The Mistake of a Life

Summary

The Mistake of a Life:
The narrator reflects on his complex relationships with two women, Anzimee and Lolix. While both women are intelligent, refined, and beautiful, the narrator is drawn to Anzimee due to her psychic and spiritual connection. Lolix, despite her deep love and devotion, lacks this aspect, which the narrator craves. The narrator acknowledges the wrongness of his relationship with Lolix, describing it as an emotional connection without formal recognition. He feels torn between these two women, recognizing the karmic consequences of his actions. Ultimately, he believes that his soul requires spiritual fulfillment, which he finds in Anzimee. He acknowledges the suffering caused by his decisions, feeling the burden of karmic retribution.

Zailm Proposes:
Zailm, the narrator, is preoccupied with how to propose to Anzimee. Despite complications due to Lolix’s presence, he proposes to Anzimee in a simple, emotional moment. Anzimee accepts his proposal. Lolix, having found out about the proposal, faints but remains composed afterward. Zailm meets with Lolix, who confronts him with her heartbreak, revealing that she has sacrificed much for him, including a child. Despite her pain, Lolix forgives Zailm and does not expose his secrets. However, during the public announcement of Zailm and Anzimee’s marriage, Lolix dramatically interrupts, driven by despair and madness. She attempts to harm Zailm but ultimately dies, turned into stone by a powerful curse. Zailm realizes the depth of his wrongdoing, feeling guilty for Lolix’s tragic fate. The consequences of his actions weigh heavily on him, leaving him in despair.

Locations

• Roxoi: A palace where Lolix resides, and where important events occur, including Zailm’s proposal and the eventual tragedy.
• Menaxithlon: The location from which Lolix was transferred to Roxoi, and also referred to as Zailm’s residence.
• Poseid: The name of the civilization or place where the story unfolds, a refined and advanced society.
• Incalithlon: The great temple where religious and ceremonial events occur, including the announcement of Zailm’s marriage.
• Salda: Lolix’s native land, mentioned when she compares customs of her homeland with those of Poseid.
• Maxin: A central structure or object in the Place of Life, where Lolix tragically meets her end.

Chapter XX DUPLICITY

The year during which I was not permitted to study passed quickly and uneventfully, except that complications deepened on account of Lolix. My affection for Menax became almost reciprocally as great as his love for me, which was limitless. But I did not tell him that which, heavier and yet heavier, weighed upon me as time elapsed, the secret affair with Lolix. To have done so would have been best, yet I dared not, for it would have lost me all that I most prized. At least I so feared then.

As time went on I began to query my position. Did I love this beautiful girl? Not as I loved Anzimee. “O, Incal, my God, my God!” I moaned in anguish of soul. Conscience slept yet, but stirred restlessly. The fact that Anzimee was my adopted sister did not prevent her becoming my wife, for the law of consanguinity was not violated. But my own acts barred the way.

My scheme to domicile Lolix in a palace on the far side of Caiphul from Menaxithlon was successfully carried out without exciting the suspicion of anyone, not even arousing the jealousy of Lolix. Duplicity, duplicity!

Then I wooed Anzimee unrestrained by the presence of her who would have been a dangerous factor had she even suspected that the daughter of Menax was not my sister by the ties of consanguinity. But my days began to be filled with fear, for I had sown dragon’s teeth; the denouement of such affairs as have evil for a guide is invariably sorrow and bitterness. Suppose Lolix did not tire of me, and I had neither the heart nor the will to do anything to cause her to do so. Nature’s laws were ever liable to cause a revealment of the facts, which would be fatal to my hopes. And though I often cried in agony of soul that I was an unhappy wretch, conscience still slept.

But mine was not a character to be deterred from resolves by danger. If I was engaged in a game of skill with the Evil One for an opponent, I would play to the best of my ability. So I determined to be rid of Lolix, a determination that was late, for the fruit of our sin was come, and a home secretly provided, for I would do no murder. These plans were carried out, all fortunately, as I thought, without any man being the wiser. But how to be rid of the really lovable woman, Lolix? Only a year remained ere I would enter the examination for my diploma at the Xioquithlon. If successful, I meant to ask Anzimee, whom I knew loved me in return, to be to me all that the honored name of wife conveyed.

