surprised by what I saw there. The head of the staircase was in a
corner of the great flat space forming the roof, and a parapet, about
thirty inches high, completely enclosed it, except for a flight of
outside steps leading down to another and lower roof. The cement floor
and surrounding parapet were so brilliantly lighted by the moon, that
every inch unshadowed was as bright as day. Four people occupied the
space, and my eye was first caught by a white-robed, dark-complexioned
boy, who, leaning against the parapet, played a violin with closed
eyes, his face set in an expression of dreamy rapture. At a little
distance from him, but nearer to me, were a woman and two girls. The
woman sat upon a quantity of silks spread over the parapet, while
she leaned against a pile of cushions placed against a round stone
column. I should say she was hardly twenty. Her skin was very fair, her
complexion wonderfully clear, her hair black and abundant, her eyes
large, dark, and liquid, while long curling lashes threw a shadow far
down her cheeks. The eyebrows were strongly marked and slightly arched,
like the artificial spur of a game-cock. Her nose was straight and
rather small; her scarlet lips made a perfect Cupid’s bow, and the
upper lip was so short that it disclosed teeth of extreme regularity
with a whiteness and sheen as of pearls. The chin was round, the face
oval; the ears, hands, and feet very small, but beautifully formed.
This woman, or girl, was clothed in silk skirts of a dull red, heavy
with gold thread; she wore a jacket of white satin, embroidered with
small red and gold flowers, and fastened by three diamond brooches.
On her head, falling in graceful folds over her shoulders, was a dark
gossamer veil, studded with tiny gold stars, and bordered by a wide hem
of shining gold lace. In one hand she listlessly held a long spray of
stephanotis. She seemed absorbed by the music, and the wonder of that
soft white light, which so enhanced her loveliness that I stared in
wide-eyed admiration, forgetful of Eastern customs, of politeness, and
all else, save only that fascinating figure. At her feet, on the roof,
sat two girls, attendants, both clad in bright-coloured silk garments,
and both wearing gold-embroidered gossamer veils.
Not one of the group seemed to notice my presence, and I heard no words
exchanged.
* * * * *
It was long past midnight; the violinist had excelled himself in
pulse-stirring dances, in passionate love-songs and laments that
sounded like the sobbing of despairing hearts. I had gradually moved
forward, and was leaning over the parapet looking towards Agra,
and feeling that no moment of a night like this could be missed or
forgotten, when suddenly I heard a sharp cry, half of surprise,
half of dread. I turned and saw my four companions all gazing with
startled eyes at something beyond me, out past the parapet, towards
the glistening river. I turned again, and I now saw a white marble
bridge stretching in a single graceful arch--an arch like a strung
bow--springing from the centre of the back wall of the Tâj across the
river, till it rested on the farther bank. There rose another Tâj! the
exact duplicate of the one standing on the hither side of the stream,
as white, as graceful, as perfect in all respects as its fellow.
The roadway of the bridge was enclosed in a sort of long gallery, the
sides of marble fretwork, with windows at intervals opening on to the
river. The roof was formed of marble slabs. One could see the shining
water through the perforated walls of the gallery; occasionally, where
two opposite windows were open, there were glimpses of the distant
lights, the palace, and the hill. The beautiful flat arch of that
bridge, its graceful lines, and the airy lightness of the structure
are unforgetable. Think of that bridge, that pure white bow of
glistening stone, spanning the river’s width, and tying Tâj to Tâj!
As I feasted my eyes, in wonder and admiration, on this alluring
vision, a mist rose from the river, gathered volume and density, shut
out the distance, enveloped bridge and river, bank and building, and
hung in a thick white cloud, the ends creeping rapidly to right and
left across the level plain. I looked upward; the moon was slowly
sinking towards the west; it had a faint bluish tinge, a common effect
at very late hours of the night, when it seems to shine with even
greater brilliance.
I turned to look for my companions, but found I was alone. There
was not a sign of lady, or maid, or minstrel. They had disappeared,
vanished without a sound; and, of their late presence, there was no
sign--except the spray of stephanotis. It was strange, I thought, as
I walked to the spot where the flower lay and picked it up, but one
cannot be astonished at anything in the East.
* * * * *
I felt a chill puff of wind, and I glanced back towards Agra. The mist
was moving, rising rapidly in wisps; it was thin and transparent, and
I could indistinctly see the background through it. The marble bridge,
the other Tâj--that second tomb Shah Jahan _meant_ to build--were gone.
