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+Project Gutenberg's The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories, by L. Adams Beck
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories
+
+Author: L. Adams Beck
+
+Release Date: August, 1999  [Etext #1853]
+Posting Date: November 18, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NINTH VIBRATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NINTH VIBRATION AND OTHER STORIES
+
+By L. Adams Beck
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+     THE NINTH VIBRATION
+
+     THE INTERPRETER A ROMANCE OF THE EAST
+
+     THE INCOMPARABLE LADY A STORY OF CHINA WITH A MORAL
+
+     THE HATRED OF THE QUEEN A STORY OF BURMA
+
+     FIRE OF BEAUTY
+
+     THE BUILDING OF THE TAJ MAHAL
+
+     "HOW GREAT IS THE GLORY OF KWANNON!"
+
+     "THE ROUND-FACED BEAUTY"
+
+
+
+
+THE NINTH VIBRATION
+
+There is a place uplifted nine thousand feet in purest air where one
+of the most ancient tracks in the world runs from India into Tibet.
+It leaves Simla of the Imperial councils by a stately road; it passes
+beyond, but now narrowing, climbing higher beside the khuds or steep
+drops to the precipitous valleys beneath, and the rumor of Simla grows
+distant and the way is quiet, for, owing to the danger of driving horses
+above the khuds, such baggage as you own must be carried by coolies, and
+you yourself must either ride on horseback or in the little horseless
+carriage of the Orient, here drawn and pushed by four men. And presently
+the deodars darken the way with a solemn presence, for--
+
+  "These are the Friars of the wood,
+  The Brethren of the Solitude
+  Hooded and grave--"
+
+their breath most austerely pure in the gradually chilling air. Their
+companies increase and now the way is through a great wood where it
+has become a trail and no more, and still it climbs for many miles and
+finally a rambling bungalow, small and low, is sighted in the deeps of
+the trees, a mountain stream from unknown heights falling beside it. And
+this is known as the House in the Woods. Very few people are permitted
+to go there, for the owner has no care for money and makes no provision
+for guests. You must take your own servant and the khansamah will cook
+you such simple food as men expect in the wilds, and that is all. You
+stay as long as you please and when you leave not even a gift to the
+khansamah is permitted.
+
+I had been staying in Ranipur of the plains while I considered the
+question of getting to Upper Kashmir by the route from Simla along the
+old way to Chinese Tibet where I would touch Shipki in the Dalai
+Lama's territory and then pass on to Zanskar and so down to Kashmir--a
+tremendous route through the Himalaya and a crowning experience of
+the mightiest mountain scenery in the world. I was at Ranipur for the
+purpose of consulting my old friend Olesen, now an irrigation official
+in the Rampur district--a man who had made this journey and nearly lost
+his life in doing it. It is not now perhaps so dangerous as it was, and
+my life was of no particular value to any one but myself, and the plan
+interested me.
+
+I pass over the long discussions of ways and means in the blinding heat
+of Ranipur. Olesen put all his knowledge at my service and never uttered
+a word of the envy that must have filled him as he looked at the
+distant snows cool and luminous in blue air, and, shrugging good-natured
+shoulders, spoke of the work that lay before him on the burning
+plains until the terrible summer should drag itself to a close. We had
+vanquished the details and were smoking in comparative silence one night
+on the veranda, when he said in his slow reflective way;
+
+"You don't like the average hotel, Ormond, and you'll like it still less
+up Simla way with all the Simla crowd of grass-widows and fellows out
+for as good a time as they can cram into the hot weather. I wonder if I
+could get you a permit for The House in the Woods while you re waiting
+to fix up your men and route for Shipki."
+
+He explained and of course I jumped at the chance. It belonged, he said,
+to a man named Rup Singh, a pandit, or learned man of Ranipur. He had
+always spent the summer there, but age and failing health made this
+impossible now, and under certain conditions he would occasionally allow
+people known to friends of his own to put up there.
+
+"And Rup Singh and I are very good friends," Olesen said; "I won his
+heart by discovering the lost Sukh Mandir, or Hall of Pleasure, built
+many centuries ago by a Maharao of Ranipur for a summer retreat in the
+great woods far beyond Simla. There are lots of legends about it here in
+Ranipur. They call it The House of Beauty. Rup Singh's ancestor had been
+a close friend of the Maharao and was with him to the end, and that's
+why he himself sets such store on the place. You have a good chance if I
+ask for a permit.
+
+"He told me the story and since it is the heart of my own I give it
+briefly. Many centuries ago the Ranipur Kingdom was ruled by the Maharao
+Rai Singh a prince of the great lunar house of the Rajputs. Expecting
+a bride from some far away kingdom (the name of this is unrecorded)
+he built the Hall of Pleasure as a summer palace, a house of rare and
+costly beauty. A certain great chamber he lined with carved figures of
+the Gods and their stories, almost unsurpassed for truth and life. So,
+with the pine trees whispering about it the secret they sigh to tell,
+he hoped to create an earthly Paradise with this Queen in whom all
+loveliness was perfected. And then some mysterious tragedy ended all
+his hopes. It was rumoured that when the Princess came to his court,
+she was, by some terrible mistake, received with insult and offered the
+position only of one of his women. After that nothing was known. Certain
+only is it that he fled to the hills, to the home of his broken hope,
+and there ended his days in solitude, save for the attendance of two
+faithful friends who would not abandon him even in the ghostly quiet of
+the winter when the pine boughs were heavy with snow and a spectral moon
+stared at the panthers shuffling through the white wastes beneath. Of
+these two Rup Singh's ancestor was one. And in his thirty fifth year
+the Maharao died and his beauty and strength passed into legend and his
+kingdom was taken by another and the jungle crept silently over his Hall
+of Pleasure and the story ended.
+
+"There was not a memory of the place up there," Olesen went on.
+"Certainly I never heard anything of it when I went up to the Shipki
+in 1904. But I had been able to be useful to Rup Singh and he gave me a
+permit for The House in the Woods, and I stopped there for a few days'
+shooting. I remember that day so well. I was wandering in the dense
+woods while my men got their midday grub, and I missed the trail somehow
+and found myself in a part where the trees were dark and thick and the
+silence heavy as lead. It was as if the trees were on guard--they stood
+shoulder to shoulder and stopped the way. Well, I halted, and had a
+notion there was something beyond that made me doubt whether to go on.
+I must have stood there five minutes hesitating. Then I pushed on,
+bruising the thick ferns under my shooting boots and stooping under the
+knotted boughs. Suddenly I tramped out of the jungle into a clearing,
+and lo and behold a ruined House, with blocks of marble lying all about
+it, and carved pillars and a great roof all being slowly smothered
+by the jungle. The weirdest thing you ever saw. I climbed some fallen
+columns to get a better look, and as I did I saw a face flash by at the
+arch of a broken window. I sang out in Hindustani, but no answer: only
+the echo from the woods. Somehow that dampened my ardour, and I didn't
+go in to what seemed like a great ruined hall for the place was so
+eerie and lonely, and looked mighty snaky into the bargain. So I came
+ingloriously away and told Rup Singh. And his whole face changed. 'That
+is The House of Beauty,' he said. 'All my life have I sought it and in
+vain. For, friend of my soul, a man must lose himself that he may find
+himself and what lies beyond, and the trodden path has ever been my
+doom. And you who have not sought have seen. Most strange are the way
+of the Gods'. Later on I knew this was why he had always gone up yearly,
+thinking and dreaming God knows what. He and I tried for the place
+together, but in vain and the whole thing is like a dream. Twice he has
+let friends of mine stay at The House in the Woods, and I think he won't
+refuse now."
+
+"Did he ever tell you the story?"
+
+"Never. I only know what I've picked up here. Some horrible mistake
+about the Rani that drove the man almost mad with remorse. I've heard
+bits here and there. There's nothing so vital as tradition in India."
+
+"I wonder'. what really happened."
+
+"That we shall never know. I got a little old picture of the
+Maharao--said to be painted by a Pahari artist. It's not likely to be
+authentic, but you never can tell. A Brahman sold it to me that he might
+complete his daughter's dowry, and hated doing it."
+
+"May I see it?"
+
+"Why certainly. Not a very good light, but--can do," as the Chinks say.
+
+He brought it out rolled in silk stuff and I carried it under the
+hanging lamp. A beautiful young man indeed, with the air of race
+these people have beyond all others;--a cold haughty face, immovably
+dignified. He sat with his hands resting lightly on the arms of his
+chair of State. A crescent of rubies clasped the folds of the turban and
+from this sprang an aigrette scattering splendours. The magnificent hilt
+of a sword was ready beside him. The face was not only beautiful but
+arresting.
+
+"A strange picture," I said. "The artist has captured the man himself.
+I can see him trampling on any one who opposed him, and suffering in the
+same cold secret way. It ought to be authentic if it isn't. Don't you
+know any more?"
+
+"Nothing. Well--to bed, and tomorrow I'll see Rup Singh."
+
+I was glad when he returned with the permission. I was to be very
+careful, he said, to make no allusion to the lost palace, for two women
+were staying at the House in the Woods--a mother and daughter to whom
+Rup Singh had granted hospitality because of an obligation he must
+honor. But with true Oriental distrust of women he had thought fit to
+make no confidence to them. I promised and asked Olesen if he knew them.
+
+"Slightly. Canadians of Danish blood like my own. Their name is Ingmar.
+Some people think the daughter good-looking. The mother is supposed
+to be clever; keen on occult subjects which she came back to India to
+study. The husband was a great naturalist and the kindest of men. He
+almost lived in the jungle and the natives had all sorts of rumours
+about his powers. You know what they are. They said the birds and beasts
+followed him about. Any old thing starts a legend."
+
+"What was the connection with Rup Singh?"
+
+"He was in difficulties and undeservedly, and Ingmar generously lent
+him money at a critical time, trusting to his honour for repayment. Like
+most Orientals he never forgets a good turn and would do anything for
+any of the family--except trust the women with any secret he valued. The
+father is long dead. By the way Rup Singh gave me a queer message for
+you. He said; 'Tell the Sahib these words--"Let him who finds water in
+the desert share his cup with him who dies of thirst." He is certainly
+getting very old. I don't suppose he knew himself what he meant."
+
+I certainly did not. However my way was thus smoothed for me and I took
+the upward road, leaving Olesen to the long ungrateful toil of the man
+who devotes his life to India without sufficient time or knowledge to
+make his way to the inner chambers of her beauty. There is no harder
+mistress unless you hold the pass-key to her mysteries, there is none of
+whom so little can be told in words but who kindles so deep a passion.
+Necessity sometimes takes me from that enchanted land, but when the
+latest dawns are shining in my skies I shall make my feeble way back to
+her and die at her worshipped feet. So I went up from Kalka.
+
+I have never liked Simla. It is beautiful enough--eight thousand feet
+up in the grip of the great hills looking toward the snows, the famous
+summer home of the Indian Government. Much diplomacy is whispered
+on Observatory Hill and many are the lighter diversions of which Mr.
+Kipling and lesser men have written. But Simla is also a gateway to many
+things--to the mighty deodar forests that clothe the foot-hills of the
+mountains, to Kulu, to the eternal snows, to the old, old bridle way
+that leads up to the Shipki Pass and the mysteries of Tibet--and to the
+strange things told in this story. So I passed through with scarcely a
+glance at the busy gayety of the little streets and the tiny shops
+where the pretty ladies buy their rouge and powder. I was attended by
+my servant Ali Khan, a Mohammedan from Nagpur, sent up with me by Olesen
+with strong recommendation. He was a stout walker, so too am I, and an
+inveterate dislike to the man-drawn carriage whenever my own legs would
+serve me decided me to walk the sixteen miles to the House in the Woods,
+sending on the baggage. Ali Khan despatched it and prepared to follow
+me, the fine cool air of the hills giving us a zest.
+
+"Subhan Alla! (Praise be to God!) the air is sweet!" he said, stepping
+out behind me. "What time does the Sahib look to reach the House?"
+
+"About five or six. Now, Ali Khan, strike out of the road. You know the
+way."
+
+So we struck up into the glorious pine woods, mountains all about us.
+Here and there as we climbed higher was a little bank of forgotten
+snow, but spring had triumphed and everywhere was the waving grace of
+maiden-hair ferns, banks of violets and strangely beautiful little wild
+flowers. These woods are full of panthers, but in day time the only
+precaution necessary is to take no dog,--a dainty they cannot resist.
+The air was exquisite with the sun-warm scent of pines, and here and
+there the trees broke away disclosing mighty ranges of hills covered
+with rich blue shadows like the bloom on a plum,--the clouds chasing the
+sunshine over the mountain sides and the dark green velvet of the robe
+of pines. I looked across ravines that did not seem gigantic and yet the
+villages on the other side were like a handful of peas, so tremendous
+was the scale. I stood now and then to see the rhododendrons, forest
+trees here with great trunks and massive boughs glowing with blood-red
+blossom, and time went by and I took no count of it, so glorious was the
+climb.
+
+It must have been hours later when it struck me that the sun was getting
+low and that by now we should be nearing The House in the Woods. I said
+as much to Ali Khan. He looked perplexed and agreed. We had reached
+a comparatively level place, the trail faint but apparent, and it
+surprised me that we heard no sound of life from the dense wood where
+our goal must be.
+
+"I know not, Presence," he said. "May his face be blackened that
+directed me. I thought surely I could not miss the way, and yet-"
+
+We cast back and could see no trail forking from the one we were on.
+There was nothing for it but to trust to luck and push on. But I began
+to be uneasy and so was the man. I had stupidly forgotten to unpack
+my revolver, and worse, we had no food, and the mountain air is an
+appetiser, and at night the woods have their dangers, apart from being
+absolutely trackless. We had not met a living being since we left the
+road and there seemed no likelihood of asking for directions. I stopped
+no longer for views but went steadily on, Ali Khan keeping up a running
+fire of low-voiced invocations and lamentations. And now it was dusk and
+the position decidedly unpleasant.
+
+It was at that moment I saw a woman before us walking lightly and
+steadily under the pines. She must have struck into the trail from
+the side for she never could have kept before us all the way. A native
+woman, but wearing the all-concealing boorka, more like a town dweller
+than a woman of the hills. I put on speed and Ali Khan, now very tired,
+toiled on behind me as I came up with her and courteously asked the
+way. Her face was entirely hidden, but the answering voice was clear and
+sweet. I made up my mind she was young, for it had the bird-like thrill
+of youth.
+
+"If the Presence continues to follow this path he will arrive. It is not
+far. They wait for him."
+
+That was all. It left me with a desire to see the veiled face. We passed
+on and Ali Khan looked fearfully back.
+
+"Ajaib! (Wonderful!) A strange place to meet one of the purdah-nashin
+(veiled women)" he muttered. "What would she be doing up here in the
+heights? She walked like a Khanam (khan's wife) and I saw the gleam of
+gold under the boorka."
+
+I turned with some curiosity as he spoke, and lo! there was no human
+being in sight. She had disappeared from the track behind us and it was
+impossible to say where. The darkening trees were beginning to hold the
+dusk and it seemed unimaginable that a woman should leave the way and
+take to the dangers of the woods.
+
+"Puna-i-Khoda--God protect us!" said Ali Khan in a shuddering whisper.
+"She was a devil of the wilds. Press on, Sahib. We should not be here in
+the dark."
+
+There was nothing else to do. We made the best speed we could, and the
+trees grew more dense and the trail fainter between the close trunks,
+and so the night came bewildering with the expectation that we must pass
+the night unfed and unarmed in the cold of the heights. They might send
+out a search party from The House in the Woods--that was still a hope,
+if there were no other. And then, very gradually and wonderfully the
+moon dawned over the tree tops and flooded the wood with mysterious
+silver lights and about her rolled the majesty of the stars. We pressed
+on into the heart of the night. From the dense black depths we emerged
+at last. An open glade lay before us--the trees falling back to right
+and left to disclose--what?
+
+A long low house of marble, unlit, silent, bathed in pale splendour and
+shadow. About it stood great deodars, clothed in clouds of the white
+blossoming clematis, ghostly and still. Acacias hung motionless trails
+of heavily scented bloom as if carved in ivory. It was all silent as
+death. A flight of nobly sculptured steps led up to a broad veranda and
+a wide open door with darkness behind it. Nothing more.
+
+I forced myself to shout in Hindustani--the cry seeming a brutal outrage
+upon the night, and an echo came back numbed in the black woods. I tried
+once more and in vain. We stood absorbed also into the silence.
+
+"Ya Alla! it is a house of the dead!" whispered Ali Khan, shuddering at
+my shoulder,--and even as the words left his lips I understood where we
+were. "It is the Sukh Mandir." I said. "It is the House of the Maharao
+of Ranipur."
+
+It was impossible to be in Ranipur and hear nothing of the dead house
+of the forest and Ali Khan had heard--God only knows what tales. In his
+terror all discipline, all the inborn respect of the native forsook him,
+and without word or sign he turned and fled along the track, crashing
+through the forest blind and mad with fear. It would have been insanity
+to follow him, and in India the first rule of life is that the Sahib
+shows no fear, so I left him to his fate whatever it might be, believing
+at the same time that a little reflection and dread of the lonely forest
+would bring him to heel quickly.
+
+I stood there and the stillness flowed like water about me. It was
+as though I floated upon it--bathed in quiet. My thoughts adjusted
+themselves. Possibly it was not the Sukh Mandir. Olesen had spoken of
+ruin. I could see none. At least it was shelter from the chill which is
+always present at these heights when the sun sets,--and it was beautiful
+as a house not made with hands. There was a sense of awe but no fear as
+I went slowly up the great steps and into the gloom beyond and so gained
+the hall.
+
+The moon went with me and from a carven arch filled with marble tracery
+rained radiance that revealed and hid. Pillars stood about me, wonderful
+with horses ramping forward as in the Siva Temple at Vellore. They
+appeared to spring from the pillars into the gloom urged by invisible
+riders, the effect barbarously rich and strange--motion arrested, struck
+dumb in a violent gesture, and behind them impenetrable darkness. I
+could not see the end of this hall--for the moon did not reach it, but
+looking up I beheld the walls fretted in great panels into the utmost
+splendour of sculpture, encircling the stories of the Gods amid a
+twining and under-weaving of leaves and flowers. It was more like a
+temple than a dwelling. Siva, as Nataraja the Cosmic Dancer, the Rhythm
+of the Universe, danced before me, flinging out his arms in the passion
+of creation. Kama, the Indian Eros, bore his bow strung with honey-sweet
+black bees that typify the heart's desire. Krishna the Beloved smiled
+above the herd-maidens adoring at his feet. Ganesha the Elephant-Headed,
+sat in massive calm, wreathing his wise trunk about him. And many more.
+But all these so far as I could see tended to one centre panel larger
+than any, representing two life-size figures of a dim beauty. At first
+I could scarcely distinguish one from the other in the upward-reflected
+light, and then, even as I stood, the moving moon revealed the two as
+if floating in vapor. At once I recognized the subject--I had seen it
+already in the ruined temple of Ranipur, though the details differed.
+Parvati, the Divine Daughter of the Himalaya, the Emanation of the
+mighty mountains, seated upon a throne, listening to a girl who played
+on a Pan pipe before her. The goddess sat, her chin leaned upon her
+hand, her shoulders slightly inclined in a pose of gentle sweetness,
+looking down upon the girl at her feet, absorbed in the music of the
+hills and lonely places. A band of jewels, richly wrought, clasped the
+veil on her brows, and below the bare bosom a glorious girdle clothed
+her with loops and strings and tassels of jewels that fell to her
+knees--her only garment.
+
+The girl was a lovely image of young womanhood, the proud swell of the
+breast tapering to the slim waist and long limbs easily folded as she
+half reclined at the divine feet, her lips pressed to the pipe. Its
+silent music mysteriously banished fear. The sleep must be sweet
+indeed that would come under the guardianship of these two fair
+creatures--their gracious influence was dewy in the air. I resolved that
+I would spend the night beside them. Now with the march of the moon dim
+vistas of the walls beyond sprang into being. Strange mythologies--the
+incarnations of Vishnu the Preserver, the Pastoral of Krishna the
+Beautiful. I promised myself that next day I would sketch some of the
+loveliness about me. But the moon was passing on her way--I folded the
+coat I carried into a pillow and lay down at the feet of the goddess and
+her nymph. Then a moonlit quiet I slept in a dream of peace.
+
+Sleep annihilates time. Was it long or short when I woke like a man
+floating up to the surface from tranquil deeps? That I cannot tell, but
+once more I possessed myself and every sense was on guard.
+
+My hearing first. Bare feet were coming, falling softly as leaves, but
+unmistakable. There was a dim whispering but I could hear no word. I
+rose on my elbow and looked down the long hall. Nothing. The moonlight
+lay in pools of light and seas of shadow on the floor, and the feet drew
+nearer. Was I afraid? I cannot tell, but a deep expectation possessed
+me as the sound grew like the rustle of grasses parted in a fluttering
+breeze, and now a girl came swiftly up the steps, irradiate in the
+moonlight, and passing up the hall stood beside me. I could see her
+robe, her feet bare from the jungle, but her face wavered and changed
+and re-united like the face of a dream woman. I could not fix it for
+one moment, yet knew this was the messenger for whom I had waited all
+my life--for whom one strange experience, not to be told at present, had
+prepared me in early manhood. Words came, and I said:
+
+"Is this a dream?"
+
+"No. We meet in the Ninth Vibration. All here is true."
+
+"Is a dream never true?"
+
+"Sometimes it is the echo of the Ninth Vibration and therefore a
+harmonic of truth. You are awake now. It is the day-time that is the
+sleep of the soul. You are in the Lower Perception, wherein the truth
+behind the veil of what men call Reality is perceived."
+
+"Can I ascend?"
+
+"I cannot tell. That is for you, not me.
+
+"What do I perceive tonight?"
+
+"The Present as it is in the Eternal. Say no more. Come with me."
+
+She stretched her hand and took mine with the assurance of a goddess,
+and we went up the hall where the night had been deepest between the
+great pillars.
+
+Now it is very clear to me that in every land men, when the doors of
+perception are opened, will see what we call the Supernatural clothed
+in the image in which that country has accepted it. Blake, the mighty
+mystic, will see the Angels of the Revelation, driving their terrible
+way above Lambeth--it is not common nor unclean. The fisherman, plying
+his coracle on the Thames will behold the consecration of the great new
+Abbey of Westminster celebrated with mass and chant and awful lights
+in the dead mid-noon of night by that Apostle who is the Rock of the
+Church. Before him who wanders in Thessaly Pan will brush the dewy
+lawns and slim-girt Artemis pursue the flying hart. In the pale gold of
+Egyptian sands the heavy brows of Osiris crowned with the pshent will
+brood above the seer and the veil of Isis tremble to the lifting. For
+all this is the rhythm to which the souls of men are attuned and in that
+vibration they will see, and no other, since in this the very mountains
+and trees of the land are rooted. So here, where our remote ancestors
+worshipped the Gods of Nature, we must needs stand before the Mystic
+Mother of India, the divine daughter of the Himalaya.
+
+How shall I describe the world we entered? The carvings upon the walls
+had taken life--they had descended. It was a gathering of the dreams men
+have dreamed here of the Gods, yet most real and actual. They watched in
+a serenity that set them apart in an atmosphere of their own--forms of
+indistinct majesty and august beauty, absolute, simple, and everlasting.
+I saw them as one sees reflections in rippled water--no more. But
+all faces turned to the place where now a green and flowering leafage
+enshrined and partly hid the living Nature Goddess, as she listened to
+a voice that was not dumb to me. I saw her face only in glimpses of an
+indescribable sweetness, but an influence came from her presence like
+the scent of rainy pine forests, the coolness that breathes from great
+rivers, the passion of Spring when she breaks on the world with a wave
+of flowers. Healing and life flowed from it. Understanding also. It
+seemed I could interpret the very silence of the trees outside into the
+expression of their inner life, the running of the green life-blood in
+their veins, the delicate trembling of their finger-tips.
+
+My companion and I were not heeded. We stood hand in hand like children
+who have innocently strayed into a palace, gazing in wonderment. The
+august life went its way upon its own occasions, and, if we would, we
+might watch. Then the voice, clear and cold, proceeding, as it were,
+with some story begun before we had strayed into the Presence, the whole
+assembly listening in silence.
+
+"--and as it has been so it will be, for the Law will have the blind
+soul carried into a body which is a record of the sins it has committed,
+and will not suffer that soul to escape from rebirth into bodies until
+it has seen the truth--"
+
+And even as this was said and I listened, knowing myself on the verge of
+some great knowledge, I felt sleep beginning to weigh upon my eyelids.
+The sound blurred, flowed unsyllabled as a stream, the girl's hand grew
+light in mine; she was fading, becoming unreal; I saw her eyes like
+faint stars in a mist. They were gone. Arms seemed to receive me--to lay
+me to sleep and I sank below consciousness, and the night took me.
+
+When I awoke the radiant arrows of the morning were shooting into the
+long hall where I lay, but as I rose and looked about me, strange--most
+strange, ruin encircled me everywhere. The blue sky was the roof. What I
+had thought a palace lost in the jungle, fit to receive its King should
+he enter, was now a broken hall of State; the shattered pillars were
+festooned with waving weeds, the many coloured lantana grew between the
+fallen blocks of marble. Even the sculptures on the walls were difficult
+to decipher. Faintly I could trace a hand, a foot, the orb of a
+woman's bosom, the gracious outline of some young God, standing above a
+crouching worshipper. No more. Yes, and now I saw above me as the dawn
+touched it the form of the Dweller in the Windhya Hills, Parvati the
+Beautiful, leaning softly over something breathing music at her feet.
+Yet I knew I could trace the almost obliterated sculpture only because
+I had already seen it defined in perfect beauty. A deep crack ran across
+the marble; it was weathered and stained by many rains, and little ferns
+grew in the crevices, but I could reconstruct every line from my own
+knowledge. And how? The Parvati of Ranipur differed in many important
+details. She stood, bending forward, wheras this sweet Lady sat. Her
+attendants were small satyr-like spirits of the wilds, piping and
+fluting, in place of the reclining maiden. The sweeping scrolls of a
+great halo encircled her whole person. Then how could I tell what this
+nearly obliterated carving had been? I groped for the answer and could
+not find it. I doubted--
+
+  "Were such things here as we do speak about?
+  Or have we eaten of the insane root
+  That takes the reason captive?"
+
+Memory rushed over me like the sea over dry sands. A girl--there had
+been a girl--we had stood with clasped hands to hear a strange music,
+but in spite of the spiritual intimacy of those moments I could not
+recall her face. I saw it cloudy against a background of night and
+dream, the eyes remote as stars, and so it eluded me. Only her presence
+and her words survived; "We meet in the Ninth Vibration. All here is
+true." But the Ninth Vibration itself was dream-land. I had never heard
+the phrase--I could not tell what was meant, nor whether my apprehension
+was true or false. I knew only that the night had taken her and the dawn
+denied her, and that, dream or no dream, I stood there with a pang of
+loss that even now leaves me wordless.
+
+A bird sang outside in the acacias, clear and shrill for day, and this
+awakened my senses and lowered me to the plane where I became aware of
+cold and hunger, and was chilled with dew. I passed down the tumbled
+steps that had been a stately ascent the night before and made my way
+into the jungle by the trail, small and lost in fern, by which we had
+come. Again I wandered, and it was high noon before I heard mule bells
+at a distance, and, thus guided, struck down through the green tangle
+to find myself, wearied but safe, upon the bridle way that leads to Fagu
+and the far Shipki. Two coolies then directed me to The House in the
+Woods.
+
+All was anxiety there. Ali Khan had arrived in the night, having found
+his way under the guidance of blind flight and fear. He had brought the
+news that I was lost in the jungle and amid the dwellings of demons. It
+was, of course, hopeless to search in the dark, though the khansamah and
+his man had gone as far as they dared with lanterns and shouting,
+and with the daylight they tried again and were even now away. It was
+useless to reproach the man even if I had cared to do so. His ready plea
+was that as far as men were concerned he was as brave as any (which
+was true enough as I had reason to know later) but that when it came to
+devilry the Twelve Imaums themselves would think twice before facing it.
+
+"Inshalla ta-Alla! (If the sublime God wills!) this unworthy one will
+one day show the Protector of the poor, that he is a respectable person
+and no coward, but it is only the Sahibs who laugh in the face of
+devils."
+
+He went off to prepare me some food, consumed with curiosity as to my
+adventures, and when I had eaten I found my tiny whitewashed cell, for
+the room was little more, and slept for hours.
+
+Late in the afternoon I waked and looked out. A low but glowing
+sunlight suffused the wild garden reclaimed from the strangle-hold of
+the jungle and hemmed in with rocks and forest. A few simple flowers had
+been planted here and there, but its chief beauty was a mountain stream,
+brown and clear as the eyes of a dog, that fell from a crag above into
+a rocky basin, maidenhair ferns growing in such masses about it that
+it was henceforward scarcely more than a woodland voice. Beside it two
+great deodars spread their canopies, and there a woman sat in a low
+chair, a girl beside her reading aloud. She had thrown her hat off and
+the sunshine turned her massed dark hair to bronze. That was all I could
+see. I went out and joined them, taking the note of introduction which
+Olesen had given me.
+
+I pass over the unessentials of my story; their friendly greetings and
+sympathy for my adventure. It set us at ease at once and I knew my stay
+would be the happier for their presence though it is not every woman one
+would choose as a companion in the great mountain country. But what
+is germane to my purpose must be told, and of this a part is the
+personality of Brynhild Ingmar. That she was beautiful I never doubted,
+though I have heard it disputed and smiled inwardly as the disputants
+urged lip and cheek and shades of rose and lily, weighing and
+appraising. Let me describe her as I saw her or, rather, as I can,
+adding that even without all this she must still have been beautiful
+because of the deep significance to those who had eyes to see or
+feel some mysterious element which mingled itself with her presence
+comparable only to the delight which the power and spiritual essence of
+Nature inspires in all but the dullest minds. I know I cannot hope to
+convey this in words. It means little if I say I thought of all quiet
+lovely solitary things when I looked into her calm eyes,--that when she
+moved it was like clear springs renewed by flowing, that she seemed the
+perfect flowering of a day in June, for these are phrases. Does Nature
+know her wonders when she shines in her strength? Does a woman know the
+infinite meanings her beauty may have for the beholder? I cannot tell.
+Nor can I tell if I saw this girl as she may have seemed to those who
+read only the letter of the book and are blind to its spirit, or in the
+deepest sense as she really was in the sight of That which created her
+and of which she was a part. Surely it is a proof of the divinity of
+love that in and for a moment it lifts the veil of so-called reality and
+shows each to the other mysteriously perfect and inspiring as the world
+will never see them, but as they exist in the Eternal, and in the sight
+of those who have learnt that the material is but the dream, and the
+vision of love the truth.
+
+I will say then, for the alphabet of what I knew but cannot tell, that
+she had the low broad brows of a Greek Nature Goddess, the hair swept
+back wing-like from the temples and massed with a noble luxuriance. It
+lay like rippled bronze, suggesting something strong and serene in its
+essence. Her eyes were clear and gray as water, the mouth sweetly curved
+above a resolute chin. It was a face which recalled a modelling in
+marble rather than the charming pastel and aquarelle of a young woman's
+colouring, and somehow I thought of it less as the beauty of a woman
+than as some sexless emanation of natural things, and this impression
+was strengthened by her height and the long limbs, slender and strong as
+those of some youth trained in the pentathlon, subject to the severest
+discipline until all that was superfluous was fined away and the perfect
+form expressing the true being emerged. The body was thus more beautiful
+than the face, and I may note in passing that this is often the case,
+because the face is more directly the index of the restless and unhappy
+soul within and can attain true beauty only when the soul is in harmony
+with its source.
+
+She was a little like her pale and wearied mother. She might resemble
+her still more when the sorrow of this world that worketh death should
+have had its will of her. I had yet to learn that this would never
+be--that she had found the open door of escape.
+
+We three spent much time together in the days that followed. I never
+tired of their company and I think they did not tire of mine, for
+my wanderings through the world and my studies in the ancient Indian
+literatures and faiths with the Pandit Devaswami were of interest to
+them both though in entirely different ways. Mrs. Ingmar was a woman who
+centred all her interests in books and chiefly in the scientific forms
+of occult research. She was no believer in anything outside the range
+of what she called human experience. The evidences had convinced her of
+nothing but a force as yet unclassified in the scientific categories and
+all her interest lay in the undeveloped powers of brain which might be
+discovered in the course of ignorant and credulous experiment. We met
+therefore on the common ground of rejection of the so-called occultism
+of the day, though I knew even then, and how infinitely better now, that
+her constructions were wholly misleading.
+
+Nearly all day she would lie in her chair under the deodars by the
+delicate splash and ripple of the stream. Living imprisoned in the
+crystal sphere of the intellect she saw the world outside, painted in
+few but distinct colours, small, comprehensible, moving on a logical
+orbit. I never knew her posed for an explanation. She had the contented
+atheism of a certain type of French mind and found as much ease in it as
+another kind of sweet woman does in her rosary and confessional.
+
+"I cannot interest Brynhild," she said, when I knew her better. "She has
+no affinity with science. She is simply a nature worshipper, and in such
+places as this she seems to draw life from the inanimate life about her.
+I have sometimes wondered whether she might not be developed into a kind
+of bridge between the articulate and the inarticulate, so well does she
+understand trees and flowers. Her father was like that--he had all sorts
+of strange power with animals and plants, and thought he had more than
+he had. He could never realize that the energy of nature is merely
+mechanical."
+
+"You think all energy is mechanical?"
+
+"Certainly. We shall lay our finger on the mainspring one day and
+the mystery will disappear. But as for Brynhild--I gave her the best
+education possible and yet she has never understood the conception of a
+universe moving on mathematical laws to which we must submit in body and
+mind. She has the oddest ideas. I would not willingly say of a child of
+mine that she is a mystic, and yet--"
+
+She shook her head compassionately. But I scarcely heard. My eyes were
+fixed on Brynhild, who stood apart, looking steadily out over the snows.
+It was a glorious sunset, the west vibrating with gorgeous colour spilt
+over in torrents that flooded the sky, Terrible splendours--hues for
+which we have no thought--no name. I had not thought of it as music
+until I saw her face but she listened as well as saw, and her expression
+changed as it changes when the pomp of a great orchestra breaks upon the
+silence. It flashed to the chords of blood-red and gold that was burning
+fire. It softened through the fugue of woven crimson gold and flame, to
+the melancholy minor of ashes-of-roses and paling green, and so through
+all the dying glories that faded slowly to a tranquil grey and left
+the world to the silver melody of one sole star that dawned above the
+ineffable heights of the snows. Then she listened as a child does to
+a bird, entranced, with a smile like a butterfly on her parted lips. I
+never saw such a power of quiet.
+
+She and I were walking next day among the forest ways, the pine-scented
+sunshine dappling the dropped frondage. We had been speaking of her
+mother. "It is such a misfortune for her," she said thoughtfully, "that
+I am not clever. She should have had a daughter who could have shared
+her thoughts. She analyses everything, reasons about everything, and
+that is quite out of my reach."
+
+She moved beside me with her wonderful light step--the poise and balance
+of a nymph in the Parthenon frieze.
+
+"How do you see things?"
+
+"See? That is the right word. I see things--I never reason about them.
+They are. For her they move like figures in a sum. For me every one of
+them is a window through which one may look to what is beyond."
+
+"To where?"
+
+"To what they really are--not what they seem."
+
+I looked at her with interest.
+
+"Did you ever hear of the double vision?"
+
+For this is a subject on which the spiritually learned men of India,
+like the great mystics of all the faiths, have much to say. I had
+listened with bewilderment and doubt to the expositions of my Pandit
+on this very head. Her simple words seemed for a moment the echo of his
+deep and searching thought. Yet it surely could not be. Impossible.
+
+"Never. What does it mean?" She raised clear unveiled eyes. "You must
+forgive me for being so stupid, but it is my mother who is at home with
+all these scientific phrases. I know none of them."
+
+"It means that for some people the material universe--the things we see
+with our eyes--is only a mirage, or say, a symbol, which either hides
+or shadows forth the eternal truth. And in that sense they see things as
+they really are, not as they seem to the rest of us. And whether this is
+the statement of a truth or the wildest of dreams, I cannot tell."
+
+She did not answer for a moment; then said;
+
+"Are there people who believe this--know it?"
+
+"Certainly. There are people who believe that thought is the only real
+thing--that the whole universe is thought made visible. That we create
+with our thoughts the very body by which we shall re-act on the universe
+in lives to be.
+
+"Do you believe it?"
+
+"I don't know. Do you?"
+
+She paused; looked at me, and then went on:
+
+"You see, I don't think things out. I only feel. But this cannot
+interest you."
+
+I felt she was eluding the question. She began to interest me more than
+any one I had ever known. She had extraordinary power of a sort. Once,
+in the woods, where I was reading in so deep a shade that she never
+saw me, I had an amazing vision of her. She stood in a glade with the
+sunlight and shade about her; she had no hat and a sunbeam turned her
+hair to pale bronze. A small bright April shower was falling through the
+sun, and she stood in pure light that reflected itself in every leaf and
+grass-blade. But it was nothing of all this that arrested me,
+beautiful as it was. She stood as though life were for the moment
+suspended;--then, very softly, she made a low musical sound, infinitely
+wooing, from scarcely parted lips, and instantly I saw a bird of azure
+plumage flutter down and settle on her shoulder, pluming himself there
+in happy security. Again she called softly and another followed the
+first. Two flew to her feet, two more to her breast and hand. They
+caressed her, clung to her, drew some joyous influence from her
+presence. She stood in the glittering rain like Spring with her birds
+about her--a wonderful sight. Then, raising one hand gently with the
+fingers thrown back she uttered a different note, perfectly sweet and
+intimate, and the branches parted and a young deer with full bright eyes
+fixed on her advanced and pushed a soft muzzle into her hand.
+
+In my astonishment I moved, however slightly, and the picture broke up.
+The deer sprang back into the trees, the birds fluttered up in a hurry
+of feathers, and she turned calm eyes upon me, as unstartled as if she
+had known all the time that I was there.
+
+"You should not have breathed," she said smiling. "They must have utter
+quiet."
+
+I rose up and joined her.
+
+"It is a marvel. I can scarcely believe my eyes. How do you do it?"
+
+"My father taught me. They come. How can I tell?"
+
+She turned away and left me. I thought long over this episode. I
+recalled words heard in the place of my studies--words I had dismissed
+without any care at the moment. "To those who see, nothing is alien.
+They move in the same vibration with all that has life, be it in bird
+or flower. And in the Uttermost also, for all things are One. For such
+there is no death."
+
+That was beyond me still, but I watched her with profound interest. She
+recalled also words I had half forgotten--
+
+  "There was nought above me and nought below,
+   My childhood had not learnt to know;
+   For what are the voices of birds,
+   Aye, and of beasts, but words, our words,--
+   Only so much more sweet."
+
+That might have been written of her. And more.
+
+She had found one day in the woods a flower of a sort I had once seen
+in the warm damp forests below Darjiling--ivory white and shaped like a
+dove in flight. She wore it that evening on her bosom. A week later she
+wore what I took to be another.
+
+"You have had luck," I said; "I never heard of such a thing being seen
+so high up, and you have found it twice."
+
+"No, it is the same."
+
+"The same? Impossible. You found it more than a week ago." "I know. It
+is ten days. Flowers don't die when one understands them--not as most
+people think."
+
+Her mother looked up and said fretfully:
+
+"Since she was a child Brynhild has had that odd idea. That flower is
+dead and withered. Throw it away, child. It looks hideous."
+
+Was it glamour? What was it? I saw the flower dewy fresh in her bosom
+She smiled and turned away.
+
+It was that very evening she left the veranda where we were sitting in
+the subdued light of a little lamp and passed beyond where the ray cut
+the darkness. She went down the perspective of trees to the edge of he
+clearing and I rose to follow for it seemed absolutely unsafe that she
+should be on the verge of the panther-haunted woods alone. Mrs. Ingmar
+turned a page of her book serenely;
+
+"She will not like it if you go. I cannot imagine that she should come
+to harm. She always goes her own way--light or dark."
+
+I returned to my seat and watched steadfastly. At first I could see
+nothing but as my sight adjusted itself I saw her a long way down the
+clearing that opened the snows, and quite certainly also I saw something
+like a huge dog detach itself from the woods and bound to her feet. It
+mingled with her dark dress and I lost it. Mrs. Ingmar said, seeing my
+anxiety but nothing else; "Her father was just the same;--he had no fear
+of anything that lives. No doubt some people have that power. I have
+never seen her attract birds and beasts as he certainly did, but she is
+quite as fond of them."
+
+I could not understand her blindness--what I myself had seen raised
+questions I found unanswerable, and her mother saw nothing! Which of us
+was right? presently she came back slowly and I ventured no word.
+
+A woodland sorcery, innocent as the dawn, hovered about her. What was
+it? Did the mere love of these creatures make a bond between her soul
+and theirs, or was the ancient dream true and could she at times move
+in the same vibration? I thought of her as a wood-spirit sometimes, an
+expression herself of some passion of beauty in Nature, a thought of
+snows and starry nights and flowing rivers made visible in flesh. It is
+surely when seized with the urge of some primeval yearning which in
+man is merely sexual that Nature conceives her fair forms and manifests
+them, for there is a correspondence that runs through all creation.
+
+Here I ask myself--Did I love her? In a sense, yes, deeply, but not in
+the common reading of the phrase. I have trembled with delight before
+the wild and terrible splendour of the Himalayan heights-; low golden
+moons have steeped my soul longing, but I did not think of these things
+as mine in any narrow sense, nor so desire them. They were Angels of the
+Evangel of beauty. So too was she. She had none of the "silken nets and
+traps of adamant," she was no sister of the "girls of mild silver or of
+furious gold;"--but fair, strong, and her own, a dweller in the House of
+Quiet. I did not covet her. I loved her.
