Ardath, Marie Corelli [e ink ebook reader txt] 📗

accents roused her from this half-reverie.

 

“I confess I am surprised, Mr. Alwyn,”—he was saying—“that you, a man of such genius and ability, should be still in the leading strings of the Church!”

 

“There is NO Church”—returned Alwyn quietly,—“The world is waiting for one! The Alpha Beta of Christianity has been learned and recited more or less badly by the children of men for nearly two thousand years,—the actual grammar and meaning of the whole Language has yet to be deciphered. There have been, and are, what are CALLED Churches,—one especially, which, if it would bravely discard mere vulgar superstition, and accept, absorb, and use the discoveries of Science instead, might, and possibly WILL, blossom into the true, universal, and pure Christian Fabric. Meanwhile, in the shaking to and fro of things,—the troublous sifting of the wheat from the chaff,—we must be content to follow by the Way of the Cross as best we can. Christianity has fallen into disrepute, probably because of the Self-Renunciation it demands,—for, in this age, the primal object of each individual is manifestly to serve Self only. It is a wrong road,—a side-lane that leads nowhere,—and we shall inevitably have to turn back upon it and recover the right path—if not now, why then hereafter!”

 

His voice had a tremor of pain within it;—he was thinking of the millions of men and women who were voluntarily wandering astray into a darkness they did not dream of,—and his heart, the great, true heart of the Poet, became filled with an indescribable passion of yearning.

 

“No wonder,” he mused—“no wonder that Christ came hither for the sake of Love! To rescue, to redeem, to save, to bless! … O

Divine sympathy for sorrow! If I—a man—can feel such aching pity for the woes of others, how vast, how limitless, how tender, must be the pity of God!”

 

And his eyes softened,—he almost forgot his surroundings. He was entirely unaware of the various deep and wistful emotions he had wakened in the hearts of his hearers. There was a great attractiveness in him that he was not conscious of,—and while all present certainly felt that he, though among them, was not of them, they were at the same time curiously moved by an impression that notwithstanding his being, as it were, set apart from their ways of existence, his sympathetic influence surrounded them as resistlessly as a pure atmosphere in which they drew long refreshing breaths of healthier life.

 

“I should like,”—suddenly said a bearded individual who was seated half-way down the table, and who had listened attentively to everything—“I should like to tell you a few things about Esoteric Buddhism!—I am sure it is a faith that would suit you admirably!”

 

Alwyn smiled, courteously enough. “I shall be happy to hear your views on the subject, sir,” he answered gently—“But I must tell you that before I left England for the East, I had studied that theory, together with many others that were offered as substitutes for Christianity, and I found it totally inadequate to meet the highest demands of the spiritual intelligence. I may also add, that I have read carefully all the principal works against Religion,—from the treatises of the earliest skeptics down to Voltaire and others of our own day. Moreover, I had, not so very long ago, rejected the Christian Faith; that I now accept and adhere to it, is not the result of my merit or attainment,—but simply the outcome of an undeserved blessing and singularly happy fortune.”

 

“Pardon me, Mr. Alwyn”—said Madame de la Santoisie with a sweet smile—“By all the laws of nature I must contradict you there!

Your fame and fortune must needs be the reward of merit,—since true happiness never comes to the undeserving.”

 

Alwyn made no reply,—inasmuch as to repudiate the idea of personal merit too warmly is, as such matters are judged nowadays, suggestive of more conceit than modesty. He skilfully changed the conversation, and it glided off by degrees into various other channels,—music, art, science, and the political situation of the hour. The men and women assembled, as though stimulated and inspired by some new interest, now strove to appear at their very best—and the friction of intellect with intellect resulted in more or less brilliancy of talk, which, for once, was totally free from the flippant and mocking spirit which usually pervaded the Santoisie social circle. On all the subjects that came up for discussion Alwyn proved himself thoroughly at home—and M. le Duc, sitting in a silence that was most unwonted with him, became filled with amazement to think that this man, so full of fine qualities and intellectual abilities, should be actually a CHRISTIAN!—The thing was quite incongruous, or seemed so to the ironical wit of the born and bred Parisian,—he tried to consider it absurd,—even laughable,—but his efforts merely resulted in a sense of uneasy personal shame. This poet was, at any rate, a MAN,—he might have posed for a Coriolanus or Marc Antony;—and there was something supreme about him that could not be SNEERED

DOWN.

 

The dinner, meanwhile, reached its dessert climax, and the Duchess rose, giving the customary departing signal to her lady-guests.

Alwyn hastened to open the door for her, and she passed out, followed by a train of women in rich and rustling costumes, all of whom, as they swept past the kingly figure that with slightly bent head and courteous mien thus paid silent homage to their sex, were conscious of very unusual emotions of respect and reverence. How would it be, some of them thought, if they were more frequently brought into contact with such royal and gracious manhood? Would not love then become indeed a hallowed glory, and marriage a true sacrament! Was it not possible for men to be the gods of this world, rather than the devils they so often are? Such were a few of the questions that flitted dimly through the minds of the society-fagged fair ones that clustered round the Duchess de la Santoisie, and eagerly discussed Alwyn’s personal beauty and extraordinary charm of manner.

