I shall never pretend to deny that Dr. Linister's powers as a physicist were of the first order, nor that his Discoveries warranted his election to the Headship of the College. Yet, something was due, perhaps, to his tall and commanding figure, and to the look of authority which reigned naturally on his face, and to the way in which he always stepped into the first rank. He was always the Chief, long before the College of Physicians assumed the whole authority, in everything that he joined. He opposed the extinction of property, and would have had everybody win what he could, and keep it as long as he would; he opposed the Massacre of the Old; he was opposed, in short, to the majority of the College. Yet he was our Chief. His voice was clear, and what he said always produced its effect, though it did not upset my solid majority, or thwart the Grand Advance of the Triumph of Science. As for me, my position has been won by sheer work and merit. My figure is not commanding; I am short-sighted and dark-visaged; my voice is rough; and as for manners, I have nothing to do with them. But in Science there is but one second to Linister—and that is Grout.
When the supper came to an end, we rose and marched back to the College in the same state and order with which we had arrived. As for the people, some of them went out into the Garden; some remained in the Hall. It was then nine o'clock, and twilight. Some went straight to their own rooms, where they would smoke tobacco—an old habit allowed by the College on account of its soothing and sedative influence—before going to bed. By ten o'clock everybody would be in bed and asleep. What more beautiful proof of the advance of Science than the fact that the whole of the twenty-four thousand people who formed the population of Canterbury dropped off to sleep the moment they laid their heads upon the pillow? This it is to have learned the proper quantities and kinds of food; the proper amount of bodily exercise and work; and the complete subjugation of all the ancient forces of unrest and disquiet. To be sure, we were all, with one or two exceptions, in the very prime and flower of early manhood and womanhood. It would be hard, indeed, if a young man of thirty should not sleep well.
I was presently joined in the garden of the College by the Arch Physician.
"Grout," he said, "let us sit and talk. My mind is disturbed. It is always disturbed when the memory of the Past is forced upon me."
"The Evil Past," I said.
"If you please—the Evil Past. The question is, whether it was not infinitely more tolerable for mankind than the Evil Present?"
We argued out the point; but it was one on which we could never agree, for he remained saturated with the old ideas of private property and individualism. He maintained that there are no Rights of Man at all, except his Right to what he can get and what he can keep. He even went so far as to say that the true use of the Great Discovery should have been to cause the incompetent, the idle, the hereditarily corrupt, and the vicious to die painlessly.
"As to those who were left," he said, "I would have taught them the selfishness of staying too long. When they had taken time for work and play and society and love, they should have been exhorted to go away of their own accord, and to make room for their children. Then we should have had always the due succession of father and son, mother and daughter; always age and manhood and childhood; and always the world advancing by the efforts of those who would have time to work for an appreciable period. Instead, we have"—he waved his hand.
I was going to reply, when suddenly a voice light, clear, and sweet broke upon our astonished ears. 'Twas the voice of a woman, and she was singing. At first I hardly listened, because I knew that it could be none other than the child Christine, whom, indeed, I had often heard singing. It is natural, I believe, for children to sing. But the Arch Physician listened, first with wonder, and then with every sign of amazement. How could he be concerned by the voice of a child singing silly verses? Then I heard the last lines of her song, which she sang, I admit, with great vigor:
"Oh, Love is worth the whole broad earth;Oh, Love is worth the whole broad earth;Give that, you give us all!"
"Grout," cried the Arch Physician, in tones of the deepest agitation, "I choke—I am stifled. Listen! They are words that I wrote—I myself wrote—with my own hand—long, long ago in the Past. I wrote them for a girl—the girl I told you of at dinner. I loved her. I thought never again to feel as I felt then. Yet the memory of that feeling has come back to me. Is it possible? Can some things never die? Can we administer no drug that will destroy memory? For the earth reeled beneath my feet again, and my senses reeled, and I would once more—yes, I would once more have given all the world—yes, life—even life—only to call that woman mine for a year—a month—a day—an hour!"
The Arch Physician made this astonishing confession in a broken and agitated voice. Then he rushed away, and left me alone in the summer-house.
The singer could certainly have been none other than the girl Christine. How should she get hold of Dr. Linister's love-song? Strange! She had disturbed our peace at supper by laughing, and she had agitated the Arch Physician himself to such a degree as I should have believed impossible by singing a foolish old song. When I went to bed there came into my mind some of the old idle talk about witches, and I even dreamed that we were burning a witch who was filling our minds with disturbing thoughts.
When the girl Christine walked through the loitering crowd outside the Hall, some of the people looked after her with wondering eyes.
"Strange!" said a woman. "She laughed! She laughed!"
"Ay," said another, "we have forgotten how to laugh. But we used to laugh before"—she broke off with a sigh.
"And she sings," said a third. "I have heard her sing like a lark in the Museum."
"Once," said the first woman, "we used to sing as well as laugh. I remember, we used to sing. She makes us remember the old days."
"The bad old days"—it was one of the Assistant Physicians who admonished her—"the times when nothing was certain, not even life, from day to day. It should bring you increased happiness to think sometimes of those old times."
The first woman who had spoken was one whom men would have called beautiful in those old times, when their heads were turned by such a thing as a woman's face. She was pale of cheek and had black eyes, which, in those days of passion and jealousy, might have flashed like lightning. Now they were dull. She was shapely of limb and figure too, with an ample cheek and a full mouth. Formerly, in the days of love and rage, those limbs would have been lithe and active; now they were heavy and slow. Heaviness of movement and of eyes sensibly grows upon our people. I welcome every indication of advance towards the Perfect Type of Humanity which will do nothing but lie down, breathe, eat, and sleep.
"Yes," she replied with a deep sigh. "Nothing was certain. The bad old times, when people died. But there was love, and we danced and sung and laughed." She sighed again, and walked away alone, slowly, hanging her head.
The girl passed through them, leading the old man by the hand.
I know very well, now, that we ought to have been suspicious. What meant the gleam and sparkle of her eyes, when all other eyes were dull? What meant the parting of her lips and the smile which always lay upon them, when no one else smiled at all? Why did she carry her head erect, when the rest walked with hanging heads? Why, again, did she sing, when no one else sang? Why did she move as if her limbs were on springs, when all the rest went slowly and heavily? These signs meant mischief. I took them for the natural accompaniments of youth. They meant more than youth: they meant dangerous curiosity; they meant—presently—Purpose. How should one of the People dare to have a Purpose unknown to the Sacred College? You shall hear.
