Scene II.
(Another part of the Darker Realm. The walls are of long blocks of stone set irregularly together; gigantic fungi grow in distorted protrusions from the interstices, and water drips from their outreaching fantastic fingers. The blackness of darkness shows in portals opening on various passages. Some disused tool carts and heaps of debris are piled up at the side. A flaming torch in a cresset gives an irregular and eerie light like flashes of blue lightning. The tracks for tool carts pass along the floor of the tunnel. The sound of water flowing in some under-ground channel is heard. Jean and Angelica enter from opposite sides and meet.)
Angelica—O Jean, O Jean! What I have seen! What have I seen!
Jean—What, what? How came you here, Angelica?
Angelica—I was impatient to see you and so I came to meet you and on the way—O, I saw, I saw—what do you think?
Jean—I cannot guess. Here, come and rest yourself; sit here and do not tremble so. (He leads her to a seat on a broken bench.)
Angelica—I saw—(clasping her hands in ecstacy) a saint immortal!
Jean—Saint immortal,—what is that?
Angelica—A saint immortal? Do you not know? Why, that is one of the happy beings that live in the world above! Mother sings about it, you know: “Where saints immortal reign,” she sings. That’s in the “land of pure delight.”
Jean—Dear Angelica! Never mind about that now. Come, rest awhile and get over this excitement. Let us talk about our childhood and the happy days we spent together playing around the well-sweep in the Blind Alleys and the games and that poor Prince and all the—
Angelica—Jean, are you crazy?
Jean—No, (laughing) but I think you are, talking about saints immortal and The World Above and all those impossible dreams of yours.
Angelica—But now, listen! (She lays her hand on his arm.) As I was coming from our hut—have I told you what mother said? and—
Jean—Why, no, you have not yet. I think you were going to, but—tell me about your vision, if you want to, first.
Angelica—And what did old Jacques say? I am sure he said exactly what mother did when I crowded her down to it, that there is—
Jean—(Sadly) I couldn’t find old Jacques. He may have gone off to your world above, for anything I know (sarcastically).
Angelica—O Jean, do not be so hard of heart! Let me tell you! Do you know, I found mother singing that song she loves so to sing——
Jean—(Laughing) Well, what has that to do with the matter?
Angelica—Why, it’s all about The World Above, the song itself is about that. Listen! (She sings.)
“There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign.
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.”
And here it is about the “spring.” (Sings again).
“There everlasting spring abides,
And never-fading flowers;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours.”
Jean—It is a beautiful song, dear.
Angelica—Yes, Jean, (she speaks most solemnly) Mother says there is a world above this, that there really is; and now, it may be old Jacques has gone there, and if he has, I am sure I am very glad, for up there everything is beautiful and colored with all the colors in this opal, and everybody is happy there.
Jean—(Very sadly) Angelica, do you really believe all this?
Angelica—I did believe it before, and now I know it.
Jean—And does it make you glad to believe it?
Angelica—Yes (with a long ecstatic breathing); but if you believed it, I should be all the more certain of it, and if the belief made you glad, it would make me all the more glad.
Jean—But why, then, if your mother knew about this, did she not tell you before? Why did she not talk with you about it?
Angelica—Ah, Jean, that was the first thing I said. I don’t like to tell you what she answered.
Jean—But tell me; for am I not the same as yourself?
Angelica—She said she had not told me because—because—she was afraid I would fret to go there, and she did not want me to, she wanted me to be content to stay here with her. Besides, she said, it might make me blind to go there—I do not know why. But now father has gone; three days he has been gone; such a thing never happened before, and mother fears he has gone to The World Above and will never come back.
Jean—He will, of course,—unless—unless—a break in some blind alley has caught him!
Angelica—Do not frighten me! That cannot be. I will not believe it. He has gone to The World Above and I am glad he has!
Jean—But now, Angelica, if there were a world above, how did we happen to be in The Darker Realm, instead of in that one? We must have come from that world to this?
Angelica—Oh! Think of that! (She clasps her hands in an ecstacy.) And do you remember ought about it, dear Jean?
Jean—(Very sadly.) I only remember old Jacques.
Angelica—I, at any rate, must have come from some world above, for I think I remember, or rather, I feel dimly a remembering like to a faint breathing as sweet as an—as an “everlasting spring,” Jean. (Angelica sits musing and Jean gazes upon her. A pause. Then he says, tenderly:)
Jean—But why don’t you tell me what it was you saw?
Angelica—(Starting up again excitedly) O, words could not tell it! Jean, heart of man could not dream of the wonder of it!