+
+Days passed. There came a night when the winds were loosed--no moon,
+the stars flickering like blown tapers through driven clouds, the trees
+swaying and lamenting.
+
+"There will be rain tomorrow." Mrs. Ingmar said, as we parted for the
+night. I closed my door. Some great cat of the woods was crying harshly
+outside my window, the sound receding towards the bridle way. I slept in
+a dream of tossing seas and ships labouring among them.
+
+With the sense of a summons I waked--I cannot tell when. Unmistakable,
+as if I were called by name. I rose and dressed, and heard distinctly
+bare feet passing my door. I opened it noiselessly and looked out into
+the little passage way that made for the entry, and saw nothing but
+pools of darkness and a dim light from the square of the window at the
+end. But the wind had swept the sky clear with its flying bosom and was
+sleeping now in its high places and the air was filled with a mild moony
+radiance and a great stillness.
+
+Now let me speak with restraint and exactness. I was not afraid but felt
+as I imagine a dog feels in the presence of his master, conscious of a
+purpose, a will entirely above his own and incomprehensible, yet to
+be obeyed without question. I followed my reading of the command,
+bewildered but docile, and understanding nothing but that I was called.
+
+The lights were out. The house dead silent; the familiar veranda
+ghostly in the night. And now I saw a white figure at the head of the
+steps--Brynhild. She turned and looked over her shoulder, her face
+pale in the moon, and made the same gesture with which she summoned her
+birds. I knew her meaning, for now we were moving in the same rhythm,
+and followed as she took the lead. How shall I describe that strange
+night in the jungle. There were fire-flies or dancing points of light
+that recalled them. Perhaps she was only thinking them--only thinking
+the moon and the quiet, for we were in the world where thought is the
+one reality. But they went with us in a cloud and faintly lighted our
+way. There were exquisite wafts of perfume from hidden flowers breathing
+their dreams to the night. Here and there a drowsy bird stirred and
+chirped from the roof of darkness, a low note of content that greeted
+her passing. It was a path intricate and winding and how long we went,
+and where, I cannot tell. But at last she stooped and parting the boughs
+before her we stepped into an open space, and before us--I knew it--I
+knew it!--The House of Beauty.
+
+She paused at the foot of the great marble steps and looked at me.
+
+"We have met here already."
+
+I did not wonder--I could not. In the Ninth vibration surprise had
+ceased to be. Why had I not recognized her before--O dull of heart! That
+was my only thought. We walk blindfold through the profound darkness of
+material nature, the blinder because we believe we see it. It is only
+when the doors of the material are closed that the world appears to man
+as it exists in the eternal truth.
+
+"Did you know this?" I asked, trembling before mystery.
+
+"I knew it, because I am awake. You forgot it in the dull sleep which we
+call daily life. But we were here and THEY began the story of the King
+who made this house. Tonight we shall hear it. It he story of Beauty
+wandering through the world and the world received her not. We hear it
+in this place because here he agonized for what he knew too late."
+
+"Was that our only meeting?"
+
+"We meet every night, but you forget when the day brings the sleep of
+the soul.--You do not sink deep enough into rest to remember. You float
+on the surface where the little bubbles of foolish dream are about you
+and I cannot reach you then."
+
+"How can I compel myself to the deeps?"
+
+"You cannot. It will come. But when you have passed up the bridle
+way and beyond the Shipki, stop at Gyumur. There is the Monastery of
+Tashigong, and there one will meet you--
+
+"His name?"
+
+"Stephen Clifden. He will tell you what you desire to know. Continue on
+then with him to Yarkhand. There in the Ninth Vibration we shall meet
+again. It is a long journey but you will be content."
+
+"Do you certainly know that we shall meet again?"
+
+"When you have learnt, we can meet when we will. He will teach you
+the Laya Yoga. You should not linger here in the woods any longer. You
+should go on. In three days it will be possible."
+
+"But how have you learnt--a girl and young?"
+
+"Through a close union with Nature--that is one of the three roads. But
+I know little as yet. Now take my hand and come.
+
+"One last question. Is this house ruined and abject as I have seen it in
+the daylight, or royal and the house of Gods as we see it now? Which is
+truth?"
+
+"In the day you saw it in the empty illusion of blind thought. Tonight,
+eternally lovely as in the thought of the man who made it. Nothing that
+is beautiful is lost, though in the sight of the unwise it seems to die.
+Death is in the eyes we look through--when they are cleansed we see Life
+only. Now take my hand and come. Delay no more."
+
+She caught my hand and we entered the dim magnificence of the great
+hall. The moon entered with us.
+
+Instantly I had the feeling of supernatural presence. Yet I only write
+this in deference to common use, for it was absolutely natural--more so
+than any I have met in the state called daily life. It was a thing in
+which I had a part, and if this was supernatural so also was I.
+
+Again I saw the Dark One, the Beloved, the young Krishna, above the
+women who loved him. He motioned with his hand as we passed, as though
+he waved us smiling on our way. Again the dancers moved in a rhythmic
+tread to the feet of the mountain Goddess--again we followed to where
+she bent to hear. But now, solemn listening faces crowded in the shadows
+about her, grave eyes fixed immovably upon what lay at her feet--a man,
+submerged in the pure light that fell from her presence, his dark face
+stark and fine, lips locked, eyes shut, arms flung out cross-wise in
+utter abandonment, like a figure of grief invisibly crucified upon his
+shame. I stopped a few feet from him, arrested by a barrier I could not
+pass. Was it sleep or death or some mysterious state that partook of
+both? Not sleep, for there was no flutter of breath. Not death--no rigid
+immobility struck chill into the air. It was the state of subjection
+where the spirit set free lies tranced in the mighty influences which
+surround us invisibly until we have entered, though but for a moment,
+the Ninth Vibration.
+
+And now, with these Listeners about us, a clear voice began and stirred
+the air with music. I have since been asked in what tongue it spoke and
+could only answer that it reached my ears in the words of my childhood,
+and that I know whatever that language had been it would so have reached
+me.
+
+"Great Lady, hear the story of this man's fall, for it is the story of
+man. Be pitiful to the blind eyes and give them light."
+
+There was long since in Ranipur a mighty King and at his birth the wise
+men declared that unless he cast aside all passions that debase the
+soul, relinquishing the lower desires for the higher until a Princess
+laden with great gifts should come to be his bride, he would experience
+great and terrible misfortunes. And his royal parents did what they
+could to possess him with this belief, but they died before he reached
+manhood. Behold him then, a young King in his palace, surrounded with
+splendour. How should he withstand the passionate crying of the flesh or
+believe that through pleasure comes satiety and the loss of that in the
+spirit whereby alone pleasure can be enjoyed? For his gift was that
+he could win all hearts. They swarmed round him like hiving bees and
+hovered about him like butterflies. Sometimes he brushed them off. Often
+he caressed them, and when this happened, each thought proudly "I am the
+Royal Favourite. There is none other than me."
+
+Also the Princess delayed who would be the crest-jewel of the crown,
+bringing with her all good and the blessing of the High Gods, and in
+consequence of all these things the King took such pleasures as he
+could, and they were many, not knowing they darken the inner eye whereby
+what is royal is known through disguises.
+
+(Most pitiful to see, beneath the close-shut lids of the man at the
+feet of the Dweller in the Heights, tears forced themselves, as though
+a corpse dead to all else lived only to anguish. They flowed like
+blood-drops upon his face as he lay enduring, and the voice proceeded.)
+What was the charm of the King? Was it his stately height and strength?
+Or his faithless gayety? Or his voice, deep and soft as the sitar when
+it sings of love? His women said--some one thing, some another, but none
+of these ladies were of royal blood, and therefore they knew not.
+
+Now one day, the all-privileged jester of the King, said, laughing
+harshly:
+
+"Maharaj, you divert yourself. But how if, while we feast and play, the
+Far Away Princess glided past and was gone, unknown and unwelcomed?"
+
+And the King replied:
+
+"Fool, content yourself. I shall know my Princess, but she delays so
+long that I weary."
+
+Now in a far away country was a Princess, daughter of the Greatest,
+and her Father hesitated to give her in marriage to such a King for all
+reported that he was faithless of heart, but having seen his portrait
+she loved him and fled in disguise from the palaces of her Father, and
+being captured she was brought before the King in Ranipur.
+
+He sat upon a cloth of gold and about him was the game he had killed in
+hunting, in great masses of ruffled fur and plumage, and he turned the
+beauty of his face carelessly upon her, and as the Princess looked upon
+him, her heart yearned to him, and he said in his voice that was like
+the male string of the sitar:
+
+"Little slave, what is your desire?"
+
+Then she saw that the long journey had scarred her feet and dimmed her
+hair with dust, and that the King's eyes, worn with days and nights of
+pleasure did not pierce her disguise. Now in her land it is a custom
+that the blood royal must not proclaim itself, so she folded her hands
+and said gently:
+
+"A place in the household of the King." And he, hearing that the Waiting
+slave of his chief favorite Jayashri was dead, gave her that place. So
+the Princess attended on those ladies, courteous and obedient to all
+authority as beseemed her royalty, and she braided her bright hair so
+that it hid the little crowns which the Princesses of her House
+must wear always in token of their rank, and every day her patience
+strengthened.
+
+Sometimes the King, carelessly desiring her laughing face and sad eyes,
+would send for her to wile away an hour, and he would say; "Dance,
+little slave, and tell me stories of the far countries. You quite unlike
+my Women, doubtless because you are a slave."
+
+And she thought--"No, but because I am a Princess,"--but this she did
+not say. She laughed and told him the most marvellous stories in the
+world until he laid his head upon her warm bosom, dreaming awake.
+
+There were stories of the great Himalayan solitudes where in the winter
+nights the white tiger stares at the witches' dance of the Northern
+Lights dazzled by the hurtling of their myriad spears. And she told
+how the King-eagle, hanging motionless over the peaks of Gaurisankar,
+watches with golden eyes for his prey, and falling like a plummet
+strikes its life out with his clawed heel and, screaming with triumph,
+bears it to his fierce mate in her cranny of the rocks.
+
+"A gallant story!" the King would say. "More!" Then she told of the
+tropical heats and the stealthy deadly creatures of forest and jungle,
+and the blue lotus of Buddha swaying on the still lagoon,--And she spoke
+of loves of men and women, their passion and pain and joy. And when she
+told of their fidelity and valour and honour that death cannot quench,
+her voice was like the song of a minstrel, for she had read all the
+stories of the ages and the heart of a Princess told her the rest. And
+the King listened unwearying though he believed this was but a slave.
+
+(The face of the man at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights twitched
+in a white agony. Pearls of sweat were distilled upon his brows, but
+he moved neither hand nor foot, enduring as in a flame of fire. And the
+voice continued.)
+
+So one day, in the misty green of the Spring, while she rested at his
+feet in the garden Pavilion, he said to her:
+
+"Little slave, why do you love me?"
+
+And she answered proudly:
+
+"Because you have the heart of a King."
+
+He replied slowly;
+
+"Of the women who have loved me none gave this reason, though they gave
+many."
+
+She laid her cheek on his hand.
+
+"That is the true reason."
+
+But he drew it away and was vaguely troubled, for her words, he knew
+not why, reminded him of the Far Away Princess and of things he had long
+forgotten, and he said; "What does a slave know of the hearts of Kings?"
+And that night he slept or waked alone.
+
+Winter was at hand with its blue and cloudless days, and she was
+commanded to meet the King where the lake lay still and shining like an
+ecstasy of bliss, and she waited with her chin dropped into the cup of
+her hands, looking over the water with eyes that did not see, for her
+whole soul said; "How long O my Sovereign Lord, how long before you know
+the truth and we enter together into our Kingdom?"
+
+As she sat she heard the King's step, and the colour stole up into her
+face in a flush like the earliest sunrise. "He is coming," she said; and
+again; "He loves me."
+
+So he came beside the water, walking slowly. But the King was not alone.
+His arm embraced the latest-come beauty from Samarkhand, and, with his
+head bent, he whispered in her willing ear.
+
+Then clasping her hands, the Princess drew a long sobbing breath, and he
+turned and his eyes grew hard as blue steel.
+
+"Go, slave," he cried. "What place have you in Kings' gardens? Go. Let
+me see you no more."
+
+(The man lying at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights, raised a heavy
+arm and flung it above his head, despairing, and it fell again on the
+cross of his torment. And the voice went on.)
+
+And as he said this, her heart broke; and she went and her feet were
+weary. So she took the wise book she loved and unrolled it until she
+came to a certain passage, and this she read twice; "If the heart of
+a slave be broken it may be mended with jewels and soft words, but the
+heart of a Princess can be healed only by the King who broke it, or in
+Yamapura, the City under the Sunset where they make all things new. Now,
+Yama, the Lord of this City, is the Lord of Death." And having thus read
+the Princess rolled the book and put it from her.
+
+And next day, the King said to his women; "Send for her," for his heart
+smote him and he desired to atone royally for the shame of his speech.
+And they sought and came back saying;
+
+"Maharaj, she is gone. We cannot find her."
+
+Fear grew in the heart of the King--a nameless dread, and he said,
+"Search." And again they sought and returned and the King was striding
+up and down the great hall and none dared cross his path. But,
+trembling, they told him, and he replied; "Search again. I will not lose
+her, and, slave though be, she shall be my Queen."
+
+So they ran, dispersing to the Four Quarters, and King strode up and
+down the hall, and Loneliness kept step with him and clasped his hand
+and looked his eyes.
+
+Then the youngest of the women entered with a tale to tell. "Majesty,
+we have found her. She lies beside the lake. When the birds fled this
+morning she fled with them, but upon a longer journey. Even to Yamapura,
+the City under the Sunset."
+
+And the King said; "Let none follow." And he strode forth swiftly, white
+with thoughts he dared not think.
+
+The Princess lay among the gold of the fallen leaves. All was gold,
+for her bright hair was out-spread in shining waves and in it shone the
+glory of the hidden crown. On her face was no smile--only at last was
+revealed the patience she had covered with laughter so long that even
+the voice of the King could not now break it into joy. The hands that
+had clung, the swift feet that had run beside his, the tender body,
+mighty to serve and to love, lay within touch but farther away than the
+uttermost star was the Far Away Princess, known and loved too late.
+
+And he said; "My Princess--O my Princess!" and laid his head on her cold
+bosom.
+
+"Too late!" a harsh Voice croaked beside him, and it was the voice of
+the Jester who mocks at all things. "Too late! O madness, to despise
+the blood royal because it humbled itself to service and so was doubly
+royal. The Far Away Princess came laden with great gifts, and to her the
+King's gift was the wage of a slave and a broken heart. Cast your crown
+and sceptre in the dust, O King--O King of Fools."
+
+(The man at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights moved. Some dim word
+shaped upon his locked lips. She listened in a divine calm. It seemed
+that the very Gods drew nearer. Again the man essayed speech, the body
+dead, life only in the words that none could hear. The voice went on.)
+
+But the Princess flying wearily because of the sore wound in her heart,
+came at last to the City under the Sunset, where the Lord of Death rules
+in the House of Quiet, and was there received with royal honours for in
+that land are no disguises. And she knelt before the Secret One and in
+a voice broken with agony entreated him to heal her. And with veiled and
+pitying eyes he looked upon her, for many and grievous as are the wounds
+he has healed this was more grievous still. And he said;
+
+"Princess, I cannot, But this I can do--I can give a new heart in a new
+birth--happy and careless as the heart of a child. Take this escape from
+the anguish you endure and be at peace."
+
+But the Princess, white with pain, asked only;
+
+"In this new heart and birth, is there room for the King?"
+
+And the Lord of Peace replied;
+
+"None. He too will be forgotten."
+
+Then she rose to her feet.
+
+"I will endure and when he comes I will serve him once more. If he will
+he shall heal me, and if not I will endure for ever."
+
+And He who is veiled replied;
+
+"In this sacred City no pain may disturb the air, therefore you must
+wait outside in the chill and the dark. Think better, Princess! Also,
+he must pass through many rebirths, because he beheld the face of Beauty
+unveiled and knew her not. And when he comes he will be weary and weak
+as a new-born child, and no more a great King." And the Princess smiled;
+
+"Then he will need me the more," she said; "I will wait and kiss the
+feet of my King."
+
+"And the Lord of Death was silent. So she went outside into the darkness
+of the spaces, and the souls free passed her like homing doves, and she
+sat with her hands clasped over the sore wound in her heart, watching
+the earthward way. And the Princess is keeping still the day of her long
+patience."
+
+The voice ceased. And there was a great silence, and the listening faces
+drew nearer.
+
+Then the Dweller in the Heights spoke in a voice soft as the falling of
+snow in the quiet of frost and moon. I could have wept myself blind with
+joy to hear that music. More I dare not say.
+
+"He is in the Lower State of Perception. He sorrows for his loss. Let
+him have one instant's light that still he may hope."
+
+She bowed above the man, gazing upon him as a mother might upon her
+sleeping child. The dead eyelids stirred, lifted, a faint gleam showed
+beneath them, an unspeakable weariness. I thought they would fall
+unsatisfied. Suddenly he saw What looked upon him, and a terror of
+joy no tongue can tell flashed over the dark mirror of his face. He
+stretched a faint hand to touch her feet, a sobbing sigh died upon his
+lips, and once more the swooning sleep took him. He lay as a dead man
+before the Assembly.
+
+"The night is far spent," a voice said, from I know not where. And I
+knew it was said not only for the sleeper but for all, for though the
+flying feet of Beauty seem for a moment to outspeed us she will one day
+wait our coming and gather us to her bosom.
+
+As before, the vision spread outward like rings in a broken reflection
+in water. I saw the girl beside me, but her hand grew light in mine. I
+felt it no longer. I heard the roaring wind in the trees, or was it a
+great voice thundering in my ears? Sleep took me. I waked in my little
+room.
+
+Strange and sad--I saw her next day and did not remember her whom of all
+things I desired to know. I remembered the vision and knew that whether
+in dream or waking I had heard an eternal truth. I longed with a great
+longing to meet my beautiful companion, and she stood at my side and I
+was blind.
+
+Now that I have climbed a little higher on the Mount of Vision it seems
+even to myself that this could not be. Yet it was, and it is true of not
+this only but of how much else!
+
+She knew me. I learnt that later, but she made no sign. Her simplicities
+had carried her far beyond and above me, to places where only the winged
+things attain--"as a bird among the bird-droves of God."
+
+I have since known that this power of direct simplicity in her was why
+among the great mountains we beheld the Divine as the emanation of
+the terrible beauty about us. We cannot see it as it is--only in some
+shadowing forth, gathering sufficient strength for manifestation from
+the spiritual atoms that haunt the region where that form has been for
+ages the accepted vehicle of adoration. But I was now to set forth to
+find another knowledge--to seek the Beauty that blinds us to all other.
+Next day the man who was directing my preparations for travel sent me
+word from Simla that all was ready and I could start two days later. I
+told my friends the time of parting was near.
+
+"But it was no surprise to me," I added, "for I had heard already that
+in a very few days I should be on my way."
+
+Mrs. Ingmar was more than kind. She laid a frail hand on mine.
+
+"We shall miss you indeed. If it is possible to send us word of your
+adventures in those wild solitudes I hope you will do it. Of course
+aviation will soon lay bare their secrets and leave them no mysteries,
+so you don't go too soon. One may worship science and yet feel it
+injures the beauty of the world. But what is beauty compared with
+knowledge?"
+
+"Do you never regret it?" I asked.
+
+"Never, dear Mr. Ormond. I am a worshipper of hard facts and however
+hideous they may be I prefer them to the prismatic colours of romance."
+
+Brynhild, smiling, quoted;
+
+  "Their science roamed from star to star
+   And than itself found nothing greater.
+   What wonder? In a Leyden jar
+   They bottled the Creator?"
+
+"There is nothing greater than science," said Mrs. Ingmar with soft
+reverence. "The mind of man is the foot-rule of the universe."
+
+She meditated for a moment and then added that my kind interests in
+their plans decided her to tell me that she would be returning to
+Europe and then to Canada in a few months with a favourite niece as her
+companion while Brynhild would remain in India with friends in Mooltan
+for a time. I looked eagerly at her but she was lost in her own thoughts
+and it was evidently not the time to say more.
+
+If I had hoped for a vision before I left the neighbourhood of that
+strange House of Beauty where a spirit imprisoned appeared to await the
+day of enlightenment I was disappointed. These things do not happen as
+one expects or would choose. The wind bloweth where it listeth until the
+laws which govern the inner life are understood, and then we would not
+choose if we could for we know that all is better than well. In this
+world, either in the blinded sight of daily life or in the clarity of
+the true sight I have not since seen it, but that has mattered little,
+for having heard an authentic word within its walls I have passed on my
+way elsewhere.
+
+Next day a letter from Olesen reached me.
+
+"Dear Ormond, I hope you have had a good time at the House in the Woods.
+I saw Rup Singh a few days ago and he wrote the odd message I enclose.
+You know what these natives are, even the most sensible of them, and you
+will humour the old fellow for he ages very fast and I think is breaking
+up. But this was not what I wanted to say. I had a letter from a man I
+had not seen for years--a fellow called Stephen Clifden, who lives in
+Kashmir. As a matter of fact I had forgotten his existence but evidently
+he has not repaid the compliment for he writes as follows--No, I had
+better send you the note and you can do as you please. I am rushed off
+my legs with work and the heat is hell with the lid off. And-"
+
+But the rest was of no interest except to a friend of years' standing. I
+read Rup Singh's message first. It was written in his own tongue.
+
+"To the Honoured One who has attained to the favour of the Favourable.
+
+"You have with open eyes seen what this humble one has dreamed but
+has not known. If the thing be possible, write me this word that I may
+depart in peace. 'With that one who in a former birth you loved all is
+well. Fear nothing for him. The way is long but at the end the lamps of
+love are lit and the Unstruck music is sounded. He lies at the feet of
+Mercy and there awaits his hour.' And if it be not possible to write
+these words, write nothing, O Honoured, for though it be in the hells my
+soul shall find my King, and again I shall serve him as once I served."
+
+I understood, and wrote those words as he had written them. Strange
+mystery of life--that I who had not known should see, and that this man
+whose fidelity had not deserted his broken King in his utter downfall
+should have sought with passion for one sight of the beloved face across
+the waters of death and sought in vain. I thought of those Buddhist
+words of Seneca--"The soul may be and is in the mass of men drugged and
+silenced by the seductions of sense and the deceptions of the world.
+But if, in some moment of detachment and elation, when its captors and
+jailors relax their guard, it can escape their clutches, it will seek at
+once the region of its birth and its true home."
+
+Well--the shell must break before the bird can fly, and the time drew
+near for the faithful servant to seek his lord. My message reached him
+in time and gladdened him.
+
+I turned then to Clifden's letter.
+
+"Dear Olesen, you will have forgotten me, and feeling sure of this I
+should scarcely have intruded a letter into your busy life were it not
+that I remember your good-nature as a thing unforgettable though so many
+years have gone by. I hear of you sometimes when Sleigh comes up the
+Sind valley, for I often camp at Sonamarg and above the Zoji La and
+farther. I want you to give a message to a man you know who should
+be expecting to hear from me. Tell him I shall be at the Tashigong
+Monastery when he reaches Gyumur beyond the Shipki. Tell him I have the
+information he wants and I will willingly go on with him to Yarkhand
+and his destination. He need not arrange for men beyond Gyumur. All
+is fixed. So sorry to bother you, old man, but I don't know Ormond's
+address, except that he was with you and has gone up Simla way. And of
+course he will be keen to hear the thing is settled."
+
+Amazing. I remembered the message I had heard and this man's words
+rang true and kindly, but what could it mean? I really did not question
+farther than this for now I could not doubt that I was guided. Stronger
+hands than mine had me in charge, and it only remained for me to set
+forth in confidence and joy to an end that as yet I could not discern. I
+turned my face gladly to the wonder of the mountains.
+
+Gladly--but with a reservation. I was leaving a friend and one whom I
+dimly felt might one day be more than a friend--Brynhild Ingmar. That
+problem must be met before I could take my way. I thought much of what
+might be said at parting. True, she had the deepest attraction for me,
+but true also that I now beheld a quest stretching out into the unknown
+which I must accept in the spirit of the knight errant. Dare I then
+bind my heart to any allegiance which would pledge me to a future
+inconsistent with what lay before me? How could I tell what she
+might think of the things which to me were now real and external--the
+revelation of the only reality that underlies all the seeming. Life can
+never be the same for the man who has penetrated to this, and though it
+may seem a hard saying there can be but a maimed understanding between
+him and those who still walk amid the phantoms of death and decay.
+
+Her sympathy with nature was deep and wonderful but might it not be that
+though the earth was eloquent to her the skies were silent? I was but
+a beginner myself--I knew little indeed. Dare I risk that little in a
+sweet companionship which would sink me into the contentment of the
+life lived by the happily deluded between the cradle and the grave and
+perhaps close to me for ever that still sphere where my highest hope
+abides? I had much to ponder, for how could I lose her out of my
+life--though I knew not at all whether she who had so much to make her
+happiness would give me a single thought when I was gone.
+
+If all this seem the very uttermost of selfish vanity, forgive a man who
+grasped in his hand a treasure so new, so wonderful that he walked
+in fear and doubt lest it should slip away and leave him in a world
+darkened for ever by the torment of the knowledge that it might have
+been his and he had bartered it for the mess of pottage that has bought
+so many birthrights since Jacob bargained with his weary brother in
+the tents of Lahai-roi. I thought I would come back later with my
+prize gained and throwing it at her feet ask her wisdom in return, for
+whatever I might not know I knew well she was wiser than I except in
+that one shining of the light from Eleusis. I walked alone in the woods
+thinking of these things and no answer satisfied me.
+
+I did not see her alone until the day I left, for I was compelled by the
+arrangements I was making to go down to Simla for a night. And now the
+last morning had come with golden sun--shot mists rolling upward to
+disclose the far white billows of the sea of eternity, the mountains
+awaking to their enormous joys. The trees were dripping glory to the
+steaming earth; it flowed like rivers into their most secret recesses,
+moss and flower, fern and leaf floated upon the waves of light revealing
+their inmost soul in triumphant gladness. Far off across the valleys
+a cuckoo was calling--the very voice of spring, and in the green world
+above my head a bird sang, a feathered joy, so clear, so passionate that
+I thought the great summer morning listened in silence to his rapture
+ringing through the woods. I waited until the Jubilate was ended and
+then went in to bid good-bye to my friends.
+
+Mrs. Ingmar bid me the kindest farewell and I left her serene in the
+negation of all beauty, all hope save that of a world run on the lines
+of a model municipality, disease a memory, sewerage, light and air
+systems perfected, the charted brain sending its costless messages to
+the outer parts of the habitable globe, and at least a hundred years
+of life with a decent cremation at the end of it assured to every
+eugenically born citizen. No more. But I have long ceased to regret
+that others use their own eyes whether clear or dim. Better the merest
+glimmer of light perceived thus than the hearsay of the revelations of
+others. And by the broken fragments of a bewildered hope a man shall
+eventually reach the goal and rejoice in that dawn where the morning
+stars sing together and the sons of God shout for joy. It must come, for
+it is already here.
+
+Brynhild walked with me through the long glades in the fresh thin air
+to the bridle road where my men and ponies waited, eager to be off. We
+stood at last in the fringe of trees on a small height which commanded
+the way;--a high uplifted path cut along the shoulders of the hills and
+on the left the sheer drop of the valleys. Perhaps seven or eight feet
+in width and dignified by the name of the Great Hindustan and Tibet Road
+it ran winding far away into Wonderland. Looking down into the valleys,
+so far beneath that the solitudes seem to wall them in I thought of all
+the strange caravans which have taken this way with tinkle of bells
+and laughter now so long silenced, and as I looked I saw a lost little
+monastery in a giant crevice, solitary as a planet on the outermost ring
+of the system, and remembrance flashed into my mind and I said;
+
+"I have marching orders that have countermanded my own plans. I am to
+journey to the Buddhist Monastery of Tashigong, and there meet a friend
+who will tell me what is necessary that I may travel to Yarkhand and
+beyond. It will be long before I see Kashmir."
+
+In those crystal clear eyes I saw a something new to me--a faint smile,
+half pitying, half sad;
+
+"Who told you, and where?"
+
+"A girl in a strange place. A woman who has twice guided me--"
+
+I broke off. Her smile perplexed me. I could not tell what to say. She
+repeated in a soft undertone;
+
+"Great Lady, be pitiful to the blind eyes and give them light."
+
+And instantly I knew. O blind--blind! Was the unhappy King of the story
+duller of heart than I? And shame possessed me. Here was the chrysoberyl
+that all day hides its secret in deeps of lucid green but when the night
+comes flames with its fiery ecstasy of crimson to the moon, and I--I had
+been complacently considering whether I might not blunt my own spiritual
+instinct by companionship with her, while she had been my guide, as
+infinitely beyond me in insight as she was in all things beautiful. I
+could have kissed her feet in my deep repentance. True it is that the
+gateway of the high places is reverence and he who cannot bow his head
+shall receive no crown. I saw that my long travel in search of knowledge
+would have been utterly vain if I had not learnt that lesson there and
+then. In those moments of silence I learnt it once and for ever.
+
+She stood by me breathing the liquid morning air, her face turned upon
+the eternal snows. I caught her hand in a recognition that might
+have ended years of parting, and its warm youth vibrated in mine, the
+foretaste of all understanding, all unions, of love that asks nothing,
+that fears nothing, that has no petition to make. She raised her eyes to
+mine and her tears were a rainbow of hope. So we stood in silence that
+was more than any words, and the golden moments went by. I knew her now
+for what she was, one of whom it might have been written;
+
+  "I come from where night falls clearer
+   Than your morning sun can rise;
+   From an earth that to heaven draws nearer
+   Than your visions of Paradise,--
+   For the dreams that your dreamers dream
+   We behold them with open eyes."
+
+With open eyes! Later I asked the nature of the strange bond that had
+called her to my side.
+
+"I do not understand that fully myself," she said--"That is part of the
+knowledge we must wait for. But you have the eyes that see, and that is
+a tie nothing can break. I had waited long in the House of Beauty for
+you. I guided you there. But between you and me there is also love."
+
+I stretched an eager hand but she repelled it gently, drawing back a
+little. "Not love of each other though we are friends and in the future
+may be infinitely more. But--have you ever seen a drawing of Blake's--a
+young man stretching his arms to a white swan which flies from him on
+wings he cannot stay? That is the story of both our lives. We long to
+be joined in this life, here and now, to an unspeakable beauty and power
+whose true believers we are because we have seen and known. There is no
+love so binding as the same purpose. Perhaps that is the only true love.
+And so we shall never be apart though we may never in this world be
+together again in what is called companionship."
+
+"We shall meet," I said confidently. She smiled and was silent.
+
+"Do we follow a will-o'-the wisp in parting? Do we give up the substance
+for the shadow? Shall I stay?"
+
+She laughed joyously;
+
+"We give a single rose for a rose-tree that bears seven times seven.
+Daily I see more, and you are going where you will be instructed. As you
+know my mother prefers for a time to have my cousin with her to help her
+with the book she means to write. So I shall have time to myself. What
+do you think I shall do?"
+
+"Blow away on a great wind. Ride on the crests of tossing waves. Catch a
+star to light the fireflies!"
+
+She laughed like a bird's song.
+
+"Wrong--wrong! I shall be a student. All I know as yet has come to me
+by intuition, but there is Law as well as Love and I will learn. I have
+drifted like a happy cloud before the wind. Now I will learn to be the
+wind that blows the clouds."
+
+I looked at her in astonishment. If a flower had desired the same thing
+it could scarcely have seemed more incredible, for I had thought her
+whole life and nature instinctive not intellective. She smiled as one
+who has a beloved secret to keep.
+
+"When you have gained what in this country they call The Knowledge of
+Regeneration, come back and ask me what I have learnt."
+
+She would say no more of that and turned to another matter, speaking
+with earnestness;
+
+"Before you came here I had a message for you, and Stephen Clifden
+will tell you the same thing when you meet. Believe it for it is true.
+Remember always that the psychical is not the mystical and that what we
+seek is not marvel but vision. These two things are very far apart, so
+let the first with all its dangers pass you by, for our way lies to the
+heights, and for us there is only one danger--that of turning back and
+losing what the whole world cannot give in exchange. I have never seen
+Stephen Clifden but I know much of him. He is a safe guide--a man who
+has had much and strange sorrow which has brought him joy that cannot be
+told. He will take you to those who know the things that you desire. I
+wish I might have gone too."
+
+Something in the sweetness of her voice, its high passion, the strong
+beauty of her presence woke a poignant longing in my heart. I said;
+
+"I cannot leave you. You are the only guide I can follow. Let us search
+together--you always on before."
+
+"Your way lies there," she pointed to the high mountains. "And mine to
+the plains, and if we chose our own we should wander. But we shall
+meet again in the way and time that will be best and with knowledge
+so enlarged that what we have seen already will be like an empty dream
+compared to daylight truth. If you knew what waits for you you would not
+delay one moment."
+
+She stood radiant beneath the deodars, a figure of Hope, pointing
+steadily to the heights. I knew her words were true though as yet I
+could not tell how. I knew that whereas we had seen the Wonderful in
+beautiful though local forms there is a plane where the Formless may be
+apprehended in clear dream and solemn vision-the meeting of spirit with
+Spirit. What that revelation would mean I could not guess--how should
+I?--but I knew the illusion we call death and decay would wither before
+it. There is a music above and beyond the Ninth Vibration though I must
+love those words for ever for what their hidden meaning gave me.
+
+I took her hand and held it. Strange--beyond all strangeness that that
+story of an ancient sorrow should have made us what we were to each
+other--should have opened to me the gates of that Country where she
+wandered content. For the first time I had realized in its fulness the
+loveliness of this crystal nature, clear as flowing water to receive and
+transmit the light--itself a prophecy and fulfilment of some higher race
+which will one day inhabit our world when it has learnt the true values.
+She drew a flower from her breast and gave it to me. It lies before me
+white and living as I write these words.
+
+I sprang down the road and mounted, giving the word to march. The men
+shouted and strode on--our faces to the Shipki Pass and what lay beyond.
+
+We had parted.
+
+Once, twice, I looked back, and standing in full sunlight, she waved her
+hand.
+
+We turned the angle of the rocks.
+
+What I found--what she found is a story strange and beautiful which
+I may tell one day to those who care to hear. That for me there were
+pauses, hesitancies, dreads, on the way I am not concerned to deny,
+for so it must always be with the roots of the old beliefs of fear and
+ignorance buried in the soil of our hearts and ready to throw out their
+poisonous fibres. But there was never doubt. For myself I have long
+forgotten the meaning of that word in anything that is of real value.
+
+Do not let it be thought that the treasure is reserved for the few or
+those of special gifts. And it is as free to the West as to the East
+though I own it lies nearer to the surface in the Orient where the
+spiritual genius of the people makes it possible and the greater and
+more faithful teachers are found. It is not without meaning that all the
+faiths of the world have dawned in those sunrise skies. Yet it is within
+reach of all and asks only recognition, for the universe has been the
+mine of its jewels--
+
+  "Median gold it holds, and silver from Atropatene, Ruby and
+  emerald from Hindustan, and Bactrian agate, Bright with beryl
+  and pearl, sardonyx and sapphire."--
+  and more that cannot be uttered--
+  the Lights and Perfections.
+
+So for all seekers I pray this prayer--beautiful in its sonorous Latin,
+but noble in all the tongues;
+
+"Supplico tibi, Pater et Dux--I pray Thee, Guide of our vision, that
+we may remember the nobleness with which Thou hast endowed us, and that
+Thou wouldest be always on our right and on our left in the motion of
+our wills, that we may be purged from the contagion of the body and the
+affections of the brute and overcome and rule them. And I pray also
+that Thou wouldest drive away the blinding darkness from the eyes of our
+souls that we may know well what is to be held for divine and what for
+mortal."
+
+"The nobleness with which Thou hast endowed us-" this, and not the
+cry of the miserable sinner whose very repentance is no virtue but the
+consequence of failure and weakness is the strong music to which we must
+march.
+
+And the way is open to the mountains.
+
+
+
+
+THE INTERPRETER A ROMANCE OF THE EAST
+
+
+I
+
+There are strange things in this story, but, so far as I understand
+them, I tell the truth. If you measure the East with a Western foot-rule
+you will say, "Impossible." I should have said it myself.
+
+Of myself I will say as little as I can, for this story is of Vanna
+Loring. I am an incident only, though I did not know that at first.
+
+My name is Stephen Clifden, and I was eight-and-thirty; plenty of money,
+sound in wind and limb. I had been by way of being a writer before the
+war, the hobby of a rich man; but if I picked up anything in the welter
+in France, it was that real work is the only salvation this mad world
+has to offer; so I meant to begin at the beginning, and learn my trade
+like a journeyman labourer. I had come to the right place. A very
+wonderful city is Peshawar--rather let us say, two cities--the
+compounds, the fortifications where Europeans dwell in such peace as
+their strong right arms can secure them; and the native city and bazaar
+humming and buzzing like a hive of angry bees with the rumours that
+come up from Lower India or down the Khyber Pass with the camel caravans
+loaded with merchandise from Afghanistan, Bokhara, and farther. And
+it is because of this that Peshawar is the Key of India, and a city
+of Romance that stands at every corner, and cries aloud in the
+market--place. For at Peshawar every able-bodied man sleeps with his
+revolver under his pillow, and the old Fort is always ready in case it
+should be necessary at brief and sharp notice to hurry the women and
+children into it, and possibly, to die in their defense. So enlivening
+is the neighbourhood of the frontier tribes that haunt the famous Khyber
+Pass and the menacing hills where danger is always lurking.
+
+But there was society here, and I was swept into it--there was chatter,
+and it galled me.
+
+I was beginning to feel that I had missed my mark, and must go farther
+afield, perhaps up into Central Asia, when I met Vanna Loring. If I say
+that her hair was soft and dark; that she had the deepest hazel eyes
+I have ever seen, and a sensitive, tender mouth; that she moved with a
+flowing grace like "a wave of the sea"--it sounds like the portrait of a
+beauty, and she was never that. Also, incidentally, it gives none of her
+charm. I never heard any one get any further than that she was "oddly
+attractive"--let us leave it at that. She was certainly attractive to
+me.
+
+She was the governess of little Winifred Meryon, whose father held
+the august position of General Commanding the Frontier Forces, and her
+mother the more commanding position of the reigning beauty of Northern
+India, generally speaking. No one disputed that. She was as pretty as
+a picture, and her charming photograph had graced as many illustrated
+papers as there were illustrated papers to grace.
+
+But Vanna--I gleaned her story by bits when I came across her with the
+child in the gardens. I was beginning to piece it together now.
+
+Her love of the strange and beautiful she had inherited from a young
+Italian mother, daughter of a political refugee; her childhood had
+been spent in a remote little village in the West of England; half
+reluctantly she told me how she had brought herself up after her
+mother's death and her father's second marriage. Little was said of
+that, but I gathered that it had been a grief to her, a factor in her
+flight to the East.
+
+We were walking in the Circular Road then with Winifred in front leading
+her Pekingese by its blue ribbon, and we had it almost to ourselves
+except for a few natives passing slow and dignified on their own
+occasions, for fashionable Peshawar was finishing its last rubber of
+bridge, before separating to dress for dinner, and had no time to spare
+for trivialities and sunsets.
+
+"So when I came to three-and-twenty," she said slowly, "I felt I must
+break away from our narrow life. I had a call to India stronger than
+anything on earth. You would not understand but that was so, and I had
+spent every spare moment in teaching myself India--its history, legends,
+religions, everything! And I was not wanted at home, and I had grown
+afraid."
+
+I could divine years of patience and repression under this plain tale,
+but also a power that would be dynamic when the authentic voice called.
+That was her charm--gentleness in strength--a sweet serenity.
+
+"What were you afraid of?"
+
+"Of growing old and missing what was waiting for me out here. But I
+could not get away like other people. No money, you see. So I thought I
+would come out here and teach. Dare I? Would they let me? I knew I was
+fighting life and chances and risks if I did it; but it was death if I
+stayed there. And then--Do you really care to hear?"
+
+"Of course. Tell me how you broke your chain."
+
+"I spare you the family quarrels. I can never go back. But I was
+spurred--spurred to take some wild leap; and I took it. Six years ago I
+came out. First I went to a doctor and his wife at Cawnpore. They had
+a wonderful knowledge of the Indian peoples, and there I learned
+Hindustani and much else. Then he died. But an aunt had left me two
+hundred pounds, and I could wait a little and choose; and so I came
+here."
+
+It interested me. The courage that pale elastic type of woman has!
+
+"Have you ever regretted it? Would they take you back if you failed?"
+
+"Never, to both questions," she said, smiling. "Life is glorious. I've
+drunk of a cup I never thought to taste; and if I died tomorrow I should
+know I had done right. I rejoice in every moment I live--even when
+Winifred and I are wrestling with arithmetic."
+
+"I shouldn't have thought life was very easy with Lady Meryon."
+
+"Oh, she is kind enough in an indifferent sort of way. I am not the
+persecuted Jane Eyre sort of governess at all. But that is all on the
+surface and does not matter. It is India I care for-the people, the sun,
+the infinite beauty. It was coming home. You would laugh if I told you
+I knew Peshawar long before I came here. Knew it--walked here, lived.
+Before there were English in India at all." She broke off. "You won't
+understand."
+
+"Oh, I have had that feeling, too," I said patronizingly. "If one has
+read very much about a place-"
+
+"That was not quite what I meant. Never mind. The people, the
+place--that is the real thing to me. All this is the dream." The sweep
+of her hand took in not only Winifred and myself, but the general's
+stately residence, which to blaspheme in Peshawar is rank infidelity.
