CHAPTER VI
“I shall not trouble you any further,” said Vestasian. “You look tired, and there is little pleasure in this kind of work except to those who understand and care for it.”
As we descended the steps he took a path which led us once more out into the gardens instead of back to the guests.
“Your guests will miss you,” I remarked. “But probably they have a very charming hostess.”
He shook his head. “They have none,” he answered; “but they can amuse themselves.”
“Have you no one then besides yourself who reigns over all this magnificence?” I queried.
I noticed that he smiled.
“I am a solitary monarch,” he replied, “and yet—yes—I have a wife—a queen if you will.”
“Are you not interested?” he asked at length.
“Yes. I did not want to betray an impertinent curiosity.”
“We understand each other,” he went on easily. “If not, I should never have cultivated your acquaintance.”
“Then, as you know, it is my greatest pleasure to hear of others, provided I may do it without prying and without giving offence.”
“Well,” said he, whimsically, “my wife never attends social functions, neither does she entertain.”
“Indeed,” I interjected, and relapsed into silence.
“She is not quite the same as the spirits who reside here, and therefore she lives apart, and rarely visits with them.”
I began to wonder had he made amésalliance, and yet he seemed scarcely the kind to have done so. Moreover, as I knew well, with spirits there is perfect equality—at least with the class of which he came.
“We have not been married very long,” he continued. “A few thousand years only. Before that I was—to use a familiar expression—a bachelor.”
He waited for a little while and then went on again.
“There was no particular reason why I should marry. I needed no children, for we are our own children, and what work I had I found was of such a nature that I could do it better by entering into partnership with Plucritus than by anything else. He married Vestné, and we make a strong triple alliance. But once in an idle moment I worked out a theory of marriage. I wished to try a wife built on a different principle from myself, so I looked toward heaven. You have never been there, but it is similar to this place. So similar that it is hard to tell the difference—it is only felt.”
He smiled. Probably he recognised the “only” was superfluous.
“Once, therefore, as I was passing through the earth I happened to behold a city. And above it I saw a spirit hovering, a lovely, gentle creature, scarcely formed, except in tender graces and purity of mind. As she sailed from point to point I followed her, and noticed the rosy light that glowed about her—her only protection in that harsh wilderness. I knew at once the place from which she came. I had heard it made their boast that they would raise up spirits from the dust of earth like to themselves, and I had laughed the thought to scorn, for reasons I shall not tell you now.
“And now I saw before me one of these spirit blossoms, flown wild from heaven, thoughtless of harm or evil, thinking only of sad humanity grovelling on the ground. I knew that she herself had come from such, and yet never a more lightsome flower of beauty breathed in air. I drew nearer, laughing, yet serious. Thought I, ‘I will catch this little lost jail-bird of mine and carry her down to the place meant for her, and then they may pipe for the ransom.’ For no thought of pity or compassion for her helplessness ever came near me. So I caught her.”
He laughed with a mirth which was almost infectious, even to me.
“And in catching her I was caught myself, for I had never realised they could do things so extremely well up there.”
“What was the result?”
“I have told you. It chanced just at that time we were flying over neutral ground. And she mistook me for a friend, having never known an enemy, and turned to give me the kiss of friendship. And I, being courteous though I reared myself, returned the kiss, but still retained my prisoner. However, I could not keep her prisoner long, for, truth to tell, she had imprisoned me. Accordingly, I brought her here, and when we came to the heavy gates she cried to go away, being only a child. But, loving me and trusting me, she came even to this great palace which I had built in lonely deity. Then there came messengers from heaven, demanding back this daughter, but I refused to give her up, till at last her father came and begged for her, saying she was but a child and only brought up for gentle usage. When she saw him she ran to him with the same outstretched arms which first had welcomed me, and said that this was heaven if only he would stay and bring the rest. He looked away and sighed, as well he might, for he knew well that no clinging bud, however fair and tender, could convert Hell and Heaven to friendship. But because he saw that we were truly joined he turned to leave us sadly, and went away. After that she fretted and grew so pure and fragile that I feared she would dissolve away, having no strength within herself. I had no power to strengthen her, because there as here they build up like with like. So the time passed on for many days. She grew ever tender and more tender, just like some fading wild blossom blown from the parent stem by March winds in sunny June. And then at last she lay like some weak child upon the bed which I had woven from snowy flakes of lilies for her. And as she lay panting in agony, which by its wrongful name mortals call Death, she took my hand and whispered she would be happy if she only left a child to take her place. I did not understand her, but she looked at me with such strange, wistful eyes that I, as best I could, settled my mind to fathom what she meant. Just then the bell had tolled for prayer within the prisons. She raised herself upon her elbow.
