II The Sanctuary of Istar
The temple of the Lady of Erech,6 in Babylon, was the smallest of the eight temples consecrated to the worship of the twelve great gods. This temple contained but three parts—the entrance hall, the great hall of the sacrifice, and, at the farthest end of this room, the inmost shrine, or holy of holies, where the statue of the god was generally kept. Besides these, there were half a dozen little places, hardly more than niches, where the priestesses and hierodules could don sacrificial garments. At the end of the great hall, in front of the rich curtain that hid the door of the inmost shrine, and behind the sacrificial altar and the table for shew-bread, was the Parakhû, or mercy-seat, from which the god, generally in spirit, it was thought, was accustomed to hear and answer the prayers of his worshippers, to perform miracles of healing, and to accept offerings. Here, each day, Istar was accustomed to sit for an hour, hearing many plaints, listening to many woes, learning much of the piteous side of the lives of men and women of the world. And from this place Istar had delivered many an oracle. Here, too, she cogitated painfully over the sins of mankind, which were all incomprehensible to her. She, who was alone of her race on earth, sorrowed most over the loneliness of others—those that mourned a friend dead, a lover lost, a child in far-off lands—because this grief she could in some measure understand. But though the face of the goddess was always sad when she left the mercy-seat, the brilliance of her aureole was more bewildering than ever, for pity quickened her divinity continually to fresh life.
Behind the temple of worship was the building in which Istar dwelt. It was a little labyrinth of small, open courts and narrow, dimly lighted rooms. Nearer to the dwelling-place than to the temple, on the same platform with them both, was the ziggurat—that most characteristic feature of Babylonian architecture. On top of it, in the centre of the space used by astronomers and astrologers attached to the temple, was the little room devoted to the person of the goddess. It was here that she was supposed to sleep by night when wearied with the labors of the long day. Istar’s chamber on her ziggurat was rendered almost unapproachably sacred by the fact that here she had first been found; here she was supposed to have undergone her incarnation; and probably here she would resume intangibility, when her period of life on earth was over. In point of fact Istar was devoted to this little place. During the hot summer months she generally stayed within it from sunset to dawn, perhaps asleep, perhaps fled in spirit to other regions. The place had been fitted up with incredible costliness, and was kept in scrupulous order by servants consecrated especially for the work, who entered it only at stated periods when its mistress was absent.
On her return from the long ceremonials attendant on the sacrifice to Nebo and Nergal, Istar went to the mercy-seat at once, for it was past her accustomed hour. There were few suppliants for pity to-day. Babylon had just propitiated two of its great gods with a wholesale slaughter of animals, and the people doubtless felt that for a day, at least, they might rest from the continual round of religious duties, relying meantime on the newly invigorated power of Nebo and Nergal to protect them from the legions of hellish and earthly demons that beset life with such innumerable ills.
Istar’s hour was not long to her. Her thoughts were centred on Charmides, his young, sunny presence, and the light of wonder and worship in his face when she had spoken to him. She had seen that he carried his lyre with him; and she dreamed of the day when he should come before her and sing as none other but Allaraine could sing. Meantime his face was before her and would not be banished, although in the shadows before the altar stood another man whose presence had long been part of her surroundings, towards whom she felt—if indeed she felt at all—as towards no other human being; whose whole presence was as perfect a contrast to that of Charmides as could well be imagined. It was Belshazzar, who, since matters of government did not much hold him, had, in the last months become Istar’s shadow. He lingered about the temple whenever she was there; he followed her over the city in his chariot when she went abroad; at sunset he ascended the ziggurat, to stand outside the curtained door of her sanctuary, unable to see her, but feeling her presence. When she was near him his eyes were not always upon her, yet her slightest movement never escaped him. And at such times a kind of divinity—a reflection, perhaps, from her—was thrown about him, till it had once or twice been said that the prince, like his goddess, moved in a silver cloud. Whether or not it was possible that Belshazzar—Belshazzar the tyrannical, the dissolute, the fierce-tempered—had by dint of will-power and persistence been able to pierce the veil that hid Istar secure from all mortal eyes, it would be impossible to tell. Istar herself did not know. But now, as many times before, she wondered vaguely if her unearthly powers would or would not hold her from the understanding of this unholy man.