Clearly my imagination, a mirage, or the mist had played me a trick.
And then the girl, the violinist: were they also the phantoms of my
brain? Surely that was impossible. Why, I can see the girl now; I could
tell you every detail of her face, her figure, _pose_, and dress. The
violinist could have been no spirit; though he played like an angel,
his music was earthly, and perfectly familiar to me.
I gave it up and went away, wondering; but I took the stephanotis, and
it stands in front of me now in a tiny vase of water.
* * * * *
To-day, in daylight, when the sun was high, and I had eaten and bandied
commonplaces, and knew that I was sane, I went to find the old creature
who keeps the gate of the garden of the Tâj. I asked him who was in
the Red Palace late last night, and he said that not having been there
himself he could not tell; moreover, that he did not turn night into
day, but slept, like other respectable people. I felt snubbed but still
curious, so I said--
“The boy who plays the violin, who is he?”
“What boy? Where? How should I know?” he said, but he began to look
rather startled.
“On the roof of the Red Palace, over there,” I replied, pointing to the
corner of the building visible from where we stood. “And the lady, the
young lady in the beautiful clothes, who is she?”
But the old man had started, and at mention of the girl he dropped the
stick on which he leaned; and as he slowly and painfully recovered
himself from the effort of picking it up, I heard him say, in an
awe-struck whisper, “The _Devi_!”
My attempts to extract anything further from this old fossil were
futile. He hobbled off to his den, muttering to himself, and evidently
anxious to be rid of my society.
After this rebuff I hesitate to make further inquiries from others,
because I know no one here; because the white people never concern
themselves with native matters, and are mainly interested in gossip;
and because I am conscious that my story invites doubt, and must rest
on my word alone. It is not the personal ridicule I am afraid of, but I
don’t like the idea of jest at the expense of the girl whom I saw on
that parapet, the _Devi_ whose stephanotis perfumes my room.
XXIX
THE DEATH-CHAIN
When last I wrote and told you about the _Devi_, I had a vague hope
that my stephanotis would, indirectly, prove that the lovely girl, from
whose hand it had fallen, gathered it in some heavenly garden, beyond
mortal ken, where Death and Time are unknown.
I did not like to say so, but I meant to keep the flower, and, if I had
seen it fade and die, I should have been disappointed, perhaps even
rather surprised. You will say such fantastic ideas can only come to
people whose minds have been warped by contact with Oriental mysticism;
and, while you are probably right, I reply that when you have a Tâj,
when you have an atmosphere of sunshine unsoiled by coal-smoke, when,
in fine, any really big miracle is wrought in your Western world, then
_you_ may see a _Devi_ sitting in the moonlight, _you_ may hear angelic
music played by a boy unknown to the critics, and _you_ may even weave
romances round a spray of stephanotis.
I guarded my flower carefully, and, for five days, I could not see that
it showed any sign of fading. True I kept it in water, even when I was
travelling; and, if it came from a heavenly garden, I dare say that
care was altogether needless; but we are creatures of habit, and my
Faith was not very robust, and leaned somewhat heavily on Hope. I had
to leave Agra and journey through Rajputana. On the fifth day from that
night, which I had almost said “was worth, of other nights, a hundred
thousand million years,” I was in Jaipur, and from there I visited the
glorious Palace of Amber. I restrain myself with difficulty from going
into raptures over that ancient castle, which, for so many centuries,
has stood on that distant hillside and watched its many masters come
and go, while the ladies loved, and gossiped, and hated, in the Hall of
a Thousand Delights, and the horsemen and spearmen went down from the
gates to the dusty road, the seething plains, whence many of them never
returned.
I will spare you. You are long-suffering, but there must be a limit
even to your patience. I know that _qui s’excuse s’accuse_, and
I offer no excuse for trying to draw for you the pictures that are
only seen beyond beaten tracks. Ruskin has said, “The greatest thing
the human soul ever does in this world is to _see_ something, and tell
what it _saw_ in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who
can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly
is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one.” If thousands can think
for one who can see, surely there must be still thousands who see and
cannot tell “in a plain way” what they saw. There are millions whose
eyes are to them only what animals’ eyes are--aids to the gratification
of appetite. There are thousands more who do see and appreciate, yet
cannot put what they have seen into words; cannot communicate their own
feelings, cannot help another to share, even a little, in the joy that
has come to them through greater opportunities. I have often wondered
why people who have seen the most interesting places on earth, have
been present perhaps on memorable occasions, and have met the most
famous people of their time, showed, in their conversation, no sign
of these advantages, and, if questioned, could only give the most
disappointing, uninteresting description of any personal experiences.