At evening, or of an afternoon, nothing pleased Anzimee better than to walk alone or with Menax or myself through the palace gardens, under the spreading palms and festoons of flowering vines which canopied all the walks, forming long, green, gemmed tunnels of cool shade. From the breaks in these verdant walls, we could see the mimic lakes, hills, cliffs, and streams, and beyond these could look out over palace-capped, vine-draped Caiphul and its half-thousand hills, large and small. Walking amidst such scenes by the side of her who was so dear, is it strange that my soul was at such times eased of something of its burden of sin and woe?

So long did I defer action in the case of Lolix that I came to fear taking any course except to let events order their own settlement. Yea, I lost confidence in my ability to solve the dangerous problem, fearful lest I should make a bad matter worse. Thus the days slipped by, and the examination ordeal was close at hand. Neglect Lolix I did not, could not, nor had I desire to do so. Very often I was with her; indeed, with a strange blindness to the wrong involved, I divided my leisure between Lolix and Anzimee. I sometimes feared that Mainin, Gwauxln, or perhaps both, knew of my secret. They did, too, for their occult vision was too keen to allow them not to know the facts. But neither made any sign—not Mainin, for he cared not how much secret evil went on, as we shall see ere long. Nor Gwauxln, not because he, like Mainin, did not care, but because he was merciful and knew that karma had more dreadful punishment in store than any man could possibly inflict, and his mercy forebore to add to my penalty.

The cancer remained hidden from public gaze, and I knew not that the noble ruler was a sad spectator of my misdeeds. I do not wonder at his sad demeanor when with me, as manifested in the last of studies.

Anzimee had postponed the time of her examination until the year in which I was to graduate, and hence the festivities which always followed the examination as a mark of rejoicing over the success of those who received diplomas included her in the honorable list, for she had passed with high credits.

A dinner was given by the Rai to the successful contestants, and this feast inaugurated an extended season of high social dinners, balls, parties, concerts, and theatrical performances, all in the same honor. Anzimee, arrayed in a robe of grayish silk, with her heavy coils of dark hair fastened apparently by a lovely rose, and upon her shoulder a pin of sapphires and rubies, was presented by Gwauxln at the state dinner to the new Xioqi as the “Ystranavu,” or “Star of the Evening.” This was a social distinction akin to the modern “Queen of the Ball.”

Knowing that Rai Gwauxln would lead his niece to the table and be her escort, I took Lolix, as I had a right to do, for I was a graduate and the possessor of a diploma, and all such might choose a companion, who might or might not be a graduate. Lolix, for my sake, had studied hard during the last three years and was now in her second year at the Xioquithlon, to which she went from the lower schools. I was growing proud of the girl and felt most tenderly towards her; indeed, I would have been a most despicable person had I not, after her sacrifice for me. Several times I found Gwauxln looking intently at me—I sat not far from him—and once, as he passed me after the feast, he murmured sadly:

“Oh, Zailm, Zailm.”

As may be imagined, this address did not increase my peace of mind. But that night passed without any further disquiet, as so many others had done.

As I walked with Lolix in the great hall of Agacoe, I remarked the many glances of admiration bestowed upon her beauty by the many gentlemen we met, nobles of high degree. She had indeed grown to have a loveliness of face and figure, and best of all, of character, which was no longer heartless, but very gentle since her sad experience of secret motherhood and consequent disbarment from its innocent joys, since the child might not be known as hers. She had had offers of honorable marriage and refused them, knowing even as she did so that the fact of their proffer was a proof of my having spoken falsely when I told her that the laws of Poseid forbade our marriage. But her love for me, if it suffered, was faithful and knew no lessening. And she kept the secret well and the more closely for my sake, wretch that I was! As I looked upon her, I felt that she was very dear to me. But Anzimee was more so, and therefore the hideous tragedy went on.

I knew that from love of me Lolix had first repressed heartless remarks, then taken an interest in relieving suffering for its own sake, and so had become transformed from a beautiful thorn tree to a glorious rose of womanly loveliness, with few thorns indeed. Had I really any conscience deserving the name, that I did not come out before the world and take Lolix as my wife after all this boundless love for me? No, not in Poseid. Conscience had not slept; it had never been existent; it was yet to be born and grow in a later time. Thus did the nemesis of judgment still withhold her stroke.

