“The One who Waits? But who?”
“I cannot tell. Different people probably for everyone. It might have
been my great-great-grandfather for all I know. He is often in his
garden. But it is the right one always. Don’t think I blame you though
for using your scrap of power in a fright. That often happens at first.
What man has mastered jujutsu at the first throw? Still, he may be badly
hurt, and you are hurt and will pay for it. Later on, beware that you
never use power to bring you back to the place you have left it. A man
pays for that to the last farthing.”
“You mean—snatching at the wrong things?”
“Yes, in a way. The wrong things for you. There is no fixed way or rigid
moral standard. There cannot be. All depends upon the man himself and
the occasion, and—many a man has been saved by his sins. One learns the
rules as one goes. Of course the rudiments of them govern every sort of
society of men civilized or uncivilized. But you must be hungry. Come
in.”
I shall never forget that meal. Nothing could be simpler. There were
rice cakes, honey, eggs, and pale fragrant tea. But—I despair of
words—the food had new meanings. I could feel the good of it, the life
of nature, of living things, passing into my blood, so restorative that
when it was eaten I felt like a tuned violin on the shoulder of a mighty
master; not a sound or sight but drew harmonious answer from my spirit.
The river flowed from the footstool of the Eternal. Each flower shouted
its evangel and their chorus was that of the morning stars singing
together. The dart of the swallows was the flight of arrows from the bow
of Love. They dazzled in blue air. I daresay no more.
Arima came out in his cotton kimono and bare head. I saw new meanings in
his face each moment, and the bronzed beauty of the man struck on a
naked nerve, as though each sight of beauty awakened a longing for the
next step beyond. He read my thought, and pausing in his work of
training a fruit bough answered meditatively;
“Yes, even the first breath of air in that country is inspiration. It is
full of dangers—a fighting country, sometimes a No Man’s Land. Some of
its ways seem to lead horribly downward. And there is always hell.”
“Hell? A state of mind?”
“Yes, and of body too—they sometimes involve each other. But it braces
one. There is much more to it than you can know yet. Only remember—one
has got to break into that country somehow unless one is content to be
the prisoner of the senses for a whole wasted lifetime.”