CHRISTMAS EVE, A FANTASY.
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
A FANTASY.
R. H. Fletcher.
{Illustrations by M. S. Sherman.}
It had been for me a day of toil and weariness and grief. Sick in body and heart, I returned home late at night and threw myself just as I was upon a couch. In an instant slumber came, but not relief.
I seemed again to tread the weary streets, crowded with the ever-surgingthrongs. On the icy-mirror pavements, in the blazing windows of the stores, on the faces of the joyous purchasers,—everywhere was the Christmas glow; and once more in bitterness of spirit I cried out against the hollow mockery and sham.
There was a change. All had vanished save the lights. Nor were they frigid, blinding, cruel, as before; a rosy glow, warm, soft, and kind, filled all the room. Before me stood an angel form, whence streamed the radiance. Beautiful was her flowing robe; beautiful must once have been her face, but now the deep lines about the large, appealing eyes, the quavering of the patient lips,and the pallor of the sunken cheeks had marred its symmetry and grace.
“Come,” said the figure in a voice plaintive, yet sweet. Unhesitatingly I grasped her hand, and straightway we were flying through the air. The night was inky and awful. The wind moaned dismally as it hurled upon us the huge masses of clouds, threatening and demon-like, and naught but implicit confidence in my conductor preserved me from a sense of loneliness and of desolation, from an utter horror like to that of death.
Long thus we flew, outstripping the swift pursuing blasts, until day bloomed like a rank marsh flower. A gloomy, dismal day.
Beyond the vision on either side, a mighty pile stretched; above, it was lost in the low-lying clouds, reaching, perhaps, to the very skies I thought.
Grand the design appeared, yet grand rather in what it should have been than in what it was; for here the walls stood all in moss-grown ruins, as though shaken by some overwhelming earthquake shock, here still unfinished. Everywhere, besides, had been inwrought marble blocks and shattered columns from the ruins that strewed the plain for leagues around. All about were men engaged upon the palace; but though some were earnestly endeavoring to prop theleaning walls, or to set the great stones firm and true, some, I thought, strove only to cover the gapping seams with useless tinsel, while some were even battering with rams whatever places were the weakest.
Stumbling beneath an arch whose very keystone threatened to drop upon us as we went, and then through dark and ruinous passages, we entered. We emerged into a great hall, whose gaudy, gilded splendor could not long blind the eyes to the bare foundations protruding all about and crumbling in decay. Here a preacher was describing the true Christmas, yet, though his words rang with wondrouslyfervid eloquence, they met but little response in the faces of his congregation. Unconsciously my guide approached the speaker, while her splendor became even more intense, until it shone almost like the sun, and yet it might be gazed upon, so soft and friendly was it. But even as it blazed most gloriously it faded, and with a halfstifled sob the angel turned away. To my questioning glance she made reply, “I am Love, and as I come where love is my effulgence grows more bright.”
Through ruined chambers and dark corridors, around black, yawning chasms, up and down great tottering stairways, now we passed,while I held in terror to the hand of my unmoved conductor. At length we stood in a city street. Remember, all was vague and indefinite to me, for it was but a vision or a dream. In the great surging mass of humanity I noted but two beings, a ragged woman and a little sleeping child which she was bearing in her arms. Plainly she was wandering in search of work. Behind her stood a black, misshapen something, gaunt and grisly, wearing a faint resemblance to the human form, and upon his gloomy forehead I thought I read the impress of this word, “Hunger.” In his hand he held a lash, and with it he even beat the shoulders of the woman,compelling her to quicken her weary steps; of escape she had no hope. Once she would have sank upon the pavement; the demon strode before with a starved and frightful laugh, and struck the child, which wakened with a moan. As if in answer to its call Love drew near, shining with a subdued but cheerful light. The tense lines upon the woman’s face relaxed; she arose and struggled on, but for a moment only. As the demon Hunger turned and beheld Love standing there he rushed upon her with a fearful cry, then turned and fled. Not an instant was the monster’s place unfilled. Another of his kind, with a still more awful countenance, upon which was written“Despair,” appeared and struck the woman to the ground; nor did he cease to rain upon her frightful blows, while she glared at him in fierce defiance. I hid my eyes, and when I looked again woman and child had vanished and in their places were two clods of earth.
I fled in terror, for Love was nowhere to be seen; but at length I found her weeping bitterly. The sight of her, even in distress, renewed my courage to behold other things, dreadful though they might be. Yet what need to tell more? Hour after hour we wandered on, and always we found only such scenes of squalid misery or gilded hypocrisy as well might break thehearts of men though they meet them every day.
At length Love lost the way, and she wandered through fearful ruins until, upon the brink of a fearful chasm just beneath the gloomy clouds, she sank to earth. Near by lay stores of all things necessary for life, yet it was a gruesome place. “Here we must perish,” moaned my guide, and from below I saw grisly Despair rising to drag us down. But even as Love spoke a rushing sound was heard above, and a great glory dissipated all the gloom. Before us stood another angel, bearing in his hands an anchor of jewelled gold. “Did you forget your wings, my sister?” she asked reproachfully.“How can you die, being immortal?”
Before her gentleness and confidence doubt could not stand. Joyfully we grasped her anchor and rose with her above the clouds. And now I saw that the palace did not reach the skies, but that its topmost story was, oh! so near the earth.
As we passed beyond the walls I read in great letters, carved upon the blocks above the ruinous portal, “The Social Structure of Christ.”
“Kind Hope,” I cried, “if this be all that Christ can do for man, in self-derision do we celebrate his birth to-day.”
She smiled half sadly, and half sweetly, for she could never, Ibelieve, seem wholly sad. “Many of the stones,” she said, “are fallen. The inscription read at first not ‘of Christ,’ but ‘of Christendom.’ Before the memory of any living now the blocks were laid, and those which have crumbled have fallen, so that many believe the words were ever what they are. But turn and look.”
Far away the clouds had broken and were all gilded by the rising sun. There stood another palace, which seemed much like the first, yet perfect in symmetry and beauty.
“It is of the future,” I heard Hope say; “somewhere—beneath, above, behind, before, within,—somehow, future borders on that placewhich some call Heaven, the home of Love, of Knowledge, and of Joy.”
As she ceased to speak I knew I was alone within my chamber. The Christmas bells were ringing merrily, and as I went forth into the cheerful sunshine and saw the pleasant sights that I had passed by in the palace of my dream I felt all my old despair rung out and a cheerful, living hope rung in.