Then there are the very few who have seen, and can help others to see
again, through their eyes; but they seldom do it, because they have
found that, with rare exceptions, the relation of their experiences is
but little appreciated. Ruskin himself is one of the few who can see
and can describe, but others may hesitate to string the plain words,
knowing how little worthy they will be of what the eyes have seen.
Some of this I may have been thinking, as I slowly made my way back
to Jaipur; but, when I reached the house of my sojourn, almost the
first thing I noticed was that the tiny vase which had carried my
spray of stephanotis was empty of all but water. Of course I sent for
everybody, and made minute inquiries, and, of course, every one had
seen the flower, and no one had touched it, and I was left to draw any
conclusion I pleased.
I drew none. There are no data on which to come to a conclusion; but
the facts remind me of a story I will tell you.
I have an Italian friend. He is a very uncommon type, and worthy of far
more attention than I will give him now, because, for the moment, I am
concerned rather with his story than with him. He was in Egypt, and
whilst there he discovered a buried city. Carefully and wisely he kept
his knowledge to himself, till, owing to an absence of some months, he
lost all trace of the place, and never found it again. A sand-storm had
buried it once more.
The original discovery was purely the result of accident, and his
first researches had to be conducted in secrecy, without assistance,
otherwise the _trouvaille_ would have become public property. His
explorations led him to a building that he believed was a tomb;
and having, by laborious efforts, gained an entrance, he had the
satisfaction of proving that his surmise was correct, and also the
reward of finding in the chamber a single sarcophagus, containing a
mummified girl, or woman, in wonderful preservation. He knew the common
superstition that disaster would befall any one who disturbed a mummy;
but he thought little of the tale, and did not mean to be deterred from
removing the body when he should have the means to do so. Meanwhile he
had to be content with what he could carry, and that consisted of a
few coins, and a necklace which he unfastened from the lady’s poor
shrivelled neck, or rather from the cere-cloths in which it was swathed.
Perhaps you have never seen one of these mummy necklaces; they are
rather curious, and, from my friend’s account of it, the one he
found nearly resembled others which I have seen myself. The material
seemed to be some kind of pottery, or opaque glass made into rough
beads, and short lengths of small glazed piping, strung together in
a quaint pattern. The prevailing colour was a sort of turquoise with
an extra dash of green, and every bit of piping was so tinted; but,
alternately with these blue lengths, were strung groups of round beads,
in bunches of two to six or eight, or even more. By far the majority of
the beads were turquoise-blue, but some were yellow, others brown, and
a few almost black, and the arrangement was such that it could easily
have been made to represent a string of words. The effect of the chain
was _bizarre_ but attractive, and it somewhat resembled the rosaries
worn by devout Arabs. The intrinsic worth of the thing was _nil_, but
sometimes one has a friend who will accept and value _un rien_ like
this, for the sake of the giver, when jewels would be declined. My
Italian had such a friend, and the bauble found a new home on her neck.
Not long after she had begun to wear the quaint little chain which
had lain for so many centuries round the throat of the dead Egyptian,
its new owner was distressed and alarmed by a persistent form of
nightmare, which gradually induced a feeling that she was haunted by
the wraith of a dark-skinned girl, of a type of feature unlike any
known to her, but clad in raiment such as she fancied had been worn
by Egyptians in the days of the Pharaohs. The apparition was always
clothed in the same manner, and though she wore a number of strangely
fashioned ornaments, her neck was left completely bare. The girl seemed
to be ever present in her dreams, and her face always wore a look of
extreme distress, as of one who grieved for the loss of some dearly
beloved friend or possession. The curious part of it was, that the
dream-girl seemed always to come to the sleeper as to one from whom
she could get relief; and while, in her earlier appearances, she had
the expression and the manner of a supplicant, the dreamer fancied
that latterly there had been a change, and the dark face looked both
agonised and threatening.
