"This delight," said Lyone as she lay in her boudoir, plunged in delicious blessedness, "fills my soul with universal peace. Hitherto pained with the chagrin of life, I welcome this unwonted repose. Oh, I am supremely happy!"
"This expedition," I replied, "is not to observe the transit of Venus, but the possession of Venus, to weigh each other's souls and read the poetry written in every fold of the heart. It would be the perfection of life if such reality of the ideal could surround us forever, but in a world where the worm doth conquer, where the storm wastes the flower and herb, such felicity is purchased only by the sacrifice of ourselves or of others. But while it lasts let us prize its ineffable joy. Hitherto," I continued, "philosophy has said that if we do not want to be undeceived we should never visit the haunts of imagination, for the fruits thereof are ashes, but we will create a new philosophy, that will assert that the haunts of imagination are ideally real, that the veritable Fountain of Youth has been discovered, that Eldorado may be won."
The following day found us floating on the lake before, the palace in a beautiful magnic boat. Musicians occupied a pagoda overlooking the lake, and made the air sweet with their music. The lake seemed to fill the crater of an extinct volcano, and miles away on its further shore rose the lofty precipices of a mountain crest. It was most delightful to float on its profound wave, at an elevation of four thousand feet, and yet see the sea beneath us, and we surrounded with all the glory of the interior world.
Birds, gorgeous as humming-birds, resplendent in burnished hues of purple, garnet, and green, would flash amid the flowers, or chase each other over the water. As for ourselves, we no longer feared our own holiest emotions. Our deepest feelings were then in the foreground. The mysterious carmine on the palpitating lips of Lyone was the symbol of a warm, delicate, superexcited soul.
Lyone grew day by day more and more beautiful. She resembled the color of a deep and mysterious gold. I crowned her brow with flowers and wreathed her azure hair with wistful daffodils.
Another day we rode on soul-created horses to discover the odoriferous retreats of the island. The pathways wound through flowery ravines, that looked out upon the sea. The sweet cool air that filled the splendid gloom of the palm woods seemed the essence of gladness. What glorious vistas opened amid the luminous green of the forest! The murmur of music filled the infinite ways of the island as our cavalcade wound round its peerless hills or plunged into its abysses of flowers. The spell of an ideal land was upon us, and we experienced sensations hitherto unfelt in life.
"This," said Lyone, "is the ideal climate. Everything has become transfigured; even the light of the sun is softer and more blessed."
"And the goddess of Atvatabar," I replied, "has become more delicate, more supernatural, and more holy."
The island was one vast garden of tropical fruits and flowers, without the malaria of decay. Everywhere nature, carefully assisted by art, assumed the rarest beauty. Everything that savored of ruin and decay was non-existent. There were no wild or poisonous animals. No deadly serpent was coiled upon the branches, nor did poisonous insects crawl on leaf or flower. Forests of trees of a strange tropical vegetation abounded. There were the fruha, resembling dates; the caspariba, resembling bananas; the dulra, resembling limes; the jackle, resembling lemons; the congol, resembling oranges; the velicac, resembling bread-fruits; the persar, resembling custard apples; the phyorbal, resembling cocoanuts; the gersin, resembling mangosteens; the huflar, resembling coffee; the solru, resembling plums; and presuveet, or tamarinds lining the route. Fruits such as the troupac, or citron; dewan, or guava; orogor, or mango; and ryeshmush, or plantain gleamed amid the embowering foliage, and gardens of squangs and the pineapples, aloes, nutmeg, cloves and spices of Atvatabar, were on every hand.
One day, when floating on the lake, we heard with surprise and infinite sadness the discharge of a gun, the signal that the island was at an end. Spreading our wings, we awaited the catastrophe.