Chapter IX: Part 9

“Since I wrote that, what has she not said--what has she not told me!” he muttered; “and the ‘child’s brain’ is a child’s brain no longer, but a woman’s, while she has obtained absolutely no knowledge of any sort by external means. Yet she--she who was described by those who knew her in her former life as ‘not a thinking child, troublesome and difficult to manage,’ she it is who describes to me the scenery and civilisation of Mars, the inhabitants of Sirius, the wonders of a myriad of worlds; she it is who talks of the ravishing beauty of things Divine and immortal, of the glory of the heavens, of the destined fate of the world. God knows it is very strange!--and the problem I wrote out six years ago is hardly nearer solving than it was then. If I could _believe_--but then I cannot--I must always doubt, and shall not doubt lead to discovery?”

Thus arguing with himself, and scoffing interiorly at the suggestion which just then came unbidden to his mind--“_Blessed are they which have not seen and yet believed_”--he turned over some more papers and sorted them, with the intention and hope of detaching his thoughts entirely from what had suddenly become the too-enthralling subject of Lilith’s beauteous personality. Presently he came upon a memorandum, over which he nodded and smiled with a sort of grim satirical content, entitled, “The Passions of the Human Animal as Nature made Him;” it was only a scrap--a hint of some idea which he had intended to make use of in literary work, but he read it over now with a good deal of curious satisfaction. It ran thus:

“Man, as a purely natural creature, fairly educated, but wholly unspiritualised, is a mental composition of: Hunger, Curiosity, Self-Esteem, Avarice, Cowardice, Lust, Cruelty, Personal Ambition; and on these vile qualities alone our ‘society’ hangs together; the virtues have no place anywhere, and do not count at all, save as conveniently pious metaphors.”

“It is true!” he said aloud--“as true as the very light of the skies! Now am I, or have I ever been, guilty of these common vices of ordinary nature? No, no; I have examined my own conscience too often and too carefully. I have been accused of personal ambition, but even that is a false accusation, for I do not seek vulgar rewards, or the noise of notoriety ringing about my name. All that I am seeking to discover is meant for the benefit of the world; that Humanity,--poor, wretched, vicious Humanity--may know positively and finally that there _is_ a Future. For till they _do_ know it, beyond all manner of doubt, why should they strive to be better? Why should they seek to quell their animalism? Why should they need to be any better than they are? And why, above all things, should they be exhorted by their preachers and teachers to fasten their faith to a Myth, and anchor their hopes on a Dream?”

At that moment a loud and prolonged rat-tat-tatting at the street door startled him,--he hastily thrust all his loose manuscripts into a drawer, and went to answer the summons, glancing at the clock as he passed it with an air of complete bewilderment,--for it was close upon two A.M., and he could not imagine how the time had flown. He had scarcely set foot across the hall before another furious knocking began, and he stopped abruptly to listen to the imperative clatter with a curious wondering expression on his dark handsome face. When the noise ceased again, he began slowly to undo the door.

“Patience, my dear boy,” he said as he flung it open--“is a virtue, as you must have seen it set forth in copy-books. I provided you with a latch-key--where is it?--there could not be a more timely hour for its usage.”

But while he spoke, Féraz, for it was he, had sprung in swiftly like some wild animal pursued by hunters, and he now stood in the hall, nearly breathless, staring confusedly at his brother with big, feverishly-bright bewildered eyes.

“Then I have escaped!” he said in a half-whisper--“I am at home,--really at home again!”

El-Râmi looked at him steadily,--then, turning away quietly, carefully shut and bolted the door.

“Have you spent a happy day, Féraz?” he gently inquired.

“Happy!” echoed Féraz--“Happy? Yes. No! Good God!--what do you mean by happiness?”

El-Râmi looked at him again, and, making no reply to this adjuration, simply turned about and went into his study. Féraz followed.

“I know what you think,” he said in pained accents--“You think I’ve been drinking--so I have. But I’m not drunk, for all that. They gave me wine--bad burgundy--detestable champagne--the sun never shone on the grapes that made it,--and I took very little of it. It is not that which has filled me with a terror too real to deserve your scorn,--it is not that which has driven me home here to you for help and shelter----”

“It is somewhat late to be ‘driven’ home,” remarked El-Râmi with a slightly sarcastic smile--“Two in the morning, and--bad champagne or good,--you are talking, my dear Féraz, to say the least of it, rather wildly.”

“For God’s sake do not sneer at me!” cried Féraz passionately--“I shall go mad if you do! Is it as late as you say?--I never knew it. I fled from them at midnight;--I have wandered about alone under the stars since then.”

At these words, El-Râmi’s expression changed from satire to compassion. His fine eyes softened, and their lustrous light grew deeper and more tender.

“Alone--and under the stars?” he repeated softly--“Are not the two things incompatible--to _you_? Have you not made the stars your companions--almost your friends?”

“No, no!” said Féraz, with a swift gesture of utter hopelessness. “Not now--not now! for all is changed. I see life as it is--hideous, foul, corruptible, cruel! and the once bright planets look pitiless; the heavens I thought so gloriously designed are but an impenetrable vault arched over an ever-filling grave. There is no light, no hope anywhere; how can there be in the face of so much sin? El-Râmi, why did you not tell me? why did you not warn me of the accursed evil of this pulsating movement men call Life? For it seems _I_ have not lived, I have only dreamed!”