All that followed was, in fact, due to our own blindness. We should long before have shut up every avenue which might lead the curious to the study of the Past; we should have closed the Museum and the Library altogether. We did not, because we lived in the supposition that the more the old times were investigated, the more the people would be satisfied with the Present. When, indeed, one looks at the pictures of battle, murder, cruelty, and all kinds of passion; when one reads the old books, full of foolishness which can only be excused on the plea of a life too short to have a right comprehension of anything, it is amazing that the scene does not strike the observer with a kind of horror. When, which is seldom, I carry my own memory back to the old times and see myself before I went to the Laboratory, boy-of-all-work to a Brewery, ordered here and there, working all day long with no other prospect than to be a servant for a short span of life and then to die; when I remember the people among whom I lived, poor, starving, dependent from day to day on the chance of work, or, at best, from week to week; when I think of the misery from which these poor people have been rescued, I cannot find within me a spark of sympathy for the misguided wretches who voluntarily exchanged their calm and happy Present for the tumult and anxiety of the Past. However, we are not all reasonable, as you shall hear.
It was already twilight outside, and in the Museum there was only light enough to see that a few persons were assembled in the Great Hall. Christine placed her grandfather in a high-backed wooden chair, in which he spent most of his time, clutching at the arms and fighting with his asthma. Then she turned up the electric light. It showed a large, rather lofty room, oblong in shape. Old arms were arranged round the walls; great glass-cases stood about, filled with a collection of all kinds of things preserved from the old times. There were illustrations of their arts, now entirely useless: such as the jewels they wore, set in bracelets and necklaces; their gloves, fans, rings, umbrellas, pictures, and statuary. Then there were cases filled with the old implements of writing—paper, inkstands, pens, and so forth—the people have long since left off writing; there were boxes full of coins with which they bought things, and for which they sold their freedom; there were things with which they played games—many of them dangerous ones—and whiled away the tedium of their short lives; there were models of the ships in which they went to sea, also models of all kinds of engines and machines which slaves—they were nearly all slaves—made for the purpose of getting more money for their masters; there were also crowns, coronets, and mitres, which formerly belonged to people who possessed what they called rank; there were the praying-books which were formerly used every day in great buildings like the House of Life; there were specimens of legal documents on parchment, by the drawing up of which, when law existed, a great many people procured a contemptible existence; there were also models, with figures of the people in them, of Parliament Houses, Churches, and Courts of Justice; there were life-size models of soldiers in uniform, when men were of understanding so contemptible as to be tempted to risk life—even life—in exchange for a gold-laced coat! But then our ancestors were indescribably foolish. There were musical instruments of all kinds—I have always been glad that music fell so soon into disuse. It is impossible to cultivate contentment while music is practised. Besides the ordinary weapons—sword, pike, and javelin—there were all kinds of horrible inventions, such as vast cannons, torpedo boats, dynamite shells, and so forth, for the destruction of towns, ships, and armor. It is a great and splendid Collection, but it ought to have been long, long before transferred to the custody of the Holy College.
The girl looked inquiringly at her visitors, counting them all. There were ten—namely, five men and five women. Like all the people, they were young—the men about thirty, the women about twenty-two or twenty-three. The men were dressed in their blue flannels, with a flat cap of the same material; the women in their gray beige, short frock, the flat gray cap under which their hair was gathered, gray stockings, and heavy shoes. The dress was, in fact, invented by myself for both sexes. It has many advantages. First, there is always plenty of the stuff to be had; next, both flannel and beige are soft, warm, and healthy textures—with such a dress there is no possibility of distinction or of superiority; and, lastly, with such a dress the women have lost all power of setting forth their attractions so as to charm the men with new fashions, crafty subtleties of dress, provocations of the troublesome passion of love in the shape of jewels, ribbons, gloves, and the like. No one wears gloves: all the women's hands are hard; and although they are still young and their faces are unchanged, their eyes are dull and hard. I am pleased to think that there is no more foolishness of love among us.
The people were standing or sitting about, not together, but separately—each by himself or herself. This tendency to solitary habits is a most healthy indication of the advance of humanity. Self-preservation is the first Law—separate and solitary existence is the last condition—of mankind. They were silent and regardless of each other. Their attitude showed the listlessness of their minds.
"I am glad you are here," said Christine. "You promised you would not fail me. And yet, though you promised, I feared that at the last moment you might change your mind. I was afraid that you would rather not be disturbed in the even current of your thoughts."
"Why disturb our minds?" asked one, a woman. "We were at peace before you began to talk of the Past. We had almost forgotten it. And it is so long ago"—her voice sank to a murmur—"so long ago."
They all echoed,
"It is so long ago—so long ago!"
"Oh," cried the girl, "you call this to be at peace! Why, if you were so many stones in the garden you could not be more truly at peace. To work, to rest, to eat, to sleep—you call that Life! And yet you can remember—if you please—the time when you were full of activity and hope."
"If to remember is to regret, why should we invite the pain of regret? We cannot have the old life except with the old conditions; the short life and the—"
"If I could remember—if I had ever belonged to the Past," the girl interrupted, quickly; "oh, I would remember every moment—I would live every day of the old life over and over again. But I can do nothing—nothing—but read of the splendid Past and look forward to such a future as your own. Alas! why was I born at all, since I was born into such a world as this? Why was I called into existence when all the things of which I read every day have passed away? And what remains in their place?"
"We have Life," said one of the men, but not confidently.
"Life! Yes—and what a life! Oh, what a life! Well, we waste time. Listen now—and if you can, for once forget the present and recall the past. Do not stay to think how great a gulf lies between; do not count the years—indeed, you cannot. Whether they are one hundred or five hundred they do not know, even at the Holy College itself. I am sure it will make you happier—'twill console and comfort you—in this our life of desperate monotony, only to remember—to recall—how you used to live."
They answered with a look of blank bewilderment.
"It is so long ago—so long ago," said one of them again.
"Look around you. Here are all the things that used to be your own. Let them help you to remember. Here are the arms that the men carried when they went out to fight; here are the jewels that the women wore. Think of your dress in the days when you were allowed to dress, and we did not all wear frocks of gray beige, as if all women were exactly alike. Will that not help?"
They looked about them helplessly. No, they did not yet remember; their dull eyes were filled with a kind of anxious wonder, as might be seen in one rudely awakened out of sleep. They looked at the things in the great room, but that seemed to bring nothing back to their minds. The Present was round them like a net which they could neither cut through nor see through; it was a veil around them through which they could not pass. It had been so long with them; it was so unchanging; for so long they had had nothing to expect; for so long, therefore, they had not cared to look back. The Holy College had produced, in fact, what it had proposed and designed. The minds of the people had become quiescent. And to think that so beautiful a state of things should be destroyed by a girl—the only child in the Community!
"Will it help," said the girl, "if we turn down the light a little? So. Now we are almost in darkness, but for the moonlight through the window. In the old times, when you were children, I have read that you loved to sit together and to tell stories. Let us tell each other stories."
Nobody replied; but the young man called Jack took Christine's hand and held it.
"Let us try," said the girl again. "I will tell you a story. Long ago there were people called gentlefolk. Grandad here was a gentleman. I have read about them in the old books. I wonder if any of you remember those people. They were exempt from work; the lower sort worked for them; they led a life of ease; they made their own work for themselves. Some of the men fought for their country—it was in the old time, you know, when men still fought; some worked for their country; some worked for the welfare of those who worked for bread; some only amused themselves; some were profligates, and did wicked things—"
She paused—no one responded.
