CHAPTER XLI.
MISERY.
As all the bubbles in a glass shrink and vanish when the firstcollapses, so the troop of fairy-like forms before me disintegrated, andwere gone. The delicate being, whose hand I held, fluttered as does amist in the first gust of a sudden gale, and then dissolved intotransparency. The gaily decked amphitheater disappeared, the very earthcavern passed from existence, and I found myself standing solitary andalone in a boundless desert. I turned towards every point of the compassonly to find that no visible object appeared to break the monotony. Istood upon a floor of pure white sand which stretched to the horizon ingentle wave-like undulations as if the swell of the ocean had beencaught, transformed to sand, and fixed.
I bent down and scooped a handful of the sand, and raised it in the palmof my hand, letting it sift back again to earth; it was surely sand. Ipinched my flesh, and pulled my hair, I tore my garments, stamped uponthe sand, and shouted aloud to demonstrate that I myself was stillmyself. It was real, yes, real. I stood alone in a desert of sand.Morning was dawning, and on one side the great sun rose slowly andmajestically.
"Thank God for the sun," I cried. "Thank God for the light and heat ofthe sun."
I was again on surface earth; once more I beheld that glorious orb forthe sight of which I had so often prayed when I believed myselfmiserable in the dismal earth caverns, and which I had been willing togive my very life once more to behold. I fell on my knees, and raised myhands in thankfulness. I blessed the rising sun, the illimitable sand,the air about me, and the blue heavens above. I blessed all that wasbefore me, and again and again returned thanks for my delivery from thecaverns beneath me. I did not think to question by what power thismiracle had been accomplished. I did not care to do so; had I thoughtof the matter at all I would not have dared to question for fear thetransition might prove a delusion.
I turned towards the sun, and walked eastward. As the day progressed andthe sun rose into the heavens, I maintained my journey, aiming as best Icould to keep the same direction. The heat increased, and when the sunreached the zenith it seemed as though it would melt the marrow in mybones. The sand, as white as snow and hot as lava, dazzled my eyes, andI covered them with my hands. The sun in the sky felt as if it were aball of white hot iron near my head. It seemed small, and yet appearedto shine as through a tube directed only towards myself. Vainly did Istruggle to escape and get beyond its boundary, the tube seemed tofollow my every motion, directing the blazing shafts, and concentratingthem ever upon my defenseless person. I removed my outer garments, andtore my shirt into fibers hoping to catch a waft of breeze, and with onehand over my eyes, and the other holding my coat above my head,endeavored to escape the mighty flood of heat, but vainly. The fieryrays streamed through the garment as mercury flows through a film ofgauze. They penetrated my flesh, and vaporized my blood. My hands,fingers, and arms puffed out as a bladder of air expands under theinfluence of heat. My face swelled to twice, thrice its normal size, andat last my eyes were closed, for my cheeks and eyebrows met. I rubbed myshapeless hand over my sightless face, and found it as round as a ball;the nose had become imbedded in the expanded flesh, and my ears haddisappeared in the same manner.
I could no longer see the sun, but felt the vivid, piercing rays I couldnot evade. I do not know whether I walked or rolled along; I only knowthat I struggled to escape those deadly rays. Then I prayed for death,and in the same breath begged the powers that had transferred me tosurface earth to carry me back again to the caverns below. Therecollection of their cool, refreshing atmosphere was as the thought ofheaven must be to a lost spirit. I experienced the agony of a damnedsoul, and now, in contradistinction to former times, considered as myidea of perfect happiness the dismal earth caverns of other days. Ithought of the day I had stood at the mouth of the Kentucky cave, andwaded into the water with my guide; I recalled the refreshing coolnessof the stream in the darkness of that cavern when the last ray ofsunshine disappeared, and I cursed myself for longing then for sunshine,and the surface earth. Fool that man is, I mentally cried, not to becontented with that which is, however he may be situated, and whereverhe may be placed. This is but a retribution, I am being cursed for mydiscontented mind, this is hell, and in comparison with this hell allelse on or in earth is happiness. Then I damned the sun, the earth, thevery God of all, and in my frenzy cursed everything that existed. I feltmy puffed limbs, and prayed that I might become lean again. I asked toshrink to a skeleton, for seemingly my misery came with my expandedform; but I prayed and cursed in vain. So I struggled on in agony, everymoment seemingly covering a multitude of years; struggled along like alost soul plodding in an endless expanse of ever-increasing,ever-concentrating hell. At last, however, the day declined, the heatdecreased, and as it did so my distorted body gradually regained itsnormal size, my eyesight returned, and finally I stood in thatwilderness of sand watching the great red sun sink into the earth, as inthe morning I had watched it rise. But between the sunrise and thesunset there had been an eternity of suffering, and then, as if releasedfrom a spell, I dropped exhausted upon the sand, and seemed to sleep. Idreamed of the sun, and that an angel stood before me, and asked why Iwas miserable, and in reply I pointed to the sun. "See," I said, "theauthor of the misery of man."
