The Equinox (Volume I, Number I)

THE EQUINOX “ «Speak; I am rich,’ “* Every Good Friday,’ said the adept, ‘take thirty silver crowns and offer them to the Hospital for the Insane.’ “Tt shall be done,’ I said. “« Swear, then,’ he went on, ‘swear, then, here to me’—he rose, terrible and menacing—‘ by Him that sitteth upon the Holy Throne and liveth and reigneth for ever and ever, that never again, neither to save life, nor to retain honour, wilt thou set foot in the Street of the Four Winds ; so long as life shall last.’ “Even as he bade me, I rose with lifted hand and swore. “As I did so there resounded in the room ten sharp knocks, as of ivory on wood, in a certain peculiar cadence. “This was but the first of a very large number of inter- views. I sought, indeed, steadfastly to learn from him the occult wisdom of which he was a master; but, though he supplied me with all conceivable channels of knowledge— books, manuscripts, papyri—yet all these were lifeless; the currents of living water flowed not through them. Should one say that the master withheld initiation, or that the pupil failed to obtain it? “But at least time abated the monomania—for I know now that my whole adventure was but a very vivid dream, an insanity of adolescence. At this moment I would not like to say at what point exactly in the story fact and dream touch ; I have still the sword and dagger. Is it possible that in a trance I actually went through some other series of adventures than that I am conscious of? May not Jean have been a thief, whom I dispossessed of his booty? Had I done this 128