Etidorhpa or the End of Earth Part 27

The golden calf is no longer worshiped, cobwebs cling in festoons motionless, and the dust of selfish thoughts perverted, dry and black as the soot from Satan's fires settling therein, as the dust of an antiquated sarcophagus, rest undisturbed. Place on one side the Heaven of which gold-bound misers sing, and on the other Etidorhpa and the treasures that come with me to man and woman, (for without me neither wife, child, nor father could exist,) and from any other heaven mankind will turn away. The n.o.blest gift of Heaven to humanity is the highest sense of love, and I, Etidorhpa, am the soul of love."

She ceased speaking, and as I looked at the form beside me I forgot myself in the rapture of that gaze.

Crush the colors of the rainbow into a single hue possessed of the attributes of all the others, and multiply that ent.i.ty to infinity, and you have less richness than rested in any of the complex colors shown in the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of her raiment. Lighten the softness of eiderdown a thousand times, and yet maintain its sense of substance, and you have not conceived of the softness of the gauze that decked her simple, flowing garments. Gather the shadows cast by a troop of radiant angels, then sprinkle the resultant shade with star dust, and color therewith a garment brighter than satin, softer than silk, and more ethereal than light itself, and you have less beauty than reposed in the modest dress that enveloped her figure. Abstract the perfume from the sweetest oriental gra.s.ses, and combine with it the essential spirit of the wild rose, then add thereto the soul of ambergris, and the quintessential extracts of the finest aromatics of the East, and you have not approached the exquisite fragrance that penetrated my very being at her approach. She stood before me, slender, lithe, symmetrical, radiant. Her hair was more beautiful than pen can depict; it was colorless because it can not be described by colors known to mortals. Her face paled the beauty of all who had preceded her. She could not be a fairy, for no conception of a fairy can approach such loveliness; she was not a spirit, for surely material substance was a part of her form; she was not an angel, for no abnormal, irrational wing protruded from her shoulder to blemish her seraphic figure.

"No," I said musingly; "she is a creature of other climes; the Scriptures tell of no such being; she is neither human nor angelic, but--"

"But what?" she said.

"I do not know," I answered.

"Then I will tell you," she replied. "Yes; I will tell you of myself and of my companions. I will show you our home, carrying you through the shadows of heaven to exhibit that fair land, for heaven without Etidorhpa casts a shadow in comparison therewith. See," she said, as with her dainty fingers she removed from her garment a fragment of transparent film that I had not previously observed; "see, this is a cobweb that clung to my skirt, as, on my way to meet you, I pa.s.sed through the dismal corridors of the materialists' loveless heaven."

She dropped it on the floor, and I stooped to pick it up, but vainly--my fingers pa.s.sed through it as through a mist.

"You must be an angel," I stammered.

She smiled.

"Come," she said, "do not consume your time with thoughts of materialistic heaven; come with me to that brighter land beyond, and in those indescribable scenes we, you and I, will wander together forever."

She held out her hand; I hesitatingly touched it, and then raised it to my lips. She made no resistance.

I dropped upon my knees. "Are you to be mine?" I cried. "Mine forever?"

"Yes," she answered; "if you will it, for he who loves will be loved in turn."

"I will do it," I said; "I give myself to you, be you what you may, be your home where it may, I give up the earth behind me, and the hope of heaven before me; the here and the hereafter I will sacrifice. Let us hasten," I said, for she made no movement.

She shook her head. "You must yet be tempted as never before, and you must resist the tempter. You can not pa.s.s into the land of Etidorhpa until you have suffered as only the d.a.m.ned can suffer, until you have withstood the pangs of thirst, and have experienced heat and cold indescribable. Remember the warning of your former guide, mark well the words of Etidorhpa: you must not yield. 'Twas to serve you that I came before you now, 'twas to preserve you from the Drunkard's Cavern that I have given you this vision of the land beyond the End of Earth where, if you will serve yourself, we will meet again."

She held aloft two tiny cups; I sprung to my feet and grasped one of them, and as I glanced at the throng in front of me, every radiant figure held aloft in the left hand a similar cup. All were gazing in my face. I looked at the transparent cup in my hand; it appeared to be partly filled with a green liquid. I looked at her cup and saw that it contained a similar fluid.

Forgetting the warning she had so recently given, I raised the cup to my lips, and just before touching it glanced again at her face. The fair creature stood with bowed head, her face covered with her hand; her very form and att.i.tude spoke of sorrow and disappointment, and she trembled in distress. She held one hand as though to thrust back a form that seemed about to force itself beyond her figure, for peering exultingly from behind, leered the same Satanic face that met my gaze on the preceding occasion, when in the presence of the troop of demons, I had been tempted by the perfect man.

Dashing the cup to the floor I shouted:

"No; I will not drink."

Etidorhpa dropped upon her knees and clasped her hands. The Satanic figure disappeared from sight. Realizing that we had triumphed over the tempter, I also fell upon my knees in thankfulness.