Said the angel: "Were there no sun there would be no men, but were thereno men there would still be misery."
"Misery of what?" I asked.
"Misery of mind," replied the angel. "Misery is a thing, misery is not aconception--pain is real, pain is not an impression. Misery and painwould still exist and prey upon mind substance were there no men, formind also is real, and not a mere conception. The pain you have sufferedhas not been the pain of matter, but the pain of spirit. Matter can notsuffer. Were it matter that suffered, the heated sand would writhe inagony. No; it is only mind and spirit that experience pain, or pleasure,and neither mind nor spirit can evade its destiny, even if it escapefrom the body."
Then I awoke and saw once more the great red sun rise from the sand-edgeof my desolate world, and I became aware of a new pain, for now Iperceived the fact that I experienced the sense of thirst. Theconception of the impression drew my mind to the subject, and instantlyintense thirst, the most acute of bodily sufferings, possessed me. Whenvitalized tissue craves water, other physical wants are unfelt; when manparches to death all other methods of torture are disregarded. I thoughtno longer of the rising sun, I remembered no more the burning sand ofyesterday, I felt only the pain of thirst.
"Water, water, water," I cried, and then in the distance as if in answerto my cry, I beheld a lake of water.
Instantly every nerve was strained, every muscle stretched, and I fledover the sands towards the welcome pool.
On and on I ran, and as I did so, the sun rising higher and higher,again began to burn the sands beneath my feet, and roast the flesh uponmy bones. Once more I experienced that intolerable sense of pain, thepain of living flesh disintegrating by fire, and now with thirst gnawingat my vitals, and fire drying up the residue of my evaporated blood, Istruggled in agony towards a lake that vanished before my gaze, toreappear just beyond.
This day was more horrible than the preceding, and yet it was thereverse so far as the action of the sun on my flesh was concerned. Myprayer of yesterday had been fearfully answered, and the curses of theday preceding were being visited upon my very self. I had prayed tobecome lean, and instead of the former puffed tissue and expanded flesh,my body contracted as does beef when dried. The tightening skin squeezedupon the solidifying flesh, and as the moisture evaporated, it left ashriveled integument, contracted close upon the bone. My joints stoodout as great protuberances, my skin turned to a dark amber color, and myflesh became transparent as does wetted horn. I saw my very vitalsthrob, I saw the empty blood vessels, the shriveled nerves and vacantarteries of my frame. I could not close my eyes. I could not shield themfrom the burning sun. I was a mummy, yet living, a dried corpse walkingover the sand, dead to all save pain. I tried to fall, but coul
d not,and I felt that, while the sun was visible, I must stand upright; Icould not stop, and could not stoop. Then at last the malevolent sunsank beneath the horizon, and as the last ray disappeared again, I fellupon the sand.
I did not sleep, I did not rest, I did not breathe nor live a human; Ionly existed as a living pain, the conception of pain realized into aconscious nucleus,--and so the night passed. Again the sun arose, andwith the light of her first ray I saw near at hand a caravan, camels,men, horses, a great cavalcade. They approached rapidly and surroundedme. The leader of the band alighted and raised me to my feet, for nolonger had I the power of motion. He spoke to me kindly, and strange asit may seem to you, but not at all strange did it seem to me, called meby name.
"We came across your tracks in the desert," he said; "we are yourdeliverers."
I motioned for water; I could not speak.
"Yes," he said, "water you shall have."
Then from one of the skins that hung across the hump of a camel hefilled a crystal goblet with sparkling water, and held it towards me,but just before the goblet touched my lips he withdrew it and said:
"I forgot to first extend the greetings of our people."
And then I noticed in his other hand a tiny glass containing a greenliquid, which he placed to my lips, pronouncing the single word,"Drink."
I fastened my gaze upon the water, and opened my lips. I smelled thearoma of the powerful narcotic liquid within the glass, and hastened toobey, but glanced first at my deliverer, and in his stead saw thefamiliar face of the satanic figure that twice before had tempted me.Instantly, without a thought as to the consequences, without a fear asto the result, I dashed the glass to the sand, and my voice returning, Icried for the third time, "No; I will not drink."