And with a heavy sigh, that seemed wrung from his very heart, he threw himself wearily into a chair, and buried his head between his hands in an attitude of utter dejection.

El-Râmi looked at him as he sat thus, with a certain shadow of melancholy on his own fine features, then he spoke gently:

“Who told you, Féraz, that you have not lived?” he asked.

“Zaroba did, first of all,” returned Féraz reluctantly; “and now he, the artist Ainsworth, says the same thing. It seems that to men of the world I look a fool. I know nothing; I am as ignorant as a barbarian----”

“Of what?” queried his brother. “Of wine, loose women, the race-course and the gaming-table? Yes, I grant you, you are ignorant of these, and you may thank God for your ignorance. And these wise ‘men of the world’ who are so superior to you--in what does their wisdom consist?”

Féraz sat silent, wrapt in meditation. Presently he looked up; his lashes were wet, and his lips trembled.

“I wish,” he murmured, “I wish I had never gone there,--I wish I had been content to stay with you.”

El-Râmi laughed a little, but it was to hide a very different emotion.

“My dear fellow,” he said lightly, “I am not an old woman that I should wish you to be tied to my apron-strings. Come, make a clean breast of it; if not the champagne, what is it that has so seriously disagreed with you?”

“Everything!” replied Féraz emphatically. “The whole day has been one of discord--what wonder then that I myself am out of tune! When I first started off from the house this morning, I was full of curious anticipation--I looked upon this invitation to an artist’s studio as a sort of break in what I chose to call the even monotony of my existence,--I fancied I should imbibe new ideas, and be able to understand something of the artistic world of London if I spent the day with a man truly distinguished in his profession. When I arrived at the studio, Mr. Ainsworth was already at work--he was painting--a woman.”

“Well?” said El-Râmi, seeing that Féraz paused, and stammered hesitatingly.

“She was nude,--this woman,” he went on in a low shamed voice, a hot flush creeping over his delicate boyish face,--“A creature without any modesty or self-respect. A model, Mr. Ainsworth called her,--and it seems that she took his money for showing herself thus. Her body was beautiful; like a statue flushed with life,--but she was a devil, El-Râmi!--the foulness of her spirit was reflected in her bold eyes--the coarseness of her mind found echo in her voice,--and I--I sickened at the sight of her; I had never believed in the existence of fiends,--but _she_ was one!”

El-Râmi was silent, and Féraz resumed--

“As I tell you, Ainsworth was painting her, and he asked me to sit beside him and watch his work. His request surprised me,--I said to him in a whisper, ‘Surely she will resent the presence of a stranger?’ He stared at me. ‘She? Whom do you mean?’ he inquired. ‘The woman there,’ I answered. He burst out laughing, called me ‘an innocent,’ and said she was perfectly accustomed to ‘pose’ before twenty men at a time, so that I need have no scruples on that score. So I sat down as he bade me, and watched in silence, and thought----”

“Ah, what did you think?” asked El-Râmi.

“I thought evil things,” answered Féraz deliberately. “And, while thinking them, I knew they were evil. And I put my own nature under a sort of analysis, and came to the conclusion that, when a man does wrong, he is perfectly aware that it _is_ wrong, and that, therefore, doing wrong deliberately and consciously, he has no right to seek forgiveness, either through Christ or any other intermediary. He should be willing to bear the brunt of it, and his prayers should be for punishment, not for pardon.”

“A severe doctrine,” observed El-Râmi. “Strangely so, for a young man who has not ‘lived,’ but only ‘dreamed.’”

“In my dreams I see nothing evil,” said Féraz, “and I think nothing evil. All is harmonious; all works in sweet accordance with a Divine and Infinite plan, of whose ultimate perfection I am sure. I would rather dream so, than live as I have lived to-day.”

El-Râmi forbore to press him with any questions, and, after a little pause, he went on:

