A Romance of Two Worlds by Marie Corelli (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📕

“I think I will go to work again tomorrow morning, if you will not think me unsociable.”

“Why, Zara dearest!” I replied. “Of course I shall not think you unsociable. I would not interfere with any of your pursuits for the world.”

She looked at me with a sort of wistful affection, and continued:

“But you must know I like to work quite alone, and though it may look churlish, still not even you must come into the studio. I never can do anything before a witness; Casimir himself knows that, and keeps away from me.”

“Well!” I said, “I should be an ungrateful wretch if I could not oblige you in so small a request. I promise not to disturb you, Zara; and do not think for one moment that I shall be dull. I have books, a piano, flowers—what more do I want? And if I like I can go out; then I have letters to write, and all sorts of things to occupy me. I shall be quite happy, and I shall not come near you till you call me.”

Zara kissed me.

“You are a dear girl,” she said; “I hate to appear inhospitable, but I know you are a real friend—that you will love me as much away from you as near you, and that you have none of that vulgar curiosity which some women give way to, when what they desire to see is hidden from them. You are not inquisitive, are you?”

I laughed.

“The affairs of other people have never appeared so interesting to me that I have cared to bother myself about them,” I replied. “Blue-Beard’s Chamber would never have been unlocked had I been that worthy man’s wife.”

“What a fine moral lesson the old fairy-tale teaches!” said Zara. “I always think those wives of Blue-Beard deserved their fate for not being able to obey him in his one request. But in regard to your pursuits, dear, while I am at work in my studio, you can use the grand piano in the drawing-room when you please, as well as the little one in your own room; and you can improvise on the chapel organ as much as you like.”

I was delighted at this idea, and thanked her heartily. She smiled thoughtfully.

“What happiness it must be for you to love music so thoroughly!” she said. “It fills you with enthusiasm. I used to dislike to read the biographies of musical people; they all seemed to find so much fault with one another, and grudged each other every little bit of praise wrung from the world’s cold, death-doomed lips. It is to me pathetically absurd to see gifted persons all struggling along, and rudely elbowing each other out of the way to win—what? A few stilted commonplace words of approbation or fault-finding in the newspapers of the day, and a little clapping and shouting from a gathering of ordinary minded persons, who only clap and shout because it is possibly the fashion to do so. It is really ludicrous. If the music the musician offers to the public be really great, it will live by itself and defy praise or blame. Because Schubert died of want and sorrow, that does not interfere with the life of his creations. Because Wagner is voted impossible and absurd by many who think themselves good judges of musical art, that does not offer any obstacle to the steady spread of his fame, which is destined to become as universal as that of Shakespeare. Poor Joachim, the violinist, has got a picture in his private house, in which Wagner is painted as suffering the tortures of hell; can anything be more absurd, when we consider how soon the learned fiddler, who has occupied his life in playing other people’s compositions, will be a handful of forgotten dust, while multitudes yet to come will shout their admiration of ‘Tristran’ and ‘Parsifal.’ Yes, as I said, I never cared for musical people much, till I met a friend of my brother’s—a man whose inner life was an exquisite harmony.”

“I know!” I interrupted her. “He wrote the ‘Letters of a Dead Musician.’”

“Yes,” said Zara. “I suppose you saw the book at Raffaello’s studio. Good Raffaello Cellini! his is another absolutely ungrudging and unselfish spirit. But this musician that I speak of was like a child in humility and reverence. Casimir told me he had never sounded so perfect a nature. At one time he, too, was a little anxious for recognition and praise, and Casimir saw that he was likely to wreck himself on that fatal rock of poor ambition. So he took him in hand, and taught him the meaning of his work, and why it was especially given him to do; and that man’s life became ‘one grand sweet song.’ But there are tears in your eyes, dear! What have I said to grieve you?”

And she caressed me tenderly. The tears were indeed thick in my eyes, and a minute or two elapsed before I could master them. At last I raised my head and endeavoured to smile.

“They are not sad tears, Zara,” I said; “I think they come from a strong desire I have to be what you are, what your brother is, what that dead musician must have been. Why, I have longed, and do long for fame, for wealth, for the world’s applause, for all the things which you seem to think so petty and mean. How can I help it? Is not fame power? Is not money a double power, strong to assist one’s self and those one loves? Is not the world’s favour a necessary means to gain these things?”

Zara’s eyes gleamed with a soft and pitying gentleness.

