In the living room the chants have grown increasingly urgent and the now naked forms of Paul and Mae are upon the alter.
The old woman turns Jude back again to see the forest changed to an Elysian admixture of diffuse light and clamouring darkness. Both the chariot and the Lady remain in his view. But now also appear within earshot to his right, Mae and Paul, standing before the cold visage of the shade of a woman.
“I have come here mother, by the order of your god. I now pass through these shadows with the consort of your choosing. It is me, mother, and not Caul who is fulfilling your purpose. Caul has abandoned us. He has gone the way of the church.”
The impassive shock wrenching at his mother’s face spurs Paul on.
“Bless me, mother. Please.”
Paul’s pleading moves her marble visage not, but fills her eyes with anger that blaze rejection and ferocity at Paul. Then the woman flings herself away, melting into the shadowy grove, leaving open the wound that Paul desired healed.
Jude watches now as Paul, ashen and grieved, moves forward slowly with Mae towards where the glorious chariot stands alongside a large tree, barren and waste. Whereat the brazen feet of the son of Man, eyes blazing fire, move from the chariot to bind it to the tree, the boughs in return blossoming suddenly to life, leaves and flowers ornamenting its wintry branches. Then placing before the tree the seven-branched lampstand, He speaks with sounds of rushing waters.
“Behold I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever. And I hold the keys of Death and Hades.”
With that, around him the four creatures, the throng of elders and the multitude burst upon a holy song, its melody swelling, as upward rises the train following the ascending Christ. But brightness forbids Jude from watching, causing him to cast himself again upon the ground to hide from its intensity until it subsides. Then looking up he finds the Lady alone by the vegetated tree, a guard over the chariot and warder of the seven lampstands.
Paul and Mae enter the dark-groved paradise surrounding the fresh-blossomed tree, its trunk tied by wainscot and crossbar to the chariot. Yet while they see the chariot and tree, the Lady stands blind to them, she hiding Jude in her power. Before them rather lie Hades Elysian Fields peopled now with the shades of many, the timbre of Orphic song at play in the air. Then rises the shade of a gaunt man seated beneath the boughs of the tree to approach the newcomers.
“Ah my son, long have I been expecting you.”
Paul falters briefly in his step. Mae looks on undaunted.
“We seek Dionysus.”
Paul’s father looks at her equally unmoved, returning his hollow gaze to Paul.
“Waiting I have been under the boughs of this tree for your betrayal which was loyalty to bring you to me. Like Aeneas finding Anchises you are, fleeing from a sacked Troy seeking blessing of a future Rome.”
He turns towards the tree. “Do you see this chariot tied here to this tree? This is Church tied by the Cross to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
Then the old man looks suddenly skywards. “Do you see yonder eagle descending rapidly from the heavens? That is Rome’s Eagle descending, growing steadily from Aeneas’ line.”
With a foul swoop, the gryphon-sized eagle, talons outstretched, attacks the anchoring wain, reeling the chariot from one side to the other, shaking it with violence, only to then swoop up upon the chariot’s ark and there feather its nest.
The shade of Paul’s father turns back to them.
“In just such a way the line of Aeneas has ensured its glory—sitting upon the church, and subduing it until the time of its destruction. And like a beast, the power of Rome has been growing.”
The earth beneath the wheels of the chariot is suddenly rent as an earthquake upheaves the ground, and there rising from the vault of the earth, a dragon rises to splinter the floor of the chariot to climb upon it and there rest with its seven heads, each one seeking to douse with breathed fire the lamps of the candelabrum. And upon its back, like a strong city, a woman rises, drinking the blood of those perished for the cause of the church.
“Do you see this whore?”
Paul’s father points her out with disgust.
“She, who is like your mother, and who is like the girl with which you used to consort, but have grown to hate, she has made free with the kings of the earth, growing rich from their adulteries with her. So strong she has grown that she has tried to wrest dominion from the dragon upon which she sits.”
The shade’s face wrings in pained displeasure before pointing his finger towards the beast.
“But look, the ten horns that grow from the seven heads—one who will be like you, and three who will be as those who will follow you—these ten horns and the beast will hate the woman and bring her to ruin, just as you have left your consort to be stripped naked for her flesh to be eaten and burnt with fire.”
The shade of his father looks proudly upon Paul.
“You have done well my son, usurping from your mother’s kind what she was trying to steal from the dragon that feeds her. She had planned for Caul to consort with with this woman here, and bring upon the world a child she could sacrifice for her own dominion.”
The shade’s face is now beaming, his forefinger attempting to tap the breast of his son.
“But you Paul, you have broken the line. You did well when you prayed to have us killed. And with this woman you shall consort to bring about the dragon’s desired son, so that the overthrow of this harlot can be complete.”
The old man now takes a step forward and tries to embrace a slowly awakening Paul, but there is nothing the incorporeal shade can do.
“Now join in spirit with Dionysus son. Let sublime beauty clothe chthronic darkness and bring them to union in this woman. Live no longer in anguish of your guilt for me or your mother, or in envy of your brother but go forward and fight that battles that will come your way in wresting Rome away from the whore.”
Paul is taken then in spirit before which Mae bows and finally acquiesces. And beneath the bows of the tree in the presence of the chimerical dragon, they come together in union. Paul’s father looks on until they are done.
“Now take this woman along past the tree to where you’ll find the ivory gate—the gate to release you from this trance, and return to your world.”
As Paul with Mae, pass by beyond the tree, the vision before Jude disappears and the Lady returns to view. She looks with direct terseness at Jude, and then simply turns on her heel. Having gone about ten paces, she stops and casts a piercing look back at him.
“Follow me, so that I might talk with you.”
Jude, split through with fear, scrambles up from his prone position, moving forward to join her. They continue in silence for a while, before she starts speaking again.
“You are full of fear and shame and you quail before the vision you saw. But I would have you aware that the dragon which you saw, will rise, but go to its destruction. Not always will the chariot of the Church suffer the beast’s seven-headed attack upon the churches. But even as I am prophesying, so God’s Divine Justice will be met upon those who, along with the dragon and its whore, pillaged the Cross that binds the Church to this tree; who made its Truth the desire of their own vain conceits.”
She says nothing for a moment, allowing a scene of a flowing river beyond the thick foliage of the grove to become clear to Jude’s eyes.
“But as for you, you have followed along this path, and by God’s grace been brought thus far through Lethe’s repenting waters, despite the salt-encrusted darkness of your doubt. What say you for yourself?”
Ahead by the shadowy shore of the river, Jude sees the old woman that led him across Lethe standing alone as if waiting his approach. Looking at the Lady, Jude can merely whisper.
“If I have failed to give hope. If I have failed to suffer for Christ’s name. If I have failed to control the sloth of my sinful nature. From these things I have repented and have now within me the peace that passes understanding, knowing that I am hid in the fire that makes men fair.”
The Lady then simply smiles.
“Then go now forward and meet the one who will lead you into the still deep waters that will refresh your body eternally, preparing it to mount from star to star.”
So going forward, Jude meets the old woman by the bank, who takes his hand, and leads him into the still depths.