“When that woman--the model--went away from the studio, I was as thankful as one might be for the removal of a plague. She dropped a curtain over her bare limbs and disappeared like some vanishing evil spirit. Then Ainsworth asked me to sit to him. I obeyed willingly. He placed me in a half-sitting, half-recumbent attitude, and began to sketch. Suddenly, after about half an hour, it occurred to me that he perhaps wanted to put me in the same picture with that fiend who had gone, and I asked him the question point-blank. ‘Why, certainly!’ he said. ‘You will appear as the infatuated lover of that lady, in my great Academy work.’ Then, El-Râmi, some suppressed rage in me broke loose. I sprang up and confronted him angrily. ‘Never!’ I cried. ‘You shall never picture me thus! If you dared to do it, I would rip your canvas to shreds on the very walls of the Academy itself! I am no “model,” to sell my personality to you for gold!’ He laughed in that lazy, unmirthful way of his. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you are certainly not a model, you are a tiger--a young tiger--quite furious and untamed. I wish you _would_ go and rip up my picture on the Academy walls, as you say; it would make my fortune; I should have so many orders for duplicates. My dear fellow, if you won’t let me put you into my canvas, you are no use to me. I want your meditative face for the face of a poet destroyed by a passion for Phryne. I really think you might oblige me.’ ‘Never!’ I said; ‘the thing would be a libel and a lie. My face is not the face you want. You want a weak face, a round foolish brow, and a receding chin. Why, as God made me, and as I am, every one of my features would falsify your picture’s story! The man who voluntarily sacrifices his genius and his hopes of heaven to vulgar vice and passion must have weakness in him somewhere, and as a true artist you are bound to show that weakness in the features you portray.’ ‘And have you no weakness, you young savage?’ he asked. ‘Not that weakness!’ I said. ‘The wretched incapacity of will that brings the whole soul down to a grovelling depth of materialism--that is not in me!’ I spoke angrily, El-Râmi, perhaps violently; but I could not help myself. He stared at me curiously, and began drawing lines on his palette with his brush dipped in colour. ‘You are a very singular young fellow,’ he said at last. ‘But I must tell you that it was the fair Irene Vassilius who suggested to me that your face would be suitable for that of the poet in my picture. I wanted to please her----’ ‘You will please her more by telling her what I say,’ I interrupted him abruptly. ‘Tell her----’ ‘That you are a new Parsifal,’ he said mockingly. ‘Ah, she will never believe it! All men in her opinion are either brutes or cowards.’ Then he took up a fresh square of canvas, and added: ‘Well, I promise you I will not put you in my picture, as you have such a rooted objection to figuring in public as a slave of Phryne, though, I assure you, most young fellows would be proud of such a distinction; for one is hardly considered a “man” nowadays unless one professes to be “in love”--God save the mark!--with some female beast of the stage or the music-hall. Such is life, my boy! There! now sit still with that look of supreme scorn on your countenance, and that will do excellently.’ ‘On your word of honour, you will not place me in your picture?’ I said. ‘On my word of honour,’ he replied. So, of course, I could not doubt him. And he drew my features on his canvas quickly, and with much more than ordinary skill; and, when he had finished his sketch, he took me out to lunch with him at a noisy, crowded place, called the ‘Criterion.’ There were numbers of men and women there, eating and drinking, all of a low type, I thought, and some of them of a most vulgar and insolent bearing, more like dressed-up monkeys than human beings, I told Ainsworth; but he laughed, and said they were very fair specimens of civilised society. Then, after lunch, we went to a club, where several men were smoking and throwing cards about. They asked me to play, and I told them I knew nothing of the game. Whereupon they explained it; and I said it seemed to me to be quite an imbecile method of losing money. Then they laughed uproariously. One said I was ‘very fresh,’ whatever that might mean. Another asked Ainsworth what he had brought me there for, and Ainsworth answered: ‘To show you one of the greatest wonders of the century--a really _young_ man in his youth,’ and then they laughed again. Later on he took me into the Park. There I saw Madame Vassilius in her carriage. She looked fair and cold, and proud and weary all at once. Her horses came to a standstill under the trees, and Ainsworth went up and spoke to her. She looked at me very earnestly as she gave me her hand, and only said one thing: ‘What a pity you are not with your brother!’ I longed to ask her why, but she seemed unwilling to converse, and soon gave the signal to her coachman to drive on--in fact, she went at once out of the Park. Then Ainsworth got angry and sullen, and said: ‘I hate intellectual women! That pretty scribbler has made so much money that she is perfectly independent of man’s help--and, being independent, she is insolent.’ I was surprised at his tone. I said I could not see where he perceived the insolence. ‘Can you not?’ he asked. ‘She studies men instead of loving them; that is where she is insolent--and--insufferable!’ He was so irritated that I did not pursue the subject, and he then pressed me to stay and dine with him. I accepted--and I am sorry I did.”

“Why?” asked El-Râmi in purposely indifferent tones. “At present, so far as you have told me, your day seems to have passed in a very harmless manner. A peep at a model, a lunch at the Criterion, a glance at a gaming-club, a stroll in the Park--what could be more ordinary? There is no tragedy in it, such as you seem inclined to imagine; it is all the merest bathos.”

Féraz looked up indignantly, his eyes sparkling.

“Is there nothing tragic in the horrible, stifling, strangling consciousness of evil surrounding one like a plague?” he demanded passionately. “To know and to feel that God is far off, instead of near; that one is shut up in a prison of one’s own making, where sweet air and pure light cannot penetrate; to be perfectly conscious that one is moving and speaking with difficulty and agitation in a thick, choking atmosphere of lies--lies--all lies! Is that not tragic? Is that all bathos?”

“My dear fellow, it is life!” said El-Râmi sedately. “It is what you wanted to see, to know, and to understand.”

