CHAPTER V

JOURNEY TO THE VALLEY OF MEMORIES

ONE of the things this people feared most was enslavement to the past; and I was encouraged to strip my mind of all sentiment connected with the life I had led before my arrival and all superstitious devotion to the historic. Bury the dead past, was one of their primary maxims. Nor would they permit religion or any other conservative element to hallow tradition. The world is well quit of what it has been, was another of their sayings. They seemed to look upon the past as a fierce pursuer ever ready to overtake and strangle them. Out and away from it were they ever hurrying. It was the dark shadow over existence. And into the future, into the future and the sunshine, they cut their way through the thick tangle of life.

I was much surprised, then, after I had been admitted to the full confidence of my proparents, to hear them refer with pleasure, if not joy, to what seemed nothing but a glorification of the past. The name Fialume came repeatedly into their conversations with each other till at last it roused my curiosity. There was something imaginative in the ideas connected with it; it never rose to their lips without bringing into their eyes a beautifully piteous expression that bordered almost on the ecstasy of joy. They saw that they had piqued my curiosity; and before I had asked them they gave me the information I desired. The word, Fialume, translated, meant “the valley of memories.” It was the great library and university of the island. There the second stage of education was largely passed. If by the age of fifty all superstitious veneration of the past had been eradicated from the nature of the new citizen, he was led to this valley day after day, month after month, until he had seen the career of the race, and had grown familiar with the steps of its development; he learned to shudder at the darkness out of which it had come, and to watch with joy the growing light and the fleeing shadows as it neared the present. Thus did he learn true gratitude for what he was, and true reverence for the future towards which they were all striving. I was not yet fit to enter the precincts of the valley. I had still too much of that anguished yet exquisite homesickness for my own past to be trusted with insight into a past that might seem great to me. And yet my probation would be shorter, as my buried world was so different from theirs; there would be less danger of superstitious reverence awaking in me for any of their old stages or antiquated institutions, and no danger of Ayala stirring my idolatrous devotion. This new word puzzled me, they saw. And they explained that it was but the older name for the same valley; it meant “the resting-place of the untrammelled.” In fact, their great library and university was their graveyard too.

Years passed in happy renovation of my whole being, body and soul. As I looked back I began to shudder at the past out of which I had come, its low ideals, and its still lower planes of living; it seemed centuries behind me and not mere years; it had grown into a murky cloud on the far horizon. I could see how often I had been on the verge of despair or disease and began to know the blindness and ignorance that had been almost the air I breathed. I shrank in horror from all I had been; for I could examine the poor fabric of it almost microscopically now. There was little fear indeed of my ever longing for what I had left behind me.

Thus at last there came the supreme moment that I had laboured for. I was to be permitted to visit Fialume. I shall never forget the day. I had swept out of my mind analogies for their great graveyard from the doleful surroundings of death to which I had been accustomed in my native land, the long train of mourners, the ghastly hearse with its burden of mortality, the unkempt grass of the place of tombs, the dreary wait beneath the unsympathetic sky; and then the rattle of the clods upon the coffin-lid, and the frantic effort to drive from the soul the thought of the gradual corruption of the body and the final residue of skull and bones. Years though I had been in Limanora, I had never heard of a funeral. Indeed deaths were as rare as births in a community that had striven to avoid the lavish waste of nature, and had so studied the human frame as to know how to arrest decay of its powers and to give every individual full possibility of developing himself and through himself his race. The reckless and indiscriminate bearings and dyings of the old world were no advance on the course of the animal or even the vegetable sphere; the higher the organisation the fewer the young and the greater the care of them. But man in other lands had still, with all his thought and foresight, the extravagant method of nature, and had increased and multiplied without stint in order that an occasional exception might help by favouring conditions to lead the race onwards and perhaps upwards. Thousands of Alexanders and Cromwells, of Mahomets and Socrates, of Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares had lived and died unknown, because they had not been born into the circumstances which fitted their peculiar faculties. This people had seen that the method of nature was haphazard, if not heartless, that the rate of progress could be indefinitely accelerated if every child that was born were born with a definite purpose, and his life were guarded and extended till that purpose was fulfilled. They meant every act of generation for a definite advance. Birth and death were in the hands of the race and not of chance, and thus it was that I had never seen or heard of obsequies during the many years of my probation.

So my difficulties were solved by my guardians before we set out for the national place of tombs. Yet my curiosity was as active as before. This was the beginning of a new epoch in my new life. How could its wonders surpass those of the past years! And I was all eagerness to study the past history of this noble race, to study the gradual ascent to the height they had now reached.

