CHAPTER XLIV. THE WAKING
The fourth night I seemed to fall asleep, and that night woke indeed. I opened my eyes and knew, although all was dark around me, that I lay in the house of death, and that every moment since there I fell asleep I had been dreaming, and now first was awake. “At last!” I said to my heart, and it leaped for joy. I turned my eyes; Lona stood by my couch, waiting for me! I had never lost her!—only for a little time lost the sight of her! Truly I needed not have lamented her so sorely!
It was dark, as I say, but I saw her: SHE was not dark! Her eyes shone with the radiance of the Mother’s, and the same light issued from her face—nor from her face only, for her death-dress, filled with the light of her body now tenfold awake in the power of its resurrection, was white as snow and glistering. She fell asleep a girl; she awoke a woman, ripe with the loveliness of the life essential. I folded her in my arms, and knew that I lived indeed.
“I woke first!” she said, with a wondering smile.
“You did, my love, and woke me!”
“I only looked at you and waited,” she answered.
The candle came floating toward us through the dark, and in a few moments Adam and Eve and Mara were with us. They greeted us with a quiet good-morning and a smile: they were used to such wakings!
“I hope you have had a pleasant darkness!” said the Mother.
“Not very,” I answered, “but the waking from it is heavenly.”
“It is but begun,” she rejoined; “you are hardly yet awake!”