Marie Corelli

“ Ah, Manella, Manella! That stupid old Gwent has been at you, stuffing your mind with a lot of nonsense—don't you believe him! I've no 'secret' that will kill me—I don't want to be killed; No, Manella! Though you come 'again and yet again and ever so often' as you say, you will not find me dead! I'm too strong!"
But Manella, yielding to her inward excitement, pointed a hand at him with a warning air of a tragedy queen.
"Do not boast!" she said—"God is always listening! No man is too strong for God! ”

“ She saw it and looked up, listening.
"Morgana!"
The Voice quivered along the Ray like the touched string of an aeolian harp. She answered it in almost a whisper—
"I hear!"
"You grieve for sorrows not your own," said the Voice—"And we love you for it. But you must not waste your tears on the errors of others. Each individual Spirit makes its own destiny, and no other but Itself can help Itself. You are one of the Chosen and Beloved!—You must fulfil the happiness you have created for your own soul! Come to us soon!" A thrill of exquisite joy ran through her. ”

“ There is no 'Brazen City'! When she heard the old tradition she was like a child with a fairy tale—a child who, reading of strawberries growing in the winter snow, goes out forthwith to find them—she did not really believe in it—but it pleased her to imagine she did. The mere sight of the arid empty desert has been enough for her."
"We certainly heard bells"—said Gaspard.
"In our brains! Such sounds often affect the nerves when flying for a long while at high speed. For all our cleverness we are only human. I have heard on the 'wireless,' sounds that do not seem of this world at all." ”

“ Two or three hours later the "White Eagle" was high in air above the Palazzo d'Oro. Down below Lady Kingswood stood on the seashore by the aerodrome, watching the wonderful ship of the sky with dazzled, scared eyes—amazed at the lightning speed of its ascent and the steadiness of its level flight. She had seen it spread its great wings as by self-volition and soar out of the aerodrome with Morgana seated inside like an elfin queen in a fairy car—she had seen the Marchese Giulio Rivardi "take the helm" with the assistant Gaspard, now no longer a prey to fear, beside him. ”

“ Fascinated by her wonderful elfin look as she stood like a white iris in its silken sheath, her small body's outline showing dimly through the folds of her garment, Manella drew nearer, somewhat timidly.
"Ah, but I do not mean that I prefer hanging to real, true marriage!" she said—"When one loves, it is different! In love I would rather hang than not give myself to the man I love—give myself in all I am, and all I have! And YOU—you who look so pretty and wonderful—almost like a fairy!—do YOU not feel like that too?"
Morgana laughed—a little laugh sweet and cold as rain tinkling on glass. ”

“ Among the comrades of my youth many started the race of life with me—happiness was the winning post they had in view—and they tried many ways to reach it—some through ambition, some through wealth, some through love—but I have never chanced to meet one of them who was either happy or satisfied. MY mind was set on nothing for myself—except this—to grope through the darkness for the Great Mind behind the Universe—to drop my own 'ego' into it, as a drop of rain into the sea—and so—to be content! ”

“ The steering was easy—she obeyed the helm,—it was as though she were a light yacht in a sea,—wind and tide in her favour. But her speed outran every air-ship I have ever known—as also the height to which she ascends."
"We will take a trip in her to-morrow pour passer le temps"—said Morgana, "You shall choose a place for us to go. Nothing can stop us—nothing on earth or in the air!—and nothing can destroy us. I can guarantee that!"
Giulio Rivardi gazed at her wonderingly,—his dark deep Southern eyes expressed admiration with a questioning doubt commingled. ”

“ Morgana slid off the edge of her bed and stood upright, her white silk nightgown falling symmetrically round her small figure. With a dexterous movement she loosened the knot into which she had twisted her hair for the night, and it fell in a sinuous coil like a golden snake from head to knee. Manella stepped back in amazement.
"Oh!" she cried—"How beautiful! I have quite as much in quantity, but it is black and heavy—ugly!—no good. And he,—that man who lives in the hut on the hill—says there is nothing he hates so much as a woman with golden hair! How can he hate such a lovely thing!" ”

“ And there swept over her mind the memory of Manella—her rich, warm, dark beauty—her frank abandonment to passions purely primitive,—and she smiled, a cold little weird smile.
"He may marry her,"—she said—"And yet—I think not! But—if he does marry her he will never love her—as he loves ME! How we play at cross-purposes in our lives!—he is not a marrying man—I am not a marrying woman—we are both out for conquest on other lines,—and if either of us wins our way, what then? Shall we be content to live on a triumph of power,—without love?" ”

“ Wise Manella!"
The light mockery of his tone roused her pride,—that pride which had been suppressed in her by the force of a passionate emotion she could not restrain. She lifted her head and regarded him with an air of sorrow and scorn.
"After all, I think you must be a wicked man!" she said—"You have no heart! You are not worthy to be loved!"
"Quite true, Manella! You've hit the bull's eye in the very middle three times! I am a wicked man,—I have no heart,—I'm not worthy to be loved. ”

