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

Annihilation, . . some greater, vaster sphere of soul-development where we shall find all that we have missed on earth!”

 

Sahluma’s face clouded, and a sigh escaped him.

 

“I would my thoughts were similar to thine!” he said sorrowfully..

“I would I could believe in an immortal destiny, … but alas, my friend! there is no shadow of ground for such a happy faith,—none neither in sense nor science. I have reflected on it many a time till I have wearied myself with mournful musing, and the end of all my meditation has been a useless protest against the Great Inevitable, . . a clamor of disdain hurled at the huge, blind, indifferent Force that poisons the deep sea of Space with an ever-productive spawn of wasted Life! Anon I have flouted my own despair, and have consoled myself with the old wise maxim that was found inscribed on the statue of a smiling god some centuries ago.. ‘Enjoy your lives, ye passing tribes of men … take pleasure in folly, for this is the only wisdom that avails! Happy is he whose days are filled with the delight of love and laughter, for there is nothing better found on earth, and whatsoever ye do, whether wise or foolish, the same End comes to all!’.. Is not this true philosophy, my Theos? … what can a man do better than enjoy?”

 

“Much depends on the particular form of enjoyment…” responded Theos thoughtfully. “Some there are, for example, who might find their greatest satisfaction in the pleasures of the table,—others in the gratification of sensual desires and gross appetites,—are these to be left to follow their own devices, without any effort being made to raise them from the brute-level where they lie?”

 

“Why, in the name of all the gods, SHOULD they be raised?”

demanded Sahluma impatiently—“If their choice is to grovel in mire, why ask them to dwell in a palace?—They would not appreciate the change!”

 

“Again,” went on Theos—“there are others who are only happy in the pursuit of wisdom, and the more they learn, the more they seek to know. One wonders, . . one cannot help wondering.. are their aspirations all in vain? … and will the grave seal down their hopes forever?”

 

Sahluma paused a moment before replying.

 

“It seems so …” he said at last slowly and hesitatingly … “And herein I find the injustice of the matter,—because however great may be the imagination and fervor of a poet for instance, he never is able WHOLLY to utter his thoughts. Half of them remain in embryo, like buds of flowers that never come to bloom, . . yet they are THERE, burning in the brain and seeming too vast of conception to syllable themselves into the common speech of mortals! I have often marvelled why such ideas suggest themselves at all, as they can neither be written nor spoken, unless…” and here his voice sank into a dreamy softness, “unless indeed they are to be received as hints, . . foreshadowings.. of greater works destined for our accomplishment, hereafter!”

 

He was silent a minute’s space, and Theos, watching him wistfully, suddenly asked:

 

“Wouldst thou be willing to live again, Sahluma, if such a thing could be?”

 

“Friend, I would rather never die!”—responded the Laureate, half playfully, half seriously.. “But.. if I were certain that death was no more than a sleep, from which I should assuredly awaken to another phase of existence, ..I know well enough what I would do!”

 

“What?” questioned Theos, his heart beginning to beat with an almost insufferable anxiety.

 

“I would live a different life NOW!” answered Sahluma steadily, looking his companion full in the eyes as he spoke, while a grave smile shadowed rather than lightened his features. “I would begin at once, . . so that when the new Future dawned for me, I might not be haunted or tortured by the remembrance of a misspent Past! For if we are to believe in any everlasting things at all, we cannot shut out the fatal everlastingness of Memory!” His words sounded unlike himself…his voice was as the voice of some reproving angel speaking,—and Theos, listening, shuddered, he knew not why, and held his peace.

 

“Never to be able to FORGET!” continued Sahluma in the same grave, sweet tone … “Never to lose sight of one’s own bygone wilful sins, . . this would be an immortal destiny too terrible to endure! For then, inexorable Retrospection would forever show us where we had missed the way, and how we had failed to use the chances given us, . . moreover, we might haply find ourselves surrounded…” and his accents grew slower and more emphatic.. “by strange phantoms of our own creating, who would act anew the drama of our obstinate past follies, perplexing us thereby into an anguish greater than mortal fancy can depict. Thus if we indeed possessed the positive foreknowledge of the eternal regeneration of our lives, ‘twould be well to free them from all hindrance to perfection HERE,—here, while we are still conscious of Time and opportunity.” He paused, then went on in his customary gay manner: “But fortunately we are not positive, nothing is certain, no truth is so satisfactorily demonstrated that some wiseacre cannot be found to disprove it, . . hence it happens my friend…” and his face assumed its wonted careless expression … “that we men whose common-sense is offended by priestly hypocrisy and occult necromantic jugglery,—we, who perhaps in our innermost heart of hearts ardently desire to believe in a supreme Divinity and the grandly progressive Sublime Intention of the Universe, but who, discovering naught but ignoble Cant and Imposture everywhere, are incontinently thrown back on our own resources, . . hence it comes, I say, that we are satisfied to accept ourselves, each man in his own personality, as the Beginning and End of Existence, and to minister to that Absolute Self which after all concerns us most, and which will continue to engage our best service until…well!—

until History can show us a perfectly Selfless Example, which, if human nature remains consistent with its own traditions, will assuredly never be!”

