(The heroine of this story was a Princess of the great Mogul dynasty of
Emperors in India. She was granddaughter of Shah-Jahan and the lovely
lady of the Taj Mahal, and daughter of the Emperor Aurungzib whose
fanaticism was the ruin of the dynasty. The Princess’s title was
Zeb-un-Nissa—Glory of Women. She was beautiful and was and is a famous
poet in India, writing under the pen-name of Makhfi—the Hidden One. Her
love adventures were such as I relate, though I have taken the liberty
of transferring the fate of one lover to another.
For her poems, which I quote, I use the charming translations by J.
Duncan Westbrook, who has written a brief memoir of this fascinating
Princess. She was a mystic of the Sufi order and her verses “The Hunter
of the Soul,” which I give, strangely anticipate Francis Thompson’s
“Hound of Heaven”, in their imagery. The poems not specified as hers are
a part of my story.)
The office of hakim (physician) to the Mogul Emperors being hereditary
in my family from the days of Babar the conquering Emperor, I was
appointed physician to the Padshah known as Shah-Jahan, and when his
Majesty became a Resident in Paradise (may his tomb be sanctified!) my
office was continued by his Majesty Aurungzib, the Shahinshah, and rooms
were bestowed on me in his palace, and by his abundant favour the health
of the Begams (queens) in the seclusion of his mahal was placed in the
hands of this suppliant and I came and went freely in my duties and was
enlightened by the rays of his magnanimity. And my name is Abul Qasim.
But of all that garden of flowers, the Begams and Princesses, there was
one whom my soul loved as a father loves his child, for she resembled
that loveliest of all sweet ladies, her father’s mother, she who lies
buried by Jumna River in the divine white beauty of the Taj Mahal. (May
it be sanctified to her rest!) In my Princess’s sisters, it is true I
have seen a flash now and again of that lost beauty, but in her it abode
steadfast as a moon that knows no change and at her birth she received
the name of Arjemand after that beloved lady, whose death clouded the
universe so that its chronogram gives the one word “Grief.” But the
child also received the title of Zeb-un-Nissa—Glory of Women, and such
this resplendent Princess most truly was.
And surely the prayer for resemblance was granted by the bounty of
Allah, for she grew into womanhood dark, delicious as a damask rose,
enfolding the hidden heart of its perfume in velvet leaves, a soft
luxuriant beauty that stole upon the heart like a blossom-bearing breeze
and conquered it insensibly. Of her might it be said:
“For the mole upon thy cheek would I give the cities of Samarkand and
Bokhara,” and a poet of Persia, catching a glimpse of her as she walked
in her garden, cried aloud in an ecstasy of verse:
“O golden zone that circles the Universe of Beauty,
It were little to give the earth itself for what thou circlest.”
Yet, this surprising loveliness was the least of her perfections.
But how shall this suppliant who is but a man describe the spell of her
charm? Allah, when he made man and laid the world at his feet, resolved
that one thing should be hidden from his understanding, that still for
all his knowledge he should own there is but one Searcher of Secrets.
And the heart of this mystery is woman, and if she be called the other
half of man it is only as the moon reflects the glory of her lord the
sun in brilliance, though (as a wise Hindu pandit told me for truth) she
has a cold and dark side which is always unknown to him, where alone she
revolves thoughts silent, cold, and dangerous. Therefore to sift her in
her secrecies is a foolhardy thing, and not in vain is it written by
Aflatoun (Plato), the wise man of Greece, that the unhappy man who
surprised a goddess bathing in the forest was rent in pieces by his own
hounds.
Yet this feat must be attempted for if there is a thing it concerns man
to know it is the soul of this fair mystery who moves beside him and
surrenders Heaven to him in a first kiss and the bitterness of the hells
in a last embrace.
Therefore I essay the history of this Princess, the Glory of Women, who
was an epitome of her sex in that she was beautiful, a dreamer, a poet,
and on the surface sweet in gentleness as a summer river kissing its
banks in flowing, but beneath——