So murmuring incoherently, he rose, and, walking dizzily like a man abruptly startled from deep sleep, he went straight out of the room, never looking back once, else he might have seen how divinely, how victoriously Lilith smiled!
XXVII.
Reaching his study, he shut himself in and locked the door,—and, then sitting down, buried his head in his hands and fell to thinking. Such odd thoughts too!—they came unbidden, and chased one another in and out of his brain like will-o’-the-wisps in a wilderness. It was growing late, and Féraz had not yet returned,—but he heeded not the hour, or his brother’s continued absence,—he was occupied in such a mental battle with his own inward forces as made him utterly indifferent to external things. The question he chiefly asked himself was this:—Of what use was all the science he had discovered and mastered, if he was not exempt,—utterly exempt from the emotions common to the most ignorant of men? His pride had been that he was “above” human nature,—that he was able to look down upon its trivial joys and sorrows with a supreme and satiric scorn,—that he knew its ways so well as to be able to calculate its various hesitating moves in all directions, social and political, with very nearly exact accuracy. Why then was he shaken to the very centre of his being to-night, by the haunting vision of an angelic face and the echo of a sweet faint voice softly breathing the words—“My belovëd!” He could dominate others; why could he not dominate himself?
“This will never do!” he said aloud at last, starting up from his brooding attitude—“I must read—I must work,—I must, at all costs, get out of this absurd frame of mind into which I have unwittingly fallen. Besides, how often have I not assured myself that for all practical earthly considerations Lilith is dead—positively dead!”
And to reinstate himself in this idea he unlocked his desk and took from it a small parchment volume in which he had carefully chronicled the whole account of his experiment on Lilith from the beginning. One page was written in the form of a journal—the opposite leaf being reserved for “queries,” and the book bore the curious superscription “In Search of the Soul of Lilith” on its cover. The statement began at once without preamble, thus:
“August 8, 18—. 9 P.M.—Lilith, an Arab girl, aged twelve, dies in my arms. Cause of death, fever and inanition. Heart ceased to beat at ten minutes past eight this evening. While the blood is still warm in the corpse I inject the ‘Electro-flamma’ under the veins, close beneath the heart. No immediate effect visible.
“11 P.M.—Arab women lay out Lilith’s corpse for burial. Questioned the people as to her origin. An orphan child, of poor parentage, no education, and unquiet disposition. Not instructed in religious matters, but following the religious customs of others by instinct and imitation. Distinctive features of the girl when in health—restlessness, temper, animalism, and dislike of restraint. Troublesome to manage, and not a thinking child by any means.
“August 9. 5 A.M.—The caravan has just started on its way, leaving the corpse of Lilith with me. The woman Zaroba remains behind. Féraz I sent away last night in haste. I tell Zaroba part of my intention; she is superstitious and afraid of me, but willing to serve me. Lilith remains inanimate. I again use the ‘Electro-flamma,’ this time close to all the chief arteries. No sign of life.
“August 10. Noon.—I begin rather to despair. As a last resource I have injected carefully a few drops of ‘Flamma’ close to the brain; it is the mainspring of the whole machine, and if it can be set in motion——
“Midnight.—Victory! The brain has commenced to pulsate feebly, and the heart with it. Breathing has begun, but slowly and with difficulty. A faint colour has come into the hitherto waxen face. Success is possible now.