These visitations, which could not be ascribed to any reasonable cause,
had so got on the lady’s nerves that she had gone for change to a
villa on the coast of Normandy. The change of scene brought no relief.
The haunting form of the Egyptian girl, though not a nightly visitor,
was so constantly present, that the dread of seeing her deprived sleep
of all power of giving rest, and the poor lady was not only becoming
seriously ill, but she was so affected by her uncanny infliction, that
she even sometimes imagined she caught glimpses of her tormentor when
she herself was wide awake.
One afternoon, the lady was lying in a darkened room, the _persiennes_
closed to keep out the hot and penetrating rays of a summer sun. She
felt very weary and despondent, the result of many broken nights and
the prolonged strain on her nerves, and, though she held a book in
her hand she was all the time wondering how much longer she could
bear this oppression, and what she had done to deserve such a weirdly
horrible fate. In a dull sort of way she supposed she must be going
mad, and felt with grim cynicism that the border-land between sanity
and insanity was so narrow that she would hardly realise the moment
when she crossed it. There was absolute silence everywhere, except for
the faint soothing whisper of the sea, rippling over the sand beneath
the wooded bluff on which the villa stood. The air was warm and heavy
with summer perfumes; the room was darkening slowly as the sun dipped
towards the placid waters of La Manche; the woman was deadly weary, and
she slept.
At first her sleep must have been sound; but, after a time, her eyes
opened to that other consciousness which is of the world of dreams,
and once again she saw her now dreaded companion, the dark-eyed,
dark-skinned girl from the land of the Pharaohs. The girl seemed to
plead in impassioned terms for something, but the dreamer could not
understand the strange words, and racked her brain, as dreamers will,
to try to imagine their meaning. The girl burst into a storm of tears,
sinking to the ground in her grief and despair, and burying her face
on a pile of cushions. Still the dreamer, suffering torture herself,
was helpless to relieve the other. Then suddenly the girl sprang
up, and, dashing the tears from her eyes, which now seemed to blaze
with murderous resolve, she sprang upon the white woman, enlaced her
throat with supple brown fingers, pressed and pressed, tighter and
tighter--ah, God! the horror and the suffocating pain of it--and all
the while the sleeper’s hands seemed tied to her side. Then with a
scream the dreamer awoke. She felt her eyes must be starting from her
head, and instinctively raised her hands to her throat, only to realise
that her vivid sensation of strangulation was merely a nightmare, but
that the chain--the string of turquoise beads which she had never
unfastened from the day she first put it on--was gone.
There was now little light in the room, only enough to see things
vaguely, yet the lady declares that in that first moment of waking she
distinctly saw a figure, exactly like that of the girl of her dreams,
glide swiftly away from her and pass out through a _portière_ into the
verandah. For some time she was too frightened and unnerved to move,
but when at last she summoned her people they had seen no one.
The only thing that was real was that she had lost the necklace, and
never saw it again. As some compensation she also lost for ever the
society of her dream-visitor, and completely recovered her own health.
Now who took my stephanotis?
XXX
SCANDAL AND BANGLES
For years I have not been so angry as I am at this minute; I have
very nearly lost my temper, and the reason is really ridiculous. Why
I should choose this as a favourable opportunity for writing to you I
cannot tell, but my tormentor had no sooner left the room than I seized
the pen, which is nearly always ready to my hand, and you are the
victim. The cause of this unusual and unseemly frame of mind is a girl,
quite a pretty girl, who walked in here, _sans cérémonie_, and, after
a few minutes’ desultory conversation, told me a preposterous piece of
gossip about myself, a fantastic story in which there was not a grain
of truth.
“Who says that?” I asked.
“Everybody says so.”
“Then everybody is mistaken.”
“Of course you deny it; but it is true, all the same.”
“It is not in the least true, and I am prepared to swear that in any
form of oath.”
“I dare say you are, but no one will believe you.”
“Very well. Now what does your story rest upon?”
“The evidence of people’s senses. Every one has seen you.”
“I cannot deal with ‘every one,’ it is too indefinite. You say I
went to some one’s house,--not that it would matter the least if I
did,--but who saw me?”
“I did.”
“You did! I never was in the house in my life.”
“Try to remember. I have seen you go in and also seen you come out of
it.”
“If it were not so stupid, one might almost get angry. I repeat that I
have never been in the house, nor spoken to the owner.”
“And I, having seen with my own eyes, maintain that you have.”
