第66章

Thou wouldst look into mine eyesthou wouldst kiss me! Well, if it pleaseth thee, look," and she bent herself towards me, and fixed her dark and thrilling orbs upon my own; "ay, and kiss too, if thou wilt, for, thanks be given to the scheme of things, kisses leave no marks, except upon the heart.But if thou dost kiss, I tell thee of a surety wilt thou eat out thy breast with love of me, and die!" and she bent yet farther towards me till her soft hair brushed my brow, and her fragrant breath played upon my face, and made me faint and weak.Then of a sudden, even as Istretched out my arms to clasp, she straightened herself, and a quick change passed over her.Reaching out her hand, she held it over my head, and it seemed to me that something flowed from it that chilled me back to common-sense, and a knowledge of propriety and the domestic virtues.

"Enough of this wanton play," she said, with a touch of sternness."Listen, Holly.Thou art a good and honest man, and I fain would spare thee; but, oh! it is so hard for a woman to be merciful.I have said Iam not for thee, therefore let thy thoughts pass by me like an idle wind, and the dust of thy imagination sink again into the depthswell, of despair, if thou wilt.Thou dost not know me, Holly.Hadst thou seen me but ten hours past when my passion seized me, thou hadst shrunk from me in fear and trembling.I am a woman of many moods, and, like the water in that vessel, I reflect many things; but they pass, my Holly; they pass, and are forgotten.Only the water is the water still, and I still am I, and that which maketh the water maketh it, and that which maketh me maketh me, nor can my quality be altered.Therefore, pay no heed to what I seem, seeing that thou canst not know what I am.If thou troublest me again I will veil myself, and thou shalt behold my face no more."I rose, and sank on the cushioned couch beside her, yet quivering with emotion, though for a moment my mad passion had left me, as the leaves of a tree quiver still, although the gust begone that stirred them.Idid not dare to tell her that I had seen her in that deep and hellish mood, muttering incantations to the fire in the tomb.

"So," she went on, "now eat some fruit; believe me, it is the only true food for man.Oh, tell me of the philosophy of that Hebrew Messiah, who came after me, and whom thou sayest doth now rule Rome and Greece and Egypt and the barbarians beyond.It must have been a strange philosophy that he taught, for in my day the peoples would have naught of our philosophies.Revel and lust and drink, blood and cold steel, and the shock of men gathered in the battlethese were the canons of their creeds."I had recovered myself a little by now, and feeling bitterly ashamed of the weakness into which I had been betrayed, I did my best to expound to her the doctrines of Christianity, to which, however, with the single exception of our conception of heaven and hell, I found that she paid but faint attention, her interest being all directed towards the Man who taught them.Also I told her that among her own people, the Arabs, another prophet, one Mohammed, had arisen and preached a new faith to which many millions of mankind now adhered.

"Ah!" she said; "I seetwo new religions! I have known so many, and doubtless there have been many more since I knew aught beyond these caves of Ko^r.Mankind asks ever of the skies to vision out what lies behind them.It is terror for the end, and but a subtler form of selfishnessthis it is that breeds religions.

Mark, my Holly, each religion claims the future for its followers; or, at the least, the good thereof.The evil is for those benighted ones who will have none of it; seeing the light the true believers worship, as the fishes see the stars, but dimly.The religions come and the religions pass, and the civilizations come and pass, and naught endures but the world and human nature.Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and not from withoutthat he himself must work out his own salvation! He is there, and within him is the breath of life and a knowledge of good and evil as good and evil is to him.Thereon let him build and stand erect, and not cast himself before the image of some unknown God, modelled like his poor self, but with a bigger brain to think the evil thing; and a longer arm to do it."I thought to myself, which shows how old such reasoning is, being, indeed, one of the recurring quantities of theological discussion, that her argument sounded very like some that I have heard in the nineteenth century, and in other places than the caves of Ko^r, and with which, by the way, I totally disagree, but I did not care to try and discuss the question with her.To begin with, my mind was too weary with all the emotions through which I had passed, and, in the second place, I knew that I should get the worst of it, It is weary work enough to argue with an ordinary materialist, who hurls statistics and whole strata of geological facts at your head, while you can only buffet him with deductions and instincts and the snowflakes of faith, that are, alas! so apt to melt in the hot embers of our troubles.How little chance, then, should I have against one whose brain was supernatural sharpened, and who had two thousand years of experience, besides all manner of knowledge of the secrets of Nature at her command! Feeling that she would be more likely to convert me than I should to convert her, I thought it best to leave the matter alone, and so sat silent.Many a time since then have I bitterly regretted that I did so; for thereby I lost the only opportunity I can remember having had of ascertaining what Ayesha really believed, and what her "philosophy" was.