CHAPTER IX.  EASTER-DAY AT THE PORTICO OF THE SAGE.

 

 

Lo, in the golden sky

We angel forms descry, Celestial hosts descend to-day.

The friends of early years,

From their exalted spheres,
Walk with us on our earthly way.

 

"TEN years ago to-day," said Leon, "I wrote a monody of a sad heart, sorely tried, which ran as follows:—

 

AN EASTER MONODY.

 

To-day is Easter. Yesterday was our day of sorrow; the forty days of Lent crowded into one. Now the whole Christian world is rejoicing over the Arisen One; for the triumph over death; for the assurance that beyond the clouds of grief shines the eternal sun of life.

 

To us the weeping of Egyptian mothers for Horus, blessed infant lost, and their rejoicing, in flowery processions when he was restored; the weeping at, the sepulchre of a later Saviour and his appearance in the glory of light of an ascending spirit have been as beautiful myths sharply defined against the poetic background of history. Now they have become reality. We mourn with those who weep, refusing to be comforted. Our Horus, our babe, is lost! The bright Easter-morn has no brightness for us. Why does the sun rise glorious, with no sympathy for grief? Why sing the birds so sweetly when the house is dark with woe? It seems wicked to have the day so bright, such music in the air, such fragrance of budding leaf and flower, and one dead!

 

From the far West she came to visit us, bringing so many winsome ways, such sweet smiles and rippling laugh that was the spirit of all melodies, that we loved her with all our heart; our one-year-old first grandchild, and as our own child, was she the light of our household.

 

O heart! be still while I write how this beautiful vision, this embodied prophecy of grace, purity and nobility; this blessed child, go little yet so much, of whom we were so proud, around whom every fibre of our hearts clung, faded as a flower touched by the rude breath of frost and disappeared! Her cheeks, soft as the blush rose, faded, her lips paled, and her mother, quick to detect the coming shadow, cried in agony, "She is dying!" How we chafed the chill hands, how we sought to force the stagnant blood to move in its channels; how implored the overruling forces of the world for aid! And while we held the little hands tightly clasped, as though to save her from a flood which laved our very feet, and whose sullen waves we heard breaking on the receding coast line of oblivion, to drag her back despite the power of fate and wrench her even from the hand of God, without a pang, a sigh, a quiver, even as of a wave that vanishes on the shore, she passed out of our hands into the voiceless sphere of death and night. With a suppressed shudder while beaded drops gathered on our foreheads, we listened for the breath which came not, and looked into those blue eyes over which a mist had gathered, to find the soul no longer looking through them into the world.

 

"Come back, oh, babe of mine!" the mother cried. What have I done that you must die? Is the sin mine? Then bind me to the rack and make me live an age on the confines of deathly pain, but spare this blessed innocent one who has no sin or evil thought!

 

Is there a God, and does he suffer such injustice, wrong, and cruelty to exist? Has he strung our hearts with the chords of love, vibrant to such tender sentiments, such profound emotions, that he may, with rude hand break them asunder and leave us helpless, hopeless victims of infinite torture? No! If such be God, there is no God, better, far better, blind chance than a demon God. Better the inflexible, iron hand of fate as expressed in the laws of the world, loveless, feelingless, heartless, unavoidable in their dire consequence.

 

Dead? no, no, she cannot be! Look again! Listen for the breath! The heart must still beat. We cannot hear it; our hopes blasted, our dreams dissipated, our aircastles vanishing, and in the place of love the blackness of regret, merciless, cutting through our hearts.

 

Had we known; oh! had we known with infinite prescience, then would we have laughed at fate and defeated the decree of destiny. Ah! are we sure that had we known the result and acted differently, the end might not have been still more deplorable? Can we do more than use our infinite powers to the best of our knowledge? Who can ask more?

