Part 11
“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.