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wooden chamber of the cowl and the mirror.
Unspeakable despair, hopelessness blank and dreary, invaded me with the knowledge: between me and
my Lona lay an abyss impassable! stretched a distance no chain could measure! Space and Time and
Mode of Being, as with walls of adamant unscalable, impenetrable, shut me in from that gulf! True, it
might yet be in my power to pass again through the door of light, and journey back to the chamber of the
dead; and if so, I was parted from that chamber only by a wide heath, and by the pale, starry night
betwixt me and the sun, which alone could open for me the mirror-door, and was now far away on the
other side of the world! but an immeasurably wider gulf sank between us in this--that she was asleep and
I was awake! that I was no longer worthy to share with her that sleep, and could no longer hope to awake
from it with her! For truly I was much to blame: I had fled from my dream! The dream was not of my
making, any more than was my life: I ought to have seen it to the end! and in fleeing from it, I had left
the holy sleep itself behind me!--I would go back to Adam, tell him the truth, and bow to his decree!
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Lilith -- THE DREAMS THAT CAME -- chapter xliii
I crept to my chamber, threw myself on my bed, and passed a dreamless night.
I rose, and listlessly sought the library. On the way I met no one; the house seemed dead. I sat down with
a book to await the noontide: not a sentence could I understand! The mutilated manuscript offered itself
from the masked door: the sight of it sickened me; what to me was the princess with her devilry!
I rose and looked out of a window. It was a brilliant morning. With a great rush the fountain shot high,
and fell roaring back. The sun sat in its feathery top. Not a bird sang, not a creature was to be seen.
Raven nor librarian came near me. The world was dead about me. I took another book, sat down again,
and went on waiting.
Noon was near. I went up the stairs to the dumb, shadowy roof. I closed behind me the door into the
wooden chamber, and turned to open the door out of a dreary world.
I left the chamber with a heart of stone. Do what I might, all was fruitless. I pulled the chains; adjusted
and re-adjusted the hood; arranged and re-arranged the mirrors; no result followed. I waited and waited
to give the vision time; it would not come; the mirror stood blank; nothing lay in its dim old depth but the
mirror opposite and my haggard face.
I went back to the library. There the books were hateful to me--for I had once loved them.
That night I lay awake from down-lying to uprising, and the next day renewed my endeavours with the
mystic door. But all was yet in vain. How the hours went I cannot think. No one came nigh me; not a
sound from the house below entered my ears. Not once did I feel weary--only desolate, drearily desolate.
I passed a second sleepless night. In the morning I went for the last time to the chamber in the roof, and
for the last time sought an open door: there was none. My heart died within me. I had lost my Lona!
Was she anywhere? had she ever been, save in the mouldering cells of my brain? "I must die one day," I
thought, "and then, straight from my death-bed, I will set out to find her! If she is not, I will go to the
Father and say--`Even thou canst not help me: let me cease, I pray thee!'"
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This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
at Calvin College. Last updated on May 27, 1999.
Contacting the CCEL.
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Lilith -- THE WAKING -- chapter xliv
chapter xliv
THE WAKING
THE fourth night I seemed to fall asleep, and that night woke indeed. I opened my eyes and knew,
although all was dark around me, that I lay in the house of death, and that every moment since there I fell
asleep I had been dreaming, and now first was awake. "At last!" I said to my heart, and it leaped for joy. I
turned my eyes; Lona stood by my couch, waiting for me! I had never lost her!--only for a little time lost
the sight of her! Truly I needed not have lamented her so sorely!
It was dark, as I say, but I saw her: she was not dark! Her eyes shone with the radiance of the Mother's,
and the same light issued from her face--nor from her face only, for her death-dress, filled with the light
of her body now tenfold awake in the power of its resurrection, was white as snow and glistering. She
fell asleep a girl; she awoke a woman, ripe with the loveliness of the life essential. I folded her in my
arms, and knew that I lived indeed.
"I woke first!" she said, with a wondering smile.
"You did, my love, and woke me!"
"I only looked at you and waited," she answered.
The candle came floating toward us through the dark, and in a few moments Adam and Eve and Mara
were with us. They greeted us with a quiet good-morning and a smile: they were used to such wakings!
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