Shadows of Ecstasy by Charles Williams Page A

consummate flesh that held it. Philip remembered Rosamond’s thrice-significant body, and yet this body was more significant even than Rosamond’s, for here there arose no lovely and mournful mist of unformulated desire. And Roger’s mind, but half-consciously, sought to recall some great verbal wonder that should serve to express this wonder, and failed. Sir Bernard’s scepticism, forbidding incredulity, left him to savour the full possession of an unrivalled and exquisite experience. Only the Zulu king sat with his head on his hand and showed no knowledge of the talk that proclaimed immortality present in the shape of a man.
    The minutes seemed to pass as the others gazed, yet they did not seem minutes, for time was lost. Nearer than ever before in their lives to a sense of abandoned discipleship, the two young men trembled before one who might be their predestined lord. It was Sir Bernard’s voice that broke the stillness.
    â€œAnd this other thing?” he said. “What else is there you foresee?”
    Considine smiled once more. “This is only a part,” he said. “Because I live, men shall live also. But they shall do greater works than I, or perhaps I shall do them—I do not know. To live on—that is well. To live on by the power not of food and drink but of the imagination itself recalling into itself all the powers of desire—that is well too. But to die and live again—that remains to be done, and will be done. The spirit of a man shall go out from his body and return into his body and revivify it. It may be done any day; perhaps one of you shall do it. There have been some who tried it, and though they have failed and are dead we know they were pioneers of man’s certain empire. It is what your Christ announced—it is the formula of man divinized—‘a little while and I am not with you, and again a little while and I am with you’. He was the herald of the first conqueror of death.”
    There came at the door one of those discreet knocks, and a gentleman-in-waiting went lightly and returned to murmur a message. Considine listened and looked at his guests; then he added, ending what he had been saying, “and I will show you the intention that shall, one day, succeed.”
    He murmured a few words to his servant who returned to the door and went out. Considine looked round the table and rose. “Let’s go into the other room for our coffee and perhaps you’ll be indulgent to me,” he said. “I generally have music played after dinner—can you listen for a few minutes without being bored?”
    They murmured assurances, and stood up, following him as he moved from the room and on to another door which a servant opened for them. It was a long high room into which they came (to judge from the proportions visible), but a part of it was cut off by hanging curtains of an extraordinarily deep blue, a blue so deep that though it had not the blaze it had the richness of sapphire. Sir Bernard exclaimed when he saw it, and Considine said to him, “You see my travels also have not been in vain.”
    â€œWhere did you find this, then?” Sir Bernard said. “It beats the best stained glass I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œIt was woven for me once,” Considine answered, “in a village where they see colour as well as St. John saw it in his vision. Sit down here, won’t you?”
    There were a group of comfortable chairs at the end of the room farthest from the curtains, and to these the visitors were, half-ceremonially, ushered. The gentleman in attendance offered cigars and cigarettes to all but Considine; when they were settled, he went over to the curtains and at a nod from his master drew them a little back. Beyond, through the opening, they could glimpse similar panelled walls to those between which they sat. Sir Bernard could see at the farther end of the room a group of figures, a cello, and