Jean—But what was it? What was it, to deserve all this?
Angelica—I’ll try to tell. As I came by the Little Cross of Miracles, I looked up through the flue and at the top I saw that there was an opening—an opening out, Jean! At first I could not look, it pierced and pricked my eyes like sharpest knives; but after a while, I had to look; and through the opening I saw a face, a face, Jean!—the face of a maiden like myself, with eyes looking down at me with looks of curiosity, and oh, Jean!—of love; and they shone like lamps! But her hair looked like the gold of my ring, and around her neck her dress was like the red dartings in the opal; and then, oh, she looked down with a gaze that turned from curiosity and love to sorrow and almost to horror! And then she moved back and went away! Yet, as she arose, I saw her form for one brief moment. Her movements were like the shadows of the light upon the water where it flows beneath the bridge by our hut in the Court of Blind Alleys. And all the colors of the opal were upon her and around her, and beyond her a most clear and shining blue, that dazzled and hurt my eyes so that I could not look upon it at all. And I saw a wall, not dark like these around here, but colored like the opal when it is asleep; and there were things like these (laying her hand on one of the outreaching fungi), only finer and all in masses, much more beautiful and of a color like—but I cannot tell you what it was like; it was like nothing that we have here, but it was soft and comforting. I could have looked at it always, and never I am sure would I have had to rest my eyes for aching. (Turning suddenly to Jean) Do you not believe it now?
Jean—What, that this vision of yours was anything but a dream?
Angelica—Yes.
Jean—When you, dear dreamer, are always dreaming?
Angelica—But what, then, was that beautiful creature that I saw above the open trap? Was she not one of the “saints immortal” mother sings about?
Jean—What was it? O, that was a vision, a something that passed across your eye-balls, a sort of defect in your sight.
Angelica—Ah, that will not do, you cannot explain it in that way, you cannot, you cannot!
Jean—Yes, this is how it is. Listen, dear! You know the shadows of the swinging lamp as they reflect on the water and then back on the glass above, make just such strange pictures. We have often watched them together. Don’t you remember, dear, once when—
Angelica—But the trap was open and above I saw a sheet of jewel like my ring when I hold it up to the candle, and at the side I saw a wall but clearer and brighter than any wall in all The Darker Realm. It fairly glistened. Tell me, have you never seen such a vision in all your life?
Jean—No, dear Angelica.
Angelica—Nor ever seen any opening above that seemed to lead out into a place far brighter and more beautiful than this?
Jean—No, dearest Angelica.
Angelica—And did you never in all your travels from one part of The Darker Realm to another, did you never find a gallery that seemed to lead outward?
Jean—No, dearest.
Angelica—And did you never have a sort of feeling within that there must be a world above, to account for this in fact,—to account for ourselves if for no other reason?
Jean—What kind of a queer feeling might that be?
Angelica—Well, let me see, how can I tell you! Perhaps something like this. Have you ever lost your way?
Jean—Oh, no, that is, not many times—only once.
Angelica—Well, what did you do?
Jean—I considered.
Angelica—You considered? What good did that do?
Jean—Why, I considered where I was and that I came from the direction I came from, and so I turned and went back in that direction; and when I came to the point where I turned down, then I turned, and when I had gone as far as I did in coming, then I stopped again and considered and decided which way to take, and so I simply decided at each step and pretty soon I was at the Great Cross and then I knew the way like my own fingers.
Angelica—But I, when I was lost, stopped and listened, and in my soul I heard a Voice telling me to go this way to the right, and pretty soon to stop and turn off and so I turned off, and by and by I heard the voice again saying, “stop and turn;” and again, “now to the right” and then; “turn down the little way;” and then at last, “turn by the wheel;” and then I reached the Great Cross; and so I crept along, listening all the way, and at last reached our hut.
Jean—Now what might that Voice be?
Angelica—Jean, I do not know; but I have sometimes thought—don’t laugh!—but I have sometimes thought the Voice came from this wonderful ring of mine; at any rate, when I do what the Voice says, the opal glows out so in the dark that I cannot keep from singing.
Jean—But suppose you do not do what the Voice says?
Angelica—Then the ring fades down as if it were disappointed and saddened.
Jean—Angelica, you are a wonderful dreamer. But I don’t really see much difference between your way and mine, only that what you call the Voice, I call considering. That’s all the difference.
Angelica—O no, but there is a great deal more difference than just that, for I heard other voices too. Do you never hear voices?
Jean—No, never! Never heard a one.
