Lilith

“Have you hurt yourself, my lord?” it said, in a voice that sounded far-off, and ill-articulated as if blown aside by some spectral wind.

“Yes, I have,” answered the other, in like but rougher tone. “You would do nothing to help me, and this cursed knee is out!”

“I did my best, my lord.”

“No doubt, my lady, for it was bad! I thought I should never find my feet again!—But, bless my soul, madam! are you out in your bones?”

She cast a look at herself.

“I have nothing else to be out in,” she returned; “—and YOU at least cannot complain! But what on earth does it mean? Am I dreaming?”

“YOU may be dreaming, madam—I cannot tell; but this knee of mine forbids me the grateful illusion.—Ha! I too, I perceive, have nothing to walk in but bones!—Not so unbecoming to a man, however! I trust to goodness they are not MY bones! every one aches worse than another, and this loose knee worst of all! The bed must have been damp—and I too drunk to know it!”

“Probably, my lord of Cokayne!”

“What! what!—You make me think I too am dreaming—aches and all! How do YOU know the title my roistering bullies give me? I don’t remember you!—Anyhow, you have no right to take liberties! My name is—I am lord–tut, tut! What do you call me when I’m—I mean when you are sober? I cannot—at the moment,—Why, what IS my name?—I must have been VERY drunk when I went to bed! I often am!”

“You come so seldom to mine, that I do not know, my lord; but I may take your word for THAT!”

“I hope so!”

“—if for nothing else!” “Hoity toity! I never told you a lie in my life!”

“You never told me anything but lies.”

“Upon my honour!—Why, I never saw the woman before!”

“You knew me well enough to lie to, my lord!”

“I do seem to begin to dream I have met you before, but, upon my oath, there is nothing to know you by! Out of your clothes, who is to tell who you may not be?—One thing I MAY swear—that I never saw you so much undressed before!—By heaven, I have no recollection of you!”

“I am glad to hear it: my recollections of you are the less distasteful!—Good morning, my lord!”

She turned away, hobbled, clacking, a few paces, and stood again.

“You are just as heartless as—as—any other woman, madam!—Where in this hell of a place shall I find my valet?—What was the cursed name I used to call the fool?”

He turned his bare noddle this way and that on its creaking pivot, still holding his knee with both hands.

“I will be your valet for once, my lord,” said the lady, turning once more to him. “—What can I do for you? It is not easy to tell!”

“Tie my leg on, of course, you fool! Can’t you see it is all but off? Heigho, my dancing days!”

She looked about with her eyeless sockets and found a piece of fibrous grass, with which she proceeded to bind together the adjoining parts that had formed the knee. When she had done, he gave one or two carefully tentative stamps.

“You used to stamp rather differently, my lord!” she said, as she rose from her knees.

“Eh? what!—Now I look at you again, it seems to me I used to hate you!—Eh?”

“Naturally, my lord! You hated a good many people!—your wife, of course, among the rest!”

“Ah, I begin, I be-gin– But—I must have been a long time somewhere!—I really forget!—There! your damned, miserable bit of grass is breaking!—We used to get on PRETTY well together—eh?”

“Not that I remember, my lord. The only happy moments I had in your company were scattered over the first week of our marriage.”

“Was that the way of it? Ha! ha!—Well, it’s over now, thank goodness!”

“I wish I could believe it! Why were we sitting there in that carriage together? It wakes apprehension!”

“I think we were divorced, my lady!”

“Hardly enough: we are still together!”

“A sad truth, but capable of remedy: the forest seems of some extent!”

“I doubt! I doubt!”

“I am sorry I cannot think of a compliment to pay you—without lying, that is. To judge by your figure and complexion you have lived hard since I saw you last! I cannot surely be QUITE so naked as your ladyship!—I beg your pardon, madam! I trust you will take it I am but jesting in a dream! It is of no consequence, however; dreaming or waking, all’s one—all merest appearance! You can’t be certain of anything, and that’s as good as knowing there is nothing! Life may teach any fool that!”

“It has taught me the fool I was to love you!”

“You were not the only fool to do that! Women had a trick of falling in love with me:—I had forgotten that you were one of them!” “I did love you, my lord—a little—at one time!”

