Margaret Horton Potter

“ Words, tone, appearance, moved the son intensely; for never before had man beheld Michael Gregoriev show such stress of emotion. Never had any hour so clearly revealed the ravages of mad living and secret unhappiness.
True, the fierce eyes could flash as of old; the voice would presently once more ring harsh and servant and equal alike would cringe before him; for still he held half Moscow in the iron grip of his terrible omniscience. But Ivan noted the color of his hair—that dead white that is not the snow of years but the ashen colorlessness borne of continuous nervous strain. ”

“ Nothing unusual was to be seen in the temple room. Half-way down, between the frescoed columns, burned the two torches before the empty altar. Yes, and there, in the shadow of the wall, stood Kabir, the Phœnician, watching quietly the movements of the shepherd. Charmides perceived him, but failed to wonder at his presence. It was natural that any one should wish to be here to-night. Yet how could any living man stand unmoved in the midst of such a glory of sound as whirled about him now? The lyre music rose anew to a great fortissimo, high above the deeply resonant chords of the sky-organ. ”

“ And the loneliness, the oppression of his senses, was like the weight of the whole mountain on his soul. Still, through it all, was a joy: the joy of the knowledge of those things that no man knoweth, the splendor that man cannot parallel.
All that night Oman scarcely slept; and yet the hours were not long. His mind wandered unrestrained through space. His thoughts were of a great and solemn beauty, of which he was scarcely conscious. In the first glimmer of dawn he left his rocky bed, and went out again into the open, this time turning his face to the east. ”

“ Endless as the Russian winter seems, there does, at length, when hope is dormant, come that quickening of nature when the green steppes break through snowy coverlets, when swelling buds burst the last, thin ice-films from the branches, and the melancholy peasant-chants come nearer to the major key than at any other season. Now, also, was the time when young blood rushes like sap through the veins, and artists' dreams turn, irresistibly, to the greatest of their subjects. On such a day it was that Joseph Kashkarin and Irina Petrovna came for the first time face to face. ”

“ All about that room, for miles in the blackness, the great city lay sleeping through the hour before dawn. The lights of the Hôtel de Ville were out. King and valet alike rested. Mme. d'Etioles and Marie Leczinska had forgotten triumph and trouble. Richelieu, devil and monk, lay abed like an honest man. And Deborah de Mailly, under her canopy, dreamed, in the Versailles apartment, of the fresh quiet of her room at Trevor Manor, the golden dawn over the Chesapeake, and the lapping of the river against the banks that were lined with drooping willows and peach-trees. ”

“ Thus, in the unmusical Babylonish syllables, ran her psalm:
"God of all gods, of men and of ages, of time and of tears: Creator of rivers, Divider of seas, accept of the homage I proffer at noon.
"The winds Thou hast hushed for my peace have obeyed Thee. The sun's golden glory of mid-day is Thine.
"Father of lowliness, High-priest of sorrow, mighty and powerful; Lover of children, in mercy merciless, piteous in justice; raise me from flesh, above wrong, to communion with spirits of heaven.
"My body before Thee is bended. My face is uplifted in prayer that is pure. ”

“ Four hours after Nathalie's departure, Ivan found himself at the piano, pouring out his heart in such a burden of passionate melody as had rarely rushed from him, even in his moments of inspiration. And the long hours of the sleepless night served absolutely to loosen the fetters of his self-repression; for in the growing glory of the dawn, he watched also the glorious resurrection of the one great love of his life. Again, after many years, she lived in him: in every thought and hope and dream; not now as a child, potent, through ignorance, to wound him past endurance ”

“ Next was Hushka, the Bhikkhu, clad in worn, yellow robes, with a pale nimbus round his head. There was peace in his shining eyes, and Oman knew that he no longer dreaded the weary eight months’ pilgrimage. He had won his eternal Arahatship. Then followed Churi, madness no longer written in his haggard face. He smiled upon Oman, and called a greeting, in friendly voice. After him came Bhavani, looking as in life, an expression of high dignity mingling with the infinite affection in his face. Behind, moved young Viradha, with many wounds; and Zenaide, newly dead, with lilies in her hands. ”