Angelica—Never heard your mother’s voice?
Jean—Mother’s? No. I was too little when she disappeared anyway; I never knew anything about her.
Angelica—Well, old Jacques, then; he has been like a mother to you. Do you never hear him when you are far away in the galleries and the light has gone out and you don’t know the way—do you never hear him calling, or rather not exactly calling, but sort o’ pulling and drawing you in your soul as if you had to move toward him and reach him somehow?
Jean—O, yes, once I remember—when I had to stay all night in the Triangle Branch. I had no cot to lie on but only just a bench and it was very hard and I wanted old Jacques very much and I seemed, I think I seemed to feel—what you call—a “pulling” then. I was very cross I know and I—cried.
Angelica—(Laughing) Of course, for you were a very little boy. It may be you felt a pulling then, but I think (hesitatingly) it was just homesickness,—just homesickness, Jean. (With a long sigh) I am afraid I can’t make you understand what I mean by pulling. But (more cheerfully) you’ll understand sometime.
Jean—When shall I understand, Angelica?
Angelica—O, when we are in The World Above!
Jean—(Laughing) Angelica, I see there is no use trying to teach you sense!
Angelica—Jean, I see there is no use trying to make you see the truth! And as long as you laugh at me, of course I cannot tell you what I in my inmost soul have thought.
Jean—Come then, (condescendingly,) I will not laugh, dear child!
Angelica—(Pouting) No, that will not do, either!
Jean—How, then?
Angelica—Why, lovingly—(she pauses).
Jean—You did not mean to say that? Then say it now and mean it! Dear one, why be so shy of me? I love you and always have loved you; you know it! You love me,—it must be so. Let us enjoy it. What else have we worth talking of in all The Darker Realm? Come, tell me!
Angelica—Yes, dear Jean, I am listening.
Jean—And with all the loving that lives and burns in me, I will listen to everything you have in your heart. If it is your thought, I love it, no matter what it is.
Angelica—Then listen, listen with the heart! (She seats herself more comfortably by his side and raising her forefinger to enforce what she says, begins.) When I have stood on the bridge in the Center of Blind Alleys and gazed down into the water that flows and flows so black and ceaselessly below, I have seen—
Jean—Well, what then? Some of your visions, with robes of red and hair of gold color, and walls of opal?
Angelica—There, now! You said you would listen believingly!
Jean—I will, I will! My heart is here.
Angelica—But I want head, too.
Jean—Teasingly grasping one! You want too much.
Angelica—With solemnity even this you must give, if you hear my story. I feel that you can not understand my story unless you give both!
Jean—Both, all, anything; they are yours, Angelica! Tell me about these visions upon the flowing water.
Angelica—Shadows seemed to fall there, of all shapes and forms.
Jean—Is that all? And was this puzzling to you? I can explain it all. Now, these shadows were, of course, the reflection from the cresset-light, that fell upon the water and then flew back again to your dear little eyes; that was all. Do you see, dear?
Angelica—But that was not all. There was more of it!
Jean—What, then?
Angelica—Once when I was standing and watching, there came a sudden change; the cresset-light went out! I looked and it was as black on the wall as the quicksand pond in the Court of Miracles. Then I looked down to the water again. The light from the flue came down a little less dimly than it did when the cresset was burning, and in a minute, dearest Jean, the self-same shadows began to flicker and fall and pass like the faint images of many graceful beings moving very swiftly to and fro above. I turned as cold as any stone when I saw this! Aha, that vision you cannot explain!
Jean—But, dear, I can. These were still reflections, the cresset reflections that had been, as it were, left over. They were tossed down to the moving water, from the water they were tossed up into the flue, and when the light in the cresset went out, these that were stored in the flue had still to fall.
Angelica—But this went on and on; this kept going on!
Jean—Then there were a great many left over to fall, a sort of accumulation of them.
Angelica—That sounds well, and it may be so, yet it does not fully satisfy me. And there is something else!
Jean—More wonders?
Angelica—Yes; listen with heart and head; you know you promised.
Jean—I will keep my promise, dear love.
Angelica—You hear this roar?
Jean—Of course, the water in the Great River, you mean?
Angelica—Yes, Jean. (She draws nearer and speaks very low) Jean, I have heard another roar!
Jean—Then there I am with you. I have, too; in fact, I have heard many kinds of roars. The river has a very different sound from the Chain Tube and the Chain Tube from the conduit in the Rubble Corridor and each air-passage has a sound of its own. Of course you could not be expected to have learned this, but they are common facts known to all that study into the laws and systems of The Darker Realm in which we live.