A Dweller on Two Planets

CHAPTER XXI – THE MISTAKE OF A LIFE

Comparison is good mental exercise. It is due to the reader and to myself, as well as to Anzimee and Lolix, to indulge a name, present mood prompting me to make an analytical comparison of these two women. What was it that fixed so unalterably my desire to wed Anzimee and not Lolix? Both were gentlewomen, the first by nature, the second by-yes, by nature also. I was, however, about to ascribe the sweet charity of Lolix to the perception on her part of the misery she would feel, placed in like situation with those who suffered in very fact. But the ability to so perceive could arise only from its existence in her nature. No, it was her nature finally developed. Both women were refined, intelligent, and both were beautiful, though of types as widely variant as a blush rose and a white lily. Anzimee was a born daughter of Atl; Lolix was one by adoption. A small difference, surely, since both were in full accord with, and equally sensitive to, the good, the beautiful and the true, in the polished refinement of erudite Poseid. Truly, the relations between Lolix and myself were wrong, but she was not on that account less dear to me, nor was my regard for her less tender and loving. Her companionship had become a part of my life. If I had a sorrow or was despondent, she interposed her sympathy and cheered me. My anxieties were also hers; my joys her joys. In everything but name she was my wife. Then why did not I acknowledge the fact before mankind? Because karma ordered otherwise. I loved Anzimee also. Through this love, karma operated to annul its own tendencies to espouse Lolix. And the mode of this operation was exhibited in my recognition of Lolix as possessed of every requisite to make me happy except in her one lack, that of psychic perception of the relation of the finite to the infinite. Absurd? No. That my soul craved such an ability on her part, and found it not, but did find it in Anzimee, was evidence of the growth of the frail seedling of interest in the occult life of the Sons of the Solitude, which had been somewhat matured by the words of Rai Emon of Suem, years before. Sayest thou that if a little such interest worked such error in life that deep interest would make for the losing of the soul, wherefore thou wilt have none of it? Not so. It was the not being true to the ideal at that time gained, true with all my soul, that did the mischief, just as in the myth of Lot’s wife, she had never been turned to salt had she obeyed, not curiosity, but the higher injunction.

Lolix had no dimmest perception of this psychic link between the things of earth and the things of infinity. I had; I knew Anzimee had; wherefore I ordered my life so as to include her and exclude Lolix, whereby I did both them, myself and my conception of God (which is but a redundant expression, for no one finite can injure Infinity) a fearful injustice. But karma lay in wait for the evil of my life, demanded payment—and got it, every jot; no words can paint the suffering of the expiation. I scarcely propose to try and shall rest content if a realization of some part of it shall deter others from sin through the certitude that there is no vicarious expiation for evil done, and no escape from its penalty.

The Law of the ONE reads: “Except a man overcometh, he shall not inherit of My life; I will not be his God, neither shall he be My son.”

There can be but one way to such overcoming, the ever-recurrent plungings into material incarnation, until the errors of the personal will are at-oned to the Divine Will. There can be no vicarious undoing, and soon will I show why. Another cannot do thy breathing for thee. Reincarnation, the ever-recurrent prisoning of the soul in fleshly bodies, is but expiatory, is but penalty. If in His Name ye are become free, if in that Way ye have overcome, and in place of being slaves to are masters over desire, ye have undone sin. Then is there no more incarnation for in the prison of this death, miscalled life. There is no other Way; the Great Master pointed none.

In expiation of my dark past I must needs return into the world, thy world of sin, sorrow, sickness and pain, and disappointed longings for the peace that passeth understanding. Is not my twelve thousand and more years of further wanderings in the far land of this world, far from my Father’s house, and feeding on the husks called joy, suffering the fevers, pains and disappointment of hopes, enough of expiation? Yet for a little while longer I must and, impelled by love, willingly do serve Him. Some souls shall have even more than I, if they turn not. Which will ye? Will is the sole Way to esoteric, or occult Christian knowledge. Whosoever will, shall have Eternal Life. But the will to overcome must replace our will of desire, as the fresh air replaces the exhalations of our lungs.

As the atmosphere is around about us, and, inhaled, becomes our breath, so the Will of the Spirit is around us and, entering into the heart that hath determined to strangle into submission the serpent, suffers us not to know defeat. But I, and Lolix, refused this Breath, and unwilling, turned away. Oh! the horror, the pain, of those lost ages, lost with her! But we both re-found it in overcoming. I am sorry to admit that such moral obliquity could ever have warped my character, even twelve thousand years ago! Will is the only Way to Christ.

