The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton (free ereaders txt) 📗

that I did not perceive that
Zee had entered the chamber till I heard a deep sigh, and,
raising my eyes, beheld her standing by my couch.

I need not say that, according to the manners of this people, a
Gy can, without indecorum, visit an An in his chamber, although
an An would be considered forward and immodest to the last
degree if he entered the chamber of a Gy without previously
obtaining her permission to do so. Fortunately I was in the
full habiliments I had worn when Zee had deposited me on the
couch. Nevertheless I felt much irritated, as well as shocked,
by her visit, and asked in a rude tone what she wanted.

"Speak gently, beloved one, I entreat you," said she, "for I am
very unhappy. I have not slept since we parted."

"A due sense of your shameful conduct to me as your father's
guest might well suffice to banish sleep from your eyelids.
Where was the affection you pretend to have for me, where was
even that politeness on which the Vril-ya pride themselves,
when, taking advantage alike of that physical strength in which
your sex, in this extraordinary region, excels our own, and of
those detestable and unhallowed powers which the agencies of
vril invest in your eyes and finger-ends, you exposed me to
humiliation before your assembled visitors, before Her Royal
Highness- I mean, the daughter of your own chief magistrate,-
carrying me off to bed like a naughty infant, and plunging me
into sleep, without asking my consent?"

"Ungrateful! Do you reproach me for the evidences of my love?
Can you think that, even if unstung by the jealousy which attends
upon love till it fades away in blissful trust when we know that
the heart we have wooed is won, I could be indifferent to the
perils to which the audacious overtures of that silly little
child might expose you?"

138"Hold! Since you introduce the subject of perils, it perhaps
does not misbecome me to say that my most imminent perils come
from yourself, or at least would come if I believed in your
love and accepted your addresses. Your father has told me
plainly that in that case I should be consumed into a cinder
with as little compunction as if I were the reptile whom Taee
blasted into ashes with the flash of his wand."

"Do not let that fear chill your heart to me," exclaimed Zee,
dropping on her knees and absorbing my right hand in the space
of her ample palm. "It is true, indeed, that we two cannot wed
as those of the same race wed; true that the love between us
must be pure as that which, in our belief, exists between
lovers who reunite in the new life beyond that boundary at
which the old life ends. But is it not happiness enough to be
together, wedded in mind and in heart? Listen: I have just left
my father. He consents to our union on those terms. I have
sufficient influence with the College of Sages to insure their
request to the Tur not to interfere with the free choice of a
Gy; provided that her wedding with one of another race be but
the wedding of souls. Oh, think you that true love needs
ignoble union? It is not that I yearn only to be by your side
in this life, to be part and parcel of your joys and sorrows
here: I ask here for a tie which will bind us for ever and for
ever in the world of immortals. Do you reject me?"

As she spoke, she knelt, and the whole character of her face
was changed; nothing of sternness left to its grandeur; a
divine light, as that of an immortal, shining out from its
human beauty. But she rather awed me as an angel than moved me
as a woman, and after an embarrassed pause, I faltered forth
evasive expressions of gratitude, and sought, as delicately as
I could, to point out how humiliating would be my position
amongst her race in the light of a husband who might never be
permitted the name of father.

"But," said Zee, "this community does not constitute the whole
world. No; nor do all the populations comprised in the league
139of the Vril-ya. For thy sake I will renounce my country and my
people. We will fly together to some region where thou shalt
be safe. I am strong enough to bear thee on my wings across
the deserts that intervene. I am skilled enough to cleave
open, amidst the rocks, valleys in which to build our home.
Solitude and a hut with thee would be to me society and the
universe. Or wouldst thou return to thine own world, above the
surface of this, exposed to the uncertain seasons, and lit but
by the changeful orbs which constitute by thy description the
fickle character of those savage regions? I so, speak the word,
and I will force the way for thy return, so that I am thy
companion there, though, there as here, but partner of thy
soul, and fellow traveller with thee to the world in which
there is no parting and no death."

