Florence Carpenter Dieudonné

“ A wonderful peace was on his face; a strange delight was in his eyes.
“Earth has not all she needs. We can learn faster here!” he replied to our wondering comments.
“He thinks he has seen another vision, I believe!” whispered Isabella.
“No; he thinks nothing! Father Renaudin is of the mould of that humanity which does see visions if ever they are seen!” said Regan.
Just then we saw the great world rise up—a fiery globe, where dimly emerald and palely blue were lands and seas. The continents turned before our eyes. The light of this giant moon made it still day for us, though our sun had set. ”

“ Turning to Father Renaudin, Regan held toward him a shining band of silver, set with gems.
“Here, Father Renaudin, put this on my brow! You are the highest religious dignitary of the world in which I am!”
“Not so!” cried I. “No man’s subject am I! The people rule! Father Renaudin, you will not found a monarchy where no such absurd abomination has ever existed!”
“Have not the worlds themselves one sun supreme for ruler? Find in the universe one whirling, stupendous monarchy! Where is the denunciation in Holy Writ against a good king? God himself upholds thrones!” ”

“ Labor is the delight of Heaven!”
“When shall I chain my star? When may I drive it like the isle? When may I say to adverse fate, ‘Stand still?’” asked Regan.
“When you have eradicated sin from the hearts of all this humanity, now removed from the curse of Earth, when you shall have grown more aged and more wise than am I, for I cannot do that,” answered their guide; “no, I cannot do that!”
“What is the limit of our power?” asked Father Renaudin.
“There is no bound to what knowledge humanity may attain, save the clog of sin! Time, strength and study will overcome all other barriers!” ”

“ The earth shuddered, the cliffs burst and cracked; the island itself leaped from the sea, and about our heads tumbled stone and pillars of rock, dust of lava, deluges of vines. An awful call of rage, a voice from the rocks, the menacing roar from the living soil sounded like the trump of doom about us. Everywhere, from all the walls of stone at once, not like thunder and not like sea—more like the bellow of the most mighty convulsion of earthquake which humanity ever knew. ”

“ Can you not believe that a world may be a plant, and a plant may have animal life? They almost, if not quite, approach to it even in your Earth. The star belongs to your sun, but our world was the property of another sun and had a different order to follow. The great ball could think and move, and when we too deeply wrought its brilliant breast, it groaned with an awful voice. We were not astonished at that, as were you, in horror, when the island cried aloud. Look here!”
They saw the ocean, drop by drop, falling through the silver rocks into the emerald sea. ”

“ Souls perish while you wait!” said Rondah.
“I have found her!”
“Where is she?” again questioned Rondah.
“People do not know their brightest destinies. Is not this a bewildering opportunity for one to offer to man’s ambition—a constellation, its ruling, its splendor and its salvation? Is not the bait tempting—the bait of worlds and souls?”
“I suppose so—to some,” answered Rondah. “I presume that to Regan such an opportunity would be impossible of rejection. If only Regan had such a sun as that!” ”

“ I thought it was you!”
“A man or a bird man?”
“A man!” replied Rondah.
This was his danger; Regan knew now. There was everything to fear from another man—insurrection of the elf men, helplessness of sleep, horror of war, confusion of conflicting power. An enemy! Powerful, else he would never be able to endure the star! Wily, else he had never been able to reach the star! He could see those hideous troops of traitorous elf men, roused to any pitch of enthusiasm by a few human words, ranging in red lines over the cold snow like streaks of human blood! ”

“ I had not, as yet, become accustomed to the chances of the planet.
“Roy,” said Isabella, “some man built this circle! Don’t you know that neither beasts nor birds could build a hearth and light a fire?”
That was it! In the childish toy before me was the promise of a world! There was commerce, manufactures, wealth, hope, life—the old life! What did I care that Regan was monarch! The wealth would be the real power! That would be mine again, all mine! I should rule the sea, I, Roy Lee! ”

“ On this was a silver canopy where they reposed to watch the scene.
They paused before a length of smooth rising shore, and there were assembled the shimmering multitudes, hailing in earthly voices the advent of the earth-king, Regan. Each one was in robes of jeweled cloth, for it was a gala day. Twelve were to be chosen to go outside the gates, and each one desired to be one of the twelve. They had been happy there for ages, in their constantly expanding kingdom, but they were human and they wanted change. ”

“ Isabella answered:
134“Would we return? Oh! gladly, yes! A world in possession does not make a woman happy! How tired I am of these rainbow seas! I wish I could look at still blue water! How tired I am of these flying people! I wish I could see Rondah’s old grandmother hobble by with her crutch! I am disgusted with the possession of gold and silver and glass—of wealth and station where these things are worth nothing! I am smothered in these low clouds, in the hot breath of this uncooled planet! Regan, you do not jest? We can go back?” ”

“ I left all my noblest dreams unrealized; my highest hopes proved fruitless!”
229“Impossible!” sighed Father Renaudin.
“Shall we accomplish our mission? Shall we bring a finished life’s work to a world’s end?” asked Rondah.
“Never! never! Eternity is too short to finish the endless labor of a universe! I doubt if God Himself has ever ended his work! From time beginningless to time eternal the march of labor goes on, from little sphere to larger, from lesser soul to greater, from duller intellect to one more brilliant! It is the changeless law for men and for angels alike! ”

