“ALL THIS IN THE SPACE OF ONE NIGHT.”
The girls took the seat in the window the men had vacated, and sprawled
there like sirens on a rock. Even the fan-girls joined them. It was
quite clear there was a secret in the air; the ostentatious way in which
the girls kept up a low-voiced chatter to show they were not listening
was proof enough of that. Vasantasena lay on the wide divan with a
cushion beneath her breast and her chin on both hands, considering
Ommony for several minutes before she spoke, presumably curious to know
why he had come with Maitraya; possibly she thought the silence and the
stare would break him down and make him offer an explanation, but he met
her eyes with challenging indifference. Silence is the only safe answer
to Silence.
“Tsiang Samdup,” she said at last, “let the girls put your mat here in
front of me.”
But the Lama would not move. He shook his head. And Samding spoke:
“The holy Lama knows where it is best to sit. He is not to be moved for
convenience.”
The voice was no more astonishing than is anything else that sets a
key-note. It was like the rhythm of a tuning-fork. It changed the
key—the very atmosphere, asserting fundamental fact, to which
everything else must adjust itself or be out of harmony. Vasantasena
raised her eyebrows, but yielded and changed her position so as to face
the Lama, signing to Ommony to squat down on a cushion beside Maitraya;
which was disappointing, because it prevented him from watching the
Lama’s face. He could see Samding’s profile beyond Maitraya’s only
through the corner of his eye, but he marveled at that; it was as
beautiful as a figure of the Buddha done in porcelain.
“If I am to let my piece of jade go,” Vasantasena asked at last, “what
reward have I?”
“None,” said the Lama; and that was another fundamental statement,
issuing in a voice like the gong that starts the engines. It left
nothing whatever to argue about.
“Then why should I do it?” Vasantasena asked.
“Because you wish to do it, and the wish is wise,” the Lama answered, as
if he were replying to the question of a little child.
“How do you know I wish to do it?”
“How do you know you are alive?” the Lama retorted.
Vasantasena laughed. “I believe you know where you can sell it!” she
said, in an obvious effort to lower the conversation to a plane on which
she might have the advantage.
“I know you do not believe that,” said the Lama.
Vasantasena sighed. “How do you learn _such_ knowledge?” she asked. “You
seem to know everything. I am not ignorant. A hundred men come here, and
none of them can make a fool of me, but—”
“Perhaps you are not a fool,” the Lama interrupted.
“No, I am not a fool. I can whisper a word here and a word there, and
some of the evil that would have been done dies still-born—and some of
the good that might never have been born has birth. And as for me, what
does it matter? And yet—sometimes I think it does matter about me. And
sometimes I think I will give all my money to the poor—”
“And rob them,” said the Lama.
“Rob them of what?” She stared at him blankly.
“Of the moment. It is not wise to deprive them of the moment. At the
moment of our utmost need, we learn.”
“Yours is a heartless creed,” she retorted, glancing at the money in the
bowl beside her. “That money would feed a thousand people.”
“Nothing is heartless,” said the Lama. “It is better to eat consequences
now than to put off the day of retribution. Better the sting of an
insect now than a serpent’s bite a year hence. Better an experience in
this life than a thousand-fold the bitterness in lives to come.”
“What says the Bhat to that?” she asked suddenly, glancing at Ommony,
and Samding came out of his immobility to give one swift searching
glance sidewise.
Privilege has its disadvantages. It is one of the obligations of a Bhat
that when appealed to he must say something; and the quicker he says it,
the better for his reputation.
“I am not your priest. You would like to quote me against him, but I am
only interested in learning why I was brought here,” Ommony answered.
Vasantasena sneered. “Just like a Bhat! You think of nothing but your
own convenience. Well, I am glad there is none of your money in my
birthday bowl. Rather I will give you some of it. Here—help yourself.”
“It is unclean money,” said Ommony, falling back on the caste-rules that
a Bhat may observe if he chooses, even if the other Brahmans refuse him
recognition.
“Is that true?” she asked the Lama. “This is not all. I am rich. I have
lakhs and lakhs.”
“It is yours,” the Lama answered. “It is your responsibility.”
“Well,” she said, “as I told you before, if you will take it all, you
may have it. I am about to become _Sanyasin_[24]. I think the piece of
jade will help me more than all my money. I will keep the jade.”