+
+"By George, I would give thousands to feel that! I can't get out of
+Europe here. I want to write, Miss Loring," I found myself saying. "I'd
+done a bit, and then the war came and blew my life to pieces. Now I want
+to get inside the skin of the East, and I can't do it. I see it from
+outside, with a pane of glass between. No life in it. If you feel as you
+say, for God's sake be my interpreter!"
+
+I really meant what I said. I knew she was a harp that any breeze would
+sweep into music. I divined that temperament in her and proposed to use
+it for my own ends. She had and I had not, the power to be a part of all
+she saw, to feel kindred blood running in her own veins. To the average
+European the native life of India is scarcely interesting, so far is it
+removed from all comprehension. To me it was interesting, but I could
+not tell why. I stood outside and had not the fairy gold to pay for my
+entrance. Here at all events she could buy her way where I could not.
+Without cruelty, which honestly was not my besetting sin--especially
+where women were concerned, the egoist in me felt I would use her, would
+extract the last drop of the enchantment of her knowledge before I went
+on my way. What more natural than that Vanna or any other woman should
+minister to my thirst for information? Men are like that. I pretend
+to be no better than the rest. She pleased my fastidiousness--that
+fastidiousness which is the only austerity in men not otherwise austere.
+
+"Interpret?" she said, looking at me with clear hazel eyes; "how could
+I? You were in the native city yesterday. What did you miss?"
+
+"Everything! I saw masses of colour, light, movement. Brilliantly
+picturesque people. Children like Asiatic angels. Magnificently scowling
+ruffians in sheepskin coats. In fact, a movie staged for my benefit. I
+was afraid they would ring down the curtain before I had had enough. It
+had no meaning. When I got back to my diggings I tried to put down
+what I had just seen, and I swear there's more inspiration in the
+guide-book."
+
+"Did you go alone?"
+
+"Yes, I certainly would not go sight-seeing with the Meryon crowd. Tell
+me what you felt when you saw it first."
+
+"I went with Sir John's uncle. He was a great traveler. The colour
+struck me dumb. It flames--it sings. Think of the grey pinched life in
+the West! I saw a grave dark potter turning his wheel, while his little
+girl stood by, glad at our pleasure, her head veiled like a miniature
+woman, tiny baggy trousers, and a silver nose-stud, like a star, in one
+delicate nostril. In her thin arms she held a heavy baby in a gilt cap,
+like a monkey. And the wheel turned and whirled until it seemed to be
+spinning dreams, thick as motes in the sun. The clay rose in smooth
+spirals under his hand, and the wheel sang, 'Shall the vessel reprove
+him who made one to honour and one to dishonour?' And I saw the potter
+thumping his wet clay, and the clay, plastic as dream-stuff, shaped
+swift as light, and the three Fates stood at his shoulder. Dreams,
+dreams, and all in the spinning of the wheel, and the rich shadows of
+the old broken courtyard where he sat. And the wheel stopped and the
+thread broke, and the little new shapes he had made stood all about him,
+and he was only a potter in Peshawar."
+
+Her voice was like a song. She had utterly forgotten my existence. I
+did not dislike it at the moment, for I wanted to hear more, and the
+impersonal is the rarest gift a woman can give a man.
+
+"Did you buy anything?"
+
+"He gave me a gift--a flawed jar of turquoise blue, faint turquoise
+green round the lip. He saw I understood. And then I bought a little
+gold cap and a wooden box of jade-green Kabul grapes. About a rupee, all
+told. But it was Eastern merchandise, and I was trading from Balsora and
+Baghdad, and Eleazar's camels were swaying down from Damascus along the
+Khyber Pass, and coming in at the great Darwazah, and friends' eyes met
+me everywhere. I am profoundly happy here."
+
+The sinking sun lit an almost ecstatic face.
+
+I envied her more deeply than I had ever envied any one. She had the
+secret of immortal youth, and I felt old as I looked at her. One might
+be eighty and share that passionate impersonal joy. Age could not wither
+nor custom stale the infinite variety of her world's joys. She had a
+child's dewy youth in her eyes.
+
+There are great sunsets at Peshawar, flaming over the plain, dying in
+melancholy splendour over the dangerous hills. They too were hers, in
+a sense in which they could never be mine. But what a companion! To
+my astonishment a wild thought of marriage flashed across me, to be
+instantly rebuffed with a shrug. Marriage--that one's wife might talk
+poetry to one about the East! Absurd! But what was it these people felt
+and I could not feel? Almost, shut up in the prison of self, I knew what
+Vanna had felt in her village--a maddening desire to escape, to be a
+part of the loveliness that lay beyond me. So might a man love a king's
+daughter in her hopeless heights.
+
+"It may be very beautiful on the surface," I said morosely; "but there's
+a lot of misery below--hateful, they tell me."
+
+"Of course. We shall get to work one day. But look at the sunset. It
+opens like a mysterious flower. I must take Winifred home now."
+
+"One moment," I pleaded; "I can only see it through your eyes. I feel it
+while you speak, and then the good minute goes."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"And so must I. Come, Winifred. Look, there's an owl; not like the owls
+in the summer dark in England--
+
+ "Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping,  Wavy in the
+dark, lit by one low star."
+
+Suddenly she turned again and looked at me half wistfully.
+
+"It is good to talk to you. You want to know. You are so near it all. I
+wish I could help you; I am so exquisitely happy myself."
+
+My writing was at a standstill. It seemed the groping of a blind man
+in a radiant world. Once perhaps I had felt that life was good in
+itself--when the guns came thundering toward the Vimy Ridge in a mad
+gallop of horses, and men shouting and swearing and frantically urging
+them on. Then, riding for more than life, I had tasted life for an
+instant. Not before or since. But this woman had the secret.
+
+Lady Meryon, with her escort of girls and subalterns, came daintily past
+the hotel compound, and startled me from my brooding with her pretty
+silvery voice.
+
+"Dreaming, Mr. Clifden? It isn't at all wholesome to dream in the East.
+Come and dine with us tomorrow. A tiny dance afterwards, you know; or
+bridge for those who like it."
+
+I had not the faintest notion whether governesses dined with the family
+or came in afterward with the coffee; but it was a sporting chance, and
+I took it.
+
+Then Sir John came up and joined us.
+
+"You can't well dance tomorrow, Kitty," he said to his wife. "There's
+been an outpost affair in the Swat Hills, and young Fitzgerald has
+been shot. Come to dinner of course, Clifden. Glad to see you. But no
+dancing, I think."
+
+Kitty Meryon's mouth drooped like a pouting child's. Was it for the lost
+dance, or the lost soldier lying out on the hills in the dying sunset.
+Who could tell? In either case it was pretty enough for the illustrated
+papers.
+
+"How sad! Such a dear boy. We shall miss him at tennis." Then brightly;
+"Well, we'll have to put the dance off for a week, but come tomorrow
+anyhow."
+
+
+II
+
+
+Next evening I went into Lady Meryon's flower-scented drawing-room. The
+electric fans were fluttering and the evening air was cool. Five or
+six pretty girls and as many men made up the party--Kitty Meryon the
+prettiest of them all, fashionably undressed in faint pink and crystal,
+with a charming smile in readiness, all her gay little flags flying in
+the rich man's honour. I am no vainer than other men, but I saw that.
+Whatever her charm might be it was none for me. What could I say to
+interest her who lived in her foolish little world as one shut in a
+bright bubble? And she had said the wrong word about young Fitzgerald--I
+wanted Vanna, with her deep seeing eyes, to say the right one and adjust
+those cruel values.
+
+Governesses dine, it appeared, only to fill an unexpected place, or make
+a decorous entry afterward, to play accompaniments. Fortunately Kitty
+Meryon sang, in a pinched little soprano, not nearly so pretty as her
+silver ripple of talk.
+
+It was when the party had settled down to bridge and I was standing out,
+that I ventured to go up to her as she sat knitting by a window--not
+unwatched by the quick flash of Lady Meryon's eyes as I did it.
+
+"I think you hypnotize me, Miss Loring. When I hear anything I
+straightway want to know what you will say. Have you heard of
+Fitzgerald's death?"
+
+"That is why we are not dancing tonight. Tomorrow the cable will reach
+his home in England. He was an only child, and they are the great people
+of the village where we are the little people. I knew his mother as one
+knows a great lady who is kind to all the village folk. It may kill her.
+It is travelling tonight like a bullet to her heart, and she does not
+know."
+
+"His father?"
+
+"A brave man--a soldier himself. He will know it was a good death and
+that Harry would not fail. He did not at Ypres. He would not here. But
+all joy and hope will be dead in that house tomorrow."
+
+"And what do you think?"
+
+"I am not sorry for Harry, if you mean that. He knew--we all know--that
+he was on guard here holding the outposts against blood and treachery
+and terrible things--playing the Great Game. One never loses at that
+game if one plays it straight, and I am sure that at the last it was joy
+he felt and not fear. He has not lost. Did you notice in the church
+a niche before every soldier's seat to hold his loaded gun? And the
+tablets on the walls; "Killed at Kabul River, aged 22."--"Killed on
+outpost duty."--"Murdered by an Afghan fanatic." This will be one memory
+more. Why be sorry."
+
+Presently:--
+
+"I am going up to the hills tomorrow, to the Malakhand Fort, with Mrs.
+Delany, Lady Meryon's aunt, and we shall see the wonderful Tahkt-i-Bahi
+Monastery on the way. You should do that run before you go. The fort is
+the last but one on the way to Chitral, and beyond that the road is so
+beset that only soldiers may go farther, and indeed the regiments escort
+each other up and down. But it is an early start, for we must be back in
+Peshawar at six for fear of raiding natives."
+
+"I know; they hauled me up in the dusk the other day, and told me I
+should be swept off to the hills if I fooled about after dusk. But I
+say--is it safe for you to go? You ought to have a man. Could I go too?"
+
+I thought she did not look enthusiastic at the proposal.
+
+"Ask. You know I settle nothing. I go where I am sent." She said it with
+the happiest smile. I knew they could send her nowhere that she would
+not find joy. I thought her mere presence must send the vibrations of
+happiness through the household. Yet again--why? For where there is no
+receiver the current speaks in vain; and for an instant I seemed to see
+the air full of messages--of speech striving to utter its passionate
+truths to deaf ears stopped for ever against the breaking waves of
+sound. But Vanna heard.
+
+She left the room; and when the bridge was over, I made my request. Lady
+Meryon shrugged her shoulders and declared it would be a terribly dull
+run--the scenery nothing, "and only" (she whispered) "Aunt Selina and
+poor Miss Loring?"
+
+Of course I saw at once that she did not like it; but Sir John was all
+for my going, and that saved the situation.
+
+I certainly could have dispensed with Aunt Selina when the automobile
+drew up in the golden river of the sunrise at the hotel. There were only
+the driver, a personal servant, and the two ladies; Mrs. Delany, comely,
+pleasant, talkative, and Vanna--
+
+Her face in its dark motoring veil, fine and delicate as a young moon in
+a cloud drift--the sensitive sweet mouth that had quivered a little when
+she spoke of Fitzgerald--the pure glance that radiated such kindness to
+all the world. She sat there with the Key of Dreams pressed against her
+slight bosom--her eyes dreaming above it. Already the strange airs of
+her unknown world were breathing about me, and as yet I knew not the
+things that belonged unto my peace.
+
+We glided along the straight military road from Peshawar to Nowshera,
+the gold-bright sun dazzling in its whiteness--a strange drive through
+the flat, burned country, with the ominous Kabul River flowing through
+it. Military preparations everywhere, and the hills looking watchfully
+down--alive, as it were, with keen, hostile eyes. War was at present
+about us as behind the lines in France; and when we crossed the Kabul
+River on a bridge of boats, and I saw its haunted waters, I began to
+feel the atmosphere of the place closing down upon me. It had a sinister
+beauty; it breathed suspense; and I wished, as I was sure Vanna did, for
+silence that was not at our command.
+
+For Mrs. Delany felt nothing of it. A bright shallow ripple of talk was
+her contribution to the joys of the day; though it was, fortunately,
+enough for her happiness if we listened and agreed. I knew Vanna
+listened only in show. Her intent eyes were fixed on the Tahkt-i-Bahi
+hills after we had swept out of Nowshera; and when the car drew up
+at the rough track, she had a strange look of suspense and pallor. I
+remember I wondered at the time if she were nervous in the wild open
+country.
+
+"Now pray don't be shocked," said Mrs. Delany comfortably; "but you two
+young people may go up to the monastery, and I shall stay here. I am
+dreadfully ashamed of myself, but the sight of that hill is enough for
+me. Don't hurry. I may have a little doze, and be all the better company
+when you get back. No, don't try to persuade me, Mr. Clifden. It isn't
+the part of a friend."
+
+I cannot say I was sorry, though I had a moment of panic when Vanna
+offered to stay with her--very much, too, as if she really meant it. So
+we set out perforce, Vanna leading steadily, as if she knew the way.
+She never looked up, and her wish for silence was so evident, that I
+followed, lending my hand mutely when the difficulties obliged it, she
+accepting absently, and as if her thoughts were far away.
+
+Suddenly she quickened her pace. We had climbed about nine hundred feet,
+and now the narrow track twisted through the rocks--a track that looked
+as age-worn as no doubt it was. We threaded it, and struggled over the
+ridge, and looked down victorious on the other side.
+
+There she stopped. A very wonderful sight, of which I had never seen the
+like, lay below us. Rock and waste and towering crags, and the mighty
+ruin of the monastery set in the fangs of the mountain like a robber
+baron's castle, looking far away to the blue mountains of the Debatable
+Land--the land of mystery and danger. It stood there--the great ruin
+of a vast habitation of men. Building after building, mysterious and
+broken, corridors, halls, refectories, cells; the dwelling of a faith so
+alien that I could not reconstruct the life that gave it being. And all
+sinking gently into ruin that in a century more would confound it with
+the roots of the mountains.
+
+Grey and wonderful, it clung to the heights and looked with eyeless
+windows at the past. Somehow I found it infinitely pathetic; the very
+faith it expressed is dead in India, and none left so poor to do it
+reverence.
+
+But Vanna knew her way. Unerringly she led me from point to point, and
+she was visibly at home in the intricacies. Such knowledge in a young
+woman bewildered me. Could she have studied the plans in the Museum?
+How else should she know where the abbot lived, or where the refractory
+brothers were punished?
+
+Once I missed her, while I stooped to examine some scroll-work, and
+following, found her before one of the few images of the Buddha that the
+rapacious Museum had spared--a singularly beautiful bas-relief, the hand
+raised to enforce the truth the calm lips were speaking, the drapery
+falling in stately folds to the bare feet. As I came up, she had an air
+as if she had just ceased from movement, and I had a distinct feeling
+that she had knelt before it--I saw the look of worship! The thing
+troubled me like a dream, haunting, impossible, but real.
+
+"How beautiful!" I said in spite of myself, as she pointed to the image.
+"In this utter solitude it seems the very spirit of the place."
+
+"He was. He is," said Vanna.
+
+"Explain to me. I don't understand. I know so little of him. What is the
+subject?"
+
+She hesitated; then chose her words as if for a beginner;--"It is the
+Blessed One preaching to the Tree-Spirits. See how eagerly they lean
+from the boughs to listen. This other relief represents him in the state
+of mystic vision. Here he is drowned in peace. See how it overflows from
+the closed eyes; the closed lips. The air is filled with his quiet."
+
+"What is he dreaming?"
+
+"Not dreaming--seeing. Peace. He sits at the point where time and
+infinity meet. To attain that vision was the aim of the monks who lived
+here."
+
+"Did they attain?" I found myself speaking as if she could certainly
+answer.
+
+"A few. There was one, Vasettha, the Brahman, a young man who had
+renounced all his possessions and riches, and seated here before this
+image of the Blessed One, he fell often into the mystic state. He had a
+strange vision at one time of the future of India, which will surely be
+fulfilled. He did not forget it in his rebirths. He remembers-"
+
+She broke off suddenly and said with forced indifference,--"He would sit
+here often looking out over the mountains; the monks sat at his feet to
+hear. He became abbot while still young. But his story is a sad one."
+
+"I entreat you to tell me."
+
+She looked away over the mountains. "While he was abbot here,--still a
+young man,--a famous Chinese Pilgrim came down through Kashmir to visit
+the Holy Places in India. The abbot went forward with him to Peshawar,
+that he might make him welcome. And there came a dancer to Peshawar,
+named Lilavanti, most beautiful! I dare not tell you her beauty. I
+tremble now to think-"
+
+Again she paused, and again the faint creeping sense of mystery invaded
+me.
+
+She resumed;--
+
+"The abbot saw her and he loved her. He was young still, you remember.
+She was a woman of the Hindu faith and hated Buddhism. It swept him down
+into the lower worlds of storm and desire. He fled with Lilavanti and
+never returned here. So in his rebirth he fell-"
+
+She stopped dead; her face pale as death.
+
+"How do you know? Where have you read it? If I could only find what you
+find and know what you know! The East is like an open book to you. Tell
+me the rest."
+
+"How should I know any more?" she said hurriedly. "We must be going
+back. You should study the plans of this place at Peshawar. They were
+very learned monks who lived here. It is famous for learning."
+
+The life had gone out of her words-out of the ruins. There was no more
+to be said.
+
+We clambered down the hill in the hot sunshine, speaking only of the
+view, the strange shrubs and flowers, and, once, the swift gliding of a
+snake, and found Mrs. Delany blissfully asleep in the most padded corner
+of the car. The spirit of the East vanished in her comfortable presence,
+and luncheon seemed the only matter of moment.
+
+"I wonder, my dears," she said, "if you would be very disappointed and
+think me very dense if I proposed our giving up the Malakhand Fort? The
+driver has been giving me in very poor English such an account of the
+dangers of that awful road up the hill that I feel no Fort would repay
+me for its terrors. Do say what you feel, Miss Loring. Mr. Clifden can
+lunch with the officers at Nowshera and come any time. I know I am an
+atrocity."
+
+There could be only one answer, though Vanna and I knew perfectly well
+the crafty design of the driver to spare himself work. Mrs. Delany
+remained brightly awake for the run home, and favored us with many
+remarkable views on India and its shortcomings, Vanna, who had a sincere
+liking for her, laughing with delight at her description of a visit of
+condolence with Lady Meryon to the five widows of one of the hill Rajas.
+
+But I own I was pre-occupied. I knew those moments at the monastery had
+given me a glimpse into the wonderland of her soul that made me long
+for more. It was rapidly becoming clear to me that unless my intentions
+developed on very different lines I must flee Peshawar. For love is born
+of sympathy, and sympathy was strengthening daily, but for love I had no
+courage yet.
+
+I feared it as men fear the unknown. I despised myself--but I feared.
+I will confess my egregious folly and vanity--I had no doubt as to her
+reception of my offer if I should make it, but possessed by a colossal
+selfishness, I thought only of myself, and from that point of view could
+not decide how I stood to lose or gain. In my wildest accesses of vanity
+I did not suppose Vanna loved me, but I felt she liked me, and I believe
+the advantages I had to offer would be overwhelming to a woman in her
+position. So, tossed on the waves of indecision, I inclined to flight.
+
+That night I resolutely began my packing, and wrote a note of farewell
+to Lady Meryon. The next morning I furiously undid it, and destroyed the
+note. And that afternoon I took the shortest way to the sun-set road to
+lounge about and wait for Vanna and Winifred. She never came, and I was
+as unreasonably angry as if I had deserved the blessing of her presence.
+
+Next day I could see that she tried gently hut clearly to discourage our
+meeting and for three days I never saw her at all. Yet I knew that in
+her solitary life our talks counted for a pleasure, and when we met
+again I thought I saw a new softness in the lovely hazel deeps of her
+eyes.
+
+
+III
+
+
+On the day when things became clear to me, I was walking towards the
+Meryons' gates when I met her coming alone along the sunset road, in the
+late gold of the afternoon. She looked pale and a little wearied, and I
+remembered I wished I did not know every change of her face as I did. It
+was a symptom that alarmed my selfishness--it galled me with the sense
+that I was no longer my own despot.
+
+"So you have been up the Khyber Pass," she said as I fell into step at
+her side. "Tell me--was it as wonderful as you expected?"
+
+"No, no,--you tell me! It will give me what I missed. Begin at the
+beginning. Tell me what I saw."
+
+I could not miss the delight of her words, and she laughed, knowing my
+whim.
+
+"Oh, that Pass!--the wonder of those old roads that have borne the
+traffic and romance of the world for ages. Do you think there is
+anything in the world so fascinating as they are? But did you go on
+Tuesday or Friday?"
+
+For these are the only days in the week when the Khyber can be safely
+entered. The British then turn out the Khyber Rifles and man every crag,
+and the loaded caravans move like a tide, and go up and down the narrow
+road on their occasions.
+
+Naturally mere sightseers are not welcomed, for much business must be
+got through in that urgent forty eight hours in which life is not risked
+in entering.
+
+"Tuesday. But make a picture for me."
+
+"Well, you gave your word not to photograph or sketch--as if one wanted
+to when every bit of it is stamped on one's brain! And you went up to
+Jumrood Fort at the entrance. Did they tell you it is an old Sikh Fort
+and has been on duty in that turbulent place for five hundred years And
+did you see the machine guns in the court? And every one armed--even the
+boys with belts of cartridges? Then you went up the narrow winding track
+between the mountains, and you said to yourself, 'This is the road of
+pure romance. It goes up to silken Samarkhand, and I can ride to Bokhara
+of the beautiful women and to all the dreams. Am I alive and is it
+real?' You felt that?"
+
+"All. Every bit. Go on!"
+
+She smiled with pleasure.
+
+"And you saw the little forts on the crags and the men on guard all
+along the bills, rifles ready! You could hear the guns rattle as they
+saluted. Do you know that up there men plough with rifles loaded beside
+them? They have to be men indeed."
+
+"Do you mean to imply that we are not men?"
+
+"Different men at least. This is life in a Border ballad. Such a life as
+you knew in France but beautiful in a wild--hawk sort of way. Don't the
+Khyber Rifles bewilder you? They are drawn from these very Hill tribes,
+and will shoot their own fathers and brothers in the way of duty as
+comfortably as if they were jackals. Once there was a scrap here and
+one of the tribesmen sniped our men unbearably. What do you suppose
+happened? A Khyber Rifle came to the Colonel and said, 'Let me put
+an end to him, Colonel Sahib. I know exactly where he sits. He is my
+grandfather.' And he did it!"
+
+"The bond of bread and salt?"
+
+"Yes, and discipline. I'm sometimes half frightened of discipline. It
+moulds a man like wax. Even God doesn't do that. Well--then you had the
+traders--wild shaggy men in sheepskin and women in massive jewelry of
+silver and turquoise,-great earrings, heavy bracelets loading their
+arms, wild, fierce, handsome. And the camels--thousands of them, some
+going up, some coming down, a mass of human and animal life. Above
+you, moving figures against the keen blue sky, or deep below you in the
+ravines.
+
+"The camels were swaying along with huge bales of goods, and dark
+beautiful women in wicker cages perched on them. Silks and carpets from
+Bokhara, and blue--eyed Persian cats, and bluer Persian turquoises.
+Wonderful! And the dust, gilded by the sunshine, makes a vaporous golden
+atmosphere for it all."
+
+"What was the most wonderful thing you saw there?"
+
+"The most beautiful, I think, was a man--a splendid dark ruffian
+lounging along. He wanted to show off, and his swagger was perfect. Long
+black onyx eyes and a tumble of black curls, and teeth like almonds.
+But what do you think he carried on his wrist--a hawk with fierce yellow
+eyes, ringed and chained. Hawking is a favourite sport in the hills. Oh,
+why doesn't some great painter come and paint it all before they take to
+trains and cars? I long to see it all again, but I never shall."
+
+"Why not," said I. "Surely Sir John can get you up there any day?"
+
+"Not now. The fighting makes it difficult. But it isn't that. I am
+leaving."
+
+"Leaving?" My heart gave a leap. "Why? Where?"
+
+"Leaving Lady Meryon."
+
+"Why--for Heaven's sake?"
+
+"I had rather not tell you."
+
+"But I must know."
+
+"You cannot."
+
+"I shall ask Lady Meryon."
+
+"I forbid you."
+
+And then the unexpected happened, and an unbearable impulse swept me
+into folly--or was it wisdom?
+
+"Listen to me. I would not have said it yet, but this settles it. I want
+you to marry me. I want it atrociously!"
+
+It was a strange word. What I felt for her at that moment was difficult
+to describe. I endured it like a pain that could only be assuaged by
+her presence, but I endured it angrily. We were walking on the sunset
+road--very deserted and quiet at the time. The place was propitious if
+nothing else was.
+
+She looked at me in transparent astonishment;
+
+"Mr. Clifden, are you dreaming? You can't mean what you say."
+
+"Why can't I? I do. I want you. You have the key of all I care for. I
+think of the world without you and find it tasteless."
+
+"Surely you have all the world can give? What do you want more?"
+
+"The power to enjoy it--to understand it. You have got that--I haven't.
+I want you always with me to interpret, like a guide to a blind fellow.
+I am no better."
+
+"Say like a dog, at once!" she interrupted. "At least you are frank
+enough to put it on that ground. You have not said you love me. You
+could not say it."
+
+"I don't know whether I do or not. I know nothing about love. I want
+you. Indescribably. Perhaps that is love--is it? I never wanted any one
+before. I have tried to get away and I can't."
+
+I was brutally frank, you see. She compelled my very thoughts.
+
+"Why have you tried?"
+
+"Because every man likes freedom. But I like you better." "I can tell
+you the reason," she said in her gentle unwavering voice. "I am Lady
+Meryon's governess, and an undesirable. You have felt that?"
+
+"Don't make me out such a snob. No--yes. You force me into honesty.
+I did feel it at first like the miserable fool I am, but I could kick
+myself when I think of that now. It is utterly forgotten. Take me and
+make me what you will, and forgive me. Only tell me your secret of joy.
+How is it you understand everything alive or dead? I want to live--to
+see, to know."
+
+It was a rhapsody like a boy's. Yet at the moment I was not even ashamed
+of it, so sharp was my need.
+
+"I think," she said, slowly, looking straight before her, "that I had
+better be quite frank. I don't love you. I don't know what love means
+in the Western sense. It has a very different meaning for me. Your voice
+comes to me from an immense distance when you speak in that way. You
+want me--but never with a thought of what I might want. Is that love? I
+like you very deeply as a friend, but we are of different races. There
+is a gulf."
+
+"A gulf? You are English."
+
+"By birth, yes. In mind, no. And there are things that go deeper, that
+you could not understand. So I refuse quite definitely, and our ways
+part here, for in a few days I go. I shall not see you again, but I wish
+to say good-bye."
+
+The bitterest chagrin was working in my soul. I felt as if all were
+deserting me-a sickening feeling of loneliness. I did not know the man
+who was in me, and was a stranger to myself.
+
+"I entreat you to tell me why, and where."
+
+"Since you have made me this offer, I will tell you why. Lady Meryon
+objected to my friendship with you, and objected in a way which-"
+
+She stopped, flushing palely. I caught her hand.
+
+"That settles it!-that she should have dared! I'll go up this minute and
+tell her we are engaged. Vanna-Vanna!"
+
+For she disengaged her hand, quietly but firmly.
+
+"On no account. How can I make it more plain to you? I should have gone
+soon in any case. My place is in the native city--that is the life I
+want. I have work there, I knew it before I came out. My sympathies are
+all with them. They know what life is--why even the beggars, poorer than
+poor, are perfectly happy, basking in the great generous sun. Oh, the
+splendour and riot of life and colour! That's my life--I sicken of
+this."
+
+"But I'll give it to you. Marry me, and we will travel till you're tired
+of it."
+
+"Yes, and look on as at a play--sitting in the stalls, and applauding
+when we are pleased. No, I'm going to work there." "For God's sake, how?
+Let me come too."
+
+"You can't. You're not in it. I am going to attach myself to the medical
+mission at Lahore and learn nursing, and then I shall go to my own
+people."
+
+"Missionaries? You've nothing in common with them?"
+
+"Nothing. But they teach what I want. Mr. Clifden, I shall not come this
+way again. If I remember--I'll write to you, and tell you what the real
+world is like."
+
+She smiled, the absorbed little smile I knew and feared. I saw pleading
+was useless then. I would wait, and never lose sight of her and of hope.
+
+"Vanna, before you go, give me your gift of sight. Interpret for me.
+Stay with me a little and make me see."
+
+"What do you mean exactly?" she asked in her gentlest voice, half
+turning to me.
+
+"Make one journey with me, as my sister, if you will do no more. Though
+I warn you that all the time I shall be trying to win my wife. But come
+with me once, and after that--if you will go, you must. Say yes."
+
+Madness! But she hesitated--a hesitation full of hope, and looked at me
+with intent eyes.
+
+"I will tell you frankly," she said at last, "that I know my knowledge
+of the East and kinship with it goes far beyond mere words. In my case
+the doors were not shut. I believe--I know that long ago this was my
+life. If I spoke for ever I could not make you understand how much I
+know and why. So I shall quite certainly go back to it. Nothing--you
+least of all, can hold me. But you are my friend--that is a true bond.
+And if you would wish me to give you two months before I go, I might do
+that if it would in any way help you. As your friend only--you clearly
+understand. You would not reproach me afterwards when I left you, as I
+should most certainly do?"
+
+"I swear I would not. I swear I would protect you even from myself. I
+want you for ever, but if you will only give me two months--come! But
+have you thought that people will talk. It may injure you. I'm not worth
+that, God knows. And you will take nothing I could give you in return."
+
+She spoke very quietly.
+
+"That does not trouble me.--It would only trouble me if you asked what
+I have not to give. For two months I would travel with you as a friend,
+if, like a friend, I paid my own expenses-"
+
+I would have interrupted, but she brushed that firmly aside. "No, I must
+do as I say, and I am quite able to or I should not suggest it. I would
+go on no other terms. It would be hard if because we are man and woman I
+might not do one act of friendship for you before we part. For though I
+refuse your offer utterly, I appreciate it, and I would make what little
+return I can. It would be a sharp pain to me to distress you."
+
+Her gentleness and calm, the magnitude of the offer she was making
+stunned me so that I could scarcely speak. There was such an
+extraordinary simplicity and generosity in her manner that it appeared
+to me more enthralling and bewildering than the most finished coquetry
+I had ever known. She gave me opportunities that the most ardent lover
+could in his wildest dream desire, and with the remoteness in her eyes
+and her still voice she deprived them of all hope. It kindled in me a
+flame that made my throat dry when I tried to speak.
+
+"Vanna, is it a promise? You mean it?"
+
+"If you wish it, yes. But I warn you I think it will not make it easier
+for you when the time is over.
+
+"Why two months?"
+
+"Partly because I can afford no more. No! I know what you would say.
+Partly because I can spare no more time. But I will give you that,
+if you wish, though, honestly, I had very much rather not. I think it
+unwise for you. I would protect you if I could--indeed I would!"
+
+It was my turn to hesitate now. Every moment revealed to me some new
+sweetness, some charm that I saw would weave itself into the very
+fibre of my I had been! Was I not now a fool? Would it not being if the
+opportunity were given. Oh, fool that be better to let her go before she
+had become a part of my daily experience? I began to fear I was courting
+my own shipwreck. She read my thoughts clearly.
+
+"Indeed you would be wise to decide against it. Release me from my
+promise. It was a mad scheme."
+
+The superiority--or so I felt it--of her gentleness maddened me. It
+might have been I who needed protection, who was running the risk of
+misjudgment--not she, a lonely woman. She looked at me, waiting--trying
+to be wise for me, never for one instant thinking of herself. I felt
+utterly exiled from the real purpose of her life.
+
+"I will never release you. I claim your promise. I hold to it."
+
+"Very well then--I will write, and tell you where I shall be. Good-bye,
+and if you change your mind, as I hope you will, tell me."
+
+She extended her hand cool as a snowflake, and was gone, walking swiftly
+up the road. Ah, let a man beware when his wishes fulfilled, rain down
+upon him!
+
+To what had I committed myself? She knew her strength and had no fears.
+I could scarcely realize that she had liking enough for me to make the
+offer. That it meant no shade more than she had said I knew well. She
+was safe, but what was to be the result for me? I knew nothing--she was
+a beloved mystery.
+
+ "Strange she is and secret,  Strange her eyes; her cheeks are
+cold as cold sea-shells."
+
+Yet I would risk it, for I knew there was no hope if I let her go now,
+and if I saw her again, some glimmer might fall upon my dark.
+
+Next day this reached me:--Dear Mr. Clifden,--
+
+I am going to some Indian friends for a time. On the 15th of June I
+shall be at Srinagar in Kashmir. A friend has allowed me to take her
+little houseboat, the "Kedarnath." If you like this plan we will share
+the cost for two months. I warn you it is not luxurious, but I think you
+will like it. I shall do this whether you come or no, for I want a quiet
+time before I take up my nursing in Lahore. In thinking of all this will
+you remember that I am not a girl but a woman. I shall be twenty-nine my
+next birthday. Sincerely yours, VANNA LORING.
+
+P.S. But I still think you would be wiser not to come. I hope to hear
+you will not.
+
+I replied only this:--Dear Miss Loring,--I think I understand the
+position fully. I will be there. I thank you with all my heart.
+Gratefully yours, STEPHEN CLIFDEN.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Three days later I met Lady Meryon, and was swept in to tea. Her manner
+was distinctly more cordial as she mentioned casually that Vanna had
+left--she understood to take up missionary work--"which is odd," she
+added with a woman's acrimony, "for she had no more in common with
+missionaries than I have, and that is saying a good deal. Of course she
+speaks Hindustani perfectly, and could be useful, but I haven't grasped
+the point of it yet." I saw she counted on my knowing nothing of the
+real reason of Vanna's going and left it, of course, at that. The talk
+drifted away under my guidance. Vanna evidently puzzled her. She half
+feared, and wholly misunderstood her.
+
+No message came to me, as time went by, and for the time she had
+vanished completely, but I held fast to her promise and lived on that
+only.
+
+I take up my life where it ceased to be a mere suspense and became life
+once more.
+
+On the 15th of June, I found myself riding into Srinagar in Kashmir,
+through the pure tremulous green of the mighty poplars that hedge the
+road into the city. The beauty of the country had half stunned me when
+I entered the mountain barrier of Baramula and saw the snowy peaks that
+guard the Happy Valley, with the Jhelum flowing through its tranquil
+loveliness. The flush of the almond blossom was over, but the iris, like
+a blue sea of peace had overflowed the world--the azure meadows smiled
+back at the radiant sky. Such blossom! the blue shading into clear
+violet, like a shoaling sea. The earth, like a cup held in the hand of a
+god, brimmed with the draught of youth and summer and--love? But no, for
+me the very word was sinister. Vanna's face, immutably calm, confronted
+it.
+
+That night I slept in a boat at Sopor, and I remember that, waking at
+midnight, I looked out and saw a mountain with a gloriole of hazy silver
+about it, misty and faint as a cobweb threaded with dew. The river,
+there spreading into a lake, was dark under it, flowing in a deep smooth
+blackness of shadow, and everything awaited--what? And even while I
+looked, the moon floated serenely above the peak, and all was bathed in
+pure light, the water rippling and shining in broken silver and pearl.
+So had Vanna floated into my sky, luminous, sweet, remote. I did not
+question my heart any more. I knew I loved her.
+
+Two days later I rode into Srinagar, and could scarcely see the wild
+beauty of that strange Venice of the East, my heart was so beating
+in my eyes. I rode past the lovely wooden bridges where the balconied
+houses totter to each other across the canals in dim splendour of
+carving and age; where the many-coloured native life crowds down to the
+river steps and cleanses its flower-bright robes, its gold-bright brass
+vessels in the shining stream, and my heart said only--Vanna, Vanna!
+
+One day, one thought, of her absence had taught me what she was to me,
+and if humility and patient endeavor could raise me to her feet, I was
+resolved that I would spend my life in labor and think it well spent.
+
+My servant dismounted and led his horse, asking from every one where the
+"Kedarnath" could be found, and eager black eyes sparkled and two little
+bronze images detached themselves from the crowd of boys, and ran, fleet
+as fauns, before us.
+
+Above the last bridge the Jhelum broadens out into a stately river,
+controlled at one side by the banked walk known as the Bund, with the
+Club House upon it and the line of houseboats beneath. Here the visitors
+flutter up and down and exchange the gossip, the bridge appointments,
+the little dinners that sit so incongruously on the pure Orient that is
+Kashmir.
+
+She would not be here. My heart told me that, and sure enough the boys
+were leading across the bridge and by a quiet shady way to one of the
+many backwaters that the great river makes in the enchanting city. There
+is one waterway stretching on afar to the Dal Lake. It looks like a
+river--it is the very haunt of peace. Under those mighty chenar, or
+plane trees, that are the glory of Kashmir, clouding the water with deep
+green shadows, the sun can scarcely pierce, save in a dipping sparkle
+here and there to intensify the green gloom. The murmur of the city, the
+chatter of the club, are hundreds of miles away. We rode downward under
+the towering trees, and dismounting, saw a little houseboat tethered to
+the bank. It was not of the richer sort that haunts the Bund, where the
+native servants follow in a separate boat, and even the electric light
+is turned on as part of the luxury. This was a long low craft, very
+broad, thatched like a country cottage afloat. In the forepart lived the
+native owner, and his family, their crew, our cooks and servants; for
+they played many parts in our service. And in the afterpart, room for a
+life, a dream, the joy or curse & many days to be.
+
+But then, I saw only one thing--Vanna sat under the trees, reading, or
+looking at the cool dim watery vista, with a single boat, loaded to the
+river's edge with melons and scarlet tomatoes, punting lazily down to
+Srinagar in the sleepy afternoon.
+
+She was dressed in white with a shady hat, and her delicate dark face
+seemed to glow in the shadow like the heart of a pale rose. For the
+first time I knew she was beautiful. Beauty shone in her like the flame
+in an alabaster lamp, serene, diffused in the very air about her, so
+that to me she moved in a mild radiance. She rose to meet me with both
+hands outstretched--the kindest, most cordial welcome. Not an eyelash
+flickered, not a trace of self-consciousness. If I could have seen her
+flush or tremble--but no--her eyes were clear and calm as a forest pool.
+So I remembered her. So I saw her once more.
+
+I tried, with a hopeless pretence, to follow her example and hide what I
+felt, where she had nothing to hide.
+
+"What a place you have found. Why, it's like the deep heart of a wood!"
+
+"Yes, I saw it once when I was here with the Meryons. But we lay at the
+Bund then--just under the Club. This is better. Did you like the ride
+up?"
+
+I threw myself on the grass beside her with a feeling of perfect rest.
+
+"It was like a new heaven and a new earth. What a country!"
+
+The very spirit of Quiet seemed to be drowsing in those branches
+towering up into the blue, dipping their green fingers into the crystal
+of the water. What a heaven!
+
+"Now you shall have your tea and then I will show you your rooms," she
+said, smiling at my delight. "We shall stay here a few days more that
+you may see Srinagar, and then they tow us up into the Dal Lake opposite
+the Gardens of the Mogul Emperors. And if you think this beautiful what
+will you say then?"
+
+I shut my eyes and see still that first meal of my new life. The little
+table that Pir Baksh, breathing full East in his jade-green turban, set
+before her, with its cloth worked in a pattern of the chenar leaves
+that are the symbol of Kashmir; the brown cakes made by Ahmad Khan in
+a miraculous kitchen of his own invention--a few holes burrowed in the
+river bank, a smoldering fire beneath them, and a width of canvas for
+a roof. But it served, and no more need be asked of luxury. And Vanna,
+making it mysteriously the first home I ever had known, the central
+joy of it all. Oh, wonderful days of life that breathe the spirit of
+immortality and pass so quickly--surely they must be treasured somewhere
+in Eternity that we may look upon their beloved light once more.
+
+"Now you must see the boat. The Kedarnath is not a Dreadnought, but she
+is broad and very comfortable. And we have many chaperons. They all
+live in the bows, and exist simply to protect the Sahiblog from all
+discomfort, and very well they do it. That is Ahmad Khan by the kitchen.
+He cooks for us. Salama owns the boat, and steers her and engages the
+men to tow us when we move. And when I arrived he aired a little English
+and said piously; The Lord help me to give you no trouble, and the Lord
+help you! That is his wife sitting on the bank. She speaks little but
+Kashmiri, but I know a little of that. Look at the hundred rat-tail
+plaits of her hair, lengthened with wool, and see her silver and
+turquoise jewelry. She wears much of the family fortune and is quite
+a walking bank. Salama, Ahmad Khan and I talk by the hour. Ahmad comes
+from Fyzabad. Look at Salama's boy--I call him the Orange Imp. Did you
+ever see anything so beautiful?"
+
+I looked in sheer delight, and grasped my camera. Sitting near us was a
+lovely little Kashmiri boy of about eight, in a faded orange coat, and
+a turban exactly like his father's. His curled black eyelashes were
+so long that they made a soft gloom over the upper part of the little
+golden face. The perfect bow of the scarlet lips, the long eyes, the shy
+smile, suggested an Indian Eros. He sat dipping his feet in the water
+with little pigeon-like cries of content.
+
+"He paddles at the bow of our little shikara boat with a paddle exactly
+like a water-lily leaf. Do you like our friends? I love them already,
+and know all their affairs. And now for the boat."
+
+"One moment--If we are friends on a great adventure, I must call you
+Vanna, and you me Stephen."
+
+"Yes, I suppose that is part of it," she said, smiling. "Come, Stephen."
+
+It was like music, but a cold music that chilled me. She should have
+hesitated, should have flushed--it was I who trembled. So I followed her
+across the broad plank into our new home.
+
+"This is our sitting-room. Look, how charming!"
+
+It was better than charming; it was home indeed. Windows at each side
+opening down almost to the water, a little table for meals that lived
+mostly on the bank, with a grey pot of iris in the middle. Another
+table for writing, photography, and all the little pursuits of travel.