“ Then, with a fainter cry, she reeled and fell, backward and down, and, while the mighty vision faded from her mortal eyes, Belshazzar caught her lifeless body in his arms. As he did so there came an uproar from every side of the temple: vague, indeterminate, angry murmurs, presently silent before one trumpet-voice, bolder than the rest, that voiced the feeling of the men of Erech. This cry was taken up and repeated, and cried again, till the temple-roof quivered with it, and the stoutest of hearts quailed before its wrath:
"This is a woman! A woman! It is a woman!" ”

“ The old Rajah had been most of all a warrior, loving the sound of battle, first for himself, and afterward for the glory it would bring his people. Bhavani hated war, because it carried with it death; and for death he cherished a horror of which he never spoke. It had been born in the moment when, stealthily following Kasya and Churi in their dread morning’s search, he had looked on the body of Ragunáth, stiff and bloody, under the champaks near the water-palace, where he had himself left the Lady Ahalya the evening before. ”

“ Why, Greek, thou art the wonder of my heart! 'Home'—to thy 'wife'! Who may she be? Thou hast not won the goddess over?"
Charmides flushed, but did not lose his temper. "Come you home and eat of my bread, and behold the light of Ramûa's eyes."
"Oh, ay. Give you thanks. I will in happiness break bread with you. Then, later, come you out with me where I am going—to the temple of the false Istar. Let us behold the witches who wander abroad; the vultures that snatch at the bodies of the fallen in the pale beams of Sin; and the vampires and ghouls that haunt the Great City by night. ”

“ The form upon the couch had neither moved nor given any sign of life; yet body and soul still held together. The mind was only sunk into a stupor of complete unconsciousness. When it was that the change began, none could have determined. After a few moments of a faintly visible fluttering of the breath, a wider parting of the lips, the feeble movement of a finger, Ivan's eyes suddenly flew wide open, his jaw relaxed and dropped. ”

“ The dusk deepened. Through the long, carven hall, eerie shadows fell, and the orange light of the west melted to purple and then to black, till the two were alone in darkness. Hushka now knelt by Oman’s side, and soothed the youth with fragmentary words, till he was quieter in his grief. There followed silence, pregnant and foreboding. Hushka would not break it. Heavy-hearted, dreading unknown things, he bowed his head, waiting. And gradually it was borne in upon Oman that there was no longer any way of concealment. He must give utterance to the truth: his tragedy. ”

“ I am widowed; and the first numbness of the unexpected shock has not left me yet. I can say to you truly, cousin, that I love you: that the comradeship we have known is something which I shall try to continue while we both live: though we are far beyond our twenties now, Ivan. But more than this, more than pure friendship, seems to me impossible. Marriage—even though it be with the love of my girlhood—is still half-terrible to me. ”

“ The moon-daughter rose from her couch, and silently the two greeted each other, looking eye into eye with all the companionship of divinity. While they stood thus, Allaraine touched his lyre, and the chords of the night-song of stillness and peace spread through the room and out into the darkness beyond. To mortal senses it was the essence of the summer day, with its fragrance and its passion, hanging still, by early night, over the land and the drowsy city. But to immortal ears it was as the voice of God. Istar drank it in as a thirsty field receives the rivulets of irrigation. ”

“ The loneliness was absolute. Neither eagle nor cormorant dared the sun at this hour; and it seemed as if living things had never existed here. Not one world-murmur sent its vibration through the tranquil atmosphere. Man and the works of man were forgotten or undreamed-of. Here was such peace as the flesh-clothed spirit cannot know: the peace that terrifies, because it was declared primevally of God.
Up to this height from the depths below came Oman, mounting slowly, all but overcome with the long toil of nearly twenty hours. ”

