CHAPTER XVIII

THE SILENT FOREST[1]

Then Deborah, walking alone in the shade of evening, came on the outskirts of a dense forest. The foliage within was thick and feathery, the branches heavy and dark. Above there hung a cloud so black that it sent a dull shadow through the dull leaves, and made the ground below blacker than itself.

Just outside the cloud, where the sky was pale with the after-glow of clear evening, shone a star, a very large and bright one. But the cloud was so heavy that it hung over the whole forest like some dark curse. It looked like a thunder-cloud that could not burst, being held by iron chains covered with black rust. There was unutterable silence in the forest, so that you looked in with a strange fear, and then turned away, and yet again returned. Surely no living thing stirred or breathed in there!

[Footnote 1: There are indications in the paging of this chapter in MS. that it was written separately from the previous chapters. It was afterwards added and the connection is obviously incomplete. To this state of incompletion may be referred the indefiniteness of the conclusion, though it may have been also part of the author’s deliberate intention.—ED. NOTE.]

A great dampness rose from the ground, a vapour in the gathering twilight, as it rises in the marshy districts near the sea. Now a bat whirled out from the gloom on to the lonely flats, and then came a sound like the hoot of an owl. But was it an owl? Oh, no. It was one more “exceeding bitter cry,” at the bitter end, you know.

Then, there is life in the breathless forest after all.

The cry was repeated, louder and clearer, and it died away, you know how, just as if it wanted somehow or other to cling on to life. You didn’t like to hear the end of that last cry; it was so inarticulate that it spoke.

But it ended at last, as all such end. What had happened to it? It had fallen among the black leaves.

It had touched the black water. There is a very still Deep in the Silent Forest, and its waters run slowly but surely. It’s part of the curse, you know, raindrops distilled from the Black Cloud.

It was only one of many deeps, but the silence had fallen again, even deeper it seemed than before, till a breeze swept over the tops of the trees, and here is what it sang as it passed:—

“This is the Forest of Failure. Here is the Humiliation Vale. It is filled with tears which are never seen, and sighs that are never heard. All mankind has to tread it—now or then—now or then—willy-nilly—each man treads it, and alone, now or then.”

Deborah saw a gate and passed in. And over the gate there was a prayer written, just as we see writing through a looking-glass.

“I ought to know that prayer,” she thought.

“It is the Lord’s Prayer,” said a voice.

“No. I think it is too short,” and the gate clanged to with a horrible grate.

“I want to go out.” It was too late—too late. But what pretty flowers grew along the path! White ones with yellow eyes, and jessamine, and even pink wild roses, and honeysuckle too. Yet when you picked them they fell like dust.

“This is very strange,” thought Deborah. “I thought they were real.”

But no one answered, unless silence answered—no one at all.

And, looking on the ground, she saw that it was all covered with soft black dust, before and after.

“It is easy to walk upon,” said she. “And the flowers look pretty as they grow, but the silence and the gloom frighten me just a little.”

And then suddenly black rocks rose in the path with little jagged edges. They cut into your shoes and hurt you ever so much, and instead of getting better the road became worse.

Presently from between two black rocks shot out a crimson fountain across the path.

Deborah stood still.

“It looks like blood,” she said, and shuddered. “And it kills all the flowers as it passes on. I don’t like this wood, I think I’ll go back.”

But when you looked behind briars had grown across the path, and the silence was so terrible that it seemed to say “Go on.” And there was only one way to tread, and that was through the path of blood.

So Deborah went on, and the red stream soaked through the thin shoes, and sent a strange kind of pain to her heart.

“It’s just like having toothache very badly, only I never knew of a dentist who could pull out hearts.” But the pain became so bad that for the time she was silent too, like everything else round about. And then the stream flowed into a deep chasm that seemed to lead underground, only now and again you could hear the gurgling as it went, so that it never seemed to pass away, not quite.

After a time the road looked better again, for the rocks had vanished, but now and then in the gloom you put your foot down on a very sharp one, and when you drew it up quickly it gave you cramp, so that you almost feared to put it down.

This path made you very tired. You kept slipping because you could not see properly, and the worst of it was there was no path out, nor any back. You were forced forward by Silence, that cruel and most perfect teacher that sneers at heartaches and pain, and looks with a withering smile on self-pity.