“It is _not_ life!” declared Féraz hotly. “The people who accept it as such are fools, and delude themselves. Life, as God gave it to us, is beautiful and noble--grandly suggestive of the Future beyond; but you will not tell me there is anything beautiful or noble or suggestive in the life led by such men and women as I saw to-day. With the exception of Madame Vassilius--and she, I am told, is considered eccentric and a ‘visionary’--I have seen no one who would be worth talking to for an hour. At Ainsworth’s dinner, for instance, there were some men who called themselves artists, and they talked, not of art, but of money; how much they could get, and how much they _would_ get from certain patrons of theirs whom they called ‘full-pursed fools.’ Well, and that woman--that model I told you of--actually came to dine at Ainsworth’s table, and other coarse women like her. Surely, El-Râmi, you can imagine what their conversation was like? And as the time went on things became worse. There was no restraint, and at last I could stand it no longer. I rose up from the table, and left the room without a word. Ainsworth followed me; he was flushed with wine, and he looked foolish. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked. ‘Mamie Dillon,’ that was the name of his model, ‘wants to talk to you.’ I made him no answer. ‘Where are you going?’ he repeated angrily. ‘Home, of course,’ I replied, ‘I have stayed here too long as it is. Let me pass.’ He was excited; he had taken too much wine, I know, and he scarcely knew what he was saying. ‘Oh, I understand you!’ he exclaimed. ‘You and Irene Vassilius are of a piece--all purity, eh! all disgust at the manners and customs of the “lower animals.” Well, I tell you we are no worse than any one else in modern days. My lord the duke’s conversation differs very little from that of his groom; and the latest imported American heiress in search of a title rattles on to the full as volubly and ruthlessly as Mamie Dillon. Go home, if go you must; and take my advice, if you don’t like what you have seen in the world to-day, _stay_ home for good. Stay in your shell, and dream your dreams; I dare say they will profit you quite as much as our realities!’ He laughed, and as I left him I said, ‘You mistake! it is you who are “dreaming,” as you call it; dreaming a bad dream, too; it is I who _live_.’ Then I went out of the house, as I tell you, and wandered alone, under the stars, and thought bitter things.”

“Why ‘bitter’?” asked El-Râmi.

“I do not know,” returned Féraz moodily, “except that all the world seemed wrong. I wondered how God could endure so much degradation on the face of one of His planets, without some grand, divine protest.”

“The protest is always there,” said El-Râmi quickly. “Silent, but eternal, in the existence of Good in the midst of Evil.”

Féraz lifted his eyes and rested their gaze on his brother with an expression of unutterable affection.

“El-Râmi, keep me with you!” he entreated; “never let me leave you again! I think I must be crazed if the world is what it _seems_, and my life is so entirely opposed to it; but, if so, I would rather be crazed than sane. In my wanderings to-night, on my way home hither, I met young girls and women who must have been devils in disguise, so utterly were they lost to every sense of womanhood and decency. I saw men, evil-looking and wretched, who seemed waiting but the chance to murder, or commit any other barbarous crime for gold. I saw little children, starving and in rags; old and feeble creatures, too, in the last stage of destitution, without a passer-by to wish them well; all things seemed foul and dark and hopeless, and when I entered here I felt--ah, God knows what I felt!--that you were my Providence, that this was my home, and that surely some Angel dwelt within and hallowed it with safety and pure blessing!”

A sudden remorse softened his voice, his beautiful eyes were dim with tears.

“He remembers and thinks of Lilith!” thought El-Râmi quickly, with a singular jealous tightening emotion at his heart; but aloud he said gently:

“If one day in the ‘world’ has taught you to love this simple abode of ours, my dear Féraz, more than you did before, you have had a most valuable lesson. But do not be too sure of yourself. Remember, you resented my authority, and you wished to escape from my influence. Well, now----”

“Now I voluntarily place myself under both,” said Féraz rising and standing before him with bent head. “El-Râmi, my brother and my friend, do with me as you will! If from you come my dreams, in God’s name let me dream! If from your potent will, exerted on my spirit, springs the fountain of the music which haunts my life, let me ever be a servant of that will! With you I have had happiness, health, peace, and mysterious joy, such as the world could never comprehend; away from you, though only for a day, I have been miserable. Take my complete obedience, El-Râmi, for what it is worth; you give me more than my life’s submission can ever repay.”

El-Râmi stepped up more closely to him, and, laying both hands on his shoulders, looked him seriously in the eyes.

“My dear boy, consider for a moment how you involve yourself,” he said earnestly, yet with great kindliness. “Remember the old Arabic volume you chanced upon, and what it said concerning the mystic powers of ‘influence.’ Did you quite realise it, and all that it implies?”

Féraz met his searching gaze steadily.

“Quite,” he replied. “So much and so plainly do I realise it that I even attribute everything done in the world to ‘influence.’ Each one of us is ‘influenced’ by something or some one. Even you, my dearest brother, share the common lot, though I dare say you do not quite perceive where your ruling force is generated, your own powers being so extraordinary. Ainsworth, for example, is ‘influenced’ in very opposite directions by very opposite forces--Irene Vassilius, and--his Mamie Dillon! Now I would rather have _your_ spell laid upon my life than that of the speculator, the gambler, the drinker, or the vile woman, for none of these can possibly give satisfaction, at least not to me; while your wizard wand invokes nothing but beauty, harmony, and peace of conscience. So I repeat it, El-Râmi, I submit to you utterly and finally--must I entreat you to accept my submission?”

He smiled, and the old happy look that he was wont to wear began to radiate over his face, which had till then seemed worn and wearied. El-Râmi’s dark features appeared to reflect the smile, as he gently touched his brother’s clustering curls, and said playfully:

“In spite of Zaroba?”

“In spite of Zaroba,” echoed Féraz mirthfully. “Poor Zaroba! she does not seem well, or happy. I fear she has offended you?”

“No, no,” said El-Râmi meditatively, “she has not offended me; she is too old to offend me. I cannot be angry with sorrowful and helpless age. And, if she is not well, we will make her well, and if she is not happy we will make her happy, ... and be happy ourselves--shall it not be so?” His voice was very soft, and he seemed to talk at random, and to be conscious of it, for he roused himself with a slight start, and said in firmer tones: “Good-night, Féraz; good-night, dear lad. Rest, and dream!”