"The women had no work to do at all. They only occupied themselves in making everybody happy; they were treated with the greatest respect; they were not allowed to do anything at all that could be done for them; they played and sang; they painted and embroidered; they knew foreign languages; they constantly inspired the men to do great things, even if they should be killed."
Here all shuddered and trembled. Christine made haste to change the subject.
"They wore beautiful dresses—think—dresses of silk and satin, embroidered with gold, trimmed with lace; they had necklaces, bracelets, and rings; their hands were white, and they wore long gloves to their elbows; they dressed their hair as they pleased. Some wore it long, like this." She pulled off her flat cap, and threw back her long tresses, and quickly turned up the light. She was transformed! The women started and gasped. "Take off your caps!" she ordered. They obeyed, and at sight of the flowing locks that fell upon their shoulders, curling, rippling, flowing, their eyes brightened, but only for a moment.
"Yes," said the girl, "they wore their beautiful hair as they pleased. Oh!"—she gathered in her hands the flowing tresses of one—"you have such long and beautiful hair! It is a shame—it is a shame to hide it. Think of the lovely dresses to match this beauty of the hair!"
"Oh," cried the women, "we remember the dresses. We remember them now. Why make us remember them? It is so long ago—so long ago—and we can never wear them any more."
"Nay; but you have the same beauty," said Christine. "That at least remains. You have preserved your youth and your beauty."
"Of what good are our faces to us," said another woman, "with such a dress as this? Men no longer look upon our beauty."
"Let us be," said the woman who had spoken first. "There can be no change for us. Why disturb our minds? The Present is horrible. But we have ceased to care much for anything: we do our day's work every day—all the same hours of work; we wear the same dress—to every woman the same dress; we eat and drink the same food—to every one the same; we are happy because we have got all we can get, and we expect no more; we never talk—why should we talk? When you laughed to-day it was like an earthquake." Her words were strong, but her manner of speech was a monotone. This way of speaking grows upon us; it is the easiest. I watch the indications with interest. From rapid talk to slow talk; from animated talk to monotony; the next step will be to silence absolute. "There is no change for us," she repeated, "neither in summer nor in winter. We have preserved our youth, but we have lost all the things which the youthful used to desire. We thought to preserve our beauty; what is the good of beauty with such a dress and such a life? Why should we make ourselves miserable in remembering any of the things we used to desire?"
"Oh," cried the girl, clasping her hands, "to me there is no pleasure possible but in learning all about the Past. I read the old books, I look at the old pictures, I play the old music, I sing the old songs; but it is not enough. I know how you were dressed—not all alike in gray beige frocks, but in lovely silk and beautiful embroidered stuffs. I will show you presently how you dressed. I know how you danced and played games and acted most beautiful plays, and I have read stories about you; I know that you were always dissatisfied, and wanting something or other. The stories are full of discontent; nobody ever sits down satisfied except one pair. There is always one pair, and they fall in Love—in Love," she repeated. "What is that, I wonder?" Then she went on again: "They only want one thing then, and the story-books are all about how they got it after wonderful adventures. There are no adventures now. The books tell us all this, but I want more. I want to know more: I want to see the old stories with my own eyes; I want to see you in your old dresses, talking in your own old way. The books cannot tell me how you talked and how you looked. I am sure it was not as you talk now—because you never talk."
"There is no reason why we should talk. All the old desires have ceased to be. We no longer want anything or expect anything."
"Come. I shall do my best to bring the Past back to you. First, I have learned who you were. That is why I have called you together. In the old times you all belonged to gentlefolk."
This announcement produced no effect at all. They listened with lack-lustre looks. They had entirely forgotten that there were ever such distinctions as gentle and simple.
"You will remember presently," said Christine, not discouraged. "I have found out in the ancient Rolls your names and your families."
"Names and families," said one of the men, "are gone long ago. Christine, what is the good of reviving the memory of things that can never be restored?"
But the man named Jack Carera, the sailor of whom I have already spoken, stepped forward. I have said that the sailors were a dangerous class, on account of their independence and their good meaning.
"Tell us," he said, "about our families. Why, I, for one, have never forgotten that I was once a gentleman. It is hard to tell now, because they have made us all alike; but for many, many years—I know not how many—we who had been gentlemen consorted together."
"You shall again," said Christine, "if you please. Listen, then. First, my grandfather. He was called Sir Arthur Farrance, and he was called a Baronet. To be a Baronet was, in those days, something greatly desired by many people. A man, in the old books, was said to enjoy the title of Baronet. But I know not why one man was so raised above another."
"Heugh! Heugh! Heugh!" coughed the old man. "I remember that. Why, what is there to remember except the old times? I was a Baronet—the fifth Baronet. My country place was in Sussex, and my town address was White's and the Travellers'."
"Yes," Christine nodded. "My grandfather's memory is tenacious; he forgets nothing of the things that happened when he was young. I have learned a great deal from him. He seems to have known all your grandmothers, for instance, and speaks of them as if he had loved them all."
"I did—I did," said the old man. "I loved them every one."
The girl turned to the women before her—the dull-eyed, heavy-headed women, all in the gray dresses exactly alike; but their gray flat caps had been thrown off, and they looked disturbed, moved out of the common languor.
"Now I will tell you who you were formerly. You"—she pointed to the nearest—"were the Lady Mildred Carera, only daughter of the Earl of Thordisá. Your father and mother survived the Discovery, but were killed in the Great Massacre Year, when nearly all the old were put to death. You were a great beauty in your time, and when the Discovery was announced you were in your second season. People wondered who would win you. But those who pretended to know talked of a young scientific Professor."
The woman heard as if she was trying to understand a foreign language. This was, in fact, a language without meaning to her. As yet she caught nothing.
"You," said Christine, turning to the next, "were Dorothy Oliphant; you were also young, beautiful, and an heiress; you, like Lady Mildred, had all the men at your feet. I don't know what that means, but the books say so. Then the Discovery came, and love-making, whatever that was, seems to have gone out of fashion." The second woman heard this information with lack-lustre eyes. What did it matter?
"You"—Christine turned to a third and to a fourth and fifth—"you were Rosie Lorrayne; you, Adela Dupré; you, Susie Campbell. You were all in Society; you were all young and beautiful and happy. Now for the men." She turned to them. The sailor named Jack gazed upon her with eyes of admiration. The other men, startled at first by the apparition of the tresses, had relapsed into listlessness. They hardly looked up as she addressed them.
First she pointed to the sailor.
"Your name—"
"I remember my name," he said. "I have not forgotten so much as our friends. Sailors talk more with each other, and remember. I am named John Carera, and I was formerly first-cousin to Lady Mildred. Cousin"—he held out his hand—"have you forgotten your cousin? We used to play together in the old times. You promised to marry me when you should grow up."
Lady Mildred gave him her hand.
