CHAPTER IV
I remember one afternoon wandering through the grounds alone, hating my empty existence, yet having no power to alter it, when I was interrupted by Vestné coming to me. In her eyes there gleamed that curious, brilliant light which characterised them at times, when stung to answer or excited by some emotion.
She did not speak till near me, and then she said, quickly and distinctly,—
“Genius, I do not think you have yet seen all through my palace. Though you have not asked to do so I cannot think but that you must be curious. If you will come with me I will show it you now.”
With little answer I followed her back to the door from which I had come out, and we re-entered the palace. Hitherto I had only been acquainted with those principal apartments which led from the large hall and from each other.
But now she led me to a large folding-door at the upper end, remote from the end by which I had entered on the day when first I came.
I had often looked towards this door with curiosity. There was a darkness and mystery about it which had caught even my uncaring thoughts.
Many a time too I had seen a slave pass through it, either in or out, and in the momentary opening I had noticed the blackness beyond.
I remember as we passed through this heavy door a terrible silence greeted us, so terrible that whereas without there had been light and warmth, here one experienced neither. I stood still. A feeling of utter repugnance overwhelmed me, that feeling of undeniable degradation which had overwhelmed me when touched by the stunted woman long ago. “I do not wish to see this place,” I cried.
“Are you afraid?” she asked scornfully.
“If fear is born of unavailing sorrow then I am much afraid,” I answered.
Her laugh broke drearily on the stillness. “You must come,” she went on. “It will do you good and act like a tonic. When we get back again you will feel quite cheerful, and congratulate yourself upon your luxurious life as a guest.”
I made no further reply.
We had come into a long narrow passage, so gloomy and dark that it seemed more like the passage through the thick wall of an old church than anything else.
It appeared dusty and full of cobwebs despite its evident occasional use, and I remember I coughed once, because there was some irritating matter in the air.
At the other end of the passage was another door. It was locked, and I noticed for the first time that she unlocked it before we passed through; and also from this time I became conscious that she was carrying a large bunch of keys.
The gloom beyond was greater than it had been before. It was deepened by a narrow spiral staircase leading sheer down for what might have been several hundred feet. It was a giddy, gloomy depth, and would have made dizzy any mortal brain, but we passed down it silently and swiftly, she leading, I following, till we lighted on firm ground again amidst total darkness.
Where we had come to I could not tell, as the isolation and heaviness were complete.
“Can you hear anything?” she whispered in my ear. And again she whispered,—
“Listen.”
Yes, I heard it. “Gurgle, gurgle.” Ever the same deep sound—the dull keynote to hell.
Then gradually, slowly and mysteriously, the darkness gave way to a dull red light. It lit up the arched passages that branched out in every direction from where we stood, like the crypt of some cathedral.
“They’re all buried down here,” she whispered again.
Gurgle—gurgle—gurgle. There flowed the black stream, turned to dullest red, along every aisle and dimly-shining passage. No sound of footfall ever rose among those arches. Nothing but the awful lapping of the stream. She stepped into a boat which was anchored there, and I followed.
Of itself it loosed from mooring and floated silently into the central channel.
Oh, hell! oh, terrible, silent, twisting, twining power of hell! Remorseless cruel power that clings and holds, and never will give way but by inhuman power! Oh, devils! dyed and steeped in cruelty and hate! Luring each willing victim to the brink in hateful silence, till the last long shriek and counter-laugh are heard! What good can ever rise from all the torture you inflict? Destroying evil with worse evil, burning out with white heat that which yourselves implanted!
Oh, giddy, heedless mortals treading the brilliant path or easy, unmindful of the gurgling warning stream!
Oh! rise! rise! but there—what hope is there to give in hell? It belongs only to the earth.
Such terrible thoughts overfilled me as we sailed along that I discharged them with a heavy sigh. ’Twas strange the way the weird low sound of misery re-echoed through the vaults. A hundred sighs seemed raised by it, each breathing to the other its own lone fearful tale, and then all died away; yet when all died it seemed as if my own still wandered round unrestful, finding no grave.