 

This was almost more than Theos could bear, . . there was a tightening agony at his heart that made him long to cry out, to weep, or, better still, to fling himself on his knees and pray, . .

pray to that far-removed mild Presence, that “Selfless Example”

who he KNEW had hallowed and dignified the world, and yet whose Holy and Beloved Name, he, miserable sinner, was unworthy to even remember! His suffering at the moment was so intense that he fancied some reflection of it must be visible in his face. Sahluma, however, apparently saw nothing,—he stepped across the room, and out to the vine-shaded loggia, where he turned and beckoned his companion to his side.

 

“Come!” he said, pushing his hair off his brows with a languid gesture, . . “The afternoon wears onward, and the very heavens seem to smoke with heat,—let us seek cooler air beneath the shade of yonder cypresses, whose dark-green boughs shut out the glaring sky. We’ll talk of love and poesy and tender things till sunset, . .

I will recite to thee a ballad of mine that Niphrata loved,—‘tis called ‘An Idyl of Roses,’…and it will lighten this hot and heavy silence, when even birds sleep, and butterflies drowse in the hollowed shelter of the arum-leaves. Come, wilt thou? … Tonight perchance we shall have little time for pleasant discourse!”

 

As he spoke, Theos obediently went toward him with the dazed sensations of one under the influence of mesmerism, … the dazzling face and luminous eyes of the Laureate exercised over him an indescribable yet resistless authority,—and it was certain that, wherever Sahluma led the way, he was bound to follow. Only, as he mechanically descended from the terrace into the garden, and linked his arm within that of his companion, he was conscious of a vague feeling of pity for himself…pity that he should have dwindled into such a nonentity, when Sahluma was so renowned a celebrity, . . pity too that he should have somehow never been able to devise anything original in the Art of Poetry!

 

This last was evident, . . for he knew already that the “Idyl of Roses” Sahluma purposed reciting could be no other than what he had fancied was HIS “Idyl of Roses” … a poem he had composed, or rather had plagiarized in some mysterious fashion before he had even dreamt of the design of “Nourhalma”…However he had become in part resigned to the peculiar position he occupied,—he was just a little sorry for himself, and that was all. Even as the parted spirit of a dead man might hover ruthfully above the grave of its perished mortal body, so he compassionated his own forlorn estate, and heaved a passing sigh of regret, not only for all HE

ONCE HAD BEEN, but also for all HE COULD NEVER BE!

 

CHAPTER XXVII.

 

IN THE TEMPLE OF NAGAYA.

 

The hours wore on with stealthy rapidity,—but the two friends, reclining together under a deep-branched canopy of cypress-boughs, paid little or no heed to the flight of time. The heat in the garden was intense—the grass was dry and brittle as though it had been scorched by passing flames,—and a singularly profound stillness reigned everywhere, there being no wind to stir the faintest rustle among the foliage. Lying lazily upon his back, with his arms clasped above his head, Theos looked dreamily up at the patches of blue sky seen between the dark-green gnarled stems and listened to the measured cadence of the Laureate’s mellow voice as he recited with much tenderness the promised poem.

 

Of course it was perfectly familiar,—the lines were precisely the same as those which he, Theos, remembered to have written out, thinking them his own, in an old manuscript book he had left at home. “At-home!” … Where was that? It must be a very long way off! … He half-closed his eyes,—a sense of delightful drowsiness was upon him, . . the rise and fall of his friend’s rhythmic utterance soothed him into a languid peace, . . the “Idyl of Roses” was very sweet and musical, and, though he knew it of old, he heard it now with special satisfaction, inasmuch as, it being no longer his, he was at liberty to bestow upon it that full measure of admiration which he felt it deserved!

 

Yet every now and then his thoughts wandered,—and though he anxiously strove to concentrate his attention on the lovely stanzas that murmured past his ears like the gentle sound of waves flowing beneath the mesmerism of the moon, his brain was in a continual state of ferment, and busied itself with all manner of vague suggestions to which he could give no name.

 

A great weariness weighed down his spirit—a dim consciousness of the futility of all ambition and all endeavor—he was haunted, too, by the sharp hiss of Lysia’s voice when she had said, “KILL

SAH-LUMA!”…Her look, her attitude, her murderous smile, troubled his memory and made him ill at ease,—the thing she had thus demanded at his hands seemed more monstrous than if she had bidden him kill himself! For there had been one moment, when, mastered by her beauty and the force of his own passion, he WOULD have killed himself had she requested it…but to kill his adored, his beloved friend! … ah no! not for a thousand sorceress-queens as fair as she!

 

He drew a long breath, . . an irresistible desire for rest came over him, . . the air was heavy and warm and fragrant,—his companion’s dulcet accents served as a lullaby to his tired mind,—it seemed a long time since