The whole atmosphere was jubilant as we rose into its upper levels and thrilled with light and electricity; even unseen living forms from other stars mingled with the sunlight that supplied so much for the support of our being. There was not a cloud to mar the purity of the ether, inspired with wandering breaths of wind. We rose joyous and bright under the gleam of the sun, I alone having my exhilaration somewhat dashed by the consciousness of my laggard gait; for my limbs were not yet light enough, my arm and leg muscles not strong enough, to accomplish any but the briefest journey upon wings, and that in the most awkward and shambling way. I was borne in one of their faleenas or weight-transference flies; it was one of the smallest, yet I had room to move about freely in the car in spite of the baggage of the troop. It was not unlike a huge tropical butterfly that I had admired in a case in one of our museums; the car was long and narrow and pointed like a boat at either end; from each side stretched out wings that were enormous beside the body they carried; and these, rainbow-hued, seemed to fill the whole air through which we passed with a solid gleam, so quickly did they shuttle up and down; aft extended slantwise two great antennae-like shafts that moved hither and thither to defeat the baffling puffs of wind and so direct our flight; along the keel lay the engine that produced the beat of the wings, silent and motionless as if it were but a shaft that strengthened the framework. There was no vibration, in spite of the great speed of the faleena. A huge awning, so high above us as to be out of reach of the wings at their fullest stretch, seemed to hold us easily aloft at whatever level we desired, and to let us gently down whenever the wings beat slowly enough to be seen as they moved up and down. It was in one of these slow movements that I discovered the principle of these sails; they were made of the wonderful metal, irelium, and had its properties of lightness, tenuity, and strength; I had noticed as they flashed solidly through the air that there was an alternation in the flash of greater or less sheen; I now saw that each wing consisted of two fine plates of open scroll-work sliding over one another back and forth; in the upward stroke the holes were open so that the air passed easily through, and the whole expanse looked like a delicately reticulated fan; in the downward stroke the upper plate so slid over the lower that the apertures of both were completely closed, and the wing formed a solid sheet of metal. I afterwards saw how simply this was accomplished. The under irelium network had but one motion, that on the hinges attached to the side of the car, but it had grooves on its fore and aft edges; into these, corresponding projections on the upper network fitted, moving in them easily by means of small half-hidden wheels; this upper plate was attached to independent hinges on a long rod that was drawn back and forth about half an inch by a connection with the driving engine; its motion, however, was completely controlled by the ligatures that drew the wing upwards and downwards, so that they should ever be in harmony, and the closing of the pores should occur only at the beginning of the downward beat, and their opening only at the beginning of the upward beat. The effect to the eye was very beautiful; the transparency of the metal let the coloured light of the sky shine through it even when solid; but when reticulated the azure seemed to form into a flashing loom of the finest lace. I could not cease gazing at the ever-shifting lights that played through the embroidery of the wings. It was pleasing to the ear as well: for the whirr and creak that usually accompany the flight of great birds and the movement of machinery were used up as undertones to a grand but simple musical march that seemed the very spirit of the beat of the wings.

For a time these sights and sounds held me entranced, so that I was scarcely conscious of our ascent. When the power of the charm had freed my senses, I looked down, and my heart leapt into my mouth; eagles being swept from the island by the blast of the storm-cone appeared to me as flies crawling over the sun-glitter of the houses below or on the snows of Lilaroma. I shrank back breathless at the sight, and imagined myself falling down this heart-sickening distance. Then the almost irresistible desire to throw myself into this abyss came over me, and I clutched at the framework of the car that I might not yield to this feeling.

I had forgotten my companion for the time: one glance at her drove the terror from my mind. I saw the beauty of the benignance that shone upon her face, and my spirit nestled in her protecting smile that had interpreted aright the horrors of my thoughts. I was not merely thankful that I had not been alone with my terrible longing: I could almost give my life up to this being who swept out my fear by the loving-kindness of her glance. My guardians had been unwilling to trust me alone in the faleena, even though the engine and the machinery were simple enough to have been managed by a child. So they sent with me Thyriel, who, I long afterwards found, had been selected by the sages as my spiritual twin as soon as they had tested my past history, my faculties, and my possibilities. None other in the whole community was so fitted to stimulate my best qualities, to be preferred by me as intimate friend and comrade or, if passionate emotions followed the same direction as friendship, to mate with me as parent or proparent, when full maturity had been reached. This I came to know only when all had fallen out as they had anticipated and desired. We were both allowed our full option and free will in our spiritual approaches and agreements: we were not forced into each other’s company, only when opportunity for mutual protection or confidence came were we paired for the venture. Everything issued as they had planned just as if we had had no free choice in the matter, and yet our impulses felt as free as if we had been the only living organisms in the universe. We chose with a passion that would not be denied; we were willing in our freedom of attraction to surrender life and all to each other.

This flight was one of the first great adventures on which we were together, and it is graven upon my very heart. Thyriel, O Thyriel, I await thee with soul weary of waiting! What are the years now but centuries without thee? I am alone but for God and thee. It is the only consolation of my soul that thou risest ever towards God and livest in God, and that I rise and live with thee.