"It is so long ago—so long ago," she murmured; but her eyes were troubled. She had begun to remember the things put away and forgotten for so long.
"You"—Christine turned to another—"were Geoffrey Heron. You were Captain in a Cavalry Regiment. You will remember that presently, and a great deal more. You"—she turned to another—"were Laurence de Heyn, and you were a young Lawyer, intending to be a Judge. You will remember that, in time. You"—she turned to another—"were Jack Culliford; and you were a Private Secretary, intending to go into Parliament, and to rise perhaps to be Prime Minister. And you"—she turned to the last—"were Arnold Buckland, already a Poet of Society. You will all remember these things before long. Lastly, you all belonged to the people who were born rich, and never used to have any care or anxiety about their daily bread. Nor did you ever do any work, unless you chose."
"It is so long ago," said Lady Mildred—her face was brighter now—"that we have forgotten even that there ever were gentlefolk."
"It is not strange," said Christine, "that you should have forgotten it. Why should you remember anything? We are only a herd, one with another; one not greater, and one not less, than another. Now that you know your names again and remember clearly, because I have told you"—she repeated the information for fear they should again forget—"who and what you were, each of you—you will go on to remember more."
"Oh, what good? What good?" asked Lady Mildred.
"Because it will rouse you from your lethargy," said the girl, impetuously. "Oh, you sit in silence day after day; you walk alone; you ought to be together as you used to be, talking, playing. See! I have read the books; your lives were full of excitement. It makes my heart beat only to read how the men went out to fight, daring everything, for the sake of the women they loved."
"The men love us no longer," said Lady Mildred.
"If the brave men fell—" But here all faces, except the sailor's, turned pale, and they shuddered. Christine did not finish the sentence. She, too, shuddered.
In the old times I remember how, being then errand-boy in the Brewery, I used to listen, in the Whitechapel Road, to the men who, every Sunday morning and evening, used to tell us that religion was a mockery and a snare, invented by the so-called priests for their own selfish ends, so that they might be kept in sloth and at their ease. There was no need now for these orators. The old religion was clean dead and forgotten. When men ceased to expect Death, what need was there to keep up any interest in the future world, if there should be any? But the bare mention of the dreadful thing is still enough to make all cheeks turn pale. Every year, the farther off Death recedes, the more terrible he looks. Therefore they all shuddered.
Among the musical instruments in the Museum there stands one, a square wooden box on legs, with wires inside it. There are many other musical instruments, the use of all (as I thought) forgotten. Very soon after the Great Discovery people ceased to care for music. For my own part, I have never been able to understand how the touching of chords and the striking of hammers on wires can produce any effect at all upon the mind except that of irritation. We preserve trumpets for the processions of the College because mere noise awes people, and because trumpets make more noise with less trouble than the human voice. But with music, such as it used to be, we have now nothing to do at all. I have been told that people were formerly greatly moved by music, so that every kind of emotion was produced in their minds merely by listening to a man or woman playing some instrument. It must have been so, because Christine, merely by playing the old music to the company, was able to bring back their minds to the long-forgotten Past. But it must be remembered that she had disturbed their minds first.
She sat down, then, before this box, and she began to play upon it, watching the people meanwhile. She played the music of their own time—indeed, there has been none written since. It was a kind of witchery. First the sailor named Jack sprang to his feet and began to walk up and down the room with wild gestures and strange looks. Then the rest, one by one, grew restless; they looked about them; they left their chairs and began to look at each other, and at the things in the cases. The Past was coming slowly into sight. I have heard how men at sea perceive an island far away, but like a cloud on the horizon; how the cloud grows larger and assumes outline; how this grows clearer and larger still, until, before the ship reaches the harbor and drops her anchor, the cliffs and the woods, and even the single trees on the hill-sides, are clearly visible.
Thus the listeners gradually began to see the Past again. Now, to feel these old times again, one must go back to them and become once more part of them. It is possible, because we are still of the age when we left them. Therefore, this little company, who had left the old time when they were still young, began to look again as they had then looked. Their eyes brightened, their cheeks flushed; their limbs became elastic; their heads were thrown back; the faces of the women grew soft, and those of the men strong; on all alike there fell once more the look of restless expectancy and of unsatisfied yearning which belonged to all ages in the old time.
Presently they began to murmur, I know not what, and then to whisper to each other with gentle sighs. Then the girls—they were really girls again—caught each other by the hand, and panted and sighed again; and at last they fell upon each other's necks and kissed. As for the men, they now stood erect and firm, but for the most part they gazed upon the girls with wonder and admiration unspeakable, so great was the power of witchery possessed by this insignificant girl.
Christine looked on and laughed gently. Then she suddenly changed her music, and began to play a March loud and triumphant. And as she played she spoke:
"When the brave soldiers came home from battle and from victory, it was right that the people should all go forth to meet them. The music played for them; the children strewed roses under their feet; the bells were set ringing; the crowds cheered them; the women wept and laughed at the same time, and waved them welcome. Nothing could be too good for the men who fought for their country. Listen! I found the song of the Victors' Return in an old book. I wonder if you remember it. I think it is a very simple little thing."
Then she sang. She had a strong, clear voice—they had heard her singing before—no one sang in the whole City except this child, and already it had been observed that her singing made men restless. I do not deny the fulness and richness of her voice; but the words she sang—Dr. Linister's words, they were—are mere foolishness:
"With flying flag, with beat of drum,Oh, brave and gallant show!In rags and tatters home they come—We love them better so.With sunburnt cheeks and wounds and scars;Yet still their swords are bright.Oh, welcome, welcome from the wars,Brave lads who fought the fight!
"The girls they laugh, the girls they cry,'What shall their guerdon be?—Alas! that some must fall and die!—Bring forth our gauds to see.'Twere all too slight, give what we might,'Up spoke a soldier tall:'Oh, Love is worth the whole broad earth;Oh, Love is worth the whole broad earth;Give that, you give us all!'"
"Do you remember the song?" Christine asked.
They shook their heads. Yet it seemed familiar. They remembered some such songs.
"Geoffrey Heron," said the girl, turning to one of the men, "you were Captain Heron in the old days. You remember that you were in the army."
"Was I?" He started. "No; yes. I remember. I was Captain Heron. We rode out of Portsmouth Dockyard Gates when we came home—all that were left of us. The women were waiting on the Hard outside, and they laughed and cried, and caught our hands, and ran beside the horses. Our ranks were thin, for we had been pretty well knocked about. I remember now. Yes—yes, I was—I was Captain Heron."
"Go into that room. You will find your old uniform. Take off the blue flannels, and show us how you looked when you were in uniform."
As if it was nothing at all unusual, the man rose and obeyed. It was observed that he now carried himself differently. He stood erect, with shoulders squared, head up, and limbs straight. They all obeyed whatever this girl ordered them to do.
Christine began to play again. She played another March, but always loud and triumphant.
When the soldier came back he was dressed in the uniform which he had worn in the time of the Great Discovery, when they left off taking account of time.
