"Captive to my bow and spear, little flower, but a slave for the king,
my master. For such is the law of Hind. He will love you--not being
altogether a fool. But perhaps you will not love him. Being but a
stammering virgin boy, perhaps he will heap your lap with all the
treasures in the world. Being an honest gentleman, perhaps he will treat
you with respect and tenderness, with the sweet fairness of the blessed
gods. And perhaps--even then--you will not love him, little flower.
"Perhaps you will turn to the captain of horse as the moon rises like a
bubble of passion from the deep red of the sunset. Perhaps you will read
the meaning of the koel-bird's love-cry, the secret of the jessamine's
scent, the sweet, throbbing, winglike call of all the unborn children in
the heart and body and soul of Madusadan, captain of horse."
"A bold man, this captain of horse!" Vasantasena had smiled through her
tears, through the savage clang of battle.
"A reckless man--yet a humble man, little flower. Reckless and humble as
the moist spring monsoon that sweeps over the young shoots of
bluish-white rice. For"--here he had put her in front of him, on the
curve of the peaked, bossed saddle--"will the rice ripen to the touch of
the savage, clamoring monsoon?"
And he had drawn slightly away from her. He had not even kissed her,
though they were shielded from all the world by the folds of the great
battle flag that was stiff with gold, stiffer with darkening gore. In
the fluttering heart of Vasantasena rose a great longing for this
insolent warrior who spoke of love--and touched her not.
_This is the tale of the grape that is never pressed, that never
loses its sweetness, though white hands squeeze its pulp, day
after day, night after night._
_This is the tale of the book that is never read to the end,
though eyes, moist and smarting with longing, read its pages
till the candles gutter out in the gray dawn wind and the young
sun sings its cosmic song out of the East, purple and golden._
_This is the tale of love which rises like a mist of ineffable
calm, then sweeps along on the red wings of eternal desire--the
tale of love that is a chain forged of steel and scent, a chain
of unbreakable steel mated to the pollen of the glistening
areka-flower._
_LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_
"See!" said Shivadevi, the old nurse, to Vasantasena, who shimmered
among the green, silken cushions of her couch like a tiger-beetle in a
nest of fresh leaves. "Vikramavati, the king, has bowed low before you.
He has removed from your hands and ankles the pearl and gold fetters. He
has taken off your robe of mourning and has thrown about your shoulders
a sari woven of moonbeams and running water. He has seated you beside
him on the peacock throne, as a free woman--not a slave."
"Yes," replied Vasantasena. "He has placed his head and his heart on the
sill of the door of love. He brought me his soul as an offering. And
I"--she yawned--"I love him not."
"He has heaped your lap with many treasures," went on the old woman.
"Jasper from the Punjab has he brought to you, rubies from Burma,
turquoises from Thibet, star-sapphires and alexandrites from Ceylon,
flawless emeralds from Afghanistan, white crystal from Malwa, onyx from
Persia, amethyst from Tartary, green jade and white jade from Amoy,
garnets from Bundelkhand, red corals from Socotra, chalcedon from Syria,
malachite from Kafiristan, pearls from Ramesvaram, lapis lazuli from
Jaffra, yellow diamonds from Poonah, black agate from Dynbhulpoor!"
Vasantasena shrugged her slim shoulders disdainfully.
"Yes," she said. "He put the nightingale in a cage of gold and
exclaimed: 'Behold, this is thy native land!' Then he opened the
door--and the nightingale flew away to the green land, the free land,
never regretting the golden cage."
"He grovels before you in the dust of humility. He says that his life is
a blackened crucible of sin and vanity and regret, but that his love
for you is the golden bead at the bottom of the crucible. He has given
you freedom. He has given you friendship. He has given you tenderness
and affection and respect."
"Yes," smiled Vasantasena. "He has given me his everything, his all.
Without cavil, without stint. Freedom he has given me, keeping the
bitter water of humility as his own portion. But all his generosity, his
fairness, his humility, his decency--all his love has not opened the
inner door to the shrine of my heart. In the night he comes, with the
flaming torches of his passion; but my heart is as cold as clay, as cold
as freezing water when the snow wind booms down from the Himalayas. The
madness of the storm and the waves is upon him, but there is no
answering surge in the tide of my soul. In my heart he sees the world
golden and white and flashing with laughter. In his heart I see the
world grim and drab and haggard and seamed with tears. For--generous,
fair, unstinting--he is also selfish and foolish, being a man unwise in
the tortuous, glorious ways of love. Daily he tells me that I am the
well of his love. But never does he ask me if his love is the stone of
my contentment."
"Perhaps he does not dare," cackled the old nurse.
"Being modest?"
"Yes."
"Only the selfish are modest, caring naught for the answering spark in
the heart of the loved one. And the love of woman is destroyed by humble
selfishness as the religion of a Brahmin by serving kings, the milk of a
cow by distant pasturage, and wealth by committing injustice. There is
no worth in such wealth--nor in such love. This is Veda-truth."
