The black pearl
His voice is hard, vibrating with the anger he tries to control.
“Listen, Allen, and try to understand me.”
“That is easy. A word will suffice. Are you going with me? Yes or no?”
“Yes, if you absolutely exact it. No, if you will be generous enough to
give me back my promise.”
“Don’t expect that. If your departure depends only on me, let us start
at once”--proceeding towards the door.
“Sit down first, Allan. Grant me a few minutes. Surely it’s serious
enough, with all its consequences, to warrant that.”
Allan regards me, amazed at my calmness, which indeed surprises myself.
The mastery which he exercises over me seems for the nonce to have lost
its influence. I am quite collected, and absolute mistress of myself.
He sits down, however, and I take a seat beside him.
“Allan, I swear, if after hearing me you still insist upon it, I will
follow you; I will be your mistress, the slave of your desires. You may
possess my body, but it will be at the expense of my soul, of my love,
perhaps.”
“Your love, Jeanne! What has changed it like this? For you did love
me,” seizing my hands in his; “I have seen it in your eyes, felt it in
the trembling of your body--the body you throw at me as a victim is
thrown to a ferocious beast. Have I not felt your heart throb as you
lay in my arms, heard the sigh which was but the echo of my own.”
The passion I thought dead is surging through me. My whole body is
crying out for him.... No, no, I must fight still, for his sake, for
our divine love.
“I do love you, Allan, with all the strength of my nature, body and
soul, but now that I have realised the shame of this love, I cannot
yield to it without debasing myself, without, more terrible still,
risking the real, the eternal love which will unite us for ever, if we
have the strength to keep it pure.”
“Silly nonsense! The foolish imaginings of a head filled with these
new doctrines. What! Quit the substance for the shadow! Forego present
happiness for visionary felicity. We love each other. We are young,
rich, free to go where we will! Give rein to your love, Jeanne; let
mine sweep you away. Let us enjoy life. Come, sweetheart, it is so
beautiful, so real. Dismiss these morbid ideas, these foolish theories.
Leave this transcendent love to the woman who has perverted your
imagination, who has taken possession of you only to destroy you.”
I repress my irritation at the thought that Barker must have followed
me on the night of our arrival. Nothing I say must add to his anger.
“On the contrary, Allan, it is that very woman who has induced me to
receive you, counselled me to keep to my word, if you insist upon it.
But, oh, my beloved! Try to understand this love, the only real love,
which is better than the vain passion of a few hours.”
“I am only mortal, a man, not a spirit, whom the love of the angels can
satisfy,” replies Allan, a smile of bitter irony curving his lips.
“Allan, believe me, before I heard a word of the theories you term
silly I blushed with shame at the thought of what I had nearly become.
A chance meeting with some old friends, from whom I had to hide,
lest they should recognise me, showed me the abyss at my feet. To be
compelled to go through life, avoiding all who once knew me, reduced to
seek the society of _déclassés_ like myself.... Allan, Allan, for our
love’s sake do not condemn me to such an existence. There will be no
joy in it for you, my poor love; you will suffer seeing my misery.”
“It’s your pride, Jeanne, which won’t let you forget the idea of your
reputation.”
“My reputation! That’s compromised as it is. If you only want the
sacrifice of my honour, I will make it willingly. Must I proclaim
myself in the eyes of all, your mistress? Very well. I consent. But to
have to deceive you, to feign a happiness I no longer feel! That will
kill all the good left in me. I shall be but a cheerless companion, my
darling.”
Allan regards me anxiously. His anger has melted at sight of my
distress.
“Jeanne, are you quite sure you cannot throw off this morbid view of
things, that my love cannot make you forget this fictitious shame?”
My strength is giving way and I fall at his feet, weeping silently.
I have failed. I am too broken to fight longer. But my weakness, my
mute despair, have accomplished what my supplications could not.
After a moment’s struggle with himself, Allan raises me gently,
tenderly.
“Forgive me, Jeanne, for having troubled your life. I love you too
well, too deeply to condemn you to an existence, which I see would be
slow martyrdom. I thought my devotion would make amends for everything,
and give you happiness. That is the only excuse I have to offer for
my violence. I wanted to tear you away from the sad, lonely life you
were leading in Melbourne. I thought my love, such as it is, would be a
protection.”
His hand caresses my hair lightly. A wave of tenderness passes through
me.
“Rest assured, Jeanne, that if I had not thought I was acting for your
happiness, as well as my own, I would not have taken you to my house.
I would not have compromised your honour.”
“What are you going to do now?” breaks in Allan, descending more
quickly, as men always do, to the ordinary affairs of life.
“At least, let me have the poor consolation of knowing you independent.
I will place in a bank----”
“No, Allan! Money must never be a question between us. Besides, it
isn’t necessary. The sale of a necklace will give me several hundred
pounds, which will see me through my probationary stage.”
Allan’s face contracts at the mere idea.
“It is the best way, darling, to forget my grief. Don’t think you are
going to be the only one to suffer. But the suffering will be noble....”
“Ah, well! I am going to get a divorce, you know.”
“No. I don’t want happiness at the price of your dishonour, any more
than my own. You would feel it keenly if you broke your word.... Allan,
I swear I will never be yours while your wife lives.”
