Ardath | Page 7

skill would scarcely avail you, as I could promise you neither self-oblivion nor visionary joy. I have a certain internal force, it is true--a spiritual force which when strongly exercised overpowers and subdues the material--and by exerting this I could, if I thought it well to do so, release your SOUL--that is, the Inner Intelligent Spirit which is the actual You--from its house of clay, and allow it an interval of freedom. But what its experience might be in that unfettered condition, whether glad or sorrowful, I am totally unable to predict."
Alwyn looked at him steadfastly.
"You believe in the Soul?" he asked.
"Most certainly!"
"As a separate Personality that continues to live on when the body perishes?"
"Assuredly."
"And you profess to be able to liberate it for a time from its mortal habitation--"
"I do not profess," interposed Heliobas quietly. "I CAN do so."
"But with the success of the experiment your power ceases?--you cannot foretell whether the unimprisoned creature will take its course to an inferno of suffering or a heaven of delight?--is this what you mean?"
Heliobas bent his head in grave assent.
Alwyn broke into a harsh laugh--"Come then!" he exclaimed with a reckless air,--"Begin your incantations at once! Send me hence, no matter where, so long as I am for a while escaped from this den of a world, this dungeon with one small window through which, with the death rattle in our throats, we stare vacantly at the blank unmeaning honor of the Universe! Prove to me that the Soul exists --ye gods! Prove it! and if mine can find its way straight to the mainspring of this revolving Creation, it shall cling to the accused wheels and stop them, that they may grind out the tortures of Life no more!"
He flung up his hand with a wild gesture: his countenance, darkly threatening and defiant, was yet beautiful with the evil beauty of a rebellious and fallen angel. His breath came and went quickly,-- he seemed to challenge some invisible opponent. Heliobas meanwhile watched him much as a physician might watch in his patient the workings of a new disease, then he said in purposely cold and tranquil tones:
"A bold idea! singularly blasphemous, arrogant, and--fortunately for us all--impracticable! Allow me to remark that you are overexcited, Mr. Alwyn; you talk as madmen may, but as reasonable men should not. Come," and he smiled,--a smile that was both grave and sweet, "come and sit down--you are worn out with the force of your own desperate emotions--rest a few minutes and recover your self."
His voice thouqh gentle was distinctly authoritative, and Alwyn meeting the full gaze of his calm eyes felt bound to obey the implied command. He therefore sank listlessly into an easy chair near the table, pushing back the short, thick curls from his brow with a wearied movement; he was very pale,--an uneasy sense of shame was upon him, and he sighed,--a quick sigh of exhausted passion. Heliobas seated himself opposite and looked at him earnestly, he studied with sympathetic attention the lines of dejection and fatigue which marred the attractiveness of features otherwise frank, poetic, and noble. He had seen many such men. Men in their prime who had begun life full of high faith, hope, and lofty aspiration, yet whose fair ideals once bruised in the mortar of modern atheistical opinion had perished forever, while they themselves, like golden eagles suddenly and cruelly shot while flying in mid-air, had fallen helplessly, broken-winged among the dust-heaps of the world, never to rise and soar sunwards again. Thinking this, his accents were touched with a certain compassion when after a pause he said softly:
"Poor boy!--poor, puzzled, tired brain that would fain judge Infinity by merely finite perception! You were a far truer poet, Theos Alwyn, when as a world-foolish, heaven-inspired lad you believed in God, and therefore, in godlike gladness, found all things good!"
Alwyn looked up--his lips quivered.
"Poet--poet!" he murmured--"why taunt me with the name?" He started upright in his chair--"Let me tell you all," he said suddenly; "you may as well know what has made me the useless wreck I am; though perhaps I shall only weary you."
"Far from it," answered Heliobas gently. "Speak freely--but remember I do not compel your confidence."
"On the contrary, I think you do!" and again that faint, half- mournful smile shone for an instant in his deep, dark eyes, "though you may not be conscious of it. Anyhow I feel impelled to unburden my heart to you: I have kept silence so long! You know what it is in the world, ... one must always keep silence, always shut in one's grief and force a smile, in company with the rest of the tormented, forced-smiling crowd. We can never be ourselves-- our veritable selves--for, if we were, the air would resound with our ceaseless lamentations!