And in a high, proud voice she added:
"I love Madusadan, captain of horse. I will kiss his red, mocking lips
and bend to the thrill of his strong body. Pure he is to all the world,
to all women--so the bazaar gossip says--but I, and I alone, shall light
the lamp of passion in his heart. Free am I! But the unsung music in his
heart shall be a loved fetter around mine. Clasped in his arms, life and
death shall unite in me in an unbreakable chain.
"I will bury my hands deep in the savage, tangled forest that is his
soul and follow therein the many trails. I will read the message of his
hooded, brown eyes, the trembling message of his great, hairy hands. His
heart is a crimson malati-flower, and mine the tawny orchid spotted with
purple that winds around its roots."
"Gray is the hair on his temples. He is the king's senior by ten years."
"Years of wisdom," laughed Vasantasena. "Years of waiting. Years of
garnering strength."
"He is not as kindly as Vikramavati, nor as great, nor as generous."
"But he is wise--wise! He knows the heart of woman--the essence, the
innermost secret of woman."
"And that is--"
"Patience in achieving. Strength in holding. Wisdom in--_not_ demanding
unless the woman offers and gives sign."
And she went out into the garden that stretched back of the palace in
wild, scented profusion, bunching its majestic, columnar aisles of
banyan figs as a foil for the dainty, pale green tracery of the
nim-trees, the quivering, crimson domes of the peepals bearded to the
waist with gray and orange moss, where the little, bold-eye gekko
lizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumed
fretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead with
burnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom she
had summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veil
slipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressed
her red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child.
_The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night,
says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out
of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the
nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the
eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion._
_You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You
cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising
to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon._
_Love's play is worship._
_Love's achievement is a rite._
_Love's secret is never read._
_Always around the corner is another light, a new light--golden,
twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp._
_Reach to it--as you never will--and there is the end of the
chain, the end of the tale._
_LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_
"You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he saw
Vasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse.
The girl smiled.
"It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I."
"I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love."
"As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in his
hand."
"I gave you freedom. I gave you the wealth of all Hindustan, the wealth
of the outer lands. I gave you my soul, my heart, my body, my strength,
my ambition, my faith, my secret self."
"You gave me everything--because you love me. I gave you
nothing--because I do not love you."
"Love can do the impossible," gravely said the captain of horse, while
Vasantasena nestled more closely to his arms. "It was because of love
that Vishnu, the Creator, changed into a dwarf and descended to the
lowermost regions, and there captured Bali, the Raja of Heaven and of
Earth. It was because of love that, as Ramachandra, helped by the monkey
folk, he built a bridge between India and Ceylon, and that, as Krishna,
he lifted up the great mountain Golonddhan in the palm of his hand as an
umbrella with which to shield his loved one against the splintering,
merciless rays of Surya, the Sun, the jealous, yellow god.
"Love can do all things--except one. For love can never create love,
wise king. Love can force the stream to flow up-hill, but it cannot
create the stream when there is no water."
Silence dropped like a shadow of fate, and Vikramavati turned slowly
and walked toward the palace.
"To-morrow," he said over his shoulder, in an even, passionless voice,
"you shall die a death of lingering agony."
Madusadan laughed lightly.
"There is neither to-day nor to-morrow nor yesterday for those who
love," he replied. "There is only the pigeon-blue of the sunlit sky, the
crimson and gold of the harvest-fields, the laughter of the far waters.
Love fills the cup of infinity."
"To-morrow you will be dead," the king repeated dully.
And again Madusadan laughed lightly.
"And what then, O wise king, trained in the rigid logic of Brahmin and
Parohitas?" he asked. "Will our death do away with the fact that once we
lived and, living, loved each other? Will the scarlet of our death wipe
out the streaked gray of your jealousy? Will our death give you the love
of Vasantasena, which never was yours in life? Will our death rob our
souls of the memory of the great sweetness which was ours, the beauty,
the glory, the never-ending thrill of fulfillment?"
"Love ceases with death."
"Love, wise king, is unswayed by the rhythm of either life--or death.
Love--that surges day after day, night after night, as year after year
the breast of the earth heaves to the spring song of the ripening rice,
to the golden fruit of the mango groves.
"Death? A fig for it, wise king!
"Let me but live until to-morrow in the arms of my loved one, and the
sweetness of our love shall be an unbreakable chain--on through a
thousand deaths, a thousand new births, straight into Nirvana--into
Brahm's silver soul!"
"Ahee!" echoed Vasantasena. "Let death come and the wind of life lull;
let the light fail and the flowers wilt and droop; let the stars gutter
out one by one and the cosmos crumble in the gray storm of final
oblivion--yet will our love be an unbreakable chain, defying you, O
king--defying the world--defying the very gods--"
"But not defying the laws of nature, as interpreted by a wise Brahmin!"
a shrill, age-cracked voice broke in, and Deo Singh, the old prime
minister who had come down the garden trail on silent, slippered feet,
stepped into the open.
