Chapter V: Part 5

“‘Of course not! Why should there be? When one reaches the Land of the Ideal, where everything is exactly as one would have it, is it reasonable to suppose that any one would wish to go away?’

“‘Very true. But how do they get here?’

“‘How did you?’

“‘But I mean others. How do _they_ get here?’

“‘There is only one road that can lead to a land like this. They who are fit find it.’

“‘But do not all roads lead two ways?’

“‘All but this one.’

“‘I yield. There is no use in questioning the Sphinx.’

“We were driving through streets lined with marble buildings and bordered on either side by smooth parkways. At frequent intervals along the greensward were statues, decorative urns, shrubs, and flowers. Each building, whatsoever its size, extent, or purpose, was a little work of art and formed a helpful part of the general grouping. Nowhere was there anything ugly or unsightly. Nowhere was there a false color or an immature line. It was as if the people had worked together with the single aim of making their city faultless. They seemed to know that ugly things are immoral.

“On the larger buildings I noticed that the decorations were frequently suggestive of the sea, as if in some remote age the city had risen from its depth. Carved upon the marble were shells, fish, trailing vines and weeds whose graceful sinuosities told of the swinging of tides. When we crossed one of the long spoke-like streets which swept from the center to the edge of the island, I saw that at its end, upon the turf that met it at right angles, there was a group of statuary. Asra told me that similar groups stood at the end of each street where it touched the sea. This group represented dancing nymphs pausing suddenly in the last wild round of some ecstatic dance, uplifted to toe-tips by motion-mad draperies, with muscles tense, up-strained to slimmest height, heads flung back, holding to their lips, trumpet-wise, fluted shells, through which they were flinging defiance at the deep. This picture stuck in my memory. It was like a pin prick of fear. In the smiling water it made me see a menace and a danger.

“There were buildings in the city which had a look of great age. They were yellow and mottled and streaked faintly with fine lines of gray. Their architecture was strange. It was simple and dignified, but as alien as the flora of an unknown land. The light fell upon these ancient buildings tenderly, with none of the harsh obtrusiveness of unshaded white. It was like a retrospective thought where unpleasant things seen in the flattering mirror of the past have lost their harshness. High above the city rose the grace of palms, and in all directions shone blue water.

“Then began a life which lasted too brief a time and which I have never ceased to regret; a life where all the standards of living were reversed. How shall I tell you?

“Beauty, not gold, was king!--the intelligent appreciation, the creation of beauty. They called it the spirit of life made visible. There was no religion, no church; in their stead they had placed fearlessness and joy and kindness. If you can imagine what the result would be to take away wealth as the objective goal of a nation’s endeavor, you will gain an idea of what I mean.

“Gradually in our walks and drives, or in our sails upon the water, Asra instructed me in the new life, until I was beginning to forget the old. At least I had reached the point where there was no desire of return. I will not enter into tiresome details of the island people and their ways, because the most important part is what came later and its effect upon my life.

“Perhaps two weeks had elapsed since my arrival in the Opal Isles when Asra asked me to visit with her a little rocky islet, the farthest and most outlying of the Opal group, whence a fine view was to be had of the island cities, and the great sea to westward. At her suggestion, we took along a hamper of food, that we might spend the day if we wished. I managed the red-sailed boat, and we went alone.

“Rocky and grim the island rose from the water, like the summit of a mountain whose base had been submerged by the tides. Near the shore on one side, opposite the landing, stood a graceful little pavilion, a place of rest and shelter from the too direct rays of the sun. Within were seats and a table.

“At one end of the pavilion the rock walls were near and rose high above its roof. In the wind-sheltered crevices an airy blue flower grew that resembled the anemone. There were occasional ferns, too. Other vegetation there was none. The shore was strewn with dull, copper-colored seaweeds of sharply indented edges. They resembled hairy tentacles, long eager sea-arms reaching from the deep to drag us down.

“Asra wore the dress in which I had first seen her, the gold open-work corselet, with the swinging pink stones and giant rubies. As I looked at her, the light struck a flame from the ruby above her heart, and I noticed that its color was that of the crimson sail. I remembered how I had watched it upon the misty water, and how I had thought that it was the color of life, when life is lived bravely.

“‘I am glad of your mood to-day,’ she said, divining my thoughts. ‘Why can you not always be like this? Why can you not always be dominant and fearless? That is the way to live. I do not understand you when you are sad.’

“‘Nor I myself.’

“‘Why is it then?’

“‘The mystery of things, perhaps. I do not know exactly. Perhaps it is because I wonder where I am.’

“‘What possible difference can place make if we are happy?’

“‘Perhaps it is because I fear the day will come when I must go away.’

“A deep light shone in her eyes. The thought flashed through my brain that here was such a face as dwells forever in the depth of our ideals.

“‘But why need you go? What is there in the old world that you want? Stay here with me.’

“‘Do you mean it, Asra?’ I cried, all but smothered with the joy that burst upon my senses.

“‘Yes, why not?’

“‘Then this life is mine forever!’ I exclaimed, hastening toward her, while she waved me gently away.

“‘To the fearless all things belong.’

