II

For weeks the Emperor lay before the door of death; and had it opened

to him, he had been blessed. So the months went by, and very slowly the

strength returned to him; but his eyes were withered and the bones stood

out in his cheeks. But he resumed his throne, and sat upon it kingly,

black-bearded, eagle-eyed, terribly apart in his grief and his royalty;

and so seated among his Usbegs, he declared his will.

“For this Lady (upon whom be peace), departed to the mercy of the Giver

and Taker, shall a tomb-palace be made, the Like of which is not found

in the four corners of the world. Send forth therefore for craftsmen

like the builders of the Temple of Solomon the Wise; for I will build.”

So, taking counsel, they sent in haste into Agra for Ustad Isa, the

Master-Builder, a man of Shiraz; and he, being presented before the

Padishah, received his instructions in these words:--

“I will that all the world shall remember the Flower of the World,

that all hearts shall give thanks for her beauty, which was indeed the

perfect Mirror of the Creator. And since it is abhorrent of Islam that

any image be made in the likeness of anything that has life, make for me

a palace-tomb, gracious as she was gracious, lovely as she was lovely.

Not such as the tombs of the Kings and the Conquerors, but of a divine

sweetness. Make me a garden on the banks of Jumna, and build it there,

where, sitting in my Pavilion of Marble, I may see it rise.”

And Ustad Isa, having heard, said, “Upon my head and eyes!” and went out

from the Presence.

So, musing upon the words of the Padishah, he went to his house in Agra,

and there pondered the matter long and deeply; and for a whole day and

night he refused all food and secluded himself from the society of all

men; for he said:--

“This is a weighty thing, for this Lady (upon whom be peace) must

visibly dwell in her tomb-palace on the shore of the river; and how

shall I, who have never seen her, imagine the grace that was in her, and

restore it to the world? Oh, had I but the memory of her face! Could I

but see it as the Shah-in-Shah sees it, remembering the past! Prophet

of God, intercede for me, that I may look through his eyes, if but for a

moment!”

That night he slept, wearied and weakened with fasting; and whether it

were that the body guarded no longer the gates of the soul, I cannot

say; for, when the body ails, the soul soars free above its weakness.

But a strange marvel happened.

For, as it seemed to him, he awoke at the mid-noon of the night, and

he was sitting, not in his own house, but upon the roof of the royal

palace, looking down on the gliding Jumna, where the low moon slept in

silver, and the light was alone upon the water; and there were no boats,

but sleep and dream, hovering hand-in-hand, moved upon the air, and his

heart was dilated in the great silence.

Yet he knew well that he waked in some supernatural sphere: for his eyes

could see across the river as if the opposite shore lay at his feet;

and he could distinguish every leaf on every tree, and the flowers

moon-blanched and ghost-like. And there, in the blackest shade of the

pippala boughs, he beheld a faint light like a pearl; and looking with

unspeakable anxiety, he saw within the light, slowly growing, the figure

of a lady exceedingly glorious in majesty and crowned with a rayed crown

of mighty jewels of white and golden splendour. Her gold robe fell to

her feet, and--very strange to tell--her feet touched not the ground,

but hung a span’s length above it, so that she floated in the air.

But the marvel of marvels was her face--not, indeed, for its beauty,

though that transcended all, but for its singular and compassionate

sweetness, wherewith she looked toward the Palace beyond the river as if

it held the heart of her heart, while death and its river lay between.

And Ustad Isa said:--“O dream, if this sweetness be but a dream, let me

never wake! Let me see forever this exquisite work of Allah the Maker,

before whom all the craftsmen are as children! For my knowledge is as

nothing, and I am ashamed in its presence.”

And as he spoke, she turned those brimming eyes on him, and he saw her

slowly absorbed into the glory of the moonlight; but as she faded into

dream, he beheld, slowly rising, where her feet had hung in the blessed

air, a palace of whiteness, warm as ivory, cold as chastity, domes and

cupolas, slender minars, arches of marble fretted into sea-foam, screen

within screen of purest marble, to hide the sleeping beauty of a great

Queen--silence in the heart of it, and in every line a harmony beyond

all music. Grace was about it--the grace of a Queen who prays and does

not command; who, seated in her royalty yet inclines all hearts to love.

And he saw that its grace was her grace, and its soul her soul, and

that she gave it for the consolation of the Emperor.

And he fell on his face and worshipped the Master-Builder of the

Universe, saying,--“Praise cannot express thy Perfection. Thine Essence

confounds thought. Surely I am but the tool in the hand of the Builder.”