+A bookshelf with some well--worn friends. Two long cushioned chairs.
+Two for meals, and a Bokhara rug, soft and pleasant for the feet. The
+interior was plain unpainted wood, but set so that the grain showed like
+satin in the rippling lights from the water.
+
+That is the inventory of the place I have loved best in the world, but
+what eloquence can describe what it gave me, what its memory gives me to
+this day? And I have no eloquence--what I felt leaves me dumb.
+
+"It is perfect," was all I said as she waved her hand proudly. "It is
+home."
+
+"And if you had come alone to Kashmir you would have had a great rich
+boat with electric light and a butler. You would never have seen the
+people except at meal--times. I think you will like this better.
+Well, this is your tiny bedroom, and your bathroom, and beyond the
+sitting--room are mine. Do you like it all?"
+
+But I could say no more. The charm of her own personality had touched
+everything and left its fragrance like a flower--breath in the air. I
+was beggared of thanks, but my whole soul was gratitude. We dined on
+the bank that evening, the lamp burning steadily in the still air and
+throwing broken reflections in the water, while the moon looked in upon
+them through the leaves. I felt extraordinarily young and happy.
+
+The quiet of her voice was soft as the little lap of water against
+the bows of the boat, and Kahdra, the Orange Imp, was singing a little
+wordless song to himself as he washed the plates beside us. It was a
+simple meal, and Vanna, abstemious as a hermit never ate anything but
+rice and fruit, but I could remember no meal in all my days of luxury
+where I had eaten with such zest.
+
+"It looks very grand to have so many to wait upon us, doesn't it? But
+this is one of the cheapest countries in the world though the old timers
+mourn over present expenses. You will laugh when I show you your share
+of the cost."
+
+"The wealth of the world could not buy this," I said, and was silent.
+
+"But you must listen to my plans. We must do a little camping the
+last three weeks before we part. Up in the mountains. Are they not
+marvellous? They stand like a rampart round us, but not cold and
+terrible, but "Like as the hills stand round about Jerusalem"--they are
+guardian presences. And running up into them, high-very high, are the
+valleys and hills where we shall camp. Tomorrow we shall row through
+Srinagar, by the old Maharaja's palace."
+
+
+V
+
+And so began a life of sheer enchantment. We knew no one. The visitors
+in Kashmir change nearly every season, and no one cared-no one asked
+anything of us, and as for our shipmates, a willing affectionate service
+was their gift, and no more. Looking back, I know in what a wonder-world
+I was privileged to live. Vanna could talk with them all. She did not
+move apart, a condescending or indifferent foreigner. Kahdra would
+come to her knee and prattle to her of the great snake that lived up on
+Mahadeo to devour erring boys who omitted their prayers at proper Moslem
+intervals. She would sit with the baby in her lap while the mother
+busied herself in the sunny bows with the mysterious dishes that smelt
+so savory to a hungry man. The cuts, the bruises of the neighbourhood
+all came to Vanna for treatment.
+
+"I am graduating as a nurse," she would say laughing as she bent over
+the lean arm of some weirdly wrinkled old lady, bandaging and soothing
+at the same moment. Her reward would be some bit of folk-lore, some
+quaintness of gratitude that I noted down in the little book I kept for
+remembrance--that I do not need, for every word is in my heart.
+
+We rowed down through the city next day--Salama rowing, and little
+Kahdra lazily paddling at the bow--a wonderful city, with its narrow
+ways begrimed with the dirt of ages, and its balconied houses looking
+as if disease and sin had soaked into them and given them a vicious
+tottering beauty, horrible and yet lovely too. We saw the swarming life
+of the bazaar, the white turbans coming and going, diversified by the
+rose and yellow Hindu turbans, and the caste-marks, orange and red, on
+the dark brows.
+
+I saw two women--girls--painted and tired like Jezebel, looking out of
+one window carved and old, and the grey burnished doves flying about
+it. They leaned indolently, like all the old, old wickedness of the East
+that yet is ever young--"Flowers of Delight," with smooth black hair
+braided with gold and blossoms, and covered with pale rose veils, and
+gold embossed disks swinging like lamps beside the olive cheeks, the
+great eyes artificially lengthened and darkened with soorma, and the
+curves of the full lips emphasized with vermilion. They looked down
+on us with apathy, a dull weariness that held all the old evil of the
+wicked humming city.
+
+It had taken shape in those indolent bodies and heavy eyes that could
+flash into life as a snake wakes into fierce darting energy when the
+time comes to spring--direct inheritrixes from Lilith, in the fittest
+setting in the world--the almost exhausted vice of an Oriental city as
+old as time.
+
+"And look-below here," said Vanna, pointing to one of the ghauts--long
+rugged steps running down to the river.
+
+"When I came yesterday, a great broken crowd was collected here, almost
+shouldering each other into the water where a boat lay rocking. In it
+lay the body of a man brutally murdered for the sake of a few rupees and
+flung into the river. I could see the poor brown body stark in the boat
+with a friend weeping beside it. On the lovely deodar bridge people
+leaned over, watching with a grim open-mouthed curiosity, and business
+went on gaily where the jewelers make the silver bangles for slender
+wrists, and the rows of silver chains that make the necks like 'the
+Tower of Damascus builded for an armory.' It was all very wild and
+cruel. I went down to them-"
+
+"Vanna--you went down? Horrible!"
+
+"No, you see I heard them say the wife was almost a child and needs
+help. So I went. Once long ago at Peshawar I saw the same thing happen,
+and they came and took the child for the service of the gods, for she
+was most lovely, and she clung to the feet of a man in terror, and the
+priest stabbed her to the heart. She died in my arms.
+
+"Good God!" I said, shuddering; "what a sight for you! Did they never
+hang him?"
+
+"He was not punished. I told you it was a very long time ago. Her
+expression had a brooding quiet as she looked down into the running
+river, almost it might be as if she saw the picture of that past misery
+in the deep water. She said no more. But in her words and the terrible
+crowding of its life, Srinagar seemed to me more of a nightmare than
+anything I had seen, excepting only Benares; for the holy Benares is a
+memory of horror, with a sense of blood hidden under its frantic crazy
+devotion, and not far hidden either.
+
+"Our own green shade, when we pulled back to it in the evening cool, was
+a refuge of unspeakable quiet. She read aloud to me that evening by the
+small light of our lamp beneath the trees, and, singularly, she read of
+joy.
+
+"I have drunk of the Cup of the Ineffable, I have found the key of the
+Mystery, Travelling by no track I have come to the Sorrowless Land; very
+easily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me. Wonderful is that
+Land of rest to which no merit can win. There have I seen joy filled
+to the brim, perfection of joy. He dances in rapture and waves of form
+arise from His dance. He holds all within his bliss."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"It is from the songs of the great Indian mystic--Kabir. Let me read you
+more. It is like the singing of a lark, lost in the infinite of light
+and heaven."
+
+So in the soft darkness I heard for the first time those immortal words;
+and hearing, a faint glimmer of understanding broke upon me as to
+the source of the peace that surrounded her. I had accepted it as an
+emanation of her own heart when it was the pulsing of the tide of the
+Divine. She read, choosing a verse here and there, and I listened with
+absorption.
+
+Suppose I had been wrong in believing that sorrow is the keynote
+of life; that pain is the road of ascent, if road there be; that an
+implacable Nature and that only, presides over all our pitiful struggles
+and seekings and writes a black "Finis" to the holograph of our
+existence?
+
+What then? What was she teaching me? Was she the Interpreter of a Beauty
+eternal in the heavens, and reflected like a broken prism in the beauty
+that walked visible beside me? So I listened like a child to an unknown
+language, yet ventured my protest.
+
+"In India, in this wonderful country where men have time and will for
+speculation such thoughts may be natural. Can they be found in the
+West?"
+
+"This is from the West--might not Kabir himself have said it? Certainly
+he would have felt it. 'Happy is he who seeks not to understand the
+Mystery of God, but who, merging his spirit into Thine, sings to
+Thy face, O Lord, like a harp, understanding how difficult it is to
+know--how easy to love Thee.' We debate and argue and the Vision passes
+us by. We try to prove it, and kill it in the laboratory of our minds,
+when on the altar of our souls it will dwell for ever."
+
+Silence--and I pondered. Finally she laid the book aside, and repeated
+from memory and in a tone of perfect music; "Kabir says, 'I shall go
+to the House of my Lord with my Love at my side; then shall I sound the
+trumpet of triumph.'"
+
+And when she left me alone in the moonlight silence the old doubts came
+back to me--the fear that I saw only through her eyes, and began to
+believe in joy only because I loved her. I remember I wrote in the
+little book I kept for my stray thoughts, these words which are not mine
+but reflect my thought of her; "Thine is the skill of the Fairy Woman,
+and the virtue of St. Bride, and the faith of Mary the Mild, and the
+gracious way of the Greek woman, and the beauty of lovely Emer, and the
+tenderness of heart-sweet Deirdre, and the courage of Maev the great
+Queen, and the charm of Mouth-of-Music."
+
+Yes, all that and more, but I feared lest I should see the heaven of joy
+through her eyes only and find it mirage as I had found so much else.
+
+SECOND PART Early in the pure dawn the men came and our boat was towed
+up into the Dal Lake through crystal waterways and flowery banks, the
+men on the path keeping step and straining at the rope until the bronze
+muscles stood out on their legs and backs, shouting strong rhythmic
+phrases to mark the pull.
+
+"They shout the Wondrous Names of God--as they are called," said Vanna
+when I asked. "They always do that for a timid effort. Bad shah! The
+Lord, the Compassionate, and so on. I don't think there is any religion
+about it but it is as natural to them as One, Two, Three, to us. It
+gives a tremendous lift. Watch and see."
+
+It was part of the delightful strangeness that we should move to that
+strong music. We sat on the upper deck and watched the dream--like
+beauty drift slowly by until we emerged beneath a little bridge into the
+fairy land of the lake which the Mogul Emperors loved so well that they
+made their noble pleasance gardens on the banks, and thought it little
+to travel up yearly from far--off Delhi over the snowy Pir Panjal with
+their Queens and courts for the perfect summer of Kashmir.
+
+We moored by a low bank under a great wood of chenar trees, and saw the
+little table in the wilderness set in the greenest shade with our chairs
+beside it, and my pipe laid reverently upon it by Kahdra.
+
+Across the glittering water lay on one side the Shalimar Garden known
+to all readers of "Lalla Ruhk"--a paradise of roses; and beyond it
+again the lovelier gardens of Nour-Mahal, the Light of the Palace, that
+imperial woman who ruled India under the weak Emperor's name--she whose
+name he set thus upon his coins:
+
+"By order of King Jehangir. Gold has a hundred splendours added to it by
+receiving the name of Nour-Jahan the Queen."
+
+Has any woman ever had a more royal homage than this most royal
+lady--known first as Mihr-u-nissa--Sun of Women, and later, Nour-Mahal,
+Light of the Palace, and latest, Nour-Jahan-Begam, Queen, Light of the
+World?
+
+Here in these gardens she had lived--had seen the snow mountains change
+from the silver of dawn to the illimitable rose of sunset. The life, the
+colour beat insistently upon my brain. They built a world of magic where
+every moment was pure gold. Surely--surely to Vanna it must be the same.
+I believed in my very soul that she who gave and shared such joy could
+not be utterly apart from me? Could I then feel certain that I had
+gained any ground in these days we had been together? Could she still
+define the cruel limits she had laid down, or were her eyes kinder, her
+tones a more broken music? I did not know. Whenever I could hazard a
+guess the next minute baffled me.
+
+Just then, in the sunset, she was sitting on deck, singing under her
+breath and looking absently away to the Gardens across the Lake. I could
+catch the words here and there, and knew them.
+
+  "Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,
+   Where are you now--who lies beneath your spell?
+   Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway far,
+   Before you agonize them in farewell?"
+
+"Don't!" I said abruptly. It stung me.
+
+"What?" she asked in surprise. "That is the song every one remembers
+here. Poor Laurence Hope! How she knew and loved this India! What are
+you grumbling at?"
+
+Her smile stung me.
+
+"Never mind," I said morosely. "You don't understand. You never will."
+
+And yet I believed sometimes that she would--that time was on my side.
+
+When Kahdra and I pulled her across to Nour-Mahal's garden next day, how
+could I not believe it--her face was so full of joy as she looked at me
+for sympathy?
+
+"I don't think so much beauty is crowded into any other few miles in
+the world--beauty of association, history, nature, everything!" she said
+with shining eyes. "The lotus flowers are not out yet but when they come
+that is the last touch of perfection. Do you remember Homer--'But whoso
+ate of the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, was neither willing to bring
+me word again, nor to depart. Nay, their desire was to remain there
+for ever, feeding on the lotus with the Lotus Eaters, forgetful of all
+return.' You know the people here eat the roots and seeds? I ate them
+last year and perhaps that is why I cannot stay away. But look at
+Nour-Mahal's garden!"
+
+We were pulling in among the reeds and the huge carven leaves of the
+water plants, and the snake-headed buds lolling upon them with the
+slippery half-sinister look that water-flowers have, as though their
+cold secret life belonged to the hidden water world and not to ours. But
+now the boat was touching the little wooden steps.
+
+O beautiful--most beautiful the green lawns, shaded with huge pyramids
+of the chenar trees, the terraced gardens where the marble steps climbed
+from one to the other, and the mountain streams flashed singing and
+shining down the carved marble slopes that cunning hands had made to
+delight the Empress of Beauty, between the wildernesses of roses. Her
+pavilion stands still among the flowers, and the waters ripple through
+it to join the lake--and she is--where? Even in the glory of sunshine
+the passing of all fair things was present with me as I saw the empty
+shell that had held the Pearl of Empire, and her roses that still bloom,
+her waters that still sing for others.
+
+The spray of a hundred fountains was misty diamond dust in the warm air
+laden with the scent of myriad flowers. Kahdra followed us everywhere,
+singing his little tuneless happy song. The world brimmed with beauty
+and joy. And we were together. Words broke from me.
+
+"Vanna, let it be for ever! Let us live here. I'll give up all the world
+for this and you."
+
+"But you see," she said delicately, "it would be 'giving up.' You use
+the right word. It is not your life. It is a lovely holiday, no more.
+You would weary of it. You would want the city life and your own kind."
+
+I protested with all my soul.
+
+"No. Indeed I will say frankly that it would be lowering yourself to
+live a lotus-eating life among my people. It is a life with which you
+have no tie. A Westerner who lives like that steps down; he loses his
+birthright just as an Oriental does who Europeanizes himself. He cannot
+live your life nor you his. If you had work here it would be different.
+No--six or eight weeks more; then go away and forget it."
+
+I turned from her. The serpent was in Paradise. When is he absent?
+
+On one of the terraces a man was beating a tom-tom, and veiled women
+listened, grouped about him in brilliant colours.
+
+"Isn't that all India?" she said; "that dull reiterated sound? It
+half stupefies, half maddens. Once at Darjiling I saw the Lamas' Devil
+Dance--the soul, a white-faced child with eyes unnaturally enlarged,
+fleeing among a rabble of devils--the evil passions. It fled wildly
+here and there and every way was blocked. The child fell on its knees,
+screaming dumbly--you could see the despair in the staring eyes, but
+all was drowned in the thunder of Tibetan drums. No mercy--no escape.
+Horrible!"
+
+"Even in Europe the drum is awful," I said. "Do you remember in the
+French Revolution how they Drowned the victims' voices in a thunder roll
+of drums?"
+
+"I shall always see the face of the child, hunted down to hell, falling
+on its knees, and screaming without a sound, when I hear the drum. But
+listen--a flute! Now if that were the Flute of Krishna you would have to
+follow. Let us come!"
+
+I could hear nothing of it, but she insisted and we followed the music,
+inaudible to me, up the slopes of the garden that is the foot-hill of
+the mighty mountain of Mahadeo, and still I could hear nothing. And
+Vanna told me strange stories of the Apollo of India whom all hearts
+must adore, even as the herd-girls adored him in his golden youth by
+Jumna river and in the pastures of Brindaban.
+
+Next day we were climbing the hill to the ruins where the evil magician
+brought the King's daughter nightly to his will, flying low under a
+golden moon. Vanna took my arm and I pulled her laughing up the steepest
+flowery slopes until we reached the height, and lo! the arched windows
+were eyeless and a lonely breeze blowing through the cloisters, and the
+beautiful yellowish stone arches supported nothing and were but frames
+for the blue of far lake and mountain and the divine sky. We climbed
+the broken stairs where the lizards went by like flashes, and had I the
+tongue of men and angels I could not tell the wonder that lay before
+us,--the whole wide valley of Kashmir in summer glory, with its scented
+breeze singing, singing above it.
+
+We sat on the crushed aromatic herbs and among the wild roses and looked
+down.
+
+"To think," she said, "that we might have died and never seen it!"
+
+There followed a long silence. I thought she was tired, and would not
+break it. Suddenly she spoke in a strange voice, low and toneless;
+
+"The story of this place. She was the Princess Padmavati, and her home
+was in Ayodhya. When she woke and found herself here by the lake she was
+so terrified that she flung herself in and was drowned. They held her
+back, but she died."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because a wandering monk came to the abbey of Tahkt-i-Bahi near
+Peshawar and told Vasettha the Abbot."
+
+I had nearly spoilt all by an exclamation, but I held myself back. I saw
+she was dreaming awake and was unconscious of what she said.
+
+"The Abbot said, 'Do not describe her. What talk is this for holy men?
+The young monks must not hear. Some of them have never seen a woman.
+Should a monk speak of such toys?' But the wanderer disobeyed and spoke,
+and there was a great tumult, and the monks threw him out at the command
+of the young Abbot, and he wandered down to Peshawar, and it was he
+later--the evil one!--that brought his sister, Lilavanti the Dancer, to
+Peshawar, and the Abbot fell into her snare. That was his revenge!"
+
+Her face was fixed and strange, for a moment her cheek looked hollow,
+her eyes dim and grief-worn. What was she seeing?--what remembering? Was
+it a story--a memory? What was it?
+
+"She was beautiful?" I prompted.
+
+"Men have said so, but for it he surrendered the Peace. Do not speak of
+her accursed beauty."
+
+Her voice died away to a drowsy murmur; her head dropped on my shoulder
+and for the mere delight of contact I sat still and scarcely breathed,
+praying that she might speak again, but the good minute was gone. She
+drew one or two deep breaths, and sat up with a bewildered look that
+quickly passed.
+
+"I was quite sleepy for a minute. The climb was so strenuous. Hark--I
+hear the Flute of Krishna again."
+
+And again I could hear nothing, but she said it was sounding from the
+trees at the base of the hill. Later when we climbed down I found she
+was right--that a peasant lad, dark and amazingly beautiful as
+these Kashmiris often are, was playing on the flute to a girl at his
+feet--looking up at him with rapt eyes. He flung Vanna a flower as we
+passed. She caught it and put it in her bosom. A singular blossom, three
+petals of purest white, set against three leaves of purest green, and
+lower down the stem the three green leaves were repeated. It was still
+in her bosom after dinner, and I looked at it more closely.
+
+"That is a curious flower," I said. "Three and three and three. Nine.
+That makes the mystic number. I never saw a purer white. What is it?"
+
+"Of course it is mystic," she said seriously. "It is the Ninefold
+Flower. You saw who gave it?"
+
+"That peasant lad."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"You will see more some day. Some might not even have seen that."
+
+"Does it grow here?"
+
+"This is the first I have seen. It is said to grow only where the gods
+walk. Do you know that throughout all India Kashmir is said to be holy
+ground? It was called long ago the land of the gods, and of strange, but
+not evil, sorceries. Great marvels were seen here."
+
+I felt the labyrinthine enchantments of that enchanted land were closing
+about me--a slender web, grey, almost impalpable, finer than fairy silk,
+was winding itself about my feet. My eyes were opening to things I had
+not dreamed. She saw my thought.
+
+"Yes, you could not have seen even that much of him in Peshawar. You did
+not know then."
+
+"He was not there," I answered, falling half unconsciously into her
+tone.
+
+"He is always there--everywhere, and when he plays, all who hear must
+follow. He was the Pied Piper in Hamelin, he was Pan in Hellas. You
+will hear his wild fluting in many strange places when you know how to
+listen. When one has seen him the rest comes soon. And then you will
+follow."
+
+"Not away from you, Vanna."
+
+"From the marriage feast, from the Table of the Lord," she said, smiling
+strangely. "The man who wrote that spoke of another call, but it is the
+same--Krishna or Christ. When we hear the music we follow. And we may
+lose or gain heaven."
+
+It might have been her compelling personality--it might have been the
+marvels of beauty about me, but I knew well I had entered at some mystic
+gate. A pass word had been spoken for me--I was vouched for and might go
+in. Only a little way as yet. Enchanted forests lay beyond, and perilous
+seas, but there were hints, breaths like the wafting of the garments of
+unspeakable Presences. My talk with Vanna grew less personal, and more
+introspective. I felt the touch of her finger-tips leading me along
+the ways of Quiet--my feet brushed a shining dew. Once, in the twilight
+under the chenar trees, I saw a white gleaming and thought it a swiftly
+passing Being, but when in haste I gained the tree I found there only
+a Ninefold flower, white as a spirit in the evening calm. I would not
+gather it but told Vanna what I had seen.
+
+"You nearly saw;" she said. "She passed so quickly. It was the Snowy
+One, Uma, Parvati, the Daughter of the Himalaya. That mountain is the
+mountain of her lord--Shiva. It is natural she should be here. I saw her
+last night lean over the height--her face pillowed on her folded arms,
+with a low star in the mists of her hair. Her eyes were like lakes of
+blue darkness. Vast and wonderful. She is the Mystic Mother of India.
+You will see soon. You could not have seen the flower until now."
+
+"Do you know," she added, "that in the mountains there are poppies of
+clear blue--blue as turquoise. We will go up into the heights and find
+them."
+
+And next moment she was planning the camping details, the men, the
+ponies, with a practical zest that seemed to relegate the occult to the
+absurd. Yet the very next day came a wonderful moment.
+
+The sun was just setting and, as it were, suddenly the purple glooms
+banked up heavy with thunder. The sky was black with fury, the earth
+passive with dread. I never saw such lightning--it was continuous and
+tore in zigzag flashes down the mountains like rents in the substance
+of the world's fabric. And the thunder roared up in the mountain gorges
+with shattering echoes. Then fell the rain, and the whole lake seemed to
+rise to meet it, and the noise was like the rattle of musketry. We were
+standing by the cabin window and she suddenly caught my hand, and I
+saw in a light of their own two dancing figures on the tormented water
+before us. Wild in the tumult, embodied delight, with arms tossed
+violently above their heads, and feet flung up behind them, skimming the
+waves like seagulls, they passed. Their sex I could not tell--I think
+they had none, but were bubble emanations of the rejoicing rush of the
+rain and the wild retreating laughter of the thunder. I saw the fierce
+aerial faces and their inhuman glee as they fled by, and she dropped my
+hand and they were gone. Slowly the storm lessened, and in the west the
+clouds tore raggedly asunder and a flood of livid yellow light poured
+down upon the lake--an awful light that struck it into an abyss of fire.
+Then, as if at a word of command, two glorious rainbows sprang across
+the water with the mountains for their piers, each with its proper
+colours chorded. They made a Bridge of Dread that stood out radiant
+against the background of storm--the Twilight of the Gods, and the
+doomed gods marching forth to the last fight. And the thunder growled
+sullenly away into the recesses of the hill and the terrible rainbows
+faded until the stars came quietly out and it was a still night.
+
+But I had seen that what is our dread is the joy of the spirits of the
+Mighty Mother, and though the vision faded and I doubted what I had
+seen, it prepared the way for what I was yet to see. A few days later we
+started on what was to be the most exquisite memory of my life. A train
+of ponies carried our tents and camping necessaries and there was a
+pony for each of us. And so, in the cool grey of a divine morning, with
+little rosy clouds flecking the eastern sky, we set out from Islamabad
+for Vernag. And this was the order of our going. She and I led the way,
+attended by a sais (groom) and a coolie carrying the luncheon basket.
+Half way we would stop in some green dell, or by some rushing stream,
+and there rest and eat our little meal while the rest of the cavalcade
+passed on to the appointed camping place, and in the late afternoon we
+would follow, riding slowly, and find the tents pitched and the kitchen
+department in full swing. If the place pleased us we lingered for some
+days;--if not, the camp was struck next morning, and again we wandered
+in search of beauty.
+
+The people were no inconsiderable part of my joy. I cannot see what they
+have to gain from such civilization as ours--a kindly people and happy.
+Courtesy and friendliness met us everywhere, and if their labor was
+hard, their harvest of beauty and laughter seemed to be its reward. The
+little villages with their groves of walnut and fruit trees spoke of no
+unfulfilled want, the mulberries which fatten the sleek bears in their
+season fattened the children too. I compared their lot with that of
+the toilers in our cities and knew which I would choose. We rode by
+shimmering fields of barley, with red poppies floating in the clear
+transparent green as in deep sea water, through fields of millet like
+the sky fallen on the earth, so innocently blue were its blossoms,
+and the trees above us were trellised with the wild roses, golden and
+crimson, and the ways tapestried with the scented stars of the large
+white jasmine.
+
+It was strange that later much of what she said, escaped me. Some I
+noted down at the time, but there were hints, shadows of lovelier things
+beyond that eluded all but the fringes of memory when I tried to piece
+them together and make a coherence of a living wonder. For that reason,
+the best things cannot be told in this history. It is only the cruder,
+grosser matters that words will hold. The half-touchings--vanishing
+looks, breaths--O God, I know them, but cannot tell.
+
+In the smaller villages, the head man came often to greet us and make
+us welcome, bearing on a flat dish a little offering of cakes and fruit,
+the produce of the place. One evening a man so approached, stately
+in white robes and turban, attended by a little lad who carried the
+patriarchal gift beside him. Our tents were pitched under a glorious
+walnut tree with a running stream at our feet.
+
+Vanna of course, was the interpreter, and I called her from her tent as
+the man stood salaaming before me. It was strange that when she came,
+dressed in white, he stopped in his salutation, and gazed at her in
+what, I thought, was silent wonder.
+
+She spoke earnestly to him, standing before him with clasped hands,
+almost, I could think, in the attitude of a suppliant. The man listened
+gravely, with only an interjection, now and again, and once he turned
+and looked curiously at me. Then he spoke, evidently making some
+announcement which she received with bowed head--and when he turned to
+go with a grave salute, she performed a very singular ceremony, moving
+slowly round him three times with clasped hands; keeping him always on
+the right. He repaid it with the usual salaam and greeting of peace,
+which he bestowed also on me, and then departed in deep meditation, his
+eyes fixed on the ground. I ventured to ask what it all meant, and she
+looked thoughtfully at me before replying.
+
+"It was a strange thing. I fear you will not altogether understand,
+but I will tell you what I can. That man though living here among
+Mahomedans, is a Brahman from Benares, and, what is very rare in India,
+a Buddhist. And when he saw me he believed he remembered me in a former
+birth. The ceremony you saw me perform is one of honour in India. It was
+his due."
+
+"Did you remember him?" I knew my voice was incredulous.
+
+"Very well. He has changed little but is further on the upward path. I
+saw him with dread for he holds the memory of a great wrong I did. Yet
+he told me a thing that has filled my heart with joy."
+
+"Vanna-what is it?"
+
+She had a clear uplifted look which startled me. There was suddenly a
+chill air blowing between us.
+
+"I must not tell you yet but you will know soon. He was a good man. I am
+glad we have met."
+
+She buried herself in writing in a small book I had noticed and longed
+to look into, and no more was said.
+
+We struck camp next day and trekked on towards Vernag--a rough march,
+but one of great beauty, beneath the shade of forest trees, garlanded
+with pale roses that climbed from bough to bough and tossed triumphant
+wreaths into the uppermost blue.
+
+In the afternoon thunder was flapping its wings far off in the mountains
+and a little rain fell while we were lunching under a big tree. I was
+considering anxiously how to shelter Vanna, when a farmer invited us to
+his house--a scene of Biblical hospitality that delighted us both. He
+led us up some break-neck little stairs to a large bare room, open to
+the clean air all round the roof, and with a kind of rough enclosure on
+the wooden floor where the family slept at night. There he opened our
+basket, and then, with anxious care, hung clothes and rough draperies
+about us that our meal might be unwatched by one or two friends who had
+followed us in with breathless interest. Still further to entertain us
+a great rarity was brought out and laid at Vanna's feet as something
+we might like to watch--a curious bird in a cage, with brightly barred
+wings and a singular cry. She fed it with fruit, and it fluttered to her
+hand. Just so Abraham might have welcomed his guests, and when we left
+with words of deepest gratitude, our host made the beautiful obeisance
+of touching his forehead with joined hands as he bowed. To me the whole
+incident had an extraordinary grace, and ennobled both host and guest.
+But we met an ascending scale of loveliness so varied in its aspects
+that I passed from one emotion to another and knew no sameness.
+
+That afternoon the camp was pitched at the foot of a mighty hill, under
+the waving pyramids of the chenars, sweeping their green like the robes
+of a goddess. Near by was a half circle of low arches falling into
+ruin, and as we went in among them I beheld a wondrous sight--the huge
+octagonal tank or basin made by the Mogul Emperor Jehangir to receive
+the waters of a mighty Spring which wells from the hill and has been
+held sacred by Hindu and Moslem. And if loveliness can sanctify surely
+it is sacred indeed.
+
+The tank was more than a hundred feet in diameter and circled by a
+roughly paved pathway where the little arched cells open that the
+devotees may sit and contemplate the lustral waters. There on a black
+stone, is sculptured the Imperial inscription comparing this spring to
+the holier wells of Paradise, and I thought no less of it, for it rushes
+straight from the rock with no aiding stream, and its waters are fifty
+feet deep, and sweep away from this great basin through beautiful low
+arches in a wild foaming river--the crystal life-blood of the mountains
+for ever welling away. The colour and perfect purity of this living
+jewel were most marvellous--clear blue-green like a chalcedony, but
+changing as the lights in an opal--a wonderful quivering brilliance,
+flickering with the silver of shoals of sacred fish.
+
+But the Mogul Empire is with the snows of yesteryear and the wonder has
+passed from the Moslems into the keeping of the Hindus once more, and
+the Lingam of Shiva, crowned with flowers, is the symbol in the little
+shrine by the entrance. Surely in India, the gods are one and have no
+jealousies among them--so swiftly do their glories merge the one into
+the other.
+
+"How all the Mogul Emperors loved running water," said Vanna. "I can see
+them leaning over it in their carved pavilions with delicate dark faces
+and pensive eyes beneath their turbans, lost in the endless reverie of
+the East while liquid melody passes into their dream. It was the music
+they best loved."
+
+She was leading me into the royal garden below, where the young river
+flows beneath the pavilion set above and across the rush of the water.
+
+"I remember before I came to India," she went on, "there were
+certain words and phrases that meant the whole East to me. It was an
+enchantment. The first flash picture I had was Milton's--
+
+   'Dark faces with white silken turbans wreathed.'
+
+and it still is. I have thought ever since that every man should wear a
+turban. It dignifies the un-comeliest and it is quite curious to see how
+many inches a man descends in the scale of beauty the moment he takes it
+off and you see only the skull-cap about which they wind it. They wind
+it with wonderful skill too. I have seen a man take eighteen yards of
+muslin and throw it round his head with a few turns, and in five or six
+minutes the beautiful folds were all in order and he looked like a king.
+Some of the Gujars here wear black ones and they are very effective and
+worth painting--the black folds and the sullen tempestuous black brows
+underneath."
+
+We sat in the pavilion for awhile looking down on the rushing water, and
+she spoke of Akbar, the greatest of the Moguls, and spoke with a curious
+personal touch, as I thought.
+
+"I wish you would try to write a story of him--one on more human lines
+than has been done yet. No one has accounted for the passionate quest
+of truth that was the real secret of his life. Strange in an Oriental
+despot if you think of it! It really can only be understood from the
+Buddhist belief, which curiously seems to have been the only one he
+neglected, that a mysterious Karma influenced all his thoughts. If I
+tell you as a key-note for your story, that in a past life he had been a
+Buddhist priest--one who had fallen away, would that in any way account
+to you for attempts to recover the lost way? Try to think that out, and
+to write the story, not as a Western mind sees it, but pure East."
+
+"That would be a great book to write if one could catch the voices of
+the past. But how to do it?"
+
+"I will give you one day a little book that may help you. The other
+story I wish you would write is the story of a Dancer of Peshawar. There
+is a connection between the two--a story of ruin and repentance."
+
+"Will you tell it to me?"
+
+"A part. In this same book you will find much more, but not all. All
+cannot be told. You must imagine much. But I think your imagination will
+be true."
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"Because in these few days you have learnt so much. You have seen the
+Ninefold Flower, and the rain spirits. You will soon hear the Flute of
+Krishna which none can hear who cannot dream true."
+
+That night I heard it. I waked, suddenly, to music, and standing in the
+door of my tent, in the dead silence of the night, lit only by a few low
+stars, I heard the poignant notes of a flute. If it had called my name
+it could not have summoned me more clearly, and I followed without a
+thought of delay, forgetting even Vanna in the strange urgency that
+filled me. The music was elusive, seeming to come first from one side,
+then from the other, but finally I tracked it as a bee does a flower by
+the scent, to the gate of the royal garden--the pleasure place of the
+dead Emperors.
+
+The gate stood ajar--strange! for I had seen the custodian close it that
+evening. Now it stood wide and I went in, walking noiselessly over the
+dewy grass. I knew and could not tell how, that I must be noiseless.
+Passing as if I were guided, down the course of the strong young river,
+I came to the pavilion that spanned it--the place where we had stood
+that afternoon--and there to my profound amazement, I saw Vanna, leaning
+against a slight wooden pillar. As if she had expected me, she laid one
+finger on her lip, and stretching out her hand, took mine and drew me
+beside her as a mother might a child. And instantly I saw!
+
+On the further bank a young man in a strange diadem or miter of jewels,
+bare-breasted and beautiful, stood among the flowering oleanders, one
+foot lightly crossed over the other as he stood. He was like an image
+of pale radiant gold, and I could have sworn that the light came from
+within rather than fell upon him, for the night was very dark. He held
+the flute to his lips, and as I looked, I became aware that the noise
+of the rushing water was tapering off into a murmur scarcely louder than
+that of a summer bee in the heart of a rose. Therefore the music rose
+like a fountain of crystal drops, cold, clear, and of an entrancing
+sweetness, and the face above it was such that I had no power to turn my
+eyes away. How shall I say what it was? All I had ever desired, dreamed,
+hoped, prayed, looked at me from the remote beauty of the eyes and with
+the most persuasive gentleness entreated me, rather than commanded to
+follow fearlessly and win. But these are words, and words shaped in the
+rough mould of thought cannot convey the deep desire that would have
+hurled me to his feet if Vanna had not held me with a firm restraining
+hand. Looking up in adoring love to the dark face was a ring of woodland
+creatures. I thought I could distinguish the white clouded robe of a
+snow-leopard, the soft clumsiness of a young bear, and many more, but
+these shifted and blurred like dream creatures--I could not be sure of
+them nor define their numbers. The eyes of the Player looked down upon
+their passionate delight with careless kindness.
+
+Dim images passed through my mind. Orpheus--No, this was no Greek.
+Pan-yet again, No. Where were the pipes, the goat hoofs? The young
+Dionysos--No, there were strange jewels instead of his vines. And then
+Vanna's voice said as if from a great distance;
+
+"Krishna--the Beloved." And I said aloud, "I see!" And even as I said it
+the whole picture blurred together like a dream, and I was alone in the
+pavilion and the water was foaming past me. Had I walked in my sleep, I
+thought, as I made my way hack? As I gained the garden gate, before me,
+like a snowflake, I saw the Ninefold Flower.
+
+When I told her next day, speaking of it as a dream, she said simply;
+"They have opened the door to you. You will not need me soon.
+
+"I shall always need you. You have taught me everything. I could see
+nothing last night until you took my hand."
+
+"I was not there," she said smiling. "It was only the thought of me, and
+you can have that when I am very far away. I was sleeping in my tent.
+What you called in me then you can always call, even if I am--dead."
+
+"That is a word which is beginning to have no meaning for me. You have
+said things to me--no, thought them, that have made me doubt if there is
+room in the universe for the thing we have called death."
+
+She smiled her sweet wise smile.
+
+"Where we are death is not. Where death is we are not. But you will
+understand better soon."
+
+Our march curving took us by the Mogul gardens of Achibal, and the
+glorious ruins of the great Temple at Martund, and so down to Bawan
+with its crystal waters and that loveliest camping ground beside them.
+A mighty grove of chenar trees, so huge that I felt as if we were in a
+great sea cave where the air is dyed with the deep shadowy green of the
+inmost ocean, and the murmuring of the myriad leaves was like a sea at
+rest. I looked up into the noble height and my memory of Westminster
+dwindled, for this led on and up to the infinite blue, and at night
+the stars hung like fruit upon the branches. The water ran with a great
+joyous rush of release from the mountain behind, but was first received
+in a broad basin full of sacred fish and reflecting a little temple of
+Maheshwara and one of Surya the Sun. Here in this basin the water lay
+pure and still as an ecstasy, and beside it was musing the young Brahman
+priest who served the temple. Since I had joined Vanna I had begun with
+her help to study a little Hindustani, and with an aptitude for language
+could understand here and there. I caught a word or two as she spoke
+with him that startled me, when the high-bred ascetic face turned
+serenely upon her, and he addressed her as "My sister," adding a
+sentence beyond my learning, but which she willingly translated
+later.--"May He who sits above the Mysteries, have mercy upon thy
+rebirth."
+
+She said afterwards;
+
+"How beautiful some of these men are. It seems a different type of
+beauty from ours, nearer to nature and the old gods. Look at that
+priest--the tall figure, the clear olive skin, the dark level brows, the
+long lashes that make a soft gloom about the eyes--eyes that have the
+fathomless depth of a deer's, the proud arch of the lip. I think there
+is no country where aristocracy is more clearly marked than in India.
+The Brahmans are aristocrats of the world. You see it is a religious
+aristocracy as well. It has everything that can foster pride and
+exclusiveness. They spring from the Mouth of Deity. They are His word
+incarnate. Not many kings are of the Brahman caste, and the Brahmans
+look down upon them from Sovereign heights. I have known men who would
+not eat with their own rulers who would have drunk the water that washed
+the Brahmans' feet."
+
+She took me that day, the Brahman with us, to see a cave in the
+mountain. We climbed up the face of the cliff to where a little tree
+grew on a ledge, and the black mouth yawned. We went in and often it was
+so low we had to stoop, leaving the sunlight behind until it was like
+a dim eye glimmering in the velvet blackness. The air was dank and
+cold and presently obscene with the smell of bats, and alive with
+their wings, as they came sweeping about us, gibbering and squeaking.
+I thought of the rush of the ghosts, blown like dead leaves in the
+Odyssey. And then a small rock chamber branched off, and in this, lit by
+a bit of burning wood, we saw the bones of a holy man who lived and died
+there four hundred years ago. Think of it! He lived there always, with
+the slow dropping of water from the dead weight of the mountain above
+his head, drop by drop tolling the minutes away: the little groping feet
+through the cave that would bring him food and drink, hurrying into
+the warmth and sunlight again, and his only companion the sacred Lingam
+which means the Creative Energy that sets the worlds dancing for joy
+round the sun--that, and the black solitude to sit down beside him.
+Surely his bones can hardly be dryer and colder now than they were then!
+There must be strange ecstasies in such a life--wild visions in the
+dark, or it could never be endured.
+
+And so, in marches of about ten miles a day, we came to Pahlgam on the
+banks of the dancing Lidar. There was now only three weeks left of the
+time she had promised. After a few days at Pahlgam the march would turn
+and bend its way back to Srinagar, and to--what? I could not believe it
+was to separation--in her lovely kindness she had grown so close to me
+that, even for the sake of friendship, I believed our paths must run
+together to the end, and there were moments when I could still half
+convince myself that I had grown as necessary to her as she was to me.
+No--not as necessary, for she was life and soul to me, but a part of her
+daily experience that she valued and would not easily part with. That
+evening we were sitting outside the tents, near the camp fire, of pine
+logs and cones, the leaping flames making the night beautiful with gold
+and leaping sparks, in an attempt to reach the mellow splendours of the
+moon. The men, in various attitudes of rest, were lying about, and one
+had been telling a story which had just ended in excitement and loud
+applause.
+
+"These are Mahomedans," said Vanna, "and it is only a story of love and
+fighting like the Arabian Nights. If they had been Hindus, it might
+well have been of Krishna or of Rama and Sita. Their faith comes from an
+earlier time and they still see visions. The Moslem is a hard practical
+faith for men--men of the world too. It is not visionary now, though it
+once had its great mysteries."
+
+"I wish you would tell me what you think of the visions or apparitions
+of the gods that are seen here. Is it all illusion? Tell me your
+thought."
+
+"How difficult that is to answer. I suppose if love and faith are strong
+enough they will always create the vibrations to which the greater
+vibrations respond, and so make God in their own image at any time or
+place. But that they call up what is the truest reality I have never
+doubted. There is no shadow without a substance. The substance is beyond
+us but under certain conditions the shadow is projected and we see it.
+
+"Have I seen or has it been dream?"
+
+"I cannot tell. It may have been the impress of my mind on yours, for I
+see such things always. You say I took your hand?"
+
+"Take it now."
+
+She obeyed, and instantly, as I felt the firm cool clasp, I heard the
+rain of music through the pines--the Flute Player was passing. She
+dropped it smiling and the sweet sound ceased.
+
+"You see! How can I tell what you have seen? You will know better when I
+am gone. You will stand alone then."
