Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/220

With a wealth of deep, radiant conviction, this former existence, blending with his life of might-have-been, poured into his brain. His brain inflamed his heart. His thoughts softened; they trembled like a wavering line of music in a night-blue wind of spring. The fringe of his inner consciousness stretched far and out, away to the stars and the high winds, into a great and sweet freedom.

He smoked again.

He became conscious of something like a rain of summer flowers. The feet of his soul were walking down the path of some tremendous, dazzling verity. The facts of the outer world touched him no longer with their hard, cutting edges. These facts were untrue; they were not; they were only the lying thoughts of the lying, lesser gods.

The poppy fumes whirled up, wreathing everything in floating vapors. They darkened the air with a solid, bloating shadow. The room disappeared. Disappeared his host.

He saw again the outside of the house, the tilted, pagoda roof shimmering like a gigantic peacock; saw again the three violet lanterns above the door.

He was now walking away from the house, but he turned and saw that the inscriptions on the three fluttering streamers had changed once more.

The first read: "Love—like moon-born clouds casting their tremulous shadows over stairs of rose-red jade!" The second: "Love—like little ghosts of May-time ruffling the river of heart's desire!" The third: "Love—like a hidden lute softly lilting behind a silken alcove!"

So he strolled away, beneath a vaulted night, subtly perfumed, secret, mystical, netted in delicate silver