“Listen,” continued Vestné, again laying her hand upon my arm as if to steady me; and indeed it was as well, for at her word there rang out a cry so terrible and so prolonged that it had almost unnerved me. The horrid repetition struck chill to the very centre of my being; no creature writhing under the lash could have ever uttered more fearful cries. To try to deaden the sound was impossible, till of itself it weakened and died away with a heavy childish sob of pain. I looked at her and saw the cruel light in her eyes and the smile on her lips.
Hurriedly, and with loathing, I shook off her arm.
“Can it be that such sounds please—nay, even amuse you?” I asked sternly.
She looked at me, the smile playing round her mouth still.
“When the angels in heaven hear those sounds they sigh and tremble. It spoils their gladdest concert,” she said.
No further cry ensued, and our boat sailed along. I noticed that at intervals, and under each arch, a doorway was visible, and on each doorway a number was written in clear red. One imagined the cells beyond even without a glimpse.
At last she stayed before one.
“I shall not take you into all, it would be too tedious,” she said. “We shall visit one or two, and that will suffice.”
“You must know,” she continued in a clear, hard voice, “that a strict account is kept of the life of every man and woman upon the earth. We allow nothing to pass, every ill thought, every ill word, every ill deed, are all entered faithfully and truthfully. Every particular sin has its particular punishment, and as near as possible we destroy like with like.”
“And,” said I, gazing round the terrible gloomy place, “are you always perfectly fair and just in your punishments?”
“Always,” she answered, “We want them to do our work, and we punish them just sufficiently to make them do our work well.”
“But,” I rejoined, “they have done your work on earth and received no punishment for that.”
“No, rather they received reward. But here we take away that which has been given them and appropriate it within ourselves. The processes which we employ are bound to be severe, because, as you know, of themselves they will give up nothing, or rather very little.”
“But surely,” I observed, “when they see what suffering they are going through they will give up all.”
“Too late,” she whispered softly in my ear, and even as that heavy sigh had travelled through the arches, so these words, the saddest perhaps that human tongue has ever framed, rang through them too. It seemed as if a thousand voices from every cell whispered the words, so that one loud and unavailing lamentation became the universal atmosphere.
She unlocked the door before which we had stopped, but instead of the cell which I expected a long narrow passage ran both left and right.
Door followed door the whole length down, and the numbers on them corresponded to those on the outward wall.
The darkness here would have been quite intense had not my guide carried in her hand a clear light, which pierced the gloom for some considerable distance.
We walked along the passage for a little time, she leading, I following, till at last she stopped before a cell, and selecting a key placed it in the lock. Before turning it she extinguished the light she carried and left us in total darkness. Slowly, mysteriously and silently the door swung back and we passed in, and then it closed behind us. We had passed from darkness into darkness, but gradually the faintest light began to creep above the cell. It was so faint that till the eye became accustomed to it nothing was in the least discernible, and even then at times the heavy shadow fell again, eclipsing all things as gradually as it had cleared away. And now, huddled in the corner, I perceived a form, and as I looked intently I recognised a woman crouching there.
At first I do not think she noticed us, perhaps throughout she scarcely understood that anyone was there. Her hair, which was grey and dishevelled, hung over her bare shoulders and her forehead, uncared for and unkempt. She was lean and ghastly, and her thin fingers clasped each other round her bony knees, from which position she never moved. Her eyes were fixed on the floor in a steady yet unconscious gaze.
“If she doesn’t move before long I’ll poke her,” said Vestné. “We can’t wait here all day.”
But the sound must have partly attracted her. She looked up, and instead of looking at the speaker her eyes fell on me.
Such a look of dull despair and misery I had never seen before. It seemed to blind her very sight and deaden all objects but itself. Then she sighed, and the spirit beside me laughed softly. The shadow deepened round her, and the flimsy light passed on along the wall till it came to a rude altar having a crucifix above it. I looked at the plain cross and noticed that the light played round it curiously. And at last out of this light I formed a figure hanging there. It was the woman lying in the corner whose cell this was. Helplessly, painfully, she hung there, her eyes still dully bent on the ground. Then the shadow fell once more, and all was left in dreary darkness, and when next I breathed we were out in the passage once again.