“ Lady Kingswood smiled.
"'Adore' is a very strong word to use, my dear!" she said—"I doubt if any married people 'adore' each other! If they can be good friends and rub along pleasantly through all the sorrows and joys of life together, they should be satisfied."
"And you call that LOVE!" said Morgana, with a passionate thrill in her voice—"Love! 'Love that is blood within the veins of time!' Just 'rubbing along pleasantly together!' Dear 'Duchess,' that wouldn't suit ME!" ”

“ Morgana held up a finger.
"Listen!" she said—"Isn't that a lovely valse? Doesn't the music seem to sweep round and tie us all up in a garland of melody! How far, far above all these twirling human microbes it is!—as far as heaven from earth! If we could really obey the call of that music we should rise on wings and fly to such wonderful worlds!—as it is, we can only hop round and round like motes in a sunbeam and imagine we are enjoying ourselves for an hour or two! But the music means so much more!" ”

“ Morgana put an arm about her.
"Manella, Manella!" she said—"You do not know what you say—you cannot understand the responsibility—it would make you a prisoner for life—"
"Oh, I understand!" and Manella shook back her dark hair with the little proud, decisive gesture characteristic of her temperament—"Yes!—and I wish to be so imprisoned! If we had not been rescued by you, we should have died together!—now you will help us to live together! Will you not? You are a little white angel—a fairy!—yes!—to me you are!—your heart is full of unspent love! ”

“ The girl Manella has no evil thought in her—she simply loves!—her love is ill placed, but she also has brought her own destiny on herself. You have worked—and so have I—WITH the universal force, not as the world does, AGAINST it,—and we have made OURSELVES what we are and what we SHALL BE. There is no other way either forward or backward,—you know there is not!" Here she rose from her knees and confronted him, a light aerial creature of glowing radiance and elfin loveliness—"And you must fulfil her wish—and mine!" ”

“ No, Manella!—think as you like, she is not beautiful. You ARE beautiful. But SHE is clever, You are NOT clever. You may thank God for that! SHE is outrageously, unnaturally, cursedly clever! And her cleverness makes her see the sham of life all through; the absurdity of birth that ends in death—the freakishness of civilisation to no purpose—and she's out for something else. She wants some thing newer than sex-attraction and family life. A husband would bore her to extinction—the care of children would send her into a lunatic asylum!"
Manella looked bewildered. ”

“ Morgana looked at her tenderly, touched to the quick by her eagerness and her beauty, now intensified by the glow of excitement which gave a roseate warmth to her cheeks and deeper darkness to her eyes. All ignorant and unsuspecting as she was of the world's malignity and cruel misjudgments, how could it be explained to her that a woman of such youth and loveliness, electing to dwell alone with a man, even if the man were a hopeless paralytic, would make herself the subject of malicious comment and pitiless scandal! ”

“ He threw out his hands with a gesture that was almost tragic, and such an expression came into his face of savagery and tenderness commingled that Manella retreated from him in vague terror.
"I want her!" he repeated—"And why? Not to 'love' her,—but to break her wings,—for she, unlike a silkworm moth, knows how to use them! I want her, to make her proud mind bend to MY will and way!—I want her to show her how a man can, shall, and MUST be master of a woman's brain and soul!" ”

“ I long to see the world endowed more richly with health and happiness. See how gloriously the sun has risen! In what splendour of light and air we are sailing! If we can do as much as this we ought to be able to do more!"
"We shall do more in time"—he said—"The advance of one step leads to another."
"In time!" echoed Morgana—"What time the human race has already taken to find out the simplest forces of nature! ”

“ She lifted her fair arms upward with a kind of expansive rapture,—the moonbeams seemed to filter through the delicate tissue of her garments adding brightness to their folds and sparkling frostily on the diamonds in her hair,—and even Lady Kingswood's very placid nature was conscious of an unusual thrill, half of surprise and half of fear, at the quite "other world" appearance she thus presented.
"You have rather the look of a butterfly!" she said, kindly—"One of those beautiful tropical things—or a fairy!—only we don't know what fairies are like as we have never seen any!" ”

“ It travelled with a steady swiftness in absolute silence,—its great wings moved up and down with a noiseless power and rhythm for which there seemed no possible explanation,—and Morgana turned her face, now delicately flushed with triumph, on the pale and almost breathless Gaspard, smiling as she looked at him, her eyes questioning his. He seemed stricken dumb with astonishment,—his lips moved, but no word issued from them.
"You believe me now, do you not?" she said—"We have nothing further to do but to steer. The force we use re-creates itself as it works—it cannot become exhausted. ”