“Do you understand what you mean by power?” she asked. “World’s fame? World’s wealth? Will these things make you enjoy life? You will perhaps say yes. I tell you no. Laurels of earth’s growing fade; gold of earth’s getting is good for a time, but it palls quickly. Suppose a man rich enough to purchase all the treasures of the world—what then? He must die and leave them. Suppose a poet or musician so famous that all nations know and love him: he too must die, and go where nations exist no longer. And you actually would grasp ashes and drink wormwood, little friend? Music, the heaven-born spirit of pure sound, does not teach you so!”

I was silent. The gleam of the strange jewel Zara always wore flashed in my eyes like lightning, and anon changed to the similitude of a crimson star. I watched it, dreamily fascinated by its unearthly glitter.

“Still,” I said, “you yourself admit that such fame as that of Shakespeare or Wagner becomes a universal monument to their memories. That is something, surely?”

“Not to them,” replied Zara; “they have partly forgotten that they ever were imprisoned in such a narrow gaol as this world. Perhaps they do not care to remember it, though memory is part of immortality.”

“Ah!” I sighed restlessly; “your thoughts go beyond me, Zara. I cannot follow your theories.”

Zara smiled.

“We will not talk about them any more,” she said; “you must tell Casimir—he will teach you far better than I can.”

“What shall I tell him?” I asked; “and what will he teach me?”

“You will tell him what a high opinion you have of the world and its judgments,” said Zara, “and he will teach you that the world is no more than a grain of dust, measured by the standard of your own soul. This is no mere platitude—no repetition of the poetical statement ‘THE MIND’S THE STANDARD OF THE MAN;’ it is a fact, and can be proved as completely as that two and two make four. Ask Casimir to set you free.”

“To set me free?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes!” and Zara looked at me brightly. “He will know if you are strong enough to travel!” And, nodding her head gaily to me, she left the room to prepare for the dinner-hour which was fast approaching.

I pondered over her words a good deal without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion as to the meaning of them. I did not resume the conversation with her, nor did I speak to Heliobas as yet, and the days went on smoothly and pleasantly till I had been nearly a week in residence at the Hotel Mars. I now felt perfectly well and strong, though Heliobas continued to give me his remedies regularly night and morning. I began an energetic routine of musical practice: the beautiful piano in the drawing-room answered readily to my touch, and many a delightful hour slipped by as I tried various new difficulties on the keyboard, or worked out different combinations of harmony. I spent a great deal of my time at the organ in the little chapel, the bellows of which were worked by electricity, in a manner that gave not the least trouble, and was perfectly simple of management.

The organ itself was peculiarly sweet in tone, the “vox humana” stop especially producing an entrancingly rich and tender sound. The silence, warmth, and beauty of the chapel, with the winter sunlight streaming through its stained windows, and the unbroken solitude I enjoyed there, all gave fresh impetus to the fancies of my brain, and a succession of solemn and tender melodies wove themselves under my fingers as a broidered carpet is woven on the loom.

One particular afternoon, I was sitting at the instrument as usual, and my thoughts began to busy themselves with the sublime tragedy of Calvary. I mused, playing softly all the while, on the wonderful, blameless, glorious life that had ended in the shame and cruelty of the Cross, when suddenly, like a cloud swooping darkly across the heaven of my thoughts, came the suggestive question: “Is it all true? Was Christ indeed Divine—or is it all a myth, a fable—an imposture?” Unconsciously I struck a discordant chord on the organ— a faint tremor shook me, and I ceased playing. An uncomfortable sensation came over me, as of some invisible presence being near me and approaching softly, slowly, yet always more closely; and I hurriedly rose from my seat, shut the organ, and prepared to leave the chapel, overcome by a strange incomprehensible terror. I was glad when I found myself safely outside the door, and I rushed into the hall as though I were being pursued; yet the oddest part of my feeling was, that whoever thus pursued me, did so out of love, not enmity, and that I was almost wrong in running away. I leaned for a moment against one of the columns in the hall, trying to calm the excited beating of my heart, when a deep voice startled me:

“So! you are agitated and alarmed! Unbelief is easily scared!”

I looked up and met the calm eyes of Heliobas. He appeared to be taller, statelier, more like a Chaldean prophet or king than I had ever seen him before. There was something in his steady scrutiny of my face that put me to a sort of shame, and when he spoke again it was in a tone of mild reproof.

“You have been led astray, my child, by the conflicting and vain opinions of mankind. You, like many others in the world, delight to question, to speculate, to weigh this, to measure that, with little or no profit to yourself or your fellow-creatures. And you have come freshly from a land where, in the great Senate-house, a poor perishable lump of clay calling itself a man, dares to stand up boldly and deny the existence of God, while his compeers, less