Is it not an appalling contemplation, to think that, having determined to put Lolix away and to install Anzimee in her place by honorably wedding her before mankind, I was able to calculate upon my knowledge of Lolix and to depend upon her acquiescence in keeping my secret because of her unselfish love for me? Monstrous! I knew that Lolix did nothing by halves. Having given herself to me, she would not expose my iniquity, even though I rejected her for another; society had no reproach for a woman betrayed.

In pursuance of my plan, I proposed to obtain the spoken affirmation of the love that had long been confessed by the demeanor of Anzimee. Then I would tell Lolix all, reserving nothing, and throw myself on her mercy. Even after these many, many centuries, when-Laus Deo!-reparation is at last complete, I look at the record of this part of my life when I was Zailm, and wonder that the very confession does not scorch holes in the paper upon which it is written. Moral turpitude is a fearful thing, for, though conscious of its being sinful, I was but dimly aware of the hideous blackness of my action.

Canst thou dissociate, reader, thy horror at the one action sufficiently to take interest in the recital of my profession of love made to Anzimee, after I had hidden from my own sight the evil of my life? It may be almost futile to try; yet it is possible to forget anything out of sight, at least to such a degree. “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” More especially is it easy to smile when the evil is in such a far, far past tense, is atoned, and the villain is one no longer. Thou wilt pardon me if I hint the Way of atonement. Of all my thousands of years of my many lives, to which in this history I can but briefly allude, I draw for thee one lesson that the weary pilgrimage hath taught me, and in my soul I pray thee heed it. For I am longing for my release, when I may go out into the blessed realms that mine have mine ears seen, heard, and myself been amidst, with Him who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth. So this know, and these things; so long as any that read my words turn aside, and will not to know and do His Way, so long do ye keep me out of my part in the Great Peace, until His spirit shall cease to strive with thee, or hinder thee. I am working and sacrificing that ye may know that Way, and tread it. Yet some of you will, even at the finality, be of them that, denying Him, are by Him denied. Out of all the glorious systems of worlds, only Earth denieth, for acknowledging Him by words and crying, “Lord, Lord,” they yet hate one another in their serpent-dominated hearts. Think not that I use any figure of speech when I say “serpent”; microscopists know better. “He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit have Life everlasting.” They that are alive have crucified the flesh with its affections. Some will close their eyes to my message I have of Him. By that shall the seed of Eternal Life be closed out of their souls, and they shall die. But so many as in all things turn unto the Way shall in no wise be cast out. He said it who is true. Keep thy lamps trimmed and be wise, not foolish virgins.

Chapter XXII

My mind was filled with the question of how to phrase my proposal of marriage to Anzimee. Such thoughts are common to all lovers, of every race and nation, where matchmaking is not conducted by the parents.

Having set the time for the momentous inquiry, I sought Anzimee. The information that she was absent at Roxoi Palace, one of the three set apart for the Rai but seldom used by him, was rather perturbing. Lolix resided at Roxoi and had done so ever since I secured her transference from Menaxithlon. However, I was not altered in my purpose of seeing Anzimee. As I journeyed across the city, forty kilometers to Roxoi, I pondered the new situation. I knew that the two women were friends, and this fact seemed likely to complicate matters.

Arriving at Roxoi, I found Anzimee in the gardens, seated near a cascade that tumbled over a fairy-like cliff into a mammoth dewdrop of a lake. She was alone. As I approached, she inquired in a surprised tone: “Where is Lolix?”

“Where?” I replied, “I was with thee.”

“I know not. I was told that she would join us,” Anzimee repeated.

“And ’twas true. But she took the vailx and went away, saying that she would go and get thee, that we three might have a little outing together.”

I thought rapidly. To Menaxithlon was forty kilometers across the city due south. The vailx must take as many minutes going in that direction, and the same returning—eighty minutes. That would be long enough. I seated myself beside Anzimee and took her hand in mine. I had often done the same before, and even clasped her about with my arm, but in a distinctly brotherly way. Now, the simple touch of the fingers was electric in effect, and she could at once detect the intensity of excitement that possessed me. The fine language I had intended to use was lost, and instead of trying to regain it, I merely said:

“Anzimee, would words deepen thy certainty of my love for thee? I cannot command them, but I ask thee, little girl, to be my wife!”

And for reply, she answered in a brief phrase:
“Zailm, be it so!”