The mercy hour over, two attendant ûkhatû approached her with the purifying water and her white garment for the evening. Istar washed away from her own person the sins and sorrows of her suppliants, suffered the robe to be laid over her shoulders, and then sent away the women, forbidding the temple to be lighted till she was gone from it, and commanding the dismissal of the two that prayed near the basin of the sea. So, presently, she was alone in the vast, shadowy room with Belshazzar, who still stood, silent, immovable, arms folded, head slightly bent, beside the shew-table, his storm-blue eyes fixed in a side glance on her face.
Istar rose and descended from the high place, and then moved slowly in her floating way to Belshazzar’s side. There, a few inches from him, she halted, and, putting forth her hand, laid it lightly on his arm.
A tremor of intense feeling shot through him. He shook for a moment as with palsy. Then, raising both hands in the attitude of prayer, he uttered the one word—“Belit!”
Istar regarded him with a kind of curiosity. “Bel-shar-utsur,” she said, lingeringly, with a suggestion of hesitation. Again the prince trembled. “Bel-shar-utsur—wilt thou follow me?”
“To the kingdom of Lillât, if my goddess asks,” he answered, quickly, in a maze of confused delight.
The light of her divinity burned brighter round the figure of the goddess, and she made a slight gesture for the man to walk beside her. He obeyed with an eagerness that was tempered by a peculiar, half-resisted reluctance which Istar perceived but did not understand; for the soul of this majestic body was unknown, utterly unknown to her.
Together, however, they left the temple and passed across the deserted platform, which was still flooded with sunlight, till they reached the foot of the ziggurat. Here Belshazzar halted with a quick breath and an inaudible exclamation. Istar, turning a little towards him, gave him a wondering glance.
“You fear?” she asked, hardly knowing how to voice her idea.
And Belshazzar, he who had in his youth, in pursuance of amusement, swum the Euphrates lashed to the back of a wounded crocodile, now raised his hands again, saying imploringly: “O Belit!—I fear!”
“And what? Is it I?”
He bent his head.
“Belshazzar—come thou and teach me.”
“Teach—you!”
“Yea, for there is much that I must know. There, on the ziggurat, where the air is sweet, where we shall be nearer the silver sky, thou shalt learn the purpose of my earth-life, and shalt tell me how to attain it; for I of myself know not the way. Come.”
This time Belshazzar obeyed the command without hesitation, silently. Together they made the ascent of the broad, inclined plane that wound round and round up the tower. The man’s steps were swinging and vigorous; yet, walk as rapidly as he would, the goddess kept always a little ahead of him though she made neither effort nor motion, except that now and then she touched her feet lightly to the bricks. At the top, opening from the broad gallery that ran round the building of the tower, was the low door-way that gave entrance to the holy of holies, Istar’s shrine. There was no one on the height to-day, though ordinarily at this hour several ascended the ziggurat to watch the ascent of the goddess. Rejoicing in the solitude, Istar leaned over the south parapet of the wall, and looked out upon the light-flooded city, while Belshazzar, in a dream, waited at her shoulder. After a little while she turned, and, pushing aside the leathern curtain that hung across the door, conducted the prince over the threshold of the sacred place.
It was a wonderful room. At the time of the coming of Istar, indeed, all Babylon had contributed to its adorning. Not more than ten feet square was the little place, yet so did it glisten and shine with the lustre of clear gems and burnished gold, that it seemed to contain unfathomable depths, and to be imbued with something of the divine radiance of its mistress. The couch in it, like the walls, was covered with plates of beaten gold, and piled high with the softest and costliest stuffs from the famous Babylonian looms. The throne and the two chairs, or tabourets, were of Indian ebony, inlaid with ivory; and the table and deep basin for water were of chased silver, worked with crystals and emeralds. All the daylight that could enter this room must come through the arched door-way; but a swinging-lamp of wrought gold, hanging in the centre of the little place, burned continually, night and day, and shed a dim effulgence over everything.