“But if she were to die....” A gleam of hope kindles his sombre eyes.
“Stop!” placing my hand on his mouth to prevent further utterance. “Not
another word! Thoughts kill sometimes as surely as a dagger. Though we
may be far apart, dear, our spirits may be in touch. When sleep comes,
our freed souls may unite in a love, which has nothing earthy, nothing
guilty in it.”
Allan shakes his head sadly. He has no faith in the life of dreams. He
regards as an illusion what to me is a dear reality.
When our emotion has grown calmer, Allan says,
“And Billy, who is expecting you on board, what must I do with him?”
“Poor little Billy!” In my grief, I had quite forgotten my little page.
“You must keep him. Don’t let him go back to his mother. Send him to
school. I will write to tell him to obey you in everything.... One day,
perhaps, when we are older and wiser, we may see each other again.”
I cannot send him away without a gleam of hope.
“Jeanne, I am leaving you free. Before I go”--his voice becomes
pleading--“will you give me one kiss, one kiss of ardent love.”
Our lips meet in a long impassioned kiss of love and despair.
XXIII
The
Vision
“I knew such a man (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot
tell: God knoweth). How that he was caught up into Paradise and heard
unspeakable words.”
ST. PAUL, Cor. xii. 3-4.
Seated in an easy chair in the little white room which Miss Carter has
had prepared for me, I live again the strained hours through which I
have just passed--the crisis which marks a new era in my life.
In imagination I follow the wake of two vessels furrowing their way
through the dark waters of the Gulf lit only by the scintillant stars.
They carry away with them the two potent forces which have battled for
my soul.
On the luxuriously fitted yacht, all the pleasures of the senses, the
delights of material life, enchanting voyages to far-off wonder-filled
lands as caprice or fancy dictate, lands where the fruits of forbidden
love, envenomed, but, ah, so sweet, might have been gathered, appeasing
for a time at least my passionate craving for love, for art and beauty!
On board, Allan alone, sad, but resigned, thinking of me, perhaps, at
this very instant, his thoughts meeting mine in love and tenderness as
each moment increases the distances between us.
On the other, a huge ocean liner--fitting symbol of duty, cleaving
inflexibly the narrow track, regardless of wind and wave--the
white-robed, stately figure who had stood before me at the parting of
the ways! She, too, is being borne away to raise before other troubled
souls the beacon of Hope, the desire of the Immaterial. I am conscious
of an infrangible bond--a bond of the spirit--linking me with her for
ever. She will sustain me in moments of weakness and despair, in the
mean and sordid monotony of the days to come. Under her influence I
shall see shining ever more clearly the Light of the Ideal, the star
whose glimmer I can feebly descry on the sombre horizon of my future.
Half musing thus, wearied and shaken with the emotions of the preceding
days, weakened by sleeplessness and fasting, for I have been unable
to swallow anything but a few drops of milk, I sink into a sort of
physical unconsciousness. My spirit, partly freed from its envelope of
flesh, becomes suddenly sensitive to vivid and intense life. Vague,
sweet harmonies float around me, luminous waves vibrate in the ambient
ether. Soon they seem to condense, unite and compose a mystic scene,
visible to the eyes of my spirit.
Through the quivering ether there glimmers palely, opalesquely, the
interior of a cell well-known to me. Before a Crucifix the Missionary
of the lepers is kneeling. I can follow the movement of his pallid lips
as they frame a fervent prayer.
The faint light clinging around him shows dimly the ravages of the
dread disease. Ethereal flames issue from the Stigmata, the feet, hands
and pierced side of the Saviour. They surround the young priest as with
an aureole.
From the heart of the Crucified flows another radiant beam, soft,
roseate, brilliant, streaming forth and rising like an immense jet of
Love.
Enraptured, I gaze upon this unearthly light. Borne along by the great
Force-current emanating from the God-Man I see ascend all the Disciples
of the Divine Master of the Occident, martyrs, apostles, mystics filled
with the Divine Madness, all the myriad throngs of Christianity.
Then I perceive around me faint flashes and turbid flames still glowing
with the reeking passions of earth. They envelop Allan and me. Our two
souls are linked and form but one. The flames lick and whirl around
us. Brighter, more scintillant and dazzling, they ascend purified in
glowing spirals. Sparks and flashes and flames group, meet, fuse,
and unite in seven rays of living, pulsating Light. Sound mingles
with colour in the Grand Diapason. The seven resplendent notes of the
Mystic Gamut respond to the seven colours and chant sonorously the Name
Ineffable. The whirling spiral mass of light and sound carries us
upward, upward, still upward....
The vibrations increase in intensity. The great columns of fire unite
to form the Divine Triangle. The Mystic Seven has merged into the
Three--the Trinity of Life, Love and Wisdom. The glowing, flashing,
three-faceted flame irradiates the Heavens, the Worlds, the whole
Universe.
Form, colour and sound commingle, and, glowing and vibrating, the Flame
resolves into the Absolute, the Eternal.... The Three have become the
One.
* * * * *
What matter now the sufferings of my life, the monotony of thankless
work, the dreary waiting for a happiness which may never be realised!