The Wake World

My name is Lola, because I am the Key of Delights, and the other children in my dream call me Lola Daydream. When I am awake, you see, I know that I am dreaming, so that they must be very silly children, don't you think? There are people in the dream, too, who are quite grown up and horrid; but the really important thing is the wake-up person. There is only one, for there could never be any one like him. I call him my Fairy Prince. He rides a horse with beautiful wings like a swan, or sometimes a strange creature like a lion or a bull, with a woman's face and breasts, and she has unfathomable eyes.

My Fairy Prince is a dark boy, very comely; I think every one must love him, and yet every one is afraid. He looks through one just as if one had no clothes on in the Garden of God, and he had made one, and one could do nothing except in the mirror of his mind. He never laughs or frowns or smiles; because, whatever he sees, he sees what is beyond as well, and so nothing ever happens. His mouth is redder than any roses you ever saw. I wake up quite when we kiss each other, and there is no dream any more. But when it is not trembling on mine, I see kisses on his lips, as if he were kissing some one that one could not see.

Now you must know that my Fairy Prince is my lover, and one day he will come for good and ride away with me and marry me. I shan't tell you his name because it is too beautiful. It is a great secret between us. When we were engaged he gave me such a beautiful ring.

It was like this. First there was his shield, which had a sun on it and some roses, all on a kind of bar; and there was a terrible number written on it. There was a bank of soft roses with the sun shining on it, and above there was a red rose on a golden cross, and then there was a three-cornered star, shining so bright that nobody could possibly look at it unless they had love in their eyes; and in the middle was an eye without an eyelid. That could see anything, I should think, but you see it could never go to sleep, because there wasn't any eyelid. On the sides were written I.N.R.I. and T.A.R.O., which mean many strange and beautiful things, and terrible things too. I should think any one would be afraid to hurt any one who wore that ring. It is all cut out of amethyst, and my Fairy Prince said: "Whenever you want me, look into the ring and call me ever so softly by my name, and kiss the ring, and worship it, and then look ever so deeply into it, and I will come to you." So I made up a pretty poem to say every time I woke up, for you see I am a very sleepy girl, and dream ever so much about the other children; and that is a pity, because there is only one thing I love, and that is my Fairy Prince. So this is the poem I did to worship the ring, part is words, and part is pictures. You must pick out what the pictures mean, and then it all makes poetry.

THE INVOCATION OF THE RING

Adonai! Thou inmost Δ, Self-glittering image of my soul, Strong lover to thy Bride's desire, Call me and claim me and control! I pray Thee keep the holy tryst Within this ring of Amethyst.

For on mine eyes the golden   Hath dawned; my vigil slew the night. I saw the image of the One: I came from darkness into L.V.X. I pray Thee keep the holy tryst Within this ring of Amethyst.

I.N.R.I — me crucified, Me slain, interred, arisen, inspire! T.A.R.O. — me glorified, Anointed, fill with frenzied Δ! I pray Thee keep the holy tryst Within this ring of Amethyst.

I eat my flesh: I drink my blood I gird my loins: I journey far: For thou hast shown Ο, +, ע‎, 777, καμήλον, I pray Thee keep the holy tryst Within this ring of Amethyst.

Prostrate I wait upon Thy will, Mine Angel, for this grace of union. O let this sacrament distil Thy conversation and communion. I pray Thee keep the holy tryst Within this ring of Amethyst.

I have not told you anything about myself, because it doesn't really matter; the only thing I want to tell you about is my Fairy Prince. But as I am telling you all this, I am seventeen years old and very fair when you shut your eyes to look; but when you open them, I am really dark, with fair skin. I have ever-such heaps of hair, and big, big, round eyes, always wondering at everything. Never mind, it's only a nuisance. I shall tell you what happened one day when I said the poem to the ring. I wasn't really quite awake when I began, but as I said it, it got brighter and brighter, and when I came to "ring of Amethyst" the fifth time (there are five verses, because my lover's name has five V's in it), he galloped across the beautiful green sunset, spurring the winged horse, till the blood made all the sky turn rosy red. So he caught me up and set me on his horse, and I clung to his neck as we galloped into the night. Then he told me he would take me to his Palace and show me everything, and one day when we were married I should be mistress of it all. Then I wanted to be married to him at once, and then I saw it couldn't be, because I was so sleepy and had bad dreams, and one couldn't be a good wife if one is always doing that sort of thing. But he said I would be older one day, and not sleep so much, and every one slept a little, but the great thing was not to be lazy and contented with the dreams, so I mean to fight hard.

By and by we came to a beautiful green place with the strangest house you ever saw. Round the big meadow there lay a wonderful snake, with steel gray plumes, and he had his tail in his mouth, and kept on eating it and eating it, because there was nothing else for it to eat, and my Fairy Prince said he would go on like that till there was nothing left at all. Then I said it would get smaller and smaller and crush the meadow and the palace, and I think perhaps I began to cry. But my Fairy Prince said: "don't be such a silly!" and I wasn't old enough to understand all that it meant, but one day I should and all one had to do was to be as glad as glad. So he kissed me, and we got off the horse, and he took me to the door of the house, and we went in. It was frightfully dark in the passage, and I felt tied so that I couldn't move, so I promised to myself to love him, and he kissed me. It was dreadfully, dreadfully dark though, but he said not to be afraid, silly! And it's getting lighter, now keep straight forward, darling! And then he kissed me again, and said: "Welcome to my Palace!"

I will tell you all about how it was built, because it is the most beautiful Palace that ever was. On the sunset side were all the baths, and the bedrooms were in front of us as we were. The baths were all of pale olive-coloured marble, and the bedrooms had lemon-coloured everything. Then there were the kitchens on the sunrise side, and they were russet, like dead leaves are in autumn in one's dreams. The place we had come through was perfectly black everything, and only used for offices and such things. There were the most horrid things everywhere about; black beetles and cockroaches, and goodness knows what; but they can't hurt when the Fairy Prince is there. I think a little girl would be eaten though if she went in there alone.