He smiled as Féraz impulsively caught his hand and kissed it, and after the young man had left the room he still stood, lost in a reverie, murmuring under his breath: “And be happy ourselves! Is that possible--could that be possible--in _this_ world?”

XXVIII.

Next day towards noon, while Féraz, tired with his brief “worldly” experiences, was still sleeping. El-Râmi sought out Zaroba. She received him in the ante-room of the chamber of Lilith with more than her customary humility; her face was dark and weary, and her whole aspect one of resigned and settled melancholy. El-Râmi looked at her kindly, and with compassion.

“The sustaining of wrath is an injury to the spirit,” he wrote on the slate which served for that purpose in his usual way of communication with her; “I no longer mistrust you. Once more I say, be faithful and obedient. I ask no more. The spell of silence shall be lifted from your lips to-day.”

She read swiftly, and with apparent incredulity, and a tremor passed over her tall, gaunt frame. She looked at him wonderingly and wistfully, while he, standing before her, returned the look steadfastly, and seemed to be concentrating all his thoughts upon her with some fixed intention. After a minute or two he turned aside, and again wrote on the slate; this time the words ran thus:

“Speak; you are at liberty.”

With a deep shuddering sigh, she extended her hands appealingly.

“Master!” she exclaimed; and, before he could prevent her, she had dropped on her knees. “Forgive--forgive!” she muttered. “Terrible is thy power, O El-Râmi, ruler of spirits! terrible, mystic, and wonderful! God must have given thee thy force, and I am but the meanest of slaves to rebel against thy command. Yet out of wisdom comes not happiness, but great grief and pain; and as I live, El-Râmi, in my rebellion I but dreamed of a love that should bring thee joy! Pardon the excess of my zeal, for lo, again and yet again I swear fidelity! and may all the curses of heaven fall on me if this time I break my vow!”

She bent her head--she would have kissed the floor at his feet, but that he quickly raised her up and prevented her.

“There is nothing more to pardon,” he wrote. “Your wisdom is possibly greater than mine. I know there is nothing stronger than Love, nothing better perhaps; but Love is my foe whom I must vanquish,--lest he should vanquish me!”

And while Zaroba yet pored over these words, her black eyes dilating with amazement at the half confession of weakness implied in them, he turned away and left the room.

That afternoon a pleasant sense of peace and restfulness seemed to settle upon the little household; delicious strains of melody filled the air; Féraz, refreshed in mind and body by a sound sleep, was seated at the piano, improvising strange melodies in his own exquisitely wild and tender fashion; while El-Râmi, seated at his writing-table, indited a long letter to Dr. Kremlin at Ilfracombe, giving in full the message left for him by the mysterious monk from Cyprus respecting the “Third Ray” or signal from Mars.

“Do not weary yourself too much with watching this phenomenon,” he wrote to his friend. “From all accounts, it will be a difficult matter to track so rapid a flash on the Disc as the one indicated, and I have fears for your safety. I cannot give any satisfactory cause for my premonition of danger to you in the attempt, because, if we do not admit an end to anything, then there can be no danger even in death itself, which we are accustomed to look upon as an ‘end,’ when it may be _proved_ to be only a beginning. But, putting aside the idea of ‘danger’ or ‘death,’ the premonition remains in my mind as one of ‘change’ for you; and perhaps you are not ready or willing even to accept a different sphere of action from your present one, therefore I would say, take heed to yourself when you follow the track of the ‘Third Ray.’”

Here his pen stopped abruptly; Féraz was singing in a soft mezza-voce, and he listened:

O Sweet, if love obtained must slay desire, And quench the light and heat of passion’s fire; If you are weary of the ways of love, And fain would end the many cares thereof, I prithee tell me so that I may seek Some place to die in ere I grow too weak To look my last on your belovèd face. Yea, tell me all! The gods may yet have grace And pity enough to let me quickly die Some brief while after we have said ‘Good-bye!’

Nay, I have known it well for many days You have grown tired of all tender ways; Love’s kisses weary you, love’s eager words, Old as the hills and sweet as singing-birds, Are fetters hard to bear! O love, be free! You will lose little joy in losing me; Let me depart, remembering only this, That once you loved me, and that once your kiss Crown’d me with joy supreme enough to last Through all my life till that brief life be past.

Forget me, Sweetest-heart, and nevermore Turn to look back on what has gone before, Or say, ‘Such love was brief, but wondrous fair; The past is past for ever; have no care Or thought for me at all, no tear or sigh, Or faint regret; for, Dearest, I shall die And dream of you i’ the dark, beneath the grass; And o’er my head perchance your feet may pass, Lulling me faster into sleep profound Among the fairies of the fruitful ground. Love, wearied out by love, hath need of rest. And, when all love is ended, Death is best.

The song ceased; but, though the singer’s voice no longer charmed the silence, his fingers still wandered over the keys of the piano, devising intricate passages of melody as delicate and devious as the warbling of nightingales. El-Râmi, unconsciously to himself, heaved a deep sigh, and Féraz, hearing it, looked round.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

“No. I love to hear you; but, like many youthful poets, you sing of what you scarcely understand--love, for instance; you know nothing of love.”