"Oh!" cried Christine, springing to her feet. "See! See! Here is a soldier! Here is a man who has fought!"
He stood before them dressed in a scarlet tunic and a white helmet; a red sash hung across him, and on his breast were medals. At sight of him the girl called Dorothy Oliphant changed countenance; all caught their breath. The aspect of the man carried them, indeed, back to the old, old time.
"Welcome home, Captain Heron," said Christine. "We have followed your campaign day by day."
"We are home again," the soldier replied, gravely. "Unfortunately, we have left a good many of our regiment behind."
"Behind? You mean—they—are—dead." Christine shuddered. The others shuddered. Even Captain Heron himself for a moment turned pale. But he was again in the Past, and the honor of his regiment was in his hands.
"You have fought with other men," said Christine. "Let me look in your face. Yes—it is changed. You have the look of the fighting man in the old pictures. You look as if you mean to have something, whatever it is, whether other men want it or not. Oh, you have fought with men! It is wonderful! Perhaps you have even killed men. Were you dreadfully afraid?"
Captain Heron started and flushed.
"Afraid?" he asked. "Afraid?"
"Oh!" Christine clapped her hands. "I wanted to see that look. It is the look of a man in sudden wrath. Forgive me! It is terrible to see a man thus moved. No, Captain Heron, no! I understand. An officer in your regiment could be afraid of nothing."
She sat down, still looking at him.
"I have seen a soldier," she said. Then she sprang to her feet. "Now," she cried, "it is our turn. Come with me, you ladies; and you, gentlemen, go into that room. For one night we will put on the dresses you used to wear. Come!"
They obeyed. There was nothing that they would not have done, so completely had she bewitched them. How long since they had been addressed as ladies and gentlemen!
"Come," she said, in the room whither she led the women, "look about, and choose what you please. But we must make haste."
There was a great pile of dainty dresses laid out for them to choose—dresses in silk and all kinds of delicate stuffs, with embroidery, lace, ribbons, jewels, chains, rings, bracelets, gloves, fans, shoes—everything that the folly of the past time required to make rich women seem as if they were not the same as their poorer sisters.
They turned over the dresses, and cried out with admiration. Then they hastened to tear off their ugly gray frocks, and began to dress.
But the girl called Dorothy Oliphant sank into a chair. "Oh, he has forgotten me! he has forgotten me! Who am I that he should remember me after all these years?"
"Why," said Christine, "how should he remember? What matters that you have the same face? Think of your dull look and your heavy eyes; think of the dowdy dress and the ugly cap. Wait till you have put on a pretty frock and have dressed your hair; here is a chain of pearls which will look pretty in your hair; here is a sweet colored silk. I am sure it will fit you. Oh, it is a shame—it is a shame that we have to dress so! Never mind. Now I have found out the old dresses, we will have many evenings together. We will go back to the Past. He will remember you, Dorothy dear. Oh, how could you give them up? Howcouldyou give up your lovely dresses?"
"We were made to give them up because there were not enough beautiful dresses to go round. They said that no woman must be dressed better than another. So they invented—it was Dr. Grout, the Suffragan, who did it—the gray dress for the women and the blue flannel for the men. And I had almost forgotten that there were such things. Christine, my head is swimming. My heart is beating. I have not felt my heart beating for I know not how long. Oh, will Geoffrey remember me when I am dressed?"
"Quick! Of course he will. Let me dress you. Oh, I often come here in the daytime and dress up, and pretend that it is the Past again. You shall come with me. But I want to hear you talk as you used to talk, and to see you dance as you used to dance. Then I shall understand it all."
When they returned, the men were waiting for them. Their blue flannels were exchanged for black cloth clothes, which it had been the custom of those who called themselves gentlemen to wear in the evening. In ancient times this was their absurd custom, kept up in order to mark the difference between a gentleman and one of the lower class. If you had no dress-coat, you were not a gentleman. How could men ever tolerate, for a single day, the existence of such a social difference? As for me, in the part of London where I lived, called Whitechapel, there were no dress-coats. The change, however, seemed to have transformed them. Their faces had an eager look, as if they wanted something. Of course, in the old times everybody always wanted something. You can see it in the pictures—the faces are never at rest; in the portraits, the eyes are always seeking for something; nowhere is there visible the least sign of contentment. These unfortunate men had acquired, with their old clothes, something of the old restlessness.
Christine laughed aloud and clapped her hands.
The women did not laugh. They saluted the men, who bowed with a certain coldness. The manners of the Past were coming back to them swiftly, but the old ease was not recovered for the first quarter of an hour. Then Captain Heron, who had changed his uniform for civilian dress, suddenly flushed and stepped forward, whispering,
"Dorothy, you have forgotten me?"
Dorothy smiled softly, and gave him her hand with a quick sigh. No, she had not forgotten him.
"Dance!" said Christine. "I want to see you dance. I will play for you."
She played a piece of music called a Waltz. When this kind of music used to be played—I mean in the houses of (so-called) ladies, not those of the People—the young men and women caught each other round the waist and twirled round. They had many foolish customs, but none more foolish, I should suppose, than this. I have never seen the thing done, because all this foolishness was forgotten as soon as we settled down to the enjoyment of the Great Discovery. When, therefore, Christine began this music, they looked at each other for a few moments, and then, inspired by memory, they fell into each other's arms and began their dance.
She played for them for a quarter of an hour. While the rest danced, the young man Jack stood beside the piano, as if he was chained to the spot. She had bewitched them all, but none so much as this man. He therefore gazed upon the girl with an admiration which certainly belonged to the old time. Indeed, I have never been able to understand how the Past could be so suddenly assumed. To admire—actually to admire—a woman, knowing all the time—it is impossible to conceal the fact—that she is your inferior, that she is inferior in strength and intellect! Well, I have already called them unfortunate men; I can say no more. How can people admire things below themselves? When she had played for a quarter of an hour or so, this young man called upon her to stop. The dancers stopped too, panting, their eyes full of light, their cheeks flushed and their lips parted.
"Oh," Dorothy sighed, "I never thought to feel such happiness again. I could dance on forever."
"With me?" murmured Geoffrey. "I was praying that the last round might never stop. With me?"
"With you," she whispered.
"Come!" cried the young man Jack. "It is too bad. Christine must dance. Play for us, Cousin Mildred, and I will give her a lesson."
Mildred laughed. Then she started at the unwonted sound. The others laughed to hear it, and the walls of the Museum echoed with the laughter of girls. The old man sat up in his chair and looked around.
"I thought I was at Philippe's, in Paris," he said. "I thought we were having a supper after the theatre. There was Ninette, and there was Madeleine—and—and—"
He looked about him bewildered. Then he dropped his head and went to sleep again. When he was neither eating nor battling for his breath, he was always sleeping.
"I am your cousin, Jack," said Mildred; "but I had long forgotten it. And as for playing—but I will try. Perhaps the old touch will return."
