A Romance of Two Worlds, Marie Corelli [best way to read an ebook .TXT] 📗

bold than he, pretend a holy displeasure, yet secretly support him—all blind worms denying the existence of the sun; a land where so-called Religion is split into hundreds of cold and narrow sects, gatherings assembled for the practice of hypocrisy, lip-service and lies—where Self, not the Creator, is the prime object of worship; a land, mighty once among the mightiest, but which now, like an over-ripe pear, hangs loosely on its tree, awaiting but a touch to make it fall! A land—let me not name it;—where the wealthy, high-fed ministers of the nation slowly argue away the lives of better men than themselves, with vain words of colder and more cruel force than the whirling spears of untaught savages! What have you, an ardent disciple of music, to do in such a land where favouritism and backstair influence win the day over even the merits of a Schubert? Supposing you were a second Beethoven, what could you do in that land without faith or hope? that land which is like a disappointed, churlish, and aged man with tottering feet and purblind eyes, who has long ago exhausted all enjoyment and sees nothing new under the sun. The world is wide—faith is yet extant—and the teachings of Christ are true. ‘Believe and live; doubt and die!’ That saying is true also.”

I had listened to these words in silence; but now I spoke eagerly and impatiently, remembering what Zara had told me.

“Then,” I said, “if I have been misguided by modern opinions—if I have unconsciously absorbed the doctrines of modern fashionable atheism—lead me right. Teach me what you know. I am willing to learn. Let me find out the reason of my life. SET ME FREE!”

Heliobas regarded me with earnest solemnity.

“Set you free!” he murmured, in a low tone. “Do you know what you ask?”

“No,” I answered, with reckless fervour. “I do not know what I ask; but I feel that you have the power to show me the unseen things of another world. Did you not yourself tell me in our first interview that you had let Raffaello Cellini ‘go on a voyage of discovery, and that he came back perfectly satisfied?’ Besides, he told me his history. From you he has gained all that gives him peace and comfort. You possess electric secrets undreamt of by the world. Prove your powers upon me; I am not afraid.”

Heliobas smiled. “Not afraid! And you ran out of the chapel just now as if you were pursued by a fiend! You must know that the only WOMAN I ever tried my greatest experiment upon is my sister Zara. She was trained and prepared for it in the most careful manner; and it succeeded. Now”—and Heliobas looked half-sad, half-triumphant—“she has passed beyond my power; she is dominated by one greater than I. But she cannot use her force for others; she can only employ it to defend herself. Therefore, I am willing to try you if you indeed desire it—to see if the same thing will occur to you as to Zara; and I firmly believe it will.”

A slight tremor came over me; but I said with an attempt at indifference:

“You mean that I shall be dominated also by some great force or influence?”

“I think so,” replied Heliobas musingly. “Your nature is more prone to love than to command. Try and follow me in the explanation I am going to give you. Do you know some lines by Shelley that run—

“‘Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one another’s being mingle— Why not I with thine?’”

“Yes,” I said. “I know the lines well. I used to think them very sentimental and pretty.”

“They contain,” said Heliobas, “the germ of a great truth, as many of the most fanciful verses of the poets do. As the ‘image of a voice’ mentioned in the Book of Job hinted at the telephone, and as Shakespeare’s ‘girdle round the earth’ foretold the electric telegraph, so the utterances of the inspired starvelings of the world, known as poets, suggest many more wonders of the universe than may be at first apparent. Poets must always be prophets, or their calling is in vain. Put this standard of judgment to the verse-writers of the day, and where would they be? The English Laureate is no seer: he is a mere relater of pretty stories. Algernon Charles Swinburne has more fire in him, and more wealth of expression, but he does not prophesy; he has a clever way of combining Biblical similes with Provengal passion—et voila tout! The prophets are always poor—the sackcloth and ashes of the world are their portion; and their bodies moulder a hundred years or more in the grave before the world finds out what they meant by their ravings. But apropos of these lines of Shelley. He speaks of the duality of existence. ‘Nothing in the world is single.’ He might have gone further, and said nothing in the universe is single. Cold and heat, storm and sunshine, good and evil, joy and sorrow—all go in pairs. This double life extends to all the spheres and above the spheres. Do you understand?”

“I understand what you say,” I said slowly; “but I cannot see your meaning as applied to myself or yourself.”

“I will teach you in a few words,” went on Heliobas. “You believe in the soul?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Now realize that there is no soul on this earth that is complete, ALONE. Like everything else, it is dual. It is like half a flame that seeks the other half, and is dissatisfied and restless till it attains its object. Lovers, misled by the blinding light of Love, think they have reached completeness when they are united to the person beloved. Now, in very, very rare cases, perhaps one among a thousand, this desirable result is effected; but the majority of people are content with the union of bodies only, and care little or nothing about the sympathy or attachment between souls. There are people, however, who do care, and who never find their Twin-Flame or companion Spirit at all on earth, and never will find it. And why? Because it is not imprisoned in clay; it is elsewhere.”

