up to the crowning masses of her dusky hair where the little serpents’ heads darted forth glisteningly,—over the dainty curve of her white shoulders and bosom where the symbolic Eye seemed to regard him with a sleepy weirdness,—down to the blue-veined, small feet in the silvery sandals, and up again to the red witchery of her mouth and black splendor of those twin fire-jewels that flashed beneath her heavy lashes—his gaze wandered hungrily, searchingly, passionately,—his heart beat with a loud, impatient eagerness like a wild thing struggling in its cage, but though his lips moved, he said no word,—she too was silent. So passed or seemed to pass some minutes,—minutes that were almost terrible in the weight of mysterious meaning they held unuttered. Then, with a half-smothered cry, he suddenly released her and sprang erect.

 

“Love!” he cried, … “Nay!—‘tis a word for children and angels!

—not for me! What have I to do with love? … what hast thou? …

thou, Lysia, who dost make the lives of men thy sport and their torments thy mockery! There is no name for this fever that consumes me when I look upon thee, … no name for this unquiet ravishment that draws me to thee in mingled bliss and agony! If I must perish of mine own bitter-sweet frenzy, let me be slain now and most utterly, … but Love has no abiding-place ‘twixt me and thee, Lysia! … Love! … ah, no, no! … speak no more of love … it hath a charmed sound, recalling to my soul some glory I have lost!”

 

He spoke wildly, incoherently, scarcely knowing what he said, and she, half lying on her couch of roses, looked at him curiously, with somber, meditative eyes. A smile of delicate derision parted her lips.

 

“Of a truth, our late feasting hath roused in thee a most singular delirium!” she murmured indolently with a touch of cold amusement in her accents—“Thou dost seem to dwell in the Past rather than the Present! What ails thee? … Come hither—closer!”—and she stretched out her lovely arms on which the twisted diamond snakes glittered in such flashing coils,—“Come! … or is thy manful guise mere feigning, and dost thou fear me?”

 

“Fear thee!”—and stung to a sudden heat Theos made one bound to her side and seizing her slim wrists, held them in a vise-like grip—“So little do I fear thee, Lysia, so well do I know thee, that in my very caresses I would slay thee, couldst thou thus be slain! Thou art to me the living presence of an unforgotten Sin,—

a sin most deadly sweet and unrepented of, . . ah! why dost thou tempt me!”—and he bent over her more ardently—“must I not meet my death at thy hands? I must,—and more than death!—yet for thy kiss I will risk hell,—for one embrace of thine I will brave perdition! Ah, cruel enchantress!”—and winding his arms about her, he drew her close against his breast and looked down on the dreamy fairness of her face,—“Would there WERE such a thing as Death for souls like mine and thine! Would we might die most absolutely thus, heart against heart, never to wake again and loathe eathtypo or archaism? other! Who speaks of the cool sweetness of the grave,—the quiet ending of all strife,—the unbreaking seal of Fate, the deep and stirless rest? … These things are not, and never were, . . for the grave gives up its dead,—the strife is forever and ever resumed,—the seal is broken, and in all the laboring Universe there shall be found no rest, and no forgetfulness, . . ah, God! … no forgetfulness!” A shudder ran through his frame,—and clasping her almost roughly, he stooped toward her till his lips nearly touched hers, . . “Thou art accursed, Lysia,—and I share thy curse! Speak—how shall we cheer each other in the shadow-realm of fiends? Thou shall be Queen there, and I thy servitor,—we will make us merry with the griefs of others,—our music shall be the dropping of lost women’s tears, and the groans of betrayed and tortured men,—and the light around us shall be quenchless fire! Shall it not be so, Lysia? …

and thinkest thou that we shall ever regret the loss of Heaven?”

 

The words rushed impetuously from his lips; he thought little and cared less what he said, so long as he could, by speech, no matter how incoherent, relieve in part, the terrible oppression of vague memories that burdened his brain. But she, listening, drew herself swiftly from his embrace and stood up,—her large eyes fixed full upon him with an expression of wondering scorn and fear.

 

“Thou art mad!” she said, a quiver of alarm in her voice … “Mad as Khosrul, and all his evil-croaking brethren! I offer thee Love,—

and thou pratest of death,—life