“‘Asra!’ I cried, the wild joy still beating in my brain.

“Again she waved me away. ‘See!’ She spread a paper before me which she had taken from a slender chatelaine swinging from her waist. ‘This is the permission for me to choose whom I wish--you if I wish.’

“‘And you do wish, Asra?’

“‘Otherwise would I have told you? It depends upon you. There are conditions. You must banish fear, doubt, sadness, forever. Do you understand? If you were unable, it would mean ruin--such ruin as you do not know. You must be sure of yourself.’

“‘Anything that lies within my power I will do. But is this within my power? Can I be sure? Can I know?’

“I looked out over the sea. The broad light fell full upon it, and a myriad merry eyes looked back at me. Its voice reached me. I listened. The meaning was unmistakable. It was the undying laughter of the pagan gods. At night, too, I remembered, its voice had reached me; and I shivered to think that it was a dirge then, that it sang an eternal dirge. And between these two voices of nature--the two voices that call forever, the laughter and the dirge--what was there? The ideal! Yes, the ideal, desirable and unattainable, forever, between the laughter and the dirge.

“‘Now you have reached it!’ she exclaimed, breaking in upon my thinking. ‘You were sure to. Now you will conquer. Put the other world behind you. Annihilate it with your fearlessness. Be mine!’

“Her face inspirited me. Courage, like wine, strengthened my veins. I felt that I had been lifted into a high and rarefied element. The moments became lyric and sped onward with the lilt of song.

“‘I will not fail you. I will live with you upon your height of joy. I will prove that I am worthy.’

“I clasped her in my arms, and the face which was like the realization of a dream was near to mine.

“‘I knew it!’ she exclaimed, disengaging herself gently from my embrace.

“For the moment I moved in an element of lightness and joy, freed from fear, superstition, and corroding care. I began to realize that joy is the most important thing in the world, the most pregnant of possibility and power. I saw a new world, a new sky, and a new earth. Beneath her mighty touch, I saw as if for the first time the face of the morning upon the level water. I looked across it. My fancy peopled with triumphant phantoms the immeasurable distances that lay beyond. Worlds on worlds sprung up in space over which joy floated like a victorious banner and whose roadways were threaded by the gleaming feet of love. I saw victorious and triumphant things; white arms up-flung, red lips that shrilled in song; bright helmet plumes blown back like flame; and between them the white, glorious face of the woman I loved. Joy had strung my mind to a finer pitch. It had given it temporarily the strength and the suppleness of steel. Like a thin and glittering sword of unbreakable metal, joy stood, unsheathed of grief and formidable forever, between me and the destructive forces of life. Nothing now could diminish my power. I had found that for which we are created.

“Wherever the mysterious roads of life might lead, it was joy that waited for me at the end. All the beautiful, unalterable things in whose creation joy had been dominant came thronging to enrich my senses.

“‘You are right. Joy is the greatest thing in the world. It is the alkahest, the universal solvent, in which beauty becomes fluid, and, like a returning tide of ocean, flows in and makes fecund the barren coves and inlets of the soul.’

“‘Put away all that you have known in the past,’ she answered quickly. ‘Forget that there was ever another way of living, another land. Be mine wholly. If you are worthy, the reward will not be slight.’

“‘The past is as if it had not been. It is a tide that has slipped back again into the deep.’

“‘And it has washed away the writing on the sand. Look!’ She pointed to the sea. ‘Like its deep the soul is. Nothing can sully it.’

“As a lark rises in space, its only connection with the dim earth being ribbons of fluted sound, so did my ecstatic vision rise and hold me high above, where petty griefs could not pull me down and where in my focusing point of light I could draw what I wished up unto myself.

“‘I promise, Asra.’

“‘Then I choose you,’ she answered solemnly, a strange new note of warning ringing in her voice.

“I felt as if the horses of the sun had whirled me to the heights of light. Swift air lashed my ears. Glory inundated my senses. I felt the vertigo of happiness. I saw poise beneficently above me then the vision of love--the glittering, gold-cloud vision of love as it is painted by tone in the overture to _Lohengrin_. When it passed, the elastic swing of my vision, which had attained height sufficient to embrace all things, brought before me, by power of contrast, the black, autumn coast of La Bas Bretagne, as I had seen it in my gloomy childhood. The shore was strewn with rocks, like this one, and, perched upon them, much as was this gay pavilion, stood a church, somber and dark with age. Upon the tower a huge dark crucifix stood, whose black shadow fell far below. I saw again that cold autumnal sea; the slow-swinging ridges of dim water, where the black cross wavered, and between which poised black boats, over whose edges from time to time passed sadly the cold, silent creatures of the sea. The bright vision faded. I fell from my height of joy. It was as if I spun down infinitudes of space, light, like sound, ringing as I went.

“‘Asra, you swept me with you to a dizzy height, where, for a few moments, I saw the splendor of the worlds unfurl. But I cannot keep it. My eyes grow dim; my senses are blurred. A thousand fears assail me. I am afraid of the heights. I cannot live there calmly. I am not equal to it.’

“‘What do you mean?’ Again there was that solemn note of warning that shook my soul.