“ There is one man!" said Aloysius, with a smile.
"Yes, good father!" And Morgana left the passion-flowers and moved slowly back to her seat on the stone-bench—"There is one man! He was my third and last experience of happiness. When I first met him, my whole heart gave itself in one big pulsation—but like a wave of the sea, the pulsation recoiled, and never again beat on the grim rock of human egoism!" She laughed gaily, and a delicate colour flushed her face. ”

“ Rivardi gave an expressive gesture.
"Horrible! Better he should die!"
"Yes, far better! But the girl loves him. She is an ardent Spanish creature—warm-hearted and simple as a child,—she believes"—and Morgana's eyes had a pathetic wistfulness—"she believes,—as all women believe when they love for the first time,—that love has a divine power next to that of God!—that it will work miracles of recovery when all seems lost. The disillusion comes, of course, sooner or later,—but it has to come of itself—not through any other influence. She—Manella Soriso—has resolved to be his wife." ”

“ She looked wistfully out to sea,—the blue Sicilian sea so exquisite in tone and play of pure reflections,—and thought how happy a life lived after the old sweet ways might be for a brilliant little creature like Morgana, if she could win "a good man's love" as Shakespeare puts it. And yet—was not this rather harking back to mere sentiment, often proved delusive? Her own "good man's love" had been very precious to her,—but it had not fulfilled all her heart's longing, though she considered herself an entirely commonplace woman. And what sort of a man would it be that could hold Morgana? ”

“ But it was wonderful to watch Manella's face as she listened. Sorrow, pity, tenderness, love, all in turn flashed their heavenly radiance in her eyes and intensified her beauty, and when she had heard all, she smiled as some lovely angel might smile on a repentant soul. Her whole frame seemed to vibrate with a passion of unselfish emotion.
"He will be my care!" she said—"The good God has heard my prayers and given him to me to be all mine!" She clasped her hands in a kind of ecstasy, "My life is for him and him alone! ”

“ As she spoke she was conscious of a curious vibration round her, as though some other thing than the ceaseless, silent throbbing of the air-ship's mechanism had disturbed the atmosphere.
"Wait!" said the Voice—"You say this without thought. You do not realise the meaning of your words. For—if you come, you must stay!"
A thrill ran through her blood.
"I must stay!" she echoed—"Why?"
"Because you have learned the Life-Secret,"—answered the Voice—"And, as you have learned it, so must you live. ”

“ However this may be, Morgana lives,—and can make her voice heard when she will along the "Sound Ray"—that wonderful "wireless" which is soon to be declared to the world. For there is no distance that is not bridged by light,—and no separation of sounds that cannot be again brought into unison and harmony. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy,"—and the "Golden City" is one of those things! "Masters of the world" are poor creatures at best,—but the secret Makers of the New Race are the gods of the Future! ”

“ Rivardi started back in utter amazement—"His wife?—That girl? Young, beautiful? She will chain herself to a madman? Surely you will not allow it!"
Morgana looked at him with a smile.
"Poor Giulio!" she said, softly—"You are a most unfortunate descendant of your Roman ancestors as far as we women are concerned! You fall in love with me—and you find I am not for you!—then you see a perfectly lovely woman whom you cannot choose but admire—and a little stray thought comes flying into your head—yes!—quite involuntarily!—that perhaps—only perhaps—her love might come your way! ”

“ And now—to go on with the legend—it is believed by many, that deep in the as yet unexplored depths of the deserts of Egypt—miles and miles over rolling sand-waves which once formed the bed of a vast ocean, there stands a great city whose roofs and towers are seemingly of brass,—a city barricaded and built in by walls of brass and guarded by gates of brass. Here dwells a race apart—a race of beautiful human creatures who have discovered the secret of perpetual youth and immortality on this earth. ”

“ Are you the head chambermaid at the Plaza?"
Manella shrugged her shoulders.
"I do not know what I am! I do everything I am asked to do as well as I can."
"Obliging creature! And are you well paid?"
"As much as I want"—Manella answered, indifferently. "But there is no pleasure in the work."
"Is there pleasure in ANY work?"
"If one works for a person one loves,—surely yes!" the girl murmured as if she were speaking to herself, "The days would be too short for all the work to be done!"
Morgana glanced at her, and the flash of her eyes had the grey-blue of lightning. ”

“ Manella's beautiful eyes expressed bewilderment.
"Killing women? Is that what they do?"
"Yes, my good girl!—that is what they do! The silly trusting creatures go to them like lambs, and get their throats cut! In marriage or out of it—the throat-cutting goes on, for men are made of destructive stuff and love the sport of killing. They are never satisfied unless they can kill something—a bird, a fox or a woman. I'm a man myself and I know!"
"YOU would kill a woman?" Manella's voice was a horrified whisper.
Gwent laughed. ”