“Ah, there was your mistake, my lady! You should have loved me much, loved me devotedly, loved me savagely—loved me eternally! Then I should have tired of you the sooner, and not hated you so much afterward!—But let bygones be bygones!—WHERE are we? Locality is the question! To be or not to be, is NOT the question!”

“We are in the other world, I presume!”

“Granted!—but in which or what sort of other world? This can’t be hell!”

“It must: there’s marriage in it! You and I are damned in each other.”

“Then I’m not like Othello, damned in a fair wife!—Oh, I remember my Shakspeare, madam!”

She picked up a broken branch that had fallen into a bush, and steadying herself with it, walked away, tossing her little skull.

“Give that stick to me,” cried her late husband; “I want it more than you.”

She returned him no answer.

“You mean to make me beg for it?”

“Not at all, my lord. I mean to keep it,” she replied, continuing her slow departure.

“Give it me at once; I mean to have it! I require it.”

“Unfortunately, I think I require it myself!” returned the lady, walking a little quicker, with a sharper cracking of her joints and clinking of her bones.

He started to follow her, but nearly fell: his knee-grass had burst, and with an oath he stopped, grasping his leg again.

“Come and tie it up properly!” he would have thundered, but he only piped and whistled!

She turned and looked at him.

“Come and tie it up instantly!” he repeated.

She walked a step or two farther from him.

“I swear I will not touch you!” he cried.

“Swear on, my lord! there is no one here to believe you. But, pray, do not lose your temper, or you will shake yourself to pieces, and where to find string enough to tie up all your crazy joints, is more than I can tell.”

She came back, and knelt once more at his side—first, however, laying the stick in dispute beyond his reach and within her own.

The instant she had finished retying the joint, he made a grab at her, thinking, apparently, to seize her by the hair; but his hard fingers slipped on the smooth poll.

“Disgusting!” he muttered, and laid hold of her upper arm-bone.

“You will break it!” she said, looking up from her knees.

“I will, then!” he answered, and began to strain at it.

“I shall not tie your leg again the next time it comes loose!” she threatened.

He gave her arm a vicious twist, but happily her bones were in better condition than his. She stretched her other hand toward the broken branch.

“That’s right: reach me the stick!” he grinned.

She brought it round with such a swing that one of the bones of the sounder leg snapped. He fell, choking with curses. The lady laughed.

“Now you will have to wear splints always!” she said; “such dry bones never mend!”

“You devil!” he cried.

“At your service, my lord! Shall I fetch you a couple of wheel-spokes? Neat—but heavy, I fear!”

He turned his bone-face aside, and did not answer, but lay and groaned. I marvelled he had not gone to pieces when he fell. The lady rose and walked away—not all ungracefully, I thought.

“What can come of it?” I said to myself. “These are too wretched for any world, and this cannot be hell, for the Little Ones are in it, and the sleepers too! What can it all mean? Can things ever come right for skeletons?”

“There are words too big for you and me: ALL is one of them, and EVER is another,” said a voice near me which I knew.

I looked about, but could not see the speaker.

“You are not in hell,” it resumed. “Neither am I in hell. But those skeletons are in hell!”

Ere he ended I caught sight of the raven on the bough of a beech, right over my head. The same moment he left it, and alighting on the ground, stood there, the thin old man of the library, with long nose and long coat.

“The male was never a gentleman,” he went on, “and in the bony stage of retrogression, with his skeleton through his skin, and his character outside his manners, does not look like one. The female is less vulgar, and has a little heart. But, the restraints of society removed, you see them now just as they are and always were!”

“Tell me, Mr. Raven, what will become of them,” I said.

“We shall see,” he replied. “In their day they were the handsomest couple at court; and now, even in their dry bones, they seem to regard their former repute as an inalienable possession; to see their faces, however, may yet do something for them! They felt themselves rich too while they had pockets, but they have already begun to feel rather pinched! My lord used to regard my lady as a worthless encumbrance, for he was tired of her beauty and had spent her money; now he needs her to cobble his joints for him! These changes have roots of hope in them. Besides, they cannot now get far away from each other, and they see none else of their own kind: they must at last grow weary of their mutual repugnance, and begin to love one another! for love, not hate, is deepest in what Love ‘loved into being.’”

