“The child Lilith died,—but you, El-Râmi, you caused her to live again. And she lives still—yes, though it may suit your fancy to declare her dead. She is a woman—you are a man;—you dare not keep her longer in that living death—you dare not doom her to perpetual darkness!—the gods would curse you for such cruelty, and who may abide their curse? I, Zaroba, have sworn it—Lilith shall know the joys of love!—and you, El-Râmi Zarânos, shall be her lover!—and for this holy end I have employed the talisman which alone sets fire to the sleeping passions...” and she craned her neck forward and almost hissed the word in his ear—“Jealousy!”
El-Râmi smiled—a cold derisive smile, which implied the most utter contempt for the whole of Zaroba’s wild harangue. She, however, went on undismayed, and with increasing excitement—
“Jealousy!” she cried—“The little asp is in your soul already, proud El-Râmi Zarânos, and why? Because another’s eyes have looked on Lilith! This was my work! It was I who led Féraz into her chamber,—it was I who bade him kneel beside her as she slept,—it was I who let him touch her hand,—and though I could not hear his voice I know he called upon her to awaken. In vain!—he might as well have called the dead—I knew she would not stir for him—her very breath belongs to you. But I—I let him gaze upon her beauty and worship it,—all his young soul was in his eyes—he looked and looked again and loved what he beheld! And mark me yet further, El-Râmi,—I saw her smile when Féraz took her hand,—so, though she did not move, she felt; she felt a touch that was not yours,—not yours, El-Râmi!—as God liveth, she is not quite so much your own as once she was!”
As she said this and laughed in that triumphant way, El-Râmi advanced one step towards her with a fierce movement as though he would have thrust her from the room,—checking himself, however, he seized the pencil again and wrote—
“I have listened to you with more patience than you deserve. You are an ignorant woman and foolish—your fancies have no foundation whatever in fact. Your disobedience might have ruined my life’s work,—as it is, I daresay some mischief has been done. Return to your duties, and take heed how you trespass against my command in future. If you dare to speak to me on this subject again I will have you shipped back to your own land and left there, as friendless and as unprovided for as you were when I saved you from death by famine. Go—and let me hear no more foolishness.”
Zaroba read, and her face darkened and grew weary—but the pride and obstinacy of her own convictions remained written on every line of her features. She bowed her head resignedly, however, and said in slow even tones—
“El-Râmi Zarânos is wise,—El-Râmi Zarânos is master. But let him remember the words of Zaroba. Zaroba is also skilled in the ways and the arts of the East,—and the voice of Fate speaks sometimes to the lowest as well as to the highest. There are the laws of Life and the laws of Death—but there are also the laws of Love. Without the laws of Love, the Universe would cease to be,—it is for El-Râmi Zarânos to prove himself stronger than the Universe,—if he can!”
She made the usual obsequious “salaam” common to Eastern races, and then with a swift, silent movement left the room, closing the door noiselessly behind her. El-Râmi stood where she had left him, idly tearing up the scraps of paper on which he had written his part of the conversation,—he was hardly conscious of thought, so great were his emotions of surprise and self-contempt.
“‘O what a rogue and peasant-slave am I!’” he muttered, quoting his favourite Hamlet—“Why did I not paralyse her tongue before she spoke? Where had fled my force,—what became of my skill? Surely I could have struck her down before me with the speed of a lightning-flash—only—she is a woman—and old. Strange how these feminine animals always harp on the subject of love, as though it were the Be-all and End-all of everything. The love of Lilith! Oh fool! The love of a corpse kept breathing by artificial means! And what of the Soul of Lilith? Can It love? Can It hate? Can It even feel? Surely not. It is an ethereal transparency,—a delicate film which takes upon itself the reflex of all existing things without experiencing personal emotion. Such is the Soul, as I believe in it—an immortal Essence, in itself formless, yet capable of taking all forms,—ignorant of the joys or pains of feeling, yet reflecting all shades of sensation as a crystal reflects all colours in the prism. This, and no more.”
He paced up and down the room—and a deep involuntary sigh escaped him.