“‘Do not fail me now. You do not realize what it would mean. You do not dream what would come.’

“Again I saw the cold gray sky of France. The dim water ridges again swung toward me, and upon them lay blackly the shadow of sorrow. Doubts and fears like a demon army fell upon me. They overcame me; they crushed me.

“‘Asra, what of that dark ocean whose name is death?’

“‘What of that!’ she replied in scorn. ‘I do not fear it. Put all such thoughts behind you. Be brave! Let us intoxicate ourselves with living, with fancies, dreams, exquisite sensations. The present cannot last. Therefore make it perfect. Since Life is a guest whom we may not ignore if we would, does it not behoove us to be royal entertainers?’

“No more could that impassioned voice arouse me, nor the eyes, that filled my soul with light. The earth had claimed me. Supinely I fell back upon its breast. Never again could she lift me to the heights.

“‘I am not worthy of you, Asra. Can you forgive me?’ I said, folding her in my arms and pressing my lips to hers.

“When my lips touched hers, a change passed over her. She was standing close beside me, and yet she seemed to be distant, to have moved away.

“‘Oh, the folly! Why did you not listen to me! Why did you not bury yourself in your dream and forget! Why did you not content yourself with looking! There are things made only to dream of--that vanish at the touch. Good is not good until it is useless,’ she added enigmatically.

“‘The ideal must never be reached. _Look!_’ Wildly her voice rang out.

“I followed the direction of her eyes and her pointing hand.

“‘The white wave!’

“The sky-line was blurred beneath on-rushing water, white and thunderous and fearful.

“‘What does it mean, the white wave?’

“‘Did I not warn you? Come, save yourself while there is time!’

“She unclasped the bracelet from my arm and flung it down. She led me toward the rock that towered at the end of the pavilion. After walking some distance around its projection upon the sand, we came to a dark and narrow opening. There, handing me the food hamper, she said: ‘Go straight ahead! Go! Go!’

“‘But you--will you not go too? What of you?’

“‘No, no! No matter. There is not time to tell you. Do as I wish. Go quickly.’

“I looked across the sea. I saw the towering water. Its icy breath fanned my face. Its pale crest reached the zenith. Sprayed foam beads fell from it like marbles and dotted the blue ahead. The red sail of our boat fluttered in fear. Without pausing to think or to reason, I picked Asra up in my arms and darted with her into the black opening. It was the work of an instant. There was not time for word or argument.

“No sooner had we crossed the dividing line than, with a crash, a great rock suspended above the entrance like a door fell and shut us off from sight of the island and the glittering wave that rolled thundering on. There was no retreat. There was nothing to do but to go on. I had come from the darkness and I was plunged back into it again. Neither light nor sound reached us. Impenetrable night surrounded us. The air however was fresh, as if it had connection with the outside. Beneath my feet a smooth roadway of stone led downward, the declivity being sharp.

“A change had taken place in Asra, which the excitement of the first few moments had prevented me from noticing. Her body had become light as air, and cold and stiff. I dreaded to confront the fact and acknowledge to myself what had happened. It was no longer the body of a woman. It was no longer my beloved, no longer Asra, whom I held in my arms. It was the opal which I had first seen between the moon’s ivory horns. What a grief was this! What sorrow filled my soul! It was useless to cry out or remonstrate. The change which I had seen upon the night of my arrival had taken place again. I consoled myself by thinking that, with day-light and the earth’s surface regained, she would be herself once more. If it had not been for this thought, I could not have gone on. I should not have tried for life. What would there have been to live for! Why could I not reasonably expect this? I had seen it happen before. Almost beneath my eyes the miracle had taken place.

“Lifting the mammoth opal to my shoulder, the easier to carry it, I sped swiftly down the smooth stone way, hoping every moment for a ray of light to give promise of an exit, however far away. When I reached the bottom of the declivity and found level stone beneath my feet, there was still no sign of light, and I was so weary that I put my burden down and slept. When I awoke, I ate some of the food in the hamper and went on.

“I must have been deep within the heart of the earth. No sound nor scent of living thing came here. Yet the air was fresh and free from the damp smell of prisoned places. This was the thing that gave me hope. Somewhere, not far away, it had met an outer current and purified itself. The wind blew in my face. It seemed to come from the direction in which I was going. It was not my own motion that caused it. When I paused, I could still feel it blowing gently in my face. That gave me heart, and was the one foundation for hope. Somewhere in the darkness there was an exit through which the fresh air came.

“My other journey beneath the earth was as nothing in point of time in comparison with this. Had it not been for the plentiful supply of food within the hamper, I must have perished before I reached the surface. As it was, I suffered greatly. I was exhausted. My feet were blistered with walking on unyielding stone, and my arms were stiff with the strain of holding securely that strange burden. Hope was still high in my heart that I should see the miracle wrought anew and Asra rise from her opal sleep. Otherwise I should have cared for nothing. Life would not have been worth the saving.

“It was night when I came to the surface of the earth, or, at least, darkness had fallen. I found myself upon a tiny island, no larger than a dot upon the water, evidently a coaling station in the South Pacific. There was but one building, a keeper’s cottage, and over it floated the flag of France.