“I imagine I do,” replied Féraz meditatively. “I can picture my ideal woman; she is----”

“Fair, of course!” said El-Râmi, with an indulgent smile.

“Yes, fair; her hair must be golden, but not uniformly so--full of lights and shadows, suggestive of some halo woven round her brows by the sunlight, or the caressing touch of an angel. She must have deep, sweet eyes in which no actual colour is predominant; for a pronounced blue or black does away with warmth of expression. She must not be tall, for one cannot caress tall women without a sense of the ludicrous spoiling sentiment----”

“Have you tried it?” asked El-Râmi, laughing.

Féraz laughed too.

“You know I have not; I only imagine the situation. To explain more fully what I mean, I would say one could more readily draw into one’s arms the Venus of Medicis than that of Milo--one could venture to caress a Psyche, but scarcely a Juno. I have never liked the idea of tall women; they are like big handsome birds--useful, no doubt, but not half so sweet as the little fluttering singing ones.”

“Well, and what other attributes must this imagined lady of yours possess?” asked El-Râmi, vaguely amused at his brother’s earnestness.

“Oh, many more charms than I could enumerate,” replied Féraz. “And of one thing I am certain, she is not to be found on this earth. But I am quite satisfied to wait; I shall find her, even as she will find me some day. Meanwhile I ‘imagine’ love, and in imagination I almost feel it.”

He went on playing, and El-Râmi resumed the writing of his letter to Kremlin, which he soon finished and addressed ready for post. A gentle knock at the street door made itself heard just then through the ebb and flow of Féraz’s music, and Féraz left off his improvisation abruptly and went to answer the summons. He returned, and announced with some little excitement:

“Madame Irene Vassilius.”

El-Râmi rose and advanced to meet his fair visitor, bowing courteously.

“This is an unexpected pleasure, Madame,” he said, the sincerity of his welcome showing itself in the expression of his face, “and an unmerited honour for which I am grateful.”

She smiled, allowing her hand to rest in his for a moment; then, accepting the low chair which Féraz placed for her near his brother’s writing-table, she seated herself, and lifted her eyes to El-Râmi’s countenance--eyes which, like those of Féraz’s “ideal ladye-love,” were “deep and sweet, and of no pronounced colour.”

“I felt you would not resent my coming here as an intrusion,” she began; “but my visit is not one of curiosity. I do not want to probe you as to your knowledge of my past, or to ask you anything as to my future. I am a lonely creature, disliked by many people, and in the literary career I have adopted I fight a desperately hard battle, and often crave for a little--just a little sympathetic comprehension. One or two questions puzzle me which you might answer if you would. They are on almost general subjects; but I should like to have your opinion.”

“Madame, if you, with your exceptional gifts of insight and instinct, are baffled in these ‘general’ questions,” said El-Râmi, “shall not I be baffled also?”

“That does not follow,” replied Irene, returning his glance steadily, “for you men always claim to be wiser than women. I do not agree with this fiat, so absolutely set forth by the lords of creation; yet I am not what is termed ‘strong-minded,’ I simply seek justice. Pray stay with us,” she added, turning to Féraz, who was about to retire, as he usually did whenever El-Râmi held an interview with any visitor; “there is no occasion for you to go away.”

Féraz hesitated, glancing at his brother.

“Yes, by all means remain here, Féraz,” said El-Râmi gently, “since Madame Vassilius desires it.”

Delighted with the permission, Féraz ensconced himself in a corner with a book, pretending to read, but in reality listening to every word of the conversation. He liked to hear Irene’s voice--it was singularly sweet and ringing, and at times had a peculiar thrill of pathos in it that went straight to the heart.

“You know,” she went on, “that I am, or am supposed to be, what the world calls ‘famous.’ That is, I write books which the public clamour for and read, and for which I receive large sums of money. I am able to live well, dress well, and look well, and I am known as one of society’s ‘celebrities.’ Well, now, can you tell me why, for such poor honours as these, men, supposed to be our wiser and stronger superiors, are so spitefully jealous of a woman’s fame?”

“Jealous?” echoed El-Râmi dubiously, and with something of hesitation. “You mean----”

“I mean what I say,” continued Madame Vassilius calmly; “neither more nor less. Spitefully jealous is the term I used. Explain to me this riddle: Why do men encourage women to every sort of base folly and vanity that may lead them at length to become the slaves of man’s lust and cruelty, and yet take every possible means to oppose and hinder them in their attempts to escape from sensuality and animalism into intellectual progress and pre-eminence? In looking back on the history of all famous women, from Sappho downwards to the present time, it is amazing to consider what men have said of them. Always a sneer at ‘women’s work.’ And, if praise is at any time given, how grudging and half-hearted it is! Men will enter no protest against women who uncover their bare limbs to the public gaze and dance lewdly in music-halls and theatres for the masculine delectation; they will defend the street prostitute; they will pledge themselves and their family estates in order to provide jewels for the newest ‘ballerina’; but for the woman of intellect they have nothing but a shrug of contempt. If she produces a great work of art in literature, it is never thoroughly acknowledged; and the hard blows delivered on Charlotte Bronté, George Eliot, Georges Sand, and others of their calibre, far outweighed their laurels. George Eliot and Georges Sand took men’s names in order to shelter themselves a little from the pitiless storm that assails literary work known to emanate from a woman’s brain; but let a man write the veriest trash that ever was printed, he will still be accredited by his own sex with something better than ever the cleverest woman could compass. How is it that the ‘superior’ sex are cowardly enough to throw stones at those among the ‘inferior,’ who surpass their so-called lords and masters both in chastity and intellect?”