 

Why should we regret? Life is the complement of death, and death a necessity of life. Death unlocks the gate of eternal life and swings it open wide for the ascending spirit. True "out of our hands she passed," but into gentler hands than ours. The waiting angels received her in their tender arms, arrayed her in new robes of their sphere of light, and she knew not of the change. She received her angel-mother as her own, and after the pain of the second birth had passed, her life became a constant joy. She will perfect herself in the future life, as she would have done here bad she remained, and if our spiritual perceptions are sufficiently quickened, we shall see her from day to day and year to year in her ascending course. We shall am her sweet spirit taken from earth unsoiled and spotless as the Calla's bloom, mature so delicately and spiritually that we shall be glad her feet were not called to press the flinty pathways of earth-life; that she was not called to drink its bitter cup of pain, nor bear its heavy burdens of cares.

 

If we could see! but, oh, we do not, for it is dark! How, when we have sailed between two coasts of stars, the heavens above reflected on the pulsing Bea, a breath of storm has blotted out the reflection—so within our hearts that mirrored all this heaven, a breath has changed to darkness; yet as in storms, we gazed far more above than in the blackened depths, we turn not to the lower world of mortal life, but to the heavens of light, where shine the stars of Hope, Faith, and Promise, who with knowledge, keep their watch. Oh, how this thought doth purify our lives! Around and very near are our departed friends! Our child is with them and with us. The casket with its flowers contained another casket from which the jeweled soul, immortal fled. It was a garment cast aside; a cage deserted by our bird of song.

 

Mother of an angel, weep no more. The time will come when your regarded loss will count as gain. We will unite around our hearth, not with bowed heads and bleeding hearts, but with rejoicing of the men of old when he who made the Easter what it is, before them solved the problem of immortal life, upspringing from the wreck of death! Not with the crape, the sackcloth of despair, but cheerful that we win the presence of our friends, nor on them turn the shadows of our sorrow and lives as ordered under the eyes of these dear ones, until this pilgrimage is over, and at length we reach the shore, beyond which lies the country for which we have in all our dreams been longing. Then will come a sleep and we shall awaken, glad, greeted, and happy in the consciousness that at last, after the long journey over the quaking bogs and hidden quicksands on which life's firmest structure% find their base, we have the certain world, the world of fact, the real of the shadow…. There our love shall know no blight, our hopes no disappointments, our aspirations no rude rebuff, our friendships no frosts, and there shall be no parting there.

 

"You had a very, very sad beginning," said Hero, "and to mortals who accept not the truth of immortality, dark, indeed, must be the night which closes over the grave. I will sing you a song appropriate to this day, which commemorates the resurrection of life from death; the return of the sun, with the joyous spring to roll the stone from the grave of winter."

 

Low hung the sickled moon adown the west, As to the garden gate they slowly came

"You pledge to love me true, to love me best, I pledge to you a heart fore'er the same."

 

Then plucking immortelles of beauty rare, Bright garnet mixed with purest gold, He placed them lightly on her bosom fair, And aid, "By this my constant love is told."

 

After a weary waiting he returned

To find in bridal garments she was dressed, Pales immortelles upon her waxen brow, And snowy callas on her pulseless breast.

 

Then from the grave he plucked an immortelle, Upon his heart its fadeless bloom enshrined The angel Death bad rang their wedding bell, And their twin souls eternally combined.

 

Thus faithful hearts, the dreary years are past, When softly rung the golden wedding bell He heard, and closed his weary eyes at last, To waken greeted by his immortelle.

 

"You are all too sad," exclaimed a sister who had just returned from a visit to the earth. "To-day is for joy, for mirth, for flowers, not for reflection. I have been unusually interested in my reunion with mortal life, and the narrow conceptions formed by the most susceptible minds of the realm of spirit. They are like the canary bird that having been born and bred in a cage, has received all ideas from the standpoint of his cage."

 

"The world," exclaimed a canary from his perch, "is no great affair. The difference between my cage and the parlor in which it is hung, is not much. My mistress has one, I the other, and she sighs the most."

 

Then he hopped up on his perch and looked about, and nodded his head on one side like a philosopher.