You see it was a magical forest; to stand still was to fall, to fall was to be stifled by something. It is best to go on, therefore, as long as you can. And then, after a weary length of road had been travelled, the gloom turned to darkness, so gradually that at first you thought it was your eyes that were dim; and ever from the unseen channel came the gurgle of the stream, the only sound in the still forest.

Presently the darkness had turned to blackness, so that you groped the way along; and now the weird Silence and the gentle sound of the unseen stream led you between them in blind faith, till with a sudden bubble the stream shot up again and you slipped in the quagmire of leaves.

But the road was so black that you did not see the colour of the stream, and you thought it black too; and it softened the leaves and the black dust, and your feet slipped in it, and the pain was coming back to your heart as it had come at the fountain long since, only worse if anything, and perhaps different.

Then the road grew much worse, for this unseen fluid was covering it. Suddenly a light shone overhead, the first along the whole dark path, and soon it died away.

But to Deborah standing there uncertainly came a figure, a gliding spirit wearing a curious robe. At times it shone white as silver, and again black as dusky night.

“How familiar is this figure,” thought Deborah. “In some ways it is like the prayer. I ought to know it, and yet I don’t.”

But being extremely weary, for the road made you so, she had scarcely the strength to think at all.

This forest makes every mortal weary that passes through it. Oh! very, very weary. It teaches you so much too; more than the most brilliant ball-room or entertainment or anything that the gay world can give. It is a magical forest, you know. When the dust falls from the flowers Silence says, “Were not those pretty little baubles? Anywhere but in the Dark Path they would have won a first-class prize for brilliancy and colour.” And then Silence laughs as the dust flickers down. “The world would build a hot-house for one of these posies, and pay a thousand guineas down if it were fashion. Ah! but you are in the Dark Path and must travel on. We stand no whims, we who govern here. Though your feet ache and your ankles are weary you must still go on or the black leaves will stifle you. Do you hear the gurgle of the Stream? It’s Pain, you know. Silence and Pain. Twin sisters. Gurgle, gurgle. Your father has trod it all before. How his feet ached too! Poor father!”

Oh! this stream is a very teaching stream. It makes men feel to the very marrow of the bone. It stings to the core so that brilliant lights flash from your aching, feverish eyes, and the world laughs and says, “Ah! that was very good.” Not knowing what a sepulchre it laughs at.

Now let us go back to the Spirit, standing there in the forest.

It isn’t an angel, and not even a Spirit of Paradise, not in the accepted sense; but it is so familiar to Deborah that she rubs her eyes and looks again, and can make nothing of it.

“It’s Dante out of one of the pictures,” says she; but even that did not solve the riddle, not at all.

“It is that being who guided him.” But no.

It was indeed hard to describe this spirit, for it was so transparent and yet so real. You could see the trees through the graceful robe quite plainly, yea, and something more. You could see other black paths in the forest which had hitherto been hidden. For this place was all magical, and the spirit was magical too. It had the power of explaining the key to life, or rather lives, and no sooner did you look through it than the whole forest became peopled with poor drudges in the shape of men. And it made you irresistibly sad. Here you saw a man struggling on, his feet all drenched with the red stream that to him looked black. He had fallen, and the black leaves smirched with blood clung to his poor lean ribs. Now he staggered. Good God! Would he fall again? Oh, yes. Hark! The bitter cry! And outside in the world a shrill laugh went up, for as he fell he kicked out somewhat with his heels and the devil translated it onto a comic canvas, and made it appear too funny for words. He is still now. The black leaves cover him. What was his last living thought? God’s secret and his own.

And lo! _There_ is another path, and along it crawls a woman, all alone—there are no pairs in the Forest of Failure, Silence will see to that. There is the red dye again, that to her looks black.

It is a very fragile woman, with a lovely face, which the gloom hides. She has very tender feet, and there are so many flinty stones along the path. The black leaves cling to her skirts like millstones.

There! Another fall! No upward struggle here. There is a golden hoop of a wedding-ring that slips off the skeleton finger into the thin stream. It is dyed blood red. And there is another little plaything in her hand, a baby’s rattle, red too. Why, you know, it is only the failure of domestic love; and when she falls there is no cry in the accepted sense; a childish sob that speaks more than words, and in the outside world the shout of drunken revelry has drowned it. That’s how it is the tears and sighs of the mighty forest are never heard.

And there were very many other paths, and many faces; and on all the faces suffering was written, so that there was a terrible beauty and refinement in the forest. You see it was not the Forest of Sin, or reckless Self-indulgence, but the Forest of Silence and Pain, that do not allow of them.

