And standing beside me, Heliobas laid his hands on my head, then pressed them on my ears, and finally touched my hands, that rested pa.s.sively 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.ses 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 held them in a friendly clasp, watching me intently as I spoke.
"I believe in YOU," I said firmly; "and I know thoroughly well that I was not dreaming; I certainly heard strange music, and entrancing voices. But in acknowledging your powers over something unseen, I must explain to you the incredulity I at first felt, which I believe annoyed you. I was made sceptical on one occasion, by attending a so-called spiritual seance, where they tried to convince me of the truth of table-turning--"
Heliobas laughed softly, still holding my hands.
"Your reason will at once tell you that disembodied spirits never become so undignified as to upset furniture or rap on tables. Neither do they write letters in pen and ink and put them under doors.
Spiritual beings are purely spiritual; they cannot touch anything human, much less deal in such vulgar display as the throwing about of chairs, and the opening of locked sideboards. You were very rightly sceptical in these matters. But in what I have endeavoured to prove to you, you have no doubts, have you?"
"None in the world," I said. "I only ask you to go on teaching me the wonders that seem so familiar to you. Let me know all I may; and soon!"
I spoke with trembling eagerness.
"You have been only eight days in the house, my child," said Heliobas, loosening my hands, and signing me to come out of the chapel with him; "and I do not consider you sufficiently strong as yet for the experiment you wish me to try upon you. Even now you are agitated. Wait one week more, and then you shall be--"
"What?" I asked impatiently.
"Lifted up," he replied. "Lifted up above this little speck called earth. But now, no more of this. Go to Zara; keep your mind well employed; study, read, and pray--pray much and often in few and simple words, and with as utterly unselfish a heart as you can prepare. Think that you are going to some high festival, and attire your soul in readiness. I do not say to you "Have faith;" I would not compel your belief in anything against your own will. You wish to be convinced of a future existence; you seek proofs; you shall have them. In the meantime avoid all conversation with me on the subject. You can confide your desires to Zara if you like; her experience may be of use to you. You had best join her now. Au revoir!" and with a kind parting gesture, he left me.
I watched his stately figure disappear in the shadow of the pa.s.sage leading to his own study, and then I hastened to Zara"s room. The musical episode in the chapel had certainly startled me, and the words of Heliobas were full of mysterious meaning; but, strange to say, I was in no way rendered anxious or alarmed by the prospect I had before me of being "lifted up," as my physician had expressed it. I thought of Raffaello Cellini and his history, and I determined within myself that no cowardly hesitation or fear should prevent me from making the attempt to see what he professed to have seen. I found Zara reading.
She looked up as I entered, and greeted me with her usual bright smile.
"You have had a long practice," she began; "I thought you were never coming."
I sat down beside her, and related at once all that had happened to me that afternoon. Zara listened with deep and almost breathless interest.
"You are quite resolved," she said, when I had concluded, "to let Casimir exert his force upon you?"
"I am quite resolved," I answered.
"And you have no fear?"
"None that I am just now conscious of."
Zara"s eyes became darker and deeper in the gravity of her intense meditation. At last she said:
"I can help you to keep your courage firmly to the point, by letting you know at once what Casimir will do to you. Beyond that I cannot go.
You understand the nature of an electric shock?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Well, there are different kinds of electric shocks--some that are remedial, some that are fatal. There are cures performed by a careful use of the electric battery--again, people are struck dead by lightning, which is the fatal result of electric force. But all this is EXTERNAL electricity; now what Casimir will use on you will be INTERNAL electricity."
I begged her to explain more clearly. She went on:
"You have internally a certain amount of electricity, which has been increased recently by the remedies prescribed for you by Casimir. But, however much you have, Casimir has more, and he will exert his force over your force, the greater over the lesser. You will experience an INTERNAL electric shock, which, like a sword, will separate in twain body and spirit. The spiritual part of you will be lifted up above material forces; the bodily part will remain inert and useless, till the life, which is actually YOU, returns to put its machinery in motion once more."
"But shall I return at all?" I asked half doubtfully.
"You must return, because G.o.d has fixed the limits of your life on earth, and no human power can alter His decree. Casimir"s will can set you free for a time, but only for a time. You are bound to return, be it never so reluctantly. Eternal liberty is given by Death alone, and Death cannot be forced to come."
"How about suicide?" I asked.
"The suicide," replied Zara, "has no soul. He kills his body, and by the very act proves that whatever germ of an immortal existence he may have had once, has escaped from its unworthy habitation, and gone, like a flying spark, to find a chance of growth elsewhere. Surely your own reason proves this to you? The very animals have more soul than a man who commits suicide. The beasts of prey slay each other for hunger or in self-defence, but they do not slay themselves. That is a brutality left to man alone, with its companion degradation, drunkenness."
I mused awhile in silence.
"In all the wickedness and cruelty of mankind," I said, "it is almost a wonder that there is any spiritual existence left on earth at all. Why should G.o.d trouble Himself to care for such few souls as thoroughly believe in and love Him?--they can be but a mere handful."
"Such a mere handful are worth more than the world to him," said Zara gravely. "Oh, my dear, do not say such things as why should G.o.d trouble Himself? Why do you trouble yourself for the safety and happiness of anyone you love?"
Her eyes grew soft and tender, and the jewel she wore glimmered like moonlight on the sea. I felt a little abashed, and, to change the subject, I said:
"Tell me, Zara, what is that stone you always wear? Is it a talisman?"
"It belonged to a king," said Zara,--"at least, it was found in a king"s coffin. It has been in our family for generations. Casimir says it is an electric stone--there are such still to be found in remote parts of the sea. Do you like it?"
"It is very brilliant and lovely," I said.
"When I die," went on Zara slowly, "I will leave it to you."
"I hope I shall have to wait a long time before I get it, then," I exclaimed, embracing her affectionately. "Indeed, I will pray never to receive it."
"You will pray wrongly," said Zara, smiling. "But tell me, do you quite understand from my explanation what Casimir will do to you?"