The troop of camels instantly disappeared, as had the figures in thescenes before, the tempter resolved into clear air, the sand beneath myfeet became natural again, and I became myself as I had been beforepassing through the hideous ordeal. The fact of my deliverance from theearth caverns had, I now realized, been followed by temporary aberrationof my mind, but at last I saw clearly again, the painful fancy hadpassed, the delirium was over.
I fell upon my knees in thankfulness; the misery through which I hadpassed had proven to be illusory, the earth caverns were beneath me, themirage and temptations were not real, the horrors I had experienced wereimaginary--thank God for all this--and that the sand was really sand.Solitary, alone, I kneeled in the desert barren, from horizon to horizondesolation only surrounded, and yet the scene of that illimitable waste,a fearful reality, it is true, was sweet in comparison with the miseryof body and soul about which I had dreamed so vividly.
"'Tis no wonder," I said to myself, "that in the moment of transitionfrom the underground caverns to the sunshine above, the shock shouldhave disturbed my mental equilibrium, and in the moment of reaction Ishould have dreamed fantastic and horrible imaginings."
A cool and refreshing breeze sprung now, from I know not where; I didnot care to ask; it was too welcome a gift to question, and contrastedpleasantly with the misery of my past hallucination. The sun was shininghot above me, the sand was glowing, parched beneath me, and yet thegrateful breeze fanned my brow, and refreshed my spirit.
"Thank God," I cried, "for the breeze, for the coolness that it brings;only those who have experienced the silence of the cavern solitudesthrough which I have passed, and added thereto, have sensed the horrorsof the more recent nightmare scenes, can appreciate the delights of agust of air."
The incongruity of surrounding conditions, as connected with affairsrational, did not appeal at all to my questioning senses, it seemed asthough the cool breeze, coming from out the illimitable desolation of aheated waste was natural. I arose and walked on, refreshed. From outthat breeze my physical self drew refreshment and strength.
"'Tis the cold," I said; "the blessed antithesis of heat, that supportslife. Heat enervates, cold stimulates; heat depresses, cold animates.Thank God for breezes, winds, waters, cold."
I turned and faced the gladsome breeze. "'Tis the source of life, I willtrace it to its origin, I will leave the accursed desert, the hatefulsunshine, and seek the blissful regions that give birth to coolbreezes."
I walked rapidly, and the breeze became more energetic and cooler. Witheach increase of momentum on my part, corresponding strength seemed tobe added to the breeze--both strength and coolness.
"Is not this delightful?" I murmured; "my God at last has come to be ajust God. Knowing what I wanted, He sent the breeze; in answer to myprayer the cool, refreshing breeze arose. Damn the heat," I cried aloud,as I thought of the horrid day before; "blessed be the cold," and asthough in answer to my cry the breeze stiffened and the coldstrengthened itself, and I again returned thanks to my Creator.
With ragged coat wrapped about my form I faced the breeze and strodeonward towards the home of the gelid wind that now dashed in gustsagainst my person.
Then I heard my footstep crunch, and perceived that the sand was hardbeneath my feet; I stooped over to examine it and found it frozen.Strange, I reflected, strange that dry sand can freeze, and then Inoticed, for the first time, that spurts of snow surrounded me, 'twas asleety mixture upon which I trod, a crust of snow and sand. A sense ofdread came suddenly over me, and instinctively I turned, affrighted, andran away from the wind, towards the desert behind me, back towards thesun, which, cold and bleak, low in the horizon, was sinking. The senseof dread grew upon me, and I shivered as I ran. With my back towards thebreeze I had blessed, I now fled towards the sinking sun I had cursed. Istretched out my arms in supplication towards that orb, for from behindoverhanging blackness spread, and about me roared a fearful hurricane.Vainly. As I thought in mockery the heartless sun disappeared before mygaze, the hurricane surrounded me, and the wind about me becameintensely cold, and raved furiously. It seemed as though the sun hadfled from my presence, and with the disappearance of that orb, theoutline of the earth was blotted from existence. It was an awfulblackness, and the universe was now to me a blank. The cold strengthenedand froze my body to the marrow of my bones. First came the sting offrost, then the pain of cold, then insensibility of flesh. My feet werebenumbed, my limbs motionless. I stood a statue, quiescent in the midstof the roaring tempest. The earth, the sun, the heavens themselves, myvery person now had disappeared. Dead to the sense of pain or touch,sightless, amid a blank, only the noise of the raging winds was to me areality. And as the creaking frost reached my brain and congealed it,the sound of the tempest ceased, and then devoid of physical senses, myquickened intellect, enslaved, remained imprisoned in the frozen form itcould not leave, and yet could no longer control.
