CHAPTER III.

IN PRIMORDIAL BIOGEN. His penance done, the Mystic of Kankakee presented himself once more at the soda fountain. He was paler, slimmer and altogether more effective than before. He was faultlessly groomed in pearl gray. His head was held high--by an immaculate collar. He was shod in patent leathers, and white spats peeped chastely below his upturned trousers. His gloved hand grasped the middle of a large cane for support. “Do you, William K. Vanderhook, hope or expect to marry Imogene Silesia Sheets?” Young Mr. Vanderhook, who was replenishing the soda fountain, startled for the moment, dropped a large chunk of ice, thereby overturning several bottles of syrup. “If--So--You--Must--Re--lin--quish--Her.” “Now, what are you givin’ me?” growled Bill, as he turned upon his chum, and as he did so snapped the cover of the soda fountain with unnecessary violence. “Merely this,” said Alonzo Leffingwell, slightly raising his monotone,--“You persuaded me to break my vow. You inveigled me into looking upon woman. I had warned you, pleaded with you to let me out of this. You heeded not. I hinted at penalties. You sneered. You did not believe me. You insisted. I yielded. But you have assumed the consequences. You have defied Destiny. But my unsophisticated friend, you have bound yourself to accept the results. You played with Fate. The law is relentless. Rash boy, you have invoked dire karmic consequences.” “Well, what in the name of--the higher foolology--are you driving at?” snapped Bill, quite out of patience. “This, my once friend, this”--and Lonnie now well started, talked straight on. “Through my higher comprehension of primordial principles, and by my occult manipulations of certain astral forces (quite unknown to such as you), I erstwhile learned the most profound fact in nature. I was, as we say in our cult, able to visionize my Soul Mate. The doors of the future, as it were, lifted from their hinges, and--Aha! you start. You tremble. You sense my secret. You perceive the mystical meaning of my metaphysical meanderings.” Alonzo Leffingwell paused, gazing fixedly at Bill, who was now nervously rinsing the glasses. “You have guessed,” and the Mystic’s voice fell to a sharp whisper. “Miss Sheets is SHE,--she whom I cognized in the astral. She is _not_ your affinity, but _mine_. Did you not perceive that we needed no introduction? Our higher selves responded to the law; hence my agitation, and your--your--KARMA.” Bill Vanderhook stopped short, straightened himself. He quit tinkering with the stock. Continued Lonnie remorselessly,-- “Knowing, as I do, that our union is inevitable in the course of evolutionary processes, I thought best so to inform you, and as it were, take her off your hands. You are, I trust, too wise to attempt any interference with the immutable.” Bill Vanderhook stared at his chum for a minute, and then broke into a big, loud laugh. “Well, at least you’re candid,” he said--“more so than most fellows who find their affinities,”--and he carelessly mopped off the marble slab. “At the same time,”--and his voice roughened--“you’ll excuse me for saying that you’re off your base, and that I hold the age over your astral informant, whatever his degree of asininity.” “And you mean to say that you will not relinquish her? That you will defy the decrees of nature? That you will violate the principles of primordial biogen? That you will ignore the ‘Harmonics of Evolution?’” And Alonzo’s eyes again rested on the labels of the soda fountain. “To the first,--Nit. To the secondly, thirdly and fourthly,--Yep. Now, you get it?”--and Bill looked very tired. “O, earthy and unillumined!” murmured the pale, young enthusiast,--“would that I could but for a moment open up to your clouded understanding the mystical and unintelligible explications of one whom I, even I, acknowledge to be a deeper, more profound and more mysterious Mystic than MYSELF. “What you need, O, dense, chaotic soul, is--EX-PLI-CA-TION, Explication that will Explain. Hear me, poor groveler amid the rudimentary manifestations of matter. Harken to me ere it be too late. Hear me, O, my boyhood’s chum. Hear the words of misty meaning which have flowed in boundless streams from this modern Mystic, that Far-Off-One in Manhattan Isle. These are the words of one upon whose wisdom I feed, the words of one who KNOWS, and--and--I whisper to you in secret, one who admits that he is--a--_Mystic_. “Hear him, William--you who trifle with solemn things--you who deny these primordial, protoplasmic affinities. Hide your head in confusion. Hear him whose utterances no man can interpret. Hear him whose explications are as explicit, as limpid, as lucid, as crystalline, as clear, as the broad light of day at midnight’s holy hour. “Turn with me to our most luminous and incomprehensible text book. You will find at page numbered 288, commencing, I