The soul of Lilith

by Marie Corelli

“Shoo!” cried Karl, waving his arms and the pail of soot all together—“Shoo! Beast!”

But the cormorant appeared not to mind—it merely set about preening its dirty wing.

Karl grew savage, and, running back to the kitchen, brought shovel, tongs and a broom, all of which implements he flung in turn at the horrid-looking creature, which, finally startled, rose in air uttering dismal cries as it circled higher and higher, the while Karl watched its flight,—higher and higher it soared, till at last he ran out of the courtyard to see where it went. Round and round the house it flew, seeming to be literally tossed to and fro by the wind, its unpleasant shriek still echoing distinctly above the deep boom of the sea, till suddenly it made a short sweep downwards, and sat on the top of the tower like a squat black phantom of the storm.

“Nasty brute!” said Karl, shaking his clenched fist at it—“If the Herr Doctor were like any other man, which he is not, he would have a gun in the house, and I’d shoot that vile screamer. Now it will sit cackling and yelling there all day and all night perhaps. Pleasant, certainly!”

And he went indoors, grumbling more than ever. Everything seemed to go wrong that day,—the fire wouldn’t burn,—the kettle wouldn’t boil,—and he felt inwardly vexed that his master was not as morose and irritable as himself. But, as it happened, Dr. Kremlin was in a singularly sweet and placid frame of mind,—the noise of the gale seemed to soothe rather than agitate his nerves. For one thing, he was much better in health, and looked years younger than when El-Râmi visited him, bringing the golden flask whose contents were guaranteed to give him a new lease of life. So far indeed the elixir had done its work,—and to all appearances he might have been a well-preserved man of about fifty, rather than what he actually was, close upon his seventy-fourth year. As he could take no particularly interesting or useful observations from his Disc during the progress of the tempest, he amused himself with the task of perfecting one or two of his “Light-Maps” as he called them, and he kept at this work with the greatest assiduity and devotion all the morning. These maps were wonderfully interesting, if only for the extreme beauty, intricacy and regularity of the patterns,—one set of “vibrations” as copied from the reflections on the Disc formed the exact shape of a branch of coral,—another gave the delicate outline of a frond of fern. All the lines ran in waves,—none of them were straight. Most of them were in small ripples,—others were larger—some again curved broadly, and turned round in a double twist, forming the figure 8 at long intervals of distance, but all resolved themselves into a definite pattern of some sort.

“Pictures in the sky!” he mused, as he patiently measured and re-touched the lines. “And all different!—not two of them alike! What do they all mean?—for they must mean something. Nothing—not the lowest atom that exists is without a meaning and a purpose. Shall I ever discover the solution to the Light-mystery, or is it so much God’s secret that it will never become Man’s?”

So he wondered, puzzling himself, with a good deal of pleasure in the puzzle. He was happy in his work, despite its strange and difficult character,—El-Râmi’s elixir had so calmed and equalised his physical temperament that he was no longer conscious of worry or perplexity. Satisfied that he had years of life before him in which to work, he was content to let things take their course, and he laboured on in the spirit that all labour claims, “without haste, without rest.” Feverish hurry in work,—eagerness to get the rewards of it before conscientiously deserving them,—this disposition is a curse of the age we live in and the ruin of true art,—and it was this delirium of haste that had seized Kremlin when he had summoned El-Râmi to his aid. Now, haste seemed unnecessary;—there was plenty of time, and—possessed of the slight clue to the “Third Ray,”—plenty of hope as well, or so he thought.

In the afternoon the gale gradually abated, and sank to a curiously sudden dead calm. The sea still lifted toppling foam-crowned peaks to the sky, and still uttered shattering roars of indignation,—but there was a break in the clouds and a pale suggestion of sunshine. As the evening closed in, the strange dull quietness of the air deepened,—the black mists on the horizon flashed into stormy red for an instant when the sun set,—and then darkened again into an ominous greenish-gray. Karl, who was busy cooking his master’s dinner, stopped stirring some sauce he was making, to listen, as it were, to the silence,—the only sound to be heard was the long roll and swish of the sea on the beach,—and even the scream of the gulls was stilled. Spoon in hand he went out in the yard to observe the weather; all movement in the heavens seemed to have been suddenly checked, and masses of black cloud rested where they were, apparently motionless. And while he looked up at the sky he could hardly avoid taking the top of the tower also into his view;—there, to his intense disgust, still sate his enemy of the morning, the cormorant. Something that was not quite choice in the way of language escaped his lips as he saw the hateful thing;—its presence was detestable to him and filled his mind with morbid imaginations which no amount of reasoning could chase away.

“And yet what is it but a bird!” he argued with himself angrily, as he went indoors and resumed his cooking operations—“A bird of prey, fond of carrion—nothing more. Why should I bother myself about it? If I told the Herr Doctor that it was there, squatting at ease on his tower, he would very likely open the window, invite the brute in, and offer it food and shelter for the night. For he is one of those kind-hearted people who think that all the animal creation are worthy of consideration and tenderness. Well,—it may be very good and broad philosophy,—all the same, if I caught a rat sitting in my bed, I shouldn’t like it,—nor would I care to share my meals with a lively party of cockroaches. There are limits to Christian feelings. And, as for that beast of a bird outside, why, it’s better outside than in, so I’ll say nothing about it.”

And he devoted himself more intently than ever to the preparation of the dinner,—for his master had now an excellent appetite, and ate good things with appreciation and relish, a circumstance which greatly consoled Karl for many other drawbacks in the service he had undertaken. For he was a perfect cook, and proud of his art, and that night he was particularly conscious of the excellence of the little tasty dishes he had, to use an art-term, “created,” and he watched his master enjoy their flavour, with a proud, keen sense of his own consummate skill.