“ Belshazzar heard their voices with a vague longing for shouts of men, for the shrill neighs of horses, for the rattle of chariot wheels, the clash of arms, the thunderous murmur of battle as he had known it in his youth. If only war, open and honorable, lay between him and Kurush of Elam—well enough. In that he stood his fair chance of winning; and if he lost, it was death at his own hands. The game that he feared and that he hated was the one of underhandedness, of lies, of treachery, of bribery. When a man could be bought for gold there was none to trust, none to feel sure of. ”

“ Nathalie, like all the rest, had passed out of his life. And night by night he laid him down, clasping in his arms the gaunt figure of despair, before whose dread embrace courage and manhood alike fell back, wavered, and seemed to fade from him forever.
The chronicle of a human life can never do justice to nature; for the reason that, for every man and woman, there come long periods of quiet labor or inaction when for months, perhaps years, scarce one untoward incident comes to break the slow routine of existence. ”

“ The meal was quickly over, and, a few minutes afterwards, Charmides could scarcely have told how, he found himself walking, lyre in hand, at Ramûa's side, along the bank of the canal, on the way to the temple of Istar. On her head Ramûa carried her basket of fresh flowers. The Greek watched her closely and with delight as she moved, lithe, straight, and graceful as a young tiger, her bare feet making delicate marks in the dust of the way, her hair, to-day unbound, swinging behind her in long, silken masses. And Charmides' beauty-loving eyes brought joy to his soul as he regarded her. ”

“ He knew places and parts of Mandu that were not known to men born on its soil. Often he walked alone through the still palace, living amid scenes of the long past, seeing in silent rooms faces of those long since consigned to crematory flames. There were days when memory was on him overpoweringly: when Rai-Khizar-Pál and Ragunáth walked abroad through the corridors and assembly halls; when the Ranee Ahalya, attended by Neila, sat at her embroidery in the tiny room, dreaming of him who was to come to her by night ”

“ There come to most lives certain periods of crisis, when the violence of shock drives away every commonplace thought or remembrance; when the mind seems a comparative blank, and time ceases to have any meaning. For an instant, or an hour, a mortal gazes out upon the void of eternity. So was it with Ivan, to-day. He sat for the most part huddled in a chair, lost in depths of the past, the strangeness of the present, the blank of the morrow. ”

“ At length the chant came to an end. Fidá felt a breath of relief; for self-control was becoming difficult. Now, at last, he was seized by the stalwart young Brahmans and lifted, like a log of wood, up and up till he was laid on his back on top of the great heap of unlit firewood. A hoarse shout went up from the people gathered below. Fidá’s heart throbbed to suffocation. His hair was literally rising on his head; but he made no movement, nor did he utter any sound. Even in his horror he remembered the behavior of women enduring the suttee, and the memory shamed him into stillness. ”

“ Presently, while all that terrible din sounded in her ears, with that throng of writhing, struggling, bleeding men twenty yards away, a little smile stretched itself over her lips, and her eyes fell shut. She lay wrapped in a vision of her own: a vision of fair fields and broad, blue water, where, on the shore, stood a man; a man whose hair shone like the sun, and who bore in his hands a five-stringed lyre. And presently, from out of the racket, she could hear the pure tones of Charmides' voice, singing, as he had always sung throughout his life, for love. ”

“ Moscow might hold many sad memories for him; but it was the place which must always be his home, after all. For where the first years of childhood are spent, there, however humble the place, are rooted deep some of the soul's loveliest plants: there rest associations of love and of joy far more powerful, more unforgettable, than any that can be made in after life: and these make a consecration recognized by the most careless, the most unsentimental of us all. Ivan, indeed, rejoiced daily that he had not to begin life again in a strange city. ”

“ Before him rose the low, level walls of this charming accident of Indian architecture. On high, overhead, hung a late moon, wreathed in a feathery mist of night clouds, and throwing a faint light over the plain and the distant river. To the right, in the distance, a long, black, irregular shadow, rose the giant barrier of the Vindhyas, beyond whose mystic recesses, far northward, lay distant Delhi, the city of the slow-conquering race, the people of the captive now standing here alone with the night. Gradually, as Fidá looked, a great awe stole upon him. ”