“I saw many more of their kind an hour ago, in the hall close by!” I said.

“Of their kind, but not of their sort,” he answered. “For many years these will see none such as you saw last night. Those are centuries in advance of these. You saw that those could even dress themselves a little! It is true they cannot yet retain their clothes so long as they would—only, at present, for a part of the night; but they are pretty steadily growing more capable, and will by and by develop faces; for every grain of truthfulness adds a fibre to the show of their humanity. Nothing but truth can appear; and whatever is must seem.”

“Are they upheld by this hope?” I asked.

“They are upheld by hope, but they do not in the least know their hope; to understand it, is yet immeasurably beyond them,” answered Mr. Raven.

His unexpected appearance had caused me no astonishment. I was like a child, constantly wondering, and surprised at nothing.

“Did you come to find me, sir?” I asked.

“Not at all,” he replied. “I have no anxiety about you. Such as you always come back to us.”

“Tell me, please, who am I such as?” I said.

“I cannot make my friend the subject of conversation,” he answered, with a smile.

“But when that friend is present!” I urged.

“I decline the more strongly,” he rejoined.

“But when that friend asks you!” I persisted.

“Then most positively I refuse,” he returned.

“Why?”

“Because he and I would be talking of two persons as if they were one and the same. Your consciousness of yourself and my knowledge of you are far apart!”

The lapels of his coat flew out, and the lappets lifted, and I thought the metamorphosis of HOMO to CORVUS was about to take place before my eyes. But the coat closed again in front of him, and he added, with seeming inconsequence,

“In this world never trust a person who has once deceived you. Above all, never do anything such a one may ask you to do.”

“I will try to remember,” I answered; “—but I may forget!”

“Then some evil that is good for you will follow.”

“And if I remember?”

“Some evil that is not good for you, will not follow.”

The old man seemed to sink to the ground, and immediately I saw the raven several yards from me, flying low and fast.

CHAPTER XVIII. DEAD OR ALIVE?

I went walking on, still facing the moon, who, not yet high, was staring straight into the forest. I did not know what ailed her, but she was dark and dented, like a battered disc of old copper, and looked dispirited and weary. Not a cloud was nigh to keep her company, and the stars were too bright for her. “Is this going to last for ever?” she seemed to say. She was going one way and I was going the other, yet through the wood we went a long way together. We did not commune much, for my eyes were on the ground; but her disconsolate look was fixed on me: I felt without seeing it. A long time we were together, I and the moon, walking side by side, she the dull shine, and I the live shadow.

Something on the ground, under a spreading tree, caught my eye with its whiteness, and I turned toward it. Vague as it was in the shadow of the foliage, it suggested, as I drew nearer, a human body. “Another skeleton!” I said to myself, kneeling and laying my hand upon it. A body it was, however, and no skeleton, though as nearly one as body could well be. It lay on its side, and was very cold—not cold like a stone, but cold like that which was once alive, and is alive no more. The closer I looked at it, the oftener I touched it, the less it seemed possible it should be other than dead. For one bewildered moment, I fancied it one of the wild dancers, a ghostly Cinderella, perhaps, that had lost her way home, and perished in the strange night of an out-of-door world! It was quite naked, and so worn that, even in the shadow, I could, peering close, have counted without touching them, every rib in its side. All its bones, indeed, were as visible as if tight-covered with only a thin elastic leather. Its beautiful yet terrible teeth, unseemly disclosed by the retracted lips, gleamed ghastly through the dark. Its hair was longer than itself, thick and very fine to the touch, and black as night.

It was the body of a tall, probably graceful woman.—How had she come there? Not of herself, and already in such wasted condition, surely! Her strength must have failed her; she had fallen, and lain there until she died of hunger! But how, even so, could she be thus emaciated? And how came she to be naked? Where were the savages to strip and leave her? or what wild beasts would have taken her garments? That her body should have been left was not wonderful!

I rose to my feet, stood, and considered. I must not, could not let her lie exposed and forsaken! Natural reverence forbade it. Even the garment of a woman claims respect; her body it were impossible to leave uncovered! Irreverent eyes might look on it! Brutal claws might toss it about! Years would pass ere the friendly rains washed it into the soil!—But the ground was hard, almost solid with interlacing roots, and I had but my bare hands!