 

"The world is square," he said sententiously; "that is self-evident, for my senses unmistakably say so; square, and about fifty times taller than I. Above is a ceiling, with a big lamp hanging from the centre. The sides rest on a brown and green carpet. There appears to be a strip of something outside, bright and green, which I can see through a clear spot in the side of the room, which my mistress calls a window, and I have seen moving things there, like men and birds, but as they are continually coming and going, this spot I think I see out of, evidently is only a fancy, and I have ceased to look out—to do so, regarding it as a waste of time. Really, I pity her as she sits there gazing out, not knowing how supremely foolish she is in accepting the hallucination. People come in and go out of this room, so there must be another room like it, and these two rooms make what they call the world."

 

Poor little canary, with a head full of philosophy, and a good reasoner from the scant data of his observations, but the little he knew made him proud and arrogant, and having settled the problem of the world, he took no further thought. He would sing, and with a flutter of wings, and a shake of feathers be began his sweetest refrain. He was an excellent singer, far better than philosopher, and he became infatuated with his own music until he sprang from perch to perch, setting the cage to swinging so violently that in the middle of one of his most charming passages its support broke, and down it came to the floor with a crash. The bottom fell off, and wild with fear, he flew up into the room and through the open window out into the garden. If he was frightened before, he was now unspeakably so. He flew up into a tree and perched on one of the branches. The sun was shining brilliantly, and the garden was ablaze with gorgeous hued flowers. The wind was rocking and swaying the trees, as though an invisible hand was moving them. A great many birds, some large, and others even as small as himself, were flying here and there, singing gaily, What did it all mean? What were the clouds, and the sky, and the birds?

 

When he bad somewhat recovered his self-possession, he said:—

 

"This is the greatest hallucination I have met with; I was mistaken about the world being a room; it self-evidently is a large garden, lighted by a lamp from a round ceiling. The birds seem to fly with ease, and to be happy, but it is after all so wide and high she will be sure to get lost. I'll fly over to the other side, and see how it appears from there."

 

He spread his wings, and by great effort sustained himself until he reached, or rather fell into a tall rosebush. Cage life had not given him strength of flight, and panting for breath, he exclaimed:—

 

"This may be delightful for those other birds but it is in nowise so to me. I wish I were in my cage, where it is not so wide, and one can see to the end, to the top and the bottom."

 

Just at this moment he saw his mistress at the window, heard her calling to him. His heart fluttered with delight and he flew towards her. It made even the sparrows laugh to see him go from side to side, now up, now down, and beating the air with rapid wings, now scarcely moving them enough to prevent his falling. His full song was now only a pitiful yeep, as he neared his keeper and fell exhausted at her feet. She took him gently in her hand, and with tender words of assurance placed him in his cage.

 

There he swings now, happy and contented, singing rapturous songs, but occasionally he will become thoughtful as the memory of his brief experience is revived, and he says to himself: "I wonder what it could have been? Was it real? Is there such a vast place outside? Oh! there cannot be; evidently. I had indigestion from my supper of hard-boiled egg, and that gave me a dreadful dream."

 

"A most instructive story," interposed a sister whose name was Maimie, "instructive as showing us how we misjudge because we do not know. My own story illustrates how we all have a good and evil genius, speaking allegorically, and how the latter casts us down, and death only can sever us from the burdens of the flesh. As I rejoice at my freedom from the weight which dragged me down, so all spirits ought to be thankful for their escape from the physical body, which casts its selfish reflection on their best intentions. My story however is long, perhaps too long."

 

"We wait and listen," said they all, "to learn how light wedded to darkness was separated therefrom."

 

Then in a voice often broken by painful memories she recited the following strange story:—

 

We were known as the Weinsberg Sisters. Her name was Maimah and mine Maimie. Nature in sportive humor, after making us two distinct beings had bound us together with a fetter stronger than steel. Her left side and my right side were united by a band of flesh, through which the blood pulsated in commingling streams. We ought to have been alike, similar in appearance, tastes, temper and disposition, but, alas! we were not. Nature carried her sport to the unkind limit of making us opposites. This antagonism was even manifested when we lay helpless in our mother's lap, and strengthened with our years. While I was gentle and winsome, my mate was cross, fretful, restless, and constantly angry with me, as though I were the cause of her discomfort, and undoubtedly I was an annoyance, preventing the free motion she so much desired. As we grew older, this animosity increased, and nothing could say or do appeased her.