+
+"You will not go--you cannot. I have seen how you have loved all this
+wonderful time. I believe it has been as dear to you as to me. And every
+day I have loved you more. I depend upon you for everything that makes
+life worth living. You could not--you who are so gentle--you could not
+commit the senseless cruelty of leaving me when you have taught me to
+love you with every beat of my heart. I have been patient--I have held
+myself in, but I must speak now. Marry me, and teach me. I know nothing.
+You know all I need to know. For pity's sake be my wife."
+
+I had not meant to say it; it broke from me in the firelight moonlight
+with a power that I could not stay. She looked at me with a disarming
+gentleness.
+
+"Is this fair? Do you remember how at Peshawar I told you I thought it
+was a dangerous experiment, and that it would make things harder for
+you. But you took the risk like a brave man because you felt there were
+things to be gained--knowledge, insight, beauty. Have you not gained
+them?"
+
+"Yes. Absolutely."
+
+"Then, is it all loss if I go?"
+
+"Not all. But loss I dare not face."
+
+"I will tell you this. I could not stay if I would. Do you remember the
+old man on the way to Vernag? He told me that I must very soon take up
+an entirely new life. I have no choice, though if I had I would still do
+it."
+
+There was silence and down a long arcade, without any touch of her hand
+I heard the music, receding with exquisite modulations to a very great
+distance, and between the pillared stems, I saw a faint light.
+
+"Do you wish to go?"
+
+"Entirely. But I shall not forget you, Stephen. I will tell you
+something. For me, since I came to India, the gate that shuts us out at
+birth has opened. How shall I explain? Do you remember Kipling's 'Finest
+Story in the World'?"
+
+"Yes. Fiction!"
+
+"Not fiction--true, whether he knew it or no. But for me the door has
+opened wide. First, I remembered piecemeal, with wide gaps, then more
+connectedly. Then, at the end of the first year, I met one day at
+Cawnpore, an ascetic, an old man of great beauty and wisdom, and he was
+able by his own knowledge to enlighten mine. Not wholly--much has come
+since then. Has come, some of it in ways you could not understand
+now, but much by direct sight and hearing. Long, long ago I lived in
+Peshawar, and my story was a sorrowful one. I will tell you a little
+before I go."
+
+"I hold you to your promise. What is there I cannot believe when you
+tell me? But does that life put you altogether away from me? Was there
+no place for me in any of your memories that has drawn us together now?
+Give me a little hope that in the eternal pilgrimage there is some bond
+between us and some rebirth where we may met again."
+
+"I will tell you that also before we part. I have grown to believe that
+you do love me--and therefore love something which is infinitely above
+me."
+
+"And do you love me at all? Am I nothing, Vanna--Vanna?"
+
+"My friend," she said, and laid her hand on mine.
+
+A silence, and then she spoke, very low.
+
+"You must be prepared for very great change, Stephen, and yet believe
+that it does not really change things at all. See how even the gods pass
+and do not change! The early gods of India are gone and Shiva, Vishnu,
+Krishna have taken their places and are one and the same. The old
+Buddhist stories say that in heaven "The flowers of the garland the
+God wore are withered, his robes of majesty are waxed old and faded;
+he falls from his high estate, and is re-born into a new life." But he
+lives still in the young God who is born among men. The gods cannot die,
+nor can we nor anything that has life. Now I must go in."
+
+I sat long in the moonlight thinking. The whole camp was sunk in sleep
+and the young dawn was waking upon the peaks when I turned in.
+
+The days that were left we spent in wandering up the Lidar River to the
+hills that are the first ramp of the ascent to the great heights.
+We found the damp corners where the mushrooms grow like pearls--the
+mushrooms of which she said--"To me they have always been fairy things.
+To see them in the silver-grey dew of the early mornings--mysteriously
+there like the manna in the desert--they are elfin plunder, and as a
+child I was half afraid of them. No wonder they are the darlings of
+folklore, especially in Celtic countries where the Little People move in
+the starlight. Strange to think they are here too among strange gods!"
+
+We climbed to where the wild peonies bloom in glory that few eyes see,
+and the rosy beds of wild sweet strawberries ripen. Every hour brought
+with it some new delight, some exquisiteness of sight or of words that
+I shall remember for ever. She sat one day on a rock, holding the
+sculptured leaves and massive seed-vessels of some glorious plant that
+the Kashmiris believe has magic virtues hidden in the seeds of pure rose
+embedded in the white down.
+
+"If you fast for three days and eat nine of these in the Night of No
+Moon, you can rise on the air light as thistledown and stand on the peak
+of Haramoukh. And on Haramoukh, as you know it is believed, the gods
+dwell. There was a man here who tried this enchantment. He was a changed
+man for ever after, wandering and muttering to himself and avoiding all
+human intercourse as far as he could. He was no Kashmiri--A Jat from the
+Punjab, and they showed him to me when I was here with the Meryons, and
+told me he would speak to none. But I knew he would speak to me, and he
+did."
+
+"Did he tell you anything of what he had seen in the high world up
+yonder?"
+
+"He said he had seen the Dream of the God. I could not get more than
+that. But there are many people here who believe that the Universe as
+we know it is but an image in the dream of Ishvara, the Universal
+Spirit--in whom are all the gods--and that when He ceases to dream we
+pass again into the Night of Brahm, and all is darkness until the Spirit
+of God moves again on the face of the waters. There are few temples to
+Brahm. He is above and beyond all direct worship."
+
+"Do you think he had seen anything?"
+
+"What do I know? Will you eat the seeds? The Night of No Moon will soon
+be here."
+
+She held out the seed-vessels, laughing. I write that down but how
+record the lovely light of kindliness in her eyes--the almost submissive
+gentleness that yet was a defense stronger than steel. I never knew--how
+should I?--whether she was sitting by my side or heavens away from me in
+her own strange world. But always she was a sweetness that I could not
+reach, a cup of nectar that I might not drink, unalterably her own and
+never mine, and yet--my friend.
+
+She showed me the wild track up into the mountains where the Pilgrims go
+to pay their devotions at the Great God's shrine in the awful heights,
+regretting that we were too early for that most wonderful sight. Above
+where we were sitting the river fell in a tormented white cascade,
+crashing and feathering into spray-dust of diamonds. An eagle was
+flying above it with a mighty spread of wings that seemed almost
+double-jointed in the middle--they curved and flapped so wide and free.
+The fierce head was outstretched with the rake of a plundering galley as
+he swept down the wind, seeking his meat from God, and passed majestic
+from our sight. The valley beneath us was littered with enormous
+boulders spilt from the ancient hollows of the hills. It must have
+been a great sight when the giants set them trundling down in work
+or play!--I said this to Vanna, who was looking down upon it with
+meditative eyes. She roused herself.
+
+"Yes, this really is Giant-Land up here--everything is so huge. And when
+they quarrel up in the heights--in Jotunheim--and the black storms
+come down the valleys it is like colossal laughter or clumsy boisterous
+anger. And the Frost giants are still at work up there with their great
+axes of frost and rain. They fling down the side of a mountain or make
+fresh ways for the rivers. About sixty years ago--far above here--they
+tore down a mountain side and damned up the mighty Indus, so that for
+months he was a lake, shut back in the hills. But the river giants are
+no less strong up here in the heights of the world, and lie lay brooding
+and hiding his time. And then one awful day he tore the barrier down and
+roared down the valley carrying death and ruin with him, and swept away
+a whole Sikh army among other unconsidered trifles. That must have been
+a soul-shaking sight."
+
+She spoke on, and as she spoke I saw. What are her words as I record
+them? Stray dead leaves pressed in a book--the life and grace dead. Yet
+I record, for she taught me what I believe the world should learn, that
+the Buddhist philosophers are right when they teach that all forms of
+what we call matter are really but aggregates of spiritual units, and
+that life itself is a curtain hiding reality as the vast veil of
+day conceals from our sight the countless orbs of space. So that the
+purified mind even while prisoned in the body, may enter into union with
+the Real and, according to attainment, see it as it is.
+
+She was an interpreter because she believed this truth profoundly. She
+saw the spiritual essence beneath the lovely illusion of matter, and the
+air about her was radiant with the motion of strange forces for which
+the dull world has many names aiming indeed at the truth, but falling--O
+how far short of her calm perception! She was indeed of a Household
+higher than the Household of Faith. She had received enlightenment. She
+beheld with open eyes.
+
+Next day our camp was struck and we turned our faces again to Srinagar
+and to the day of parting. I set down but one strange incident of our
+journey, of which I did not speak even to her.
+
+We were camping at Bijbehara, awaiting our house boat, and the site was
+by the Maharaja's lodge above the little town. It was midnight and I was
+sleepless--the shadow of the near future was upon me. I wandered down to
+the lovely old wooded bridge across the Jhelum, where the strong young
+trees grow up from the piles. Beyond it the moon was shining on the
+ancient Hindu remains close to the new temple, and as I stood on the
+bridge I could see the figure of a man in deepest meditation by the
+ruins. He was no European. I saw the straight dignified folds of the
+robes. But it was not surprising he should be there and I should have
+thought no more of it, had I not heard at that instant from the further
+side of the river the music of the Flute. I cannot hope to describe
+that music to any who have not heard it. Suffice it to say that where
+it calls he who hears must follow whether in the body or the spirit. Nor
+can I now tell in which I followed. One day it will call me across the
+River of Death, and I shall ford it or sink in the immeasurable depths
+and either will be well.
+
+But immediately I was at the other side of the river, standing by the
+stone Bull of Shiva where he kneels before the Symbol, and looking
+steadfastly upon me a few paces away was a man in the dress of a
+Buddhist monk. He wore the yellow robe that leaves one shoulder bare;
+his head was bare also and he held in one hand a small bowl like a
+stemless chalice. I knew I was seeing a very strange inexplicable
+sight--one that in Kashmir should be incredible, but I put wonder aside
+for I knew now that I was moving in the sphere where the incredible may
+well be the actual. His expression was of the most unbroken calm. If I
+compare it to the passionless gaze of the Sphinx I misrepresent, for the
+Riddle of the Sphinx still awaits solution, but in this face was a noble
+acquiescence and a content that had it vibrated must have passed into
+joy.
+
+Words or their equivalent passed between us. I felt his voice.
+
+"You have heard the music of the Flute?"
+
+"I have heard."
+
+"What has it given?"
+
+"A consuming longing."
+
+"It is the music of the Eternal. The creeds and the faiths are the words
+that men have set to that melody. Listening, it will lead you to Wisdom.
+Day by day you will interpret more surely."
+
+"I cannot stand alone."
+
+"You will not need. What has led you will lead you still. Through many
+births it has led you. How should it fail?"
+
+"What should I do?"
+
+"Go forward."
+
+"What should I shun?"
+
+"Sorrow and fear."
+
+"What should I seek?"
+
+"Joy."
+
+"And the end?"
+
+"Joy. Wisdom. They are the Light and Dark of the Divine." A cold breeze
+passed and touched my forehead. I was still standing in the middle of
+the bridge above the water gliding to the Ocean, and there was no figure
+by the Bull of Shiva. I was alone. I passed back to the tents with the
+shudder that is not fear but akin to death upon me. I knew I had been
+profoundly withdrawn from what we call actual life, and the return is
+dread.
+
+The days passed as we floated down the river to Srinagar. On board the
+Kedarnath, now lying in our first berth beneath the chenars near and yet
+far from the city, the last night had come. Next morning I should begin
+the long ride to Baramula and beyond that barrier of the Happy Valley
+down to Murree and the Punjab. Where afterwards? I neither knew nor
+cared. My lesson was before me to be learned. I must try to detach
+myself from all I had prized--to say to my heart it was but a loan
+and no gift, and to cling only to the imperishable. And did I as yet
+certainly know more than the A B C of the hard doctrine by which I
+must live? "Que vivre est difficile, O mon cocur fatigue!"--an immense
+weariness possessed me--a passive grief.
+
+Vanna would follow later with the wife of an Indian doctor. I believed
+she was bound for Lahore but on that point she had not spoken certainly
+and I felt we should not meet again.
+
+And now my packing was finished, and, as far as my possessions went, the
+little cabin had the soulless emptiness that comes with departure. I was
+enduring as best I could. If she had held loyally to her pact, could
+I do less. Was she to blame for my wild hope that in the end she would
+relent and step down to the household levels of love?
+
+She sat by the window--the last time I should see the moonlit banks and
+her clear face against them. I made and won my fight for the courage of
+words.
+
+"And now I've finished everything--thank goodness! and we can talk.
+Vanna--you will write to me?"
+
+"Once. I promise that."
+
+"Only once? Why? I counted on your words."
+
+"I want to speak to you of something else now. I want to tell you a
+memory. But look first at the pale light behind the Takht-i-Suliman."
+
+So I had seen it with her. So I should not see it again. We watched
+until a line of silver sparkled on the black water, and then she spoke
+again.
+
+"Stephen, do you remember in the ruined monastery near Peshawar, how I
+told you of the young Abbot, who came down to Peshawar with a Chinese
+pilgrim? And he never returned."
+
+"I remember. There was a Dancer."
+
+"There was a Dancer. She was Lilavanti, and she was brought there to
+trap him but when she saw him she loved him, and that was his ruin and
+hers. Trickery he would have known and escaped. Love caught him in an
+unbreakable net, and they fled down the Punjab and no one knew any more.
+But I know. For two years they lived together and she saw the agony in
+his heart--the anguish of his broken vows, the face of the Blessed One
+receding into an infinite distance. She knew that every day added a link
+to the heavy Karma that was bound about the feet she loved, and her soul
+said "Set him free," and her heart refused the torture. But her soul was
+the stronger. She set him free."
+
+"How?"
+
+"She took poison. He became an ascetic in the hills and died in peace
+but with a long expiation upon him."
+
+"And she?"
+
+"I am she."
+
+"You!" I heard my voice as if it were another man's. Was it possible
+that I--a man of the twentieth century, believed this impossible thing?
+Impossible, and yet--what had I learnt if not the unity of Time, the
+illusion of matter? What is the twentieth century, what the first?
+Do they not lie before the Supreme as one, and clean from our petty
+divisions? And I myself had seen what, if I could trust it, asserted the
+marvels that are no marvels to those who know.
+
+"You loved him?"
+
+"I love him."
+
+"Then there is nothing at all for me."
+
+She resumed as if she had heard nothing.
+
+"I have lost him for many lives. He stepped above me at once, for he was
+clean gold though he fell, and though I have followed I have not found.
+But that Buddhist beyond Islamabad--you shall hear now what he said. It
+was this. 'The shut door opens, and this time he awaits.' I cannot yet
+say all it means, but there is no Lahore for me. I shall meet him soon."
+
+"Vanna, you would not harm yourself again?"
+
+"Never. I should not meet him. But you will see. Now I can talk no more.
+I will be there tomorrow when you go, and I will ride with you to the
+poplar road."
+
+She passed like a shadow into her little dark cabin, and I was left
+alone. I will not dwell on that black loneliness of the spirit, for
+it has passed--it was the darkness of hell, a madness of jealousy, and
+could have no enduring life in any heart that had known her. But it was
+death while it lasted. I had moments of horrible belief, of horrible
+disbelief, but however it might be I knew that she was out of reach for
+ever. Near me--yes! but only as the silver image of the moon floated in
+the water by the boat, with the moon herself cold myriads of miles away.
+I will say no more of that last eclipse of what she had wrought in me.
+
+The bright morning came, sunny as if my joys were beginning instead of
+ending. Vanna mounted her horse and led the way from the boat. I cast
+one long look at the little Kedarnath, the home of those perfect weeks,
+of such joy and sorrow as would have seemed impossible to me in the
+chrysalis of my former existence. Little Kahdra stood crying bitterly on
+the bank--the kindly folk who had served us were gathered saddened and
+quiet. I set my teeth and followed her.
+
+How dear she looked, how kind, how gentle her appealing eyes, as I drew
+up beside her. She knew what I felt. She knew that the sight of little
+Kahdra crying as he said good--bye was the last pull at my sore heart.
+Still she rode steadily on, and still I followed. Once she spoke.
+
+"Stephen, there was a man in Peshawar, kind and true, who loved that
+Lilavanti who had no heart for him. And when she died, it was in his
+arms, as a sister might cling to a brother, for the man she loved had
+left her. It seems that will not be in this life, but do not think I
+have been so blind that I did not know my friend."
+
+I could not answer--it was the realization of the utmost I could hope
+and it came like healing to my spirit. Better that bond between us,
+slight as most men might think it, than the dearest and closest with a
+woman not Vanna. It was the first thrill of a new joy in my heart--the
+first, I thank the Infinite, of many and steadily growing joys and hopes
+that cannot be uttered here.
+
+I bent to take the hand she stretched to me, but even as they touched,
+I saw, passing behind the trees by the road, the young man I had seen
+in the garden at Vernag--most beautiful, in the strange miter of his
+jewelled diadem. His flute was at his lips and the music rang out sudden
+and crystal clear as though a woodland god were passing to awaken all
+the joys of the dawn.
+
+The horses heard too. In an instant hers had swerved wildly, and she lay
+on the ground at my feet. The music had ceased.
+
+Days had gone before I could recall what had happened then. I lifted
+her in my arms and carried her into the rest-house near at hand, and
+the doctor came and looked grave, and a nurse was sent from the Mission
+Hospital. No doubt all was done that was possible, but I knew from the
+first what it meant and how it would be. She lay in a white stillness,
+and the room was quiet as death. I remembered with unspeakable gratitude
+later that the nurse had been merciful and had not sent me away.
+
+So Vanna lay all day and through the night, and when the dawn came again
+she stirred and motioned with her hand, although her eyes were closed.
+I understood, and kneeling, I put my hand under her head, and rested it
+against my shoulder. Her faint voice murmured at my ear.
+
+"I dreamed--I was in the pine wood at Pahlgam and it was the Night of No
+Moon, and I was afraid for it was dark, but suddenly all the trees were
+covered with little lights like stars, and the greater light was beyond.
+Nothing to be afraid of."
+
+"Nothing, Beloved."
+
+"And I looked beyond Peshawar, further than eyes could see, and in the
+ruins of the monastery where we stood, you and I--I saw him, and he lay
+with his head at the feet of the Blessed One. That is well, is it not?"
+
+"Well, Beloved."
+
+"And it is well I go? Is it not?"
+
+"It is well."
+
+A long silence. The first sun ray touched the floor. Again the whisper.
+
+"Believe what I have told you. For we shall meet again." I repeated--
+
+"We shall meet again."
+
+In my arms she died.
+
+Later, when all was over I asked myself if I believed this and answered
+with full assurance--Yes.
+
+If the story thus told sounds incredible it was not incredible to me.
+I had had a profound experience. What is a miracle? It is simply the
+vision of the Divine behind nature. It will come in different forms
+according to the eyes that see, but the soul will know that its
+perception is authentic.
+
+I could not leave Kashmir, nor was there any need. On the contrary I saw
+that there was work for me here among the people she had loved, and my
+first aim was to fit myself for that and for the writing I now felt
+was to be my career in life. After much thought I bought the little
+Kedarnath and made it my home, very greatly to the satisfaction of
+little Kahdra and all the friendly people to whom I owed so much.
+
+Vanna's cabin I made my sleeping room, and it is the simple truth that
+the first night I slept in the place that was a Temple of Peace in my
+thoughts, I had a dream of wordless bliss, and starting awake for sheer
+joy I saw her face in the night, human and dear, looking down upon
+me with that poignant sweetness which would seem to be the utmost
+revelation of love and pity. And as I stretched my hands, another face
+dawned solemnly from the shadow beside her with grave brows bent on
+mine--one I had known and seen in the ruins at Bijbehara. Outside and
+very near I could hear the silver weaving of the Flute that in India is
+the symbol of the call of the Divine. A dream--yes, but it taught me to
+live. At first, in my days of grief and loss, I did but dream--the days
+were hard to endure. I will not dwell on that illusion of sorrow, now
+long dead. I lived only for the night.
+
+   "When sleep comes to close each difficult day,
+    When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
+    And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
+    Must doff my will as raiment laid away--
+    With the first dream that comes with the first sleep,
+    I run--I run! I am gathered to thy heart!"
+
+To the heart of her pity. Thus for awhile I lived. Slowly I became
+conscious of her abiding presence about me, day or night It grew
+clearer, closer.
+
+Like the austere Hippolytus to his unseen Goddess, I could say;
+
+   "Who am more to thee than other mortals are,
+    Whose is the holy lot,
+    As friend with friend to walk and talk with thee,
+    Hearing thy sweet mouth's music in mine ear,
+    But thee beholding not."
+
+That was much, but later, the sunshine was no bar, the bond strengthened
+and there have been days in the heights of the hills, in the depths of
+the woods, when I saw her as in life, passing at a distance, but real
+and lovely. Life? She had never lived as she did now--a spirit, freed
+and rejoicing. For me the door she had opened would never shut. The
+Presences were about me, and I entered upon my heritage of joy, knowing
+that in Kashmir, the holy land of Beauty, they walk very near, and lift
+up the folds of the Dark that the initiate may see the light behind.
+
+So I began my solitary life of gladness. I wrote, aided by the little
+book she had left me, full of strangest stories, stranger by far than
+my own brain could conceive. Some to be revealed--some to be hidden. And
+thus the world will one day receive the story of the Dancer of Peshawar
+in her upward lives, that it may know, if it will, that death is
+nothing--for Life and Love are all.
+
+
+
+
+THE INCOMPARABLE LADY
+
+A STORY OF CHINA WITH A MORAL
+
+It is recorded that when the Pearl Empress (his mother) asked of the
+philosophic Yellow Emperor which he considered the most beautiful of the
+Imperial concubines, he replied instantly: "The Lady A-Kuei": and when
+the Royal Parent in profound astonishment demanded bow this could
+be, having regard to the exquisite beauties in question, the Emperor
+replied;
+
+"I have never seen her. It was dark when I entered the Dragon Chamber
+and dusk of dawn when I rose and left her."
+
+Then said the Pearl Princess;
+
+"Possibly the harmony of her voice solaced the Son of Heaven?"
+
+But he replied;
+
+"She spoke not."
+
+And the Pearl Empress rejoined:
+
+"Her limbs then are doubtless softer than the kingfisher's plumage?"
+
+But the Yellow Emperor replied;
+
+"Doubtless. Yet I have not touched them. I was that night immersed in
+speculations on the Yin and the Yang. How then should I touch a woman?"
+
+And the Pearl Empress was silent from very great amazement, not daring
+to question further but marveling how the thing might be. And seeing
+this, the Yellow Emperor recited a poem to the following effect:
+
+    "It is said that Power rules the world
+    And who shall gainsay it?
+    But Loveliness is the head-jewel upon the brow of Power."
+
+And when the Empress had listened with reverence to the Imperial Poet,
+she quitted the August Presence.
+
+Immediately, having entered her own palace of the Tranquil Motherly
+Virtues, she caused the Lady A-Kuei to be summoned to her presence, who
+came, habited in a purple robe and with pins of jade and coral in her
+hair. And the Pearl Empress considered her attentively, recalling the
+perfect features of the White Jade Concubine, the ambrosial smile of the
+Princess of Feminine Propriety, and the willow-leaf eyebrows of the Lady
+of Chen, and her astonishment was excessive, because the Lady A-Kuei
+could not in beauty approach any one of these ladies. Reflecting further
+she then placed her behind the screen, and summoned the court artist, Lo
+Cheng, who had been formerly commissioned to paint the heavenly
+features of the Emperor's Ladies, mirrored in still water, though he had
+naturally not been permitted to view the beauties themselves. Of him the
+Empress demanded:
+
+"Who is the most beautiful--which the most priceless jewel of the
+dwellers in the Dragon Palace?"
+
+And, with humility, Lo Cheng replied:
+
+"What mortal man shall decide between the white Crane and the Swan,
+or between the paeony flower and the lotus?" And having thus said he
+remained silent, and in him was no help. Finally and after exhortation
+the Pearl Empress condescended to threaten him with the loss of a head
+so useless to himself and to her majesty. Then, in great fear and haste
+he replied:
+
+"Of all the flowers that adorn the garden of the Sun of Heaven, the Lady
+A-Kuei is the fittest to be gathered by the Imperial Hand, and this is
+my deliberate opinion."
+
+Now, hearing this statement, the Pearl Empress was submerged in
+bewilderment, knowing that the Lady A-Kuei had modestly retired when the
+artist had depicted the reflection of the assembled loveliness of the
+Inner Chambers, as not counting herself worthy of portraiture, and her
+features were therefore unknown to him. Nor could the Empress further
+question the artist, for when she had done so, he replied only:
+
+"This is the secret of the Son of Heaven," and, having gained
+permission, he swiftly departed.
+
+Nor could the Lady A-Kuei herself aid her Imperial Majesty, for on being
+questioned she was overwhelmed with modesty and confusion, and with
+stammering lips could only repeat:
+
+"This is the secret of his Divine Majesty," imploring with the utmost
+humility, forgiveness from the Imperial Mother.
+
+The Pearl Empress was unable to eat her supper. In vain were spread
+before her the delicacies of the Empire. She could but trifle with a
+shark's fin and a "Silver Ear" fungus and a dish of slugs entrapped upon
+roses, with the dew-like pearls upon them. Her burning curiosity had
+wholly deprived her of appetite, nor could the amusing exertions of
+the Palace mimes, or a lantern fete upon the lake restore her to
+any composure. "This circumstance will cause my flight on the Dragon
+(death)," she said to herself, "unless I succeed in unveiling the
+mystery. What therefore should be my next proceeding?"
+
+And so, deeply reflecting, she caused the Chief of the Eunuchs to summon
+the Princess of Feminine Propriety, the White Jade Concubine and all the
+other exalted beauties of the Heavenly Palace.
+
+In due course of time these ladies arrived, paying suitable respect and
+obeisance to the Mother of his Divine Majesty. They were resplendent in
+king-fisher ornaments, in jewels of jade, crystal and coral, in robes
+of silk and gauze, and still more resplendent in charms that not
+the Celestial Empire itself could equal, setting aside entirely all
+countries of the foreign barbarians. And in grace and elegance of
+manners, in skill in the arts of poetry and the lute, what could surpass
+them?
+
+Like a parterre of flowers they surrounded her Majesty, and awaited her
+pleasure with perfect decorum, when, having saluted them with affability
+she thus addressed them--"Lovely ones--ladies distinguished by the
+particular attention of your sovereign and mine, I have sent for you
+to resolve a doubt and a difficulty. On questioning our sovereign as to
+whom he regarded as the loveliest of his garden of beauty he benignantly
+replied: "The Lady A-Kuei is incomparable," and though this may well be,
+he further graciously added that he had never seen her. Nor, on pursuing
+the subject, could I learn the Imperial reason. The artist Lo Cheng
+follows in his Master's footsteps, he also never having seen the favored
+lady, and he and she reply to me that this is an Imperial secret.
+Declare to me therefore if your perspicacity and the feminine interest
+which every lady property takes in the other can unravel this mystery,
+for my liver is tormented with anxiety beyond measure."
+
+As soon as the Pearl Empress had spoken she realized that she had
+committed a great indiscretion. A babel of voices, of cries, questions
+and contradictions instantly arose. Decorum was abandoned. The Lady of
+Chen swooned, nor could she be revived for an hour, and the Princess of
+Feminine Propriety and the White Jade Concubine could be dragged apart
+only by the united efforts of six of the Palace matrons, so great was
+their fury the one with the other, each accusing each of encouragement
+to the Lady A-Kuei's pretensions. So also with the remaining ladies.
+Shrieks resounded through the Hall of Virtuous Tranquillity, and when
+the Pearl Empress attempted to pour oil on the troubled waters by
+speaking soothing and comfortable words, the august Voice was entirely
+inaudible in the tumult.
+
+All sought at length in united indignation for the Lady A-Kuei, but she
+had modestly withdrawn to the Pearl Pavilion in the Imperial Garden and,
+foreseeing anxieties, had there secured herself on hearing the opening
+of the Royal Speech.
+
+Finally the ladies were led away by their attendants, weeping,
+lamenting, raging, according to their several dispositions, and the
+Pearl Empress, left with her own maidens, beheld the floor strewn with
+jade pins, kingfisher and coral jewels, and even with fragments of silk
+and gauze. Nor was she any nearer the solution of the desired secret.
+
+That night she tossed upon a bed sleepless though heaped with down,
+and her mind raged like a fire up and down all possible answers to the
+riddle, but none would serve. Then, at the dawn, raising herself on one
+august elbow she called to her venerable nurse and foster mother, the
+Lady Ma, wise and resourceful in the affairs and difficulties of women,
+and, repeating the circumstances, demanded her counsel.
+
+The Lady Ma considering the matter long and deeply, slowly replied:
+
+"This is a great riddle and dangerous, for to intermeddle with the
+divine secrets is the high road to the Yellow Springs (death). But the
+child of my breasts and my exalted Mistress shall never ask in vain, for
+a thwarted curiosity is dangerous as a suppressed fever. I will conceal
+myself nightly in the Dragon Bedchamber and this will certainly unveil
+the truth. And if I perish I perish."
+
+It is impossible to describe how the Empress heaped Lady Ma with costly
+jewels and silken brocades and taels of silver beyond measuring--how she
+placed on her breast the amulet of jade that had guarded herself from
+all evil influences, how she called the ancestral spirits to witness
+that she would provide for the Lady Ma's remotest descendants if she
+lost her life in this sublime devotion to duty.
+
+That night Lady Ma concealed herself behind the Imperial couch in the
+Dragon Chamber, to await the coming of the Son of Heaven. Slowly dripped
+the water-clock as the minutes fled away; sorely ached the venerable
+limbs of the Lady Ma as she crouched in the shadows and saw the rising
+moon scattering silver through the elegant traceries of carved ebony and
+ivory; wildly beat her heart as delicately tripping footsteps approached
+the Dragon Chamber, and the Princess of Feminine Propriety, attended by
+her maidens, ascended the Imperial Couch and hastily dismissed them. Yet
+no sweet repose awaited this favored lady. The Lady Ma could hear her
+smothered sobs, her muttered exclamations--nay could even feel the
+couch itself tremble as the Princess uttered the hated name of the Lady
+A-Kuei, the poison of jealousy running in every vein. It was impossible
+for Lady Ma to decide which was the most virulent, this, or the poison
+of curiosity in the heart of the Pearl Empress. Though she loved not the
+Princess she was compelled to pity such suffering. But all thought was
+banished by the approach of the Yellow Emperor, prepared for repose and
+unattended, in simple but divine grandeur.
+
+It cannot indeed be supposed that a Celestial Emperor is human, yet
+there was mortality in the start which his Augustness gave when the
+Princess of Feminine Propriety flinging herself from the Dragon couch,
+threw herself at his feet and with tears that flowed like that river
+known as "The Sorrow of China," demanded to know what she had done that
+another should be preferred before her; reciting in frantic haste such
+imperfections of the Lady A-Kuei's appearance as she could recall (or
+invent) in the haste of that agitating moment.
+
+"That one of her eyes is larger than the other--no human being can
+doubt" sobbed the lady--"and surely your Divine Majesty cannot be aware
+that her hair reaches but to her waist, and that there is a brown mole
+on the nape of her neck? When she sings it resembles the croak of the
+crow. It is true that most of the Palace ladies are chosen for anything
+but beauty, yet she is the most ill-favored. And is it this--this
+bat-faced lady who is preferred to me! Would I had never been born: Yet
+even your Majesty's own lips have told me I am fair!"
+
+The Yellow Emperor supported the form of the Princess in his arms.
+There are moments when even a Son of Heaven is but human. "Fair as the
+rainbow," he murmured, and the Princess faintly smiled; then gathering
+the resolution of the Philosopher he added manfully--"But the Lady
+A-Kuei is incomparable. And the reason is--"
+
+The Lady Ma eagerly stretched her head forward with a hand to either
+ear. But the Princess of Feminine Propriety with one shriek had swooned
+and in the hurry of summoning attendants and causing her to be conveyed
+to her own apartments that precious sentence was never completed.
+
+Still the Lady Ma groveled behind the Dragon Couch as the Son of
+Heaven, left alone, approached the veranda and apostrophizing the moon,
+murmured--
+
+"O loveliest pale watcher of the destinies of men, illuminate the beauty
+of the Lady A-Kuei, and grant that I who have never seen that beauty may
+never see it, but remain its constant admirer!" So saying, he sought
+his solitary couch and slept, while the Lady Ma, in a torment of
+bewilderment, glided from the room.
+
+The matter remained in suspense for several days. The White Jade
+Concubine was the next lady commanded to the Dragon Chamber, and again
+the Lady Ma was in her post of observation. Much she heard, much she
+saw that was not to the point, but the scene ended as before by the
+dismissal of the lady in tears, and the departure of the Lady Ma in
+ignorance of the secret.
+
+The Emperor's peace was ended.
+
+The singular circumstance was that the Lady A-Kuei was never summoned
+by the Yellow Emperor. Eagerly as the Empress watched, no token of
+affection for her was ever visible. Nothing could be detected. It was
+inexplicable. Finally, devoured by curiosity that gave her no respite,
+she resolved on a stratagem that should dispel the mystery, though it
+carried with it a risk on which she trembled to reflect. It was the
+afternoon of a languid summer day, and the Yellow Emperor, almost
+unattended, had come to pay a visit of filial respect to the Pearl
+Empress. She received him with the ceremony due to her sovereign in the
+porcelain pavilion of the Eastern Gardens, with the lotos fish ponds
+before them, and a faint breeze occasionally tinkling the crystal
+wind-bells that decorated the shrubs on the cloud and dragon-wrought
+slopes of the marble approach. A bird of brilliant plumage uttered a cry
+of reverence from its gold cage as the Son of Heaven entered. As was
+his occasional custom, and after suitable inquiries as to his parent's
+health, the attendants were all dismissed out of earshot and the Emperor
+leaned on his cushions and gazed reflectively into the sunshine
+outside. So had the Court Artist represented him as "The Incarnation of
+Philosophic Calm."
+
+"These gardens are fair," said the Empress after a respectful silence,
+moving her fan illustrated with the emblem of Immortality--the Ho Bird.
+
+"Fair indeed," returned the Emperor.--"It might be supposed that all
+sorrow and disturbance would be shut without the Forbidden Precincts.
+Yet it is not so. And though the figures of my ladies moving among the
+flowers appear at this distance instinct with joy, yet--"
+
+He was silent.
+
+"They know not," said the Empress with solemnity "that death entered the
+Forbidden Precincts but last night. A disembodied spirit has returned to
+its place and doubtless exists in bliss." "Indeed?" returned the Yellow
+Emperor with indifference--"yet if the spirit is absorbed into the
+Source whence it came, and the bones have crumbled into nothingness,
+where does the Ego exist? The dead are venerable, but no longer of
+interest."
+
+"Not even when they were loved in life?" said the Empress, caressing the
+bird in the cage with one jewelled finger, but attentively observing
+her son from the corner of her august eye. "They were; they are not," he
+remarked sententiously and stifling a yawn; it was a drowsy afternoon.
+"But who is it that has abandoned us? Surely not the Lady Ma--your
+Majesty's faithful foster-mother?"
+
+"A younger, a lovelier spirit has sought the Yellow Springs," replied
+the trembling Empress. "I regret to inform your Majesty that a sudden
+convulsion last night deprived the Lady A-Kuei of life. I would not
+permit the news to reach you lest it should break your august night's
+rest."
+
+There was a silence, then the Emperor turned his eyes serenely upon his
+Imperial Mother. "That the statement of my august Parent is merely--let
+us say--allegoric--does not detract from its interest. But had the Lady
+A-Kuei in truth departed to the Yellow Springs I should none the less
+have received the news without uneasiness. What though the sun set--is
+not the memory of his light all surpassing?"
+
+No longer could the Pearl Empress endure the excess of her curiosity.
+Deeply kowtowing, imploring pardon, with raised hands and tears which no
+son dare neglect, she besought the Emperor to enlighten her as to this
+mystery, recounting his praises of the lady and his admission that he
+had never beheld her, and all the circumstances connected with this
+remarkable episode. She omitted only, (from considerations of delicacy
+and others,) the vigils of the Lady Ma in the Dragon Chamber. The
+Emperor, sighing, looked upon the ground, and for a time was silent.
+Then he replied as follows:
+
+"Willingly would I have kept silence, but what child dare withstand the
+plea of a parent? Is it necessary to inform the Heavenly Empress that
+beauty seen is beauty made familiar and that familiarity is the foe
+of admiration? How is it possible that I should see the Princess of
+Feminine Propriety, for instance, by night and day without becoming
+aware of her imperfections as well as her graces? How awake in the night
+without hearing the snoring of the White Jade Concubine and considering
+the mouth from which it issues as the less lovely. How partake of the
+society of any woman without finding her chattering as the crane, avid
+of admiration, jealous, destructive of philosophy, fatal to composure,
+fevered with curiosity; a creature, in short, a little above the gibbon,
+but infinitely below the notice of the sage, save as a temporary measure
+of amusement in itself unworthy the philosopher. The faces of all my
+ladies are known to me. All are fair and all alike. But one night, as I
+lay in the Dragon Couch, lost in speculation, absorbed in contemplation
+of the Yin and the Yang, the night passed for the solitary dreamer as a
+dream. In the darkness of the dawn I rose still dreaming, and departed
+to the Pearl Pavilion in the garden, and there remained an hour viewing
+the sunrise and experiencing ineffable opinions on the destiny of man.
+Returning then to a couch which I believed to have been that of the
+solitary philosopher I observed a depression where another form had
+lain, and in it a jade hairpin such as is worn by my junior beauties.
+Petrified with amazement at the display of such reserve, such
+continence, such august self-restraint, I perceived that, lost in
+my thoughts, I had had an unimagined companion and that this gentle
+reminder was from her gentle hand. But whom? I knew not. I then observed
+Lo Cheng the Court Artist in attendance and immediately despatched him
+to make secret enquiry and ascertain the name and circumstances of that
+beauty who, unknown, had shared my vigil. I learnt on his return that
+it was the Lady A-Kuei. I had entered the Dragon Chamber in a low
+moonlight, and guessed not her presence. She spoke no word. Finding her
+Imperial Master thus absorbed, she invited no attention, nor in any way
+obtruded her beauties upon my notice. Scarcely did she draw breath. Yet
+reflect upon what she might have done! The night passed and I remained
+entirely unconscious of her presence, and out of respect she would not
+sleep but remained reverently and modestly awake, assisting, if it may
+so be expressed, at a humble distance, in the speculations which held me
+prisoner. What a pearl was here! On learning these details by Lo Cheng
+from her own roseate lips, and remembering the unexampled temptation
+she had resisted (for well she knew that had she touched the Emperor
+the Philosopher had vanished) I despatched an august rescript to this
+favored Lady, conferring on her the degree of Incomparable Beauty of the
+First Rank. On condition of secrecy."
+
+The Pearl Empress, still in deepest bewilderment, besought his majesty
+to proceed. He did so, with his usual dignity.
+
+"Though my mind could not wholly restrain its admiration, yet secrecy
+was necessary, for had the facts been known, every lady, from the
+Princess of Feminine Propriety to the Junior Beauty of the Bed Chamber
+would henceforward have observed only silence and a frigid decorum in
+the Dragon Bed Chamber. And though the Emperor be a philosopher, yet a
+philosopher is still a man, and there are moments when decorum--"
+
+The Emperor paused discreetly; then resumed.
+
+"The world should not be composed entirely of A-Kueis, yet in my mind I
+behold the Incomparable Lady fair beyond expression. Like the moon she
+sails glorious in the heavens to be adored only in vision as the one
+woman who could respect the absorption of the Emperor, and of whose
+beauty as she lay beside him the philosopher could remain unconscious
+and therefore untroubled in body. To see her, to find her earthly,
+would be an experience for which the Emperor might have courage, but the
+philosopher never. And attached to all this is a moral:"
+
+The Pearl Empress urgently inquired its nature.
+
+"Let the wisdom of my august parent discern it," said the Emperor
+sententiously.
+
+"And the future?" she inquired.
+
+"The--let us call it parable--" said the Emperor politely--"with which
+your Majesty was good enough to entertain me, has suggested a precaution
+to my mind. I see now a lovely form moving among the flowers. It is
+possible that it may be the Incomparable Lady, or that at any moment I
+may come upon her and my ideal be shattered. This must be safeguarded.
+I might command her retirement to her native province, but who shall
+insure me against the weakness of my own heart demanding her return?
+No. Let Your Majesty's words spoken--well--in parable, be fulfilled in
+truth. I shall give orders to the Chief Eunuch that the Incomparable
+Lady tonight shall drink the Draught of Crushed Pearls, and be thus
+restored to the sphere that alone is worthy of her. Thus are all
+anxieties soothed, and the honours offered to her virtuous spirit shall
+be a glorious repayment of the ideal that will ever illuminate my soul."
+
+The Empress was speechless. She had borne the Emperor in her womb, but
+the philosopher outsoared her comprehension. She retired, leaving his
+Majesty in a reverie, endeavoring herself to grasp the moral of which
+he had spoken, for the guidance of herself and the ladies concerned. But
+whether it inculcated reserve or the reverse in the Dragon Chamber, and
+what the Imperial ladies should follow as an example she was, to the
+end of her life, totally unable to say. Philosophy indeed walks on the
+heights. We cannot all expect to follow it.
+
+That night the Incomparable Lady drank the Draught of Crushed Pearls.
+
+The Princess of Feminine Propriety and the White Jade Concubine,
+learning these circumstances, redoubled their charms, their coquetries
+and their efforts to occupy what may be described as the inner sanctuary
+of the Emperor's esteem. Both lived to a green old age, wealthy and
+honored, alike firm in the conviction that if the Incomparable Lady had
+not shown herself so superior to temptation the Emperor might have been
+on the whole better pleased, whatever the sufferings of the philosopher.
+Both lived to be the tyrants of many generations of beauties at the
+Celestial Court. Both were assiduous in their devotions before the
+spirit tablet of the departed lady, and in recommending her example of
+reserve and humility to every damsel whom it might concern.