 

The gentlemen did not absent themselves long, and with their appearance from the dining-room the reception of the evening began. Crowds of people arrived and crammed up the stairs, filling every corridor and corner, and Alwyn, growing tired of the various introductions and shaking of hands to which he was submitted, managed presently to slip away into a conservatory adjoining the great drawing-room,—a cool, softly lighted place full of flowering azaleas and rare palms. Here he sat for a while among the red and white blossoms, listening to the incessant hum of voices, and wondering what enjoyment human beings could find in thus herding together en masse, and chattering all at once as though life depended on chatter, when the rustling of a woman’s dress disturbed his brief solitude. He rose directly, as he saw his fair hostess approaching him.

 

“Ah, you have fled away from us, Mr. Alwyn!” she said with a slight smile—“I do not wonder at it. These receptions are the bane of one’s social existence.”

 

“Then why do you give them?”—asked Alwyn, half laughingly.

 

“Why? Oh, because it is the fashion, I suppose!” she answered languidly, leaning against a marble column that supported the towering frondage of a tropical fern, and toying with her fan,—

“And I, like others, am a slave to fashion. I have escaped for one moment, but I must go back directly. Mr. Alwyn …” She hesitated,—then came straight up to him, and laid her hand upon his arm—“I want to thank you!”

 

“To thank me?” he repeated in surprised accents.

 

“Yes!”—she said steadily—“To thank you for what you have said tonight. We live in a dreary age, when no one has much faith or hope, and still less charity,—death is set before us as the final end of all,—and life as lived by most, people is not only not worth living, but utterly contemptible! Your clearly expressed opinions have made me think it is possible to do better,”—her lips quivered a little, and her breath came and went quickly,—

“and I shall begin to try and find out how this ‘better’ can be consummated! Pray do not think me foolish—”

 

“I think you foolish!” and with gravest courtesy Alwyn raised her hand, and touched it gently with his lips, then as gently released it. His action was full of grace,—it implied reverence, trust, honor,—and the Duchess looked at him with soft, wet eyes in which a smile still lingered.

 

“If there were more men like you,”—she said suddenly—“what a difference it would make to us women! We should be proud to share the burdens of life with those on whose absolute integrity and strength we could rely,—but, in these days, we do not rely, so much as we despise,—we cannot love, so much as we condemn! You are a Poet,—and for you the world takes ideal colors,—for you perchance the very heavens have opened;—but remember that the millions, who, in the present era, are ground down under the heels of the grimmest necessity, have no such glimpses of God as are vouchsafed to YOU! They are truly in the darkness and shadow of death,—they hear no angel music,—they sit in dungeons, howled at by preachers and teachers who make no actual attempt to lead them into light and liberty,—while we, the so-called ‘upper’ classes, are imprisoned as closely as they, and crushed by intolerable weights of learning, such as many of us are not fitted to bear.

Those who aspire heavenwards are hurled to earth,—those who of their own choice cling to death, become so fastened to it, that even if they wished, they could not rise. Believe me, you will be sorely disheartened in your efforts toward the highest good,—you will find most people callous, careless, ignorant, and forever scoffing at what they do not, and will not, understand,—you had better leave us to our dust and ashes,”—and a little mirthless laugh escaped her lips,—“for to pluck us from thence now will almost need a second visitation of Christ, in whom, if He came, we should probably not believe! Moreover, you must not forget that we have read Darwin,—and we are so charmed with our monkey ancestors, that we are doing our best to imitate them in every possible way,—in the hope that, with time and patience, we may resolve ourselves back into the original species!”

 

With which bitter sarcasm, uttered half mockingly, half in good earnest, she left him and returned to her guests. Not very long afterward, he having sought and found Villiers, and suggested to him that it was time to make a move homeward, approached her in company with his friend, and bade her farewell.

 

“I don’t think we shall see you often in society, Mr. Alwyn”—she said, rather wistfully, as she gave him her hand,—“You are too much of a Titan among pigmies!”

 

He flushed and waved aside the remark with a few playful words; unlike his Former Self, if there was anything in the world he shrank from, it was flattery, or what seemed like flattery. Once outside the house he drew a long breath of relief, and glanced gratefully up at the sky, bright with the glistening multitude of stars. Thank God, there were worlds in that glorious expanse of ether peopled with loftier types of being than what is called Humanity! Villiers looked at him questioningly: “Tired of your own celebrity, Alwyn?” he asked, taking him by the arm,—“Are the pleasures of Fame already exhausted?”

 

Alwyn smiled,—he thought of the fame of Sahluma, Laureate bard of Al-kyris!

 

“Nay, if the dream that I told you of had any meaning at all”—he replied—“then I enjoyed and exhausted those pleasures long ago!

Perhaps that is the reason why my ‘celebrity’ seems such a poor