Then he said: "Come on! This is only the servants' hall, nearly everybody stays here all their lives." And I said: "Kiss me!" So he said: "Every step you take is only possible when you say that." We came to a dreadful dark passage again, so narrow and low, that it was like a dirty old tunnel, and yet so vast and wide that everything in the whole world was contained in it. We saw all the strange dreams and awful shapes of fear, and really I don't know how we ever got through, except that the Prince called for some splendid strong creatures to guard us. There was an eagle that flew, and beat his wings, and tore and bit at everything that came near; and there was a lion that roared terribly, and his breath was a flame, and burnt up the things, so that there was a great cloud; and rain fell gently and purely, so that he really did the things good by fighting them. And there was a bull that tossed them on his horns, so that they changed into butterflies; and there was a man that kept telling everybody to be quiet and not make a noise. So we came at last in the next house of the Palace. It was a great dome of violet, and in the centre the moon shone. She was a full moon, and yet she looked like a woman quite, quite young. Yet her hair was silver, and finer than spiders' webs, and it rayed about her, like one can't say what; it was all too beautiful. In the middle of the hall there was a black stone pillar, from the top of which sprang a fountain of pearls; and as they fell upon the floor, they changed the dark marble to the colour of blood, and it was like a green universe of flowers, and little children playing among them. So I said: "Shall we be married in this House?" and he said: "No, this is only the House where the business is carried on. All the Palace rests upon this House; but you are called Lola because you are the Key of Delights. Many people stay here all there lives though." I made him kiss me, and we went on to another passage which opened out of the Servants' Hall. This passage was all fire and flames and full of coffins. There was an angel blowing on a trumpet, and people getting out of the coffins. My Fairy Prince said: "Most people never wake up for anything less." So we went (at the same time it was; you see in dreams people can only be in one place at a time; that's the best of being awake) through another passage, which was lighted by the Sun. Yet there were fairies dancing in a green ring, just as if it was night. And there were two children playing by the wall, and my Fairy Prince and I played as we went; and he said: "The difference is that we are going through. Most people play without a purpose; if you are travelling it is all right, and play makes the journey seem short." Then we came out into the Third (or Eighth, it depends which way you count them, because there are ten) House, and that was so splendid you can't imagine. In the first place it was a bright, bright, bright orange colour, and then it had flashes of light all over it, going so fast we couldn't see them, and then there was the sound of the sea and one could look through into the deep, and there was the ocean raging beneath one's feet, and strong dolphins riding on it and crying aloud, "Holy! Holy! Holy!" in such an ecstasy you can't think, and rolling and playing for sheer joy. It was all lighted by a tiny, weeny, shy little planet, sparkling and silvery, and now and then then a wave of fiery chariots filled with eager spearmen blazed through the sky, and my Fairy Prince said: "Isn't it all fine?" But I knew he didn't really mean it, so I said: "Kiss me!" and he kissed me, and we went on. He said: "Good little girl of mine, there's many a one stays there all his life." I forgot to say that the whole place was just one mass of books, and people reading them till they were so silly, they didn't know what they were doing. And there were cheats, and doctors, and thieves; I was really very glad to go away.

There were three ways into the Seventh House, and the first was such a funny way. We walked through a pool, each on the arm of a great big Beetle, and then we found ourselves on a winding path. There were nasty Jackals about, they made such a noise, and at the end I could see two towers. Then there was the queerest moon you ever saw, only a quarter full. The shadows fell so strangely, one could see the mysterious shapes, like great bats with women's faces, and blood dripping from their mouths, and creatures partly wolves and partly men, everything changing one into the other. And we saw shadows like old, old, ugly women, creeping about on sticks, and all of a sudden they would fly up into the air, shrieking the funniest kind of songs, and then suddenly one would come down flop, and you saw she was really quite young and ever so lovely, and she would have nothing on, and as you looked at her she would crumble away like a biscuit. Then there was another passage which was really too secret for anything; all I shall tell you is, there was the most beautiful Goddess that ever was, and she was washing herself in a river of dew. If you ask what she is doing, she says: "I'm making thunderbolts." It was only starlight, and yet one could see quite clearly, so don't think I'm making a mistake. The third path is a most terrible passage; it's all a great war, and there's earthquakes and chariots of fire, and all the castles breaking to pieces. I was glad when we came to the Green Palace.

It was all built of malachite and emerald, and there was the loveliest gentlest living, and I was married to my Fairy Prince there, and we had the most delicious honeymoon, and I had a beautiful baby, and then I remembered myself, but only just in time, and said: "Kiss me!" And he kissed me and said: "My goodness! But that was a near thing that time; my little girl nearly went to sleep. Most people who reach the Seventh House stay there all their lives, I can tell you."

It did seem a shame to go on; there was such a flashing green star to light it, and all the air was filled with amber-coloured flames like kisses. And we could see through the floor, and there were terrible lions, like furnaces for fury, and they all roared out: "Holy! Holy! Holy!" and leaped and danced for joy. And when I saw myself in the mirrors, the dome was one mass of beautiful green mirrors, I saw how serious I looked, and that I had to go on. I hoped the Fairy Prince would look serious too, because it is a most dreadful business going beyond the Seventh House; but he only looked the same as ever. But oh! How I kissed him, and how I clung to him, or I think I should never , never have had the courage to go up those dreadful passages, especially knowing what was at the end of them. And now I'm only a little girl, and I'm ever so tired of writing, but I'll tell you all about the rest another time.