When this interior was first revealed to him, Belshazzar halted where he stood, gazing around with self-contained pleasure till Istar, seating herself on the great chair that was her throne, motioned him to one of the lower seats. Belshazzar sat in her presence, and a silence fell between them: a silence that the prince could not have broken had his life been at stake. Istar, looking from her place out through the door-way into the tower-tipped sky, seeming not to feel in the slightest the great discomfort of her guest, finally said, softly:
“Belshazzar, from thy heart, tell me, what are thy gods?”
The man looked at her in quick amazement. For an instant he was about to speak on impulse. Then he resisted; and when he did make answer the reply was conventional. “Thou, Istar, art my goddess. Babylon is mine only god.”
“That last thou hast said well. Yet it, too, is a false god.”
“But thou, O Istar, I know—”
“I am no goddess, Belti-shar-utsur.”
The prince started nervously to his feet. “You are not mortal?”
“No. I think, indeed, that I am not. Yet I am not sure. You came to earth a baby, born of woman—is it not so?”
“Like all men.”
“And I descended from the highest void through space, till I touched earth almost upon this spot, a woman as I am now, clothed in my silver garment. It was by the command of god, the great Bel, the One, the True, that I came hither from the upper realms of the great kingdom. I was what they call archetype. I was decreed to pass through the fire of the world and return not to my home till the hearts of men were bare before my eyes, till I learned the secret of the creation. Yet how these things are to be shown to me I do not know. Thy heart, O Belshazzar—what is it?”
“It is thine, Lady of All.”
“Open it to me that I may read.”
The pleading simplicity of the tone made Belshazzar look at her sharply, and in a new way. Still his eyes failed to pierce the wave of baffling light that flowed about her; and still her purpose was enigmatical to him. She had become more incomprehensible than ever.
“The hearts of men, Istar, are not always known to themselves. Mine I could not show you.”
Istar thought for a little while in troubled silence. Then she asked once more, not hopefully: “Your loves and hates, your joys and sorrows, your hopes and fears—knowing these, could I not understand them and you?”
“It may be. I do not know.”
“Then let me hear, that I may judge.”
“All of them, Istar—love, hate, hope, fear, joy, sorrow—are woven around my city, Babylon, the gate of god. My love is for her and my fear for her enemies. As she is the greatest of all cities, so is she the most loved and the most hated. In her lie all my joy and sorrow. In her dwell many that I love, some that I hate, one that I fear. But this—”
“This will not open to me your secret heart, Belshazzar. It is an affectation.”
“By the power of the twelve great gods—it is not!”
“Then there are two lives in you: this one, and another that is hidden.”
Belshazzar looked at her again strangely. “It is true,” he said, at length, a curious smile curving his lips.
“It is of this second life that you must tell me.”
“I cannot!” he said, quickly.
“Wherefore?”
“It is too ignoble for your ears.”
“Too ignoble? What should be that for me? Nay, prince of the city, my earth-life is weary and long, because that I am kept away from life. I am set apart, worshipped as one afar off, and true life is not laid before me. To teach your race the secret of the one god is forbidden. It is I that come hither to learn; yet I am given no way of learning. What am I? Whither am I to go, that I may learn truth from the hearts of men?”
“Hearts, Divine One, may read each other. But no immortal that cannot feel the world may understand them.”
“Let me, then, become mortal, O God!”
The cry rang out louder than it had been spoken, and seemed to echo forth, to vibrate through the room, to flow out and away into the distant sky. The two in the sanctuary listened to it in silence, wondering. Then Istar, tremulous, and wavering with light, arose.
