LAMARA took Miriam in her arms and kissed her. The caress revived the girl’s drooping strength and sent currents of joyous sunshine rippling through her veins. A glorious light invested Lamara herself, as if from a divine baptism.
“Saturn will bless you forever,” Lamara said. “You have brought us a new era. We were relaxed in a dangerous ease, too well content with what we were, and too little mindful that what we receive loses its virtue if it be not passed on to others. Tor was a lesson never to be forgotten. The worst fate was barely averted; and it will be our happy task to create there a state of life less gloomy and cruel than they have known till now. Torpeon is gone; but we pray for his forgiveness; for much of the sin of his transgression lies at our door. Zarga—we hope for her return, but she is long absent.”
“Zarga is at peace,” said Solarion, who had joined the group unobserved. “The wound she received in the cavern, which she never disclosed, bled inwardly. It could never have been healed in this world. She made amends; and love will find her out.”
Miriam gazed hopefully from one to another face of those who surrounded her. But the face her soul longed for was not visible, nor was the sense of his presence any longer felt as before. She had not courage to ask the question that trembled on her lips. But all looked tenderly upon her. Argon, whose cheeks were wet with the tears shed for his sister, took her hand and kissed it. Aunion’s eyes dwelt upon her with deep benignity; but there was silence till Solarion addressed her.
“The mystery of life and death is never solved on earth, little sister,” he said; “nor can it be known when or why one will be taken and another left. But lovers who know love have believed that what seems parting may be the means of a dearer union; because they found that kisses of mortal lips foretold more than they could fulfill.”
“It is not that I would call him back, if he is gone,” she replied tremulously, “but that I might follow where he is.”
Solarion smiled and said: “It is not far to go.”
“But you will return to your home again,” added Lamara, putting an arm around her. “Your father has need of you; and Mary Faust would speak with you. You have seen and known things they will be glad to hear. You will find all prepared for your reception. Come, now, and let us spend a farewell hour together.”
But Miriam bent her head upon Lamara’s bosom and wept.
“I have no strength for more farewells,” she said. “I can have faith that there may be happiness for me; but it shines so far away, and the path to it seems so lonely, and I am so weary of journeying, and fear of myself is so heavy upon me, that I wish to be put upon my way at once. If I delayed here, my heart would still seek for my beloved, and I could find no rest.
“I know”—she looked sadly at Solarion—“that, after all is done, I may not find him; but there is comfort in the seeking; to pause and turn aside even among you, friends who are so dear, would breed shadows in me which would throw their darkness over you. Your world is too bright and great for me. My mind cannot compass it; my nature is not formed to its measure; its joys are all too sublime, its thoughts too profound. Had you not—as I feel you have—screened its full splendors from my senses, I could not have endured them.
“God, I think, fashions each of us to fit the world to which we are born, and has made the spaces that separate them so vast as an admonition to us to hold to our own. I can bring to my home people no message wiser than this. They are restless and ambitious and reach out after remote and hidden things; they create wealth and torture Nature to make her reveal her secrets; in their anxiety to miss no gain and lose no pleasure, they hurry to and fro, and perish in pursuit of a fantom whose substance was all the while beside them. I have shared their errors; but among you I have gathered some truth.
“The only knowledge that enriches comes from within; all that is immortally loveable comes to us as spontaneously and simply as the songs of birds and the perfume and colors of flowers. You have taught me much; but he from whom I have learned most is the one whom I had least regarded till near the end; the little being whose only self was his loyalty to others, who made the great voyage from no motive but to serve those he loved; and, when his end was gained, died with a smile on his lips in the act of resigning his last chance of life to insure their safety. Your Nature people have taken his body; I pray God that I may have become worthy, when I die, to be near the place where God keeps his soul!”
Solarion and Lamara exchanged a glance.
“The flowers on Jim’s grave,” Solarion said, “will draw their perfume and beauty from the pure devotion which the rough rind of his nature concealed. Death discloses the loveliness in him which was disguised while he lived by the veil of his humility. He is a word of the spirit, spoken through the letter of a humble and mutilated body, which being now interpreted, will sweeten and enlighten the world.”
“Nevertheless,” observed Lamara—and something in her tone caused a secret hope to stir in Miriam’s heart—“not every flower owes its bloom and fragrance to a grave!”
With Aunion preceding, the friends now entered the amphitheater, whose august interior was first revealed to Miriam. But it was no longer filled with countless thousands of human creatures, nor did the judges sit upon their thrones. Instead, the enormous crater of the auditorium was thronged from base to summit with roses of all tints; the vines clambered luxuriantly from bench to bench, peeped from every aperture, blushed and blanched from side to side of the sun-steeped bowl, and tossed their joyful faces toward the sky from the topmost parapets. From the fervent gold of their hearts was dispensed an incense that seemed to find its way into the very soul of the beholder and to feed the inmost springs of life with sumptuous delight. The soft yet imperial splendor of each blossom added its gracious potency to its neighbors, till the whole arena palpitated in an apotheosis of the flower-queen—the rapturous triumph of the immortal rose. To breathe was ecstasy; and the eye drank unappeasable drafts of delicate intoxication. As Miriam moved forward, her spirit subdued to a harmonious tranquility, the rich notes of nightingales welled out upon her ear, transmuting by their alchemy the realms of color and perfume into song.
And now, bestowed by what hand she knew not, she felt the clustering of roses on her head; their petals caressed her cheeks; the heavy blooms mantled her shoulders and trailed even to her feet; no bride prepared for her nuptials was ever so attired. She was drawing near to a bower erected in the center of the arena—a structure woven of roses, white as a virgin’s soul without, within rose red as the pure passion of her heart. Into that glow she entered, and found a golden altar, before which she knelt and closed her eyes.
Ah, if the bridegroom would come!