“They are fulfilling the behest of Christ,” declared Vestné, idly. “They are taking up the Cross.” And yet it seemed as if among the roofs and rafters there still floated the old wild cry, “Too late—too late.”
“This is the women’s ward,” she remarked as we passed along. “I never visit the men. Plucritus can take you there if you wish to go. But being, as they say you are, simply a woman dressed as a man, I have no compunction in bringing you here at all.”
Again the light she held had vanished.
Once more we stood within a cell, and the same pale flickering light that haunted it was playing on the wall. Another woman lay crouching on the damp floor, and as the light fell on her it seemed as if she tried to catch it with her hand. Unlike the other she was never still. Lying there when we entered, in half a second she was up, walking with uncertain, faltering steps some little distance, then returning. She pressed her hands against the wall, beating against it feebly as if trying to get away. Next she moved towards the plain-cut altar and passed her hands over it aimlessly, as if trying to find something in the concealing gloom. Then back she came to the corner where she had first lain and threw herself on her knees.
“I’ll find it sometime,” she cried in a clear monotone. “But the night is so long and my dream so dark. What follows night? The next night, and yet it seems there’s something missed out that comes between.”
The pale light flickered to the crucifix. I saw her lying there; each sharp, uncertain movement was translated into a painful writhe.
From thence we passed out to another cell, and the faint light showed us the floor all covered with gold and silver coins, mostly gold. In the middle, surrounded by all this tarnished wealth, a woman knelt huddled up in a small clear space, the money heaped up around her. Every now and again a pile would slip and fall towards her. And from the place where it had fallen a serpent’s head appeared, stretching in her direction with open jaws and cruel tongue. Then she would jump up and fly across the narrow cell, screaming in hideous terror, and throw herself upon the altar as if for protection. And the coins leapt up like cruel fire about her feet as she fled, and the great serpent, with its golden, hardened scales, followed her with fearful hiss, with forked tongue and leaping fire all round it. Neither was the altar any protection from fire or poison, and being immortal she could never die, so that she must suffer her term of punishment in an endurance much worse than death.
Then I noticed the light fell upon the crucifix, and looking up I saw the woman’s form lashed to it, not by nails, but by the serpents’ coils, which this surface wealth had fostered and engendered.
At last we moved away and Vestné, when we gained the corridor, turned to me.
“That woman has a curious but very common history,” she said. “She believed that charity covered a multitude of sins.”
Vestné laughed and passed along.
From thence we went to another cell, and entering, I saw a woman standing in the middle of the floor. Her eyes were filled with the wild gleam which we on earth call madness. When she saw us she shrank back terrified into the farther corner of the cell. Her breath came in thick gasps, and still she stared at us like some wild creature brought to bay.
Suddenly she flew across the room and caught my arm in her two hands. They were at burning heat.
“Take me away,” she whispered in a voice half-strangled with fear. “Take me away; it keeps coming, coming, coming, and then will touch me. Oh! take me away with you and I will give you everything I have.”
“What is there to fear?” I asked.
“Look,” she said, and pointed on the wall to where the light shone. I saw nothing.
“It is simply the reflection of her own memory,” Vestné affirmed calmly. “She stole another woman’s husband and thought to escape punishment.”
“I couldn’t help it,” the wretched victim interposed, for she had sense enough to hear the words. “I never knew she’d come to ask for him down here. I can’t escape down here; the walls are thick, the doors are barred, and turn which way I will I can’t get out. Oh, God! oh, God!”
“You’re quite safe,” said Vestné. “She died of a broken heart long since. Try to remember that, and think you’re suffering from a dream.”
“She didn’t die. No, no. She never died. And here she haunts me, and there she haunts him too; and oftentimes she clutches at my breast with her strong fingers, and some day she will tear my heart away and suck my life blood. Oh! if you have any mercy take me home.”
But even as she spoke her voice and hands had lost their power and she fell backwards.
“She had no mercy herself, yet would solicit yours. She is not yet cured,” my companion remarked.
The light flickered on the wall beside the crucifix, and stretched upon it I saw the woman’s figure; but as I looked I saw the crucifix had turned from wood into the shape of a man, and the woman hung upon his body, nailed to it as if it had been lifeless wood.
