Part 7 (1/2)

How long the struggle was I cannot tell, or how often I was balked, or how many darted through before me when the door was opened. But I did not let him go; and at last, for now I was as strong as before,--stronger than most about me,--I got out into the air and brought him with me. Into the air! it was an atmosphere so still and motionless that there was no feeling of life in it, as I have said; but the change seemed to me happiness for the moment. It was freedom. The noise of the struggle was over; the horrible sights were left behind. My spirit sprang up as if I had been born into new life. It had the same effect, I suppose, upon my companion, though he was much weaker than I, for he rose to his feet at once with almost a leap of eagerness, and turned instantaneously towards the other side of the city.

'Not that way,' I said; 'come with me and rest.'

'No rest--no rest--my rest is to go on;' and then he turned towards me and smiled and said, 'Thanks'--looking into my face. What a word to hear!

I had not heard it since--A rush of strange and sweet and dreadful thoughts came into my mind. I shrank and trembled, and let go his arm, which I had been holding; but when I left that hold I seemed to fall back into depths of blank pain and longing. I put out my hand again and caught him. 'I will go,' I said, 'where you go.'

A pair of the officials of the place pa.s.sed as I spoke. They looked at me with a threatening glance, and half paused, but then pa.s.sed on. It was I now who hurried my companion along. I recollected him now. He was a man who had met me in the streets of the other city when I was still ignorant, who had convulsed me with the utterance of that name which, in all this world where we were, is never named but for punishment,--the name which I had named once more in the great hall in the midst of my torture, so that all who heard me were transfixed with that suffering too. He had been haggard then, but he was more haggard now. His features were sharp with continual pain; his eyes were wild with weakness and trouble, though there was a meaning in them which went to my heart. It seemed to me that in his touch there was a certain help, though he was weak and tottered, and every moment seemed full of suffering. Hope sprang up in my mind,--the hope that where he was so eager to go there would be something better, a life more livable than in this place. In every new place there is new hope. I was not worn out of that human impulse. I forgot the nightmare which had crushed me before,--the horrible sense that from myself there was no escape,--and holding fast to his arm, I hurried on with him, not heeding where. We went aside into less frequented streets, that we might escape observation. I seemed to myself the guide, though I was the follower.

A great faith in this man sprang up in my breast. I was ready to go with him wherever he went, anywhere--anywhere must be better than this.

Thus I pushed him on, holding by his arm, till we reached the very outmost limits of the city. Here he stood still for a moment, turning upon me, and took me by the hands.

'Friend,' he said, 'before you were born into the pleasant earth I had come here. I have gone all the weary round. Listen to one who knows: all is harder, harder, as you go on. You are stirred to go on by the restlessness in your heart, and each new place you come to, the spirit of that place enters into you. You are better here than you will be farther on. You were better where you were at first, or even in the mines, than here. Come no farther. Stay; unless--' but here his voice gave way. He looked at me with anxiety in his eyes, and said no more.

'Then why,' I cried, 'do you go on? Why do you not stay?'

He shook his head, and his eyes grew more and more soft. 'I am going,' he said, and his voice shook again. 'I am going--to try--the most awful and the most dangerous journey--' His voice died away altogether, and he only looked at me to say the rest.

'A journey? Where?'

I can tell no man what his eyes said. I understood, I cannot tell how; and with trembling all my limbs seemed to drop out of joint and my face grow moist with terror. I could not speak any more than he, but with my lips shaped, How? The awful thought made a tremor in the very air around.

He shook his head slowly as he looked at me, his eyes, all circled with deep lines, looking out of caves of anguish and anxiety; and then I remembered how he had said, and I had scoffed at him, that the way he sought was one he did not know. I had dropped his hands in my fear; and yet to leave him seemed dragging the heart out of my breast, for none but he had spoken to me like a brother, had taken my hand and thanked me. I looked out across the plain, and the roads seemed tranquil and still.

There was a coolness in the air. It looked like evening, as if somewhere in those far distances there might be a place where a weary soul might rest; and I looked behind me, and thought what I had suffered, and remembered the lazar-house and the voices that cried and the hands that beat against the door, and also the horrible quiet of the room in which I lived, and the eyes which looked in at me and turned my gaze upon myself.

Then I rushed after him, for he had turned to go on upon his way, and caught at his clothes, crying, 'Behold me, behold me! I will go too!'

He reached me his hand and went on without a word; and I with terror crept after him, treading in his steps, following like his shadow. What it was to walk with another, and follow, and be at one, is more than I can tell; but likewise my heart failed me for fear, for dread of what we might encounter, and of hearing that name or entering that presence which was more terrible than all torture. I wondered how it could be that one should willingly face _that_ which racked the soul, and how he had learned that it was possible, and where he had heard of the way. And as we went on I said no word, for he began to seem to me a being of another kind, a figure full of awe; and I followed as one might follow a ghost.

