ANNA hoped that with the coming of the warm weather my cough would pass; but it never released its hold on me. Yet I found peace, for I was weary of being Carola. When autumn came it seemed as though my spirit consumed my flesh, as if it were wax that burnt to light my dusk. I knew my Shining One was often near; knew that from death’s face would shine his eyes, and I should feel his hand on mine again, strength in his fingers, wisdom on his palm.
If I had been in truth a troubadour, I could have set my thoughts upon a page to leave a record; so that some other one who hears what I hear, sees what I would see, could look down through the years and know a friend. What should I set there if I knew the words? What have I learned as my philosophy through this short life of twenty-seven years?
I have seen time as a slow river, fed by myriad streams, whose source came down from Heaven in life’s rain. It soaked into the earth; then trickled forth over the pebbles of a narrow rill, and as it threaded in between the rocks it learned of their immutability.
Then it knew moss grew on this barren stone; and as the channel deepened, it heard the whisper of the water plants, and felt their long leaves flowing in its course, tug at their roots. It passed between the shafts of growing reeds, and heard them stirring in the morning wind, with a murmur of bird cries and the coming storm.
Soon there were dragon-flies, which lighted for a moment and skimmed on, but left a bright gleam from their fugitive wings. Contemplative frogs croaked from the bank; and fish flashed through the shadows and were gone. Then the steam widened, into shining pools where animals came down at night to drink. The water curved the footprints they had made; the narrow prints of oryxes and deer; the claws of leopards, the cruel pads of wolves. Yet wider pools, where unicorns came down at evening; the hippogriff folded his wings to slake his thirst, and the great paws of lions set in the earth their seal of majesty.
Still it flows on: then feels a ripple, a ripple echoing from a laughing child; and in the shallows this same child shall bathe, and beat the quiet water with its hands into bright drops. The child has grown, now he sits on the bank and carves a boat; gives it a twig for mast, a leaf for sail and launches it into the stream of time. Onward this boat is borne, till hollowed logs are poled by men who sing of trackless hills where trees strive to the light.
Then are there torches mirrored in its flood, war torches with destruction in their flames; and in the rapids long canoes are wrecked where blood weaves through the pools like scarlet weeds. Here the stream narrows. Now is the water dark, for towering cliffs obscure the sun away; as deeper, ever deeper, drives the cleft into the mountains. Its course must change, a rock wall bars the path. But where the stream has seemingly to end, a man stands poised above it; naked, alone, holding a fish spear in his upraised hand, searching the flood with no fear in his eyes, searching to see that which he longs to find—the fish, the scarlet fish, which knows the sea.
Now ever faster is the water’s plunge; down rapids and by perilous ravines, weary with foam, yet urgent to press on. It joins a marsh, silent and choked with reeds, whose placid shallows drowse in noon-day heat. But on it travels over flats of mud, through lazy meads and over languorous falls. Now it is wider, now it can hear the chant of fishermen that cast their glittering nets. Then quietly, with no tumult, it flows on to join the river of eternity.
Now is it one in slow processional with all the myriads of its brother streams. Now are there boats in splendid pageantry: the silver barges of proud memory; the spreading purple sails of rulership; the patient rhythm of the rowers’ arms and the clear vision of the steering-oar. Caught in the shallows there are other boats; where mourners weep the melancholy tide, where sable veils obscure the figure-head and the black masts curve no sail to the wind. These mourners do not see the lovers pass; lovers whose boats move without sound of oars, with masts that have put forth their leaves again; whose decks are violets and whose prows are doves.
The river widens: far away, yet clear at evening, it can hear the rising music of the sea; that sea whose other shores no man can know, until the stream of time has carried him from mountain into plant, from beast to steersman.
Then man may set his course under the sky, for he can see the star that pilots him to harbor in the Islands of the Blessed.
I have seen the wisdom of the gods as fire; from that dim past when all-embracing power men know as God created earth; and sent the children from another moon to teach those others, newly born as man. These little people came down from the woods, the caves, the shelters hollowed from the cliffs, to where a moon-born sat by a friendly fire that warmed their chill mortality. Yet they had made no torch to kindle there, and were content to come forth from the dark to receive comfort from a counsellor.
A thousand years, a thousand thousand years, have aged the earth. Now are the ones who called the moon their home returned to join the dwellers on the heights. Now little men must kindle their own fire. No longer through the shadows of the plain do great fires blaze; but little points of light, from twigs, from burning leaves, gleam through the night. Their light is pale as star reflecting pools, yet does it thread the valleys, and its sparks are carried on the questing breeze of dawn. Some sparks fall into marshes and are quenched; but others blaze a path through tinder grass of gained experience. Some flee from their stifling huts before the roar of memory’s bright flame. They are afraid that it may sear their flesh, and comes to blind their leaden-lidded eyes. They build new huts on deserts of grey ash where no wood grows to feed another flame. But there are others who plunge in the fire, and from cold ashes like a phoenix rise, seeing the distant earth, shadowed and cold; while the long feathers of their soaring wings strong on the air circle towards the sun.