We went away and there was utter silence in the cell.
From there Vestné guided me into a low, darkened chamber, rather different in shape from the others I had seen. A long low table stood in the midst, and instead of the pale light which flickered through the other dreary cells strange, curious flames and darts of fire floated and danced from side to side.
I cannot tell whether it was owing to the lurid, unreal glare these lights cast, but the ghastly sight that met us horrified me more than any I had seen yet.
There on the table lay the form of the woman I had watched drawn thither when I was with Plucritus.
She lay insensible, and it was well, since about her crowded many fearful demons, and they were all gnawing the flesh away, or rather, to those who can understand it better, the spirit.
Their hideous, hungry, cruel faces lost nothing by the glaring lights that shone upon them as they floated past. From beneath came strains of weird, inhuman music.
I understood more clearly now the meaning of these terrible things. So intent were they upon their prey that they never noticed us.
“This is the Vampire’s Feast,” said Vestné, turning to me.
“Do they absorb the whole?” I asked.
“Oh, no. They are only allowed those parts which are of no use to us. When she is in a fit condition she will be placed in a common cell to suffer the just punishment. It is really a term of refinement and purification; after that she will be fit food for us, and servant too.”
I said nothing, but watched the hideous creatures at their meal. On the whole they interfered little with each other, still now and then a savage growl would break out when one usurped, even in the least, another’s portion.
“They should do good work after this,” said Vestné. “They have been feeding here for days. Come away, they are not very beautiful to behold even at the best of times.” So we went out again.
“You have locked the door?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. They can get out without keys, all except the prisoner.”
And from thence we passed on to another cell, in which we found another woman. What struck me most about her was her beauty. Thin and gaunt she might be (so were they all), but despite all this hers was a beauty of a very unusual order.
I remember when the door was opened she was standing there as if listening for something. When she saw us she came forward courteously.
“Take me away from here,” she exclaimed. “I’ve never been accustomed to it. It is dark and damp. I do not like it. Take me away.”
I was surprised at the quiet way in which she spoke, it was so unlike the rest whom we had visited.
“You must have patience,” Vestné declared. “You will get out safely enough when the time comes.”
I noticed, for I was looking at her closely, that at this her lips trembled, but still she answered, with no very apparent change in her voice,—
“I’ve been patient for a very long time, longer than anybody knows. Please take me away.”
“It is impossible,” Vestné assured her.
She now turned to me.
“Sir,” she said, “I am suffering. Take me away.”
I looked at her, but, beyond the sympathy I felt, knew I was powerless.
Then she began again and passed her hand across her brow. “Take me away. Once when I asked for things they were always given me, but now no one listens or understands. I want to go away. Take me away.”
“Is this place so very fearful?” I ventured, looking round the cold, bare cell.
Her voice sank to a whisper. “I think I have bad dreams. And then I wake, and lie and wait for the day to break. But it never breaks. The night never ends, and the darkness is suffocating me. You don’t know what it is, you’ve never lived in here. No one ever comes near me except when it is very dark. And then men and women come and curse me, and say that I have ruined them. But I think that can only be a dream, for they have ruined me. Take me away. Oh! stranger, take me away.”
I turned towards the door. Gradually she was losing that unusual self-control which had marked her when first we entered.
As I moved she clutched my arm. “I will come with you,” she cried hoarsely. “Look! Look! They press upon me like spectres from every side. I am frightened of them; they are killing me inch by inch. Sometimes I scream in terror, and they laugh. Oh, God! God! God! what have I done that I should be tormented thus?”
Even as she spoke her voice died down and her strength failed. She fell back upon the floor.
And then upon the crucifix the form lay hanging. And beneath it stood a group of men and women watching her.
“Those men loved, the women hated her,” said Vestné. “And now hate and love have joined hands, for hate lived when love was dead.”
We went out in silence.
“I will show you only one more,” she said, “and then we will go, as I am invited out to dinner to-night and cannot stay long. We are now going to a cell which will make you feel more cheerful. It is the cell of one who has learnt to stand punishment and has therefore finished with it.”
She took me to a cell at some little distance. A deathly silence filled the room as we entered, and a deathly chill pervaded everything. The flickering light passed direct from the wall to the altar, and there upon it lay the cross, and on the cross another victim.