CHAPTER XLI.

MISERY.

As all the bubbles in a gla.s.s shrink and vanish when the first collapses, so the troop of fairy-like forms before me disintegrated, and were gone. The delicate being, whose hand I held, fluttered as does a mist in the first gust of a sudden gale, and then dissolved into transparency. The gaily decked amphitheater disappeared, the very earth cavern pa.s.sed from existence, and I found myself standing solitary and alone in a boundless desert. I turned towards every point of the compa.s.s only to find that no visible object appeared to break the monotony. I stood upon a floor of pure white sand which stretched to the horizon in gentle wave-like undulations as if the swell of the ocean had been caught, transformed to sand, and fixed.

I bent down and scooped a handful of the sand, and raised it in the palm of my hand, letting it sift back again to earth; it was surely sand. I pinched my flesh, and pulled my hair, I tore my garments, stamped upon the sand, and shouted aloud to demonstrate that I myself was still myself. It was real, yes, real. I stood alone in a desert of sand.

Morning was dawning, and on one side the great sun rose slowly and majestically.

"Thank G.o.d for the sun," I cried. "Thank G.o.d for the light and heat of the sun."

I was again on surface earth; once more I beheld that glorious...o...b..for the sight of which I had so often prayed when I believed myself miserable in the dismal earth caverns, and which I had been willing to give my very life once more to behold. I fell on my knees, and raised my hands in thankfulness. I blessed the rising sun, the illimitable sand, the air about me, and the blue heavens above. I blessed all that was before me, and again and again returned thanks for my delivery from the caverns beneath me. I did not think to question by what power this miracle had been accomplished. I did not care to do so; had I thought of the matter at all I would not have dared to question for fear the transition might prove a delusion.

I turned towards the sun, and walked eastward. As the day progressed and the sun rose into the heavens, I maintained my journey, aiming as best I could to keep the same direction. The heat increased, and when the sun reached the zenith it seemed as though it would melt the marrow in my bones. The sand, as white as snow and hot as lava, dazzled my eyes, and I covered them with my hands. The sun in the sky felt as if it were a ball of white hot iron near my head. It seemed small, and yet appeared to shine as through a tube directed only towards myself. Vainly did I struggle to escape and get beyond its boundary, the tube seemed to follow my every motion, directing the blazing shafts, and concentrating them ever upon my defenseless person. I removed my outer garments, and tore my shirt into fibers hoping to catch a waft of breeze, and with one hand over my eyes, and the other holding my coat above my head, endeavored to escape the mighty flood of heat, but vainly. The fiery rays streamed through the garment as mercury flows through a film of gauze. They penetrated my flesh, and vaporized my blood. My hands, fingers, and arms puffed out as a bladder of air expands under the influence of heat. My face swelled to twice, thrice its normal size, and at last my eyes were closed, for my cheeks and eyebrows met. I rubbed my shapeless hand over my sightless face, and found it as round as a ball; the nose had become imbedded in the expanded flesh, and my ears had disappeared in the same manner.

I could no longer see the sun, but felt the vivid, piercing rays I could not evade. I do not know whether I walked or rolled along; I only know that I struggled to escape those deadly rays. Then I prayed for death, and in the same breath begged the powers that had transferred me to surface earth to carry me back again to the caverns below. The recollection of their cool, refreshing atmosphere was as the thought of heaven must be to a lost spirit. I experienced the agony of a d.a.m.ned soul, and now, in contradistinction to former times, considered as my idea of perfect happiness the dismal earth caverns of other days. I thought of the day I had stood at the mouth of the Kentucky cave, and waded into the water with my guide; I recalled the refreshing coolness of the stream in the darkness of that cavern when the last ray of sunshine disappeared, and I cursed myself for longing then for sunshine, and the surface earth. Fool that man is, I mentally cried, not to be contented with that which is, however he may be situated, and wherever he may be placed. This is but a retribution, I am being cursed for my discontented mind, this is h.e.l.l, and in comparison with this h.e.l.l all else on or in earth is happiness. Then I d.a.m.ned the sun, the earth, the very G.o.d of all, and in my frenzy cursed everything that existed. I felt my puffed limbs, and prayed that I might become lean again. I asked to shrink to a skeleton, for seemingly my misery came with my expanded form; but I prayed and cursed in vain. So I struggled on in agony, every moment seemingly covering a mult.i.tude of years; struggled along like a lost soul plodding in an endless expanse of ever-increasing, ever-concentrating h.e.l.l. At last, however, the day declined, the heat decreased, and as it did so my distorted body gradually regained its normal size, my eyesight returned, and finally I stood in that wilderness of sand watching the great red sun sink into the earth, as in the morning I had watched it rise. But between the sunrise and the sunset there had been an eternity of suffering, and then, as if released from a spell, I dropped exhausted upon the sand, and seemed to sleep. I dreamed of the sun, and that an angel stood before me, and asked why I was miserable, and in reply I pointed to the sun. "See," I said, "the author of the misery of man."