Angelica—Yes, I, too, have ears and I know all the tones and voices of all the conduits that pass through this part of The Darker Realm. But this roar that I mean is different from them all. It is as different as your voice is from mine. It is more dim and fine than any common roar; yet there are many, many tones mingled in it—oh, more than you could ever count! And they are different kinds of sounds, yet all blending into one. O, it stands alone, it is quite unlike any other sound in all our galleries. And when I stand on the bridge by the door of the air-conduit, and drink in the good air that makes me feel strong and that mother says I must breathe all I can of because what she calls “everlasting spring” abides in it, then it is I hear it. But I do not always hear it even there. It has times and seasons. Sometimes it twines in with the roar in the air-conduit and sometimes not. I can now almost tell when it will begin and when it will end. But, Jean, the strange thing about it is this: when I go away from the sound of the water in the Great River, this roar grows more clear; in fact, the farther I go, the more plainly I hear this strange spirit-like, tumultuous, sound. Therefore, it cannot be the rushing of the water or of the air that causes it. It is something quite distinct and unaccounted for by anything in our Realm. You can say nothing to this!
Jean—(Sadly) Nothing, dear, except that I have not the fine sense that sees all this and therefore I cannot dream your dreams with you. But if you believe them and they make you happy, I am glad for you.
Angelica—But tell me, have you never seen one single vision? Nor heard the soft-sounding roar from above? Nor caught a glimpse of the shadows in the dim radiance of the flue?
Jean—No, no, none of all these things.
Angelica—And when you have looked down from the bridge into the aqueduct and have seen the water flowing, flowing, have you not asked yourself whence it comes, and whither it is going? And also why it flows,—ever flows? And have you not longed to go on with it and follow it in its current until you found out where it was going to? Following the way the water flows, would not that lead us to some explanation of what it all means?
Jean—But what is the use, beloved Angelica, of our bothering our heads with these questions when it is plainly impossible to find any answers whatever?
Angelica—I cannot help it. I must bother my head! O, have you never in all your travels seen anything, anything, like an opening outward?
Jean—No, love; yet that I may not be quite outdone by you in telling about wonders, I will tell you of something that happened to me once, in which I dare say you, if it had happened to you, might have found a dream of The World Above.
Angelica—Ah, tell me, tell me!
Jean—Do not expect too much. It was only this. I remember that once when I was down on what they call the Grand Canal, I there saw something that I at any rate could not understand. I saw a dim light in the center of the tunnel and as I drew nearer it grew greater and greater until it shone so that it seemed to shoot sharp knives into my eyes. I could not bear the pain and so I turned back. You, I suppose, would have rushed forward and gazed upon it and spoiled your eyesight forever and never have been able to see anything in our Darker Realm again.
Angelica—(Excitedly) It was an opening. It was, it was! Lead me there, take me there! O take me there at once!
Jean—It is not for a moment to be thought of! Not for you, dear. It is far away, and the new breaks are all down on that side, and you are not strong enough to attempt it. And you could not look upon it; you know your mother said so. She told you it would make you blind.
Angelica—Ah, I do not care! Let me go! I am strong; let me go! I will risk the eyes!
Jean—If you bid me I will go and see whether I can find it again; but you—
Angelica—Jean, you do not know how strong I am. I have done as mother bade me; I have breathed in the breath of the everlasting spring, and I am strong enough to go. Mother would let me—I would make her let me go! And we would then come and tell her! Ah, let me go and see at least if that gallery is still open and if—in case we wished to—we could go by that way to The World Above. Come, come, dear Jean, will you come? (She draws Jean to his feet and pulls him excitedly on.)
Jean—But, Angelica—
Angelica—Come, come! In what direction is it? Only tell me that!
Jean—I have forgotten exactly where it was, but it was down the Grand Canal and beyond the Great Cross; it is likely that it was some strange affliction of my eyes that seized me; only that, dear Angelica!
Angelica—No, no; we must try to find it. We must at least go there and have one look outward. (With determination) Jean, if you do not come with me, I shall go alone, and I shall wander till I find.
Jean—No, no, dear! Never think of doing such a thing!
Angelica—I shall! I am going now! (She flies along the passage, and then stops and gazes back upon Jean. She looks like a spirit shining out in the darkness). Are you coming? I am going on!
Jean—Then go on, Angelica; I will come with you. I am coming, I am coming! (Both figures pass under the arch of masonry fringed with its grotesque fungi, and disappear into the black darkness).