“‘I want a child, a little child to hold within my arms,’ she cried, and never was child’s voice more plaintive or more sweet. And then she rose from off the bed, light as the beauty which enveloped her.
“‘Take me to the grating,’ she entreated. ‘I would see them pray.’
“I wondered, for this had ever been the bitterest hour to her. But because I never failed to please her in what I could, I took her there. It was just at the time when the sulphur fumes were rising and they all stood looking in hopeless expectation toward the fast-barred doors. She leant against the grating like one too weak to stand alone. But suddenly she broke out into the sweetest song the ear of Spirit ever heard. I listened in surprise and admiration, as never before had she sung a note. Then, looking down below, scanning the gloomy columns, I saw amongst the mass one upturned face. ’Twas that of a man whose prison term expired that night. Next day he returned to earth to stand another trial, because with great faults unchecked there yet was that within his nature which preponderated to make him still unfit for hell. And he fell like some worn traveller towards the altar, and the last weary sigh escaped his lips, and fled trembling even till it touched and kissed those notes of purity that thrilled from her.” Here Vestasian laughed, more softly than before.
“I found myself a dupe again, for the tired spirit, now reft of everything, even hell’s punishment, ascended through the bars to her who called it. And as the half-unconscious fragment lay pressed to her bosom she turned to me.
“‘You may take me back,’ she said, with the contentment of a little child. So I took her. And there upon the bed she kissed and fondled this lost soul, and wrapped it in her own pure robe, and then she kissed me too, and with eyes shining mistily, still fixed on me, she passed away, taking it with her.”
He paused, but soon continued:—
“So I lost my wife, and lost my prisoner, whom she carried to the earth and left there, endowed from birth with every spiritual grace, even from hell’s portal. And when she had gone I wandered about disconsolate, missing her everywhere. When I learnt no tidings of her I followed to the gates of Heaven and entered. My shadow fell across the threshold, for I think the sun was slanting from the hills, and as I noticed it I—smiled. ‘They will regard me as a stranger,’ I thought, but still I strode on. At last I came to where her father lived, and saw her mother spinning by the door.
“‘I have come to seek my wife,’ I said. At this she rose and led me to the house and went through it to an upper chamber. It was all bowered in rosy light, and sweet birds carolled at the open windows, for it was summer time. There she lay upon a silken couch, sleeping like some pure flower-bell in hazy sunshine. By her side, upon the pillow, lay a little withered flower I had given her, the only store she had brought from my vast palace—and it was dead.
“‘She will stay here for many days, and then needs care and nourishing,’ her mother observed. ‘When she is strong and well again she will return to you.’
“With what gratitude I could I thanked her, and kissed my winning wife and went away. Since then, like Proserpine of old, she has come to me and gone. And ever as she goes, in that last gasping hour of pain, I take her to the grating and she sings. Every time some dying soul responds and she is happy, and will make believe that this one is my child and her own. And because from her lips these words seem sweet I never question it, but let her have her way; and if I suffer, I suffer as best I may, in silence like the rest.”
We had stood still beside the lake, and still continued standing, watching the rippling moonbeams on the water. After a slight pause he moved along.
“Come,” said he, “let us be off. There! midnight strikes; and as it echoes, in the far distance, from the wooden cross above the forest comes the bitter cry of him who had found his God.”