Part 7
One night near the closing in of September she pressed this distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my attention. She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I had been watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of vague terror, the workings of her emaciated countenance. I sat by the side of her ebony bed, upon one of the ottomans of India. She partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low whisper, of sounds which she then heard, but which I could not hear, of motions which she then saw, but which I could not perceive. The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I wished to show her (what, let me confess it, I could not all believe) that those almost inarticulate breathings, and those very gentle variations of the figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of that customary rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor overspreading her face had proved to me that my exertions to reassure her would be fruitless. She appeared to be fainting, and no attendants were within call. I remembered where was deposited a decanter of light wine which had been ordered by her physicians, and hastened across the chamber to procure it. But as I stepped beneath the light of the censer, two circumstances of a startling nature attracted my attention. I had felt that some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by my person; and I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, in the very middle of the rich luster thrown from the censer, a shadow--a faint, indefinite shadow of angelic aspect, such as might be fancied for the shadow of a shade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate dose of opium, and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of them to Rowena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the chamber and poured out a gobletful which I held to the lips of the fainting lady. She had now partially recovered, however, and took the vessel herself, while I sank upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon her person. It was then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the carpet and near the couch; and in a second after as Rowena was in the act of raising the wine to her lips I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant and ruby-colored fluid. If this I saw--not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine unhesitatingly, and I forbore to speak to her of a circumstance which must, after all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid imagination, rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by the opium, and by the hour.
Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediately subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for the worse took place in the disorder of my wife, so that, on the third subsequent night the hands of her menials prepared her for the tomb, and on the fourth I sat alone with her shrouded body in that fantastic chamber which had received her as my bride. Wild visions, opium-engendered, fluttered, shadow-like, before me. I gazed with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the room, upon the varying figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of the parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot beneath the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces of the shadow. It was there, however, no longer; and breathing with greater freedom, I turned my glances to the pallid and rigid figure upon the bed. Then rushed upon me a thousand memories of Ligeia--and then came back upon my heart with the turbulent violence of a flood the whole of that unutterable woe with which I had regarded _her_ thus enshrouded. The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon the body of Rowena.
It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later--for I had taken no note of time--when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct, startled me from my revery. I _felt_ that it came from the bed of ebony--the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitious terror--but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained my vision to detect any motion in the corpse--but there was not the slightest perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I _had_ heard the noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I resolutely and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to throw light upon the mystery. At length it became evident that a slight, a very feeble and barely noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cease to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty finally operated to restore my self-possession. I could no longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations--that Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some immediate exertion be made, yet the turret was altogether apart from the portion of the abbey tenanted by the servants--there were none within call, and I had no means of summoning them to my aid without leaving the room for many minutes--and this I could not venture to do. I therefore struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit still hovering. In a short period it was certain, however, that a relapse had taken place, the color disappeared from both eyelid and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the lips became doubly shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the surface of the body; and all the usual rigorous stiffness immediately supervened. I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate waking visions of Ligeia.
An hour thus elapsed, when--could it be possible?--I was a second time aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the bed. I listened--in extremity of horror. The sound came again--it was a sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I saw--distinctly saw--a tremor upon the lips. In a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright line of the pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with the profound awe which had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt that my vision grew dim, that my reason wandered, and it was only by a violent effort that I at length succeeded in nerving myself to the task which duty thus once more had pointed out. There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the cheek and throat, a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame, there was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady _lived_; and with redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of restoration. I chafed and bathed the temples and the hands and used every exertion which experience and no little medical reading could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression of the dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took upon itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity, the sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that which has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.
And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia--and again, (what marvel that I shudder while I write?) _again_ there reached my ears a low sob from the region of the ebony bed. But why should I minutely detail the unspeakable horrors of that night? Why should I pause to relate how, time after time, until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideous drama of revivification was repeated; how each terrific relapse was only into a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; how each agony wore the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and how each struggle was succeeded by I know not what of wild change in the personal appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.
The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who had been dead, once again stirred--and now more vigorously than hitherto, although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in its utter hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or to move, and remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl of violent emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the least terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted energy into the countenance, the limbs relaxed, and, save that the eyelids were yet pressed heavily together and that the bandages and draperies of the grave still imparted their charnel character to the figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off utterly the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not even then altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when arising from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle of the apartment.
I trembled not--I stirred not--for a crowd of unutterable fancies connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure, rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed--had chilled me into stone. I stirred not--but gazed upon the apparition. There was a mad disorder in my thoughts--a tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be the living Rowena who confronted me? Could it indeed be Rowena at all--the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine? Why, _why_ should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about the mouth--but then might it not be the mouth of the breathing Lady of Tremaine? And the cheeks--there were the roses as in her noon of life--yes, these might indeed be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as in health, might it not be hers?--but _had she then grown taller since her malady_? What inexpressible madness seized me with that thought! One bound, and I had reached her feet. Shrinking from my touch she let fall from her head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and there streamed forth into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber huge masses of long and dishevelled hair; _it was blacker than the raven wings of midnight_! And now slowly opened the eyes of the figure which stood before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never--can I never be mistaken--these are the full and the black, and the wild eyes of my lost love--of the Lady--of the LADY LIGEIA."
