Part 14 (2/2)
”And the young lady, is she your daughter?” inquired Paul.
”She is my daughter,” answered the old man solemnly.
”How comes it, then, that she addresses you by so singular a name?”
”It is the one she first learned to use in infancy. As I partially explained to you, my mother was a Hindoo, while my father was English. The name Ah Ben belongs to the maternal side of my family.”
”Another question--more vital than any I have yet asked, because it concerns my own well-being and happiness,” continued Paul; ”how is it possible that Dorothy can live in a place like this with a being who is only semi-material?
”Because her nature is double, as is mine,” answered the old man.
”Dorothy, like her sisters and mother, pa.s.sed out of this life more than a hundred and fifty years ago.”
”And did the same causes operate to bring her back to earth?”
Ah Ben became more serious than ever as he answered: ”You have touched upon the sorest point of all, and one which requires further elucidation. Sudden and unnatural death has a r.e.t.a.r.ding tendency upon the spirit's progress; but where one has caused his own destruction, the evil resulting is incalculable. I was a suicide; and ten thousand times over had I better have borne all the ills that earth could heap upon me, than have stooped to such folly. For in what has it resulted?
A prolonged mental agony, such as you can never conceive; for I have no home in heaven nor earth, but am forced to wander amid the shadows of each world, unrecognized by those either above or below me. Here I am shunned upon every hand, and, as you saw for yourself, I was equally avoided in Levachan. But that is not all; in the ignorance and selfishness of my grief, I yearned for my lost ones with a solicitude, a consuming fierceness and power of will which insanity only can equal.
By nature I was intense; and even had I not committed the fatal act, my vitality would have burned itself away with the awful concentration of feeling. But it must be remembered that I was not the only sufferer from this pitiful lack of self-control. The stronger desires and emotions of the living influence the dead--I use the words in their common acceptation for the sake of convenience--and here is where I caused such incalculable injury to my own child; for Dorothy, having entered the spirit world with inferior powers of resistance, fell under the spell I had wrought, and joined me in the haunting of this old house.
Here, Mr. Henley, am I, a suicide, justly deserving the punishment I receive; but there is my child, as innocent as the air of heaven, forced to suffer with me, and it is no small part of my chastis.e.m.e.nt to realize this fact. People fly from us as they would from pestilence, both in this world and the other, although many of the dwellers in the higher state, from their greater knowledge and loftier development, simply avoid us. And we can not criticise their action in either world, for we are not adapted to either state. We are outcasts.”
Ah Ben paused for a moment, and then became deeply impressive, as he added:
”Mr. Henley, let the experience of one who has suffered, and who will continue to suffer more than you can possibly understand--let his experience, I say, warn you against the unreasonable yearning for the return of those who have pa.s.sed on to their spiritual state! Here our eyes are blinded to the blessedness to come, and it is well it is so; for, were it otherwise, the discipline of earth life would be lost, as too monstrous to be endured. No man could submit to the restraints of matter, with the power and freedom of spirit in sight. If once I could have realized the dreadful results entailed upon what I had lost, by my effort to recover it, I would have known that the blackest curse would have been trifling by contrast. Let the dead rest! and let one who knows persuade you that their entrance into spirit life is a time rather for rejoicing than regret!”
”And is Dorothy to suffer as you have suffered, for what was no fault of hers?” demanded Paul.
”Yes,” said Ah Ben; ”the law of Karma is the law of nature and the law of G.o.d; and while ordinarily she would have pa.s.sed safely on in the possession of her new-born powers, the pitfall which I blindly laid beset her unwary feet, and she fell. There is but one course open; but one way in which Dorothy can reach either heaven or earth, by a shorter road than that which I am compelled to travel. It is simple, and yet one which, under the circ.u.mstances, is almost impossible to achieve; and this from the fact that it requires the cooperation of a human being.”
”I should imagine that any one with the ordinary feelings of humanity would gladly do what he could to a.s.sist such an unhappy fellow-creature!” exclaimed Paul.
”But she is not a fellow-creature,” urged the old man.
”True, but I understood you to say that she might become one with the cooperation of a human being.”
”I did,” Ah Ben replied; ”but where is that to be found?”
”Not knowing the nature of the task, it would be difficult to say,”
answered Paul, ”but I will adhere to my first proposition, that one with the ordinary feelings of humanity would gladly do what he could.”
”Mr. Henley, have you the ordinary feelings of humanity?”
”I hope so,” answered Paul.
”Would you be willing to marry a ghost, and be haunted for the rest of your life; for the ghost would be sure to outlive you?”
Paul started.
”I have put the case too strongly,” continued Ah Ben; ”Dorothy is not a ghost in the ordinary sense. She is a materialized spirit, and that, my dear friend, is exactly what you are, with this difference: you have practically no control over your body; while she, having returned from the summer land abnormally, can, like myself, become invisible at will; but, upon the other hand, she is not always visible, even to those whom she would like to have see her. In short, as I have told you before, we belong to neither one world nor the other. But through union with a human creature, Dorothy can once more a.s.sume the functions of mortality, and after another period of earth life, become fitted again for the land of spirits.”
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