think, near the middle of the page, the following inspired words, viz.,-- [1]”‘The spiritual espousal, wherein humanity is united with the Lord, is not only catholic, including all the elements in a human word, but, whatever may be its heavenly consummation, is, in its earthly expression and as a visible manifestation, a limited estate, involving conditions such as attend all other espousals: on the Bride’s part a destination separating her from the Bridegroom, and in many ways seeming a contradiction of her inmost desire for Him, so that she becomes a poor starveling, a distraught and desolate Psyche, bereft of Love; and on the part of the Bridegroom a running after her, as if in answer to some great need and hunger developed in her desolation, as if He had indulged her aversion that He might follow her into her darkest hiding, standing at her door and knocking while His locks are wet with the cold dews of her night--He also having veiled His essential might and brightness lest she should be dismayed at His coming, yet retaining enough of his original majesty that she may see Him as the one altogether lovely, the wonderful.’ [Footnote 1: “A Study of Death,” by Henry Mills Alden; late editor Harper’s Magazine.] “Here in this one simple sentence of only one hundred and eighty-four short, brief, curt, compact, concise, terse, pithy, diffuse, verbose, prolix, copious, flowing, digressive, excursive, discursive, pleonastic and periphrastic words, with at least nine out of every ten of which you should be familiar, there are enough possibilities of meaning, and lack of meaning, to keep your benighted intellect busy guessing for the balance of your natural life. “But dark as is your intellectual vision, you can not fail to note the frequent occurrence of such significant words as ‘Bride,’ ‘Bridegroom,’ ‘espousal,’ ‘united,’ ‘heavenly consummation,’ ‘destination,’ ‘desolate Psyche,’ ‘Love,’ ‘indulged,’ ‘original majesty,’ ‘altogether lovely,’ and ‘wonderful.’ “You can not fail to note that in this wonderful revelation of the possibilities of a single sentence, the personal pronouns ‘He’ and ‘Him’ always begin with a capital ‘H.’ Can you further doubt that this refers to ME? Can you further protest that this union of ME and MINE is not an essential part of the great plan and purpose of the Cosmic Intelligence to whom alone I acknowledge equality? “But if, perchance, there yet remains a lingering doubt, then listen once more to this inspired Mystic; for at page 197 he says,-- “‘In the ascent of life, desire seems to compel its cosmic partner, as hunger its victim, suspending that operation of physical and chemical forces proper to them outside of this dominion of vitality; in its descent these forces more and more tend to resume their proper action, until finally they bring into their own domain the structure they have served; their hardening of the walls of life’s outward temple, begun for protection, has gone on to the extreme of fragility and destruction--an office as kindly as any they have performed.’ “And once more, O, my benighted friend, at page 185 he again says,-- “‘In this complex hierarchy of Nature discrete accords are sustained, so that they fall not into indifference and confusion; degrees of excellence are marked--of truth, beauty and goodness; individual sequestration and tranquillity are secured, and for each life a way--its own that no other can take, and yet open to accordant intimacies and correspondences; and in the psychical involvement life acquires a feeling of itself and a conscious control, the liberty of its dwelling.’ “And yet again at page 108,-- “’As these organic capacities are deepened inwardly, representing in their sphering and involution and convolution the synthetic action of cosmic envelopment from the beginning, the desire which has thus shaped itself by intussusception, expressing its postulation, is outwardly a flame of increase, ascending also while it is crescent until it reaches the culminant point of its physiological term, where it--’” “Hold up there. Close that valve a minute. Put on the lid,” roared Bill, “and tell me in the name of all specialized idiocy what you’re at. If you can’t untangle yourself with four thousand languages dead and alive, then you better go chase yourself into cosmic nebulosity. “If this is your Ex--pli--ca--tion--, and if this is your only excuse for involuting yourself into an introconvertible, double-back-action dictionary, then, says I, t’mud with your mysticism. And now hereafter, when you want to ‘explicate’ you go out to the harmless ward where they’ve got whole bunches of just such as your old Manhattan misfit mutt. “You go out there and talk to your own brand of mystics. Don’t you talk shop here. I’m in the drug business and I know a little bit about medicine, but I’ll be everlastingly lost in a cosmological fog if I’d