 

Well do I remember the first time I realized the terrible burden attached to me, which made me so different from others. I was still a child when the knowledge dawned on me. Mother said to us in a laughing way that her four-handed girl should assist her in some household duty. I enjoyed the task, but Maimah was provoked at being called four-handed, and sulkily refused. When mother spoke again to her she became uncontrollably angry, and accused me of being the cause of her misfortune. Then by a strange interchange of thought she awoke the same idea in my mind, and I found to my sorrow afterwards that she had the power of introducing within me evil thoughts "Why do you blame me? Are you not as much to blame as I?" I asked. Then she burst into most violent language, and turning her red face to mine, her eyes scowling with rage, she fastened her teeth in my cheek, and would not let go her hold until our mother choked her away and held her fast. The hurt was slight, though the blood came freely, but the mental effect no words can describe. I had felt inconvenienced before, but never bound. I realized, young as I was, that there was no escape, and I was wild with fear. At any moment she might become angry, and as she was the stronger, I would be compelled to receive her blows or bites, being incapable of resisting or running away. In the silent hours of the night I thought of my sad lot, and bitterly wept. Our mother, my strength and reliance, was taken away. By her coffin I gained my first idea of death. My sister looked stolidly on the pole face of the loved one, and rudely rebuked me for my grief. That night I thought of death. We all must die, the preacher had said. What if Maimah should die? Then, she being a part of me, I would be buried with her! I trembled at this dreadful possibility, and wearied myself to sleep, only to dream of being buried alive.

 

What a fate was mine, to be thus bound by a band of flesh to one utterly unlike myself! As I older grew, I felt the chasm between us widening and deepening, and the hatred and malice she bore toward every one was vented on me. We were inseparable companions, yet without the least sympathy of feeling. My likes and dislikes were not in accordance with hers. I delighted to sit down quietly and read, to enjoy music or works of art, or the conversation of friends, while she being dull of understanding and unable to learn even the rudiments of knowledge, would allow me no rest or quiet anywhere. When in one place she wanted to be in another, and if I refused to go she dragged me with her. Her conversation was unpleasant, and it depressed and stifled me, as she talked incessantly of the most trifling subjects. When I spoke of things dear to me—my studies, reading, or observations—she would remain silent, or answer with contempt. Of course, we were subjects of interest, were constantly invited out by friends, and were recipients of unusual attention. My sister greatly enjoyed this while I, more sensitive, shrank from publicity. We were related as the bad and good sides, and while most people are capable of concealing the bad by the good from superficial observation, mine represented by my sister was ever present as my shadow. She at any moment was liable to utter coarse expressions, angry words, or scowl her hate. What to me was still more fearful, was her power of impressing on me her most intense wishes, and awakening in me the desire to do wrong; to take that which was not mine; to speak falsely and commit greater crimes, and my tongue would utter words not mine; and thus place me in unhappy situations; at other times, when I saw some desirable object she would urge me to take it, and my being seemed torn asunder by the conflict between these contending influences. The bad at times actually triumphed, and after I recovered self-mastery, conscience would drive me to despair. I would turn to her, saying: "How I wish you could appreciate the glories of the day and the beauties of the night, and feel the thrill of poesy in your soul! How I wish we could talk together of the books I have read, and the charming scenes around us!" Then she would look at me with her dull eyes, and sneeringly say that it was fine talk, but she would rather have a nice dinner; a dinner was the height of her aspiration, and the chief topic of her conversation.

 

The crisis of our lives came when we were eighteen. I was said to be handsome, except being too pale, and the mirror told me the same. By the side of my reflection was another that was not handsome. Even to my eyes that constantly saw it, that face was repulsive. It was a strange contrast with mine. The lips were thick, the eyes large and round, with a dull and stony gaze, which absorbed without reflecting light; the cheeks were of dull red, and neck short and heavy. She was sensitive of her personal appearance, and would turn from the glass with horrid imprecations on my head.