We drew nearer and gazed upon the dead. Such beauty as rested on her features seemed to refine the chamber.
“Will this fair creature change to a stunted dwarf?” I inquired.
Vestné shook her head.
“Sometimes you ask too much,” she replied. “She has learnt by some trickery to stand the punishment quietly. But that is the more profit to us. We absorb all this beauty; it belongs to us; then she may go back again, naked and unprotected as a new-born soul, into the world.”
I stooped and kissed the cold brow.
“Death is infectious,” said Vestné, laughing.
“So may life be,” I retorted.
After that we left the hateful prisons and returned to the watery vaults and to our boat.
We stepped in in silence, and she directed it back to the place whence we had started.
And under the central arch, as we stood gazing backward, I saw these words shining forth in vivid red against the blackness: “Where the fire is not quenched and the worm dieth not.”
“You will have noticed a quotation from Christ’s preaching down there,” she said as we ascended the staircase. “He was rather a wonderful kind of man. He managed to hit so exquisitely upon the truth, even in His lesser sayings.”
“Did you admire Him?” I asked, struck by a vein of seriousness that underran her words.
She looked at me rather curiously.
“As men go He was very fascinating,” she answered, but said no more.
When we were once more back in that part of the palace which was her dwelling-house she left me in the hall and I ascended to my own chamber.
Once in there alone I threw myself upon the bed and tried to think and realise. It was no use. I started up and began to walk about the room. The pain and heaviness gradually sinking round me appeared to become greater than I could bear. The horrible scenes I had witnessed still flashed before my eyes in all their terrible truth and dull despair. I vividly recalled the wild and unavailing cry of all these creatures for their lost liberty. I recognised their fearful madness—steeped in sanity so deep, that to call it madness would be a pitiable lie. Again I recognised the misty unreality that haunted them as well as me; the ghostly lights, the shadowy crucifixes all came back to me, seeming unreal, almost absurd. Was this vast palace but a shadow? Those demons shadows? Those prisoners shadows? Was Vestné a shadow? Was I a shadow?
“I am dreaming, surely, I am dreaming,” I said to myself, and then the words of the woman occurred to me. They also had thought themselves dreaming in endless night.
Suddenly I looked round the vast apartment.
Was I myself a prisoner, caged in a darkened cell, tormented with a haunting, flitting light, and dreaming myself within a gilded palace?
I went from one thing to another, touching it; and everything was real and responded to my touch. I walked the whole long length of the room, I was in no cell. I felt the steady light within the room. It was no passing flicker, no dying gleam. Then, unable to remain within, I went out and down the staircase. Slowly I walked back and forwards through the long hall, fighting the grimmest fight that spirits have to fight, that of retaining clear existence. How long I walked thus I cannot tell, but when I roused myself I found that night had fallen and the lights shone from the roof. Looking towards the staircase I saw Vestné descending.
She was dressed more beautifully than I had ever seen her, and looked more brilliant than ever before.
“I am sorry you cannot come with me, I like company,” she murmured.
“I am sorry too,” I rejoined.
“If you care to wear a decent suit you may come,” she went on.
I glanced at the simple robe I was wearing. “Thank you,” I replied. “So long as I stay here this shall suffice me. It is my own, and that is everything.”
“But this is a very brilliant entertainment to which I am going to-night. Come.”
“I think,” I observed, “you have shown me enough for one day. You will excuse me.”
At this she left me, and I sat down and tried to read. I had taken Milton’sParadise Lost, but somehow or other to-night it struck me as the most tawdry, unreal thing I ever read. The beauty of its diction, the stately flow of language, the marvellous knowledge of the writer on all points except one, irritated rather than soothed me. Despite this I still continued reading, till, more than usually irritated with his appreciation of the Godhead, I flung the book down, laughing involuntarily.
What was my surprise on looking up to see Plucritus standing at some little distance watching me.
On seeing him I felt the nearest approach to pleasure this place gives, and rose, extending my hand to him.
I remember he looked somewhat surprised, as indeed he well might under the circumstances, but he returned my salutation pleasantly and came and sat down near me.