At first it seemed plain that she had not long been dead: there was not a sign of decay about her! But then what had the slow wasting of life left of her to decay?

Could she be still alive? Might she not? What if she were! Things went very strangely in this strange world! Even then there would be little chance of bringing her back, but I must know she was dead before I buried her!

As I left the forest-hall, I had spied in the doorway a bunch of ripe grapes, and brought it with me, eating as I came: a few were yet left on the stalk, and their juice might possibly revive her! Anyhow it was all I had with which to attempt her rescue! The mouth was happily a little open; but the head was in such an awkward position that, to move the body, I passed my arm under the shoulder on which it lay, when I found the pine-needles beneath it warm: she could not have been any time dead, and MIGHT still be alive, though I could discern no motion of the heart, or any indication that she breathed! One of her hands was clenched hard, apparently inclosing something small. I squeezed a grape into her mouth, but no swallowing followed.

To do for her all I could, I spread a thick layer of pine-needles and dry leaves, laid one of my garments over it, warm from my body, lifted her upon it, and covered her with my clothes and a great heap of leaves: I would save the little warmth left in her, hoping an increase to it when the sun came back. Then I tried another grape, but could perceive no slightest movement of mouth or throat.

“Doubt,” I said to myself, “may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.” So tight was the skin upon her bones that I dared not use friction.

I crept into the heap of leaves, got as close to her as I could, and took her in my arms. I had not much heat left in me, but what I had I would share with her! Thus I spent what remained of the night, sleepless, and longing for the sun. Her cold seemed to radiate into me, but no heat to pass from me to her.

Had I fled from the beautiful sleepers, I thought, each on her “dim, straight” silver couch, to lie alone with such a bedfellow! I had refused a lovely privilege: I was given over to an awful duty! Beneath the sad, slow-setting moon, I lay with the dead, and watched for the dawn.

The darkness had given way, and the eastern horizon was growing dimly clearer, when I caught sight of a motion rather than of anything that moved—not far from me, and close to the ground. It was the low undulating of a large snake, which passed me in an unswerving line. Presently appeared, making as it seemed for the same point, what I took for a roebuck-doe and her calf. Again a while, and two creatures like bear-cubs came, with three or four smaller ones behind them. The light was now growing so rapidly that when, a few minutes after, a troop of horses went trotting past, I could see that, although the largest of them were no bigger than the smallest Shetland pony, they must yet be full-grown, so perfect were they in form, and so much had they all the ways and action of great horses. They were of many breeds. Some seemed models of cart-horses, others of chargers, hunters, racers. Dwarf cattle and small elephants followed.

“Why are the children not here!” I said to myself. “The moment I am free of this poor woman, I must go back and fetch them!”

Where were the creatures going? What drew them? Was this an exodus, or a morning habit? I must wait for the sun! Till he came I must not leave the woman! I laid my hand on the body, and could not help thinking it felt a trifle warmer. It might have gained a little of the heat I had lost! it could hardly have generated any! What reason for hope there was had not grown less!

The forehead of the day began to glow, and soon the sun came peering up, as if to see for the first time what all this stir of a new world was about. At sight of his great innocent splendour, I rose full of life, strong against death. Removing the handkerchief I had put to protect the mouth and eyes from the pine-needles, I looked anxiously to see whether I had found a priceless jewel, or but its empty case.

The body lay motionless as when I found it. Then first, in the morning light, I saw how drawn and hollow was the face, how sharp were the bones under the skin, how every tooth shaped itself through the lips. The human garment was indeed worn to its threads, but the bird of heaven might yet be nestling within, might yet awake to motion and song!