+
+It will probably occur to the reader of this unique but veracious story
+that there is more in it than meets the eye, and more than the one
+moral alluded to by the Emperor according to the point of view of the
+different actors.
+
+To the discernment of the reader it must accordingly be left.
+
+
+
+
+THE HATRED OF THE QUEEN
+
+A Story of Burma
+
+Most wonderful is the Irawadi, the mighty river of Burma. In all the
+world elsewhere is no such river, bearing the melted snows from its
+mysterious sources in the high places of the mountains. The dawn rises
+upon its league-wide flood; the moon walks upon it with silver feet. It
+is the pulsing heart of the land, living still though so many rules and
+rulers have risen and fallen beside it, their pomps and glories drifting
+like flotsam dawn the river to the eternal ocean that is the end of
+all--and the beginning. Dead civilizations strew its banks, dreaming in
+the torrid sunshine of glories that were--of blood-stained gold, jewels
+wept from woeful crowns, nightmare dreams of murder and terror; dreaming
+also of heavenly beauty, for the Lord Buddha looks down in moonlight
+peace upon the land that leaped to kiss His footprints, that has laid
+its heart in the hand of the Blessed One, and shares therefore in His
+bliss and content. The Land of the Lord Buddha, where the myriad pagodas
+lift their golden flames of worship everywhere, and no idlest wind can
+pass but it ruffles the bells below the knees until they send forth
+their silver ripple of music to swell the hymn of praise!
+
+There is a little bay on the bank of the flooding river--a silent,
+deserted place of sanddunes and small bills. When a ship is in sight,
+some poor folk come and spread out the red lacquer that helps their
+scanty subsistence, and the people from the passing ship land and barter
+and in a few minutes are gone on their busy way and silence settles
+down once more. They neither know nor care that, near by, a mighty city
+spread its splendour for miles along the river bank, that the king
+known as Lord of the Golden Palace, The Golden Foot, Lord of the White
+Elephant, held his state there with balls of magnificence, obsequious
+women, fawning courtiers and all the riot and colour of an Eastern
+tyranny. How should they care? Now there are ruins--ruins, and the
+cobras slip in and out through the deserted holy places. They breed
+their writhing young in the sleeping-chambers of queens, the tigers mew
+in the moonlight, and the giant spider, more terrible than the cobra,
+strikes with its black poison-claw and, paralyzing the life of the
+victim, sucks its brain with slow, lascivious pleasure.
+
+Are these foul creatures more dreadful than some of the men, the women,
+who dwelt in these palaces--the more evil because of the human brain
+that plotted and foresaw? That is known only to the mysterious Law that
+in silence watches and decrees.
+
+But this is a story of the dead days of Pagan, by the Irawadi, and it
+will be shown that, as the Lotus of the Lord Buddha grows up a white
+splendour from the black mud of the depths, so also may the soul of a
+woman.
+
+In the days of the Lord of the White Elephant, the King Pagan Men, was a
+boy named Mindon, son of second Queen and the King. So, at least, it
+was said in the Golden Palace, but those who knew the secrets of such
+matters whispered that, when the King had taken her by the hand she
+came to him no maid, and that the boy was the son of an Indian trader.
+Furthermore it was said that she herself was woman of the Rajputs,
+knowledgeable in spells, incantations and elemental spirits such as the
+Beloos that terribly haunt waste places, and all Powers that move in
+the dark, and that thus she had won the King. Certainly she had been
+captured by the King's war-boats off the coast from a trading-ship bound
+for Ceylon, and it was her story that, because of her beauty, she was
+sent thither to serve as concubine to the King, Tissa of Ceylon. Being
+captured, she was brought to the Lord of the Golden Palace. The tongue
+she spoke was strange to all the fighting men, but it was wondrous to
+see how swiftly she learnt theirs and spoke it with a sweet ripple such
+as is in the throat of a bird.
+
+She was beautiful exceedingly, with a colour of pale gold upon her and
+lengths of silk-spun hair, and eyes like those of a jungle-deer, and
+water might run beneath the arch of her foot without wetting it, and her
+breasts were like the cloudy pillows where the sun couches at setting.
+Now, at Pagan, the name they called her was Dwaymenau, but her true
+name, known only to herself, was Sundari, and she knew not the Law of
+the Blessed Buddha but was a heathen accursed. In the strong hollow of
+her hand she held the heart of the King, so that on the birth of her son
+she had risen from a mere concubine to be the second Queen and a power
+to whom all bowed. The First Queen, Maya, languished in her palace, her
+pale beauty wasting daily, deserted and lonely, for she had been the
+light of the King's eyes until the coming of the Indian woman, and she
+loved her lord with a great love and was a noble woman brought up in
+honour and all things becoming a queen. But sigh as she would, the King
+came never. All night he lay in the arms of Dwaymenau, all day he sat
+beside her, whether at the great water pageants or at the festival when
+the dancing-girls swayed and postured before him in her gilded chambers.
+Even when he went forth to hunt the tiger, she went with him as far as
+a woman may go, and then stood back only because he would not risk his
+jewel, her life. So all that was evil in the man she fostered and all
+that was good she cherished not at all, fearing lest he should return
+to the Queen. At her will he had consulted the Hiwot Daw, the Council of
+the Woon-gyees or Ministers, concerning a divorce of the Queen, but
+this they told him could not be since she had kept all the laws of Manu,
+being faithful, noble and beautiful and having borne him a son.
+
+For, before the Indian woman had come to the King, the Queen had borne
+a son, Ananda, and he was pale and slender and the King despised him
+because of the wiles of Dwaymenau, saying he was fit only to sit among
+the women, having the soul of a slave, and he laughed bitterly as the
+pale child crouched in the corner to see him pass. If his eyes had been
+clear, he would have known that here was no slave, but a heart as much
+greater than his own as the spirit is stronger than the body. But this
+he did not know and he strode past with Dwaymenau's boy on his shoulder,
+laughing with cruel glee.
+
+And this boy, Mindon, was beautiful and strong as his mother, pale olive
+of face, with the dark and crafty eyes of the cunning Indian traders,
+with black hair and a body straight, strong and long in the leg for his
+years--apt at the beginnings of bow, sword and spear--full of promise,
+if the promise was only words and looks.
+
+And so matters rested in the palace until Ananda had ten years and
+Mindon nine.
+
+It was the warm and sunny winter and the days were pleasant, and on a
+certain day the Queen, Maya, went with her ladies to worship the Blessed
+One at the Thapinyu Temple, looking down upon the swiftly flowing river.
+The temple was exceedingly rich and magnificent, so gilded with pure
+gold-leaf that it appeared of solid gold. And about the upper part were
+golden bells beneath the jewelled knee, which wafted very sweetly in
+the wind and gave forth a crystal-clear music. The ladies bore in their
+hands more gold-leaf, that they might acquire merit by offering this
+for the service of the Master of the Law, and indeed this temple was
+the offering of the Queen herself, who, because she bore the name of
+the Mother of the Lord, excelled in good works and was the Moon of this
+lower world in charity and piety.
+
+Though wan with grief and anxiety, this Queen was beautiful. Her eyes,
+like mournful lakes of darkness, were lovely in the pale ivory of
+her face. Her lips were nobly cut and calm, and by the favour of the
+Guardian Nats, she was shaped with grace and health, a worthy mother of
+kings. Also she wore her jewels like a mighty princess, a magnificence
+to which all the people shikoed as she passed, folding their hands and
+touching the forehead while they bowed down, kneeling.
+
+Before the colossal image of the Holy One she made her offering and,
+attended by her women, she sat in meditation, drawing consolation from
+the Tranquillity above her and the silence of the shrine. This ended,
+the Queen rose and did obeisance to the Lord and, retiring, paced back
+beneath the White Canopy and entered the courtyard where the palace
+stood--a palace of noble teakwood, brown and golden and carved like lace
+into strange fantasies of spires and pinnacles and branches where Nats
+and Tree Spirits and Beloos and swaying river maidens mingled and met
+amid fruits and leaves and flowers in a wild and joyous confusion. The
+faces, the blowing garments, whirled into points with the swiftness of
+the dance, were touched with gold, and so glad was the building that it
+seemed as if a very light wind might whirl it to the sky, and even
+the sad Queen stopped to rejoice in its beauty as it blossomed in the
+sunlight.
+
+And even as she paused, her little son Ananda rushed to meet her, pale
+and panting, and flung himself into her arms with dry sobs like those of
+an overrun man. She soothed him until he could speak, and then the grief
+made way in a rain of tears.
+
+"Mindon has killed my deer. He bared his knife, slit his throat and cast
+him in the ditch and there he lies."
+
+"There will he not lie long!" shouted Mindon, breaking from the palace
+to the group where all were silent now. "For the worms will eat him and
+the dogs pick clean his bones, and he will show his horns at his lords
+no more. If you loved him, White-liver, you should have taught him
+better manners to his betters."
+
+With a stifled shriek Ananda caught the slender knife from his girdle
+and flew at Mindon like a cat of the woods. Such things were done daily
+by young and old, and this was a long sorrow come to a head between the
+boys.
+
+Suddenly, lifting the hangings of the palace gateway, before them stood
+the mother of Mindon, the Lady Dwaymenau, pale as wool, having heard the
+shout of her boy, so that the two Queens faced each other, each holding
+the shoulders of her son, and the ladies watched, mute as fishes, for it
+was years since these two had met.
+
+"What have you done to my son?" breathed Maya the Queen, dry in the
+throat and all but speechless with passion. For indeed his face, for a
+child, was ghastly.
+
+"Look at his knife! What would he do to my son?" Dwaymenau was stiff
+with hate and spoke as to a slave.
+
+"He has killed my deer and mocks me because I loved him, He is the devil
+in this place. Look at the devils in his eyes. Look quick before he
+smiles, my mother."
+
+And indeed, young as the boy was, an evil thing sat in either eye and
+glittered upon them. Dwaymenau passed her hand across his brow, and he
+smiled and they were gone.
+
+"The beast ran at me and would have flung me with his horns," he said,
+looking up brightly at his mother. "He had the madness upon him. I
+struck once and he was dead. My father would have done the same.
+
+"That would he not!" said Queen Maya bitterly. "Your father would have
+crept up, fawning on the deer, and offered him the fruits he loved,
+stroking him the while. And in trust the beast would have eaten, and the
+poison in the fruit would have slain him. For the people of your father
+meet neither man nor beast in fair fight. With a kiss they stab!"
+
+Horror kept the women staring and silent. No one had dreamed that
+the scandal had reached the Queen. Never had she spoken or looked her
+knowledge but endured all in patience. Now it sprang out like a sword
+among them, and they feared for Maya, whom all loved.
+
+Mindon did not understand. It was beyond him, but he saw he was scorned.
+Dwaymenau, her face rigid as a mask, looked pitilessly at the shaking
+Queen, and each word dropped from her mouth, hard and cold as the
+falling of diamonds. She refused the insult.
+
+"If it is thus you speak of our lord and my love, what wonder he
+forsakes you? Mother of a craven milk runs in your veins and his for
+blood. Take your slinking brat away and weep together! My son and I
+go forth to meet the King as he comes from hunting, and to welcome him
+kingly!" She caught her boy to her with a magnificent gesture; he flung
+his little arm about her, and laughing loudly they went off together.
+
+The tension relaxed a little when they were out of sight. The women knew
+that, since Dwaymenau had refused to take the Queen's meaning, she
+would certainly not carry her complaint to the King. They guessed at her
+reason for this forbearance, but, be that as it might, it was Certain
+that no other person would dare to tell him and risk the fate that waits
+the messenger of evil.
+
+The eldest lady led away the Queen, now almost tottering in the reaction
+of fear and pain. Oh, that she had controlled her speech! Not for her
+own sake--for she had lost all and the beggar can lose no more--but for
+the boy's sake, the unloved child that stood between the stranger and
+her hopes. For him she had made a terrible enemy. Weeping, the boy
+followed her.
+
+"Take comfort, little son," she said, drawing him to her tenderly. "The
+deer can suffer no more. For the tigers, he does not fear them. He runs
+in green woods now where there is none to hunt. He is up and away. The
+Blessed One was once a deer as gentle as yours."
+
+But still the child wept, and the Queen broke down utterly. "Oh, if life
+be a dream, let us wake, let us wake!" she sobbed. "For evil things walk
+in it that cannot live in the light. Or let us dream deeper and forget.
+Go, little son, yet stay--for who can tell what waits us when the King
+comes. Let us meet him here."
+
+For she believed that Dwaymenau would certainly carry the tale of her
+speech to the King, and, if so, what hope but death together?
+
+That night, after the feasting, when the girls were dancing the dance
+of the fairies and spirits, in gold dresses, winged on the legs and
+shoulders, and high, gold-spired and pinnacled caps, the King missed the
+little Prince, Ananda, and asked why he was absent.
+
+No one answered, the women looking upon each other, until Dwaymenau,
+sitting beside him, glimmering with rough pearls and rubies, spoke
+smoothly: "Lord, worshipped and beloved, the two boys quarreled this
+day, and Ananda's deer attacked our Mindon. He had a madness upon him
+and thrust with his horns. But, Mindon, your true son, flew in upon him
+and in a great fight he slit the beast's throat with the knife you gave
+him. Did he not well?"
+
+"Well," said the King briefly. "But is there no hurt? Have searched? For
+he is mine."
+
+There was arrogance in the last sentence and her proud soul rebelled,
+but smoothly as ever she spoke: "I have searched and there is not the
+littlest scratch. But Ananda is weeping because the deer is dead, and
+his mother is angry. What should I do?"
+
+"Nothing. Ananda is worthless and worthless let him be! And for that
+pale shadow that was once a woman, let her be forgotten. And now, drink,
+my Queen!"
+
+And Dwaymenau drank but the drink was bitter to her, for a ghost had
+risen upon her that day. She had never dreamed that such a scandal had
+been spoken, and it stunned her very soul with fear, that the Queen
+should know her vileness and the cheat she had put upon the King. As
+pure maid he had received her, and she knew, none better, what the doom
+would be if his trust were broken and he knew the child not his.
+She herself had seen this thing done to a concubine who had a little
+offended. She was thrust living in a sack and this hung between two
+earthen jars pierced with small holes, and thus she was set afloat on
+the terrible river. And not till the slow filling and sinking of the
+jars was the agony over and the cries for mercy stilled. No, the Queen's
+speech was safe with her, but was it safe with the Queen? For her
+silence, Dwaymenau must take measures.
+
+Then she put it all aside and laughed and jested with the King and did
+indeed for a time forget, for she loved him for his black-browed beauty
+and his courage and royalty and the childlike trust and the man's
+passion that mingled in him for her. Daily and nightly such prayers as
+she made to strange gods were that she might bear a son, true son of
+his.
+
+Next day, in the noonday stillness when all slept, she led her young son
+by the hand to her secret chamber, and, holding him upon her knees in
+that rich and golden place, she lifted his face to hers and stared into
+his eyes. And so unwavering was her gaze, so mighty the hard, unblinking
+stare that his own was held against it, and he stared back as the earth
+stares breathless at the moon. Gradually the terror faded out of his
+eyes; they glazed as if in a trance; his head fell stupidly against her
+bosom; his spirit stood on the borderland of being and waited.
+
+Seeing this, she took his palm and, molding it like wax, into the cup
+of it she dropped clear fluid from a small vessel of pottery with the
+fylfot upon its side and the disks of the god Shiva. And strange it was
+to see that lore of India in the palace where the Blessed Law reigned
+in peace. Then, fixing her eyes with power upon Mindon, she bade him, a
+pure child, see for her in its clearness.
+
+"Only virgin-pure can see!" she muttered, staring into his eyes. "See!
+See!"
+
+The eyes of Mindon were closing. He half opened them and looked dully at
+his palm. His face was pinched and yellow.
+
+"A woman--a child, on a long couch. Dead! I see!"
+
+"See her face. Is her head crowned with the Queen's jewels? See!"
+
+"Jewels. I cannot see her face. It is hidden."
+
+"Why is it hidden?"
+
+"A robe across her face. Oh, let me go!"
+
+"And the child? See!"
+
+"Let me go. Stop--my head--my head! I cannot see. The child is hidden.
+Her arm holds it. A woman stoops above them."
+
+"A woman? Who? Is it like me? Speak! See!"
+
+"A woman. It is like you, mother--it is like you. I fear very greatly. A
+knife--a knife! Blood! I cannot see--I cannot speak! I--I sleep."
+
+His face was ghastly white now, his body cold and collapsed. Terrified,
+she caught him to her breast and relaxed the power of her will upon him.
+For that moment, she was only the passionate mother and quaked to think
+she might have hurt him. An hour passed and he slept heavily in her
+arms, and in agony she watched to see the colour steal back into the
+olive cheek and white lips. In the second hour he waked and stretched
+himself indolently, yawning like a cat. Her tears dropped like rain upon
+him as she clasped him violently to her.
+
+He writhed himself free, petulant and spoilt. "Let me be. I hate kisses
+and women's tricks. I want to go forth and play. I have had a devil's
+dream.
+
+"What did you see in your dream, prince of my heart?" She caught
+frantically at the last chance.
+
+"A deer--a tiger. I have forgotten. Let me go." He ran off and she sat
+alone with her doubts and fears. Yet triumph coloured them too. She saw
+a dead woman, a dead child, and herself bending above them. She hid the
+vessel in her bosom and went out among her women.
+
+Weeks passed, and never a word that she dreaded from Maya the Queen. The
+women of Dwaymenau, questioning the Queen's women, heard that she seemed
+to have heavy sorrow upon her. Her eyes were like dying lamps and she
+faded as they. The King never entered her palace. Drowned in Dwaymenau's
+wiles and beauty, her slave, her thrall, he forgot all else but his
+fighting, his hunting and his long war-boats, and whether the Queen
+lived or died, he cared nothing. Better indeed she should die and
+her place be emptied for the beloved, without offence to her powerful
+kindred.
+
+And now he was to sail upon a raid against the Shan Tsaubwa, who had
+denied him tribute of gold and jewels and slaves. Glorious were the
+boats prepared for war, of brown teak and gilded until they shone like
+gold. Seventy men rowed them, sword and lance beside each. Warriors
+crowded them, flags and banners fluttered about them; the shining water
+reflected the pomp like a mirror and the air rang with song. Dwaymenau
+stood beside the water with her women, bidding the King farewell, and so
+he saw her, radiant in the dawn, with her boy beside her, and waved his
+hand to the last.
+
+The ships were gone and the days languished a little at Pagan. They
+missed the laughter and royalty of the King, and few men, and those old
+and weak, were left in the city. The pulse of life beat slower.
+
+And Dwaymenau took rule in the Golden Palace. Queen Maya sat like one in
+a dream and questioned nothing, and Dwaymenau ruled with wisdom but none
+loved her. To all she was the interloper, the witch-woman, the out-land
+upstart. Only the fear of the King guarded her and her boy, but that
+was strong. The boys played together sometimes, Mindon tyrannizing and
+cruel, Ananda fearing and complying, broken in spirit.
+
+Maya the Queen walked daily in the long and empty Golden Hall of
+Audience, where none came now that the King was gone, pacing up and
+down, gazing wearily at the carved screens and all their woodland beauty
+of gods that did not hear, of happy spirits that had no pity. Like
+a spirit herself she passed between the red pillars, appearing and
+reappearing with steps that made no sound, consumed with hate of the
+evil woman that had stolen her joy. Like a slow fire it burned in her
+soul, and the face of the Blessed One was hidden from her, and she had
+forgotten His peace. In that atmosphere of hate her life dwindled. Her
+son's dwindled also, and there was talk among the women of some potion
+that Dwaymenau had been seen to drop into his noontide drink as she went
+swiftly by. That might he the gossip of malice, but he pined. His
+eyes were large like a young bird's; his hands like little claws. They
+thought the departing year would take him with it. What harm? Very
+certainly the King would shed no tear.
+
+It was a sweet and silent afternoon and she wandered in the great and
+lonely hall, sickened with the hate in her soul and her fear for her
+boy. Suddenly she heard flying footsteps--a boy's, running in mad haste
+in the outer hall, and, following them, bare feet, soft, thudding.
+
+She stopped dead and every pulse cried--Danger! No time to think or
+breathe when Mindon burst into sight, wild with terror and following
+close beside him a man--a madman, a short bright dah in his grasp, his
+jaws grinding foam, his wild eyes starting--one passion to murder. So
+sometimes from the Nats comes pitiless fury, and men run mad and kill
+and none knows why.
+
+Maya the Queen stiffened to meet the danger. Joy swept through her soul;
+her weariness was gone. A fierce smile showed her teeth--a smile
+of hate, as she stood there and drew her dagger for defense. For
+defense--the man would rend the boy and turn on her and she would not
+die. She would live to triumph that the mongrel was dead, and her son,
+the Prince again and his father's joy--for his heart would turn to the
+child most surely. Justice was rushing on its victim. She would see it
+and live content, the long years of agony wiped out in blood, as was
+fitting. She would not flee; she would see it and rejoice. And as
+she stood in gladness--these broken thoughts rushing through her like
+flashes of lightning--Mindon saw her by the pillar and, screaming in
+anguish for the first time, fled to her for refuge.
+
+She raised her knife to meet the staring eyes, the chalk white face, and
+drive him back on the murderer. If the man failed, she would not! And
+even as she did this a strange thing befell. Something stronger than
+hate swept her away like a leaf on the river; something primeval that
+lives in the lonely pangs of childbirth, that hides in the womb and
+breasts of the mother. It was stronger than she. It was not the hated
+Mindoin--she saw him no more. Suddenly it was the eternal Child, lifting
+dying, appealing eyes to the Woman, as he clung to her knees. She did
+not think this--she felt it, and it dominated her utterly. The Woman
+answered. As if it had been her own flesh and blood, she swept the
+panting body behind her and faced the man with uplifted dagger and knew
+her victory assured, whether in life or death. On came the horrible
+rush, the flaming eyes, and, if it was chance that set the dagger
+against his throat, it was cool strength that drove it home and never
+wavered until the blood welling from the throat quenched the flame in
+the wild eyes, and she stood triumphing like a war-goddess, with the
+man at her feet. Then, strong and flushed, Maya the Queen gathered the
+half-dead boy in her arms, and, both drenched with blood, they moved
+slowly down the hall and outside met the hurrying crowd, with Dwaymenau,
+whom the scream had brought to find her son.
+
+"You have killed him! She has killed him!" Scarcely could the Rajput
+woman speak. She was kneeling beside him--he hideous with blood. "She
+hated him always. She has murdered him. Seize her!"
+
+"Woman, what matter your hates and mine?" the Queen said slowly. "The
+boy is stark with fear. Carry him in and send for old Meh Shway Gon.
+Woman, be silent!"
+
+When a Queen commands, men and women obey, and a Queen commanded then.
+A huddled group lifted the child and carried him away, Dwaymenau with
+them, still uttering wild threats, and the Queen was left alone.
+
+She could not realize what she had done and left undone. She could not
+understand it. She had hated, sickened with loathing, as it seemed for
+ages, and now, in a moment it had blown away like a whirlwind that is
+gone. Hate was washed out of her soul and had left it cool and white as
+the Lotus of the Blessed One. What power had Dwaymenau to hurt her when
+that other Power walked beside her? She seemed to float above her in
+high air and look down upon her with compassion. Strength, virtue flowed
+in her veins; weakness, fear were fantasies. She could not understand,
+but knew that here was perfect enlightenment. About her echoed the words
+of the Blessed One: "Never in this world doth hatred cease by hatred,
+but only by love. This is an old rule."
+
+"Whereas I was blind, now I see," said Maya the Queen slowly to her own
+heart. She had grasped the hems of the Mighty.
+
+Words cannot speak the still passion of strength and joy that possessed
+her. Her step was light. As she walked, her soul sang within her, for
+thus it is with those that have received the Law. About them is the
+Peace.
+
+In the dawn she was told that the Queen, Dwaymenau, would speak with
+her, and without a tremor she who had shaken like a leaf at that name
+commanded that she should enter. It was Dwaymenau that trembled as she
+came into that unknown place.
+
+With cloudy brows and eyes that would reveal no secret, she stood before
+the high seat where the Queen sat pale and majestic.
+
+"Is it well with the boy?" the Queen asked earnestly.
+
+"Well," said Dwaymenau, fingering the silver bosses of her girdle.
+
+"Then--is there more to say?" The tone was that of the great lady who
+courteously ends an audience. "There is more. The men brought in the
+body and in its throat your dagger was sticking. And my son has told me
+that your body was a shield to him. You offered your life for his. I did
+not think to thank you--but I thank you." She ended abruptly and still
+her eyes had never met the Queen's.
+
+"I accept your thanks. Yet a mother could do no less."
+
+The tone was one of dismissal but still Dwaymenau lingered.
+
+"The dagger," she said and drew it from her bosom. On the clear, pointed
+blade the blood had curdled and dried. "I never thought to ask a gift of
+you, but this dagger is a memorial of my son's danger. May I keep it?"
+
+"As you will. Here is the sheath." From her girdle she drew it--rough
+silver, encrusted with rubies from the mountains.
+
+The hand rejected it.
+
+"Jewels I cannot take, but bare steel is a fitting gift between us two."
+
+"As you will."
+
+The Queen spoke compassionately, and Dwaymenau, still with veiled eyes,
+was gone without fare well. The empty sheath lay on the seat--a symbol
+of the sharp-edged hate that had passed out of her life. She touched the
+sheath to her lips and, smiling, laid it away.
+
+And the days went by and Dwaymenau came no more before her, and her days
+were fulfilled with peace. And now again the Queen ruled in the palace
+wisely and like a Queen, and this Dwaymenau did not dispute, but what
+her thoughts were no man could tell.
+
+Then came the end.
+
+One night the city awakened to a wild alarm. A terrible fleet of
+war-boats came sweeping along the river thick as locusts--the war fleet
+of the Lord of Prome. Battle shouts broke the peace of the night
+to horror; axes battered on the outer doors; the roofs of the outer
+buildings were all aflame. It was no wonderful incident, but a common
+one enough of those turbulent days--reprisal by a powerful ruler with
+raids and hates to avenge on the Lord of the Golden Palace. It was
+indeed a right to be gainsaid only by the strong arm, and the strong arm
+was absent; as for the men of Pagan, if the guard failed and the women's
+courage sank, they would return to blackened walls, empty chambers and
+desolation.
+
+At Pagan the guard was small, indeed, for the King's greed of plunder
+had taken almost every able man with him. Still, those who were left
+did what they could, and the women, alert and brave, with but few
+exceptions, gathered the children and handed such weapons as they could
+muster to the men, and themselves, taking knives and daggers, helped to
+defend the inner rooms.
+
+In the farthest, the Queen, having given her commands and encouraged all
+with brave words, like a wise, prudent princess, sat with her son beside
+her. Her duty was now to him. Loved or unloved, he was still the heir,
+the root of the House tree. If all failed, she must make ransom
+and terms for him, and, if they died, it must be together. He, with
+sparkling eyes, gay in the danger, stood by her. Thus Dwaymenau found
+them.
+
+She entered quietly and without any display of emotion and stood before
+the high seat.
+
+"Great Queen"--she used that title for the first time--"the leader is
+Meng Kyinyo of Prome. There is no mercy. The end is near. Our men fall
+fast, the women are fleeing. I have come to say this thing: Save the
+Prince."
+
+"And how?" asked the Queen, still seated. "I have no power."
+
+"I have sent to Maung Tin, abbot of the Golden Monastery, and he has
+said this thing. In the Kyoung across the river he can hide one child
+among the novices. Cut his hair swiftly and put upon him this yellow
+robe. The time is measured in minutes."
+
+Then the Queen perceived, standing by the pillar, a monk of a stern,
+dark presence, the creature of Dwaymenau. For an instant she pondered.
+Was the woman selling the child to death? Dwaymenau spoke no word.
+Her face was a mask. A minute that seemed an hour drifted by, and the
+yelling and shrieks for mercy drew nearer.
+
+"There will be pursuit," said the Queen. "They will slay him on the
+river. Better here with me."
+
+"There will be no pursuit." Dwaymenau fixed her strange eyes on the
+Queen for the first time.
+
+What moved in those eyes? The Queen could not tell. But despairing,
+she rose and went to the silent monk, leading the Prince by the hand.
+Swiftly he stripped the child of the silk pasoh of royalty, swiftly
+he cut the long black tresses knotted on the little head, and upon the
+slender golden body he set the yellow robe worn by the Lord Himself on
+earth, and in the small hand he placed the begging-bowl of the Lord.
+And now, remote and holy, in the dress that is of all most sacred, the
+Prince, standing by the monk, turned to his mother and looked with grave
+eyes upon her, as the child Buddha looked upon his Mother--also a Queen.
+But Dwaymenau stood by silent and lent no help as the Queen folded the
+Prince in her arms and laid his hand in the hand of the monk and saw
+them pass away among the pillars, she standing still and white.
+
+She turned to her rival. "If you have meant truly, I thank you."
+
+"I have meant truly."
+
+She turned to go, but the Queen caught her by the hand.
+
+"Why have you done this?" she asked, looking into the strange eyes of
+the strange woman.
+
+Something like tears gathered in them for a moment, but she brushed them
+away as she said hurriedly:
+
+"I was grateful. You saved my son. Is it not enough?"
+
+"No, not enough!" cried the Queen. "There is more. Tell me, for death is
+upon us."
+
+"His footsteps are near," said the Indian. "I will speak. I love my
+lord. In death I will not cheat him. What you have known is true. My
+child is no child of his. I will not go down to death with a lie upon my
+lips. Come and see."
+
+Dwaymenau was no more. Sundari, the Indian woman, awful and calm, led
+the Queen down the long ball and into her own chamber, where Mindon, the
+child, slept a drugged sleep. The Queen felt that she had never known
+her; she herself seemed diminished in stature as she followed the
+stately figure, with its still, dark face. Into this room the enemy were
+breaking, shouldering their way at the door--a rabble of terrible faces.
+Their fury was partly checked when only a sleeping child and two women
+confronted them, but their leader, a grim and evil-looking man, strode
+from the huddle.
+
+"Where is the son of the King?" he shouted. "Speak, women! Whose is this
+boy?"
+
+Sundari laid her hand upon her son's shoulder. Not a muscle of her face
+flickered.
+
+"This is his son."
+
+"His true son--the son of Maya the Queen?"
+
+"His true son, the son of Maya the Queen."
+
+"Not the younger--the mongrel?"
+
+"The younger--the mongrel died last week of a fever."
+
+Every moment of delay was precious. Her eyes saw only a monk and a boy
+fleeing across the wide river.
+
+"Which is Maya the Queen?"
+
+"This," said Sundari. "She cannot speak. It is her son--the Prince."
+
+Maya had veiled her face with her hands. Her brain swam, but she
+understood the noble lie. This woman could love. Their lord would not be
+left childless. Thought beat like pulses in her--raced along her veins.
+She held her breath and was dumb.
+
+His doubt was assuaged and the lust of vengeance was on him--a madness
+seized the man. But even his own wild men shrank back a moment, for to
+slay a sleeping child in cold blood is no man's work.
+
+"You swear it is the Prince. But why? Why do you not lie to save him if
+you are the King's woman?"
+
+"Because his mother has trampled me to the earth. I am the Indian
+woman--the mother of the younger, who is dead and safe. She jeered at
+me--she mocked me. It is time I should see her suffer. Suffer now as I
+have suffered, Maya the Queen!"
+
+This was reasonable--this was like the women he had known. His doubt was
+gone--he laughed aloud.
+
+"Then feed full of vengeance!" he cried, and drove his knife through the
+child's heart.
+
+For a moment Sundari wavered where she stood, but she held herself and
+was rigid as the dead.
+
+"Tha-du! Well done!" she said with an awful smile. "The tree is broken,
+the roots cut. And now for us women--our fate, O master?"
+
+"Wait here," he answered. "Let not a hair of their heads be touched.
+Both are fair. The two for me. For the rest draw lots when all is done."
+
+The uproar surged away. The two stood by the dead boy. So swift had been
+his death that he lay as though he still slept--the black lashes pressed
+upon his cheek.
+
+With the heredity of their different races upon them, neither wept. But
+silently the Queen opened her arms; wide as a woman that entreats
+she opened them to the Indian Queen, and speechlessly the two clung
+together. For a while neither spoke.
+
+"My sister!" said Maya the Queen. And again, "O great of heart!"
+
+She laid her cheek against Sundari's, and a wave of solemn joy seemed to
+break in her soul and flood it with life and light.
+
+"Had I known sooner!" she said. "For now the night draws on."
+
+"What is time?" answered the Rajput woman. "We stand before the Lords of
+Life and Death. The life you gave was yours, and I am unworthy to kiss
+the feet of the Queen. Our lord will return and his son is saved. The
+House can be rebuilt. My son and I were waifs washed up from the sea.
+Another wave washes us back to nothingness. Tell him my story and he
+will loathe me."
+
+"My lips are shut," said the Queen. "Should I betray my sister's honour?
+When he speaks of the noble women of old, your name will be among them.
+What matters which of us he loves and remembers? Your soul and mine have
+seen the same thing, and we are one. But I--what have I to do with life?
+The ship and the bed of the conqueror await us. Should we await them, my
+sister?"
+
+The bright tears glittered in the eyes of Sundari at the tender name and
+the love in the face of the Queen. At last she accepted it.
+
+"My sister, no," she said, and drew from her bosom the dagger of Maya,
+with the man's blood rusted upon it. "Here is the way. I have kept this
+dagger in token of my debt. Nightly have I kissed it, swearing that,
+when the time came, I would repay my debt to the great Queen. Shall I go
+first or follow, my sister?"
+
+Her voice lingered on the word. It was precious to her. It was like
+clear water, laying away the stain of the shameful years.
+
+"Your arm is strong," answered the Queen. "I go first. Because the
+King's son is safe, I bless you. For your love of the King, I love you.
+And here, standing on the verge of life, I testify that the words of the
+Blessed One are truth--that love is All; that hatred is Nothing."
+
+She bared the breast that this woman had made desolate--that, with the
+love of this woman, was desolate ho longer, and, stooping, laid her hand
+on the brow of Mindon. Once more they embraced, and then, strong and
+true, and with the Rajput passion behind the blow, the stroke fell and
+Sundari had given her sister the crowning mercy of deliverance. She
+laid the body beside her own son, composing the stately limbs, the quiet
+eyelids, the black lengths of hair into majesty. So, she thought, in the
+great temple of the Rajput race, the Mother Goddess shed silence and awe
+upon her worshippers. The two lay like mother and son--one slight hand
+of the Queen she laid across the little body as if to guard it.
+
+Her work done, she turned to the entrance and watched the dawn coming
+glorious over the river. The men shouted and quarreled in the distance,
+but she heeded them no more than the chattering of apes. Her heart was
+away over the distance to the King, but with no passion now: so might a
+mother have thought of her son. He was sleeping, forgetful of even her
+in his dreams. What matter? She was glad at heart. The Queen was dearer
+to her than the King--so strange is life; so healing is death. She
+remembered without surprise that she had asked no forgiveness of the
+Queen for all the cruel wrongs, for the deadly intent--had made no
+confession. Again what matter? What is forgiveness when love is all?
+
+She turned from the dawn-light to the light in the face of the Queen.
+It was well. Led by such a hand, she could present herself without fear
+before the Lords of Life and Death--she and the child. She smiled. Life
+is good, but death, which is more life, is better. The son of the King
+was safe, but her own son safer.
+
+When the conqueror reentered the chamber, he found the dead Queen
+guarding the dead child, and across her feet, as not worthy to lie
+beside her, was the body of the Indian woman, most beautiful in death.
+
+
+
+
+FIRE OF BEAUTY
+
+(Salutation to Ganesa the Lord of Wisdom, and to Saraswate the Lady of
+Sweet Speech!)
+
+This story was composed by the Brahmin Visravas, that dweller on the
+banks of holy Kashi; and though the events it records are long past, yet
+it is absolutely and immutably true because, by the power of his yoga,
+he summoned up every scene before him, and beheld the persons moving
+and speaking as in life. Thus he had naught to do but to set down what
+befell.
+
+What follows, that hath he seen.
+
+
+I
+
+Wide was the plain, the morning sun shining full upon it, drinking up
+the dew as the Divine drinks up the spirit of man. Far it stretched,
+resembling the ocean, and riding upon it like a stately ship was the
+league-long Rock of Chitor. It is certainly by the favour of the Gods
+that this great fortress of the Rajput Kings thus rises from the plain,
+leagues in length, noble in height; and very strange it is to see the
+flat earth fall away from it like waters from the bows of a boat, as it
+soars into the sky with its burden of palaces and towers.
+
+Here dwelt the Queen Padmini and her husband Bhimsi, the Rana of the
+Rajputs.
+
+The sight of the holy ascetic Visravas pierced even the secrets of the
+Rani's bower, where, in the inmost chamber of marble, carved until it
+appeared like lace of the foam of the sea, she was seated upon cushions
+of blue Bokhariot silk, like the lotus whose name she bore floating upon
+the blue depths of the lake. She had just risen from the shallow bath of
+marble at her feet.
+
+Most beautiful was this Queen, a haughty beauty such as should be a
+Rajput lady; for the name "Rajput" signifies Son of a King, and this
+lady was assuredly the daughter of Kings and of no lesser persons. And
+since that beauty is long since ashes (all things being transitory),
+it is permitted to describe the mellowed ivory of her body, the smooth
+curves of her hips, and the defiance of her glimmering bosom, half
+veiled by the long silken tresses of sandal-scented hair which a maiden
+on either side, bowing toward her, knotted upon her head. But even
+he who with his eyes has seen it can scarce tell the beauty of her
+face--the slender arched nose, the great eyes like lakes of darkness
+in the reeds of her curled lashes, the mouth of roses, the glance,
+deer-like but proud, that courted and repelled admiration. This cannot
+be told, nor could the hand of man paint it. Scarcely could that fair
+wife of the Pandava Prince, Draupadi the Beautiful (who bore upon her
+perfect form every auspicious mark) excel this lady.
+
+(Ashes--ashes! May Maheshwara have mercy upon her rebirths!)
+
+Throughout India had run the fame of this beauty. In the bazaar of
+Kashmir they told of it. It was recorded in the palaces of Travancore,
+and all the lands that lay between; and in an evil hour--may the Gods
+curse the mother that bore him!--it reached the ears of Allah-u-Din, the
+Moslem dog, a very great fighting man who sat in Middle India, looting
+and spoiling.
+
+(Ahi! for the beauty that is as a burning flame!)
+
+In the gardens beneath the windows of the Queen, the peacocks, those
+maharajas of the birds, were spreading the bronze and emerald of their
+tails. The sun shone on them as on heaps of jewels, so that they dazzled
+the eyes. They stood about the feet of the ancient Brahmin sage, he
+who had tutored the Queen in her childhood and given her wisdom as the
+crest-jeweled of her loveliness. He, the Twice-born sat under the shade
+of a neem tree, hearing the gurgle of the sacred waters from the Cow's
+Mouth, where the great tank shone under the custard-apple boughs; and,
+at peace with all the world, he read in the Scripture which affirms the
+transience of all things drifting across the thought of the Supreme like
+clouds upon the surface of the Ocean.
+
+(Ahi! that loveliness is also illusion!)
+
+Her women placed about the Queen--that Lotus of Women--a robe of silk
+of which none could say that it was green or blue, the noble colours so
+mingled into each other under the latticed gold work of Kashi. They set
+the jewels on her head, and wide thin rings of gold heavy with great
+pearls in her ears. Upon the swell of her bosom they clasped the
+necklace of table emeralds, large, deep, and full of green lights, which
+is the token of the Chitor queens. Upon her slender ankles they placed
+the chooris of pure soft gold, set also with grass-green emeralds, and
+the delicate souls of her feet they reddened with lac. Nor were her arms
+forgotten, but loaded with bangles so free from alloy that they could be
+bent between the hands of a child. Then with fine paste they painted the
+Symbol between her dark brows, and, rising, she shone divine as a nymph
+of heaven who should cause the righteous to stumble in his austerities
+and arrest even the glances of Gods.
+
+(Ahi! that the Transient should be so fair!)
+
+
+II
+
+Now it was the hour that the Rana should visit her; for since the coming
+of the Lotus Lady, he had forgotten his other women, and in her was all
+his heart. He came from the Hall of Audience where petitions were heard,
+and justice done to rich and poor; and as he came, the Queen, hearing
+his step on the stone, dismissed her women, and smiling to know her
+loveliness, bowed before him, even as the Goddess Uma bows before Him
+who is her other half.
+
+Now he was a tall man, with the falcon look of the Hill Rajputs, and
+moustaches that curled up to his eyes, lion-waisted and lean in the
+flanks like Arjoon himself, a very ruler of men; and as he came, his
+hand was on the hilt of the sword that showed beneath his gold coat of
+khincob. On the high cushions he sat, and the Rani a step beneath him;
+and she said, raising her lotus eyes:--
+
+"Speak, Aryaputra, (son of a noble father)--what hath befallen?"
+
+And he, looking upon her beauty with fear, replied,--
+
+"It is thy beauty, O wife, that brings disaster."
+
+"And how is this?" she asked very earnestly.
+
+For a moment he paused, regarding her as might a stranger, as one
+who considers a beauty in which he hath no part; and, drawn by this
+strangeness, she rose and knelt beside him, pillowing her head upon his
+heart.
+
+"Say on," she said in her voice of music.
+
+He unfurled a scroll that he had crushed in his strong right hand, and
+read aloud:--
+
+ "'Thus says Allah-u-Din, Shadow of God, Wonder of the Age,
+Viceregent of Kings. We have heard that in the Treasury of Chitor is a
+jewel, the like of which is not in the Four Seas--the work of the hand
+of the Only God, to whom be praise! This jewel is thy Queen, the Lady
+Padmini. Now, since the sons of the Prophet are righteous, I desire but
+to look upon this jewel, and ascribing glory to the Creator, to depart
+in peace. Granted requests are the bonds of friendship; therefore
+lay the head of acquiescence in the dust of opportunity and name an
+auspicious day.'"