“You have mistaken some one else for me, or drawn on your imagination,
for what you say is absolutely untrue. But, as you seem to have
constructed a fantastic story on that insecure foundation, I have a
good mind to charge you with defaming me.”
“By all means, and I will go into court and say what I know and you
know to be true.”
Now, what can you do with a person like that? If I were the judge,
trying my own cause and knowing there is not a semblance of a particle
of truth in this absurd tale, I believe that if a witness appeared and
gave evidence against me with this sublime assurance, I would decide
the case against myself.
The wasp has still a sting left; she says, “You sent your carriage to a
lady, that she might drive in it?”
“I did.”
“And she sent it back.”
“She did.”
“She would not use it because of what I have told you, and she does not
want to see or speak to you again!”
I said I should not die of the affront, nor commit any rash act if the
lady adhered to her determination; but I admit that, though I laughed,
I was beginning to lose my temper, and I told my tormentor that if
I could whip her it would be a satisfaction! She also laughed, but
as I had seen that she was brimful of merriment all along, that was
nothing. By-and-by she disclosed that she wanted me to do something for
her, and, when I had heaped coals of fire on her head by doing what she
wished, she went away asking me if I had any message for the lady who
had refused my carriage! I heard her laughing all the way downstairs,
and, as she insisted on walking through the grounds to her carriage, I
fancy I can hear her giggling still.
I think I remarked once before that the train of another’s thoughts
are not easy to divine, but explanations are boring, so I leave you to
supply the connection between what I have just written and what now
occurs to me to tell you. It is not only fowls and curses that come
home to roost.
Once upon a time there was a very beautiful and attractive lady, the
wife of a high official in India. She was of those who have but one
admirer at a time, and that one very devoted. Women of her type cannot
share with any one else the attentions of their cavaliers; they insist
upon a service that is complete and unquestioning, dog-like in devotion
and obedience; and they do not seem to care if it is also dog-like
in its inability to do more than gaze in rapture at the face of its
mistress. I have known cases of the kind myself, and marvelled to see
how the lady and her slave can stand, and sit, and walk together,
with no one to disturb their confidences, and yet they never seem to
speak. As far as I can understand, that was the case with the heroine
of my tale and her _cavaliere servente_. They were on the hills or in
the plains--it does not matter where--when a native Prince appeared
upon the scene. He was a delightful and fascinating person, but
wicked beyond the dreams of wickedness. He stayed several months in
the station, and when about to return to his own native state, he
called upon an English friend of his and said, “I am going away; I
speak English very indifferently; I wish to say good-bye to some of my
friends: will you come with me?” The Englishman at once said he would
be delighted, and they set out on a round of calls, the Prince saying
where he wished to go. Amongst other houses they visited that of the
engaging lady, and after a few words explaining his early departure
and regret, the Prince produced a number of beautiful gold bangles,
and said he trusted the lady would accept them as a token of his
respectful admiration. This was duly interpreted, and the lady replied
that as her husband held a Government post she could not accept any
present. The Prince said he trusted that she would not persist in this
determination, because he was merely a visitor, and as the lady’s
husband had no authority or influence in his territory, he could not
believe that the ordinary rules would apply to a gift of such small
value, which was merely an expression of his esteem and thanks for the
kindness he had received. Meanwhile the bangles had been tendered to
the lady; they had lain in her hand, and she appreciated their curious
design and artistic excellence.
“What shall I do?” said the lady, appealing to the Englishman.
“What you please,” he replied.
It is possible that it was out of consideration for the feelings of the
donor that she then said--
“My husband would never let me accept the bangles, but I should like to
keep them if I knew that you would say nothing.”
“Pray do not think of me,” said the friend; “I am an accident in the
interview, and, when I leave the house, I shall have forgotten all
about it.”
“Then I shall keep them.”
One evening, about a fortnight or three weeks later, the lady was
dancing with the man who had interpreted, and he said, “Will you allow
me to admire your bangles: they are not only beautiful in themselves
but exceedingly becoming.”
“Yes,” she replied, “but the unfortunate part of it is that my husband
thinks they have been given to me by some one else, and I can’t
enlighten him, for I dare not tell the truth!”
_P.S._--The lady who refused to use my carriage has just sent me an
invitation to dinner!
XXXI
THE REPREHENSIBLE HABIT OF MAKING COMPARISONS