~2~
Although the working hours of the day were scarcely one-fourth gone, it was impossible for me to return to my laboratory for the lighting current was shut off for the day. I therefore decided to utilize the occasion by returning the geography which I had rescued from Bertha.
Dr. Zimmern's invitation to make use of his library had been cordial enough, but its location in Marguerite's apartment had made me a little reticent about going there except in the Doctor's company. Yet I did not wish to admit to Zimmern my sensitiveness in the matter--and the geography had been kept overlong.
This occasion being a holiday, I found the resorts on the Level of Free Women crowded with merrymakers. But I sought the quieter side streets and made my way towards Marguerite's apartment.
"I thought you would be celebrating today," she said as I entered.
"I feel that I can utilize the time better by reading," I replied. "There is so much I want to learn, and, thanks to Dr. Zimmern, I now have the opportunity."
"But surely you are to see the Emperor in the Place in the Sun," said Marguerite when she had returned the geography to the secret shelf.
"I have already seen him," I replied, "my ticket was for the first performance."
"It must be a magnificent sight," she sighed. "I should so love to see the sunlight. The pictures show us His Majesty's likeness, but what is a picture of sunlight?"
"But you speak only of a reflected beam; how would you like to see real sunshine?"
"Oh, on the roof of Berlin? But that is only for Royalty and the roof guards. I've tried to imagine that, but I know that I fail as a blind man must fail to imagine colour."
"Close your eyes," I said playfully, "and try very hard."
Solemnly Marguerite closed her eyes.
For a moment I smiled, and then the smile relaxed, for I felt as one who scoffs at prayer.
"And did you see the sunlight?" I asked, as she opened her eyes and gazed at me with dilated pupils.
"No," she answered hoarsely, "I only saw man-light as far as the walls of Berlin, and beyond that it was all empty blackness--and it frightens me."
"The fear of darkness," I said, "is the fear of ignorance."
"You try," and she reached over with a soft touch of her finger tips on my closing eyelids. "Now keep them closed and tell me what you see. Tell me it is not all black."
"I see light," I said, "white light, on a billowy sea of clouds, as from a flying plane.... And now I see the sun--it is sinking behind a rugged line of snowy peaks and the light is dimming.... It is gone now, but it is not dark, for moonlight, pale and silvery, is shimmering on a choppy sea.... Now it is the darkest hour, but it is never black, only a dark, dark grey, for the roof of the world is pricked with a million points of light.... The grey of the east is shot with the rose of dawn.... The rose brightens to scarlet and the curve of the sun appears--red like the blood of war.... And now the sky is crystal blue and the grey sands of the desert have turned to glittering gold."
I had ceased my poetic visioning and was looking into Marguerite's face. The light of worship I saw in her eyes filled me with a strange trembling and holy awe.
"And I saw only blackness," she faltered. "Is it that I am born blind and you with vision?"
"Perhaps what you call vision is only memory," I said--but, as I realized where my words were leading, I hastened to add--"Memory, from another life. Have you ever heard of such a thing as the reincarnation of the soul?"
"That means," she said hesitatingly, "that there is something in us that does not die--immortality, is it not?"
"Well, it is something like that," I answered huskily, as I wondered what she might know or dream of that which lay beyond the ken of the gross materialism of her race. "Immortality is a very beautiful idea," I went on, "and science has destroyed much that is beautiful. But it is a pity that Col. Hellar had to eliminate the idea of immortality from the German Bible. Surely such a book makes no pretence of being scientific."
"So Col. Hellar has told you that he wrote 'God's Anointed'?" exclaimed Marguerite with eager interest.
"Yes, he told me of that and I re-read the book with an entirely different viewpoint since I came to understand the spirit in which it was written."
"Ah--I see." Marguerite rose and stepped toward the library. "We have a book here," she called, "that you have not read, and one that you cannot buy. It will show you the source of Col. Hellar's inspiration."
She brought out a battered volume. "This book," she stated, "has given the inspectors more trouble than any other book in existence. Though they have searched for thirty years, they say there are more copies of it still at large than of all other forbidden books combined."
I gazed at the volume she handed me--I was holding a copy of the Christian Bible translated six centuries previous by Martin Luther. It was indeed the very text from which as a boy I had acquired much of my reading knowledge of the language. But I decided that I had best not reveal to Marguerite my familiarity with it, and so I sat down and turned the pages with assumed perplexity.
"It is a very odd book," I remarked presently. "Have you read it?"
"Oh, yes," exclaimed Marguerite. "I often read it; I think it is more interesting than all these modern books, but perhaps that is because I cannot understand it; I love mysterious things."
"There is too much of it for a man as busy as I am to hope to read," I remarked, after turning a few more pages, "and so I had better not begin. Will you not choose something and read it aloud to me?"
Marguerite declined at first; but, when I insisted, she took the tattered Bible and turned slowly through its pages.
And when she read, it was the story of a king who revelled with his lords, and of a hand that wrote upon a wall.
Her voice was low, and possessed a rhythm and cadence that transmuted the guttural German tongue into musical poetry.
Again she read, of a man who, though shorn of his strength by the wiles of a woman and blinded by his enemies, yet pushed asunder the pillars of a city.
At random she read other tales, of rulers and of slaves, of harlots and of queens--the wisdom of prophets--the songs of kings.
Together we pondered the meanings of these strange things, and exulted in the beauty of that which was meaningless. And so the hours passed; the day drew near its close and Marguerite read from the last pages of the book, of a voice that cried mightily--"Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit."