I watched his stately figure disappear in the shadow of the passage leading to his own study, and then I hastened to Zara's room. The musical episode in the chapel had certainly startled me, and the words of Heliobas were full of mysterious meaning; but, strange to say, I was in no way rendered anxious or alarmed by the prospect I had before me of being "lifted up," as my physician had expressed it. I thought of Raffaello Cellini and his history, and I determined within myself that no cowardly hesitation or fear should prevent me from making the attempt to see what he professed to have seen. I found Zara reading. She looked up as I entered, and greeted me with her usual bright smile.
"You have had a long practice," she began; "I thought you were never coming."
I sat down beside her, and related at once all that had happened to me that afternoon. Zara listened with deep and almost breathless interest.
"You are quite resolved," she said, when I had concluded, "to let Casimir exert his force upon you?"
"I am quite resolved," I answered.
"And you have no fear?"
"None that I am just now conscious of."
Zara's eyes became darker and deeper in the gravity of her intense meditation. At last she said: "I can help you to keep your courage firmly to the point, by letting you know at once what Casimir will do to you. Beyond that I cannot go. You understand the nature of an electric shock?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Well, there are different kinds of electric shocks--some that are remedial, some that are fatal. There are cures performed by a careful use of the electric battery--again, people are struck dead by lightning, which is the fatal result of electric force. But all this is EXTERNAL electricity; now what Casimir will use on you will be INTERNAL electricity."
I begged her to explain more clearly. She went on: "You have internally a certain amount of electricity, which has been increased recently by the remedies prescribed for you by Casimir. But, however much you have, Casimir has more, and he will exert his force over your force, the greater over the lesser. You will experience an INTERNAL electric shock, which, like a sword, will separate in twain body and spirit. The spiritual part of you will be lifted up above material forces; the bodily part will remain inert and useless, till the life, which is actually YOU, returns to put its machinery in motion once more."