“Leave me, Belshazzar!” she cried, suddenly. “Leave me alone here! I fear you!”
“Fear me?” He spoke softly, taking the attitude of prayer. “You are the goddess of Babylon. It is I that fear. I beseech thee, lady, spare me thy wrath. As a reed shalt thou bend me. As a twig shall I be broken before the strength of thy will. Divine One, grant me favor! Lady Belit, have pity upon my mortality!”
As he spoke she stood looking at him, shrinkingly, uncertainly, trying to fathom the false ring of the conventional phrases. His attitude, his expression, his demeanor, were perfectly sincere; yet, whether he himself were conscious of it or not, the words were not honest. She perceived it instantly. After the little pause of thought she repeated, faintly:
“Depart from me!” adding, afterwards, “You mock at me.”
The prince drew a quick breath that sounded like a gasp. Then, coming forward, he sank to his knees, took the hem of her fiery garment, and held it for a moment to his lips. Its flame did not harm. Rather, it sent through his whole being a shock of vitality. Rising hurriedly after the obeisance, he inclined himself again before her and swept away, as she had commanded, leaving her alone in her sanctuary.
Istar remained where he left her, lying back in the chair, one hand supporting her cheek, her thoughts chaotic and troubled as never before. For many months past she had felt, vaguely, that which had just definitely come home to her. Her time on earth was passing uselessly away. She was now no closer to mankind than she had been before her descent. She was treated with such reverent awe as utterly precluded anything like familiar intercourse with any one. The very prayers were addressed to her in terms as florid and as general as possible. Her personal attendants performed their duties in silent reverence. The priesthood treated her with the impenetrable respect that they showed towards the graven images of the gods. And now, for the first time, the significance of all these things came to her definitely. She perceived how they were baffling her purpose, and the thought caused her deep disquiet. There seemed to be but one way of opening life to her immortal vision. It was through the person of Belshazzar, who dared, before her, to keep his individuality. This way, however, as she had told him, she feared. What the fear was, when it had come or why, who could tell? Not Istar. Now, for so long a time the prince had been part of her wearisome, objective existence that, up to to-night, she had been more inclined to regard him as something spiritual than as a man. Mentally she reviewed him and his personality, and she found therein much that was beyond her undeveloped powers of appreciation and analysis. His deep eyes—how was it that they looked on her? She had not seemed to him so awe-inspiring a thing as others found her. Why? His continual presence before her—was it all from a sense of pure religion? Yet, if it were not, what was the motive? Istar did not, could not, know. He did not pray to her—quite. His attitude was peculiar—distant—reverent—yet at times there was something other than reverence in his face. What it was—the look that seemed to burn through her veil—Istar could not tell. Yet it was that look that had made her fear.
How long she sat, passive and quiet-browed within her sanctuary, thinking of these many things, she did not know. But when finally she straightened, the clouds in the east were pink with the reflected light of the setting sun.
The sky was singularly beautiful to her. It held in its far depths the mystery of her birth. She regarded it sometimes with yearning, sometimes with an unfathomable wisdom held in her inmost being. Now the curtain hid it from her gaze, and, with an oppressive sadness in her heart, she crossed to the door-way and lifted the curtain-folds, to encounter the piercing gaze of a man who stood more than half-way across the sanctuary threshold. Thin, pallid, hook-nosed, bearded, and wretchedly clothed, he stood over her radiant person and seemed to peer into her very soul—this child of the West, Beltishazzar the Jew.
Istar gasped and shrank quickly back into the room, without letting go her hold on the curtain. Daniel pressed his advantage and intruded farther, till he also was inside. Her face was indistinguishable to him, for the light-waves had quickened protectively round her whole body, till she swam in glory. Seemingly unabashed, the Jew addressed her:
“Istar of Babylon, grant me an hour wherein I may hold speech with you—here, or without—upon the ziggurat.”