 

Did I love? Did ever woman live who loved not? I was abnormally sensitive and lonely. Those with whom I conversed spoke not as to an equal, but in tones of pity or condescension. I had no companionship, and yearned for some one in whom to confide, who would understand my trials, my wants, and aspirations. I idealized a, hero I had not seen, nor even expected to meet. I said to my heart,

 

"Your hero must not be a reality. Your love must be a dream, for do you not see your fetters hold you fast and make the fulfilment impossible?" Thus I dreamed, when suddenly the reality came. A young physician, from a celebrated university, was introduced by a friend, and he became deeply interested in us. He was the ideal of my dream. From the first time I saw him I loved him as I would a remote and inaccessible star, never for a moment hoping for a return of my affection. As the days went by, and we often met, he expressed the first words of sympathy that I had ever heard, coming from an understanding of my situation. He appreciated the bondage in which I was held, and yet his words were so delicate he did not offend my sister. On the contrary, she accepted them as addressed to her, and with all the uncontrolled earnestness of her nature, she became in love with him. While I shrank from an expression which might indicate my sentiment, she boldly gave hers utterance. After these interviews what a burning sense of shame I felt; how exasperated at the cruel fate which bound me to a form of flesh, actuated by desire rather than reason.

 

One day we accidentally met the physician, and he spoke so low and earnestly, and there was such a strange new light in his eyes, I questioned my heart, and while I held my breath I dared to believe he thought of me as I of him; but with that light I saw also the sign of despair Love admits of only two; there were three, for I was already united with my mate, and terrible as it was, so must I remain. Out of the depths of regret I was called by the amazing words of Maimah, who by an unerring instinct caught the sentiment of the physician, her egotism changing it to herself. With startling vehemence she replied: "I know you love me, but you know not how much I love you. Yet," she added, turning fiercely on me, "what is the good as long as I am a part of you?"

 

Deeply chagrined, I said: "Pardon me, dear sir, and do not hold me responsible for these words!"

 

"Who holds you responsible?" she cried in anger.

 

"If I am attached to you by this band of flesh I am not in any other way and my words are my own."

 

"Be assured," said the physician soothingly, "I understand." Each of us could interpret this to suit herself. Then he added: "You are two souls holding two bodies in partial community. I think the recent progress of knowledge makes it certain that your union is not indissoluble, and that a skilful surgeon might easily sever it, and free you from each other."

 

"Do you mean it is possible to out the band of flesh which unites us?" we both exclaimed.

 

"It is quite possible," he replied.

 

"Would you undertake the task? I asked, feeling as though my hope of life depended on his answer."

 

"Yes," he replied, "under certain circumstances. The risk is great, but I think you do not place a priceless value on life under present conditions?"

 

"Priceless value! It was irksome, and I almost daily prayed for death. Never before had I thought separation possible. Here was an offer of liberty, and with it every thing which would make life worth the living. My heart was expanding under the influence of a new-found delight. The heavens had become of softer hue and the dull past was vanishing. Separation and freedom! The cutting off of this lower self, this oppressive self; this wearisome, aggressive, asserting self; with its coarse thoughts, unbidden word a and suggestions of evil!—would I accept the risk? What folly to ask. What risk would I not take to be free; enabled to go where I pleased, do as I pleased without trembling with apprehension that there would come a storm of abuse or blows from which I could not defend myself?

 

While these thoughts flashed like flame through my mind my sister applying the words to herself, at once voiced her feelings: "Cut us apart! Glorious! Can you do it? Will you? Did you ask if I was willing? You may this moment. I have been a slave long enough. Every enjoyment or pleasure has been denied me. I am checked in eating and in drinking; I am wrong in my desires. I am made to understand that I am lower and meaner, and of coarser stuff than Maimie. What a delight to be free from her constant talk of right and duty, and what I ought, or ought not to do!"