Where would he go? Were we not fixed here forever, where our lot had been cast? And there were still many other great cities where there might be much to see, and something to distract the mind, and where it might be more possible to live than it had proved in the other places. There might be no tyrants there, nor cruelty, nor horrible noises, nor dreadful silence. Towards the right hand, across the plain, there seemed to rise out of the gray distance a cl.u.s.ter of towers and roofs like another habitable place; and who could tell that something better might not be there? Surely everything could not turn to torture and misery. I dragged on behind him, with all these thoughts hurrying through my mind. He was going--I dare to say it now, though I did not dare then--to seek out a way to G.o.d; to try, if it was possible, to find the road that led back,--that road which had been open once to all. But for me, I trembled at the thought of that road. I feared the name, which was as the plunging of a sword into my inmost parts. All things could be borne but that. I dared not even think upon that name. To feel my hand in another man's hand was much, but to be led into that awful presence, by awful ways, which none knew--how could I bear it? My spirits failed me, and my strength. My hand became loose in his hand; he grasped me still, but my hold failed, and ever with slower and slower steps I followed, while he seemed to acquire strength with every winding of the way. At length he said to me, looking back upon me, 'I cannot stop; but your heart falls you. Shall I loose my hand and let you go?'

'I am afraid; I am afraid!' I cried.

'And I too am afraid; but it is better to suffer more and to escape than to suffer less and to remain.'

'Has it ever been known that one escaped? No one has ever escaped. This is our place,' I said; 'there is no other world.'

'There are other worlds; there is a world where every way leads to One who loves us still.'

I cried out with a great cry of misery and scorn. 'There is no love!' I said.

He stood still for a moment and turned and looked at me. His eyes seemed to melt my soul. A great cloud pa.s.sed over them, as in the pleasant earth a cloud will sweep across the moon; and then the light came out and looked at me again, for neither did he know. Where he was going all might end in despair and double and double pain. But if it were possible that at the end there should be found that for which he longed, upon which his heart was set! He said with a faltering voice, 'Among all whom I have questioned and seen, there was but one who found the way. But if one has found it, so may I. If you will not come, yet let me go.'

'They will tear you limb from limb; they will burn you in the endless fires,' I said. But what is it to be torn limb from limb, or burned with fire? There came upon his face a smile, and in my heart even I laughed to scorn what I had said.

'If I were dragged every nerve apart, and every thought turned into a fiery dart,--and that is so,' he said,--'yet will I go, if but perhaps I may see Love at the end.'

'There is no love!' I cried again with a sharp and bitter cry; and the echo seemed to come back and back from every side, No love! no love! till the man who was my friend faltered and stumbled like a drunken man; but afterwards he recovered strength and resumed his way.

And thus once more we went on. On the right hand was that city, growing ever clearer, with n.o.ble towers rising up to the sky, and battlements and lofty roofs, and behind a yellow clearness, as of a golden sunset. My heart drew me there; it sprang up in my breast and sang in my ears, Come, and come. Myself invited me to this new place as to a home. The others were wretched, but this will be happy,--delights and pleasures will be there. And before us the way grew dark with storms, and there grew visible among the mists a black line of mountains, perpendicular cliffs, and awful precipices, which seemed to bar the way. I turned from that line of gloomy heights, and gazed along the path to where the towers stood up against the sky. And presently my hand dropped by my side, that had been held in my companion's hand; and I saw him no more.

I went on to the city of the evening light. Ever and ever, as I proceeded on my way, the sense of haste and restless impatience grew upon me, so that I felt myself incapable of remaining long in a place, and my desire grew stronger to hasten on and on; but when I entered the gates of the city this longing vanished from my mind. There seemed some great festival or public holiday going on there. The streets were full of pleasure-parties, and in every open place (of which there were many) were bands of dancers, and music playing; and the houses about were hung with tapestries and embroideries and garlands of flowers. A load seemed to be taken from my spirit when I saw all this,--for a whole population does not rejoice in such a way without some cause. And to think that after all I had found a place in which I might live and forget the misery and pain which I had known, and all that was behind me, was delightful to my soul. It seemed to me that all the dancers were beautiful and young, their steps went gayly to the music, their faces were bright with smiles.

Here and there was a master of the feast, who arranged the dances and guided the musicians, yet seemed to have a look and smile for new-comers too. One of these came forwards to meet me, and received me with a welcome, and showed me a vacant place at the table, on which were beautiful fruits piled up in baskets, and all the provisions for a meal.

'You were expected, you perceive,' he said. A delightful sense of well-being came into my mind. I sat down in the sweetness of ease after fatigue, of refreshment after weariness, of pleasant sounds and sights after the arid way. I said to myself that my past experiences had been a mistake, that this was where I ought to have come from the first, that life here would be happy, and that all intruding thoughts must soon vanish and die away.