It did. She played with far greater skill and power than the self-taught Christine, but not (as they have said since) with greater sweetness.
Then Jack took Christine and gave her a first lesson. It lasted nearly half an hour.
"Oh," cried the girl, when Lady Mildred stopped, "I feel as if I had been floating round in a dream. Was I a stupid pupil, Jack?"
"You were the aptest pupil that dancing-master ever had."
"I know now," she said, with panting breath and flushed cheeks, "what dancing means. It is wonderful that the feet should answer to the music. Surely you must have loved dancing?"
"We did," the girls replied; "we did. There was no greater pleasure in the world."
"Why did you give it up?"
They looked at each other.
"After the Great Discovery," said Dorothy Oliphant, "we were so happy to get rid of the terrors of old age, and the loss of our beauty, and everything, that at first we thought of nothing else. When we tried to dance again, something had gone out of it. The men were not the same. Perhaps we were not the same. Everything languished after that. There was no longer any enjoyment. We ceased to dance because we found no pleasure in dancing."
"But now you do?" said Christine.
"To-night we do, because you have filled our hearts with the old thoughts. To get out of the dull, dull round—why is it that we never felt it dull till to-night? Oh, so long as we can remember the old thoughts, let us continue to dance and to play and to sing. If the old thoughts cease to come back to us"—she looked at Geoffrey—"let us fall back into our dulness, like the men and women round us."
"It was to please me first," said Christine. "You were so very kind as to come here to please me, because I can have no recollection at all of the Past, and I was curious to understand what I read. Come again—to please yourselves. Oh, I have learned so much—so very much more than I ever expected! There are so many, many things that I did not dream of. But let us always dance," she said—"let us always dance—let me always feel every time you come as if there was nothing in the world but sweet music calling me, and I was spinning round and round, but always in some place far better and sweeter than this."
"Yes," Lady Mildred said, gravely. "Thus it was we used to feel."
"And I have seen you as you were—gentlemen and gentlewomen together. Oh, it is beautiful! Come every night. Let us never cease to change the dismal Present for the sunny Past. But there is one thing—one thing that I cannot understand."
"What is that?" asked Lady Mildred.
"In the old books there is always, as I said before, a young man in love with a girl. What is it—Love?" The girls sighed and cast down their eyes. "Was it possible for a man so to love a girl as to desire nothing in the world but to have her love, and even to throw away his life—actually his very life—his very life—for her sake?"
"Dorothy," said Geoffrey, taking both her hands, "was it possible? Oh, was it possible?"
Dorothy burst into tears.
"Itwaspossible!" she cried; "but oh, it is not possible any longer."
"Let us pretend," said Geoffrey, "let us dream that it is possible."
"Even to throw away your life—to die—actually your life?" asked Christine. "To die? To exist no longer? To abandon life—for the sake of another person?"
A sudden change passed over all their faces. The light died out of their eyes; the smile died on their lips; the softness vanished from the ladies' faces; the men hung their heads. All their gallantry left them. And Geoffrey let Mildred's hands slip from his holding. The thought of Death brought them all back to the Present.
"No," said Lady Mildred, sadly, and with changed voice, "such things are no longer possible. Formerly, men despised death because it was certain to come, in a few years at best; and why not, therefore, to-morrow? But we cannot brave death any more. We live, each for himself. That is the only safety; there is only the law of self-preservation. All are alike; we cannot love each other any more, because we are all alike. No woman is better than another in any man's eyes, because we are all dressed the same, and we are all the same. What more do we want?" she said, harshly. "There is no change for us; we go from bed to work, from work to rest and food, and so to bed again. What more can we want? We are all equals; we are all the same; there are no more gentlewomen. Let us put on our gray frocks and our flat caps again, and hide our hair and go home to bed."
"Yes, yes," cried Christine, "but you will come again. You will come again, and we will make every night a Play and Pretence of the beautiful—the lovely Past. When we lay aside the gray frocks, and let down our hair, we shall go back to the old time—the dear old time."
The young man named Jack remained behind when the others were gone. "If it were possible," he said, "for a man to give up everything—even his life—for a woman, in the old times, when life was a rich and glorious possession—how much more ought he not to be willing to lay it down, now that it has been made a worthless weed?"
"I have never felt so happy"—the girl was thinking of something else. "I have never dreamed that I could feel so happy. Now I know what I have always longed for—to dance round and round forever, forgetting all but the joy of the music and the dance. But oh, Jack"—her face turned pale again—"how could they ever have been happy, even while they waltzed, knowing that every minute brought them nearer and nearer to the dreadful end?"
"I don't know. Christine, if I were you, I would never mention that ugly topic again, except when we are not dressed up and acting. How lovely they looked—all of them—but none of them to compare with the sweetest rose-bud of the garden?"
He took her hand and kissed it, and then left her alone with the old man in the great Museum.
It would be idle to dwell upon the repetition of such scenes as those described in the last chapter. These unhappy persons continued to meet day after day in the Museum; after changing their lawful garments for the fantastic habits worn before the Great Discovery, they lost themselves nightly in the imagination of the Past. They presently found others among the People, who had also been gentlewomen and gentlemen in the old days, and brought them also into the company; so that there were now, every evening, some thirty gathered together. Nay, they even procured food and made suppers for themselves, contrary to the practice of common meals enjoined by the Holy College; they gloried in being a company apart from the rest; and because they remembered the Past, they had the audacity to give themselves, but only among themselves, airs of superiority. In the daytime they wore the common dress, and were like the rest of the People. The thing grew, however. Every evening they recalled more of the long-vanished customs and modes of thought—one remembering this and the other that little detail—until almost every particular of the ancient life had returned to them. Then a strange thing happened. For though the Present offered still—and this they never denied—its calm, unchanging face, with no disasters to trouble and no certain and miserable end to dread; with no anxieties, cares, and miseries; with no ambitions and no struggles; they fell to yearning after the old things; they grew to loathe the Present; they could hardly sit with patience in the Public Hall; they went to their day's work with ill-concealed disgust. Yet, so apathetic had the people grown that nothing of this was observed; so careless and so unsuspicious were we ourselves that though the singing and playing grew louder and continued longer every evening, none of us suspected anything. Singing, in my ears, was no more than an unmeaning noise; that the girl in the Museum should sing and play seemed foolish, but then children are foolish—they like to make a great noise.
One afternoon—it was some weeks since this dangerous fooling began—the cause of the whole, the girl Christine, was in the Museum alone. She had a book in her hand, and was reading in it. First she read a few lines, and then paused and meditated a while. Then she read again, and laughed gently to herself. And then she read, and changed color. And again she read, and knitted her brows as one who considers but cannot understand.