Now I said that the Spirit’s robes were transparent; they reflected, or rather revealed, things that were beyond. But all this Deborah took in vaguely, or perhaps it seemed to her she had been used to looking through that figure all her life, so there was nothing very wonderful in the sights it showed.

But the face Deborah was not so sure about. It was a face as perfectly moulded as if it were cut in marble. There was no trace of human passion or emotion on it. A broad brow, a calm eye, a straight nose with finely-cut nostrils, a mouth of exquisite beauty, if somewhat coldly drawn, and a well-shaped chin.

The whole figure was one of grace and calmness, strangely out of keeping with the human agony around. Why, even now, through the clear robe appeared a face of such exceeding torture that it sent a sickly feeling to the heart. Then suddenly the white robes turned to a dusky black and hid the pale, hopeless features.

“Don’t you know me, Deborah?”

“Well,” thought Deborah, “it’s just as if someone were playing the ‘Frühlingslied’ backwards. I know that voice, and yet I don’t.” But aloud she said,—

“I expect if you were to tell me who you are I should perhaps remember you.”

At this the Spirit laughed, and Deborah started, for of all places in which to hear such a sound that seemed the most unlikely, and moreover, the alteration in the face was so complete that it was almost dazzling.

“This is a very heartless Spirit,” thought she. “I could not have laughed in this wood, not for anything. The agony is too sacred.”

And, as if interpreting her thoughts, the Spirit answered, “Let us walk out of the Forest on to the Moors. They are lonely and cold, and the night wind is keen. We can hear, and see, and understand better there.”

And he led the way by some unknown path on to a high moorland dotted with crags, with hills rising black in the distance. Stars were shining bright in the clear sky, for it had deepened to that length of twilight which approaches night. A crescent moon rose over the irregular bank of mountains—the narrowest, clearest crescent, like a thin slit in the blue-grey heaven. Over there was the sound of running water. How different from the deep gurgle of the wood! And there the white splashing of a waterfall over a rocky bed. There was a clump of fir trees and the smell of the pine forest; and there—oh! what was that? Oh! only another bitter cry, and you thought it was the cry of a dog or wolf in the autumn’s frosty distance.

“One hears very plainly on this moorland,” observed the Spirit, and smiled again. “This is the sounding board and mirror of the world. One hears and sees. One pays a pretty dear price, but I think it is the one of the few things that returns full value.”

Deborah was silent. The moor was so unutterably lonely; a vaster loneliness than the forest; it did not stifle, it awed.

“Look over there,” pointed the Spirit, “where the sky is hidden by the black billows of cloud. That inky pile is always there. Below it you see the gloomy mass of the forest boundary. Black, black, always black. Now I will hold this wing of my robe with my hand, so. Look through it towards the Silent Wood. What do you see?”

“Bubbles of light floating here and there at intervals amongst the trees.”

“Will-o’-the-wisps. Here—there—up and down—now quick, now slow. Watch and listen earnestly.”

And Deborah, looking through the robe, saw the bubbles shining in the darkness; and listening, heard the sound of faintest music—harp strings and bells—and the lights kept time to them. Ting! ting! They danced in the branches, balls of clearest, transparent light. Oh! There was a beauty! Crimson and larger than most. The Spirit moved slightly, the scene became clearer. Why, it was another dark path, and the ball, moving airily, lit it up as it tossed gracefully forward to the magic sounds. Another figure in the path. This time a man. And he was running and stumbling forward in the darkness, grasping at the dazzling ball. But it always evaded him. The music quickened—his step quickened also. The shining globe danced forward. Then he, being weary, for the road had been long and dark, and he had stumbled often, leant back against a gnarled tree trunk, his chin sunk upon his breast. His was a very ashen face, with sunken eyes; blackened leaves smirched all with red stuck to him everywhere. The clear ball, swung by a backward motion, danced to where he leant with the weariness of death, and stood suspended in the air before him. He raised his eyes and looked at it for one second, then the lids fell again. It danced nearer, swung itself even till it grazed his hand. Stung to life by the touch he started quivering. The red light was reflected in his eyes. The ball rose in the air to the level of his head. With a sudden plunge forward he caught it in both hands. It burst and fell around him in crimson flames of blood. Over head, and face, and hands, and shoulders. Ugh! think of it. Hist! Ssh! The music is still. With both hands raised above his head in helpless agony, his face drawn back, he staggers sideways. Hark! ’Tis the bitter cry. Oh! but this is agony, exceeding agony, burning to the brain and heart. That bitter, bitter, bitter cry. To hear it sends the blood like icicles to the heart, and makes it run slower and colder for ever after. He doesn’t fall. His tattered coat has caught in the forked branch of a tree. He looks like a dancing puppet run down and left unstrung. His legs, and arms, and head hang limp and lifeless. He has gone. But there is something grotesque about him after all. Scarce has the last low wail died away before a roar of laughter rises. An excellent joke provided for the world, because the upnotes of his cry resembled somewhat the crowing of a cock.