She spoke earnestly, her eyes shining with emotion; she looked lovely, thus inspired by the strength of her inward feelings. El-Râmi was taken aback. Like most Orientals, he had to a certain extent despised women and their work. But, then, what of Lilith? Without her aid would his discoveries in spiritual science have progressed so far? Had he or any man a right to call woman the “inferior” sex?

“Madame,” he said slowly and with a vague embarrassment, “you bring an accusation against our sex which it is impossible to refute, because it is simply and undeniably true. Men do not love either chastity or intellect in women.”

He paused, looking at her, then went on:

“A chaste woman is an embodied defiance and reproach to man; an intellectual woman is always a source of irritation, because she is invariably his superior. By this I mean that when a woman is thoroughly gifted she is gifted all round; an intellectual man is generally only gifted in one direction. For example, a great poet, painter, or musician, may be admirable in his own line, but he generally lacks in something; he is stupid, perhaps, in conversation, or he blunders in some way by want of tact; but a truly brilliant woman has all the charms of mental superiority, generally combined with delicate touches of satire, humour, and wit,--points which she uses to perfection against the lumbering animal Man, with the result that she succeeds in pricking him in all his most vulnerable parts. He detests her accordingly, and flies for consolation to the empty-headed dolls of the music-hall, who flatter him to the top of his bent, in order to get as much champagne and as many diamonds as they can out of him. Man must be adored; he insists upon it, even if he pays for it!”

“It is a pity he does not make himself a little more worthy of adoration,” said Irene, with a slight scornful smile.

“It is,” agreed El-Râmi; “but most men, even the ugliest and stupidest, consider themselves perfect.”

“Do you?” she asked suddenly.

“Do I consider myself perfect?” El-Râmi smiled and reflected on this point. “Madame, if I am frank with you, and with myself, I must answer ‘Yes!’ I am made of the same clay as all my sex, and consider myself worthy to be the conqueror of any woman under the sun! Ask any loathsome, crooked-backed dwarf that sweeps a crossing for his livelihood, and his idea of his own personal charm will be the same.”

Féraz laughed outright; Madame Vassilius looked amused and interested.

“You can never eradicate from the masculine nature,” proceeded El-Râmi, “the idea that our attentions, no matter how uncouth, are, and always must be, agreeable to the feminine temperament. Here you have the whole secret of the battle carried on by men against women who have won the prize of a world-wide fame. An intellectual woman sets a barrier between herself and the beasts; the beasts howl, but cannot leap it; hence their rage. You, Madame, are not only intellectual, but lovely to look at; you stand apart, a crowned queen, seeking no assistance from men; by your very manner you imply your scorn of their low and base desires. They _must_ detest you in self-defence; most of your adverse critics are the poorly-paid hacks of the daily journals, who envy you your house, your horses, your good fortune, and your popularity with the public; if you want them to admire you, go in for a big scandal. Run away with some blackguard; have several husbands; do something to tarnish your woman’s reputation; be a vulture or a worm, not a star; men do not care for stars, they are too distant, too cold, too pure!”

“Are you speaking satirically,” asked Madame Vassilius, “or in grim earnest?”

“In grim earnest, fair lady,” and El-Râmi rose from his chair and confronted her with a half-smile. “In grim earnest, men are brutes! The statement is one which is frequently made by what is called the ‘Shrieking Sisterhood’; but I, a man, agree to it in cold blood, without conditions. We are stupid brutes; we work well in gangs, but not so well singly. As soldiers, sailors, builders, engineers, labourers, all on the gang method, we are admirable. The finest paintings of the world were produced by bodies of men working under one head, called ‘schools,’ but differing from our modern ‘schools’ in this grand exception, that, whereas _now_ each pupil tries his hand at something of his own, _then_ all the pupils worked at the one design of the Master. Thus were painted the frescoes of Michael Angelo, and the chief works of Raphael. Now the rule is ‘every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’ And very poorly does ‘each man for himself’ succeed. Men must always be helped along, either by each other--or ... by ... a woman! Many of them owe all their success in life to the delicate management and patient tact of woman, and yet never have the grace to own it. Herein we are thankless brutes as well as stupid. But, as far as I personally am concerned, I am willing to admit that all my best discoveries, such as they are, are due to the far-reaching intelligence and pure insight of a woman.”

This remark utterly amazed Féraz; Madame Vassilius looked surprised.

“Then,” she said, smiling slightly, “of course you love some one?”

A shadow swept over El-Râmi’s features.

“No, Madame; I am not capable of love, as this world understands loving. Love has existence, no doubt, but surely not as Humanity accepts it. For example, a man loves a woman; she dies; he gradually forgets her, and loves another, and so on. That is not love, but it is what society is satisfied with, as such. You are quite right to despise such a fleeting emotion for yourself; it is not sufficient for the demands of your nature; you seek something more lasting.”

“Which I shall never find,” said Irene quietly.