And when he awoke, he was lying in his own secret chamber, but beside

him was a drawing such as the craftsmen make of the work they have

imagined in their hearts. And it was the Palace of the Tomb.

Henceforward, how should he waver? He was as a slave who obeys his

master, and with haste he summoned to Agra his Army of Beauty.

Then were assembled all the master craftsmen of India and of the outer

world. From Delhi, from Shiraz, even from Baghdad and Syria, they came.

Muhammad Hanif, the wise mason, came from Kandahar, Muhammad Sayyid from

Mooltan. Amanat Khan, and other great writers of the holy Koran, who

should make the scripts of the Book upon fine marble. Inlayers from

Kanauj, with fingers like those of the Spirits that bowed before Solomon

the King, who should make beautiful the pure stone with inlay of jewels,

as did their forefathers for the Rajah of Mewar; mighty dealers with

agate, cornelian, and lapis lazuli. Came also, from Bokhara, Ata

Muhammad and Shakri Muhammad, that they might carve the lilies of the

field, very glorious, about that Flower of the World. Men of India, men

of Persia, men of the outer lands, they came at the bidding of Ustad

Isa, that the spirit of his vision might be made manifest.

And a great council was held among these servants of beauty, so they

made a model in little of the glory that was to be, and laid it at the

feet of the Shah-in-Shah; and he allowed it, though not as yet fully

discerning their intent. And when it was approved, Ustad Isa called to

him a man of Kashmir; and the very hand of the Creator was upon this

man, for he could make gardens second only to the Gardens of Paradise,

having been born by that Dal Lake where are those roses of the earth,

the Shalimar and the Nishat Bagh; and to him said Ustad Isa,--

“Behold, Rain Lal Kashmiri, consider this design! Thus and thus shall

a white palace, exquisite in perfection, arise on the banks of Jumna.

Here, in little, in this model of sandalwood, see what shall be.

Consider these domes, rounded as the Bosom of Beauty, recalling the

mystic fruit of the lotus flower. Consider these four minars that stand

about them like Spirits about the Throne. And remembering that all this

shall stand upon a great dais of purest marble, and that the river shall

be its mirror, repeating to everlasting its loveliness, make me a garden

that shall be the throne room to this Queen.”

And Ram Lal Kashmiri salaamed and said, “Obedience!” and went forth and

pondered night and day, journeying even over the snows of the Pir Panjal

to Kashmir, that he might bathe his eyes in beauty where she walks,

naked and divine, upon the earth, and he it was who imagined the black

marble and white that made the way of approach.

So grew the palace that should murmur, like a seashell, in the ear of

the world the secret of love.

Veiled had that loveliness been in the shadow of the palace; but now the

sun should rise upon it and turn its ivory to gold, should set upon

it and flush its snow with rose. The moon should lie upon it like the

pearls upon her bosom, the visible grace of her presence breathe about

it, the music of her voice hover in the birds and trees of the garden.

Times there were when Ustad Isa despaired lest even these mighty

servants of beauty should miss perfection. Yet it grew and grew, rising

like the growth of a flower.

So on a certain day it stood completed, and beneath the small tomb in

the sanctuary, veiled with screens of wrought marble so fine that

they might lift in the breeze,--the veils of a Queen,--slept the Lady

Arjemand; and above her a narrow coffer of white marble, enriched in

a great script with the Ninety-Nine Wondrous Names of God. And the

Shah-in-Shah, now grey and worn, entered and, standing by her, cried in

a loud voice,--“I ascribe to the Unity, the only Creator, the perfection

of his handiwork made visible here by the hand of mortal man. For the

beauty that was secret in my Palace is here revealed; and the Crowned

Lady shall sit forever upon the banks of the Jumna River. It was love

that commanded this Tomb.”

And the golden echo carried his voice up into the high dome, and it died

away in whispers of music.

But Ustad Isa standing far off in the throng (for what are craftsmen

in the presence of the mighty?), said softly in his beard, “It was Love

also that built, and therefore it shall endure.”

Now it is told that, on a certain night in summer, when the moon is

full, a man who lingers by the straight water, where the cypresses stand

over their own image, may see a strange marvel--may see the Palace of

the Taj dissolve like a pearl, and so rise in a mist into the moonlight;

and in its place, on her dais of white marble, he shall see the Lady

Arjemand, Mumtaz-i-Mahal, the Chosen of the Palace, stand there in the

white perfection of beauty, smiling as one who hath attained unto the

Peace. For she is its soul.

And kneeling before the dais, he shall see Ustad Isa, who made this body

of her beauty; and his face is hidden in his hands.

“HOW GREAT IS THE GLORY OF KWANNON!”