Lilith

Lilith
endless and measureless influence and reaction are indispensable. A man to be perfect−−complete, that is, in
having reached the spiritual condition of persistent and universal growth, which is the mode wherein he
inherits the infinitude of his Father−− must have the education of a world of fellow−men. Save for the hope
of the dawn of life in the form beside me, I should have fled for fellowship to the beasts that grazed and did
not speak. Better to go about with them−−infinitely better−−than to live alone! But with the faintest prospect
of a woman to my friend, I, poorest of creatures, was yet a possible man!
CHAPTER XIX. THE WHITE LEECH
I woke one morning from a profound sleep, with one of my hands very painful. The back of it was much
swollen, and in the centre of the swelling was a triangular wound, like the bite of a leech. As the day went on,
the swelling subsided, and by the evening the hurt was all but healed. I searched the cave, turning over every
stone of any size, but discovered nothing I could imagine capable of injuring me.
Slowly the days passed, and still the body never moved, never opened its eyes. It could not be dead, for
assuredly it manifested no sign of decay, and the air about it was quite pure. Moreover, I could imagine that
the sharpest angles of the bones had begun to disappear, that the form was everywhere a little rounder, and
the skin had less of the parchment−look: if such change was indeed there, life must be there! the tide which
had ebbed so far toward the infinite, must have begun again to flow! Oh joy to me, if the rising ripples of
life's ocean were indeed burying under lovely shape the bones it had all but forsaken! Twenty times a day I
looked for evidence of progress, and twenty times a day I doubted−− sometimes even despaired; but the
moment I recalled the mental picture of her as I found her, hope revived.
Several weeks had passed thus, when one night, after lying a long time awake, I rose, thinking to go out and
breathe the cooler air; for, although from the running of the stream it was always fresh in the cave, the heat
was not seldom a little oppressive. The moon outside was full, the air within shadowy clear, and naturally I
cast a lingering look on my treasure ere I went. "Bliss eternal!" I cried aloud, "do I see her eyes?" Great orbs,
dark as if cut from the sphere of a starless night, and luminous by excess of darkness, seemed to shine amid
the glimmering whiteness of her face. I stole nearer, my heart beating so that I feared the noise of it startling
her. I bent over her. Alas, her eyelids were close shut! Hope and Imagination had wrought mutual illusion!
my heart's desire would never be! I turned away, threw myself on the floor of the cave, and wept. Then I
bethought me that her eyes had been a little open, and that now the awful chink out of which nothingness had
peered, was gone: it might be that she had opened them for a moment, and was again asleep!−−it might be
she was awake and holding them close! In either case, life, less or more, must have shut them! I was
comforted, and fell fast asleep.
That night I was again bitten, and awoke with a burning thirst.
In the morning I searched yet more thoroughly, but again in vain. The wound was of the same character, and,
as before, was nearly well by the evening. I concluded that some large creature of the leech kind came
occasionally from the hot stream. "But, if blood be its object," I said to myself, "so long as I am there, I need
hardly fear for my treasure!"
That same morning, when, having peeled a grape as usual and taken away the seeds, I put it in her mouth, her
lips made a slight movement of reception, and I KNEW she lived!
My hope was now so much stronger that I began to think of some attire for her: she must be able to rise the
moment she wished! I betook myself therefore to the forest, to investigate what material it might afford, and
had hardly begun to look when fibrous skeletons, like those of the leaves of the prickly pear, suggested
themselves as fit for the purpose. I gathered a stock of them, laid them to dry in the sun, pulled apart the
reticulated layers, and of these had soon begun to fashion two loose garments, one to hang from her waist, the
Lilith 66