“I will not take your money,” said the Lama. “Nor can you escape
responsibility. There is a Middle Way, and the middle of it lies before
you.”
Vasantasena frowned, her chin on both hands, studying the Lama’s face.
His bright old eyes looked straight back at her out of a mass of
wrinkles, but he did not move; if he smiled, there were too many
wrinkles for any one to be quite sure of it.
“Well—I will call the girls,” she said at last. “I will test you. You
must tell me from which of them I received the piece of jade.”
She clapped her hands and the girls came hurrying from the far end of
the room, standing in a line self-consciously. They were used to being
admired, and it was quite in keeping with the probabilities that every
one of them had been bought and sold at some early stage of her career,
but there was novelty in this ordeal, and they did not seem to know what
to make of it.
“That one,” said Vasantasena, nodding at the nearest, “is much the most
popular.”
“She has no other merit,” said the Lama, and the girl looked
bewildered—piqued.
“And that one at the other end is the cleverest. She has the quickest
wit of all of them. She might have stolen it.”
“If so she would have kept it,” said the Lama, watching the girls’
faces. “The fourth from this end. She is the one. Let the others go.”
At a nod from Vasantasena eight girls returned to the window-seat and
one stood still. She was the same who had admitted Maitraya and Ommony,
only now all her self-possession had departed; she seemed to fear the
Lama as a cornered dove fears a snake. She was trembling.
“Why are you afraid?” the Lama asked, as gently as if he were talking to
a woman he would woo; but the girl made a gesture to her mistress for
protection from him.
“She is afraid because you have read rightly,” said Vasantasena. “I,
too, am afraid. Are you in league with gods or devils?”
“That is not well,” said the Lama. “Whom have _I_ harmed?”
“You are too wise,” said Vasantasena.
“Macauley the Eurasian had the stone,” the Lama went on in a booming
voice. “A certain person gave it to him in a package yesterday, to take
it to Simla and thence to Tilgaun. That would have been well. But
Macauley the Eurasian was weak and dallied with a woman—”
“No Eurasian has _ever_ been in my house!” Vasantasena interrupted,
flaring.
“And the woman had a husband; and the husband was a Sudra[25] who was
seeking education from a Brahman, so he gave the piece of jade to _him_.
And the Brahman came hither, and boasted—and took opium—”
“He brought the drug with him. I _never_ gave any man opium!”
Vasantasena interrupted.
“And _she_ took the stone from him and brought it to _you_. All this in
the space of one night,” said the Lama.
“But how do you _know_?
“I do know.”
“How do you know it was this girl!”
“She is the only one who would have given it to you. Any of the others
would have kept it.”
Ommony managed to master his emotions somehow, but it was not easy, for
here was proof of a system of spying that out-spied the Secret Service.
How had the Lama learned that the stone had been entrusted to McGregor,
to be given in turn to Macauley, to be taken to Tilgaun? Given that much
information in the first place it might have been comparatively easy to
trace the stone afterward, but—McGregor had surely not talked. Macauley
and McGregor’s _sais_ were the only possibilities.
Vasantasena groped under the cushions and brought out the piece of
jade—the same piece that had been in Ommony’s possession; there was no
mistaking its peculiar shape, or the deep-sea green translucence. The
expression of Samding’s face changed for a moment; he actually blinked
and smiled, and the smile was as attractive as the marvel of the stone.
Vasantasena noticed it.
“Give me your _chela_ in exchange!” she said suddenly. “I could endure
that _chela_! He is almost fit to be a god. He needs only passion to
awaken him. I can not understand this stone, which makes me dizzy to
look into it, and dark with fear of myself. The _chela_ makes me feel
there is a future. I can look into his eyes and know that all wisdom is
attainable. I will teach him passion, and he shall teach me pure
desire.”
The Lama chuckled engagingly. His wrinkles multiplied and his smile was
as full of amusement as a Chinese fisherman’s. “Ask _him_,” he said.
Vasantasena smiled at Samding—that same smile that had explained the
secret of her influence. It promised unrestraint, indulgence without
limit, and thereafter forgiveness. She held up the stone in her right
hand, ready to exchange.
“A bargain?” she asked eagerly.
“No”—one monosyllable, abrupt and clear—F natural exactly in the
middle of the note. A golden gong could not have answered more finally
or with less regard for consequences.