“Well?” I asked eagerly.

“Well, you seem to ask me by your eyes what this all means. I will apply it at once to myself. By my researches into human electrical science, I discovered that MY companion, MY other half of existence, though not on earth, was near me, and could be commanded by me; and, on being commanded, obeyed. With Zara it was different. She could not COMMAND—she OBEYED; she was the weaker of the two. With you, I think it will be the same thing. Men sacrifice everything to ambition; women to love. It is natural. I see there is much of what I have said that appears to have mystified you; it is no good puzzling your brain any more about it. No doubt you think I am talking very wildly about Twin-Flames and Spiritual Affinities that live for us in another sphere. You do not believe, perhaps, in the existence of beings in the very air that surrounds us, invisible to ordinary human eyes, yet actually akin to us, with a closer relationship than any tie of blood known on earth?”

I hesitated. Heliobas saw my hesitation, and his eyes darkened with a sombre wrath.

“Are you one of those also who must see in order to believe?” he said, half angrily. “Where do you suppose your music comes from? Where do you suppose any music comes from that is not mere imitation? The greatest composers of the world have been mere receptacles of sound; and the emptier they were of self-love and vanity, the greater quantity of heaven-born melody they held. The German Wagner—did he not himself say that he walked up and down in the avenues, ‘trying to catch the harmonies as they floated in the air’? Come with me—come back to the place you left, and I will see if you, like Wagner, are able to catch a melody flying.”

He grasped my unresisting arm, and led me, half-frightened, half-curious, into the little chapel, where he bade me seat myself at the organ.

“Do not play a single note,” he said, “till you are compelled.”

And standing beside me, Heliobas laid his hands on my head, then pressed them on my ears, and finally touched my hands, that rested passively on the keyboard.

He then raised his eyes, and uttered the name I had often thought of but never mentioned—the name he had called upon in my dream.

“Azul!” he said, in a low, penetrating voice, “open the gateways of the Air that we may hear the sound of Song!”

A soft rushing noise of wind answered his adjuration. This was followed by a burst of music, transcendently lovely, but unlike any music I had ever heard. There were sounds of delicate and entrancing tenderness such as no instrument made by human hands could produce; there was singing of clear and tender tone, and of infinite purity such as no human voices could be capable of. I listened, perplexed, alarmed, yet entranced. Suddenly I distinguished a melody running through the wonderful air-symphonies—a melody like a flower, fresh and perfect. Instinctively I touched the organ and began to play it; I found I could produce it note for note. I forgot all fear in my delight, and I played on and on in a sort of deepening rapture. Gradually I became aware that the strange sounds about me were dying slowly away; fainter and fainter they grew—softer—farther—and finally ceased. But the melody—that one distinct passage of notes I had followed out—remained with me, and I played it again and again with feverish eagerness lest it should escape me. I had forgotten the presence of Heliobas. But a touch on my shoulder roused me. I looked up and met his eyes fixed upon, me with a steady and earnest regard. A shiver ran through, me, and I felt bewildered.

“Have I lost it?” I asked.

“Lost what?” he demanded.

“The tune I heard—the harmonies.”

“No,” he replied; “at least I think not. But if you have, no matter. You will hear others. Why do you look so distressed?”

“It is lovely,” I said wistfully, “all that music; but it is not MINE;” and tears of regret filled my eyes. “Oh, if it were only mine—my very own composition!”

Heliobas smiled kindly.

“It is as much yours as any thing belongs to anyone. Yours? why, what can you really call your own? Every talent you have, every breath you draw, every drop of blood flowing in your veins, is lent to you only; you must pay it all back. And as far as the arts go, it is a bad sign of poet, painter, or musician, who is arrogant enough to call his work his own. It never was his, and never will be. It is planned by a higher intelligence than his, only he happens to be the hired labourer chosen to carry out the conception; a sort of mechanic in whom boastfulness looks absurd; as absurd as if one of the stonemasons working at the cornice of a cathedral were to vaunt himself as the designer of the whole edifice. And when a work, any work, is completed, it passes out of the labourer’s hands; it belongs to the age and the people for whom it was accomplished, and, if deserving, goes on belonging to future ages and future peoples. So far, and only so far, music is your own. But are you convinced? or do you think you have been dreaming all that you heard just now?”

I rose from the organ, closed it gently, and, moved by a sudden impulse, held out both my hands to Heliobas. He took them and