“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.