There was less of entreaty than of command in the tone; and Istar, unduly affected by the fanatical appearance of the man, put his presence on a level with her own personality, and, replying to his speech in Hebrew, his language, said:
“Then enter here, O Daniel, and I will listen to you.”
“You know me!” he said, quickly.
“I know men’s names.”
“And their hearts?”
“Their hearts! You have said it! Their hearts! Oh, thou man of Jerusalem, canst thou give me knowledge as to them?”
He looked at her closely, as if to make sure of her meaning. Then, taking courage, he replied: “Men’s hearts! Who, in truth, but Yaveh, the one God, shall know them?”
Istar made no answer to the question, but once more motioned the Jew to enter the faintly lighted room. This he did without hesitation. Thereupon she covered the door-way with its curtain, turned without any sign of haste, and seated herself once more on the high throne, but left the Jew to stand before her. Finally, before the words he had framed could leave his lips, she swayed forward slightly and asked:
“What have you, the child of Yaveh, to gain from me?”
“Much—or nothing.”
“It is no answer, Daniel.”
Beltishazzar bent his head and folded his arms over his breast. So he stood for many minutes, silent and motionless, while Istar waited serenely for him to speak; and, when he spoke, she was not startled by his words and their blunt directness.
“Istar of Babylon, what are you—who are you? child of God, or instrument of the devil?—archangel, as some say, or arch-fiend, as many think? What is your mission in Babylon? Whence came you? Whither do you go?”
Istar smiled. “Neither angel nor fiend am I, Beltishazzar, but archetype of God’s creation. I came from space. Into it, in time, I shall return again. My mission I have told you. I come to learn the hearts of men, their relationship to God.”
As she ceased to speak she found Beltishazzar’s eyes fixed upon her in a look so penetrating that it seemed impossible it should not pierce her veil. Presently, in the silence that followed, the Jew began to pace up and down the little room. He walked nervously. His brows were knitted, his shoulders drawn up, his head sunk between them in an abstraction that Istar never thought of disturbing. When, at length, he looked up at her again, she found in him a new enthusiasm, a spirituality, an exaltation even, that gleamed like fire from his sunken eyes and increased his unhealthy pallor till his skin was like that of a dead man.
“Istar,” he began, in a voice low and tremulous with incipient passion—“Istar, you have said it was from God that you came hither from space—you, a heavenly being, an archangel. God despatched you to earth for an unknown purpose, a purpose that, in its fulness, hath not been confided to you, but is revealed unto me, the prophet of Nebuchadrezzar, the great king. Listen, and thou shalt feel the response of truth throb within thee at my words.
“Forty-and-seven years ago the holy city of Judah fell before the onslaught of the Babylonian king. Zedekiah and his race were taken captive by the hands of the wicked, and were carried away into exile to the city abhorred of God—Babylon, the queen of evil. Since then, in sickness and sorrow, in captivity and death, our people have dwelt here, a piteous hunger for the promised land gnawing at their hearts, while Babylon waxed great and strong in her wickedness off the fat of many captive lands and peoples. Long have we been without hope of salvation. But now Nebuchadrezzar, the fierce ruler, is dead many years since. In his kingdom are sown the seeds of dissension and strife, and, in the weakness of her strength, she shall reap bitter fruit. For Babylon, even as Nineveh before her, must fall. At the hands of her captives shall the great city suffer destruction and death. Again in their strength the Jews shall rise up and smite the tyrant down. And now, O Istar, hear thou the word of the Lord! In this great retribution it is thou that shalt lead us, the chosen ones; thou that shalt win glory and honor among us; thou that, as Moses from Egypt, shalt lead us out of Babylonia through the wilderness, back to the land of our fathers!”
