University of Virginia Library

16. XVI.

“When I bade thee regard the flight from
heaven of a lovely star but a few nights ago,

Anastasia, I called thee to witness my own fate.
That star was a kindred light with mine, seduced
by me, as I had been seduced, from the sweet and
beautiful abode where it shone, happy and adored,
on high. I had my abode beside it, and was the
worshipped deity of a mighty nation. No eye
brighter then mine looked forth from the eastern
summits — no more pure or peaceful planet gave
light to the returning shepherds. Like the star
whose flight I pointed out to thy regard, I fell from
my place of glory, and the secret of my fall was
in the commission of thy error. I was discontented
with my condition.”

The spirit-lover paused, and the hapless Anastasia
wrung her hands in hopeless misery. He
proceeded —

“For ages, before the birth of time, had that
lovely abiding-place been the assigned station from
which I shone. Millions of lovely spirits shone
and revolved around me, with a light partly borrowed
from mine; but oh! how unapproachably
inferior to me. I was beloved — I was worshipped;
but, like thee, Anastasia, I knew not to be content
in my place, and incurred, in a hapless moment,
a doom not unlike, but far more terrible than
thine.”

The maiden moaned upon the floor of the a partment,

but without the utterance of a single word.
At that moment a pale star sailed along by the
window, and from the dim cloud, of which it was
the centre, she heard a voice crying mournfully —

“Come!”

Albert replied with a promise of compliance,
and the spectre-glory floated away in the distance
from her sight. He proceeded in his narration:

“One night — one fatal night — looking down
from my place of watch, I beheld, in undisturbed
quiet and loveliness, the various and the wondrous
worlds around me. A pale form passed hurriedly
along upon one planet, the earth, and it waved its
hands, and it shrieked in agony, and its cries of
sorrow came to my ears, even afar off as was my
dwelling. Thine was that form, Anastasia — thou
wert the mourner.”

“Alas! alas!” cried the hapless woman — but
she could exclaim nothing farther.

“Thine was the form, and such was the agony
of thy piercing shriek, that inly I mourned for
thee — I deemed it a cruel injustice that such as
thou shouldst suffer. Thou wert so lovely and so
sorrowful, and the sweetest loves in the thoughts
of the blessed, are those which are most allied to
sadness.”

With these words the spirit paused in his narration,

and the cloud in which the eye hung and
shone now veered away and approached one of the
windows of the apartment. At the same time,
many stars, floating in like forms, came before the
window, and strange words passed between Albert
and the rest, in tones of the most sweet but subdued
and melancholy music. In a few moments they
floated away like the last, and her companion again
approached and hung above her in the apartment.
He continued his narration:—

“With the thought and the desire which came
to me as I surveyed thee, Anastasia, a dim and
giant form came rushing towards me, from the
piled clouds that lay like so many rocks and towers
in the northern horizon. His speed was like
that of the lightning; and he made his way among
the stars around-me, obscuring their lustre, and
scorning their obstruction, with the rapid rush of
a mighty tempest. When he approached me, he
lay suspended on his outstretched wings, the curtain
of which clouded the earth and concealed it
that moment from my sight, and he gazed upon me
with an air of sorrowful pride, mixed with the most
mortifying expression of contempt. `I have heard
thy wish,' he cried — `thou canst dare to regret,
but not to repair. Thou canst see, but thou hast
not the courage to share the suffering which thou

seest. Truly, thou art a generous spirit — noble
in the estimation of the highest, and worthy of the
fixed place which thou holdest.' Such were his
words of scorn, and they touched my pride. `And
what better fortune is thine, dark spirit?' I replied
to the intruder. `What hast thou to boast beyond
me — in what is thy better portion?' He answered
readily, and his voice went through me with a
strange and mighty power, so that I trembled in
the sphere in which I had never before been
shaken.

“`I am free,' was his fierce and proud reply.
`I am free.'

“I heard his words with a throbbing and speechless
admiration, and began to feel a fond desire
that I too might be free. I little knew then the
nature of the blessing which I sought. I little
thought that, to be free, I should for ever after be
alone!

“But I was not yet free, and I replied to him
still as the appointed servant of my master: `My
state is glorious — my home is one of lights, and
love, and perpetual flowers; and my duty is only
to watch for the Mighty One.' He replied in
greater scorn —

“`Thy home is one of lights — true — but
they are spies which are set upon thee to report

when thou errest — the love which is given thee
is not given for thyself, but for thy service — and
the flowers of which thou art mad to boast — look,
fool, they are woven into chains. Thou art a
slave but to spy upon others — thou art spied
upon thyself, and held worthy of love only as thou
dost the appointed task of the menial.'

“He had spoken to me a dreadful truth — so I
deemed it at the time, and in my thoughts I wished
myself free — free as the fierce and mighty
form that lay prone like a fearless giant, proud
and scornful in his might, before my eyes. I wished
for freedom, and with the wish I felt the golden
link melt away that secured me in my station —
the bands of flowers, which like a chain had held
me with a spell which no foreign power or agency
could have broken, now, at my single wish, were
relaxed from about me, and a mighty and clear
voice from a world a thousand worlds above me,
came to me like the sudden sound of a trumpet —

“`Thou art free!'