Vasantasena started as if stung. Her eyes flashed and her mood changed
into savagery like a stirred snake’s. The girl who was still standing
before her shrank and half-smothered a scream. Maitraya ducked instantly
with his face behind his hands. Vasantasena flung the stone at Samding
straight and hard. It struck him in the breast, but if it hurt, he gave
no sign. He covered the stone with both hands for a moment, as if
caressing it, wiped it carefully on a corner of his robe, and passed it
to the Lama, who secreted it in his bosom as matter-of-factly as if the
entire proceeding were exactly what he had expected.
“Go!” Vasantasena ordered hoarsely. “Begone from here! Never darken my
door again! Go, all of you—you, and you—what is a dog of an actor
doing here? A Bhat! A Bhat—a casteless Brahman! You defile my house! A
gang of devil-worshipers! Girls—call the men-servants and throw them
out!”
But the Lama was quite unhurried. He got up from the mat and blessed
Vasantasena sonorously in Tibetan, which she did not understand; it
might have been a curse for all she knew. Samding rolled up the mat.
Maitraya got behind the Lama for protection; and the girls hesitated to
obey the order to use violence on any one as sacred as a Lama, or as
dangerous as a Bhat. The Lama led the way out of the room with his
skirts swinging majestically, and Ommony brought up the rear, aware that
the danger was by no means over. He paused in the door and met
Vasantasena’s furious stare.
“Shall _I_ summon the guests from below?” he inquired; for that was the
one risk he wanted to avoid. If he proposed it, she might forbid. “They
would like to hear me sing a song of this!” he added.
“Go!” she screamed. “I will have you stabbed! I will have you—”
“Shall I sing to them in the courtyard?” he asked; and as she choked,
trying to force new threats out of her throat, he shut the door behind
him and hurried to follow the Lama, dreading what mood might overtake
her during the minute or two before they could reach the street.
But the Lama would not make haste, although Maitraya urged him in
sibilant undertones. In the courtyard he chose to think the greetings
called out to Maitraya were intended for himself and bowed, bestowing
blessings right and left. Then solemnly and very slowly, as if walking
were as mathematically exact a process as the precession of the equinox,
he led the way into the outer courtyard, where he stood for a moment and
studied the fountain as if it contained the answer to the riddle of the
universe. The sound of running footsteps did not break his meditation,
or upset the equanimity of Samding, but Maitraya, glancing
over-shoulder, started for the gate, and Ommony, muttering “Oh, my God!”
had to steel himself not to follow. The two enormous sashed and turbaned
janitors who kept the stairway to Vasantasena’s upper room came shouting
from the inner court—shouting to the man on guard at the outer gate;
and Ommony’s blood ran cold.
But they stopped shouting when they caught sight of the Lama—stopped
running—stopped gesticulating. Very humbly they approached him,
offering a present from Vasantasena—gold in a silken bag, and a smaller
bag of gold for Gupta Rao the Bhat, with a request that he should
remember the donor kindly. They pressed the presents—followed to the
gate, imploring, swearing their mistress would take deep offense and
think it an ill-omen if the gold were not accepted. When the Lama and
Ommony persisted in refusing they tried to force both presents on
Samding, and even followed to the street, where they snatched the
flowers that were tucked into the carving of the arch and thrust them
into the Lama’s hands. Not until a strange, old-fashioned one-horse
carriage with shuttered sides drew up at the gate and the Lama and
Samding stepped into it, signing to Ommony and Maitraya to follow, was
it possible to escape from the clamorous importunity; and even when the
carriage drove away the voices followed after.
-----
[24] In a sense this means “taking the veil,” although the process is
almost exactly the opposite. Just as men so often do in India, women
sometimes renounce all worldly possessions and become wandering hermits,
living in caves and practising inhumanly severe austerities. Such women,
whatever their previous occupation may have been, are deeply venerated.
[25] Some Brahmans consent to teach the Sudra castes because of the
enormous “gifts” they receive for doing so, but the practise is frowned
on by the pundits and the guilty Brahmans are considered degraded,
although not outcasts.
The man who knows he is ignorant is at no disadvantage if he
permits a wise man to do the thinking; because the wise man
knows that neither advantage to one or disadvantage to another
comes at all within the scope of wisdom, and he will govern
himself accordingly. But he who seeks to outwit wisdom adds to
ignorance presumption; and that is a combination that the gods
do not love.
From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.