But the sun was shining on her face! I re-arranged the handkerchief, laid a few leaves lightly over it, and set out to follow the creatures. Their main track was well beaten, and must have long been used—likewise many of the tracks that, joining it from both sides, merged in, and broadened it. The trees retreated as I went, and the grass grew thicker. Presently the forest was gone, and a wide expanse of loveliest green stretched away to the horizon. Through it, along the edge of the forest, flowed a small river, and to this the track led. At sight of the water a new though undefined hope sprang up in me. The stream looked everywhere deep, and was full to the brim, but nowhere more than a few yards wide. A bluish mist rose from it, vanishing as it rose. On the opposite side, in the plentiful grass, many small animals were feeding. Apparently they slept in the forest, and in the morning sought the plain, swimming the river to reach it. I knelt and would have drunk, but the water was hot, and had a strange metallic taste.

I leapt to my feet: here was the warmth I sought—the first necessity of life! I sped back to my helpless charge.

Without well considering my solitude, no one will understand what seemed to lie for me in the redemption of this woman from death. “Prove what she may,” I thought with myself, “I shall at least be lonely no more!” I had found myself such poor company that now first I seemed to know what hope was. This blessed water would expel the cold death, and drown my desolation!

I bore her to the stream. Tall as she was, I found her marvellously light, her bones were so delicate, and so little covered them. I grew yet more hopeful when I found her so far from stiff that I could carry her on one arm, like a sleeping child, leaning against my shoulder. I went softly, dreading even the wind of my motion, and glad there was no other.

The water was too hot to lay her at once in it: the shock might scare from her the yet fluttering life! I laid her on the bank, and dipping one of my garments, began to bathe the pitiful form. So wasted was it that, save from the plentifulness and blackness of the hair, it was impossible even to conjecture whether she was young or old. Her eyelids were just not shut, which made her look dead the more: there was a crack in the clouds of her night, at which no sun shone through!

The longer I went on bathing the poor bones, the less grew my hope that they would ever again be clothed with strength, that ever those eyelids would lift, and a soul look out; still I kept bathing continuously, allowing no part time to grow cold while I bathed another; and gradually the body became so much warmer, that at last I ventured to submerge it: I got into the stream and drew it in, holding the face above the water, and letting the swift, steady current flow all about the rest. I noted, but was able to conclude nothing from the fact, that, for all the heat, the shut hand never relaxed its hold.

After about ten minutes, I lifted it out and laid it again on the bank, dried it, and covered it as well as I could, then ran to the forest for leaves.

The grass and soil were dry and warm; and when I returned I thought it had scarcely lost any of the heat the water had given it. I spread the leaves upon it, and ran for more—then for a third and a fourth freight.

I could now leave it and go to explore, in the hope of discovering some shelter. I ran up the stream toward some rocky hills I saw in that direction, which were not far off.

When I reached them, I found the river issuing full grown from a rock at the bottom of one of them. To my fancy it seemed to have run down a stair inside, an eager cataract, at every landing wild to get out, but only at the foot finding a door of escape.

It did not fill the opening whence it rushed, and I crept through into a little cave, where I learned that, instead of hurrying tumultuously down a stair, it rose quietly from the ground at the back like the base of a large column, and ran along one side, nearly filling a deep, rather narrow channel. I considered the place, and saw that, if I could find a few fallen boughs long enough to lie across the channel, and large enough to bear a little weight without bending much, I might, with smaller branches and plenty of leaves, make upon them a comfortable couch, which the stream under would keep constantly warm. Then I ran back to see how my charge fared.

She was lying as I had left her. The heat had not brought her to life, but neither had it developed anything to check farther hope. I got a few boulders out of the channel, and arranged them at her feet and on both sides of her.

Running again to the wood, I had not to search long ere I found some small boughs fit for my purpose—mostly of beech, their dry yellow leaves yet clinging to them. With these I had soon laid the floor of a bridge-bed over the torrent. I crossed the boughs with smaller branches, interlaced these with twigs, and buried all deep in leaves and dry moss.

When thus at length, after not a few journeys to the forest, I had completed a warm, dry, soft couch, I took the body once more, and set out with it for the cave. It was so light that now and then as I went I almost feared lest, when I laid it down, I should find it a skeleton after all; and when at last I did lay it gently on the pathless bridge, it was a greater relief to part with that fancy than with the weight. Once more I covered the body with a thick layer of leaves; and trying again to feed her with a grape, found to my joy that I could open the mouth a little farther. The grape, indeed, lay in it unheeded, but I hoped some of the juice might find its way down.