It is exquisite pain (and delight too) for me to tell of that flight into the ether; for then I first realised how incomplete was the sum of my existence without this being. She was so gentle and yet so strong, so full of eager sympathy and yet so vigorous of character. She knew every weak point in my system, and bent herself to correct its weakness or protect me from its effects without making me conscious of her sacrifice. With power that I could not but acknowledge as the superior of mine, she played the companion and equal. I could have worshipped her almost as a divinity; but she modestly bent herself to my level, and veiled her superiority in her childlike playfulness. I shrank in fear from the implied familiarity, and could not bring myself to recognise except intellectually the common humanity and the difference of sex. For years I felt too much adoration to pass into love. It was indeed long before I could admit myself capable of her friendship. But gradually she led me to put more confidence in my powers, and to recognise the superiority of some of them. My intellectual admiration took a warmer glow that soon fused our intercourse into the most devoted friendship. So braced were we by our mutual help in our common pursuits that we seemed helpless, the one without the other. Yet the sense of sex was not stirred for years after the bond between us had grown inseverable.

It was this flight that first awakened me to the wealth of her nature and her immeasurable power and desire of self-sacrifice. Like her people, she had none of the statuesque beauty or moulded regularity of feature that has swayed the thoughts and passions of European sex; but the spirit that shone through made the face divine. I rested almost as in a dream, as I felt the benignance of her soul; and before long I was able to look calmly over with her at the increasing depths of light through which we had come. Below us we saw valley and hill pearled with the gleam of wide-scattered houses; we could see the flash of streams and rivers as they broke through the darkness of forests or fell in snowy cascades; and around the coast the sea spun for the black fringe of rock a moving thread of surf. Around us rose the carolling of many voices to the gates of heaven. Song after song, anthem after anthem, burst forth from the various groups of our comrades. Buoyant were they as thistledown, revelling in the pure serenity of the upper air. For very joy I could have thrown myself among them and joined the harmony of their flight; but her glance was upon me, and I returned to thoughts of prudence.

She showed me why we had risen so high into upper air far above most of the Limanorans who were flying with us. These faleenas could not adapt themselves to the varying winds as the human figure and arms could when managing wings. They had to rise into the regions of calms or of steady winds, in order that they might float by power of sail down to their destination. What seemed a mere awning acted in two ways; it served as aëroplane to steady the whole structure in the air and as parachute when it began to descend; and could be inflated with heated air, to help the wings in raising the faleena upwards. She pointed out in the far distance below us a gleaming line that marked the valley towards which we were voyaging, and then looking at a height-gauge that hung beside her steering-seat and at a wind-gauge that stretched over the side of the car, she decided by a brief calculation that we had reached the proper key-place of the arch we were making in our journey, and that we should by changing our course wing our way with ease down to the desired goal. She touched a notch in the side of the car and above there sounded a flute-like note, that, varying in strength and pitch, made no disharmony with the music of the wings. I looked up and there I could see the awning gradually collapse; it had bulged downwards, I had noticed, in a strange way; the tenseness of its curves disappeared, and as we began to fall, it became concave, and broke the velocity of our descent.

The wings still plied with bewildering swiftness of beat, and forced us onwards as we shortened our distance from the earth. We still could hear the music of our comrades, but so softened by the long space between that I could have imagined it the spheral harmony of orbs which circle round the throne of God. But I could see them, dim flakes of light in the azure as they outdistanced us, the few laggards that had skimmed above us for a short time still showing the outlines of their forms, yet rapidly lessening into star-specks. I was gazing out at them with the exhilaration of the outlook and of the ether in my blood, when the wings suddenly began to labour with short, irregular beat. I glanced at Thyriel. She kept her face unmoved, as she examined the engine beside her and the various keys and wheels and hinges of the machinery. I took courage, for she looked quite unconcerned, yet I could see that she had not discovered the cause for the uneasy motion of the wings. She told me that she would have to examine the outside, but that I might keep my mind at peace, for there was no danger. She adjusted her wings and dived from the side, then rose to our swiftly descending faleena, and by the strength of her muscles seemed to stay the descent, while she looked at all the gearing of the sails from below. Then she climbed into the car, and began to work at a small pump in the forepart. I ran to help her, and in a few minutes I felt the faleena buoyant again and holding its own against gravitation; we had refilled the balloon of the awning enough to keep her afloat. Thyriel stopped the engines and let the sails lie lazily out on the same plane as the car, then she fastened a cord to the bow and, having adjusted her wings again, seized the cord and leapt over. I saw her purpose: she was towing the maimed faleena through the air, still at a great height from the earth. We were near enough, however, for me to see as I looked over the danger we had escaped. We had been falling upon a group of pinnacled and serrated rocks that would have gored our vehicle and endangered my life. Moreover, we were still a long way from Fialume.

Thanks to the cessation of our music, the attention of the distant aëronauts was drawn to our laboured flight. It was not half an hour before we saw them hastening back to meet us like a swarm of butterflies; and in a few minutes more they were beside us. I watched their evolutions in the air with absorbed delight; and ere I knew what they were about, they each held a cord from the bow of our faleena, and Thyriel was on board with me directing our flight. How loud their chorus sounded now that they were near! They timed the beat of their wings and the straining of their cords to it, and we sped on our downward way even more quickly than before. I did not know till long after how great was the danger out of which I had escaped. Yet I was conscious of my comrade’s courage and that to her I owed much. It brought us closer together in spiritual friendship, and we seemed to feel ourselves singled out of mankind for mutual confidence.