“Which you will find, and which you must find,” declared El-Râmi. “All longings, however vague, whether evil or good, are bound to be fulfilled, there being no waste in the economy of the universe. This is why it is so necessary to weigh well the results of desire before encouraging it. I quite understand your present humour, Madame--it is one of restlessness and discontent. You find your crown of fame has thorns; never mind! wear it royally, though the blood flows from the torn brows. You are solitary at times, and find the solitude irksome; Art serves her children thus--she will accept no half-love, but takes all. Were I asked to name one of the most fortunate of women, I think I should name you, for, notwithstanding the progress of your intellectual capacity, you have kept your faith.”

“I have kept my religion, if you mean that,” said Irene, impressed by his earnestness; “but it is not the religion of the churches.”

He gave an impatient gesture.

“The religion of the churches is a mere Show-Sunday,” he returned. “We all know that. When I say you have kept your faith, I mean that you can believe in God without positive proofs of Him. That is a grand capability in this age. I wish I had it!”

Irene Vassilius looked at him wonderingly.

“Surely you believe in God?”

“Not till I can _prove_ Him!” and El-Râmi’s eyes flashed defiantly. “Vice triumphant, and Virtue vanquished, do not explain Him to me. Torture and death do not manifest to my spirit His much-talked-of ‘love and goodness.’ I must unriddle His secret; I must pierce into the heart of His plan, before I join the enforced laudations of the multitude; I must know and feel that it is the truth I am proclaiming, before I stand up in the sight of my fellows and say, ‘O God, Thou art the Fountain of Goodness, and all Thy works are wise and wonderful!’”

He spoke with remarkable power and emphasis; his attitude was full of dignity. Madame Vassilius gazed at him in involuntary admiration.

“It is a bold spirit that undertakes to catechise the Creator and examine into the value of His creation,” she said.

“If there is a Creator,” said El-Râmi, “and if from Him all things do come, then from Him also comes my spirit of inquiry. I have no belief in a devil, but, if there were one, the Creator is answerable for him, too. And to revert again to your questions, Madame, shall we not in a way make God somewhat responsible for the universal prostitution of woman? It is a world-wide crime, and only very slight attempts as yet have been made to remedy it, because the making of the laws is in the hands of men--the criminals. The Englishman, the European generally, is as great a destroyer of woman’s life and happiness as any Turk or other barbarian. The life of the average woman is purely animal; in her girlhood she is made to look attractive, and her days pass into the consideration of dress, appearance, manner, and conversation; when she has secured her mate, her next business is to bear him children. The children reared, and sent out into the world, she settles down into old age, wrinkled, fat, toothless, and frequently quarrelsome; the whole of her existence is not a grade higher than that of a leopardess or other forest creature, and sometimes not so exciting. When a woman rises above all this, she is voted by the men ‘unwomanly’; she is no longer the slave or the toy of their passions; and that is why, my dear Madame, they give the music-hall dancer their diamonds, and heap upon _you_ their sneers.”

Irene sat silent for some minutes, and a sigh escaped her.

“Then it is no use trying to be a little different from the rest,” she said wearily; “a little higher, a little less prone to vulgarity? If one must be hated for striving to be worthy of one’s vocation----”

“My dear lady, you do not see that men will never admit that literature _is_ your vocation! No, not even if you wrote as grand a tragedy as ‘Macbeth.’ Your vocation, according to them, is to adore their sex, to look fascinating, to wear pretty clothes, and purr softly like a pleased cat when they make you a compliment; not to write books that set everybody talking. They would rather see you dragged and worn to death under the burden of half a dozen children, than they would see you stepping disdainfully past them, in all the glory of fame. Yet be content,--you have, like Mary in the Gospel, ‘chosen the better part;’ of that I feel sure, though I am unable to tell you why or how I feel it.”

“If you feel sure of certain things without being able to explain how or why you feel them,” put in Féraz suddenly, “is it not equally easy to feel sure of God without being able to explain how or why He exists?”

“Admirably suggested, my dear Féraz,” observed El-Râmi, with a slight smile. “But please recollect that, though it may be easy to you and a fair romancist like Madame Vassilius to feel sure of God, it is not at all easy to me. I am not sure of Him; I have not seen Him, and I am not conscious of Him. Moreover, if an average majority of people taken at random could be persuaded to speak the truth for once in their lives, they would all say the same thing--that they are not conscious of Him. Because if they were--if the world were--the emotion of fear would be altogether annihilated; there would never be any ‘panic’ about anything; people would not shriek and wail at the terrors of an earthquake, or be seized with pallor and trembling at the crash and horror of an unexpected storm. Being sure of God would mean being sure of Good; and I’m afraid none of us are convinced in that direction. But I think and believe that, if we indeed felt sure of God, evil would be annihilated as well as fear. And the mystery is, why does He not _make_ us sure of Him? It must be in His power to do so, and would save both Him and us an infinite deal of trouble.”

Féraz grew restless and left his place, laying down the volume he had been pretending to read.

“I wish you would not be so horribly, cruelly _definite_ in your suggestions,” he said rather vexedly. “What is the good of it? It unsettles one’s mind.”

“Surely your mind is not unsettled by a merely reasonable idea reasonably suggested?” returned El-Râmi calmly. “Madame Vassilius here is not ‘unsettled,’ as you call it.”

“No,” said Irene slowly; “but I had thought you more of a spiritual believer----”