THE SYLPH AND THE FATHER[5]
By ELSA BARKER
[Footnote 5: By permission of the author of _War Letters of the Living Dead Man_ and Mitchell Kennerley.]
Passing yesterday along the line where the great French army stands before its powerful opponent, and marking the spirit of courage and aspiration which makes it seem like a long line of living light, I saw a familiar face in the regions outside the physical.
I paused, highly pleased at the encounter, and the sylph--for it was a sylph whom I met--paused also with a little smile of recognition.
Do you recall in my former book the story of a sylph, Meriline, who was the companion and familiar of a student of magic who lived in the rue de Vaugirard in Paris?
It was Meriline that I met above the line of light which shows to wanderers in the astral regions where the soldiers of _la belle France_ fight and die for the same ideal which inspired Jeanne d'Arc--to drive the foreigner out of France.
"Where is your friend and master?" I asked the sylph, and she pointed below to a trench which spoke loud its determination to conquer.
"I am here, to be still with him," she said.
"And can you speak to him here?" I asked.
"I can always speak with him," she answered. "I have been very useful to him--and to France."
"To France?" I enquired, with growing interest.
"Oh, yes! When his commanding officer wants to know what is being plotted over there, he often asks my friend, and my friend asks me."
"Truly," I thought, "the French are an inspired people, when the officers of armies ask guidance from the realm of the invisible! But had not Jeanne her visions?"
"And how do you gain the information desired?" I asked, drawing nearer to Meriline, who seemed more serious than when we met some years before in Paris.
"Why," she answered, "I go over there and look around me. I have learned what to look for, he has taught me, and when I bring him news he rewards me with more love."
"And do you love him still, as of old?"
"As of old?"
"Yes, as you did back there in Paris."
"Time must have passed slowly with you," said the sylph, "if you call a few years ago 'as of old'."
"Are a few years, then, as nothing?"
"A few years are as nothing to me," she replied. "I have lived a long time."
"And do you know the future of your friend?" I asked.
A puzzled look came over the face of Meriline, and she said, slowly:
"I used to know everything that would happen to him, because I could read his will, and whatever he willed came to pass; but since we have been out here he seems to have lost his will."
"Lost his will!" I exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes, lost his will; for he prays continually to a great Being whom he loves far more than me, and he always prays one prayer, 'Thy will be done!' It used to be his will which was always done; but now, as I say, he seems to have lost his will."
"Perhaps," I said, "it is true of the will as was once said of the life, and he that loses his will shall find it."
"I hope he will find it soon," she answered, "for in the old days he was always giving me interesting things to do, to help him achieve the purposes of his will, and now he only sends me over there. I don't like _over there_!"
"Why not?"
"Because my friend is menaced by something over there."
"And what has his will to do with that?"
"Why, even about that, he says all day to the great Being that he loves so much more than me, 'Thy will be done.'"
"Do you think you could learn to say it, too?" I asked.
"I say it after him sometimes; but I don't know what it means."
"Have you never heard of God?"
"I have heard of many gods, of Isis and Osiris and Set, and of Horus, the son of Osiris."
"And is it to one of these that he says, 'Thy will be done'?"
"Oh, no! It is not to any of the gods that he used to call upon in his magical working. This is some new god that he has found."
"Or the oldest of all gods that he has returned to," I suggested. "What does he call Him?"
"Our Father who art in heaven."
"If you also should learn to say 'Thy will be done' to our Father who is in heaven," I said, "it might help you toward the attainment of that soul you were wanting and waiting for, when last we met in Paris."
"How could our Father help me?"
"It was He who gave souls to men," I said.
The eyes of the sylph were brilliant with something almost human.
"And could He give a soul to me?"
"It is said that He _can_ do anything."
"Then I will ask Him for a soul."
"But to ask Him for a soul," I said, "is not to pray the prayer your friend prays."
"He only says----"
"Yes, I know. Suppose you say it after him."
"I will, if you will tell me what it means. I like to do what my friend does."
"'Thy will be done,'" I said, "when addressed to the Father in heaven, means that we give up all our desires, whether for pleasure or love or happiness, or anything else, and lay all those desires at His feet, sacrificing all we have or hope for to Him, because we love Him more than ourselves."
"That is a strange way to get what one desires," she said.
"It is not done to get what one desires," I answered.
"But what is it done for?"
"For love of the Father in heaven."
"But I do not know the Father in heaven. What is He?"
"He is the Source and the Goal of the being of your friend. He is the One that your friend will re-become some day, if he can forever say to Him, Thy will be done."