What followed the reader may imagine; your own fancy will please you best, for the picture is not hard to draw.

When Lolix returned, I had departed, nor was this hastily, for she had been delayed in coming back, so that three hours had elapsed since her departure.

I knew that few things were more certain than that Anzimee would confide her joy to Lolix. But I had no misgivings, for I felt every confidence that Lolix would not betray our secret, however terrible the blow might be for her to bear. As I anticipated, Anzimee told the story of my avowal and of her acceptance of me. When the whole was related, Anzimee said that her friend looked at her for a moment, then fainted to the floor. When she had been revived, she seemed so calm that even Anzimee did not question her statement that the swoon was due to nervousness. This was at the eventide.

Anzimee, filled with happy feelings, saw her friend in bed, dismissed the attendants, soothed her to sleep, and came home. These facts I did not learn until the next day. I thought it best to have an interview with Lolix at once, and so experience all the pain and have done with the anguish of it. Deluded mortal!

I went to Roxoi and, going into the Xanatithlon, awaited Lolix, to whom I had sent word that I desired to see her there. She came. Fully ten years seemed to have passed over her since I last saw her. Worn and pale, with great dark rings under her glorious blue eyes, into which the tears flooded as she caught my quick gaze. Poor girl! But what could I do? That was my thought. I was even a little conscience-smitten, but very little, for the scales of sin were thick and numbing to the soul.

“Oh, my love, my love! Why hast thou done this? Thinkest thou I shall live? I have long known that no law existed to bar our union and have waited for thee to do what was right, confident that the day would soon come when thou wouldst ask me to share thy proud name. But—O Incal! my God! my God!” she exclaimed, bursting into a flood of tears that were as quickly repressed. Then, in a calmer voice, full of heartache, she continued:

“Zailm, I love thee too well, even now, to chide thee! I am thine to do with as thou wilt. I gave thee my life long ago. I gave thee my babe, and thou didst place it in a home where no man might suspect its parentage. Zailm, I have done more—there was another… O Incal, forgive me! I sent it to Navazzamin, that it might not accuse thee, Zailm! And now, I, whom thou hast called thy ‘blue-eyed darling,’ am by thee put aside! O God! Why am I made to suffer thus? Why thus stricken?”

She broke into a storm of agonized weeping, and I sought not to stop the flood, knowing that sometimes tears are a blessed relief. Had she loved me thus? Fool! not to have known it from her actions, which spoke louder than words could. My heart smote me now indeed, and I prayed—forgiveness, too late. Conscience came forth at last, born to smite, sprung like Minerva, full-armed for combat.

When Lolix had recovered her calmness, she said, in heartbroken tones that had never fallen on my ears before:

“Zailm, I forgive thee. Not even now will I betray thee, since whom I once love I will love till death; afterwards, also, if love survives the grave. If thou art come to say the parting word, so be it! But leave me now, for I am almost crazed! Yet remember, my darling, that if thy new life be not happy, though I pray Incal it may be, there once beat a heart for thee warmer, more loving, perchance truer, than thou’lt find that of thy new love. I shall not live long to be a shadow over thy peace. Kiss me once as thou wouldst if I were thine own wife in the sight of the world, as I am in that of Incal, and having died, thou wert about to confide my clay to the Unfed Light.”

With these words, she stopped, having arisen and come before me, and placed her arms around me, drawing me into a convulsive embrace. A moment thus, then her lips, chill as those of one who keepeth company with Death, met mine in one long, sobbing kiss! She released her clasp, stood an instant, and was gone. So she left me. Long I sat amidst the flowers in the great conservatory at Roxoi.

That night the banns of my coming marriage with Anzimee would be announced by the Incaliz Mainin in the great temple. In cases of high social rank, it was customary to add extra formality to the publication. If, during the ceremony, a death was to occur within the Incalithlon, custom decreed that an entire year must elapse before the consummation of the marriage rites.

At the proper hour, Anzimee and I stood before Mainin the Incaliz, within the Holy Seat. By our side were Rai Gwauxln and Menax, the five of us being the cynosure of the eyes of a great audience.

In a clear, slow voice, the Incaliz began an invocation to Incal. But in the midst of this service, a woman glided quickly across the triangle of the Place of Life, in the center of which was the Maxin. It was Lolix. She was as faultlessly attired as ever, but the awful blaze in her eyes caught all attention.