 

Consulting with our father, as we urged with one mind, he reluctantly consented that the operation be performed. At the appointed time the physician with an assistant came. I know I was very pale, for I could not free myself from dread, and had any one else been the surgeon, my strength must have failed, but I knew by the tender tones of his voice and gentleness of his manner, that to cut my flesh would be to him like cutting his own, and that not an unnecessary nerve would be severed. I could bear the pain at his hands, and if he succeeded, greater and more priceless than freedom was the love I might claim for which now it was a sin to ask. Maimah had constantly talked of the operation, her love for the physician and what happiness freedom from my restraint would bring her. Now the time had came, she was seized with one of her sudden impulses, such as unreasoning or instinctive beings have. "If I have this band cut," she said to the physician, "I do so because I love you and because you love me; and because I cannot be your wife so long as I am tied to another. You promise to marry me when my bondage is over?"

 

To this unexpected demand made in a tone of authority, he was so astonished he could make no reply, but stood as one overwhelmed, blushing deeply, and then becoming as pale as death. Recovering his self-possession he replied in his usual low voice, but with a firmness and distinctness I had not heard: "This is a grave matter and we ought not to lay plans or make promises when the result is so uncertain. First let us attend to the operation, and then we can talk on this subject."

 

Had the solid earth given way beneath my feet, I should not have been more overwhelmed. Her first words gave me the key to what would follow. Her rude breath blotted from the heavens every star of hope, and left me helpless and despairing. He would not promise; I prayed he would not, for had he, the strength which sustained me would have departed. The hasty glance I gave him must have opened to him the complete volume of my heart, and I saw in his eyes pity and that which to me was infinitely more.

 

Our father spoke kindly and assuringly, saying to Maimah that it was folly for her to require promises when she ought to wait until restored. This inflamed her the more, and she reiterated what she had said, adding: "Unless the promise is made I will not allow you to be separated. Now I have you and can keep you, and who knows if I let you go he may marry you.

 

I was inexpressibly frightened, and forgetting that under such circumstances my interference always increased her anger I said: "Do not, Maimah, insist on this, but wait until the operation is over." She turned on me with the fury of a tiger. Her cheeks and lips were purple, and her eyes red as blood. "It is all you," she hissed; "you, with your arrogance, dictating to me." She struck me in the face with her clinched hand, and turned to bite me. Our father caught her in time to save me and held her head and hands, while she screamed in impotent rage. I was overcome by the shock, and lost consciousness. When I recovered I was lying on couch and heard strange words. My father was standing on one side and the physician on the other, The voice of the former was choked and scarcely audible: "O God! why was this infliction mine? Must both die? Must Maimie die because Maimah is dead?" Then the horrible truth flashed on my mind. My sister, more than sister, a part of myself, was dead! By my side was her corpse. The hour had come, the possibility of which I had often thought of with a shudder. It was a question only of time, how long I should live. I placed my hand on the band of flesh, and found it ligatured. On one side of that tightly drawn cord was warmth and life; on the other side coldness and death'. The physician spoke to my father and I learned that my sister had ruptured a blood vessel in her brain by her violent anger, and that he had as soon as possible ligatured the band between us, so that her blood might not mingle with mine. "I only fear," he said, "it was not soon enough. Some of the changed and therefore poisonous-blood must have, passed into her system. We now have but one alternative, to sever the band, and if the tissues have not become affected from the other side we may yet hope."

 

Oh! merciful Heaven, I may yet be free! I opened my eyes and they met his. He understood my thoughts and aid, "Yes, yes, your wish shall be gratified. It will not pain you now. I wish for your sake, for both of us, it would be more painful."

 

How still I remained! There were twinges of pain as the knife went through, but I thought of his words and wished it were more acute. It was finished. For the first moment in my life I was free, and felt a new desire to live, for the happiness that was mine, and to be mine. My mind was intensely active, and pictured the future in brilliancy of coloring, the realization of my dreams. Now I no longer was borne to earth by my heavy burden.