"I know I should,"replied Ayrault,finally recognizing the voice of Violet Slade in the song of the wind,"and I cannot understand why I am not.Tell me,is this paradise,Violet,or is it not rather purgatory?"The notes ranged up and down again,and he perceived that she was causing the wind to blow as she desired--in other words,she was making it play upon his harp.
"That depends on the individual,"she replied."It is rather sheol,the place of departed spirits.Those whose consciences made them happy on earth are in paradise here;while those good enough to reach heaven at last,but in whom some dross remains,are further refined in spirit,and to them it is purgatory.
Those who are in love can be happy in but one way while their love lasts.What IS happiness,anyway?""It is the state in which desires are satisfied,my fair Violet,"answered Ayrault.
"Say,rather,the state in which desire coincides with duty,"replied the song."Self-sacrifice for others gives the truest joy;being with the object of one's love,the next.You never believed that I loved you.I dissembled well;but you will see for yourself some day,as clearly as I see your love for another now.""Yes,"replied Ayrault,sadly,"I am in love.I have no reason to believe there is cause for my unrest,and,considering every thing,I should be happy as man can be;yet,mirabile dictu,I am in--hades,in the very depths!""Your beloved is beyond my vision;your heart is all I can see.
Yet I am convinced she will not forget you.I am sure she loves you still.""I have always believed in homoeopathy to the extent of the similia similibus curantur,Violet,and it is certain that where nothing else will cure a man of love for one woman,his love for another will.You can see how I love Sylvia,but you have never seemed so sweet to me as to-day.""It is a sacrilege,my friend,to speak so to me now.You are done with me forever.I am but a disembodied spirit,and escaped hades by the grace of the Omnipotent,rather than by virtue of any good I did on earth.So far as any elasticity is left in my opportunities,I am dead as yon moon.You have still the gift that but one can give.Within your animal body you hold an immortal soul.It is pliable as wax;you can mould it by your will.As you shape that soul,so will your future be.It is the ark that can traverse the flood.Raise it,and it will raise you.It is all there is in yourself.Preserve that gift,and when you die you will,I hope,start on a plane many thousands of years in advance of me.There should be no more comparison between us than between a person with all his senses and one that is deaf and blind.Though you are a layman,you should,with your faith and frame of mind,soon be but little behind our spiritual bishop.""I supposed after death a man had rest.Is he,then,a bishop still?""The progress,as he told you,is largely on the old lines.As he stirred men's hearts on earth,he will stir their souls in heaven;and this is no irksome or unwelcome work.""You say he WILL do this in heaven.Is he,then,not there yet?""He was not far from heaven on earth,yet technically none of us can be in heaven till after the general resurrection.Then,as we knew on earth,we shall receive bodies,though,as yet,concerning their exact nature we know but little more than then.
We are all in sheol--the just in purgatory and paradise,the unjust in hell.""Since you are still in purgatory,are you unhappy?""No,our state is very happy.All physical pain is past,and can never be felt again.We know that our evil desires are overcome,and that their imprints are being gradually erased.Ioccasionally shed an intangible tear,yet for most of those who strove to obey their consciences,purgatory,when essential,though occasionally giving us a bitter twinge,is a joy-producing state.Not all the glories imaginable or unimaginable could make us happy,were our consciences ill at ease.I have advanced slowly,yet some things are given us at once.After I realized Ihad irrevocably lost your love,though for a time I had hoped to regain it,I became very restless;earth seemed a prison,and Ilooked forward to death as my deliverer.I bore you no malice;you had never especially tried to win me;the infatuation--that of a girl of eighteen--had been all on my side.I lived five sad and lonely years,although,as you know,I had much attention.
People thought me cold and heartless.How could I have a heart,having failed to win yours,and mine being broken?Having lost the only man I loved,I knew no one else could replace him,and Iwas not the kind to marry for pique.People thought me handsome,but I felt myself aged when you ceased to call.Perhaps when you and she who holds all your love come to sheol,she may spare you to me a little,for as a spirit my every thought is known;or perhaps after the resurrection,when I,too,can leave this planet,we shall all soar through space together,and we can study the stars as of old.""Your voice is a symphony,sweetest Violet,and I love to hear your words.Ah,would you could once more return to earth,or that I were an ethereal spirit,that we might commune face to face!I would follow you from one end of Shadowland to the other.Of what use is life to me,with distractions that draw my thoughts to earth as gravitation drew my body?I wish I were a shade.""You are talking for effect,Dick--which is useless here,for Isee how utterly you are in love."
"I AM in love,Violet;and though,as I said,I have no reason to doubt Sylvia's steadfastness and constancy,I am very unhappy.Ihave always heard that time is a balsam that cures all ills,yet I become more wretched every day.""Do all you can to preserve that love,and it will bring you joy all your life.Your happiness is my happiness.What distresses you,distresses me."The tones here grew fainter and seemed about to cease.