“The evening was not old, for the tide, which indications proved to have been low that day, was creeping in. I did not pause to think or to be thankful for my safety. I thought only of Asra. I was in a fever of excitement to find out if my hope was to be realized. Would she awake from her sleep and speak to me? Would our old life go on as before? Carefully I deposited the precious burden upon the ground. The moon was a slender sickle of gold and lent but little light. However, there was a luster that came from the water, and the southern stars were bright. By their aid I hoped to see.

“Asra was wrapped in a thick white tissue. I remembered that it had the same billowy whiteness as the covering that slipped and fell down at her feet like foam on the night of my arrival, when I first saw her standing by the moon’s ivory horns. I thrust it aside, tearing it in my haste. Before me lay a radiant opal. From it colors spouted like jets of water in a wonder-park.

“The quick interchange of colors blinded me. I could distinguish nothing, peer as I might. I knelt down and put my face close to the stone in the endeavor to see. Then it was as if a rain of light sprayed my face. It was useless. I could make out nothing. Yet the great stone preserved perfectly the contour of her body. Surely I should be able to see her when that play of color called up by the light combinations of the night subsided. As I stood bravely fortifying my soul with hope, defiant in face of discouragement, the glamour of the old island life we had led together touched me vividly, and for an instant’s space swung me to the heights of joy. The stone grew pale and white. I knelt beside it. Then, plainly in its depth, I saw Asra asleep, in her gold corselet with its little pink gems and giant rubies.

“‘Asra!’ I called. ‘Awake! We are safe now. Awake and speak to me.’

“Peering closely, I saw her smile, else some ray of restless light touched her.

“In memory I saw once more the silk-hung chamber with its golden phantoms, and I grieved to think that I might never see it again.

“‘Asra! The white wave is gone. There is no sign of it anywhere. We are safe. Awake!’

“For answer I heard the sea’s undying pagan laughter. Asra faded away. The stone’s brilliancy revived. The mad dance of spouting colors began. I knew I could not call her back. I flung myself down beside her and buried my face in the sand. In a frenzy of grief I determined to watch until morning. Then, surely, the change I longed for would come. I could not give up hope. Hope meant life. The day would settle it, and as I wished. I lay down beside her and waited for the sun.

“What a night was that! It was the longest I ever knew. At times weariness over-powered me, and I slept to wake with strung nerves. It seemed as if the day would never come. I thought the stars of a dozen nights rose and set. I thought the magic in which I was entangled had hindered the old rotation of day and night. Every change in the night sky was reflected in the stone, as if it were the pulse of night. A wisp of clouds across the zenith, and it was malevolently somber; a freshening breeze swept them away, and fire darted from it.

“The day came, gray and chill, with a pallid mist. I was drenched to the skin, and shivering with cold. Fear, born of weariness, assailed me. The earth-grief fell upon me like a cloak. I ached in every limb. In what a fever of hope and fear did I hang over the stone, waiting for the light to clear sufficiently to see. When it did, I could no longer see the face of Asra, only her gemmed costuming and the dim outlines of her body.

“Then the fear that she would fade away forever all but drove me mad. I forgot hunger, weariness, everything, in the endeavor to see again the face I loved. As I watched in such anxiety as they know who have loved deeply, trembling the while, as if from fever, the sun sent its first level rays across the sea. The light penetrated the stone. There was nothing to hinder me now. I could delude myself no longer. I could see plainly. Asra was not there.

“Beneath the snowy surface I could distinguish a mingled brightness and the long gold lines where her body had been. While I was looking, these, too, melted away in a dance of color. Doubt and fear had killed her. She had warned me, too. She had told me that the result would be something undreamed of.

“If for an instant hope sprang glowing in my heart, I could see her dimly, but when it passed she melted away in a jeweled mist and left me alone. In one telescopic flash of mind I realized the gloom, the barrenness, of the years that were to come. I realized then, in the flower of my youth, that the best of life lay behind me. From what I had known, the paths of life must lead downward.

“Leaving her concealed in the reeds, I went to the house. I had been correct in my supposition that it was a French coaling-station. The keeper was greatly surprised at the presence of a stranger. When I explained how I came, he was more surprised and shook his head doubtfully. He declared that he had never heard of the Opal Isles. He could not explain my presence in any satisfactory way, however, since the only steamer which had been expected for weeks was due that day. When I told him more of the islands, with their twelve white cities, he no longer contradicted me. He said nothing, but he looked at me strangely. He thought that I was mad and feared lest opposition arouse my fury. I knew then that it would be useless to tell of my experience to any one. No one would believe it.

“I saw that the keeper would be relieved to be rid of me. When I asked him for a loan to defray my expenses to Melbourne on the expected steamer, giving only my word in pledge of refunding, he assented readily. He showed a like willingness to oblige me when I asked for a certain wooden chest, some six feet in length, which I had seen out-doors beneath one of the windows, and for which I had no ostensible use. He was willing to do anything to have me off his hands.

