The Ordeal of Ida Pendragon

THE GREY HOUR

"TO resume," observed Rolles as he removed the tea-tray, "since you have done no prescribed practices (wicked little sister!) you cannot banish the body by bidding it keep silence. So it must be banished by exhaustion, and the spirit awakened by a sevenfold dose of the Elixir."
"Have you the Elixir?" she asked, rather awed.

"It is entrusted to me," he answered simply. "To this laudable end I have appointed a sufficiency of Bisque Kadosh at the Cafe Riche, followed by Homard Cardinal and Truffes au champagne. With a savoury of my own invention. The truffes au champagne of the Cafe Riche are more to be desired than all the hashish dreams of all the wicked, and than all the divine dreams of all the good. We shall walk there, and drive back. This incense shall be kindled, and this lamp left burning."

He took a strange object from a locked cabinet. It had flowered chased pipes of gold, copper and platinum, coiling about an egg of crystal. The three snakes met just above the egg, as if to bite or to kiss. Rolles filled the egg with a pale blue liquid from a Venetian flask, then pressed the heads of the serpents just a little closer together. Instantly a coruscating flame leapt between them, minute, dazzling, radiant. It continued to burn with a low hissing noise rarely interrupted by a dry crackle.

"It is well," said Rolles, "let us depart."

Ida Pendragon had not said a word. She put on her hat and followed to the door as fatalistically as the condemned man walks to the gallows. She had passed through anticipation; she was content to await what might be.

At the door she whispered, hushed in awe of the real silence of the room with its monotonous hiss, in his ear. "You have the Lamp. I almost begin to wonder if you have not the Ring!"

"'This is a secret sign,'" he quoted, "'and thou shalt not disclose it unto the profane.' Tonight yours be the ring -- the Eternal Ring, the Serpent to twine about my heart."

"Ah! could I crush it!"

He closed the door. Like a priest celebrating his first high mass he led her through Paris. Neither spoke. Only as they mounted the steps of the Cafe he took her arm and said, sharply and sternly: "Attention! From this moment I am Edgar Rolles, and you are Ida Pendragon. No more: not a thought of our real relation. Man and woman, if you will; beasts in the jungle, if you will; flowers by the wayside, if you will; but nothing more. Else you will not only fail in the ordeal, but you will be swept aside out of the Path. You were in greater danger than you knew this afternoon; you will yet pay the price."

"I understand," she said. "You devil! I love you." "And I love every inch of your white body!"

They ran laughing arm in arm through the swing doors.

[...]

Edgar Rolles sat curled up Hindu fashion on his bed. The sacred lamp still hissed. At his side lay Ida, her arms stretched out cruciform. She hardly breathed; there was no colour in her face. One would have said the corpse of a martyred virgin. On her white body its own purity hovered like a veil.

Edgar Roles watched the lamp, erect, attentive. It went out. Hardly a hint of grey filtered through the blackness. In his hands he held two threads. "One is black, and one is white, he mused, and only God knows which is which. So only God knows what is sin. In our darkness we who presume to declare it are liars -- charlatans, groping quacks at the best. Will the sun never dawn? For us on whom the lightning of ecstasy hath flashed for a moment -- 'much may be seen by its light' -- the light of the tempest. But the Light of the Silver Star? Oh, my Brothers (he began to speak aloud) give me wisdom as you have given me understanding! Knowledge and grace and power? These are nothing and less than nothing. Is not this a precious think that you have given into my charge? Am not I too young among you to bear so wonderful a burden? It is the first time that I have dared so far. The Abyss! The Razor-Edge! Frail bridge and sharp! Yet is it not a ray of the Evening Star, a ray of Venus, of the Love Supernal! ..."

Can I tell black from white? It seems I can -- and then the certainty flickers, and I doubt. I doubt. I am always doubting. Perhaps a wise man grows angry, and declares his will. 'It shall be what o'cock I say it is,' or ...see ! I lay the threads on her white breast. No doubt remains."

Then clear and loud: "Ave Soror!"

The girl, as it seemed mechanically, murmured the words "Rosae Rubeae."

"Et Aureae Crucis," he rejoined.

Then together, very slowly and distinctly: "Benedictus sit Dominus Deus Noster qui nobis dedit signum."

It seemed hardly possible that her voice joined his. The lips hardly moved; it was as if an interior voice spoke in her heart. Yet the room was suddenly filled with a pale green light -- or was it rosy? -- or was it golden? -- or was it like the moon? That was the strange thing about it. To every name one put to it an inward voice answered: No, not that; like that, but not quite that. Luminous, spectral, cloudy, shimmering -- it was all these, and something more.

He placed his hand upon the girl's forehead.

"Are you perfectly awake?"

"I am awake, frater."

"Can you give me the sign of your grade?"

"I must not move. But I am poised for diving, frater."

"The word?"

Haltingly came the answer: "Ar--ar--it--a."

"One is His beginning; one is His individuality; His permutation one. Do not forget it, little sister."

"Are you ready?"

"I am ready. Farewell -- farewell for ever!"

"Farewell."