+
+He crushed it again and flung it furiously from him on the marble.
+
+"The insult is deadly. The sorry son of a debased mother! Well he knows
+that to the meanest Rajput his women are sacred, and how much more the
+daughters and wives of the Kings! The jackals feast on the tongue that
+speaks this shame! But it is a threat, Beloved--a threat! Give me thy
+counsel that never failed me yet."
+
+For the Rajputs take counsel with their women who are wise.
+
+They were silent, each weighing the force of resistance that could be
+made; and this the Rani knew even as he.
+
+"It cannot be," she said; "the very ashes of the dead would shudder to
+hear. Shall the Queens of India be made the sport of the barbarians?"
+
+Her husband looked upon her fair face. She could feel his heart labor
+beneath her ear.
+
+"True, wife; but the barbarians are strong. Our men are tigers, each
+one, but the red dogs of the Dekkan can pull down the tiger, for they
+are many, and he alone."
+
+Then that great Lady, accepting his words, and conscious of the danger,
+murmured this, clinging to her husband:--
+
+"There was a Princess of our line whose beauty made all other women seem
+as waning moons in the sun's splendour. And many great Kings sought her,
+and there was contention and war. And, she, fearing that the Rajputs
+would be crushed to powder between the warring Kings, sent unto each
+this message: 'Come on such and such a day, and thou shalt see my face
+and hear my choice.' And they, coming, rejoiced exceedingly, thinking
+each one that he was the Chosen. So they came into the great Hall, and
+there was a table, and somewhat upon it covered with a gold cloth; and
+an old veiled woman lifted the gold, and the head of the Princess lay
+there with the lashes like night upon her cheek, and between her lips
+was a little scroll, saying this: 'I have chosen my Lover and my Lord,
+and he is mightiest, for he is Death.'--So the Kings went silently away.
+And there was Peace."
+
+The music of her voice ceased, and the Rana clasped her closer.
+
+"This I cannot do. Better die together. Let us take counsel with the
+ancient Brahman, thy guru [teacher], for he is very wise."
+
+She clapped her hands, and the maidens returned, and, bowing, brought
+the venerable Prabhu Narayan into the Presence, and again those roses
+retired.
+
+Respectful salutation was then offered by the King and the Queen to that
+saint, hoary with wisdom--he who had seen her grow into the loveliness
+of the sea-born Shri, yet had never seen that loveliness; for he had
+never raised his eyes above the chooris about her ankles. To him the
+King related his anxieties; and he sat rapt in musing, and the two
+waited in dutiful silence until long minutes had fallen away; and at the
+last he lifted his head, weighted with wisdom, and spoke.
+
+"O King, Descendant of Rama! this outrage cannot be. Yet, knowing the
+strength and desire of this obscene one and the weakness of our power,
+it is plain that only with cunning can cunning be met. Hear, therefore,
+the history of the Fox and the Drum.
+
+"A certain Fox searched for food in the jungle, and so doing beheld
+a tree on which hung a drum; and when the boughs knocked upon the
+parchment, it sounded aloud. Considering, he believed that so round a
+form and so great a voice must portend much good feeding. Neglecting on
+this account a fowl that fed near by, he ascended to the drum. The drum
+being rent was but air and parchment, and meanwhile the fowl fled away.
+And from the eye of folly he shed the tear of disappointment, having
+bartered the substance for the shadow. So must we act with this budmash
+[scoundrel]. First, receiving his oath that he will depart without
+violence, hid him hither to a great feast, and say that he shall behold
+the face of the Queen in a mirror. Provide that some fair woman of
+the city show her face, and then let him depart in peace, showing him
+friendship. He shall not know he hath not seen the beauty he would
+befoul."
+
+After consultation, no better way could be found; but the heart of the
+great Lady was heavy with foreboding.
+
+(A hi! that Beauty should wander a pilgrim in the ways of sorrow!)
+
+To Allah-u-Din therefore did the King dispatch this letter by swift
+riders on mares of Mewar.
+
+After salutations--"Now whereas thou hast said thou wouldest look upon
+the beauty of the Treasure of Chitor, know it is not the custom of the
+Rajputs that any eye should light upon their treasure. Yet assuredly,
+when requests arise between friends, there cannot fail to follow
+distress of mind and division of soul if these are ungranted. So, under
+promises that follow, I bid thee to a feast at my poor house of Chitor,
+and thou shalt see that beauty reflected in a mirror, and so seeing,
+depart in peace from the house of a friend."
+
+This being writ by the Twice-Born, the Brahman, did the Rana sign with
+bitter rage in his heart. And the days passed.
+
+
+III
+
+On a certain day found fortunate by the astrologers--a day of early
+winter, when the dawns were pure gold and the nights radiant with a
+cool moon--did a mighty troop of Moslems set their camp on the plain of
+Chitor. It was as if a city had blossomed in an hour. Those who looked
+from the walls muttered prayers to the Lord of the Trident; for these
+men seemed like the swarms of the locust--people, warriors all, fierce
+fighting-men. And in the ways of Chitor, and up the steep and winding
+causeway from the plains, were warriors also, the chosen of the Rajputs,
+thick as blades of corn hedging the path.
+
+(Ahi! that the blossom of beauty should have swords for thorns!)
+
+Then, leaving his camp, attended by many Chiefs,--may the mothers and
+sires that begot them be accursed!--came Allah-u-Din, riding toward the
+Lower Gate, and so upward along the causeway, between the two rows of
+men who neither looked nor spoke, standing like the carvings of war in
+the Caves of Ajunta. And the moon was rising through the sunset as he
+came beneath the last and seventh gate. Through the towers and palaces
+he rode with his following, but no woman, veiled or unveiled,--no, not
+even an outcast of the city,--was there to see him come; only the men,
+armed and silent. So he turned to Munim Khan that rode at his bridle,
+saying,--
+
+"Let not the eye of watchfulness close this night on the pillow of
+forgetfulness!"
+
+And thus he entered the palace.
+
+Very great was the feast in Chitor, and the wines that those accursed
+should not drink (since the Outcast whom they call their Prophet forbade
+them) ran like water, and at the right hand of Allah-u-Din was set the
+great crystal Cup inlaid with gold by a craft that is now perished; and
+he filled and refilled it--may his own Prophet curse the swine!
+
+But because the sons of Kings eat not with the outcasts, the Rana
+entered after, clothed in chain armor of blue steel, and having greeted
+him, bid him to the sight of that Treasure. And Allah-u-Din, his eyes
+swimming with wine, and yet not drunken, followed, and the two went
+alone.
+
+Purdahs [curtains] of great splendour were hung in the great Hall that
+is called the Raja's Hall, exceeding rich with gold, and in front of the
+opening was a kneeling-cushion, and an a gold stool before it a polished
+mirror.
+
+(Ahi! for gold and beauty, the scourges of the world!)
+
+And the Rana was pale to the lips.
+
+Now as the Princes stood by the purdah, a veiled woman, shrouded in
+white so that no shape could be seen in her, came forth from within,
+and kneeling upon the cushion, she unveiled her face bending until
+the mirror, like a pool of water, held it, and that only. And the King
+motioned his guest to look, and he looked over her veiled shoulder
+and saw. Very great was the bowed beauty that the mirror held, but
+Allah-u-Din turned to the Rana.
+
+"By the Bread and the Salt, by the Guest-Right, by the Honour of thy
+House, I ask--is this the Treasure of Chitor?"
+
+And since the Sun-Descended cannot lie, no, not though they perish, the
+Rana answered, flushing darkly,--"This is not the Treasure. Wilt thou
+spare?"
+
+But he would not, and the woman slipped like a shadow behind the purdah
+and no word said.
+
+Then was heard the tinkling of chooris, and the little noise fell upon
+the silence like a fear, and, parting the curtains, came a woman veiled
+like the other. She did not kneel, but took the mirror in her hand, and
+Allah-u-Din drew up behind her back. From her face she raised the veil
+of gold Dakka webs, and gazed into the mirror, holding it high, and that
+Accursed stumbled back, blinded with beauty, saying this only,--"I have
+seen the Treasure of Chitor."
+
+So the purdah fell about her.
+
+The next day, after the Imaum of the Accursed had called them to prayer,
+they departed, and Allah-u-Din, paying thanks to the Rana for honours
+given and taken, and swearing friendship, besought him to ride to his
+camp, to see the marvels of gold and steel armor brought down from the
+passes, swearing also safe-conduct. And because the Rajputs trust the
+word even of a foe, he went.
+
+(A hi! that honour should strike hands with traitors!)
+
+
+IV
+
+The hours went by, heavy-footed like mourners. Padmini the Rani knelt by
+the window in her tower that overlooks the plains. Motionless she knelt
+there, as the Goddess Uma lost in her penances, and she saw her Lord
+ride forth, and the sparkle of steel where the sun shone on them, and
+the Standard of the Cold Disk on its black ground. So the camp of the
+Moslem swallowed them up, and they returned no more. Still she knelt and
+none dared speak with her; and as the first shade of evening fell across
+the hills of Rajasthan, she saw a horseman spurting over the flat; and
+he rode like the wind, and, seeing, she implored the Gods.
+
+Then entered the Twice-Born, that saint of clear eyes, and he bore a
+scroll; and she rose and seated herself, and he stood by her, as her
+ladies cowered like frightened doves before the woe in his face as he
+read.
+
+"To the Rose of Beauty, The Pearl among Women, the Chosen of the Palace.
+Who, having seen thy loveliness, can look on another? Who, having tasted
+the wine of the Houris, but thirsts forever? Behold, I have thy King as
+hostage. Come thou and deliver him. I have sworn that he shall return in
+thy place."
+
+And from a smaller scroll, the Brahman read this:--
+
+"I am fallen in the snare. Act thou as becomes a Rajputni."
+
+Then that Daughter of the Sun lifted her head, for the thronging of
+armed feet was heard in the Council Hall below. From the floor she
+caught her veil and veiled herself in haste, and the Brahman with bowed
+head followed, while her women mourned aloud. And, descending, between
+the folds of the purdah she appeared white and veiled, and the Brahman
+beside her, and the eyes of all the Princes were lowered to her shrouded
+feet, while the voice they had not heard fell silvery upon the air, and
+the echoes of the high roof repeated it.
+
+"Chief of the Rajputs, what is your counsel?" And he of Marwar stepped
+forward, and not raising his eyes above her feet, answered,--
+
+"Queen, what is thine?"
+
+For the Rajputs have ever heard the voice of their women.
+
+And she said,--
+
+"I counsel that I die and my head be sent to him, that my blood may
+quench his desire."
+
+And each talked eagerly with the other, but amid the tumult the
+Twice-Born said,--
+
+"This is not good talk. In his rage he will slay the King. By my yoga, I
+have seen it. Seek another way."
+
+So they sought, but could determine nothing, and they feared to ride
+against the dog, for he held the life of the King; and the tumult was
+great, but all were for the King's safety.
+
+Then once more she spoke.
+
+"Seeing it is determined that the King's life is more than my honour,
+I go this night. In your hand I leave my little son, the Prince Ajeysi.
+Prepare my litters, seven hundred of the best, for all my women go with
+me. Depart now, for I have a thought from the Gods."
+
+Then, returning to her bower, she spoke this letter to the saint, and he
+wrote it, and it was sent to the camp.
+
+After salutations--"Wisdom and strength have attained their end. Have
+ready for release the Rana of Chitor, for this night I come with my
+ladies, the prize of the conqueror."
+
+When the sun sank, a great procession with torches descended the steep
+way of Chitor--seven hundred litters, and in the first was borne the
+Queen, and all her women followed.
+
+All the streets were thronged with women, weeping and beating their
+breasts. Very greatly they wept, and no men were seen, for their livers
+were black within them for shame as the Treasure of Chitor departed,
+nor would they look upon the sight. And across the plains went that
+procession; as if the stars had fallen upon the earth, so glittered the
+sorrowful lights of the Queen.
+
+But in the camp was great rejoicing, for the Barbarians knew that many
+fair women attended on her.
+
+Now, before the entrance to the camp they had made a great shamiana
+[tent] ready, hung with shawls of Kashmir and the plunder of Delhi; and
+there was set a silk divan for the Rani, and beside it stood the Loser
+and the Gainer, Allah-u-Din and the King, awaiting the Treasure.
+
+Veiled she entered, stepping proudly, and taking no heed of the Moslem,
+she stood before her husband, and even through the veil he could feel
+the eyes he knew.
+
+And that Accursed spoke, laughing.
+
+"I have won-I have won, O King! Bid farewell to the Chosen of the
+Palace--the Beloved of the Viceregent of Kings!"
+
+Then she spoke softly, delicately, in her own tongue, that the outcast
+should not guess the matter of her speech.
+
+"Stand by me. Stir not. And when I raise my arm, cry the cry of the
+Rajputs. NOW!"
+
+And she flung her arm above her head, and instantly, like a lion
+roaring, he shouted, drawing his sword, and from every litter sprang an
+armed man, glittering in steel, and the bearers, humble of mien, were
+Rajput knights, every one.
+
+And Allah-u-Din thrust at the breast of the Queen; but around them
+surged the war, and she was hedged with swords like a rose in the
+thickets.
+
+Very full of wine, dull with feasting and lust and surprised, the
+Moslems fled across the plains, streaming in a broken rabble, cursing
+and shouting like low-caste women; and the Rajputs, wiping their swords,
+returned from the pursuit and laughed upon each other.
+
+But what shall be said of the joy of the King and of her who had
+imagined this thing, instructed of the Goddess who is the other half of
+her Lord?
+
+So the procession returned, singing, to Chitor with those Two in the
+midst; but among the dogs that fled was Allah-u-Din, his face blackened
+with shame and wrath, the curses choking in his foul throat.
+
+(Aid! that the evil still walk the ways of the world!)
+
+
+V
+
+So the time went by and the beauty of the Queen grew, and her King could
+see none but hers. Like the moon she obscured the stars, and every day
+he remembered her wisdom, her valour, and his soul did homage at her
+feet, and there was great content in Chitor.
+
+It chanced one day that the Queen, looking from her high window that
+like an eagle's nest overhung the precipice, saw, on the plain beneath,
+a train of men, walking like ants, and each carried a basket on his
+back, and behind them was a cloud of dust like a great army. Already the
+city was astir because of this thing, and the rumours came thick and the
+spies were sent out.
+
+In the dark they returned, and the Rana entered the bower of Padmini,
+his eyes burning like coal with hate and wrath, and he flung his arm
+round his wife like a shield.
+
+"He is returned, and in power. Counsel me again, O wife, for great is
+thy wisdom!"
+
+But she answered only this,--
+
+"Fight, for this time it is to the death."
+
+Then each day she watched bow the baskets of earth, emptied upon the
+plain at first, made nothing, an ant heap whereat fools might laugh. But
+each day as the trains of men came, spilling their baskets, the great
+earthworks grew and their height mounted. Day after day the Rajputs rode
+forth and slew; and as they slew it seemed that all the teeming millions
+of the earth came forth to take the places of the slain. And the Rajputs
+fell also, and under the pennons the thundering forces returned daily,
+thinned of their best.
+
+(A hi! that Evil rules the world as God!)
+
+And still the earth grew up to the heights, and the protection of the
+hills was slowly withdrawn from Chitor, for on the heights they made
+they set their engines of war.
+
+Then in a red dawn that great saint Narayan came to the Queen, where she
+watched by her window, and spoke.
+
+"O great lady, I have dreamed a fearful dream. Nay, rather have I seen a
+vision."
+
+With her face set like a sword, the Queen said,--
+
+"Say on."
+
+"In a light red like blood, I waked, and beside me stood the
+Mother,--Durga,--awful to see, with a girdle of heads about her middle;
+and the drops fell thick and slow from That which she held in her hand,
+and in the other was her sickle of Doom. Nor did she speak, but my soul
+heard her words."
+
+"Narrate them."
+
+"She commanded: 'Say this to the Rana: "In Chitor is My altar; in Chitor
+is thy throne. If thou wouldest save either, send forth twelve crowned
+Kings of Chitor to die.'"
+
+As he said this, the Rana, fore-spent with fighting, entered and heard
+the Divine word.
+
+Now there were twelve princes of the Rajput blood, and the youngest was
+the son of Padmini. What choice had these most miserable but to appease
+the dreadful anger of the Goddess? So on each fourth day a King of
+Chitor was crowned, and for three days sat upon the throne, and on the
+fourth day, set in the front, went forth and died fighting. So perished
+eleven Kings of Chitor, and now there was left but the little Ajeysi,
+the son of the Queen.
+
+And that day was a great Council called.
+
+Few were there. On the plains many lay dead; holding the gates many
+watched; but the blood was red in their hearts and flowed like Indus in
+the melting of the snows. And to them spoke the Rana, his hand clenched
+on his sword, and the other laid on the small dark head of the Prince
+Ajeysi, who stood between his knees. And as he spoke his voice gathered
+strength till it rang through the hall like the voice of Indra when he
+thunders in the heavens.
+
+"Men of the Rajputs, this child shall not die. Are we become jackals
+that we fall upon the weak and tear them? When have we put our women
+and children in the forefront of the war? I--I only am King of Chitor.
+Narayan shall save this child for the time that will surely come. And
+for us--what shall we do? I die for Chitor!"
+
+And like the hollow waves of a great sea they answered him,--
+
+"We will die for Chitor."
+
+There was silence and Marwar spoke.
+
+"The women?"
+
+"Do they not know the duty of a Rajputni?" said the King. "My household
+has demanded that the caves be prepared."
+
+And the men clashed stew joy with their swords, and the council
+dispersed.
+
+Then that very great saint, the Twice-Born, put off the sacred thread
+that is the very soul of the Brahman. In his turban he wound it
+secretly, and he stained his noble Aryan body until it resembled the
+Pariahs, foul for the pure to see, loathsome for the pure to touch,
+and he put on him the rags of the lowest of the earth, and taking the
+Prince, he removed from the body of the child every trace of royal and
+Rajput birth, and he appeared like a child of the Bhils--the vile forest
+wanderers that shame not to defile their lips with carrion. And in this
+guise they stood before the Queen; and when she looked on the saint, the
+tears fell from her eyes like rain, not for grief for her son, nor for
+death, but that for their sake the pure should be made impure and the
+glory of the Brahman-hood be defiled. And she fell at the old man's feet
+and laid her head on the ground before him.
+
+"Rise, daughter!" he said, "and take comfort! Are not the eyes of the
+Gods clear that they should distinguish?--and this day we stand before
+the God of Gods. Have not the Great Ones said, 'That which causes life
+causes also decay and death'? Therefore we who go and you who stay are
+alike a part of the Divine. Embrace now your child and bless him, for we
+depart. And it is on account of the sacrifice of the Twelve that he is
+saved alive."
+
+So, controlling her tears, she rose, and clasping the child to her
+bosom, she bade him be of good cheer since he went with the Gods. And
+that great saint took his hand from hers, and for the first time in the
+life of the Queen he raised his aged eyes to her face, and she gazed at
+him; but what she read, even the ascetic Visravas, who saw all by
+the power of his yoga, could not tell, for it was beyond speech. Very
+certainly the peace thereafter possessed her.
+
+So those two went out by the secret ways of the rocks, and wandering
+far, were saved by the favour of Durga.
+
+
+VI
+
+And the nights went by and the days, and the time came that no longer
+could they hold Chitor, and all hope was dead.
+
+On a certain day the Rana and the Rani stood for the last time in her
+bower, and looked down into the city; and in the streets were gathered
+in a very wonderful procession the women of Chitor; and not one was
+veiled. Flowers that had bloomed in the inner chambers, great ladies
+jewelled for a festival, young brides, aged mothers, and girl children
+clinging to the robes of their mothers who held their babes, crowded the
+ways. Even the low-caste women walked with measured steps and proudly,
+decked in what they had of best, their eyes lengthened with soorma, and
+flowers in the darkness of their hair.
+
+The Queen was clothed in a gold robe of rejoicing, her bodice latticed
+with diamonds and great gems, and upon her bosom the necklace of table
+emeralds, alight with green fire, which is the jewel of the Queens of
+Chitor. So she stood radiant as a vision of Shri, and it appeared that
+rays encircled her person.
+
+And the Rana, unarmed save for his sword, had the saffron dress of a
+bridegroom and the jeweled cap of the Rajput Kings, and below in the
+hall were the Princes and Chiefs, clad even as he.
+
+Then, raising her lotus eyes to her lord, the Princess said,--
+
+"Beloved, the time is come, and we have chosen rightly, for this is
+the way of honour, and it is but another link forged in the chain of
+existence; for until existence itself is ended and rebirth destroyed,
+still shall we meet in lives to come and still be husband and wife. What
+room then for despair?"
+
+And he answered,--
+
+"This is true. Go first, wife, and I follow. Let not the door swing to
+behind thee. But oh, to see thy beauty once more that is the very speech
+of Gods with men! Wilt thou surely come again to me and again be fair?"
+
+And for all answer she smiled upon him, and at his feet performed the
+obeisance of the Rajput wife when she departs upon a journey; and they
+went out together, the Queen unveiled.
+
+As she passed through the Princes, they lowered their eyes so that none
+saw her; but when she stood on the steps of the palace, the women all
+turned eagerly toward her like stars about the moon, and lifting their
+arms, they began to sing the dirge of the Rajput women.
+
+So they marched, and in great companies they marched, company behind
+company, young and old, past the Queen, saluting her and drawing courage
+from the loveliness and kindness of her unveiled face.
+
+In the rocks beneath the palaces of Chitor are very great caves--league
+long and terrible, with ways of darkness no eyes have seen; and it
+is believed that in times past spirits have haunted them with strange
+wailings. In these was prepared great store of wood and oils and
+fragrant matters for burning. So to these caves they marched and,
+company by company, disappeared into the darkness; and the voice of
+their singing grew faint and hollow, and died away, as the men stood
+watching their women go.
+
+Now, when this was done and the last had gone, the Rani descended the
+steps, and the Rana, taking a torch dipped in fragrant oils, followed
+her, and the Princes walked after, clad like bridegrooms but with no
+faces of bridal joy. At the entrance of the caves, having lit the torch,
+he gave it into her hand, and she, receiving it and smiling, turned once
+upon the threshold, and for the first time those Princes beheld the face
+of the Queen, but they hid their eyes with their hands when they had
+seen. So she departed within, and the Rana shut to the door and barred
+and bolted it, and the men with him flung down great rocks before it so
+that none should know the way, nor indeed is it known to this day; and
+with their hands on their swords they waited there, not speaking, until
+a great smoke rose between the crevices of the rocks, but no sound at
+all.
+
+(Ashes of roses--ashes of roses!--Ahi! for beauty that is but touched
+and remitted!)
+
+The sun was high when those men with their horses and on foot marched
+down the winding causeway beneath the seven gates, and so forth into the
+plains, and charging unarmed upon the Moslems, they perished every man.
+After, it was asked of one who had seen the great slaughter,--
+
+"Say how my King bore himself."
+
+And he who had seen told this:--
+
+"Reaper of the harvest of battle, on the bed of honour he has spread a
+carpet of the slain! He sleeps ringed about by his enemies. How can the
+world tell of his deeds? The tongue is silent."
+
+When that Accursed, Allah-u-Din, came up the winding height of the
+hills, he found only a dead city, and his heart was sick within him.
+
+Now this is the Sack of Chitor, and by the Oath of the Sack of Chitor do
+the Rajputs swear when they bind their honour.
+
+But it is only the ascetic Visravas who by the power of his yoga has
+heard every word, and with his eyes beheld that Flame of Beauty, who,
+for a brief space illuminating the world as a Queen, returns to birth in
+many a shape of sorrowful loveliness until the Blue-throated God shall
+in his favour destroy her rebirths.
+
+Salutation to Ganesa the Elephant-Headed One, and to Shri the Lady of
+Beauty!
+
+
+
+
+THE BUILDING OF THE TAJ MAHAL
+
+   In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful--the Smiting!
+   A day when the soul shall know what it has sent on or kept back.
+   A day when no soul shall control aught for another.
+   And the bidding belongs to God.
+
+
+THE KORAN.
+
+I
+
+Now the Shah-in-Shah, Shah Jahan, Emperor in India, loved his wife with
+a great love. And of all the wives of the Mogul Emperors surely this
+Lady Arjemand, Mumtaz-i-Mahal---the Chosen of the Palace--was the most
+worthy of love. In the tresses of her silk-soft hair his heart was
+bound, and for none other had he so much as a passing thought since
+his soul had been submerged in her sweetness. Of her he said, using the
+words of the poet Faisi,--
+
+"How shall I understand the magic of Love the Juggler? For he made thy
+beauty enter at that small gate the pupil of my eye, And now--and now my
+heart cannot contain it!"
+
+But who should marvel? For those who have seen this Arjemand crowned
+with the crown the Padishah set upon her sweet low brows, with the lamps
+of great jewels lighting the dimples of her cheeks as they swung beside
+them, have most surely seen perfection. He who sat upon the Peacock
+Throne, where the outspread tail of massed gems is centred by that great
+ruby, "The Eye of the Peacock, the Tribute of the World," valued it not
+so much as one Jock of the dark and perfumed tresses that rolled to her
+feet. Less to him the twelve throne columns set close with pearls than
+the little pearls she showed in her sweet laughter. For if this lady was
+all beauty, so too she was all goodness; and from the Shah-in-Shah to
+the poorest, all hearts of the world knelt in adoration, before the
+Chosen of the Palace. She was, indeed, an extraordinary beauty, in that
+she had the soul of a child, and she alone remained unconscious of her
+power; and so she walked, crowned and clothed with humility.
+
+Cold, haughty, and silent was the Shah-in-Shah before she blessed his
+arms--flattered, envied, but loved by none. But the gift this Lady
+brought with her was love; and this, shining like the sun upon ice,
+melted his coldness, and he became indeed the kingly centre of a kingly
+court May the Peace be upon her!
+
+Now it was the dawn of a sorrowful day when the pains of the Lady
+Arjemand came strong and terrible, and she travailed in agony. The
+hakims (physicians) stroked their beards and reasoned one with another;
+the wise women surrounded her, and remedies many and great were tried;
+and still her anguish grew, and in the hall without sat the Shah-in-Shah
+upon his divan, in anguish of spirit yet greater. The sweat ran on his
+brows, the knotted veins were thick on his temples, and his eyes, sunk
+in their caves, showed as those of a maddened man. He crouched on his
+cushions and stared at the purdah that divided him from the Lady; and
+all day the people came and went about him, and there was silence from
+the voice he longed to hear; for she would not moan, lest the sound
+should slay the Emperor. Her women besought her, fearing that her strong
+silence would break her heart; but still she lay, her hands clenched in
+one another, enduring; and the Emperor endured without. The Day of the
+Smiting!
+
+So, as the time of the evening prayer drew nigh, a child was born,
+and the Empress, having done with pain, began to sink slowly into
+that profound sleep that is the shadow cast by the Last. May Allah the
+Upholder have mercy on our weakness! And the women, white with fear
+and watching, looked upon her, and whispered one to another, "It is the
+end."
+
+And the aged mother of Abdul Mirza, standing at her head, said, "She
+heeds not the cry of the child. She cannot stay." And the newly wed
+wife of Saif Khan, standing at her feet, said, "The voice of the beloved
+husband is as the Call of the Angel. Let the Padishah be summoned."
+
+So, the evening prayer being over (but the Emperor had not prayed), the
+wisest of the hakims, Kazim Sharif, went before him and spoke:--
+
+"Inhallah! May the will of the Issuer of Decrees in all things be done!
+Ascribe unto the Creator glory, bowing before his Throne."
+
+And he remained silent; but the Padishah, haggard in his jewels, with
+his face hidden, answered thickly, "The truth! For Allah has forgotten
+his slave."
+
+And Kazim Sharif, bowing at his feet and veiling his face with his
+hands, replied:
+
+"The voice of the child cannot reach her, and the Lady of Delight
+departs. He who would speak with her must speak quickly."
+
+Then the Emperor rose to his feet unsteadily, like a man drunk with
+the forbidden juice; and when Kazim Sharif would have supported him, he
+flung aside his hands, and he stumbled, a man wounded to death, as it
+were, to the marble chamber where she lay.
+
+In that white chamber it was dusk, and they had lit the little cressets
+so that a very faint light fell upon her face. A slender fountain a
+little cooled the hot, still air with its thin music and its sprinkled
+diamonds, and outside, the summer lightnings were playing wide and blue
+on the river; but so still was it that the dragging footsteps of the
+Emperor raised the hair on the flesh of those who heard, So the women
+who should, veiled themselves, and the others remained like pillars of
+stone.
+
+Now, when those steps were heard, a faint colour rose in the cheek of
+the Lady Arjemand; but she did not raise the heavy lashes, or move her
+hand. And he came up beside her, and the Shadow of God, who should kneel
+to none, knelt, and his head fell forward upon her breast; and in the
+hush the women glided out like ghosts, leaving the husband with the wife
+excepting only that her foster-nurse stood far off, with eyes averted.
+
+So the minutes drifted by, falling audibly one by one into eternity, and
+at the long last she slowly opened her eyes and, as from the depths of
+a dream, beheld the Emperor; and in a voice faint as the fall of a
+rose-leaf she said the one word, "Beloved!"
+
+And he from between his clenched teeth, answered, "Speak, wife."
+
+So she, who in all things had loved and served him,--she, Light of
+all hearts, dispeller of all gloom,--gathered her dying breath for
+consolation, and raised one hand slowly; and it fell across his, and so
+remained.
+
+Now, her beauty had been broken in the anguish like a rose in storm; but
+it returned to her, doubtless that the Padishah might take comfort in
+its memory; and she looked like a houri of Paradise who, kneeling beside
+the Zemzem Well, beholds the Waters of Peace. Not Fatmeh herself, the
+daughter of the Prophet of God, shone more sweetly. She repeated the
+word, "Beloved"; and after a pause she whispered on with lips that
+scarcely stirred, "King of the Age, this is the end."
+
+But still he was like a dead man, nor lifted his face.
+
+"Surely all things pass. And though I go, in your heart I abide, and
+nothing can sever us. Take comfort."
+
+But there was no answer.
+
+"Nothing but Love's own hand can slay Love. Therefore, remember me, and
+I shall live."
+
+And he answered from the darkness of her bosom, "The whole world shall
+remember. But when shall I be united to thee? O Allah, how long wilt
+thou leave me to waste in this separation?"
+
+And she: "Beloved, what is time? We sleep and the night is gone. Now put
+your arms about me, for I sink into rest. What words are needed between
+us? Love is enough."
+
+So, making not the Profession of Faith,--and what need, since all her
+life was worship,--the Lady Arjemand turned into his arms like a child.
+And the night deepened.
+
+Morning, with its arrows of golden light that struck the river to
+splendour! Morning, with its pure breath, its sunshine of joy, and the
+koels fluting in the Palace gardens! Morning, divine and new from
+the hand of the Maker! And in the innermost chamber of marble a white
+silence; and the Lady, the Mirror of Goodness, lying in the Compassion
+of Allah, and a broken man stretched on the ground beside her. For all
+flesh, from the camel-driver to the Shah-in-Shah, is as one in the Day
+of the Smiting.
+
+
+II
+
+For weeks the Emperor lay before the door of death; and had it opened
+to him, he had been blessed. So the months went by, and very slowly the
+strength returned to him; but his eyes were withered and the bones stood
+out in his cheeks. But he resumed his throne, and sat upon it kingly,
+black-bearded, eagle-eyed, terribly apart in his grief and his royalty;
+and so seated among his Usbegs, he declared his will.
+
+"For this Lady (upon whom be peace), departed to the mercy of the Giver
+and Taker, shall a tomb-palace be made, the Like of which is not found
+in the four corners of the world. Send forth therefore for craftsmen
+like the builders of the Temple of Solomon the Wise; for I will build."
+
+So, taking counsel, they sent in haste into Agra for Ustad Isa, the
+Master-Builder, a man of Shiraz; and he, being presented before the
+Padishah, received his instructions in these words:--
+
+"I will that all the world shall remember the Flower of the World,
+that all hearts shall give thanks for her beauty, which was indeed the
+perfect Mirror of the Creator. And since it is abhorrent of Islam that
+any image be made in the likeness of anything that has life, make for me
+a palace-tomb, gracious as she was gracious, lovely as she was lovely.
+Not such as the tombs of the Kings and the Conquerors, but of a divine
+sweetness. Make me a garden on the banks of Jumna, and build it there,
+where, sitting in my Pavilion of Marble, I may see it rise."
+
+And Ustad Isa, having heard, said, "Upon my head and eyes!" and went out
+from the Presence.
+
+So, musing upon the words of the Padishah, he went to his house in Agra,
+and there pondered the matter long and deeply; and for a whole day and
+night he refused all food and secluded himself from the society of all
+men; for he said:--
+
+"This is a weighty thing, for this Lady (upon whom be peace) must
+visibly dwell in her tomb-palace on the shore of the river; and how
+shall I, who have never seen her, imagine the grace that was in her, and
+restore it to the world? Oh, had I but the memory of her face! Could I
+but see it as the Shah-in-Shah sees it, remembering the past! Prophet
+of God, intercede for me, that I may look through his eyes, if but for a
+moment!"
+
+That night he slept, wearied and weakened with fasting; and whether it
+were that the body guarded no longer the gates of the soul, I cannot
+say; for, when the body ails, the soul soars free above its weakness.
+But a strange marvel happened.
+
+For, as it seemed to him, he awoke at the mid-noon of the night, and
+he was sitting, not in his own house, but upon the roof of the royal
+palace, looking down on the gliding Jumna, where the low moon slept in
+silver, and the light was alone upon the water; and there were no boats,
+but sleep and dream, hovering hand-in-hand, moved upon the air, and his
+heart was dilated in the great silence.
+
+Yet he knew well that he waked in some supernatural sphere: for his eyes
+could see across the river as if the opposite shore lay at his feet;
+and he could distinguish every leaf on every tree, and the flowers
+moon-blanched and ghost-like. And there, in the blackest shade of the
+pippala boughs, he beheld a faint light like a pearl; and looking with
+unspeakable anxiety, he saw within the light, slowly growing, the figure
+of a lady exceedingly glorious in majesty and crowned with a rayed crown
+of mighty jewels of white and golden splendour. Her gold robe fell to
+her feet, and--very strange to tell--her feet touched not the ground,
+but hung a span's length above it, so that she floated in the air.
+
+But the marvel of marvels was her face--not, indeed, for its beauty,
+though that transcended all, but for its singular and compassionate
+sweetness, wherewith she looked toward the Palace beyond the river as if
+it held the heart of her heart, while death and its river lay between.
+
+And Ustad Isa said:--"O dream, if this sweetness be but a dream, let me
+never wake! Let me see forever this exquisite work of Allah the Maker,
+before whom all the craftsmen are as children! For my knowledge is as
+nothing, and I am ashamed in its presence."
+
+And as he spoke, she turned those brimming eyes on him, and he saw her
+slowly absorbed into the glory of the moonlight; but as she faded into
+dream, he beheld, slowly rising, where her feet had hung in the blessed
+air, a palace of whiteness, warm as ivory, cold as chastity, domes and
+cupolas, slender minars, arches of marble fretted into sea-foam, screen
+within screen of purest marble, to hide the sleeping beauty of a great
+Queen--silence in the heart of it, and in every line a harmony beyond
+all music. Grace was about it--the grace of a Queen who prays and does
+not command; who, seated in her royalty yet inclines all hearts to love.
+And he saw that its grace was her grace, and its soul her soul, and
+that she gave it for the consolation of the Emperor.
+
+And he fell on his face and worshipped the Master-Builder of the
+Universe, saying,--"Praise cannot express thy Perfection. Thine Essence
+confounds thought. Surely I am but the tool in the hand of the Builder."
+
+And when he awoke, he was lying in his own secret chamber, but beside
+him was a drawing such as the craftsmen make of the work they have
+imagined in their hearts. And it was the Palace of the Tomb.
+
+Henceforward, how should he waver? He was as a slave who obeys his
+master, and with haste he summoned to Agra his Army of Beauty.
+
+Then were assembled all the master craftsmen of India and of the outer
+world. From Delhi, from Shiraz, even from Baghdad and Syria, they came.
+Muhammad Hanif, the wise mason, came from Kandahar, Muhammad Sayyid from
+Mooltan. Amanat Khan, and other great writers of the holy Koran, who
+should make the scripts of the Book upon fine marble. Inlayers from
+Kanauj, with fingers like those of the Spirits that bowed before Solomon
+the King, who should make beautiful the pure stone with inlay of jewels,
+as did their forefathers for the Rajah of Mewar; mighty dealers with
+agate, cornelian, and lapis lazuli. Came also, from Bokhara, Ata
+Muhammad and Shakri Muhammad, that they might carve the lilies of the
+field, very glorious, about that Flower of the World. Men of India, men
+of Persia, men of the outer lands, they came at the bidding of Ustad
+Isa, that the spirit of his vision might be made manifest.
+
+And a great council was held among these servants of beauty, so they
+made a model in little of the glory that was to be, and laid it at the
+feet of the Shah-in-Shah; and he allowed it, though not as yet fully
+discerning their intent. And when it was approved, Ustad Isa called to
+him a man of Kashmir; and the very hand of the Creator was upon this
+man, for he could make gardens second only to the Gardens of Paradise,
+having been born by that Dal Lake where are those roses of the earth,
+the Shalimar and the Nishat Bagh; and to him said Ustad Isa,--
+
+"Behold, Rain Lal Kashmiri, consider this design! Thus and thus shall
+a white palace, exquisite in perfection, arise on the banks of Jumna.
+Here, in little, in this model of sandalwood, see what shall be.
+Consider these domes, rounded as the Bosom of Beauty, recalling the
+mystic fruit of the lotus flower. Consider these four minars that stand
+about them like Spirits about the Throne. And remembering that all this
+shall stand upon a great dais of purest marble, and that the river shall
+be its mirror, repeating to everlasting its loveliness, make me a garden
+that shall be the throne room to this Queen."
+
+And Ram Lal Kashmiri salaamed and said, "Obedience!" and went forth and
+pondered night and day, journeying even over the snows of the Pir Panjal
+to Kashmir, that he might bathe his eyes in beauty where she walks,
+naked and divine, upon the earth, and he it was who imagined the black
+marble and white that made the way of approach.
+
+So grew the palace that should murmur, like a seashell, in the ear of
+the world the secret of love.
+
+Veiled had that loveliness been in the shadow of the palace; but now the
+sun should rise upon it and turn its ivory to gold, should set upon
+it and flush its snow with rose. The moon should lie upon it like the
+pearls upon her bosom, the visible grace of her presence breathe about
+it, the music of her voice hover in the birds and trees of the garden.
+Times there were when Ustad Isa despaired lest even these mighty
+servants of beauty should miss perfection. Yet it grew and grew, rising
+like the growth of a flower.
+
+So on a certain day it stood completed, and beneath the small tomb in
+the sanctuary, veiled with screens of wrought marble so fine that
+they might lift in the breeze,--the veils of a Queen,--slept the Lady
+Arjemand; and above her a narrow coffer of white marble, enriched in
+a great script with the Ninety-Nine Wondrous Names of God. And the
+Shah-in-Shah, now grey and worn, entered and, standing by her, cried in
+a loud voice,--"I ascribe to the Unity, the only Creator, the perfection
+of his handiwork made visible here by the hand of mortal man. For the
+beauty that was secret in my Palace is here revealed; and the Crowned
+Lady shall sit forever upon the banks of the Jumna River. It was love
+that commanded this Tomb."
+
+And the golden echo carried his voice up into the high dome, and it died
+away in whispers of music.
+
+But Ustad Isa standing far off in the throng (for what are craftsmen
+in the presence of the mighty?), said softly in his beard, "It was Love
+also that built, and therefore it shall endure."
+
+Now it is told that, on a certain night in summer, when the moon is
+full, a man who lingers by the straight water, where the cypresses stand
+over their own image, may see a strange marvel--may see the Palace of
+the Taj dissolve like a pearl, and so rise in a mist into the moonlight;
+and in its place, on her dais of white marble, he shall see the Lady
+Arjemand, Mumtaz-i-Mahal, the Chosen of the Palace, stand there in the
+white perfection of beauty, smiling as one who hath attained unto the
+Peace. For she is its soul.
+
+And kneeling before the dais, he shall see Ustad Isa, who made this body
+of her beauty; and his face is hidden in his hands.
+
+
+
+
+"HOW GREAT IS THE GLORY OF KWANNON!"
+
+A JAPANESE STORY
+
+
+(O Lovely One-O thou Flower! With Thy beautiful face, with Thy beautiful
+eyes, pour light upon the world! Adoration to Kwannon.)
+
+In Japan in the days of the remote Ancestors, near the little village of
+Shiobara, the river ran through rocks of a very strange blue colour, and
+the bed of the river was also composed of these rocks, so that the clear
+water ran blue as turquoise gems to the sea.
+
+The great forests murmured beside it, and through their swaying boughs
+was breathed the song of Eternity. Those who listen may hear if their
+ears are open. To others it is but the idle sighing of the wind.
+
+Now because of all this beauty there stood in these forests a roughly
+built palace of unbarked wood, and here the great Emperor would come
+from City-Royal to seek rest for his doubtful thoughts and the cares of
+state, turning aside often to see the moonlight in Shiobara. He sought
+also the free air and the sound of falling water, yet dearer to him than
+the plucked strings of sho and biwa. For he said;
+
+"Where and how shall We find peace even for a moment, and afford Our
+heart refreshment even for a single second?"
+
+And it seemed to him that he found such moments at Shiobara.