“The first thing I did when I reached Melbourne was to cable for money to my attorneys in Paris. When the answer came, I proceeded to hire a steamer and to equip it for a cruise of indefinite length. After procuring the most trustworthy seamen that port afforded, I set out on my quest of the Opal Isles. The captain, an old man whose life had been spent upon southern seas, said that in his youth he had heard of wonderful cities of white marble beyond the last known land. Likewise he said that he had heard that no one could land there, because they floated always out of reach. Others affirmed that they were merely icebergs drifting northward from the polar circle.

“I was glad to leave the low, yellow, sun-baked shores of Australia. I longed for the open sea. After we had steamed out of port and gone some distance, sand blown by a furious wind from that blistering upland desert which makes its interior, fell upon us and dotted the sea like rain.

“Straight to southward we steamed, past Tasmania. As we neared it, I remembered that it was spring in the southern seas--November. Tasmania was pink with orchard bloom. After we passed it and looked back--so different is its southern coast--there was nothing to be seen but towering columns of black basalt.

“Now the roll of the long waves struck us, sweeping always from west to east. Tremendous waves they are, whose length no one may measure. On and on they sweep, unhindered and unchecked, until somewhere to southward they girdle the earth.

“Five days later we sighted New Zealand--a row of white mountains whose bases are buried in yellow gorse. When we came nearer, we saw the cherry blossoms and the dog-roses of an English garden. Then again to southward and out into the long wash of the Australasian waves. Here our steamer disturbed and put to flight a myriad sea-fowl resting idly upon the surface of the water; down-white albatross with wings of jet, and Cape pigeons with checker-board backs. Land was definitely left behind with all that we had known. Before us, like a magic pathway enticing us to follow, stretched the long, shining roadstead of the wind. Swiftly we slipped down it and away toward the Polar seas. At night the Southern Cross flamed bright. At night we saw the vari-tinted stars of a southern zone. We were in a strange world, with a strange sky above us. The sea, too, was strange. Sometimes it was so clear by some little island’s side that we could see the mysteries of the deep. Some times we saw algæ as delicate and finely lined as carven cameos, and sometimes kelp so long it mocked the sea-serpent in its length.

“We coasted past unknown islands, where bright sea-growths blazed on coral reefs. We saw palms that looked as if they sprang from the water, so slender was their foothold in the soil. At times all that we knew of an island was a whiff of fragrance that blew across our faces while we slept, or we rose to find a feathery greenness in the day. Or at dawn we coasted near enough to land to catch a phrase drawled in dull semi-tones, or to see the sun gild sharply the bare body of a woman with black and floating hair. Then we came to barren water where no islands were, turquoise blue and chill, upon whose outer edge the ice-fields lay. Then back to northward. Round and round we swung. Thus we scoured the seas. We became known to every merchantman, to every sailor. At first they thought that ours was a like occupation. When they found out the difference, they looked upon us with disfavor. Stories were circulated. They said we brought misfortune and foul weather. Wrecks and sea tragedies were laid at our door. They confused us with the Flying Dutchman. Gloom settled down upon us. No one escaped it. Even I was losing heart. I found that we may not live other than our fellows. The punishment for being different is not slight.

“Days and days I sat on deck and scanned the horizon with my glass. When weariness overpowered me, a sailor took my place. Nor at night was the watch relaxed. Then, too, a sailor sat ready to lift his glass at call of a ray of light and sweep the sea. Each night when I went to bed, it was with the hope of finding myself beside the blessed islands when I awoke. That failing, I consoled myself with the possibilities of day. My life trembled between hope and disappointment. These were the poles of my narrowed world.

“There was one room in the steamer especially arranged for Asra. No one entered there except myself. It was lighted with brilliancy, that no material aid might be lacking in reading the great stone’s heart. There, after the nerve-racking day on deck, I spent a part of the night, peering into the long gem which lay upon a couch of white.

“It was rarely now, and only under mental stress, that I was able to glimpse the dear face. To do so it was necessary to shut myself off for days from contact with my fellow men and by imaginative effort and strong stimulants key myself to a fictitious joy. Then, for one moment, the fair body in its golden corselet would be visible in all its beauty, and the face smile as if ready to awake from sleep. Nor was this consolation of great duration. It was not long before the strongest and headiest wines failed to have any effect upon me, and I took to drugs. The moments of vision were of slighter duration, the body less distinctly seen, less real, and, it seemed sometimes, less lovely. It was all going from me, all that I had loved. I watched it, but I was powerless to hinder.

“The effect of the drugs failed altogether. There was nothing now that could lift me for an instant to the old height of joy where Asra and I had lived and loved. The strain was telling upon my health. Physical weakness helped to make the moments of vision rarer. Never again, Titan-like, could I live with Asra upon the heights. Weariness and weakness and impotence fell upon me. The earth called me, and held me bound. I could only look at the opal with its heart of flame and dream sadly of what had been. I could see Asra now only in the dream recesses of my brain. And I knew, too, that this power would not last. Old age would blot it out. There was nothing that I could hold and call my own.

“The years of cruising had been futile. They had brought disappointment to my hopes and to my heart the certainty that I should never find the delectable isles. My strength was exhausted. I was worn out with the fruitless quest. I gave it up and came here.

