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.