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A Romance Of Two Worlds

M >> Marie Corelli >> A Romance Of Two Worlds




"I know!" I interrupted her. "He wrote the 'Letters of a Dead
Musician.'"

"Yes," said Zara. "I suppose you saw the book at Raffaello's studio.
Good Raffaello Cellini! his is another absolutely ungrudging and
unselfish spirit. But this musician that I speak of was like a child
in humility and reverence. Casimir told me he had never sounded so
perfect a nature. At one time he, too, was a little anxious for
recognition and praise, and Casimir saw that he was likely to wreck
himself on that fatal rock of poor ambition. So he took him in hand,
and taught him the meaning of his work, and why it was especially
given him to do; and that man's life became 'one grand sweet song.'
But there are tears in your eyes, dear! What have I said to grieve
you?"

And she caressed me tenderly. The tears were indeed thick in my
eyes, and a minute or two elapsed before I could master them. At
last I raised my head and endeavoured to smile.

"They are not sad tears, Zara," I said; "I think they come from a
strong desire I have to be what you are, what your brother is, what
that dead musician must have been. Why, I have longed, and do long
for fame, for wealth, for the world's applause, for all the things
which you seem to think so petty and mean. How can I help it? Is not
fame power? Is not money a double power, strong to assist one's self
and those one loves? Is not the world's favour a necessary means to
gain these things?"

Zara's eyes gleamed with a soft and pitying gentleness.

"Do you understand what you mean by power?" she asked. "World's
fame? World's wealth? Will these things make you enjoy life? You
will perhaps say yes. I tell you no. Laurels of earth's growing
fade; gold of earth's getting is good for a time, but it palls
quickly. Suppose a man rich enough to purchase all the treasures of
the world--what then? He must die and leave them. Suppose a poet or
musician so famous that all nations know and love him: he too must
die, and go where nations exist no longer. And you actually would
grasp ashes and drink wormwood, little friend? Music, the heaven-
born spirit of pure sound, does not teach you so!"

I was silent. The gleam of the strange jewel Zara always wore
flashed in my eyes like lightning, and anon changed to the
similitude of a crimson star. I watched it, dreamily fascinated by
its unearthly glitter.

"Still," I said, "you yourself admit that such fame as that of
Shakespeare or Wagner becomes a universal monument to their
memories. That is something, surely?"

"Not to them," replied Zara; "they have partly forgotten that they
ever were imprisoned in such a narrow gaol as this world. Perhaps
they do not care to remember it, though memory is part of
immortality."

"Ah!" I sighed restlessly; "your thoughts go beyond me, Zara. I
cannot follow your theories."

Zara smiled.

"We will not talk about them any more," she said; "you must tell
Casimir--he will teach you far better than I can."

"What shall I tell him?" I asked; "and what will he teach me?"

"You will tell him what a high opinion you have of the world and its
judgments," said Zara, "and he will teach you that the world is no
more than a grain of dust, measured by the standard of your own
soul. This is no mere platitude--no repetition of the poetical
statement 'THE MIND'S THE STANDARD OF THE MAN;' it is a fact, and
can be proved as completely as that two and two make four. Ask
Casimir to set you free."

"To set me free?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes!" and Zara looked at me brightly. "He will know if you are
strong enough to travel!" And, nodding her head gaily to me, she
left the room to prepare for the dinner-hour which was fast
approaching.

I pondered over her words a good deal without arriving at any
satisfactory conclusion as to the meaning of them. I did not resume
the conversation with her, nor did I speak to Heliobas as yet, and
the days went on smoothly and pleasantly till I had been nearly a
week in residence at the Hotel Mars. I now felt perfectly well and
strong, though Heliobas continued to give me his remedies regularly
night and morning. I began an energetic routine of musical practice:
the beautiful piano in the drawing-room answered readily to my
touch, and many a delightful hour slipped by as I tried various new
difficulties on the key-board, or worked out different combinations
of harmony. I spent a great deal of my time at the organ in the
little chapel, the bellows of which were worked by electricity, in a
manner that gave not the least trouble, and was perfectly simple of
management.

The organ itself was peculiarly sweet in tone, the "vox humana" stop
especially producing an entrancingly rich and tender sound. The
silence, warmth, and beauty of the chapel, with the winter sunlight
streaming through its stained windows, and the unbroken solitude I
enjoyed there, all gave fresh impetus to the fancies of my brain,
and a succession of solemn and tender melodies wove themselves under
my fingers as a broidered carpet is woven on the loom.