“That room there,” indicating with a wave of his hand an upper wing of the house, “I built for Asra. It is arranged and furnished like the room in which I found her. There she has lain for fifty years and, as I told you, I do not know whether she is alive or dead. That part of the house, as you may have noticed, fronts the sea, that she may hear always what she loved--the undying laughter of the pagan gods.

“It is years and years now since I have seen her. I am old and I have not the strength. I shall never see her again. But I know that she is there--asleep.”

* * * * *

A year later, in a distant city, I picked up a paper and this head-line caught my eye: “The Strangest Will Ever Filed.” It was an account of how one Gustav Berençy, a nobleman of the south of France, had left his wealth to a gigantic opal, which was shaped like a woman’s form.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] From “Rime di tre gentil donne.”

THE HOUSE OF GAUZE

A MOZART FANTASY

_C’est quelque part en des pays du nord--le sais-je? C’est quelque part sous des pôles aciéreux, Où les blancs ongles de la neige Griffent des pans de roc nitreux._

EMILE VERHAEREN.

“Good evening, my Lord of Mozart.”

The voice was sweet and so was the title. He looked up in surprise. Midnight had sounded. He had thought that he was the only one awake in the old house in the Rauhensteingasse with its myriad rooms, of which he rented three. His wife and children were abed. Their clothing littered the room in which he sat and added to its disorder.

He remembered the beautiful face that was bending beside him. At sight of it the years rolled back to the days of his childhood. Now, as she stood in his miserable room and called him “My Lord of Mozart,” he jumped up in readiness for her behest.

“I have come for you. The carriage waits below.”

Something snapped in his head, and it seemed to him that he rushed through gray leagues of space. Then he mastered himself and followed in the direction in which his visitor had gone. He did not find her. She was not within the hall nor upon the street.

There, however, a carriage waited, its driver by the door. He jumped in and fell back among soft cushions. A whip curled in the air, and two horses dashed through the darkness. They left the city, and reached the country. The speed did not lessen. He saw in fleeting perspective black hills and bare trees against a dull silver sky, where pale green stars shone. After they had driven at this pace for a time, they came to a city. He did not care what city it was. He only knew that she lived here. At last he should know who she was. At last!

The driver dismounted and opened the door. With his whip he pointed to a gate ahead. Then he bowed, leaped to the box and was gone. There was an inscription upon the gate. When he came near, he read in strange and antique characters: “The Land of Music.” After he had passed through the gate, he turned to have another look at it. There was nothing to be seen of the gate through which he had entered, nor of the country beyond. In all directions rose the roofs and towers of an alien city.

He found himself in a square where a number of streets converged. He read their names, and one caught his fancy: “The Street of the Masters.” He turned into it.

“What wonderful dwellings there are in The Land of Music!” he exclaimed joyously, forgetting for the instant the one he sought. “I knew it! I knew it! Why could I not have come here sooner!” he added, his lips and chin trembling piteously.

“What dwellings the masters dwell in!” He looked rapturously down the vista before him. “Here are tone-palaces of an Assyrian magnificence, silverly translucent, of the most gracious symmetry and rising to unthinkable heights. How I love this land, through whose gateways I have just passed! How I love it! It is as if it were made for me. It is a world of crystal and silver and white onyx and pale ivory. I can see streets of dwellings whose harmonious lines make Grecian temples heavy; dwellings of such fabulously fragile beauty as the frost of northern nights paints on the windows. There are arches springing airily from arches, reproduced again and again in delicate, diminishing curves; façades of silver fretwork of the palpitating tenuity of a spider’s web; forests of fair columns, their capitals hung with leaves of light.”

Then it was that a strange inversion took place. This became the reality, and that sad other world the dream. He covered his face with his hands and gave way to a storm of tears, so greatly was he relieved to be rid of the dream where he had known only sorrow. The relief, the unspeakable relief, to know that it was a dream! His frail figure became erect and proud, as he walked along, recognizing the dwellings of his friends. “Here are the houses of Glück and Sebastian Bach and my dear, dear Haydn. But what is that--that structure just ahead? Beethoven? Yes, Beethoven.” He looked about. Nowhere could he see anything that out-topped it. “My little friend Beethoven! How kind is life in comparison with the hideousness of dreams!” Again tears dimmed his eyes. “And there dwells Händel! That is just such a temple as the saints would build. It is not altogether original, but it is the work of a mighty soul. If it does not stand for versatility, it stands for strength.”

After passing the stern home of Händel, it was some little distance to the next dwelling. When he came where he could see it plainly, he laughed long and wildly, just as madmen laugh. “Who ever heard of any one forgetting his own home! How could that black dream have lasted long enough for me to do that? Will it never cease to haunt me? The idea of forgetting my own home!” And he laughed as madly as before.

Ahead, upon a little eminence, not quite in a straight line with the other houses of the street, he saw a sumptuous Italian palace of the best days, built evidently for love and leisure.