Reflection after reflection passed through that incarcerated thoughtentity, and as I meditated, the heinous mistakes I had committed in thelife that had passed, arose to torment. God had answered mysupplications, successively I had experienced the hollowness of earthlypleasures, and had left each lesson unheeded. Had I not alternatelybegged for and then cursed each gift of God? Had I not prayed for heat,cold, light, and darkness, and anathematized each? Had I not, when inperfect silence, prayed for sound; in sheltered caverns, prayed forwinds and storms; in the very corridors of heaven, and in the presenceof Etidorhpa, had I not sought for joys beyond?
Had I not found each pleasure of life a mockery, and notwithstandingeach bitter lesson, still pursued my headstrong course, alternatelyblessing and cursing my Creator, and then myself, until now, amid ahowling waste, in perfect darkness, my conscious intellect was bound tothe frozen, rigid semblance of a body? All about me was dead and dark,all within was still and cold, only my quickened intellect remained asin every corpse the self-conscious intellect must remain, while the bodyhas a mortal form, for death of body is not attended by the immediateliberation of mind. The consciousness of the dead man is still acute,and he who thinks the dead are mindless, will realize his fearful errorwhen devoid of motion he lies a corpse, conscious of all that passes onaround him, waiting the liberation that can on
ly come by disintegrationand destruction of the flesh.
So, unconscious of pain, unconscious of any physical sense, I existed onand on, enthralled, age after age passed and piled upon one another, fortime was to me unchangeable, no more an entity. I now prayed for changeof any kind, and envied the very devils in hell their pleasures, forwere they not gifted with the power of motion, could they not hear, andsee, and realize the pains they suffered? I prayed for death--deathabsolute, death eternal. Then, at last, the darkness seemed to lessen,and I saw the frozen earth beneath, the monstrous crags of ice above,the raging tempest about, for I now had learned by reflection toperceive by pure intellect, to see by the light within. My body, solidas stone, was fixed and preserved in a waste of ice. The world wasfrozen. I perceived that the sun, and moon, and stars, nearly stilled,dim and motionless, had paled in the cold depths of space. The universeitself was freezing, and amid the desolation only my deserted intellectremained. Age after age had passed, aeons of ages had fled, nation afternation had grown and perished, and in the uncounted epochs behind,humanity had disappeared. Unable to free itself from the frozen body, myown intellect remained the solitary spectator of the dead silence about.At last, beneath my vision, the moon disappeared, the stars faded one byone, and then I watched the sun grow dim, until at length only a milky,gauze-like film remained to indicate her face, and then--vacancy. I hadlived the universe away. And in perfect darkness the living intellect,conscious of all that had transpired in the ages past, clung stillenthralled to the body of the frozen mortal. I thought of my record inthe distant past, of the temptations I had undergone, and called myselfa fool, for, had I listened to the tempter, I could at least havesuffered, I could have had companionship even though it were of thedevils--in hell. I lived my life over and over, times without number; Ithought of my tempters, of the offered cups, and thinking, argued withmyself:
"No," I said; "no, I had made the promise, I have faith in Etidorhpa,and were it to do over again I would not drink."
Then, as this thought sped from me, the ice scene dissolved, theenveloped frozen form of myself faded from view, the sand shrunk intonothingness, and with my natural body, and in normal condition, I foundmyself back in the earth cavern, on my knees, beside the curiousinverted fungus, of which fruit I had eaten in obedience to my guide'sdirections. Before me the familiar figure of my guide stood, with foldedarms, and as my gaze fell upon him he reached out his hand and raised meto my feet.
"Where have you been during the wretched epochs that have passed since Ilast saw you?" I asked.
"I have been here," he replied, "and you have been there."
"You lie, you villainous sorcerer," I cried; "you lie again as you havelied to me before. I followed you to the edge of demon land, to thecaverns of the drunkards, and then you deserted me. Since last we met Ihave spent a million, billion years of agony inexpressible, and have hadthat agony made doubly horrible by contrast with the thought, yes, thevery sight and touch of Heaven. I passed into a double eternity, andhave experienced the ecstacies of the blessed, and suffered the tormentsof the damned, and now you dare boldly tell me that I have been here,and that you have been there, since last I saw you stand by this cursedfungus bowl."
"Yes," he said, taking no offense at my violence; "yes, neither of ushas left this spot; you have sipped of the drink of an earth-damneddrunkard, you have experienced part of the curses of intemperance, thedelirium of narcotics. Thousands of men on earth, in their drunkenhallucination, have gone through hotter hells than you have seen; yourdream has not exaggerated the sufferings of those who sup of thedelirium of intemperance."
And then he continued:
"Let me tell you of man's conception of eternity."