A Romance of Two Worlds - Marie Corelli (online e reader .TXT) 📗

my name written on the fly-leaf, with the date of the month and year, and the words:

“La musica e il lamento dell’ amore o la preghiera a gli Dei.” (Music is the lament of love, or a prayer to the Gods.)

I placed this treasure carefully in a corner of my portmanteau, together with the parchment scrolls containing “The Electric Principle of Christianity,” and the valuables recipes of Heliobas; and as I did so, I caught sight of myself in the long mirror that directly faced me. I was fascinated, not by my own reflection, but by the glitter of the electric gem I wore. It flashed and glowed like a star, and was really lovely—far more brilliant than the most brilliant cluster of fine diamonds. I may here remark that I have been asked many questions concerning this curious ornament whenever I have worn it in public, and the general impression has been that it is some new arrangement of ornamental electricity. It is, however, nothing of the kind; it is simply a clear pebble, common enough on the shores of tropical countries, which has the property of absorbing a small portion of the electricity in a human body, sufficient to make it shine with prismatic and powerful lustre—a property which has only as yet been discovered by Heliobas, who asserts that the same capability exists in many other apparently lustreless stones which have been untried, and are therefore unknown. The “healing stones,” or amulets, still in use in the East, and also in the remote parts of the Highlands (see notes to Archibald Clerk’s translation of ‘Ossian’), are also electric, but in a different way—they have the property of absorbing DISEASE and destroying it in certain cases; and these, after being worn a suitable length of time, naturally exhaust what virtue they originally possessed, and are no longer of any use. Stone amulets are considered nowadays as a mere superstition of the vulgar and uneducated; but it must be remembered that superstition itself has always had for it a foundation some grain, however small and remote, of fact. I could give a very curious explanation of the formation of ORCHIDS, those strange plants called sometimes “Freaks of Nature,” as if Nature ever indulged in a “freak” of any kind! But I have neither time nor space to enter upon the subject now; indeed, if I were once to begin to describe the wonderful, amazing and beautiful vistas of knowledge that the wise Chaldean, who is still my friend and guide, has opened up and continues to extend before my admiring vision, a work of twenty volumes would scarce contain all I should have to say. But I have written this book merely to tell those who peruse it, about Heliobas, and what I myself experienced in his house; beyond this I may not go. For, as, I observed in my introduction, I am perfectly aware that few, if any, of my readers will accept my narrative as more than a mere visionary romance—or that they will admit the mysteries of life, death, eternity, and all the wonders of the Universe to be simply the NATURAL AND SCIENTIFIC OUTCOME OF A RING OF EVERLASTING ELECTRIC HEAT AND LIGHT; but whether they agree to it or no, I can say with Galileo, “E pur si muove!”

 

CHAPTER XVII.

CONCLUSION.

 

It was a very simple and quiet procession that moved next day from the Hotel Mars to Pere-la-Chaise. Zara’s coffin was carried in an open hearse, and was covered with a pall of rich white velvet, on which lay a royal profusion of flowers—Ivan’s wreath, and a magnificent cross of lilies sent by tender-hearted Mrs. Challoner, being most conspicuous among them. The only thing a little unusual about it was that the funeral car was drawn by two stately WHITE horses; and Heliobas told me this had been ordered at Zara’s special request, as she thought the solemn pacing through the streets of dismal black steeds had a depressing effect on the passers-by.

“And why,” she had said, “should anybody be sad, when I in reality am so thoroughly happy?”

Prince Ivan Petroffsky had left Paris, but his carriage, drawn by two prancing Russian steeds, followed the hearse at a respectful distance, as also the carriage of Dr. Morini, and some other private persons known to Heliobas. A few people attended it on foot, and these were chiefly from among the very poor, some of whom had benefited by Zara’s charity or her brother’s medical skill, and had heard of the calamity through rumour, or through the columns of the Figaro, where it was reported with graphic brevity. The weather was still misty, and the fiery sun seemed to shine through tears as Father Paul, with his assistants, read in solemn yet cheerful tones the service for the dead according to the Catholic ritual. One of the chief mourners at the grave was the faithful Leo; who, without obtruding himself in anyone’s way, sat at a little distance, and seemed, by the confiding look with which he turned his eyes upon his master, to thoroughly understand that he must henceforth devote his life entirely to him alone. The coffin was lowered, the “Requiem aeternam” spoken—all was over. Those assembled shook hands quietly with Heliobas, saluted each other, and gradually dispersed. I entered a carriage and drove back to the Hotel Mars, leaving Heliobas in the cemetery to give his final instructions for the ornamentation and decoration of his sister’s grave.