It was just such a palace as Lorenzo the Magnificent dreamed of setting among the laureled hills of Tuscany. It was built of resonant crystal, turreted and pinacled, and provided with a myriad Venetian balconies and pillared porticos. It was not of such tremendous height as the dwelling of Beethoven, nor of such vast dimensions as that of Handel, and yet it might easily be called lovelier than either, because of its charm of design.

As he stormed up the steps impatiently, he noticed how well his blue satin court suit with its jeweled stars and orders and his curling golden hair suited the dwelling in which he lived. The doors swung open to receive him. Powdered footmen bent before him.

The guests were waiting. They were in their places ready for the dance. He bowed before his partner. Her mouth was a little red dot, and her eyes were two deep pools of love. They swung into the dance. The music uplifted them. As changing figures brought them together, he sensed pleasantly the delicacy of her flesh and the floating fragrance of her hair. As he bent in the dance’s slow salutes, his eyes embraced soft shoulders, white breasts upheld, flower-like, by stiff corsages, slim, jewel-clasped necks, and twinkling feet beneath lifted lace.

Cavaliers, with heads flung back and hands to sword hilt, like true old French gallants, danced haughtily out to meet gay Watteau ladies. Then what smiles, what courtly bows, what languishment, what bird-like gayety! In the swinging whirl he saw court trains outfloat in satin splendor, and the backward tilt of high-coiffured heads. The floors and the mirrored walls reflected the dancers, redoubling their graces in fluent light. He caught the interchange of stolen glances. He saw delicate fingers press responsive hands. He saw the amorous leaning of fond bodies and the pledge of lifted eyes. The air was electric with love. He drank it in eagerly, greedily. It was for this that he had thirsted. Again, for an instant, the black dream swept down upon him and blotted the pageant out. When it passed and he found anew the bright reality, he grasped his companion in his arms convulsively and buried his face in her breast to forget.

“To the banquet hall, good friends! To the banquet hall!” he commanded, when he lifted his face. He leaped to the center of the room, silenced the orchestra, and flung up his arms to signal attention, uncontrollable laughter bubbling on his lips--

“Wine or woman, which is sweetest, Tell me which for pleasure’s meetest, Which from care can take us fleetest?”

he sang, as he danced along.

Silks swished past him. Fans fluttered like butterflies. Little slippers clicked in merry flight. Women drifted past with heightened color and dream-veiled eyes. He heard their low laughter and knew that they were being led with a caress.

As he entered the banquet room, a forest of upstretched arms whose hands held each a wineglass greeted him: “Long life to the Lord of Mozart! The Lord of Mozart!”

Amber and crimson wine-light flecked faces and breasts and lifted arms, and fell in long broken ribbons upon the walls.

“Now find out which one is sweetest!” they chorused.

“I pledge a health to each lady,” he gallantly responded, bowing before each in turn. “In this way I shall find _her_, for surely she is here.” When he had made the rounds and satisfied himself that she was not, he beckoned a young cavalier to him.

“Why is _she_ not here?”

“_She?_ She never takes part in our revels.”

“But she promised to meet me here.”

“Impossible, my lord; she is queen.”

“And I--am I not king?” he responded haughtily. Then, repenting of the words, he flung his arms tenderly about the boyish figure.

“Ah, my boy, you do not know what love is--its torture, its longing, its insatiable longing. He noticed then how the young cavalier resembled his youthful self before grief and disappointment had lined his face and lighted their wild light in his eyes.

“Go to my generals! Summon the army!”

Doors slid back, transforming the pleasure palace into a hall. The dancers arranged themselves on either side. Between them the soldiers passed. And what soldiers! They were small and supple and swift. They flew rather than walked. Each one was a black music note, spurred and bent and vicious. From their legs black needle-like stilettos pointed. They were a destructive, unstemmable torrent. When the last one had crossed the threshold, and they stood drawn up in readiness before it--“After them, my friends!” he ordered. The revelers obeyed. Black horses waited at the door. They leaped upon them and swung through the night.

In the Land of Music it is always night--night lighted by feverishly bright stars and the rising and setting of strange moons.

Upon black and shining backs poised delicate figures; outflying manes revealed the clasp of jeweled arms, and beside the wild heads of the horses shone the faces of musical nymphs. The streets through which they passed were no longer lined with magnificent buildings. They had entered the oldest part of the Land of Music, which is sparsely settled and where the dwellings are quaint and ancient. Here a primitive people had lived.

“What a ridiculous army!” roared the Lord of Mozart, who led the cavalcade, standing upon his horse and pirouetting. “Look! my good friends! Look!” He pointed ahead.

There they were, gathering about a structure of considerable extent, an army of dwarfs, with big, oblong, melon-like heads. They carried stilettos fringed with darts, but they were slow of motion and aged. They did not seem to have strength enough to carry about their cumbersome heads. And in numbers they did not reach the half of the army of Mozart.

“So that’s our enemy!” he exclaimed, convulsed with laughter, pirouetting again upon his horse’s back. “We’ll make short work of them. Quick, upon them!”

Like a cloud of black locusts, the vicious army of Mozart fell upon them. They covered them from sight. They smothered them. They dazed them by their numbers and agility. They killed them.