Ah! There is another glimmering light—blue this time and purple. Another path—another figure. Only a woman now. Round! Round! in a giddy whirl the ball flies. Her feet are cut by briars and stones, and the red stream has dyed them.

Will-o’-the-wisp! Will-o’-the-wisp! What devil’s cruelty has put you there? Will you burst too and shower your death-pangs on her gentle head? Why, no. Suddenly, as by a puff of unfelt wind, the dancing flame goes out. The music stops. She stands still in the path that to her has turned to fatal blackness, her eyes wide open, staring into space. Then, terrified by the darkness and the hopeless failure, she gives one terrible scream. No soul could stay in a body after that; it would rend the very heart-strings. She falls down too; and because the road has been long and weary, and the rocks sharp, the scanty clothes have been badly torn, and in the fall they have slipped aside and show more of the human form than this world reckons decent. Very tender limbs, worn thin with pain and silent suffering. But again the Devil translates it. The Spirit’s robe has changed, and Deborah looks down on a different scene, one of the world’s own.

It is a company of women, dressed in the loveliest gossamer and jewels that money can provide. Arms and busts shine out in satiny smoothness, and the slight veiling discloses other charms. This is the lap of Luxury and Chastity—that ill-matched pair which the world pretends can grow abreast.

There is a very lovely woman in the midst, clothed all in white, and as the scream dies away these are the words she’s saying: “Alas! too true! and was it not disgusting?” And the other women yawn, and echo, with airy laughs, “Oh! terribly disgusting.”

And Deborah, looking round on the chill moor, sees it peopled with white Spirits all looking in the same direction, to that vision of fair women.

And then the curtain falls upon them, and Deborah, looking at the forms around her, sees a smile on every lip of scarcely veiled cynicism. “Oh! terribly disgusting,” they cry with the right accent and tone, and look at one another and laugh as Spirits will, and then disappear once more.

The Spirit turned to Deborah.

“The voice of that woman is as clear as a bell,” he remarked, with a cruel smile. “Think you it would echo well through the Silent Forest?”

“I cannot say,” answered Deborah.

He laughed.

“Some day we shall hear it,” he went on. “Now or then, willy-nilly, each man treads it, and alone—now or then.”

“But she seemed a wealthy woman of the world.”

“And she will die a success to the world,” he rejoined, kicking a pebble thoughtfully with his sandalled foot, so that flint sparks shot from it. “But we have all to reckon with eternity. It can canker and rust, and make harsh discord of one-time harmony. A rusty bell with a broken clapper is not very delightful to the ear at the best of times. Now let us sit down on this rock and talk. See, I will draw my mantle round you, and then we shall scarce feel the cold.”

So they sat down. And the crescent moon rose higher, and the stars shone brighter, and the waterfall splashed merrily near by.

“It is night now in the world,” said the Spirit. “Here we come to view the great theatre. Do you think it is worth the price?”

Deborah shivered.

“It is not for me to judge,” she replied. “Perhaps I’m a coward.”

The Spirit smiled.

“So you think the price paid to come to this chill dreary place too dear.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Left to myself I never would have come.”

For some minutes they waited in silence. Suddenly the middle of the Black Cloud changed to a dusky red, and took a shape—the old, timeworn shape, the Cross. And on it hung the sacred Figure. Great drops of blood dripped from hands and feet and brow, and trickled between the thick branches into the Silent Wood. The pale bloodless face hung low. Outside in the world the big clock at Westminster struck the midnight hour. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.” No more. There came then that bitter cry—the bitterest the still air has ever heard or the wide world ever known—the keynote from which every voice in the forest takes its pitch, and it was those words, which must strike a chill even to the heart of the most thoughtless—“My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” And oh! the lingering moan on that last word! What father could ever thus torture his own beloved son, who had given up all and suffered all for him?