I could not but be deeply affected by the tenderness, at once
so pure and so impassioned, with which these words were
uttered, and in a voice that would have rendered musical the
roughest sounds in the rudest tongue. And for a moment it did
occur to me that I might avail myself of Zee's agency to effect
a safe and speedy return to the upper world. But a very brief
space for reflection sufficed to show me how dishonourable and
base a return for such devotion it would be to allure thus
away, from her own people and a home in which I had been so
hospitably treated, a creature to whom our world would be so
abhorrent, and for whose barren, if spiritual love, I could not
reconcile myself to renounce the more human affection of mates
less exalted above my erring self. With this sentiment of duty
towards the Gy combined another of duty towards the whole race
I belonged to. Could I venture to introduce into the upper
world a being so formidably gifted- a being that with a
movement of her staff could in less than an hour reduce New
York and its glorious Koom-Posh into a pinch of snuff? Rob her
of her staff, with her science she could easily construct
another; and with the deadly lightnings that armed the slender
engine her whole frame was charged. If thus dangerous to the
140cities and populations of the whole upper earth, could she be a
safe companion to myself in case her affection should be
subjected to change or embittered by jealousy? These thoughts,
which it takes so many words to express, passed rapidly through
my brain and decided my answer.

"Zee," I said, in the softest tones I could command and
pressing respectful lips on the hand into whose clasp mine
vanished- "Zee, I can find no words to say how deeply I am
touched, and how highly I am honoured, by a love so
disinterested and self-immolating. My best return to it is
perfect frankness. Each nation has its customs. The customs
of yours do not allow you to wed me; the customs of mine are
equally opposed to such a union between those of races so
widely differing. On the other hand, though not deficient in
courage among my own people, or amid dangers with which I am
familiar, I cannot, without a shudder of horror, think of
constructing a bridal home in the heart of some dismal chaos,
with all the elements of nature, fire and water, and mephitic
gases, at war with each other, and with the probability that at
some moment, while you were busied in cleaving rocks or
conveying vril into lamps, I should be devoured by a krek which
your operations disturbed from its hiding-place. I, a mere
Tish, do not deserve the love of a Gy, so brilliant, so learned,
so potent as yourself. Yes, I do not deserve that love, for I
cannot return it."

Zee released my hand, rose to her feet, and turned her face
away to hide her emotions; then she glided noiselessly along
the room, and paused at the threshold. Suddenly, impelled as
by a new thought, she returned to my side and said, in a
whispered tone,-

"You told me you would speak with perfect frankness. With
perfect frankness, then, answer me this question. If you
cannot love me, do you love another?"

"Certainly, I do not."

"You do not love Taee's sister?"

"I never saw her before last night."

141"That is no answer. Love is swifter than vril. You hesitate
to tell me. Do not think it is only jealousy that prompts me
to caution you. If the Tur's daughter should declare love to
you- if in her ignorance she confides to her father any
preference that may justify his belief that she will woo you,
he will have no option but to request your immediate
destruction, as he is specially charged with the duty of
consulting the good of the community, which could not allow the
daughter of the Vril-ya to wed a son of the Tish-a, in that
sense of marriage which does not confine itself to union of the
souls. Alas! there would then be for you no escape. She has
no strength of wing to uphold you through the air; she has no
science wherewith to make a home in the wilderness. Believe
that here my friendship speaks, and that my jealousy is
silent."

With these words Zee left me. And recalling those words, I
thought no more of succeeding to the throne of the Vril-ya, or
of the political, social, and moral reforms I should institute
in the capacity of Absolute Sovereign.


Chapter XXVI.


After the conversation with Zee just recorded, I fell into a
profound melancholy. The curious interest with which I had
hitherto examined the life and habits of this marvellous
community was at an end. I could not banish from my mind the
consciousness that I was among a people who, however kind and
courteous, could destroy me at any moment without scruple or
compunction. The virtuous and peaceful life of the people
which, while new to me, had seemed so holy a contrast to the
contentions, the passions, the vices of the upper world, now
began to oppress me with a sense of dulness and monotony. Even
the serene tranquility of the lustrous air preyed on my
142spirits. I longed for a change, even to winter, or storm, or
darkness. I began to feel that, whatever our dreams of
perfectibility, our restless aspirations towards a better, and
higher, and calmer, sphere of being, we, the mortals of the
upper world, are not trained or fitted to enjoy for long the
very happiness of which we dream or to which we aspire.

Now, in this social state of the Vril-ya, it was singular to
mark how it contrived to unite and to harmonise into one system
nearly all the objects which the various philosophers of the
upper world have placed before human hopes as the ideals of a
Utopian future. It was a state in which war, with all its
calamities, was deemed impossible,- a state in which the
freedom of all and each was secured to the uttermost degree,
without one of those animosities which make freedom in the
upper world depend on the perpetual strife of hostile parties.
Here the corruption which debases democracies was as unknown as
the discontents which undermine the thrones of monarchies.
Equality here was not a name; it was a reality. Riches were
not