One particular afternoon, I was sitting at the instrument as usual,
and my thoughts began to busy themselves with the sublime tragedy of
Calvary. I mused, playing softly all the while, on the wonderful,
blameless, glorious life that had ended in the shame and cruelty of
the Cross, when suddenly, like a cloud swooping darkly across the
heaven of my thoughts, came the suggestive question: "Is it all
true? Was Christ indeed Divine--or is it all a myth, a fable--an
imposture?" Unconsciously I struck a discordant chord on the organ--
a faint tremor shook me, and I ceased playing. An uncomfortable
sensation came over me, as of some invisible presence being near me
and approaching softly, slowly, yet always more closely; and I
hurriedly rose from my seat, shut the organ, and prepared to leave
the chapel, overcome by a strange incomprehensible terror. I was
glad when I found myself safely outside the door, and I rushed into
the hall as though I were being pursued; yet the oddest part of my
feeling was, that whoever thus pursued me, did so out of love, not
enmity, and that I was almost wrong in running away. I leaned for a
moment against one of the columns in the hall, trying to calm the
excited beating of my heart, when a deep voice startled me:

"So! you are agitated and alarmed! Unbelief is easily scared!"

I looked up and met the calm eyes of Heliobas. He appeared to be
taller, statelier, more like a Chaldean prophet or king than I had
ever seen him before. There was something in his steady scrutiny of
my face that put me to a sort of shame, and when he spoke again it
was in a tone of mild reproof.

"You have been led astray, my child, by the conflicting and vain
opinions of mankind. You, like many others in the world, delight to
question, to speculate, to weigh this, to measure that, with little
or no profit to yourself or your fellow-creatures. And you have come
freshly from a land where, in the great Senate-house, a poor
perishable lump of clay calling itself a man, dares to stand up
boldly and deny the existence of God, while his compeers, less bold
than he, pretend a holy displeasure, yet secretly support him--all
blind worms denying the existence of the sun; a land where so-called
Religion is split into hundreds of cold and narrow sects, gatherings
assembled for the practice of hypocrisy, lip-service and lies--where
Self, not the Creator, is the prime object of worship; a land,
mighty once among the mightiest, but which now, like an over-ripe
pear, hangs loosely on its tree, awaiting but a touch to make it
fall! A land--let me not name it;--where the wealthy, high-fed
ministers of the nation slowly argue away the lives of better men
than themselves, with vain words of colder and more cruel force than
the whirling spears of untaught savages! What have you, an ardent
disciple of music, to do in such a land where favouritism and
backstair influence win the day over even the merits of a Schubert?
Supposing you were a second Beethoven, what could you do in that
land without faith or hope? that land which is like a disappointed,
churlish, and aged man with tottering feet and purblind eyes, who
has long ago exhausted all enjoyment and sees nothing new under the
sun. The world is wide--faith is yet extant--and the teachings of
Christ are true. 'Believe and live; doubt and die!' That saying is
true also."

I had listened to these words in silence; but now I spoke eagerly
and impatiently, remembering what Zara had told me.

"Then," I said, "if I have been misguided by modern opinions--if I
have unconsciously absorbed the doctrines of modern fashionable
atheism--lead me right. Teach me what you know. I am willing to
learn. Let me find out the reason of my life. SET ME FREE!"

Heliobas regarded me with earnest solemnity.

"Set you free!" he murmured, in a low tone. "Do you know what you
ask?"

"No," I answered, with reckless fervour. "I do not know what I ask;
but I feel that you have the power to show me the unseen things of
another world. Did you not yourself tell me in our first interview
that you had let Raffaello Cellini 'go on a voyage of discovery, and
that he came back perfectly satisfied?' Besides, he told me his
history. From you he has gained all that gives him peace and
comfort. You possess electric secrets undreamt of by the world.
Prove your powers upon me; I am not afraid."

Heliobas smiled. "Not afraid! And you ran out of the chapel just now
as if you were pursued by a fiend! You must know that the only WOMAN
I ever tried my greatest experiment upon is my sister Zara. She was
trained and prepared for it in the most careful manner; and it
succeeded. Now"--and Heliobas looked half-sad, half-triumphant--"she
has passed beyond my power; she is dominated by one greater than I.
But she cannot use her force for others; she can only employ it to
defend herself. Therefore, I am willing to try you if you indeed
desire it--to see if the same thing will occur to you as to Zara;
and I firmly believe it will."