He paused for an instant in the midst of his delight, to note the effect of his words on the woman—or angel. She sat before him radiant, wavering with light, motionless, unmoved, inscrutable, showing no desire to interrupt the flow of his words; rather, in her silence, urging him to greater heights. So he continued:
“For forty-and-seven years have we, the captives, dwelt in the land of bondage; and in that time, even with the hand of God heavy upon us, have acquired honor and riches in the country of our woe. Is it not a sign that God is with us—that he holds sacred that spot in which we dwell? Thou also art from Him! The end of our trial approaches! By night I hear the voice of the Lord crying from the high places that thou art here as a sign of His protection. And I and thou are destined to lead the children of Jerusalem out of bondage. Mine is the hand that will strike down the weak and faltering king of Babylon—Nabu-Nahid, the foolish one. At our hands priest and noble, citizen and soldier, yea, mother and infant of this unholy people, shall be made to drink of their own blood. And for thee, O Istar, shall be reserved the triumph, the deed of danger and of glory! For by thy hand, in stealth, when he shall come to worship idolatrously at thy shrine, shalt thou strike to earth the monster tyrant of the city, Nabu-Nahid’s son, the child of sin, Belshazzar! Now behold—”
“Thou infamous one!”
Daniel’s rush of words suddenly ceased. He paused long enough, fully enough, this time, to perceive and to understand the situation. Istar, trembling with anger and disgust, had risen from her place and towered above him like an archangel indeed. Through the blaze of light her two eyes glowed like burning coals upon the insignificant creature cowering below her. Beyond her exclamation, Istar found no words to say. The two confronted each other in palpitating stillness, and as they stood, Daniel, inch by inch, began to regain his stature, and gradually to move away, backward, towards the door. When finally he had his shoulders against the leathern curtain, and knew his ability to effect a quick escape should it become necessary, he delivered himself of a final oracle:
“Thou thing of evil, the Lord hath stripped from mine eyes the veil! I behold thee nourishing the serpent in thy bosom. Thy master, Satan, stands at thy right shoulder. Upon the other hand is Belshazzar, thy paramour. But I say unto you that the streets of Babylon shall run with the tyrant’s blood. There shall come a night when Babylon shall burst into flames; when Nabonidus will be no more; when Belshazzar’s life shall be taken by the hands of his own people; when thou, in mortal terror, shalt flee the city of thy wickedness; when the Jew shall triumph over Bel, and the God of Judea lift up his sword in the heavens! Thus, in mine ear, sounds the mighty voice of the Lord!”
Then, with one baleful gesture, and a fiery glance of hatred from his bright, black eyes, Daniel flung back the curtain of the sanctuary and slunk away, with his usual gait, out into the twilight and down the winding plane of the ziggurat.
For many minutes Istar remained as she had stood while listening to the last words of the leader of the captive race. Her limbs trembled. Her eyes were dim. When presently she felt the cool breath of the evening envelop her, her senses swam. In the midst of it all, in the midst of that terrible vision that the Jew had conjured up before her, there was one thing that stood out before all else, till the rest had lost all significance. Kill Belshazzar! She kill Belshazzar! Over and over she repeated it to herself, unable to understand why the horror of the mere thought should be so great.
The swinging-lamp in the sanctuary mingled its dim, steady light with that of the rosy evening. From far below, over the Great City, came the faint hum of weary millions that had ceased from toil—a drowsy, restful murmur, suggestive of approaching sleep. The sound came gratefully to Istar’s ears. Here were no battle-cries, no shouts of attack, no wails of the dying. Beltishazzar surely lied. Nay, over her senses began to steal a sensation of subtle delight, of exquisite content, of freedom from earth-weariness. The hum of the city was gradually replaced by a long-drawn celestial chord, spun out and out with fainter, increasing vibrations, till it died away in the glow of unearthly light that was gradually suffusing the room.