The place was quite deserted, save for her grandfather, who sat in his great chair, propped up with pillows and fast asleep. He had passed a bad night with his miserable asthma; in the morning, as often happens with this disease, he found himself able to breathe again, and was now therefore taking a good spell of sleep. His long white hair fell down upon his shoulders, his wrinkled old cheek showed a thousand crows' feet and lines innumerable; he looked a very, very old man. Yet he was no more than seventy-five or so, in the language of the Past. He belonged formerly to those who lived upon the labor of others, and devoured their substance. Now, but for his asthma, which even the College cannot cure, he should have been as perfectly happy as the rest of the People. The sunshine which warmed his old limbs fell full upon his chair; so that he seemed, of all the rare and curious objects in that collection, the rarest and most curious. The old armor on the wall, the trophies of arms, the glass vases containing all the things of the past, were not so rare and curious as this old man—the only old man left among us. I daily, for my own part, contemplated the old man with a singular satisfaction. He was, I thought, a standing lesson to the People, one daily set before their eyes. Here was the sole surviving specimen of what in the Past was the best that the men and women could expect—namely, to be spared until the age of seventy-five, and then to linger on afflicted with miserable diseases and, slowly or swiftly, to be tortured to death. Beholding that spectacle, I argued, all the people ought to rub their hands in complacency and gratitude. But our people had long ceased to reason or reflect. The lesson was consequently thrown away upon them. Nay, when this girl began her destructive career, those whom she dragged into her toils only considered this old man because he would still be talking, as all old men used to talk, about the days of his youth, for the purpose of increasing their knowledge of the Past, and filling their foolish souls with yearning after the bad old times.
While Christine read and pondered, the door of the Museum opened. The young man called Jack stood there gazing upon her. She had thrown off her cap, and her long brown curls lay over her shoulders. She had a red rose in the bosom of her gray dress, and she had tied a crimson scarf round her waist. Jack (suffer me to use the foolishness of their language—of course his name was John)—closed the door silently.
"Christine," he whispered.
She started, and let her book fall. Then she gave him her hand, which he raised to his lips. (Again I must ask leave to report a great deal of foolishness.)
"It is the sweet old fashion," he said. "It is my homage to my lady."
They were now so far gone in folly that she accepted this act as if it was one natural and becoming.
"I have been reading," she said, "a book full of extracts—all about love. I have never understood what love is. If I ask Dorothy, she looks at Geoffrey Heron and sighs. If I ask him, he tells me that he cannot be my servant to teach me, because he is already sworn to another. What does this mean? Have the old times come back again, so that men once more call themselves slaves of love? Yet what does it mean?"
"Tell me," said Jack, "what you have been reading."
"Listen, then. Oh, it is the strangest extravagance! What did men mean when they could gravely write down, and expect to be read, such things as—
"'I do love you more than words can wield the matter—Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare?'
'Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty.' Did they really mean that?"
"They meant more; they meant dearer than life itself!" said Jack, slowly. "Only it was stupid always to say the same thing."
"Well, then, listen to this:
"'Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would loveThat inward beauty and invisible;Or, were I deaf, thy outward parts would moveEach part in me that were but sensible.Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,Yet should I be in love, by touching thee.'
Now, Jack, what can that mean? Was anything more absurd?"
"Read another extract, Christine."
"Here is a passage more difficult than any other:
"'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;Wings and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.And therefore is Love said to be a child,Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.'
Tell me, if you can, what this means. But perhaps you were never in love, Jack, in the old times."
"Romeo was in love before he met Juliet," said Jack. "I, too, have been reading the old books, you see, Child. I remember—but how can I tell you? I cannot speak like the poet. Yet I remember—I remember." He looked round the room. "It is only here," he murmured, "that one can clearly remember. Here are the very things which used to surround our daily life. And here are youth and age. They were always with us in the old time—youth and age. Youth with love before, and age with love behind. Always we knew that as that old man, so should we become. The chief joys of life belonged to youth; we knew very well that unless we snatched them then we should never have them. To age we gave respect, because age, we thought, had wisdom; but to us—to us—who were young, age cried unceasingly—
"'Gather ye rose-buds while ye may.'
If I could tell only you! Christine, come with me into the Picture Gallery. My words are weak, but the poets and the painters speak for us. Come! We shall find something there that will speak for me what I have not words to say for myself."
Nothing in the whole world—I have maintained this in the College over and over again—has done so much harm to Humanity as Art. In a world of common-sense which deals with nothing but fact and actuality, Art can have no place. Why imitate what we see around us? Artists cheated the world; they pretended to imitate, and they distorted or they exaggerated. They put a light into the sky that never was there; they filled the human face with yearning after things impossible; they put thoughts into the heart which had no business there; they made woman into a goddess, and made love—simple love—a form of worship; they exaggerated every joy; they created a heaven which could not exist. I have seen their pictures, and I know it. Why—why did we not destroy all works of Art long ago—or, at least, why did we not enclose the Gallery, with the Museum, within the College wall?
The Picture Gallery is a long room with ancient stone walls; statuary is arranged along the central line, and the pictures line the walls.
The young man led the girl into the Gallery and looked around him. Presently he stopped at a figure in white marble. It represented a woman, hands clasped, gazing upward. Anatomically, I must say, the figure is fairly correct.
"See," he said, "when in the olden times our sculptors desired to depict the Higher Life—which we have lost or thrown away for a while—they carved the marble image of a woman. Her form represented perfect beauty; her face represented perfect purity; the perfect soul must be wedded to the perfect body, otherwise there can be no perfection of Humanity. This is the Ideal Woman. Look in her face, look at the curves of her form, look at the carriage of her head; such a woman it was whom men used to love."
"But were women once like this? Could they look so? Had they such sweet and tender faces? This figure makes me ashamed."
"When men were in love, Christine, the woman that each man loved became in his mind such as this. He worshipped in his mistress the highest form of life that he could conceive. Some men were gross, their ideals were low; some were noble, then their ideals were high. Always there were among mankind some men who were continually trying to raise the ideal; always the mass of men were keeping the ideal low."
"Were the women ashamed to receive such worship? Because they must have known what they were in cold reality."
"Perhaps to the nobler sort," said the young man, "to be thought so good lifted up their hearts and kept them at that high level. But indeed I know not. Remember that when men wrote the words that you think extravagant, they were filled and wholly possessed with the image of the Perfect Woman. Nay, the nobler and stronger their nature, the more they were filled with that Vision. The deeper their love for any woman, the higher they placed her on the Altar of their worship."
"And if another man should try to take that woman from them—"
"They would kill that other man," said Jack, with a fierce gleam in his eye, which made the girl shudder. Yet she respected him for it.
"If another man should come between us now, Christine, I would—Nay, dear, forgive my rude words. What has jealousy to do with you?"
She dropped her eyes and blushed, and in all her limbs she trembled. This young man made her afraid. And yet—she knew not why—it made her happy, only to be afraid of him.
"Let us see some of the pictures," said Jack.
There were many hundreds of them. They represented I know not what; scenes of the old life in the old time. I dare say everything was there, with all the exaggerations which pleased the painters and cheated the senses of those who looked on. Fair women were painted fairer than women could ever be; their eyes were larger, softer, fuller of thought; their cheeks more tender, their limbs more comely.