A slight tremor came over me; but I said with an attempt at
indifference:

"You mean that I shall be dominated also by some great force or
influence?"

"I think so," replied Heliobas musingly. "Your nature is more prone
to love than to command. Try and follow me in the explanation I am
going to give you. Do you know some lines by Shelley that run--

"'Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?'"

"Yes," I said. "I know the lines well. I used to think them very
sentimental and pretty."

"They contain," said Heliobas, "the germ of a great truth, as many
of the most fanciful verses of the poets do. As the 'image of a
voice' mentioned in the Book of Job hinted at the telephone, and as
Shakespeare's 'girdle round the earth' foretold the electric
telegraph, so the utterances of the inspired starvelings of the
world, known as poets, suggest many more wonders of the universe
than may be at first apparent. Poets must always be prophets, or
their calling is in vain. Put this standard of judgment to the
verse-writers of the day, and where would they be? The English
Laureate is no seer: he is a mere relater of pretty stories.
Algernon Charles Swinburne has more fire in him, and more wealth of
expression, but he does not prophesy; he has a clever way of
combining Biblical similes with Provengal passion--et voila tout!
The prophets are always poor--the sackcloth and ashes of the world
are their portion; and their bodies moulder a hundred years or more
in the grave before the world finds out what they meant by their
ravings. But apropos of these lines of Shelley. He speaks of the
duality of existence. 'Nothing in the world is single.' He might
have gone further, and said nothing in the universe is single. Cold
and heat, storm and sunshine, good and evil, joy and sorrow--all go
in pairs. This double life extends to all the spheres and above the
spheres. Do you understand?"

"I understand what you say," I said slowly; "but I cannot see your
meaning as applied to myself or yourself."

"I will teach you in a few words," went on Heliobas. "You believe in
the soul?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Now realize that there is no soul on this earth that is
complete, ALONE. Like everything else, it is dual. It is like half a
flame that seeks the other half, and is dissatisfied and restless
till it attains its object. Lovers, misled by the blinding light of
Love, think they have reached completeness when they are united to
the person beloved. Now, in very, very rare cases, perhaps one among
a thousand, this desirable result is effected; but the majority of
people are content with the union of bodies only, and care little or
nothing about the sympathy or attachment between souls. There are
people, however, who do care, and who never find their Twin-Flame or
companion Spirit at all on earth, and never will find it. And why?
Because it is not imprisoned in clay; it is elsewhere."

"Well?" I asked eagerly.

"Well, you seem to ask me by your eyes what this all means. I will
apply it at once to myself. By my researches into human electrical
science, I discovered that MY companion, MY other half of existence,
though not on earth, was near me, and could be commanded by me; and,
on being commanded, obeyed. With Zara it was different. She could
not COMMAND--she OBEYED; she was the weaker of the two. With you, I
think it will be the same thing. Men sacrifice everything to
ambition; women to love. It is natural. I see there is much of what
I have said that appears to have mystified you; it is no good
puzzling your brain any more about it. No doubt you think I am
talking very wildly about Twin-Flames and Spiritual Affinities that
live for us in another sphere. You do not believe, perhaps, in the
existence of beings in the very air that surrounds us, invisible to
ordinary human eyes, yet actually akin to us, with a closer
relationship than any tie of blood known on earth?"

I hesitated. Heliobas saw my hesitation, and his eyes darkened with
a sombre wrath.

"Are you one of those also who must see in order to believe?" he
said, half angrily. "Where do you suppose your music comes from?
Where do you suppose any music comes from that is not mere
imitation? The greatest composers of the world have been mere
receptacles of sound; and the emptier they were of self-love and
vanity, the greater quantity of heaven-born melody they held. The
German Wagner--did he not himself say that he walked up and down in
the avenues, 'trying to catch the harmonies as they floated in the
air'? Come with me--come back to the place you left, and I will see
if you, like Wagner, are able to catch a melody flying."

He grasped my unresisting arm, and led me, half-frightened, half-
curious, into the little chapel, where he bade me seat myself at the
organ.

"Do not play a single note," he said, "till you are compelled."

And standing beside me, Heliobas laid his hands on my head, then
pressed them on my ears, and finally touched my hands, that rested
passively on the keyboard.