The little page served me with some luncheon in my own apartment, and by the time all was ready for my departure, Heliobas returned. I went down to him in his study, and found him sitting pensively in his arm-chair, absorbed in thought. He looked sad and solitary, and my whole heart went out to him in gratitude and sympathy. I knelt beside him as a daughter might have done, and softly kissed his hand.

He started as though awakened suddenly from sleep, and seeing me, his eyes softened, and he smiled gravely.

“Are you come to say ‘Good-bye,’ my child?” he asked, in a kind tone. “Well, your mission here is ended!”

“Had I any mission at all,” I replied, with a grateful look, “save the very selfish one which was comprised in the natural desire to be restored to health?”

Heliobas surveyed me for a few moments in silence.

“Were I to tell you,” he said at last, “by what mystical authority and influence you were compelled to come here, by what a marvellously linked chain of circumstances you became known to me long before I saw you; how I was made aware that you were the only woman living to whose companionship I could trust my sister at a time when the society of one of her own sex became absolutely necessary to her; how you were marked out to me as a small point of light by which possibly I might steer my course clear of the darkness which threatened me—I say, were I to tell you all this, you would no longer doubt the urgent need of your presence here. It is, however, enough to tell you that you have fulfilled all that was expected of you, even beyond my best hopes; and in return for your services, the worth of which you cannot realize, whatever guidance I can give you in the future for your physical and spiritual life, is yours. I have done something for you, but not much—I will do more. Only, in communicating with me, I ask you to honour me with your full confidence in all matters pertaining to yourself and your surroundings—then I shall not be liable to errors of judgment in the opinions I form or the advice I give.”

“I promise most readily,” I replied gladly, for it seemed to me that I was rich in possessing as a friend and counsellor such a man as this student of the loftiest sciences.

“And now one thing more,” he resumed, opening a drawer in the table near which he sat. “Here is a pencil for you to write your letters to me with. It will last about ten years, and at the expiration of that time you can have another. Write with it on any paper, and the marks will be like those of an ordinary drawing-pencil; but as fast as they are written they disappear. Trouble not about this circumstance—write all you have to say, and when you have finished your letter your closely covered pages shall seem blank. Therefore, were the eye of a stranger to look at them, nothing could be learned therefrom. But when they reach me, I can make the writing appear and stand out on these apparently unsullied pages as distinctly as though your words had been printed. My letters to you will also, when you receive them, appear blank; but you will only have to press them for about ten minutes in this”—and he handed me what looked like an ordinary blotting-book—“and they will be perfectly legible. Cellini has these little writing implements; he uses them whenever the distances are too great for us to amuse ourselves with the sagacity of Leo—in fact the journeys of that faithful animal have principally been to keep him in training.”

“But,” I said, as I took the pencil and book from his hand, “why do you not make these convenient writing materials public property? They would be so useful.”

“Why should I build up a fortune for some needy stationer?” he asked, with a half-smile. “Besides, they are not new things. They were known to the ancients, and many secret letters, laws, histories, and poems were written with instruments such as these. In an old library, destroyed more than two centuries ago, there was a goodly pile of apparently blank parchment. Had I lived then and known what I know now, I could have made the white pages declare their mystery.”

“Has this also to do with electricity?” I asked.

“Certainly—with what is called vegetable electricity. There is not a plant or herb in existence, but has almost a miracle hidden away in its tiny cup or spreading leaves—do you doubt it?”

“Not I!” I answered quickly. “I doubt nothing!”

Heliobas smiled gravely.

“You are right!” he said. “Doubt is the destroyer of beauty—the poison in the sweet cup of existence—the curse which mankind have brought on themselves. Avoid it as you would the plague. Believe in anything or everything miraculous and glorious—the utmost reach of your faith can with difficulty grasp the majestic reality and perfection of everything you can see, desire, or imagine. Mistrust that volatile thing called Human Reason, which is merely a name for whatever opinion we happen to adopt for the time—it is a thing which totters on its throne in a fit of rage or despair—there is nothing infinite about it. Guide yourself by the delicate Spiritual Instinct within you, which tells you that with God all things are possible, save that He cannot destroy Himself or lessen by one spark the fiery brilliancy of his ever-widening circle of productive Intelligence. But make no attempt to convert the world to your way of thinking—it would be mere waste of time.”

“May I never try to instruct anyone in these things?” I asked.

“You can try, if you choose; but you will find most human beings like the herd of swine in the Gospel, possessed by devils that drive them headlong into the sea. You know, for instance, that angels and aerial spirits actually exist; but were you to assert your belief in them, philosophers (so-called) would scout your theories as absurd,- -though their idea of a LONELY God, who yet is Love, is the very acme of absurdity. For Love MUST have somewhat to love, and MUST create the beauty and happiness round itself and the things beloved. But why point out these simple things