"No! By Shiva and by Shiva! Not the laws of nature, the eternal laws of
logic, as interpreted by a priest well versed in Sruti and Smriti--in
revelation and tradition. Not the laws of nature, rational and
evidential, physical and metaphysical, analytical and synthetical,
philosophical, and philological, as expounded by a Parohita familiar
with the Vedas and the blessed wisdom of the ancient Upanishads of
Hind!"
He salaamed low before Vikramavati.
"It is written in the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Books, the Lay of Brahm
the Lord, that each crime shall find condign punishment, be it committed
by high caste or low caste, by prince or peasant, by raja or ryot. To
each his punishment, says the Karma, which is fate!"
"And--these two?" demanded Vikramavati. "What punishment shall be meted
out to the faithless woman and the faithless captain of horse, Brahmin?"
Deo Singh spread out his fingers like the sticks of a fan.
"They have chosen their own sentence, these worshipers of Kartikeya, God
of Rogues and Rascals," he chuckled. "Of a chain they spoke. An
unbreakable chain that defies all laws, except belike"--again he laughed
deep in his throat--"the wise laws of nature. Weld them together with
such a chain, forged by a master smith, made so strong that not even a
tough-thewed captain of horse may break it with the clouting muscles of
his arms and back. A chain, ten feet long, so that they may never be far
away from each other, so that they may always be able to slake the hot,
turbulent thirst of love, so that they may never have to wait for the
thrill of fulfillment as a beggar waits at life's feast, so that day and
night, each hour, each minute, each second they may revel in the
sunshine of their love, so that never they may have to stand helpless
before the flood-tide of their desire.
"Grant them their wish, O king, being wise and merciful; and then lock
them into a room containing the choicest food, the sweetest drinks, the
whitest flowers, the softest, silkenest couch draped with purple and
gold. A room such as lovers dream of--and fools! Leave them there
together for three days, three nights, three sobbing, crunching, killing
eternities! With no sound, no touch, no scent, no taste, but their own
voices, their own hearts and souls and minds and bodies! And at the end
of the three days----"
"Yes?" asked Vikramavati.
"They will have suffered the worst punishment, the worst agony on earth.
Slowly, slowly for three days, three nights, three eternities, they will
have watched the honey of their love turn, drop by drop, into gall.
Their passion--slowly, slowly--will turn into loathing; their desire
into disgust. For no love in the world can survive the chain of
monotony!"
* * * * *
Thus it was done.
A chain of unbreakable steel, ten feet long, was welded to the girl's
right wrist and the man's left, and they were locked into a house--a
house such as lovers dream of--that was guarded day and night by armed
warriors, who let none within hailing distance, whose windows were
shuttered and curtained so that not even the golden eye of the sun might
look in, and around which a vast circular clearing had been made with
torch and spade and scimitar so that neither bird nor insect nor beast
of forest and jungle might live there and no sound drift into the
lovers' room except, perhaps, the crooning sob of the dawn wind; and at
the end of the third night carefully, stealthily, silently the king and
the Brahmin walked up to the house and pressed their ears against the
keyhole, and they heard the man's voice saying:
"I love you, little flower of my happiness! I love you--you who are all
my dreams come true! When I look into your face the sun rises, and the
waters bring the call of the deep, and the boat of my life rocks on the
dancing waves of passion!"
And then the girl's answer, clear, serene:
"And I love _you_, Madusadan, captain of horse! You have broken the
fetters of my loneliness, the shackles of my longing! I waited, waited,
waited--but you came, and I shall never let you go again! You have
banished all the drab, sad dreams of the past! You have made your heart
a prison for my love, and you have tossed away the key into the
turbulent whirlpool of my eternal desire!"
_"Did the chain gall them?" asked the Foolish Virgin, who had
come to Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in Tartary and milk
brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East and the North and
Captain General of the Golden Horde._
_"No, Foolish Virgin," replied Jehan Tugluk Khan. "Their love
could not have lived without the chain. It was their love which
WAS the chain--made it, held it, welded it, eternal, unbreaking,
unbreakable. Ten feet long was the chain. Each foot of
steel--eternal, unbreaking, unbreakable--was a link of their
love, and these links were: Passion, patience, completion,
friendship, tolerance, understanding, tenderness, forgiveness,
service, humor."_
_This is the end of the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was
free in her own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who
plucked the white rose without fearing the thorns._
_And, says the tale, if you would make your chain doubly
unbreakable, add another foot to it, another link. There is no
word for it. But, by the strength and sense of it, you must
never lull your love to sleep in the soft cradle of too great
security._
_For love demands eternal vigilance._
_LISTEN, O AZZIA, O BELOVED, TO MY JATAKA!_