know how to prescribe for symptoms like yours. The kind of microbes that manifest through the gray matter of a mystic are not identified in these mundane dispensatories. “Now, you hear me a minute, Mr. Alonzo Leffingwell--INEXPLICABLE mystic and all around D--P--of every old degree, you want to get right out of Kankakee and lose no time. The state of Illinois makes our city the center of only _ordinary_ aberrations; it does not provide wards for such illuminated inanities as you at this minute have been explicating. “I say, my friend, you go get some bars and lock yourself up. Go sink yourself in a tank of formaline and then will the tank to the scientific department of the institution. This, I say, would never be misunderstood by anybody who knew you. It would be a contribution to science, an aid to education, and an example to the young. And this would be the only good excuse you could ever give to society for having been on the top side of the earth.” “Unhappy trifler, you will regret your selfishness,” murmured the occultist, less in anger than sorrow. “But I have done. I leave you to your destiny. I leave you to your own conscience. This will cost you cycles of expiation. You have forfeited your possibilities. Had you resigned her in accordance with the law, all had been well. But your persistence shall react upon your own head,--and now farewell. I leave you, to return no more,--at least not this afternoon. I shall seek the lady. It rests with her. If possible I shall save her from the sad error of marrying you. I shall save her from herself. I shall lift her up to ME, and in this wise I may perhaps save her from other and very disagreeable reincarnations.” Bill Vanderhook picked his hat off the peg, carefully selected a big cigar, lighted it, took a whiff and then replied sardonically,--“Well, Mr. Dianzy Chooanzy, and suppose she won’t affin, what then?” “Then, O, then,”--lisped Lonnie as he leaned upon the show-case as if for support,--“I shall be compelled to wait through several cycles, perhaps, until she has worked out the necessary karma and attained to ME.” “But see here,” persisted Bill. “I thought that you gurus and gnanis and you astral fellows generally took the bachelor’s degree the very first inning. I thought you were clean off the market. I’ve always heard that matrimony was quite outside the mystic foul lines.” “Right,”--answered Lonnie,--“that is, as you understand mysticism, marriage is forbidden, except a gentleman discovers his very own. And even then,”--and his voice quavered,--“he must not even get engaged until she who is his in primordial biogen shall attain to an equal illumination. This frequently postpones the happy day for ages.” “Well, now, that’s a horse of another color,”--and Bill heaved a sigh of relief. “This is most likely one of those postponed cases. Anyway, I was solid up to last night, but if you don’t mind waiting a couple of thousand years I haven’t any objections,”--and the generous young druggist let fizz a glass of mineral water. “Thanks, awfully,”--murmured Lonnie, but whether for the permission or the apollinaris was not quite clear. He sipped the sparkling water with suggestive mournfulness. “Being chained to the material,” he added, “it is very possible she may even prefer you to ME. The fleshly veil which yet so thickly clothes her higher principles, may obscure ME to her inner consciousness; in which case I must temporarily resign her. I may not claim her for several brief earth lives yet. For all this I am fully prepared. And should she not cognize ME for what I AM, I shall hence to India, and there, by contemplation in the sacred cave I shall astralize. I shall return again, and keep watch over her.” “Well, well, well,--that’s quite an idea, isn’t it!”--responded Bill. “No,”--as Lonnie felt in his vest pocket--tentatively,--“it’s my treat. The plan you mention isn’t more’n half bad--kind o’ lets us all out without any hard feelings. I know it will suit Imogene to a T. Come back from India any time--in the astral. You’ll find the latch-string out.” “You forget,” returned the Mystic mildly, even sadly, “that ONE--WHO--KNOWS requires neither latch-string nor pass key. “Such an one, as I AM--TO--BECOME, neither asks admission nor visits by invitation. These are they who function in the Universal and whose atomic particles respond to the WILL. These are they whose levitations are uncircumscribed, who moveth by Desire and where they listeth. If I go shall I return again? And if so, from whence and for why? And who shall let me in? Aha! Ah-ha!” Saying which the wise man of Kankakee turned, went softly out the door and gliding down Asylum Avenue sought the abode of the fascinating Typewriter. A Maiden so fair and a Guru so slight Conversed as they sat on the green: Alonzo the Seer was the name of the wight, And the maid was the Fair Imogene.