+
+Only one of his great nobles would His Majesty bring with him--the
+Dainagon, and him be chose because he was a worthy and honorable person
+and very simple of heart.
+
+There was yet another reason why the Son of Heaven inclined to the
+little Shiobara. It had reached the Emperor that a Recluse of the
+utmost sanctity dwelt in that forest. His name was Semimaru. He had made
+himself a small hut in the deep woods, much as a decrepit silkworm might
+spin his last Cocoon and there had the Peace found him.
+
+It had also reached His Majesty that, although blind, he was exceedingly
+skilled in the art of playing the biwa, both in the Flowing Fount manner
+and the Woodpecker manner, and that, especially on nights when the moon
+was full, this aged man made such music as transported the soul. This
+music His Majesty desired very greatly to hear.
+
+Never had Semimaru left his hut save to gather wood or seek food until
+the Divine Emperor commanded his attendance that he might soothe his
+august heart with music.
+
+Now on this night of nights the moon was full and the snow heavy on the
+pines, and the earth was white also, and when the moon shone through the
+boughs it made a cold light like dawn, and the shadows of the trees were
+black upon it.
+
+The attendants of His Majesty long since slept for sheer weariness, for
+the night was far spent, but the Emperor and the Dainagon still sat
+with their eyes fixed on the venerable Semimaru. For many hours he had
+played, drawing strange music from his biwa. Sometimes it had been like
+rain blowing over the plains of Adzuma, sometimes like the winds roaring
+down the passes of the Yoshino Mountains, and yet again like the voice
+of far cities. For many hours they listened without weariness, and
+thought that all the stories of the ancients might flow past them in the
+weird music that seemed to have neither beginning nor end.
+
+"It is as the river that changes and changes not, and is ever and ever
+the same," said the Emperor in his own soul.
+
+And certainly had a voice announced to His Augustness that centuries
+were drifting by as he listened, he could have felt no surprise.
+
+Before them, as they sat upon the silken floor cushions, was a small
+shrine with a Buddha shelf, and a hanging picture of the Amida Buddha
+within it--the expression one of rapt peace. Figures of Fugen and
+Fudo were placed before the curtain doors of the shrine, looking up in
+adoration to the Blessed One. A small and aged pine tree was in a pot of
+grey porcelain from Chosen--the only ornament in the chamber.
+
+Suddenly His Majesty became aware that the Dainagon also had fallen
+asleep from weariness, and that the recluse was no longer playing, but
+was speaking in a still voice like a deeply flowing stream. The Emperor
+had observed no change from music to speech, nor could he recall when
+the music had ceased, so that it altogether resembled a dream.
+
+"When I first came here"--the Venerable one continued--"it was not my
+intention to stay long in the forest. As each day dawned, I said; 'In
+seven days I go.' And again--'In seven.' Yet have I not gone. The days
+glided by and here have I attained to look on the beginnings of peace.
+Then wherefore should I go?--for all life is within the soul. Shall the
+fish weary of his pool? And I, who through my blind eyes feel the moon
+illuming my forest by night and the sun by day, abide in peace, so that
+even the wild beasts press round to hear my music. I have come by a path
+overblown by autumn leaves. But I have come."
+
+Then said the Divine Emperor as if unconsciously;
+
+"Would that I also might come! But the august duties cannot easily be
+laid aside. And I have no wife--no son."
+
+And Semimaru, playing very softly on the strings of his biwa made
+no other answer, and His Majesty, collecting his thoughts, which had
+become, as it were, frozen with the cold and the quiet and the strange
+music, spoke thus, as if in a waking dream;
+
+"Why have I not wedded? Because I have desired a bride beyond the
+women of earth, and of none such as I desire has the rumor reached me.
+Consider that Ancestor who wedded Her Shining Majesty! Evil and lovely
+was she, and the passions were loud about her. And so it is with women.
+Trouble and vexation of spirit, or instead a great weariness. But if the
+Blessed One would vouchsafe to my prayers a maiden of blossom and dew,
+with a heart calm as moonlight, her would I wed. O, honorable One, whose
+wisdom surveys the world, is there in any place near or far--in heaven
+or in earth, such a one that I may seek and find?"
+
+And Semimaru, still making a very low music on his biwa, said this;
+
+"Supreme Master, where the Shiobara River breaks away through the gorges
+to the sea, dwelt a poor couple--the husband a wood-cutter. They had no
+children to aid in their toil, and daily the woman addressed her prayers
+for a son to the Bodhisattwa Kwannon, the Lady of Pity who looketh down
+for ever upon the sound of prayer. Very fervently she prayed, with such
+offerings as her poverty allowed, and on a certain night she dreamed
+this dream. At the shrine of the Senju Kwannon she knelt as was her
+custom, and that Great Lady, sitting enthroned upon the Lotos of Purity,
+opened Her eyes slowly from Her divine contemplation and heard the
+prayer of the wood-cutter's wife. Then stooping like a blown willow
+branch, she gathered a bud from the golden lotos plant that stood upon
+her altar, and breathing upon it it became pure white and living, and it
+exhaled a perfume like the flowers of Paradise, This flower the Lady
+of Pity flung into the bosom of her petitioner, and closing Her eyes
+returned into Her divine dream, whilst the woman awoke, weeping for joy.
+
+"But when she sought in her bosom for the Lotos it was gone. Of all this
+she boasted loudly to her folk and kin, and the more so, when in due
+time she perceived herself to be with child, for, from that august
+favour she looked for nothing less than a son, radiant with the Five
+Ornaments of riches, health, longevity, beauty, and success. Yet, when
+her hour was come, a girl was born, and blind."
+
+"Was she welcomed?" asked the dreaming voice of the Emperor.
+
+"Augustness, but as a household drudge. For her food was cruelty and her
+drink tears. And the shrine of the Senju Kwannon was neglected by her
+parents because of the disappointment and shame of the unwanted gift.
+And they believed that, lost in Her divine contemplation, the Great Lady
+would not perceive this neglect. The Gods however are known by their
+great memories."
+
+"Her name?"
+
+"Majesty, Tsuyu-Morning Dew. And like the morning dew she shines in
+stillness. She has repaid good for evil to her evil parents, serving
+them with unwearied service."
+
+"What distinguishes her from others?"
+
+"Augustness, a very great peace. Doubtless the shadow of the dream of
+the Holy Kwannon. She works, she moves, she smiles as one who has tasted
+of content."
+
+"Has she beauty?"
+
+"Supreme Master, am I not blind? But it is said that she has no beauty
+that men should desire her. Her face is flat and round, and her eyes
+blind."
+
+"And yet content?"
+
+"Philosophers might envy her calm. And her blindness is without doubt
+a grace from the excelling Pity, for could she see her own exceeding
+ugliness she must weep for shame. But she sees not. Her sight is inward,
+and she is well content."
+
+"Where does she dwell?"
+
+"Supreme Majesty, far from here--where in the heart of the woods the
+river breaks through the rocks."
+
+"Venerable One, why have you told me this? I asked for a royal maiden
+wise and beautiful, calm as the dawn, and you have told me of a
+wood-cutter's drudge, blind and ugly."
+
+And now Semimaru did not answer, but the tones of the biwa grew louder
+and clearer, and they rang like a song of triumph, and the Emperor could
+hear these words in the voice of the strings.
+
+"She is beautiful as the night, crowned with moon and stars for him
+who has eyes to see. Princess Splendour was dim beside her; Prince
+Fireshine, gloom! Her Shining Majesty was but a darkened glory before
+this maid. All beauty shines within her hidden eyes."
+
+And having uttered this the music became wordless once more, but it
+still flowed on more and more softly like a river that flows into the
+far distance.
+
+The Emperor stared at the mats, musing--the light of the lamp was
+burning low. His heart said within him;
+
+"This maiden, cast like a flower from the hand of Kwannon Sama, will I
+see."
+
+And as he said this the music had faded away into a thread-like
+smallness, and when after long thought he raised his august head, he was
+alone save for the Dainagon, sleeping on the mats behind him, and the
+chamber was in darkness. Semimaru had departed in silence, and His
+Majesty, looking forth into the broad moonlight, could see the track of
+his feet upon the shining snow, and the music came back very thinly like
+spring rain in the trees. Once more he looked at the whiteness of the
+night, and then, stretching his august person on the mats, he slept amid
+dreams of sweet sound.
+
+The next day, forbidding any to follow save the Dainagon, His Majesty
+went forth upon the frozen snow where the sun shone in a blinding
+whiteness. They followed the track of Semimaru's feet far under the pine
+trees so heavy with their load of snow that they were bowed as if with
+fruit. And the track led on and the air was so still that the cracking
+of a bough was like the blow of a hammer, and the sliding of a load of
+snow from a branch like the fall of an avalanche. Nor did they speak as
+they went. They listened, nor could they say for what.
+
+Then, when they had gone a very great way, the track ceased suddenly,
+as if cut off, and at this spot, under the pines furred with snow, His
+Majesty became aware of a perfume so sweet that it was as though all the
+flowers of the earth haunted the place with their presence, and a music
+like the biwa of Semimaru was heard in the tree tops. This sounded far
+off like the whispering of rain when it falls in very small leaves, and
+presently it died away, and a voice followed after, singing, alone in
+the woods, so that the silence appeared to have been created that such a
+music might possess the world. So the Emperor stopped instantly, and the
+Dainagon behind him and he heard these words.
+
+   "In me the Heavenly Lotos grew,
+    The fibres ran from head to feet,
+    And my heart was the august Blossom.
+    Therefore the sweetness flowed through the veins of my flesh,
+    And I breathed peace upon all the world,
+    And about me was my fragrance shed
+    That the souls of men should desire me."
+
+Now, as he listened, there came through the wood a maiden, bare--footed,
+save for grass sandals, and clad in coarse clothing, and she came up and
+passed them, still singing.
+
+And when she was past, His Majesty put up his hand to his eyes, like one
+dreaming, and said;
+
+"What have you seen?"
+
+And the Dainagon answered;
+
+"Augustness, a country wench, flat--faced, ugly and blind, and with a
+voice like a crow. Has not your Majesty seen this?"
+
+The Emperor, still shading his eyes, replied;
+
+"I saw a maiden so beautiful that her Shining Majesty would be a black
+blot beside her. As she went, the Spring and all its sweetness blew from
+her garments. Her robe was green with small gold flowers. Her eyes were
+closed, but she resembled a cherry tree, snowy with bloom and dew. Her
+voice was like the singing flowers of Paradise."
+
+The Dainagon looked at him with fear and compassion;
+
+"Augustness, how should such a lady carry in her arms a bundle of
+firewood?"
+
+"She bore in her hands three lotos flowers, and where each foot fell I
+saw a lotos bloom and vanish."
+
+They retraced their steps through the wood; His Majesty radiant as
+Prince Fireshine with the joy that filled his soul; the Dainagon
+darkened as Prince Firefade with fear, believing that the strange music
+of Semimaru had bewitched His Majesty, or that the maiden herself might
+possibly have the power of the fox in shape-changing and bewildering the
+senses.
+
+Very sorrowful and careful was his heart for he loved his Master.
+
+That night His Majesty dreamed that he stood before the kakemono of the
+Amida Buddha, and that as he raised his eyes in adoration to the Blessed
+Face, he beheld the images of Fugen and Fudo, rise up and bow down
+before that One Who Is. Then, gliding in, before these Holinesses stood
+a figure, and it was the wood-cutter's daughter homely and blinded. She
+stretched her hands upward as though invoking the supreme Buddha, and
+then turning to His Majesty she smiled upon him, her eyes closed as in
+bliss unutterable. And he said aloud.
+
+"Would that I might see her eyes!" and so saying awoke in a great
+stillness of snow and moonlight.
+
+Having waked, he said within himself
+
+"This marvel will I wed and she shall be my Empress were she lower than
+the Eta, and whether her face be lovely or homely. For she is certainly
+a flower dropped from the hand of the Divine."
+
+So when the sun was high His Majesty, again followed by the Dainagon,
+went through the forest swiftly, and like a man that sees his goal,
+and when they reached the place where the maiden went by, His Majesty
+straitly commanded the Dainagon that he should draw apart, and leave him
+to speak with the maiden; yet that he should watch what befell.
+
+So the Dainagon watched, and again he saw her come, very poorly clad,
+and with bare feet that shrank from the snow in her grass sandals, bowed
+beneath a heavy load of wood upon her shoulders, and her face flat and
+homely like a girl of the people, and her eyes blind and shut.
+
+And as she came she sang this.
+
+   "The Eternal way lies before him,
+    The way that is made manifest in the Wise.
+    The Heart that loves reveals itself to man.
+    For now he draws nigh to the Source.
+    The night advances fast,
+    And lo! the moon shines bright."
+
+And to the Dainagon it seemed a harsh crying nor could he distinguish
+any words at all.
+
+But what His Majesty beheld was this. The evening had come on and the
+moon was rising. The snow had gone. It was the full glory of spring, and
+the flowers sprang thick as stars upon the grass, and among them lotos
+flowers, great as the wheel of a chariot, white and shining with
+the luminance of the pearl, and upon each one of these was seated an
+incarnate Holiness, looking upward with joined hands. In the trees were
+the voices of the mystic Birds that are the utterance of the Blessed
+One, proclaiming in harmony the Five Virtues, The Five Powers, the Seven
+Steps ascending to perfect Illumination, the Noble Eightfold Path, and
+all the Law. And, bearing, in the heart of the Son of Heaven awoke the
+Three Remembrances--the Remembrance of Him who is Blessed, Remembrance
+of the Law, and Remembrance of the Communion of the Assembly.
+
+So, looking upward to the heavens, he beheld the Infinite Buddha,
+high and lifted up in a great raying glory. About Him were the exalted
+Bodhisattwas, the mighty Disciples, great Arhats all, and all the
+countless Angelhood. And these rose high into the infinite until they
+could be seen but as a point of fire against the moon. With this golden
+multitude beyond all numbering was He.
+
+Then, as His Majesty had seen in the dream of the night, the
+wood-cutter's daughter, moving through the flowers like one blind that
+gropes his way, advanced before the Blessed Feet, and uplifting her
+hands, did adoration, and her face he could not see, but his heart
+went with her, adoring also the infinite Buddha seated in the calms of
+boundless Light.
+
+Then enlightenment entered at his eyes, as a man that wakes from sleep,
+and suddenly he beheld the Maiden crowned and robed and terrible in
+beauty, and her feet were stayed upon an open lotos, and his soul knew
+the Senju Kwannon Herself, myriad-armed for the helping of mankind.
+
+And turning, she smiled as in the vision, but his eyes being now clear
+her blinded eyes were opened, and that glory who shall tell as those
+living founts of Wisdom rayed upon him their ineffable light? In that
+ocean was his being drowned, and so, bowed before the Infinite Buddha,
+he received the Greater Illumination.
+
+How great is the Glory of Kwannon!
+
+When the radiance and the vision were withdrawn and only the moon looked
+over the trees, His Majesty rose upon his feet, and standing on the
+snow, surrounded with calm, he called to the Dainagon, and asked this;
+
+"What have you seen?"
+
+"Augustness, nothing but the country wench and moon and snow."
+
+"And heard?"
+
+"Augustness, nothing but the harsh voice of the wood-cutter's daughter."
+
+"And felt?"
+
+"Augustness, nothing but the bone-piercing cold." So His Majesty adored
+that which cannot be uttered, saying;
+
+"So Wisdom, so Glory encompass us about, and we see them not for we
+are blinded with illusion. Yet every stone is a jewel and every clod
+is spirit and to the hems of the Infinite Buddha all cling. Through the
+compassion of the Supernal Mercy that walks the earth as the Bodhisattwa
+Kwannon, am I admitted to wisdom and given sight and hearing. And what
+is all the world to that happy one who has beheld Her eyes!"
+
+And His Majesty returned through the forest.
+
+When, the next day, he sent for the venerable Semimaru that holy recluse
+had departed and none knew where. But still when the moon is full a
+strange music moves in the tree tops of Shiobara.
+
+Then His sacred Majesty returned to City-Royal, having determined
+to retire into the quiet life, and there, abandoning the throne to a
+kinsman wise in greatness, he became a dweller in the deserted hut of
+Semimaru.
+
+His life, like a descending moon approaching the hill that should hide
+it, was passed in meditation on that Incarnate Love and Compassion whose
+glory had augustly been made known to him, and having cast aside all
+save the image of the Divine from his soul, His Majesty became even as
+that man who desired enlightenment of the Blessed One.
+
+For he, desiring instruction, gathered precious flowers, and journeyed
+to present them as an offering to the Guatama Buddha. Standing before
+Him, he stretched forth both his hands holding the flowers.
+
+Then said the Holy One, looking upon his petitioner's right hand;
+
+"Loose your hold of these."
+
+And the man dropped the flowers from his right hand. And the Holy One
+looking upon his left hand, said;
+
+"Loose your hold of these."
+
+And, sorrowing, he dropped the flowers from his left hand. And again the
+Master said;
+
+"Loose your hold of that which is neither in the right nor in the left."
+
+And the disciple said very pitifully;
+
+"Lord, of what should I loose my hold for I have nothing left?"
+
+And He looked upon him steadfastly.
+
+Therefore at last understanding he emptied his soul of all desire, and
+of fear that is the shadow of desire, and being enlightened relinquished
+all burdens.
+
+So was it also with His Majesty. In peace he dwelt, and becoming a great
+Arhat, in peace he departed to that Uttermost Joy where is the Blessed
+One made manifest in Pure Light.
+
+As for the parents of the maiden, they entered after sore troubles into
+peace, having been remembered by the Infinite. For it is certain that
+the enemies also of the Supreme Buddha go to salvation by thinking on
+Him, even though it be against Him.
+
+And he who tells this truth makes this prayer to the Lady of Pity;
+
+  "Grant me, I pray,
+   One dewdrop from Thy willow spray,
+   And in the double Lotos keep
+   My hidden heart asleep."
+
+How great is the Glory of Kwannon!
+
+
+
+
+THE ROUND-FACED BEAUTY
+
+A STORY OF THE CHINESE COURT
+
+In the city of Chang-an music filled the palaces, and the festivities of
+the Emperor were measured by its beat. Night, and the full moon swimming
+like a gold-fish in the garden lakes, gave the signal for the Feather
+Jacket and Rainbow Skirt dances. Morning, with the rising sun, summoned
+the court again to the feast and wine-cup in the floating gardens.
+
+The Emperor Chung Tsu favored this city before all others. The Yen Tower
+soaring heavenward, the Drum Towers, the Pearl Pagoda, were the only
+fit surroundings of his magnificence; and in the Pavilion of Tranquil
+Learning were held those discussions which enlightened the world and
+spread the fame of the Jade Emperor far and wide. In all respects he
+adorned the Dragon Throne--in all but one; for Nature, bestowing so
+much, withheld one gift, and the Imperial heart, as precious as jade,
+was also as hard, and he eschewed utterly the company of the Hidden
+Palace Flowers.
+
+Yet the Inner Chambers were filled with ladies chosen from all parts of
+the Celestial Empire--ladies of the most exquisite and torturing beauty,
+moons of loveliness, moving coquettishly on little feet, with all the
+grace of willow branches in a light breeze. They were sprinkled with
+perfumes, adorned with jewels, robed in silks woven with gold and
+embroidered with designs of flowers and birds. Their faces were painted
+and their eyebrows formed into slender and perfect arches whence the
+soul of man might well slip to perdition, and a breath of sweet odor
+followed each wherever she moved. Every one might have been the Empress
+of some lesser kingdom; but though rumours reached the Son of Heaven
+from time to time of their charms,--especially when some new blossom was
+added to the Imperial bouquet,--he had dismissed them from his august
+thoughts, and they languished in a neglect so complete that the Great
+Cold Palaces of the Moon were not more empty than their hearts. They
+remained under the supervision of the Princess of Han, August Aunt
+of the Emperor, knowing that their Lord considered the company of
+sleeve-dogs and macaws more pleasant than their own. Nor had he as yet
+chosen an Empress, and it was evident that without some miracle, such
+as the intervention of the Municipal God, no heir to the throne could be
+hoped for.
+
+Yet the Emperor one day remembered his imprisoned beauties, and it
+crossed the Imperial thoughts that even these inferior creatures might
+afford such interest as may be found in the gambols of trained fleas or
+other insects of no natural attainments.
+
+Accordingly, he commanded that the subject last discussed in his
+presence should be transferred to the Inner Chambers, and it was his
+Order that the ladies should also discuss it, and their opinions be
+engraved on ivory, bound together with red silk and tassels and thus
+presented at the Dragon feet. The subject chosen was the following:--
+
+Describe the Qualities of the Ideal Man
+
+Now when this command was laid before the August Aunt, the guardian of
+the Inner Chambers, she was much perturbed in mind, for such a thing
+was unheard of in all the annals of the Empire. Recovering herself, she
+ventured to say that the discussion of such a question might raise
+very disquieting thoughts in the minds of the ladies, who could not
+be supposed to have any opinions at all on such a subject. Nor was it
+desirable that they should have. To every woman her husband and no other
+is and must be the Ideal Man. So it was always in the past; so it must
+ever be. There are certain things which it is dangerous to question or
+discuss, and how can ladies who have never spoken with any other man
+than a parent or a brother judge such matters?
+
+"How, indeed," asked this lady of exalted merit, "can the bat form
+an idea of the sunlight, or the carp of the motion of wings? If his
+Celestial Majesty had commanded a discussion on the Superior Woman and
+the virtues which should adorn her, some sentiments not wholly unworthy
+might have been offered. But this is a calamity. They come unexpectedly,
+springing up like mushrooms, and this one is probably due to the lack of
+virtue of the inelegant and unintellectual person who is now speaking."
+
+This she uttered in the presence of the principal beauties of the
+Inner Chambers. They sat or reclined about her in attitudes of perfect
+loveliness. Two, embroidering silver pheasants, paused with their
+needles suspended above the stretched silk, to hear the August Aunt.
+One, threading beads of jewel jade, permitted them to slip from the
+string and so distended the rose of her mouth in surprise that the small
+pearl-shells were visible within. The Lady Tortoise, caressing a scarlet
+and azure macaw, in her agitation so twitched the feathers that the
+bird, shrieking, bit her finger. The Lady Golden Bells blushed deeply
+at the thought of what was required of them; and the little Lady Summer
+Dress, youngest of all the assembled beauties, was so alarmed at the
+prospect that she began to sob aloud, until she met the eye of the
+August Aunt and abruptly ceased.
+
+"It is not, however, to be supposed," said the August Aunt, opening her
+snuff-bottle of painted crystal, "that the minds of our deplorable and
+unattractive sex are wholly incapable of forming opinions. But speech
+is a grave matter for women, naturally slow-witted and feeble-minded as
+they are. This unenlightened person recalls the Odes as saying:--
+
+   'A flaw in a piece of white jade
+    May be ground away,
+    But when a woman has spoken foolishly
+    Nothing can be done-'
+
+a consideration which should make every lady here and throughout the
+world think anxiously before speech." So anxiously did the assembled
+beauties think, that all remained mute as fish in a pool, and the August
+Aunt continued:--
+
+"Let Tsu-ssu be summoned. It is my intention to suggest to the Dragon
+Emperor that the virtues of women be the subject of our discourse, and I
+will myself open and conclude the discussion."
+
+Tsu-ssu was not long in kotowing before the August Aunt, who despatched
+her message with the proper ceremonial due to its Imperial destination;
+and meanwhile, in much agitation, the beauties could but twitter and
+whisper in each other's ears, and await the response like condemned
+prisoners who yet hope for reprieve.
+
+Scarce an hour had dripped away on the water-clock when an Imperial
+Missive bound with yellow silk arrived, and the August Aunt, rising,
+kotowed nine times before she received it in her jewelled hand with its
+delicate and lengthy nails ensheathed in pure gold and set with gems
+of the first water. She then read it aloud, the ladies prostrating
+themselves.
+
+To the Princess of Han, the August Aunt, the Lady of the Nine Superior
+Virtues:--
+
+"Having deeply reflected on the wisdom submitted, We thus reply. Women
+should not be the judges of their own virtues, since these exist only
+in relation to men. Let Our Command therefore be executed, and tablets
+presented before us seven days hence, with the name of each lady
+appended to her tablet."
+
+It was indeed pitiable to see the anxiety of the ladies! A sacrifice to
+Kwan-Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, of a jewel from each, with intercession
+for aid, was proposed by the Lustrous Lady; but the majority shook their
+heads sadly. The August Aunt, tossing her head, declared that, as the
+Son of Heaven had made no comment on her proposal of opening and closing
+the discussion, she should take no part other than safeguarding the
+interests of propriety. This much increased the alarm, and, kneeling at
+her feet, the swan-like beauties, Deep-Snow and Winter Moon implored her
+aid and compassion. But, rising indignantly, the August Aunt sought her
+own apartments, and for the first time the inmates of the Pepper Chamber
+saw with regret the golden dragons embroidered on her back.
+
+It was then that the Round-Faced Beauty ventured a remark. This maiden,
+having been born in the far-off province of Suchuan, was considered a
+rustic by the distinguished elegance of the Palace and, therefore, had
+never spoken unless decorum required. Still, even her detractors were
+compelled to admit the charms that had gained her her name. Her face had
+the flawless outline of the pearl, and like the blossom of the plum was
+the purity of her complexion, upon which the darkness of her eyebrows
+resembled two silk-moths alighted to flutter above the brilliance of her
+eyes--eyes which even the August Aunt had commended after a banquet of
+unsurpassed variety. Her hair had been compared to the crow's plumage;
+her waist was like a roll of silk, and her discretion in habiting
+herself was such that even the Lustrous Lady and the Lady Tortoise drew
+instruction from the splendours of her robes. It created, however, a
+general astonishment when she spoke.
+
+"Paragons of beauty, what is this dull and opaque-witted person that
+she should speak?"
+
+"What, indeed!" said the Celestial Sister. "This entirely
+undistinguished person cannot even imagine."
+
+A distressing pause followed, during which many whispered anxiously. The
+Lustrous Lady broke it.
+
+"It is true that the highly ornamental Round-Faced Beauty is but lately
+come, yet even the intelligent Ant may assist the Dragon; and in the
+presence of alarm, what is decorum? With a tiger behind one, who can
+recall the Book of Rites and act with befitting elegance?"
+
+"The high-born will at all times remember the Rites!" retorted the
+Celestial Sister. "Have we not heard the August Aunt observe: 'Those who
+understand do not speak. Those who speak do not understand'?"
+
+The Round-Faced Beauty collected her courage.
+
+"Doubtless this is wisdom; yet if the wise do not speak, who should
+instruct us? The August Aunt herself would be silent."
+
+All were confounded by this dilemma, and the little Lady Summer-Dress,
+still weeping, entreated that the Round-Faced Beauty might be heard.
+The Heavenly Blossoms then prepared to listen and assumed attitudes of
+attention, which so disconcerted the Round-Faced Beauty that she blushed
+like a spring tulip in speaking.
+
+"Beautiful ladies, our Lord, who is unknown to us all, has issued an
+august command. It cannot be disputed, for the whisper of disobedience
+is heard as thunder in the Imperial Presence. Should we not aid each
+other? If any lady has formed a dream in her soul of the Ideal
+Man, might not such a picture aid us all? Let us not be
+'say-nothing-do-nothing,' but act!"
+
+They hung their heads and smiled, but none would allow that she had
+formed such an image. The little Lady Tortoise, laughing behind her
+fan of sandalwood, said roguishly: "The Ideal Man should be handsome,
+liberal in giving, and assuredly he should appreciate the beauty of his
+wives. But this we cannot say to the Divine Emperor."
+
+A sigh rustled through the Pepper Chamber. The Celestial Sister looked
+angrily at the speaker.
+
+"This is the talk of children," she said. "Does no one remember
+Kung-fu-tse's [Confucius] description of the Superior Man?"
+
+Unfortunately none did--not even the Celestial Sister herself.
+
+"Is it not probable," said the Round-Faced Beauty, "that the Divine
+Emperor remembers it himself and wishes--"
+
+But the Celestial Sister, yawning audibly, summoned the attendants to
+bring rose-leaves in honey, and would hear no more.
+
+The Round-Faced Beauty therefore wandered forth among the mossy rocks
+and drooping willows of the Imperial Garden, deeply considering the
+matter. She ascended the bow-curved bridge of marble which crossed the
+Pool of Clear Weather, and from the top idly observed the reflection of
+her rose-and-gold coat in the water while, with her taper fingers, she
+crumbled cake for the fortunate gold-fish that dwelt in it. And, so
+doing, she remarked one fish, four-tailed among the six-tailed, and in
+no way distinguished by elegance, which secured by far the largest share
+of the crumbs dropped into the pool. Bending lower, she observed this
+singular fish and its methods.
+
+The others crowded about the spot where the crumbs fell, all herded
+together. In their eagerness and stupidity they remained like a cloud of
+gold in one spot, slowly waving their tails. But this fish, concealing
+itself behind a miniature rock, waited, looking upward, until the
+crumbs were falling, and then, rushing forth with the speed of an
+arrow, scattered the stupid mass of fish, and bore off the crumbs to its
+shelter, where it instantly devoured them.
+
+"This is notable," said the Round-Faced Beauty. "Observation enlightens
+the mind. To be apart--to be distinguished--secures notice!" And she
+plunged into thought again, wandering, herself a flower, among the
+gorgeous tree peonies.
+
+On the following day the August Aunt commanded that a writer among the
+palace attendants should, with brush and ink, be summoned to transcribe
+the wisdom of the ladies. She requested that each would give three
+days to thought, relating the following anecdote. "There was a man who,
+taking a piece of ivory, carved it into a mulberry leaf, spending three
+years on the task. When finished it could not be told from the original,
+and was a gift suitable for the Brother of the Sun and Moon. Do
+likewise!"
+
+"But yet, O Augustness!" said the Celestial Sister, "if the Lord of
+Heaven took as long with each leaf, there would be few leaves on the
+trees, and if-"
+
+The August Aunt immediately commanded silence and retired. On the third
+day she seated herself in her chair of carved ebony, while the attendant
+placed himself by her feet and prepared to record her words.
+
+"This insignificant person has decided," began her Augustness, looking
+round and unscrewing the amber top of her snuff-bottle, "to take an
+unintelligent part in these proceedings. An example should be set.
+Attendant, write!"
+
+She then dictated as follows: "The Ideal Man is he who now decorates
+the Imperial Throne, or he who in all humility ventures to resemble the
+incomparable Emperor. Though he may not hope to attain, his endeavor is
+his merit. No further description it needed."
+
+With complacence she inhaled the perfumed snuff, as the writer appended
+the elegant characters of her Imperial name.
+
+If it is permissible to say that the faces of the beauties lengthened
+visibly, it should now be said. For it had been the intention of every
+lady to make an illusion to the Celestial Emperor and depict him as the
+Ideal Man. Nor had they expected that the August Aunt would take any
+part in the matter.
+
+"Oh, but it was the intention of this commonplace and undignified person
+to say this very thing!" cried the Lustrous Lady, with tears in the
+jewels of her eyes. "I thought no other high-minded and distinguished
+lady would for a moment think of it."
+
+"And it was my intention also!" fluttered the little Lady Tortoise,
+wringing her hands! "What now shall this most unlucky and unendurable
+person do? For three nights has sleep forsaken my unattractive eyelids,
+and, tossing and turning on a couch deprived of all comfort, I could
+only repeat, 'The Ideal Man is the Divine Dragon Emperor!'"
+
+"May one of entirely contemptible attainments make a suggestion in this
+assemblage of scintillating wit and beauty?" inquired the Celestial
+Sister. "My superficial opinion is that it would be well to prepare a
+single paper to which all names should be appended, stating that His
+Majesty in his Dragon Divinity comprises all ideals in his sacred
+Person."
+
+"Let those words be recorded," said the August Aunt. "What else should
+any lady of discretion and propriety say? In this Palace of Virtuous
+Peace, where all is consecrated to the Son of Heaven, though he deigns
+not to enter it, what other thought dare be breathed? Has any lady
+ventured to step outside such a limit? If so, let her declare herself!"
+
+All shook their heads, and the August Aunt proceeded: "Let the writer
+record this as the opinion of every lady of the Imperial Household, and
+let each name be separately appended."
+
+Had any desired to object, none dared to confront the August Aunt;
+but apparently no beauty so desired, for after three nights' sleepless
+meditation, no other thought than this had occurred to any.
+
+Accordingly, the writer moved from lady to lady and, under the
+supervision of the August Aunt, transcribed the following: "The Ideal
+Man is the earthly likeness of the Divine Emperor. How should it be
+otherwise?" And under this sentence wrote the name of each lovely one
+in succession. The papers were then placed in the hanging sleeves of the
+August Aunt for safety.
+
+By the decree of Fate, the father of the Round-Faced Beauty had, before
+he became an ancestral spirit, been a scholar of distinction, having
+graduated at the age of seventy-two with a composition commended by the
+Grand Examiner. Having no gold and silver to give his daughter, he
+had formed her mind, and had presented her with the sole jewel of his
+family-a pearl as large as a bean. Such was her sole dower, but the
+accomplished Aunt may excel the indolent Prince.
+
+Yet, before the thought in her mind, she hesitated and trembled,
+recalling the lesson of the gold-fish; and it was with anxiety that
+paled her roseate lips that, on a certain day, she had sought the Willow
+Bridge Pavilion. There had awaited her a palace attendant skilled with
+the brush, and there in secrecy and dire affright, hearing the footsteps
+of the August Aunt in every rustle of leafage, and her voice in the
+call of every crow, did the Round-Faced Beauty dictate the following
+composition:--
+
+"Though the sky rain pearls, it cannot equal the beneficence of the Son
+of Heaven. Though the sky rain jade it cannot equal his magnificence. He
+has commanded his slave to describe the qualities of the Ideal Man.
+How should I, a mere woman, do this? I, who have not seen the Divine
+Emperor, how should I know what is virtue? I, who have not seen the
+glory of his countenance, how should I know what is beauty? Report
+speaks of his excellencies, but I who live in the dark know not. But to
+the Ideal Woman, the very vices of her husband are virtues. Should he
+exalt another, this is a mark of his superior taste. Should he dismiss
+his slave, this is justice. To the Ideal Woman there is but one Ideal
+Man--and that is her lord. From the day she crosses his threshold, to
+the day when they clothe her in the garments of Immortality, this is her
+sole opinion. Yet would that she might receive instruction of what only
+are beauty and virtue in his adorable presence."
+
+This being written, she presented her one pearl to the attendant and
+fled, not looking behind her, as quickly as her delicate feet would
+permit.
+
+On the seventh day the compositions, engraved on ivory and bound with
+red silk and tassels, were presented to the Emperor, and for seven
+days more he forgot their existence. On the eighth the High Chamberlain
+ventured to recall them to the Imperial memory, and the Emperor glancing
+slightly at one after another, threw them aside, yawning as he did so.
+Finally, one arrested his eyes, and reading it more than once he laid it
+before him and meditated. An hour passed in this way while the forgotten
+Lord Chamberlain continued to kneel. The Son of Heaven, then raising his
+head, pronounced these words: "In the society of the Ideal Woman, she to
+whom jealousy is unknown, tranquillity might possibly be obtained. Let
+prayer be made before the Ancestors with the customary offerings, for
+this is a matter deserving attention."
+
+A few days passed, and an Imperial attendant, escorted by two mandarins
+of the peacock-feather and crystal-button rank, desired an audience of
+the August Aunt, and, speaking before the curtain, informed her that his
+Imperial Majesty would pay a visit that evening to the Hall of Tranquil
+Longevity. Such was her agitation at this honour that she immediately
+swooned; but, reviving, summoned all the attendants and gave orders for
+a banquet and musicians.
+
+Lanterns painted with pheasants and exquisite landscapes were hung on
+all the pavilions. Tapestries of rose, decorated with the Five-Clawed
+Dragons, adorned the chambers; and upon the High Seat was placed a robe
+of yellow satin embroidered with pearls. All was hurry and excitement.
+The Blossoms of the Palace were so exquisitely decked that one grain
+more of powder would have made them too lily-like, and one touch more of
+rouge, too rosecheeked. It was indeed perfection, and, like lotuses upon
+a lake, or Asian birds, gorgeous of plumage, they stood ranged in the
+outer chamber while the Celestial Emperor took his seat.
+
+The Round-Faced Beauty wore no jewels, having bartered her pearl for her
+opportunity; but her long coat of jade-green, embroidered with golden
+willows, and her trousers of palest rose left nothing to be desired. In
+her hair two golden peonies were fastened with pins of kingfisher work.
+The Son of Heaven was seated upon the throne as the ladies approached,
+marshaled by the August Aunt. He was attired in the Yellow Robe with the
+Flying Dragons, and upon the Imperial Head was the Cap, ornamented
+with one hundred and forty-four priceless gems. From it hung the twelve
+pendants of strings of pearls, partly concealing the august eyes of the
+Jade Emperor. No greater splendour can strike awe into the soul of man.
+
+At his command the August Aunt took her seat upon a lesser chair at the
+Celestial Feet. Her mien was majestic, and struck awe into the assembled
+beauties, whose names she spoke aloud as each approached and prostrated
+herself. She then pronounced these words:
+
+"Beautiful ones, the Emperor, having considered the opinions submitted
+by you on the subject of the Superior Man, is pleased to express his
+august commendation. Dismiss, therefore, anxiety from your minds, and
+prepare to assist at the humble concert of music we have prepared for
+his Divine pleasure."
+
+Slightly raising himself in his chair, the Son of Heaven looked down
+upon that Garden of Beauty, holding in his hand an ivory tablet bound
+with red silk.
+
+"Lovely ladies," he began, in a voice that assuaged fear, "who among you
+was it that laid before our feet a composition beginning thus--'Though
+the sky rain pearls'?"
+
+The August Aunt immediately rose.
+
+"Imperial Majesty, none! These eyes supervised every composition. No
+impropriety was permitted."
+
+The Son of Heaven resumed: "Let that lady stand forth."
+
+The words were few, but sufficient. Trembling in every limb, the
+Round-Faced Beauty separated herself from her companions and prostrated
+herself, amid the breathless amazement of the Blossoms of the Palace. He
+looked down upon her as she knelt, pale as a lady carved in ivory, but
+lovely as the lotus of Chang-Su. He turned to the August Aunt. "Princess
+of Han, my Imperial Aunt, I would speak with this lady alone."
+
+Decorum itself and the custom of Palaces could not conceal the
+indignation of the August Aunt as she rose and retired, driving the
+ladies before her as a shepherd drives his sheep.
+
+The Hall of Tranquil Longevity being now empty, the Jade Emperor
+extended his hand and beckoned the Round-Faced Beauty to approach. This
+she did, hanging her head like a flower surcharged with dew and swaying
+gracefully as a wind-bell, and knelt on the lowest step of the Seat of
+State.
+
+"Loveliest One," said the Emperor, "I have read your composition.
+I would know the truth. Did any aid you as you spoke it? Was it the
+thought of your own heart?"
+
+"None aided, Divine," said she, almost fainting with fear. "It
+was indeed the thought of this illiterate slave, consumed with an
+unwarranted but uncontrollable passion."
+
+"And have you in truth desired to see your Lord?"
+
+"As a prisoner in a dungeon desires the light, so was it with this low
+person."
+
+"And having seen?"
+
+"Augustness, the dull eyes of this slave are blinded with beauty."
+
+She laid her head before his feet.
+
+"Yet you have depicted, not the Ideal Man, but the Ideal Woman. This was
+not the Celestial command. How was this?"
+
+"Because, O versatile and auspicious Emperor, the blind cannot behold
+the sunlight, and it is only the Ideal Woman who is worthy to comprehend
+and worship the Ideal Man. For this alone is she created."
+
+A smile began to illuminate the Imperial Countenance. "And how, O
+Round-Faced Beauty, did you evade the vigilance of the August Aunt?"
+
+She hung her head lower, speaking almost in a whisper. "With her one
+pearl did this person buy the secrecy of the writer; and when the August
+Aunt slept, did I conceal the paper in her sleeve with the rest, and her
+own Imperial hand gave it to the engraver of ivory."
+
+She veiled her face with two jade-white hands that trembled excessively.
+On hearing this statement the Celestial Emperor broke at once into a
+very great laughter, and he laughed loud and long as a tiller of wheat.
+The Round-Faced Beauty heard it demurely until, catching the Imperial
+eye, decorum was forgotten and she too laughed uncontrollably. So they
+continued, and finally the Emperor leaned back, drying the tears in his
+eyes with his august sleeve, and the lady, resuming her gravity, hid her
+face in her hands, yet regarded him through her fingers.
+
+When the August Aunt returned at the end of an hour with the ladies,
+surrounded by the attendants with their instruments of music, the
+Round-Faced Beauty was seated in the chair that she herself had
+occupied, and on the whiteness of her brow was hung the chain of pearls,
+which had formed the frontal of the Cap of the Emperor.
+
+It is recorded that, advancing from honour to honour, the Round-Faced
+Beauty was eventually chosen Empress and became the mother of the
+Imperial Prince. The celestial purity of her mind and the absence of all
+flaws of jealousy and anger warranted this distinction. But it is also
+recorded that, after her elevation, no other lady was ever exalted in
+the Imperial favour or received the slightest notice from the Emperor.
+For the Empress, now well acquainted with the Ideal Man, judged it
+better that his experiences of the Ideal Woman should be drawn from
+herself alone. And as she decreed, so it was done. Doubtless Her Majesty
+did well.
+
+It is known that the Emperor departed to the Ancestral Spirits at an
+early age, seeking, as the August Aunt observed, that repose which on
+earth could never more be his. But no one has asserted that this lady's
+disposition was free from the ordinary blemishes of humanity.
+
+As for the Celestial Empress (who survives in history as one of the most
+astute rulers who ever adorned the Dragon Throne), she continued to rule
+her son and the Empire, surrounded by the respectful admiration of all.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories, by 
+L. Adams Beck
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