"The One he will re-become?"
"Yes, for when he blends his will with that of the Father in heaven, the Father in heaven dwells in his heart and the two become one."
"Then is the Father in heaven really the Self of my friend?"
"The greatest philosopher could not have expressed it more truly," I said.
"Then indeed do I love the Father in heaven," breathed the sylph, "and I will say now every day and all day, 'Thy will be done' to Him."
"Even if it separates you from your friend?"
"How can it separate me from my friend, if the Father is the Self of him?"
"I would that all angels were your equal in learning," I said.
But Meriline had turned from me in utter forgetfulness, and was saying over and over, with joy in her uplifted face, "Thy will be done! Thy will be done!"
"Truly," I said to myself, as I passed along the line, "he who worships the Father as the Self of the beloved has already acquired a soul."
A GHOST[6]
BY LAFCADIO HEARN
[Footnote 6: From _Karma_ (Boni & Liveright).]
I
Perhaps the man who never wanders away from the place of his birth may pass all his life without knowing ghosts; but the nomad is more than likely to make their acquaintance. I refer to the civilized nomad, whose wanderings are not prompted by hope of gain, nor determined by pleasure, but simply compelled by certain necessities of his being--the man whose inner secret nature is totally at variance with the stable conditions of a society to which he belongs only by accident. However intellectually trained, he must always remain the slave of singular impulses which have no rational source, and which will often amaze him no less by their mastering power than by their continuous savage opposition to his every material interest. These may, perhaps, be traced back to some ancestral habit--be explained by self-evident hereditary tendencies. Or perhaps they may not,--in which event the victim can only surmise himself the _Imago_ of some pre-existent larval aspiration--the full development of desires long dormant in a chain of more limited lives.
Assuredly the nomadic impulses differ in every member of the class, take infinite variety from individual sensitiveness to environment--the line of least resistance for one being that of greatest resistance for another; no two courses of true nomadism can ever be wholly the same. Diversified of necessity both impulse and direction, even as human nature is diversified! Never since consciousness of time began were two beings born who possessed exactly the same quality of voice, the same precise degree of nervous impressibility, or, in brief, the same combination of those viewless force-storing molecules which shape and poise themselves in sentient substance. Vain, therefore, all striving to
## particularize the curious psychology of such existences; at the very
utmost it is possible only to describe such impulses and preceptions of nomadism as lie within the very small range of one's own observation. And whatever in these is strictly personal can have little interest or value except in so far as it holds something in common with the great general experience of restless lives. To such experience may belong, I think, one ultimate result of all those irrational partings, self-wrecking, sudden isolations, abrupt severances from all attachment, which form the history of the nomad--the knowledge that a strong silence is ever deepening and expanding about one's life, and that in that silence there are ghosts.
II
Oh! the first vague charm, the first sunny illusion of some fair city, when vistas of unknown streets all seem leading to the realization of a hope you dare not even whisper; when even the shadows look beautiful, and strange facades appear to smile good omen through light of gold! And those first winning relations with men, while you are still a stranger, and only the better and the brighter side of their nature is turned to you! All is yet a delightful, luminous indefiniteness--sensation of streets and of men--like some beautifully tinted photograph slightly out of focus.
Then the slow solid sharpening of details all about you, thrusting through illusion and dispelling it, growing keener and harder day by day through long dull seasons; while your feet learn to remember all asperities of pavements, and your eyes all physiognomy of buildings and of persons--failures of masonry, furrowed lines of pain. Thereafter only the aching of monotony intolerable, and the hatred of sameness grown dismal, and dread of the merciless, inevitable, daily and hourly repetition of things; while those impulses of unrest, which are Nature's urgings through that ancestral experience which lives in each one of us--outcries of sea and peak and sky to man--ever make wilder appeal. Strong friendships may have been formed; but there finally comes a day when even these can give no consolation for the pain of monotony, and you feel that in order to live you must decide, regardless of result, to shake forever from your feet the familiar dust of that place.
And, nevertheless, in the hour of departure you feel a pang. As train or steamer bears you away from the city and its myriad associations, the old illusive impression will quiver back about you for a moment--not as if to mock the expectation of the past, but softly, touchingly, as if pleading to you to stay; and such a sadness, such a tenderness may come to you, as one knows after reconciliation with a friend misapprehended and unjustly judged. But you will never more see those streets--except in dreams.
Through sleep only they will open again before you, steeped in the illusive vagueness of the first long-past day, peopled only by friends outstretching to you. Soundlessly you will tread those shadowy pavements many times, to knock in thought, perhaps, at doors which the dead will open to you. But with the passing of years all becomes dim--so dim that even asleep you know 'tis only a ghost-city, with streets going to nowhere. And finally whatever is left of it becomes confused and blended with cloudy memories of other cities--one endless bewilderment of filmy architecture in which nothing is distinctly recognizable, though the whole gives the sensation of having been seen before, ever so long ago.
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