There were battle scenes; the young man led the girl past them. There were scenes from history—kings laying down crowns, traitors receiving sentence, and so forth; he passed them by. There were groups of nymphs, portraits of fair women, groups of girls dancing, girls at play, girls laughing, girls bathing; he passed them by. Presently he stopped before three panels side by side, representing a simple allegory of the old time. In the first picture, two, a young man and a girl, walked hand-in-hand beside a stream. The water danced and rippled in the sunlight; behind them was an orchard full of blossom; flowers sprang up at their feet—the flowers of spring. And they walked hand-in-hand, gazing in each other's eyes. The second picture showed a man in middle-age returning home from work; beside him walked his boys; in the porch the mother sat with her daughters spinning at the wheel. The stream was now a full majestic river; the trees were loaded with fruit not yet ripe; the fields were covered with corn, green still, but waving with light and shade under the summer sky; in the distance, passing away, was a heavy thunder-cloud. In the third panel an old pair stood beside a great river, looking out upon the ocean. Again they were hand-in-hand. The sun was setting in great splendor across the sea; the reapers were carrying their harvest home with songs and dances. And the old people still gazed in each other's face, just as they had done fifty years ago.
"See, Christine!" said Jack. "In the first panel, this pair think of nothing but of each other. Presently they will have other thoughts. The stream beside which they wander is the Stream of Life. It widens as it goes. While they walk along its banks, the river grows broader and deeper. This means that as they grow older they grow wiser and learn more. So they go on continually, until they come to the mouth of the river, where it loses itself in the ocean of—what our friends tremble so much as to name. Tell me, is there terror, or doubt, or anxiety on their faces now that they have come to the end?"
"No; their faces are entirely happy."
"This you do not understand. Christine, if you were sure that in the end you would be as happy as that old woman at the end, would you be content to begin with the beginning? Would you play the part of that girl, and walk—with me—along the Stream of Life?"
He took her hand, but she made no reply, save that her eyes filled with tears. Presently she murmured,
"They are always happy—at the beginning and at the end. Did they know at the beginning that there would be an end?"
"They knew; everybody knew; the very children knew almost from infancy the great Law of Nature, that for everything there is the allotted end. They knew it."
"And yet they were always happy. I cannot understand it."
"We have destroyed that happiness," said the young man. "Love cannot exist when there is no longer end, or change, or anything to hope or fear—no mystery, nothing to hope or fear. What is a woman outside the Museum in the eyes of the College? She is only the half of humanity, subject to disease and requiring food at intervals. She no longer attracts men by the sacred mystery of her beauty. She is not even permitted any longer to make herself beautiful by her dress; nor is she allowed to create the feeling of mystery and the unknown by seclusion. She lives in the open, like the rest. We all live together; we know what each one says and thinks and does; nay, most of us have left off thinking and talking altogether."
But Christine was hardly listening; she could not understand this talk. She was looking at the pictures.
"Oh," she said, "they look so happy! There is such a beautiful contentment in their eyes! They love each other so, that they think of nothing but their love. They have forgotten the end."
"Nay, but look at the end."
"They are happy still, although the river flows into the Ocean. How can they be happy?"
"You shall learn more, Christine. You have seen enough to understand that the talk of the Physicians about the miseries of the old time is mischievous nonsense, with which they have fooled us into slavery."
"Oh, if they heard you—"
"Let them hear," he replied, sternly. "I hope, before long, we may make them hear. Christine, you can restore the old love by your own example. You alone have nothing to remember and nothing to unlearn. As for the rest of us, we have old habits to forget and prejudices to overcome before we can get back to the Past."
Then he led her to another picture.
The scene was a green village church-yard, standing amid trees—yews and oaks—and round a gray old church. Six strong men bore a bier piled with flowers towards an open grave, newly dug. Beside the grave stood one in a white robe, carrying a book. Behind the bier followed, hand-in-hand, a weeping company of men, women, and children. But he who walked first wept not.
"Oh," cried Christine, "he is dead! He is dead!"
She burst into tears.
"Nay," said Jack; "it is the wife who is dead. The husband lives still. See, he follows with tottering step. His grandchild leads him as you lead your grandfather. And they are all weeping except him. Why does he alone not weep? He has been married for fifty years and more; all his life has been shared by the love and sympathy of the woman—the dead woman. She is dead, my dear"—he repeated these words, taking the girl's hands—"she is dead, and he sheds no tears. Why not? Look at his face. Is it unhappy? Tell me, Christine, do you read the sorrow of hopelessness in that old man's face?"
"No, no," she said. "He is grave, but he is not unhappy. Yet here is Death, with all the terrible things that we read of in the books—the deep pit, the body to be lowered in the grave—oh!"
She shuddered and turned her head.
"As I read his face," said Jack, "I see hope and consolation."
"Why is there a man in white?"
"I will tell you some time. Meanwhile, observe that the old man is happy, though his wife is dead, and though he knows that to-morrow his turn will come, and a grave will be dug for him beside his wife, and he also will be laid among the cold clay-clods, as cold, as senseless as them, there to lie while the great world rolls round and round. He knows this, I say, and yet he is not unhappy."
"What does it mean, Jack?"
"I will tell you—soon."
"We who are sailors," this young man continued, "are not like the rest of the world. We are always exposed to danger; we are not afraid to speak of Death; and though we have taken advantage (as we thought) of the Great Discovery, we have never forgotten the Past or the old ideas. We have to think for ourselves, which makes us independent. There is no Holy College on board ship, and no sacred Physician ventures his precious life upon a rolling deck. When we come ashore, we look round and see things. Then we go on board again and talk, in the night watches below the stars. I think the Holy College would be pleased if they could sometimes hear our talk. Christine, there is no happiness left in the world except among those whom the Great Discovery cannot save from the dangers of a storm. When you spoke to me my heart leaped up, because I saw what as yet you do not see. The others were too sluggish to remember, until you had dragged their thoughts into the old channels; but there was no need to drag me; for I remember always, and I only pretended until the others should come with me."
Christine heard only half of this, for she was looking at the picture of the village funeral again.
"Oh, how could men be happy with such an end before them?" she cried. "I cannot understand it. To be torn away, to be laid in a box, to be put away deep underground, there to lie forever—oh!" She trembled again. "And not to be unhappy!"
"Look round the room, Christine. Read the faces. Here are portraits of men and women. Some of them are eager, some are calm, more are unhappy for thinking of the end. Here is a battle-field; the dead and wounded are lying about the ground. Look at this troop of horsemen charging. Is there any terror in their faces? What do they care about the men who have fallen? Their duty is to fight. See here again. It is a dying girl. What do you read in her face? I see no fear, but a sweet joy of resignation. Here is a man led forth to execution. There is no fear in his face."
"I could never bear to be alone in this room, because Death is everywhere, and no one seems to regard it."
"Christine, did you never hear, by any chance, from your grandfather why people were not afraid?"