Then came the land where lived the long in years. There temple-beaconed hills flowed to the sea; makers of moon paths built serene causeways, worn by multitudinous wayfarers.
Then wisdom’s wreath lost sovereignty: on basalt thrones sat men in empty robes; they ruled by power and scorned humility. Now priests were bowed with mitres: no buds unfolded on the lotuses, and looking-pools reflected nothingness. Yet power stalked through the land, that tarnished power when men assail the gods. No longer did the shadows flee the light, for men rode out to battle in their hate; priests wielded magic only to show their strength, and sorrow settled heavy on the land. Yet in the hills a pale light still endured; and from it came a cry, “Master, hast thou forgotten us?”
Then came the Voice to man. “Since you have brought desecration on my land, and made my noonday into night: now is the time come when that which I created shall be destroyed. You who hear my voice within your heart shall follow the path of the moon across the sea to far countries where the soil is yet untilled. There must you learn again to plant your corn, and when its virtue has entered into you, then shall you find a tree. From it you will cut a living branch; and you must learn patience until the sap and the leaves upon it have returned into its strength. Then from it you shall carve a torch, and in the fullness of my time there shall come amongst you one who holds fire in his hand: and you will be no longer in darkness. Those of you who do not hear my voice shall stay, and I will speak to you on the evening of the seventh moon. There is no place in my land where you can hide from the echoes of my voice: even the deaf shall hear it, and the ears of the dead shall be open; for I shall speak above the thunder. Yea, beside my voice the thunder shall be as the whisper of wind in the grass. The clouds shall be as mountains before you, and their color shall be of the darkness of your own hearts. Then there shall fall a stillness; and you shall see death, in the likeness of death. In the stillness shall come a small sound, and in the dust, you shall see the circle you have forgotten; the circle, in the heavy drops of rain. And the drops shall build themselves to rods, and the rods even into pillars of water. The water shall rise over the valleys, and drive you, even as you drove your torch-bearers, into the hills. And the water shall be as the floor of a temple, whose pillars are water and whose roof is cloud. And one by one the hills shall vanish, and you shall crowd together in your fear; on the islands that were mountains. But on the fortieth day there shall be no land: and the water will have buried the dead.”
When the Great Rain had cleansed the earth so that again it could become a place of fire, the flames burned in their serenity. The river of the Two Lands reflected the beacons which marked its course; and a light was set in the masts of the boats, and it was in their prows also: even the oars were luminous.
Then once again did man forget his gods. The mightiest temples shadowed men dressed as priests and incense swirled through barren sanctuaries.
The sacrificial fires had burnt to ash; cold were the altars set to absent gods.
Then in the gathering darkness of the west a star fell from the heavens, a child was born. A child with wisdom living on his tongue, a child with eyes that had seen many moons yet knew horizon for eternity. And men brought torches to him in their hands for kindling, that in His flame grew bright. He spoke; the leaves hushed and the birds were still, to listen. Even the hurrying clouds stayed in their course, bound were the waves, silent the running brooks, in honor of celestial majesty. The rising sun lit battlemented hills. Then from their caves swarmed leather-pinioned bats, and stealthy panthers left their jungle lairs; imperial eagles, dead yet purple-jessed, swooped down upon that Galilean shore; destruction in their claws, death in their hearts.
The Morning Star returned into the sky.
Still did the light He kindled blaze on earth. From hand to hand the line of torches passed, unquenched, undying: and with each torch together went the word, “Is your torch seasoned for this kindling?”
Then men forgot the Word: and brought green wood, wood without age, with sap not turned to strength, wood that can smolder but gives forth no light. No more were torches lifted to the wind, the wind that streamed their far flames on the air, but in great buildings flickered and grew dim; buildings where stood tall candles of cold wax, and golden lamps were empty of live oil. And these green torches sent forth perilous smoke: it suffocated throats that would have prayed, and blinded with tears the eyes that would have seen. There was no sound but the hissing of wet wood.
A pall of smoke has drifted over earth; the smoke of pyres has joined it, and the sack of cities. It drifts across the chaos of men’s wars and hides the sun.
Then speaks the Voice to man: “Did I not course the heavens with my stars: send memory to guide you through the dark; and set my sun to watch you through the day? Till you were ready to kindle your own brand I sent my children to build my fires for you. I send the flames, but you must carry them. If you set torches guttering on the wind, then is the darkness born of your own grief. You give green torches into puppet hands, think triple crowns can give a man my sight. Amongst you there are men with radiant eyes whom you could follow: yet you deny their name, and with it, mine. Honor the holder of the living flame above your kings! Honor no priest that does not hear my voice! Honor no light that does not show my face, and with my face, your own!”
It seemed that I was already separate from my body. It was not Carola whose hair Anna braided, nor Carola who drank the cordials to please her Anna. It was as though I watched her try to mend my dress, and wondered why she wept to see the velvet threadbare when I knew I had to wear it so short a while.