“ I can see the great and holy temple, and the many hundreds that stand within, waiting the coming of Belit Istar. I see the steps ascending to the holy shrine all carpeted with stiff gold. At last I behold her coming radiantly into the dusky temple-room. Her tresses float lightly behind her; her tresses, like spun silk, hang as a veil about her shoulders. Falsely now she moves between the rows of kneeling men and women. Falsely she glides up the holy steps, and, profaning all holiness, draws aside the curtain of the sanctuary and enters alone into the little room. ”

“ A smile of self-forgetfulness, of an enthusiasm that betrayed the beauty of her royal soul, shone upon the lips and from the eyes of this true Princess, as Ivan, his heart beating to suffocation, fell impetuously upon one knee before her and raised her frail hand to his lips.
It was indeed his début in the Russian world of music; and alas! it gained for him fewer friends than enemies. For, of all types of men and women upon earth, those into whom Euterpe has breathed her spirit, are certainly the most practised in envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness. ”

“ Over the great world beyond, the golden moon was slowly rising. In its light, Oman turned a dumb face to the man he had so worshipped. He saw that Hushka was suffering—suffering as perhaps high Sakyamuni had not suffered. Neither one of them, however, could speak. Hushka, with an air of benediction, pressed his fingers, once, to the cold brow of the outcast. Then,—he was gone. Oman was alone on the brink of the world, irrevocably and forever shut out from the protecting walls behind him. Outcast of men, he stood, facing life. ”

“ Yours, Charmides, is a white soul, a soul as beautiful as the body that holds it. As yet it is unspotted by a single act of wrong-doing. That you keep that soul pure throughout your life is my one prayer for you. I give you up to the wide world—to poverty, to wretchedness, to suffering perhaps—but in this I trust you to keep faith with me. Remember that I hold your honor as my own. Though Apollo may not vouchsafe that I see you again after to-morrow—ever; though the memory of me shall grow dim in your after-life ”

“ Charmides, go thou home to-night with the maiden here. Her name is called Ramûa, and she is of her mother Beltani, that is a widow. At sunset, when her flowers are gone, follow you after her. And again you shall come to me in my temple and play to me the music of your lyre. You have heard the chords of Allaraine of the skies. They shall come again to you to fill your heart with peace, and you shall be the most wonderful of all musicians in the Great City. Let, then, far Sicily, vanish forever from your mind. ”

“ If I leave the palace and wander abroad in the fields, under the bright sun, the women chatter and the slaves stare, and bearers must be at my heels to carry me if I tire. I cannot sleep away my days. Rather I would live like the Vaisya women, who are free to labor, and laugh, and grow hungry and weary with their toil. The monotony, the idleness of my life, kills my soul! It is for this I danced the poppy dance. It is for this I sometimes sit for hours in the old, ruined temple of Surya, watching the monkeys play in the cotton trees. ”

“ Again Istar read and again she wondered, yet in her soul understood the words:
"Hast thou found man's relation to God? The silver sky waits for thy soul."
Istar, in her great woe, stood looking upon the fiery words, that seemed to have burned themselves into her brain; and her whole heart rebelled against them. Those that she loved had been taken from her. With Belshazzar, the light of her life was extinguished. Man was bound to God only by great suffering, by grief, by heart-sorrow! ”

“ The moon, a little past the full, had come up from the east, and swung, like a great, yellow lantern, above the dark outlines of the palace roof. The world shone softly in the mellow light. The night air from the hills was cold; but the earth was sweet. Fidá loitered near a doorway, wrapped in his cloak. The great courtyard was empty save for the two motionless soldiers that guarded its entrance. Apparently not another soul was abroad in the palace to-night. Fidá moved languidly across and looked into the temple room of Vishnu. Darkness and silence here. The gods also slept. ”