"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."