Chapter 38: Lyone's Manifesto to King and People

“Might I ask your holiness,” said the high priest, “if you will really take so determined a step as that indicated by the action of the royal council? The thought of such a thing strikes me dumb with fear.”

“Hushnoly,” said Lyone, “I have ever found you faithful to my interests, and I will now confide in you my purposes. You are a man of wisdom, calm and conservative, and can rest happy in the possession of your counterpart soul. Your character has become moulded by your long novitiate until you have become a part of the institution itself. To think of any other state of things is to you an impossibility. On thousands of souls here, your inflexible laws have only developed a rebellious energy that will some day utterly destroy the fabric of Egyplosis. The true union of souls is not artificial restraint and the present calmness is only the pause that preludes the explosion.”

“But do you, supreme goddess, indeed desire to leave us forever? Will you profane your holy office? Will you despoil the temple of ideal love?” said Hushnoly, with emotion.

“You think it monstrous,” said Lyone, “that I should desire to uproot principles so fixed and permanent. You can judge, then, how fierce must be the passion that causes me to antagonize duty consecrated by the ties and memories of my holy office.”

“To break away from a responsibility so supreme,” I said, “argues alone an extraordinary force. Your very system creates just such a love as this. Here souls are required to meet in rapture, and yet to stand balanced, as it were, on the thin edge of naked swords, and fall neither this way nor that. The development of a purely romantic love effeminates the race. The example of Egyplosis if carried out universally would obliterate the nation in one generation. The nation is wiser than its creed. Let us therefore choose the wiser path.”

“It was the dream of your noble parents,” said Hushnoly to Lyone, “to see you supreme goddess of Egyplosis. When you obtained this peerless honor they died. Your mother, dying, implored you to remember your vows, and to be ever true to your high office. ‘Love only duty, ‘ was her last sigh. If you love aught else, there is but a cruel death for you, and your memory will be an everlasting disgrace. Will you, the ideal of hopeless love, be the first to prove faithless?”

“What you say is true,” I said, replying for Lyone, “but what is duty? Lyone not only owes a duty to her office, but also to herself. Her duty to herself is to rise up and break down this monstrous environment that chains down her soul, and her duty to these ten thousand souls is to tell them that an institution that constantly antagonizes nature is immoral. Here refined souls,” I continued, “seek the cloister, not for peace, but for ecstatic anguish. They love and weep, and thus agitated they grow at once weak and violent, and can never accommodate themselves to the serious purposes of life. Thus sacrificed on the altar of a false god, weary of a life of barren blessedness, you will discover, if you but seriously inquire into it, that this palace is purely a prison for thousands of noble souls.”

As I spoke, Hushnoly clasped his head with his hands and groaned. “With the downfall of Egyplosis,” he murmured, “farewell delights, farewell tendernesses, farewell mystical, chivalrous love!”

“Do not be so dejected,” said Lyone; “your imagination gives you but a capricious view of the future, which will be even nobler than the past.”

The high priest could hear no more, and left us seized with affright as to the future, and mourning the anticipated downfall of Egyplosis.

Lyone, far from exhibiting fear, grew enthusiastic over our projected coup d’état, that would certainly, if successful, create an organic change in the constitution of the kingdom.

We discussed the situation at length, and determined to leave Egyplosis for Calnogor forthwith.

I could in some measure appreciate the struggle undergone by Lyone necessary to sever her forever from so ineffable a retreat. But passion was stronger than environment, and it was duly announced that the supreme goddess and the commander of the Polar King and their immediate followers would leave for Calnogor forthwith.

Our departure from Egyplosis was attended with impressive ceremonies, our journey to Calnogor being made in the aerial ship of the goddess.

On our arrival at Tanje we discovered that the king and government had held their council unknown to the people. We did not think it expedient either, just then, to make public the determination of the goddess. I ordered my officers and sailors to Kioram forthwith to take command of the Polar King. My instructions to Captain Wallace were to have the ship fully supplied with stores, and remove her from the basin where she lay into the outer harbor of Kioram, and there await further orders. After a considerable period of inactivity the ship’s company were nothing loath to get on board again with the prospect of another voyage. I confided to the officers the possibility of our being engaged in hostile operations, and ordered the ship to be put in fighting trim without delay. The officers and men were tendered the dignity of riding to Kioram in the sacred locomotive, and their departure was made amid the enthusiasm of the populace.

As for myself, I remained at the palace of Tanje, the residence of the goddess, to assist Lyone in preparing her manifesto to the people.

It was a painful crisis for her, who was the symbol of ideal love, to be the first to renounce its delights for the sake of an every-day union with a beloved soul.

For days her decision trembled in the balance. Her avowal of being led captive by human love would be a national catastrophe. She trembled for her ten thousand devotees in Egyplosis. It seemed a cruel and heartless trampling under foot of throbbing hearts that were thrilling with faith in their goddess. When I saw Lyone prepared to abandon Egyplosis for my sake, when I knew she would forever resign that splendid throne swept by whirlwinds of adoration, for the sake of being clasped to my heart, when I saw her risk even life itself for the simple love of one adoring heart, I then knew what love really was. It was, as Dante says,