“ People of Earth, wherever they live, must know sorrow.
All glorious and serene the star sailed now, aglow with endless radiance and sunny warmth. Its path was toward the sun.
Regan dreaded the winter and its dangers. Ahead was storm, cold, earthquake, Jupiter.
The elf men, the new race, had begun to be insubordinate; they were as fond of demolishing as were the bird men of building. They often, from mere caprice, tore down magnificent structures when they were left unprotected.
“But nothing is too much trouble to endure now that you are here, Rondah!” Regan said. ”

“ The elf men wept and wailed.
“No, not dead,” said Father Renaudin, “only overcome by the helpless horror of looking. He thought you would go. I thought you would go—the Star and all the angels thought you would go. It is an old, old tempter in a new sphere. You have saved a world from falling, Rondah. Your mission is here only. Jupiter is a fiery ball, unfit for life except of demons.” ”

“ Regan cast himself beside the molten flood, waiting his doom.
“Rondah! Rondah! I shall never see you!” he moaned. “Did you die in the snow? Where are you? From what place do you see me? Oh! my love, my love!”
The air grew sulphurous with smoke. The rocks fell between him and the sea, and others fell between him and the lava.
He was too lethargic to look. The habit of the globe had seized upon him! He fell asleep for 103years! For people are a part of that globe which they inhabit. They do not realize it, but they breathe, move, think, exist, according to its spirit, as a portion of it! ”

“ It was splendid about her, but it was lonely splendor.
“If he does not come,” said Rondah, talking to the fire, “I shall die after this! I shall die the sad death of a child! No one will remember 139that I have lived a woman’s life, suffered a woman’s heart-break, earned a woman’s honor! No hairs are gray upon my head to crown it; when I lay it down in a coffin the people will very soon forget me! Sometimes I seem a mysterious monster to myself! Why do I not grow old like other people, if it is not for the star?” ”

“ Swift, very swift, the car sank.
“There is the house Regan built. There is a flying bird man. They are not asleep. You have told me falsely! Regan is not here!” cried Rondah.
But it was too late. The car sank into the white brilliance. The dark surface of the star was lost to view. Rondah was upon the Sun Island, even in her suspense and apprehension to be astounded at its glory! ”

“ It was a tossing sheet of emerald and fire; glittering gems sweeping in liquid flames rolled in long smooth swells to fall in music at their feet.
212The shore around was like frost of winter. Many blazing meteors whitened all with brilliance. A palace built by hands stood beside the waters. It had doors made of the silver trees which grew outside on the island. When Regan saw this he began to recover his presence of mind, for never before on the star had he been so utterly confounded. ”

“ Wisdom of deathless years was in their eyes.
“From what a race are we degenerate!” said Father Renaudin.
“To what a height may we not rise!” answered Regan.
Rondah had not been so long from Earth as to feel so keenly the wonder as she mingled with a crowd of mankind.
Before them rose a white-walled city; into its streets they walked. The old song was in the air, the song of the Sun Island.
Beyond were fields of sapphire blue, each leaf with the slightest touch of gold upon it.
221“These are our fields; these are our seas; here is our city; humanity is our people,” said their guide. “See here!” ”

“ He is a dead man on the Earth!”
They flew much swifter than Earth or star. They swung into the clouds of a storm on Earth and, in a moment, were upon the height where 136they had been thirty-three years and four months before.
“Look!” cried Isabella.
The two looked at the angel. In the storm, dark on the Hermit’s Hill, there stood no angel! A bent, feeble, blind old man was there!
Gregg Dempster!
“Two days to find Rondah!” he said to Regan. “Isabella, Roy, farewell! Be happy on Earth! Know the star was never for you! The star is for Rondah!” ”

“ Father Renaudin came to draw Isabella from Roy’s side.
“I will not leave him!” said she, clinging fast to the arm of a murderer.
For woman’s love does not change for spheres or stars, neither for murders!
“Can it be possible that it was for jealousy that you struck?” exclaimed Regan.
115“Yes!”
“How could you be so mistaken? Isabella is my sister! I supposed you were aware of the fact! There is another woman whom I love! Her name is Rondah!”
“Oh! why not have told me this? The misery of years has been so terrible! ”

“ The cliffs were of garnet and of yellow amber. They rose out of sight in the serene, changeless radiance. The canopy of clouds above the island was one sheen of rainbow hue.
The rock surface of the Sun Island was of the dazzling color and radiance of most brilliant polished sea shell. Spots of pink, blue, green and shades of emerald, gold, bronze, carmine and rose, chocolate-brown, dull yellow and purple—all these hues were so mingled as to produce an exquisite harmony. ”

“ The star—a satellite of Jupiter—in one soft, steady reign of a new sun, began to change.
From the elf men’s forest of pods a new and superior race, though still of a small-winged, dwarfish kind, bloomed out. From the transplanted pods in the new fields there blossomed wingless creatures, whose advent Regan hailed with delight, but the cause of this phenomenon—the absence of wings—was unsuspected until he informed the wonder-stricken bird men that he had amputated all wings at the time of removal and transplanting. ”

“ No man has ever moved an iota back since chaotic universes were spoken into moveless black of horrified space. Nor demon, nor angel, nor God on high has stopped the course, from its accomplished lower task on the path to do its unfinished higher task, of atom or of sun since first the blistering balls of howling, hissing fire were whirled away upon their non-clashing cycles. ”

“ It seemed to me that the life of his soul was demon-bred, but chained to certain customs of humanity, because weighted with the accident of a human body.
Regan’s name was the town’s disgrace; though so young he had no friends, accepted no truths, 26discarded all faiths. He talked of a Destiny, which, he claimed, blundered in ruling the universe—a creature blind and non-reasoning, of immensity itself a part; a monstrous something driven like the sun, but by some causeless motor, forever. ”