The Goddess of Atvatabar<br />Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of Atvatabar by William Richard Bradshaw (best books to read fiction .txt) 📗

will not. Hence, I say, this disobedience must be quenched in the spark, or it will break out in ruin to our whole religious institution."

"Your punishment," said the high priest, "unless you will repent of your misdeed, give up possession of your offspring, and live ever afterward as holy priests of hopeless love, will be separate and solitary confinement for life in the fortress. You will both be simply obliterated from the world."

As the high priest uttered these words the mother-priestess gave a cry of terror, and, grasping her infant convulsively, gazed with an appealing glance at the goddess.

"We refuse to live as hypocrites," said the youth; "we are no longer twin-souls—we are man and wife and demand to be set free."

"Will you, each of you," said the goddess, "renounce that obedience that makes you factors of deities? Will you dethrone ideal love? Will you throw away palaces and gardens and flowers? Will you forswear the delight of the companionship of twin-souls?"

"We wish to be set free, your holiness," said the youth with firm, set lips.

"Do you no longer value the secrets of magic and sorcery? Do you renounce initiation into the secrets of nature to possess creative force to taste the elixir of life, the secret of the transformation of metals, and, above all, the blessedness of Nirvana? Knowing that love dies in possession do you desire to step forth from paradise into a hard, cold, realistic world, where every experience is a spear driven into the flesh?"

"We dare our fate!" replied the youth. "We ask you, goddess, to set us free."

"I will bring you both before the spiritual council," said Hushnoly, "and, as you are aware, the sentence of the council as provided by the constitution of Egyplosis will be that you, each of you, be imprisoned in separate cells for life, and the child removed and cared for in a distant part of the kingdom. You will henceforth be obliterated from life."

The lovers convulsively embraced each other, the beautiful Merga weeping bitterly.[172]

"We will accept the punishment," said Ardsolus, "because we will give courage to the many twin-souls already imprisoned and also to those who as ardently desire freedom as ourselves. They will never forget that we are fighting their battle against a monstrous wrong."

"Guards, remove the prisoners," said the high priest.

"Can nothing that I may say mitigate their punishment?" said the goddess.

"Your holiness is aware," said Hushnoly, "that the laws of Egyplosis admit of no other interpretation than that prescribed for such a case as this. The foundation of the religion of Atvatabar must be preserved at any cost."

"I urge for mercy," said the goddess, who honored the prisoners with her tears.

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE DOCTOR'S OPINION OF EGYPLOSIS.

My experiences in Egyplosis were teaching me that even the most perfect human organizations contain the elements of decay and death. The human soul at variance with its own physical condition was hardly the best ideal of a god. Here was happiness piled upon happiness, yet the recipients thereof were not happy. Disappointments and suffering are natural to man because life is supported on difficulty, and a long-continued happiness is the sure forerunner of disaster. The reaction of misery lies somewhere concealed from the eye of happiness, and if it does not at once show itself, it will later on. Even in well-guarded happiness, if one single pleasure be omitted, we experience more regret at its absence than pleasure over the bounties we enjoy. Hence, a large proportion of twin-souls were not wholly in love with their life in the temple of souls, however enamored they were of each other. Almost absolute freedom of action, freedom from care, physical and mental exercises, soul development, the practice of magic, the most alluring investigation of mental and spiritual themes, the study and practice of art in all its forms, and the investigation of inventive mechanism; a palace to live in, with vast galleries of paintings and sculptures, salons for music, and schools of science, libraries[173] filled with the rarest works of history, literature and poetry, and, most precious of all, the daily dalliance with counterpart souls, could not make these people happy. The one thing denied, which any reasonable man would say was simply the price paid for all this glory, was considered the greatest of all misfortunes. The imagination has a strange habit of passing lightly over happiness possessed and settling down upon a little thing beyond reach and exaggerating it to the utmost.

The imprisonment of Ardsolus and Merga created a profound sensation among the ten thousand inmates of the palace. Sentiment was divided so much that two political parties were formed—those who believed the erring lovers had met a just fate, and those who thought the system at fault in providing no means of immediate escape, when to reside in the palace became imprisonment and a living death to certain souls. The latter party was composed of the more youthful section of the priesthood, who sympathized with the unfortunate lovers. These latter would have got up a demonstration in their favor did not the stern rules of Egyplosis suppress any such outbursts of popular feeling.