Said the angel: "Were there no sun there would be no men, but were there no men there would still be misery."

"Misery of what?" I asked.

"Misery of mind," replied the angel. "Misery is a thing, misery is not a conception--pain is real, pain is not an impression. Misery and pain would still exist and prey upon mind substance were there no men, for mind also is real, and not a mere conception. The pain you have suffered has not been the pain of matter, but the pain of spirit. Matter can not suffer. Were it matter that suffered, the heated sand would writhe in agony. No; it is only mind and spirit that experience pain, or pleasure, and neither mind nor spirit can evade its destiny, even if it escape from the body."

Then I awoke and saw once more the great red sun rise from the sand-edge of my desolate world, and I became aware of a new pain, for now I perceived the fact that I experienced the sense of thirst. The conception of the impression drew my mind to the subject, and instantly intense thirst, the most acute of bodily sufferings, possessed me. When vitalized tissue craves water, other physical wants are unfelt; when man parches to death all other methods of torture are disregarded. I thought no longer of the rising sun, I remembered no more the burning sand of yesterday, I felt only the pain of thirst.

"Water, water, water," I cried, and then in the distance as if in answer to my cry, I beheld a lake of water.

Instantly every nerve was strained, every muscle stretched, and I fled over the sands towards the welcome pool.

On and on I ran, and as I did so, the sun rising higher and higher, again began to burn the sands beneath my feet, and roast the flesh upon my bones. Once more I experienced that intolerable sense of pain, the pain of living flesh disintegrating by fire, and now with thirst gnawing at my vitals, and fire drying up the residue of my evaporated blood, I struggled in agony towards a lake that vanished before my gaze, to reappear just beyond.

This day was more horrible than the preceding, and yet it was the reverse so far as the action of the sun on my flesh was concerned. My prayer of yesterday had been fearfully answered, and the curses of the day preceding were being visited upon my very self. I had prayed to become lean, and instead of the former puffed tissue and expanded flesh, my body contracted as does beef when dried. The tightening skin squeezed upon the solidifying flesh, and as the moisture evaporated, it left a shriveled integument, contracted close upon the bone. My joints stood out as great protuberances, my skin turned to a dark amber color, and my flesh became transparent as does wetted horn. I saw my very vitals throb, I saw the empty blood vessels, the shriveled nerves and vacant arteries of my frame. I could not close my eyes. I could not shield them from the burning sun. I was a mummy, yet living, a dried corpse walking over the sand, dead to all save pain. I tried to fall, but could not, and I felt that, while the sun was visible, I must stand upright; I could not stop, and could not stoop. Then at last the malevolent sun sank beneath the horizon, and as the last ray disappeared again, I fell upon the sand.

I did not sleep, I did not rest, I did not breathe nor live a human; I only existed as a living pain, the conception of pain realized into a conscious nucleus,--and so the night pa.s.sed. Again the sun arose, and with the light of her first ray I saw near at hand a caravan, camels, men, horses, a great cavalcade. They approached rapidly and surrounded me. The leader of the band alighted and raised me to my feet, for no longer had I the power of motion. He spoke to me kindly, and strange as it may seem to you, but not at all strange did it seem to me, called me by name.

"We came across your tracks in the desert," he said; "we are your deliverers."

I motioned for water; I could not speak.

"Yes," he said, "water you shall have."

Then from one of the skins that hung across the hump of a camel he filled a crystal goblet with sparkling water, and held it towards me, but just before the goblet touched my lips he withdrew it and said:

"I forgot to first extend the greetings of our people."

And then I noticed in his other hand a tiny gla.s.s containing a green liquid, which he placed to my lips, p.r.o.nouncing the single word, "Drink."

I fastened my gaze upon the water, and opened my lips. I smelled the aroma of the powerful narcotic liquid within the gla.s.s, and hastened to obey, but glanced first at my deliverer, and in his stead saw the familiar face of the satanic figure that twice before had tempted me.

Instantly, without a thought as to the consequences, without a fear as to the result, I dashed the gla.s.s to the sand, and my voice returning, I cried for the third time, "No; I will not drink."

The troop of camels instantly disappeared, as had the figures in the scenes before, the tempter resolved into clear air, the sand beneath my feet became natural again, and I became myself as I had been before pa.s.sing through the hideous ordeal. The fact of my deliverance from the earth caverns had, I now realized, been followed by temporary aberration of my mind, but at last I saw clearly again, the painful fancy had pa.s.sed, the delirium was over.

I fell upon my knees in thankfulness; the misery through which I had pa.s.sed had proven to be illusory, the earth caverns were beneath me, the mirage and temptations were not real, the horrors I had experienced were imaginary--thank G.o.d for all this--and that the sand was really sand.

Solitary, alone, I kneeled in the desert barren, from horizon to horizon desolation only surrounded, and yet the scene of that illimitable waste, a fearful reality, it is true, was sweet in comparison with the misery of body and soul about which I had dreamed so vividly.