He took his signet-ring, and pressed a spring. The bezel opened and disclosed a small jewelled wheel, divided into many compartments. He pressed a second spring. The wheel began to revolve, and in the silence sang a tiny tune. It was a faint tinkle, like a distant cow-bell, or like a chime heard far off, heard from the snow. There was an icy quality in the note.

"Where are you?"

"I -- I --" she broke off.

His eyes lit with joy.

"I am in the sand; I am buried to the waist in the sand. I see nothing but sand."

His face fell again.

"What is sand?" he asked.

"Oh -- just sand, you know. Leagues and leagues of sand; like a great bowl of sand."

"But what is sand?"

"Sand -- oh! sand is God, I suppose." There was a patience and weariness in her voice, as of one who has suffered long and is at rest, or convalescent.

"And who are you?"

She did not answer the question. "Now I see sky," she said. "Sky is God, too, I think."

"Then do you see God?"

"Oh no! I think I am God, somehow. It is all like it was before, long ago. I was once a spider in the sand. God is a spider; the Universe is flies. I am a fly, too. ...And now the desert is full of flies."

Rolles bit his lip; his face was drawn with pain. At that moment he looked an old man.

"Black flies," she went on. "Horrible white maggots. And now there are corpses. The maggots play about their mouths and eyes. There are three corpses that were God when they were alive. I killed Him. That was when I was a camel in the sand. Now there are only my bones."

"It may be only a veil," he muttered, not wishing her to hear. But she heard.

"It is a veil," she said. "But is there anything behind veils?"

"Look!"

"Only the sand."

"Tear it down!"

"There might be Nothing behind."

"There is Nothing behind. It is through that that you must pass."

"This veil is God. I am a holy nun in the trance called Rampurana. I am canonised. My name is on every banner. My face is worshipped by every nation. I am a pure virgin; all the others are soiled. Thought is worse than deed. All my thoughts are holy. I think. I think. I think. By the power of my thought I created the Word; and by the Word came the Worlds. I am the creator. I will write my law upon tablets of jade and onyx."

Rolles bowed his head in silence.

"I am thought itself," she went on quietly. "And all thought is I. I am knowledge. All knowledge is in three. Three hundred and thirty-three. I am half the Master. I have cut him in two."

The adept shuddered.

"That was when I was an axe. I will not be an arrow. I will be an axe. ..." She gave a giggle.

"I am gleeful by reason of hate."

There was a pause.

"And I am gleeful because I am reason. ..."

"All reason ends in two. I have cut the Master in two."

"Can she pass through?" wondered Edgar. "Is it a fault to be identified so well with that which she beholds?"

"There are devils," she cried. "Black, naked screaming devils. They touch, and at a touch each oozes back to his slime. This slime is Chaos."

"Ararita!" he breathed the word upon her brow.

"Don't touch me! don't touch me!" she screamed. "I am holy! I am God! I am I!" Her face was black and distorted with sudden passion.

"It's quite different to my own experience in many ways," thought the watcher. "Yet -- is it not the essence of all ordeal, all initiation, that it should be unexpected? Otherwise, the candidate would have passed through the gate before he approached it. Which is absurd."

The last word must have been audible.

"Absurd!" she cried. "Indeed, it is not absurd. It is all rational. It is you who are absurd."

"Do you understand what you are saying?"

"No! No! I hate all who understand. I will bite them. I will bite their waists." Dropping her voice suddenly: "That was when I was a mouse-trap."

"Dear God! this is like delirium."

"Oh! go on about God. I don't mind God. I could tell you wonderful things about what I have done to God. I was a Nonconformist preacher once: I had secret sins. They were mine! Mine! How proud I was of them! Every Sunday I used to preach against the sin that I had done most in the week. There are many butterflies in the desert; ever so many more than one would think. This proves that God is good. And then, you see, there are beetles. Beetles and beetles. And scorpions. Dear little amber beasts. There! one has stung me. It is the sacrament of hate. I will sleep in a bed of scorpions and rose- leaves. Scorpions are better than thorns. Why do I wander about naked? And why do I thirst? And this torment of cold? It ought to be hot in the desert. And it isn't. Now that proves -- oh yes, my cat! you shall have milk. I will strike a rock for you. Milk and honey."

She started up suddenly, and put her hands to her face, then threw them round his neck.

"Edgar, darling!" she cried, "your pussy has had such a dreadful dream. Come and love his girl!"

He dared not tell her that she had tried and failed, that she had come come {sic} back as she set out. He flung his will into that act of mercy; his kisses ravished her into delight.

It was late morning when they woke, faint with rapture, fresh kisses blossoming on their young lips, as the sun himself lit their awakening with his love.

Only then came memory, and solemnity, and sorrow.

[...]

So, with a thousand tear and kisses, they parted. She would not come to see him off; her self-command was weakened alike by her new love and by the terrible ordeal that she had undergone. Her mind remembered nothing of it -- such is the merciful order of things; but her soul, beaten with rods, was sore.

Excerpt from "THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON," which appeared in The Equinox, An. VII Vol I No. VI