On the day following the imprisonment of the erring twin-soul, the question was being discussed in the apartments occupied by the officers of the Polar King and myself. We had been lodged in a noble building not far from the palace of the goddess, while the sailors were quartered in the fortress of Egyplosis, in company with the wayleals of the palace itself.

"Your opinion of Egyplosis has possibly undergone a change since the day of our reception," said the doctor.

"Well," said I, "I suppose the longer we stay here the more exact will be our knowledge of this peculiar institution."

I had considered Egyplosis as a successful institution for developing the human soul. Certainly Harikar with his beloved attributes required a fit home for his complete development.

I had praised their oasis of love, of refinement, of rest, and of beauty, and even ventured to assert that such a paradise was the outcome of the love and purity of twin-souls. I forgot in my enthusiasm the possibility of the soul being satiated with pleasure, that life is a warfare ever seeking but never gaining repose, and that we are led more by our passions and illusions than our judgment. I forgot that while man resists pain he always yields to pleasure. I forgot that he was created for[174] difficulty, which is the oxygen that feeds the flame of endeavor, and that difficulty alone can develop efforts which pleasure so easily destroys.

"I am of the opinion," said the doctor, "that this institution is founded on a perversion of human nature. This so-called hopeless love is, as we have just had proof, one of the most disturbing elements in life. Its victims resemble Tantalus, who, though steeped to the lips in water, can never drink. They are the unhappy devotees of an idol, and, like the Hindoos, stick into their sides the hooks of a cruel passion and swing aloft in torture to the applause of an admiring crowd."

"You evidently do not reverence hopeless love?" I remarked.

"I consider Egyplosis," he continued, "but a nervous asylum on a large scale. This nervous temperament, with its hysterical raptures and tears, its painful sensibility, its exalted spiritualism and irresistible sympathy, departs so far from the steady temperate sphere of action that can alone sustain alike the pleasures and disappointments of life as to become the object of pity. These are the marks of a mental disease. Ultra-romantic ideas and whimsical and unaccountable tastes are attributes of this temperament. It is a kind of insanity, not the insanity proceeding from hopeless mental aberration, but founded on a systematic train of ideas born in a heated enthusiasm. It may lead, however, to hopeless insanity."

"Doctor," said the astronomer, "you are taking a very cold-blooded view of the subject. You seem not to have discovered that the life here is ideal. From what you say one would think that love is a species of insanity."

"That is precisely my idea," replied the doctor. "Haven't you observed how foolishly people act when in love? All ordinary human prudence and judgment are thrown aside. Love pares the claws and pulls the teeth of man as a rational animal. Love is supreme folly."

"I think," said the astronomer, "the climate of this country has something to do with the present institution. You see that the sun here never sets, and, were it not for his diminutive size, would infallibly turn the entire interior world into a desert, such as the moon is at present, where the outer sun's heat falls for fourteen days on the one spot without intermission, completely blasting her territories. The mild yet incessant heat of Swang creates a fervor of blood and a romance of temperament[175] unknown in lands possessing night, hence the practices of Egyplosis are a natural result of climatic conditions. The appetite for ideal love has been created by the climate, and the religion of the country very naturally responds to the craving of such appetite. Who knows what excesses might not obtain if no such restraint were imposed on the most gallant youth of the country."

"I think," said the naturalist, "that the proper thing to do would be to have their people imitate the conduct of Jacob of old and Rachel. Jacob worshipped ideal love in the person of Rachel for seven years and then married, her. If our commander would only propose such a scheme to the supreme goddess it might possibly be favorably considered."

"Do you really suppose," said I, "that I possess any influence with the goddess, or that any recommendation of mine would be able to change the constitution of Atvatabar?"

"Well, sir," said he, "if you will allow me to make the remark, I think the supreme goddess takes quite as much interest in you as you do in her, and would treat your opinions with great respect."

"You think more than I have ever dared to think," I replied, "and your thought savors of sacrilege. The goddess belongs to her faith, her country. To prefer an individual soul is to dethrone herself as goddess and meet a painful death."

"In any case, whatever happens, you can rely on the fidelity of your followers," said the naturalist.

The subject was fast becoming embarrassing and I merely said: "Gentlemen, I am assured of your fidelity; so please let us dismiss the subject."

The hour for rest having been sounded, I sought my couch, but not to sleep. The remarks made by my companions, emphasized by my growing fondness for the goddess, set me to thinking what the end would be of our discovery of Atvatabar. I wondered if Lyone was not, as sung by her devotees,