Istar gave one low cry of love and relief, and, moving from her strained position, lay down upon the soft couch in an attitude of expectancy and happiness. Minute by minute the glow increased in brilliance till the little shrine palpitated with the fires of a midsummer sunset. Vapors of gold, in hot, whirling eddies, floated from ceiling to floor. The objects in the room became indistinguishable, and the light was such as must have struck mortal eyes blind. Gradually, in the meeting-point of the radiating light-streams, there became visible a darkly opaque shape upon which Istar fixed her eyes. It became more and more definable. Suddenly, from the head, there flashed forth five points of diamond light; and at the same instant Allaraine, star-crowned, emerged in mortal semblance from the melting glory. The moon-daughter rose from her couch, and silently the two greeted each other, looking eye into eye with all the companionship of divinity. While they stood thus, Allaraine touched his lyre, and the chords of the night-song of stillness and peace spread through the room and out into the darkness beyond. To mortal senses it was the essence of the summer day, with its fragrance and its passion, hanging still, by early night, over the land and the drowsy city. But to immortal ears it was as the voice of God. Istar drank it in as a thirsty field receives the rivulets of irrigation. And, little by little, as the spell was woven to its close, the star-crowned one drew her towards the throne, on which he caused her to sit, himself floating at a little distance.
“Allaraine! Allaraine! You bring again the breath of space, my home!”
“Yea, Istar!”
“And a half-mortal sadness looks upon me from your incarnate eyes.”
“Beloved of the skies, I am troubled—troubled for you. It is as a messenger knowing little that I come to you from the great throne.”
“What message? What message?”
“This: ‘As immortal men are yet mortal, so shalt thou be. And by means of pain, of sin, of death, and of love, shalt thou in the end know mankind through thyself; and for thee will there be freedom of choice.’”
Measuredly, clearly, but unintelligently, Allaraine pronounced the words that were to him a mystery; and Istar listened, wondering, a dim foreboding at her heart. After a long pause she spoke mechanically the two words:
“Mortal! I!”
“Mortal. Thou. Istar, the heavens mourn!”
“And why, Allaraine?”
“To see thee in pain, in sin, in death—”
Istar raised her hand. “Have peace! These are in the world, but they are not all. There is something besides, that I have seen, yet that neither I, nor thou, nor any of our kind can understand. Sweeter than all the rest are hard, higher than sin is low, more joyful than death is sad, love reigns over men. Love is from the central fire of God, as we are but its outer rays. Love walks through all the earth, passing to and fro among men, making them to forswear sin, to forget suffering, to overcome death. Those that love are happy in spite of all things. This much have I learned on earth. And if mortality is decreed for me, I shall find love with the rest. Fear not for me, for willingly I bow down in acceptance of suffering, of pain, of wandering in the maze of ignorance, for the sake of this thing that men know and that I cannot understand.”
“And thou wilt gladly forget us?”
“Nay, Allaraine. In the long nights and troubled days, thou, as ever, wilt bring me comfort.”
“Ah, Istar—that may not be.”
“May not? I shall lose the music—the communion—”
“All things divine will be lost. You enter into the wilderness of the world.”
Istar bent her head and was silent. She who had seemed to understand so much, realized nothing. At last, lifting her head heavily, she asked: “When does it come, this farewell to—my home?”
“Not until you, of your own will, renounce divinity.”
“Not till I seek it? Nay, this very night I asked it of the Almighty.”
“Yea, and the cry was heard. Mortality shall be yours whenever of your own free will you renounce us all for that which mortality will give.”
“Ah, then—then, immortal one—I shall remain the Narahmouna.”7
Allaraine shook his head thoughtfully and said: “Of that I do not know. I have brought the message. Sleep, celestial woman. I go.”
Obediently Istar lay down upon her couch, and the white eyelids closed over the unfathomable eyes. Allaraine, standing over her, looking down upon her mortal form with infinite pity, infinite ignorance, lifted up his lyre once more, and, by the magic of his power, Istar’s spirit quickly fled to the land of dreams. There Allaraine left her to await the dawn of the new day, with its monotonous, wearying duties, and its weight of dim, indefinable foreboding, that as yet was all of the earth-life of Narahmouna the divine.