The gay streets of the world were rowdy and noisy—carriages, hansoms, ’buses driving everywhere. Laughter and songs and shouting.

But Deborah shuddered.

“Why did you bring me here for this?”

“To hear the bitterest cry of all. Do you wonder at the blackness of the Cloud now? It contains such mental agony and human pain. It’s the great curse, you know, that the world calls a blessing, and says can save it from the power of hell. Reckoned from the world’s storehouse that cramped Figure was a marvellous fool. He had brains enough to have won a kingdom, and He’d learnt no more from His early trade than to make use of two rough planks of wood.”

Then, as it had come, the pained vision melted away. But afterwards you never looked at the dark cloud without seeming to see the red drops flowing from it into the stifling groves below.

“That is the Baptism and the Cup He speaks of,” said the Spirit. “It is the Reservoir of the Gurgling Streams.”

“But is He suffering all the time?”

“No. No. It is the Reflection from the Forest. That Cross overhangs the Central part, where He of His own Free will fell down among the leaves, in Silence and in Desolation. The learned Jews shook their sides with laughing when He fell, but rather strangely He rose again the third day.”

“And the blood that flows, is it not real?”

“Oh, yes! very real,” replied the Spirit, smiling. “Having felt it I thought you would have known. It’s pain, you know. Just in the same way that the sun attracts the moisture from the earth and lets it drop again, so that cloud attracts the red-dyed dew and drops it every evening.

“Now we will walk on a little and turn our backs upon the forest and the cloud. Our moon is growing brighter. Every night after that wild cry has died away it rounds to fulness, and the stars, gaining brilliancy in the tingling air, glance and gleam with uncommon witchery. This is my natural home, Deborah; I love it, love it, with a wild, fierce love. I had rather hear that cry and laugh than any charm of music. I had rather see those scenes of agony and the world’s scenes of joy than any rose-bowered garden on the earth. Then when I sicken of both I turn to the moorland and the hill, the cold quietness that reckons naught of either pain or pleasure. I wander here on the ridge of hills and in the shadows of caves, and then with a sudden whimsical change of feeling I turn to social life again, and receive the courtesies of pretty women and the respect of men.”

There was a long silence—not broken for a long time—till Deborah said, “Why are you so silent?”

And the Spirit answered, “I am thinking—thinking—thinking—and why should I not think? Ting! Ting! Listen to the magic music in the wood. Will-o’-the-wisps are dancing everywhere. Harp strings and bells, neither of heaven or earth. Blue and purple. Red and yellow. Green and golden. Now in, now out. Ting! Ting! The magic music in the magic wood. Wild flowers and myrtle—black dust and dying leaves—stones smeared with blood—and the deep dull gurgle of the stream—raindrops distilled from the black cloud. Ting! Ting! Tinkle! Twinkle! Tired feet keep time to the magic sounds. Dull brains grow brilliant. Cold blood grows warm. Ting! Ting! Now in. Now out. Up and down. Unreal sounds in the Silent Forest. Unreal lights in the Blackened Paths. Ting! Ting! Silver bells, golden strings, and burning balls. Baubles for fools! What! Darkness and Silence! Silence and Darkness! Twin sisters. Grope! Grope! with trembling fingers and blinded eyes. Hark! The bitter cry! and the echo from the world. The worse the cry, the louder the laugh.”

And whilst he spoke those glorious eyes were shining with a gloomy, far-off light.

“He trusted in another man,” he said.

Deborah shuddered. “That is what poor father did.”

“I know. I know. God grant him a double blessing. God grant him a double blessing.”

“He went one autumn night to meet a man. I held his coat and got his hat, and shut the door behind him. And when he came back I said, ‘Father, did you see him?’ And he looked at me and answered, ‘He—he did not come.’”

“Poor father,” said the Spirit, softly.

And overhead the star shone, and the magic moon was still high in heaven, and the waterfall sparkled, and the stream ran lightly on, and the hills were clear and the moorland frosty and cold.

“I love this place too,” observed Deborah. “Even to the wind and the glittering frost crystals. But when we turn and look toward the Silent Forest I need to hold you very tight. It makes my heart ache, and the blackness sticks. Would God it could be turned to a garden of Summer Roses!” And then Plucritus, Prince of the Powers of Evil, turned and looked at her and laughed. And on his finger gleamed the _opal_ ring.

Ting! Ting! the magic music and the magic fire!

Then another bitter cry and all was still.

END OF PART I

PART II

HELL