He then raised his eyes, and uttered the name I had often thought of
but never mentioned--the name he had called upon in my dream.

"Azul!" he said, in a low, penetrating voice, "open the gateways of
the Air that we may hear the sound of Song!"

A soft rushing noise of wind answered his adjuration. This was
followed by a burst of music, transcendently lovely, but unlike any
music I had ever heard. There were sounds of delicate and entrancing
tenderness such as no instrument made by human hands could produce;
there was singing of clear and tender tone, and of infinite purity
such as no human voices could be capable of. I listened, perplexed,
alarmed, yet entranced. Suddenly I distinguished a melody running
through the wonderful air-symphonies--a melody like a flower, fresh
and perfect. Instinctively I touched the organ and began to play it;
I found I could produce it note for note. I forgot all fear in my
delight, and I played on and on in a sort of deepening rapture.
Gradually I became aware that the strange sounds about me were dying
slowly away; fainter and fainter they grew--softer--farther--and
finally ceased. But the melody--that one distinct passage of notes I
had followed out--remained with me, and I played it again and again
with feverish eagerness lest it should escape me. I had forgotten
the presence of Heliobas. But a touch on my shoulder roused me. I
looked up and met his eyes fixed upon, me with a steady and earnest
regard. A shiver ran through, me, and I felt bewildered.

"Have I lost it?" I asked.

"Lost what?" he demanded.

"The tune I heard--the harmonies."

"No," he replied; "at least I think not. But if you have, no matter.
You will hear others. Why do you look so distressed?"

"It is lovely," I said wistfully, "all that music; but it is not
MINE;" and tears of regret filled my eyes. "Oh, if it were only
mine--my very own composition!"

Heliobas smiled kindly.

"It is as much yours as any thing belongs to anyone. Yours? why,
what can you really call your own? Every talent you have, every
breath you draw, every drop of blood flowing in your veins, is lent
to you only; you must pay it all back. And as far as the arts go, it
is a bad sign of poet, painter, or musician, who is arrogant enough
to call his work his own. It never was his, and never will be. It is
planned by a higher intelligence than his, only he happens to be the
hired labourer chosen to carry out the conception; a sort of
mechanic in whom boastfulness looks absurd; as absurd as if one of
the stonemasons working at the cornice of a cathedral were to vaunt
himself as the designer of the whole edifice. And when a work, any
work, is completed, it passes out of the labourer's hands; it
belongs to the age and the people for whom it was accomplished, and,
if deserving, goes on belonging to future ages and future peoples.
So far, and only so far, music is your own. But are you convinced?
or do you think you have been dreaming all that you heard just now?"

I rose from the organ, closed it gently, and, moved by a sudden
impulse, held out both my hands to Heliobas. He took them and held
them in a friendly clasp, watching me intently as I spoke.

"I believe in YOU," I said firmly; "and I know thoroughly well that
I was not dreaming; I certainly heard strange music, and entrancing
voices. But in acknowledging your powers over something unseen, I
must explain to you the incredulity I at first felt, which I believe
annoyed you. I was made sceptical on one occasion, by attending a
so-called spiritual seance, where they tried to convince me of the
truth of table-turning--"

Heliobas laughed softly, still holding my hands.

"Your reason will at once tell you that disembodied spirits never
become so undignified as to upset furniture or rap on tables.
Neither do they write letters in pen and ink and put them under
doors. Spiritual beings are purely spiritual; they cannot touch
anything human, much less deal in such vulgar display as the
throwing about of chairs, and the opening of locked sideboards. You
were very rightly sceptical in these matters. But in what I have
endeavoured to prove to you, you have no doubts, have you?"

"None in the world," I said. "I only ask you to go on teaching me
the wonders that seem so familiar to you. Let me know all I may; and
soon!" I spoke with trembling eagerness.

"You have been only eight days in the house, my child," said
Heliobas, loosening my hands, and signing me to come out of the
chapel with him; "and I do not consider you sufficiently strong as
yet for the experiment you wish me to try upon you. Even now you are
agitated. Wait one week more, and then you shall be--"

"What?" I asked impatiently.