Even when rain darkened the sky I would not allow the shutters to be closed. I lived with the sky; to wake, to sleep, to dream. To see the dawn; Aurora’s dawn, rosy with cherubim, or that grey stealth when night with quiet hands draws back the shade that guards the dark from heavy-lidded day. The scudding clouds of autumn called down the wind with greetings to me; and the calm evening brought contentment; closed away my fears, hushed vain regrets for living in the world.
I knew that death brought no imperious summons, but waited, calm and patient, by that stream which carried me towards him: so quiet a stream, silver between the banks where grew strange flowers that with their fleeting scent bemused my thoughts....
No longer was the music of the spheres remote from me. Sometimes I would try to find a thread of it upon my lute, a thread of sound in that great harmony. And then it seemed that I could hear myself as one small note in a titanic surge; one note, yet must the string be sweetly tuned and forged of silver. So Carola waited, ready to join the slow procession of the other I’s, for the circle of her life was nearly joined.
Those hands on the green coverlet are not mine, but Carola’s: hands that have played a lute, and clenched with pain; such quiet, thin hands, no longer trying to keep their hold on life. It could not be Carola who thought of what I knew, for Carola had been a heretic. She was so proud of heresy: saw priest and abbess as dark enemies. It was as though she had hated a blind man for his sightless eyes, or mocked the deaf. I should have been compassionate to those nuns who seemed to live while coffined in their creed; and with compassion I might have found their hearts, and shown them the living Christ on the crucifix.
She had fought for her half-remembered truths against their creed; not wise enough to know that in His light shone the same truth that has lit this dark earth since it was born of time. Every clear flame is like, each unto each; some may be tapers that only light a room; some blaze as beacons on a mountain crest; yet are they one. The light of the Two Lands was the light of Christ; the light that burned before the flood was sent, the light that has shone for long millennia since those first fires were kindled from the moon. All heavenly truths are spoken in one voice, spoken in multiplicity of tongues, by priest, by husbandman, by child, by sage. The stars sing the same song that the grass hears as the wind passes; and within each of us is that clear spark which the cold wind of circumstance shall blow into a flame. Then, torches in our hand, no longer flaring but still upon the air, we shall be one with heaven’s radiance.
Down through the years has my far memory come, to Italy, where Carola lived a day and now stops at the Inn of Death to rest, before she takes another path—to where? What will my name be? How will my flesh be carved? Shall I be born again to wear a crown; or must I be poor, and hungry, and alone; hungry for more than bread, thirsty for water that I cannot find, the water only the wise can pour for me? Perhaps I may look back to this kindly room, and with a brighter memory see myself who once was Carola. Then will my hands be strong: a warrior’s hands, a priest’s, a poet’s? Shall I be wise in words, so Carola’s thoughts may find expression in another age when men are not afraid of heresy? How many lives, how many, many lives, must pass before my torch shall blaze the dark? How long before my clear voice shall be heard above the crowds that mutter in their fear? I found the strength to die for heresy; give me that greater strength, to live for truth.
Death, give me courage to die as Carola....There are people in the room, people who are strange to me, people I have not summoned. There is a murmur I used to be afraid of....Water is dripping from the Up of a cistern....The air is heavy with incense; it has made it more difficult to breathe. They have shut the windows against me. Why have they sent for a nun and a priest to watch me? Anna must have been afraid for my soul.
Backwards and forwards the censer swings....They have put bread without virtue on my tongue. I feel them make the sign of the cross upon my forehead.
The sand is whispering through the hour-glass. How many times must it be turned again till I am free?
Anna is weeping, but I am not strong enough to bring her comfort. I am alone with these three strangers. I never thought that death would be another loneliness. I thought Petruchio and my Shining One would come for me....
It is only Carola who is alone: I am in company.
The stars are singing, and I can hear them, yet they are far away. The silver string is clearly tuned, the string that is Carola. It will be true when the silver cord is broken, the silver cord that binds me to this earth. Now I can hear that melody Carola longed for yet never heard: that strange tune from the other side of sound.
I have become a lute where music lives. I hear, I hear—all other sound is mute, in harmonies that bear me as a stream down to the tide where dreams are born into reality....
Yet I must look once more through Carola’s eyes; those eyes through which I saw this little world while I was blind to vision. The music has grown so loud that they must hear it....I see them cross themselves, and I know they have heard an echo from the stars.
I see their eyes....Even in death they are afraid of me, of Carola.
Then on a bier, with quiet, folded hands, lay that cold lamp where once my spirit burned. No word they spoke of the music they had heard. They knew not whence it came, but asked themselves, “Was it the song of angels, or satanic heralds? Have we seen saint or devil?”
They would not bury me in holy ground: and so that shroud which had been Carola, in secrecy was laid into the earth.
There does she lie, the Carola I wore. And her white doves walk softly on her grave.