“Now to the house!” he called. “The way is clear.” His eyes shone like steel, and spots of fever dotted his cheeks. He knew that within that ancient dwelling was the lady of his heart.

“Come, my friends!” They rode across the dead bodies of the ancient soldiers, laughing at their ugliness. The ladies pulled high their silken trains lest they be spotted with dust and blood.

“My generals, there within sits the lady of my heart. Bring her out and place her upon the horse beside me.”

The lady they lifted to the saddle in no way resembled the gay court beauties. In her bearing there was something noble.

“Back to the palace!”

Like magic, they covered the distance. In front of the entrance, the Lord of Mozart halted and stood erect in his stirrups, bowing majestically to right and left.

“I thank you, good friends, for your aid. And now, good night. I go to celebrate the conquest of love.”

“May joy be with you!” they called in return, waving their hands as their galloping horses disappeared in the brightness of the street.

“Why did you try to conquer me by force?” she asked, facing him in the great chamber into which he had taken her, and speaking for the first time. “Do you not know that it is really by my will that I have come--to save you from humiliation? Do you not know that you can have no power over me?”

“Am I not King! I have power over everything.”

“You do not know who I am.”

“How can that matter, since I love you?”

“I am the Lady Melodia. I cannot be long to any one. I belong to all. I am queen absolute.”

“Did I not know that we are one!” he answered, bowing in mock humility to the stately figure. “Have you not come to me of your own will? Is it not you who guided me here?”

“That is why your deed to-night is shameful.”

“But I need you so!” he continued piteously. “Surely you will not leave me when I need you so. Let me tell you; then you will pity me. I am haunted by a hideous dream. (I never told any one before. I conceal it carefully.) Sometimes I cannot tell which is real--this life here, or the dream. I have the strange consciousness”--he looked about timidly, like a little child, lest some one hear his secret, then drew her close to him, his eyes dark with fear--“that I lead two lives. One is in another world, a world of hard material facts, where by the proper grasping of the facts one can have every joy, every comfort. But there I cannot grasp anything. I cannot accustom myself to living. I cannot feel at home. I cannot understand how men buy prosperity. I cannot learn anything. I cannot cope with people. They beat me at every turn. I lack something--that fiber of the commonplace that contends and wins. There, in that black dream-world, I cannot do the simplest things. And because I cannot, I suffer--suffer poverty and hunger. When I buy things honestly with my brain, when I win success, I cannot grasp it. Everything slips away and leaves me alone--to know the want of beggars. Your presence alone dispels that horror and makes me know that this is real, that I am real, and that here I belong.”

Like the face of a mother in tenderness was the face of the Lady Melodia, as she murmured: “Dear one! Dear one!”

“Your face lights that black dream-world like a star and rests upon my soul. But there it paralyzes the power of action.”

“But are you not willing to suffer the dream for the sake of this?” She indicated the glittering chamber.

“If I could always remember that it _is_ a dream,” he answered piteously. “But they--other people--have had real things, while I have had only the glitter of foam. I’ll tell you what it’s like,” he added boyishly. “You’ve seen a bottle dropped into water where, instead of standing upright, it wavers about, unable to keep balance? That is what I am without you. Does not that justify what I did to-night? Does not that make it right?”

Pity had taken the place of resentment when she answered: “Yes, perhaps. But you see you cannot keep me. A Titan could not do that.”

“But I am more than a Titan.”

“Once I was wholly yours--”

“When?”

“In your youth. Then I was yours unasked. Before you had grown old, before life had marred you.”

He looked at himself in a mirror. It was true that there was no sign of youth in the face, nor, strange as it may seem, was there any sign of age. It was the face of one whom some terrible passion had consumed and burnt out without materially ageing.

“Why did you leave me?”

“Because you were false to me.”

“How could I be false to you when I have had no pleasures apart from you?”

“Did I not tell you that you could not live two lives--the life of a man and the life of a god?”

“You mean love? That is the only thing that makes the black dream tolerable. It is like the honey the stinging bee carries. It is the gem in the head of the toad.”

“That is why I said you were false to me,” she replied, anger brightening her eyes.

“But now I love only you. Surely you know that.”

“How can that right the matter? I cannot belong to any one in whose heart I have been supplanted for an instant.”

“You will reconsider when you know that I am worthy. Besides, there is no one else who _is_ worthy. Perhaps you have not read my heart. I tired of that other--of love--long ago, as I have tired of every real thing. It became like a too sweet honey. It sickened me, it smothered me; it made me struggle to be free. It made me long to feel flying in my face the bright insubstantiality of dreams. And you are my brightest dream,” he said, lifting the long hair and burying his face in it.

“I know, I know, but--”

“Wait! Do not decide now. You do not know me. There are powers you have not suspected. I will make you forget. I will take you where oblivion is deepest. I will prove that I am worthy. You shall never leave me. What care I for law--for right! I will take you where there is no law, no right, except my will. I will isolate you with myself so far beyond the boundaries of the real that thought cannot return. We will go beyond the farthest edge of dreams. Come to the window where you can see the exterior of the palace. Now watch.”