"Lifted up," he replied. "Lifted up above this little speck called
earth. But now, no more of this. Go to Zara; keep your mind well
employed; study, read, and pray--pray much and often in few and
simple words, and with as utterly unselfish a heart as you can
prepare. Think that you are going to some high festival, and attire
your soul in readiness. I do not say to you 'Have faith;' I would
not compel your belief in anything against your own will. You wish
to be convinced of a future existence; you seek proofs; you shall
have them. In the meantime avoid all conversation with me on the
subject. You can confide your desires to Zara if you like; her
experience may be of use to you. You had best join her now. Au
revoir!" and with a kind parting gesture, he left me.

I watched his stately figure disappear in the shadow of the passage
leading to his own study, and then I hastened to Zara's room. The
musical episode in the chapel had certainly startled me, and the
words of Heliobas were full of mysterious meaning; but, strange to
say, I was in no way rendered anxious or alarmed by the prospect I
had before me of being "lifted up," as my physician had expressed
it. I thought of Raffaello Cellini and his history, and I determined
within myself that no cowardly hesitation or fear should prevent me
from making the attempt to see what he professed to have seen. I
found Zara reading. She looked up as I entered, and greeted me with
her usual bright smile.

"You have had a long practice," she began; "I thought you were never
coming."

I sat down beside her, and related at once all that had happened to
me that afternoon. Zara listened with deep and almost breathless
interest.

"You are quite resolved," she said, when I had concluded, "to let
Casimir exert his force upon you?"

"I am quite resolved," I answered.

"And you have no fear?"

"None that I am just now conscious of."

Zara's eyes became darker and deeper in the gravity of her intense
meditation. At last she said:

"I can help you to keep your courage firmly to the point, by letting
you know at once what Casimir will do to you. Beyond that I cannot
go. You understand the nature of an electric shock?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, there are different kinds of electric shocks--some that are
remedial, some that are fatal. There are cures performed by a
careful use of the electric battery--again, people are struck dead
by lightning, which is the fatal result of electric force. But all
this is EXTERNAL electricity; now what Casimir will use on you will
be INTERNAL electricity."

I begged her to explain more clearly. She went on:

"You have internally a certain amount of electricity, which has been
increased recently by the remedies prescribed for you by Casimir.
But, however much you have, Casimir has more, and he will exert his
force over your force, the greater over the lesser. You will
experience an INTERNAL electric shock, which, like a sword, will
separate in twain body and spirit. The spiritual part of you will be
lifted up above material forces; the bodily part will remain inert
and useless, till the life, which is actually YOU, returns to put
its machinery in motion once more."

"But shall I return at all?" I asked half doubtfully.

"You must return, because God has fixed the limits of your life on
earth, and no human power can alter His decree. Casimir's will can
set you free for a time, but only for a time. You are bound to
return, be it never so reluctantly. Eternal liberty is given by
Death alone, and Death cannot be forced to come."

"How about suicide?" I asked.

"The suicide," replied Zara, "has no soul. He kills his body, and by
the very act proves that whatever germ of an immortal existence he
may have had once, has escaped from its unworthy habitation, and
gone, like a flying spark, to find a chance of growth elsewhere.
Surely your own reason proves this to you? The very animals have
more soul than a man who commits suicide. The beasts of prey slay
each other for hunger or in self-defence, but they do not slay
themselves. That is a brutality left to man alone, with its
companion degradation, drunkenness."

I mused awhile in silence.

"In all the wickedness and cruelty of mankind," I said, "it is
almost a wonder that there is any spiritual existence left on earth
at all. Why should God trouble Himself to care for such few souls as
thoroughly believe in and love Him?--they can be but a mere
handful."

"Such a mere handful are worth more than the world to him," said
Zara gravely. "Oh, my dear, do not say such things as why should God
trouble Himself? Why do you trouble yourself for the safety and
happiness of anyone you love?"

Her eyes grew soft and tender, and the jewel she wore glimmered like
moonlight on the sea. I felt a little abashed, and, to change the
subject, I said:

"Tell me, Zara, what is that stone you always wear? Is it a
talisman?"

"It belonged to a king," said Zara,--"at least, it was found in a
king's coffin. It has been in our family for generations. Casimir
says it is an electric stone--there are such still to be found in
remote parts of the sea. Do you like it?"

"It is very brilliant and lovely," I said.

"When I die," went on Zara slowly, "I will leave it to you."

"I hope I shall have to wait a long time before I get it, then," I
exclaimed, embracing her affectionately. "Indeed, I will pray never
to receive it."

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