"WEEPING MAY ENDURE FOR A NIGHT, BUT JOY COMETH IN THE MORNING."
A year has passed since the occurrence of the fearful events here
related.
The river in front of the palace is thronged with a numerous procession
of gayly gilded boats and barges.
It is the morning after the cremation of the Duke Chow P'haya Mândtree.
The king, with sixty or more nobles and princes of the land, all armed
and in regal attire, presides in the grand hall of the late duke's
palace.
The duchess and her two sons, and a fair sprinkling of Siamese ladies
and children, are here assembled. A vast number of serfs, soldiers,
pages, and women are in waiting.
Around the deep embrasure formed by the windows in the massive wall,
there ran a low seat, the space thus occupied being raised as a kind of
dais above the general level of the floor. Here were seated on either
side of the wall the principal officers, male and female, of the duke's
household, headed by the priests of Brahma and of Buddha, who were to
play a part in the important drama of the day.
The hall is hung with tapestry of the most original design, for the
birds and beasts and flowers which are pictured there had surely never
prototypes, unless in some lost geological formation, though patterns
very like them seemed to be unanimously adopted as models by all the
fair embroideresses of Siam.
In the middle of the dais were two ducal chairs of state. On one was
seated a young girl, very closely veiled, on the other the young duke,
now Chow P'haya Dhamaphat; over them is spread a canopy of white
muslin, decorated with the sweetest white flowers.
The girl, beneath her white veil, thinks it all perfection, and her
eyes light up, and her cheeks burn, and her heart beats in perplexing
fashion; and Dhamaphat believes that he alone holds the key to the
temple of Elysium.
It is one of those rare occasions when the whole assembly is rapt in
the regions of fancy.
The old priest, P'hra Chow Sâduman is there too, and he often raises
his eyes in admiration, and his heart in prophecy of a propitious
marriage. At length he begins the grand, old, harmonious nuptial chant,
and all the priests of Buddha and of Brahma join in sonorous concert,
and through the canopy over the happy couple the typical waters of
consecration, in which had been previously infused certain leaves and
shrubs emblematic of purity, sweetness, and usefulness, are gently
showered.
And now Smâyâtee's earnest friend, Mai Chandra, with her tender
mother-in-law, the duchess, conduct her, all dripping, by a screened
passage, to a chamber magnificently appointed, where she is divested of
her former apparel, and arrayed in robes becoming her now lofty station.
Then Chow P'haya Dhamaphat is ushered in. At the moment of his entrance
Smâyâtee rises to throw herself at his feet, according to the custom of
the country; but he prevents her, embraces her in the European manner,
and presents her, standing upright by his side, to his relatives, with
which the ceremony for the day terminates.
There is a general move towards the gateway by which P'hra Chow Sâduman
is to pass. All, even the king, press to the front and fall on their
knees to ask his blessing. He blesses them in a broken voice; he is
strangely moved to-day.
Yet another year, and in this same palace nowhere will you find a
trace of either Dhamaphat, Smâyâtee, or the gentle duchess. A younger
brother fills his place, and is lord over all, following closely in the
footsteps of his late father.
Far away, near the suburbs of Bijree Puree, i.e. the Diamond City,
stands a lovely little cottage, where the ex-duke, his mother, and his
sweet wife reside. He has freely resigned all the splendor and state of
his position for the quiet and peace of a country life; and nothing is
wanting here. The grand old trees are dressed in tender green, and the
bright sun touches with its golden-yellow light every nook and corner
of the lovely scene around.
The cottage within is furnished partly in the European and partly in
the Oriental style. There are here no slaves, but hired servants, who
have an air of freedom, loyalty, and comfort about them very delightful
to witness.
In an inner chamber is Smâyâtee, rocking a little boy to sleep in a
rude Laotian crib, with a mystic Hindoo triform suspended over it,--she
cannot make up her mind to put him into the European cradle which
stands close by; she fears some secret evil influence may lurk about
its pretentious aspect,--and the boy, with his finger in his mouth,
looks at his mother as if he felt she was divinely beautiful, and could
not bring himself to shut his dreamy eyes for the light upon her face.
[Illustration: SMÂYÂTEE.]
Nai Dhamaphat has become a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, but his
pagan wife cannot be persuaded to forsake the gods who have brought her
so much happiness, to whom her father sacrificed his brave life, and
therefore she has raised an altar in her nursery to Dâvee and Dhupiyâ
and Indra. Her father's ashes, too, rest here in a golden pagoda;
but with the true, loving, tender veneration of her womanly nature,
she has exalted over them all, in a niche on either side of the altar,
an image of the Christ, and another of the Virgin Mary with her infant
Son in her arms. These, in their symmetry and beauty, are to her the
most beautiful of the gods upon her altar. In those porcelain images of
the Christ, and the Mother with her tiny Infant, she feels that there
is something higher, purer, loftier, than in the forms of her own dear
gods, and she bows in worship, and trembles at the height to which her
thoughts of that Mother and her Son elevate her soul.
Her religion, you can see at a glance, is not a gloomy one like that
of her ancestors. There is a smile all over the chamber, and happiness
all over her sweet face. Loving everything in her purity, worshipping
everything in her humility, morning and evening she raises her eyes
and her heart from those sombre old gods of hers to the tender ones of
her husband; and this quiet pagan city has never before been lighted
up with such a gleam of heaven upon earth as when her evening prayer
bursts into song:--
"To Thee are all my acts, my days,
And all my lore, and all my praise,
My food, my gifts, my sacrifice,
And all my helplessness and cries.
Dâvee! leave my spirit free,
And thy pure soul bequeath to me
Unshackled. Let me in thine essence share,
Let me dwell in thee forever,
And thou, O Dâvee! dwell in me."