The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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L. Adams Beck >> The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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"These gardens are fair," said the Empress after a respectful
silence, moving her fan illustrated with the emblem of
Immortality - the Ho Bird.
"Fair indeed," returned the Emperor. - "It might be supposed that
all sorrow and disturbance would be shut without the Forbidden
Precincts. Yet it is not so. And though the figures of my ladies
moving among the flowers appear at this distance instinct with
joy, yet -"
He was silent.
"They know not," said the Empress with solemnity "that death
entered the Forbidden Precincts but last night. A disembodied
spirit has returned to its place and doubtless exists in bliss."
"Indeed?" returned the Yellow Emperor with indifference - "yet if
the spirit is absorbed into the Source whence it came, and the
bones have crumbled into nothingness, where does the Ego exist?
The dead are venerable, but no longer of interest."
"Not even when they were loved in life?" said the Empress,
caressing the bird in the cage with one jewelled finger, but
attentively observing her son from the corner of her august eye.
"They were; they are not," he remarked sententiously and stifling
a yawn; it was a drowsy afternoon. "But who is it that has
abandoned us? Surely not the Lady Ma - your Majesty's faithful
foster-mother?"
"A younger, a lovelier spirit has sought the Yellow Springs"
replied the trembling Empress. "I regret to inform your Majesty
that a sudden convulsion last night deprived the Lady A-Kuei of
life. I would not permit the news to reach you lest it should
break your august night's rest."
There was a silence, then the Emperor turned his eyes serenely
upon his Imperial Mother. "That the statement of my august Parent
is merely - let us say - allegoric - does not detract from its
interest. But had the Lady A-Kuei in truth departed to the Yellow
Springs I should none the less have received the news without
uneasiness. What though the sun set - is not the memory of his
light all surpassing?"
No longer could the Pearl Empress endure the excess of her
curiosity. Deeply kowtowing, imploring pardon, with raised hands
and tears which no son dare neglect, she besought the Emperor to
enlighten her as to this mystery, recounting his praises of the
lady and his admission that he had never beheld her, and all the
circumstances connected with this remark- able episode. She
omitted only, (from considerations of delicacy and others,) the
vigils of the Lady Ma in the Dragon Chamber. The Emperor,
sighing, looked upon the ground, and for a time was silent. Then
he replied as follows:
"Willingly would I have kept silence, but what child dare
withstand the plea of a parent? Is it necessary to inform the
Heavenly Empress that beauty seen is beauty made familiar and
that familiarity is the foe of admiration? How is it possible
that I should see the Princess of Feminine Propriety, for
instance, by night and day without becoming aware of her
imperfections as well as her graces? How awake in the night
without hearing the snoring of the White Jade Concubine and
considering the mouth from which it issues as the less lovely.
How partake of the society of any woman without finding her
chattering as the crane, avid of admiration, jealous, destructive
of philosophy, fatal to composure, fevered with curiosity; a
creature, in short, a little above the gibbon, but infinitely
below the notice of the sage, save as a temporary measure of
amusement in itself unworthy the philosopher. The faces of all
my ladies are known to me. All are fair and all alike. But one
night, as I lay in the Dragon Couch, lost in speculation,
absorbed in contemplation of the Yin and the Yang, the night
passed for the solitary dreamer as a dream. In the darkness of
the dawn I rose still dreaming, and departed to the Pearl
Pavilion in the garden, and there remained an hour viewing the
sunrise and experiencing ineffable opinions on the destiny of
man. Returning then to a couch which I believed to have been that
of the solitary philosopher I observed a depression where another
form had lain, and in it a jade hairpin such as is worn by my
junior beauties. Petrified with amazement at the display of such
reserve, such continence, such august self-restraint, I perceived
that, lost in my thoughts, I had had an unimagined companion and
that this gentle reminder was from her gentle hand. But whom? I
knew not. I then observed Lo Cheng the Court Artist in attendance
and immediately despatched him to make secret enquiry and
ascertain the name and circumstances of that beauty who, unknown,
had shared my vigil. I learnt on his return that it was the Lady
A-Kuei. I had entered the Dragon Chamber in a low moonlight, and
guessed not her presence. She spoke no word. Finding her
Imperial Master thus absorbed, she invited no attention, nor in
any way obtruded her beauties upon my notice. Scarcely did she
draw breath. Yet reflect upon what she might have done! The
night passed and I remained entirely unconscious of her presence,
and out of respect she would not sleep but remained reverently
and modestly awake, assisting, if it may so be expressed, at a
humble distance, in the speculations which held me prisoner. What
a pearl was here! On learning these details by Lo Cheng from her
own roseate lips, and remembering the unexampled temptation she
had resisted (for well she knew that had she touched the Emperor
the Philosopher had vanished) I despatched an august rescript to
this favored Lady, conferring on her the degree of Incomparable
Beauty of the First Rank. On condition of secrecy."
The Pearl Empress, still in deepest bewilderment, besought his
majesty to proceed. He did so, with his usual dignity.
"Though my mind could not wholly restrain its admiration, yet
secrecy was necessary, for had the facts been known, every lady,
from the Princess of Feminine Propriety to the Junior Beauty of
the Bed Chamber would henceforward have observed only silence and
a frigid decorum in the Dragon Bed Chamber. And though the
Emperor be a philosopher, yet a philosopher is still a man, and
there are moments when decorum -"
The Emperor paused discreetly; then resumed.
"The world should not be composed entirely of A-Kueis, yet in my
mind I behold the Incomparable Lady fair beyond expression. Like
the moon she sails glorious in the heavens to be adored only in
vision as the one woman who could respect the absorption of the
Emperor, and of whose beauty as she lay beside him the
philosopher could remain unconscious and therefore untroubled in
body. To see her, to find her earthly, would be an experience for
which the Emperor might have courage, but the philosopher never.
And attached to all this is a moral:"
The Pearl Empress urgently inquired its nature.
"Let the wisdom of my august parent discern it," said the Emperor
sententiously.
"And the future?" she inquired.
"The - let us call it parable -" said the Emperor politely -"with
which your Majesty was good enough to entertain me, has suggested
a precaution to my mind. I see now a lovely form moving among the
flowers. It is possible that it may be the Incomparable Lady, or
that at any moment I may come upon her and my ideal be shattered.
This must be safeguarded. I might command her retirement to her
native province, but who shall insure me against the weakness of
my own heart demanding her return? No. Let Your Majesty's words
spoken - well - in parable, be fulfilled in truth. I shall give
orders to the Chief Eunuch that the Incomparable Lady tonight
shall drink the Draught of Crushed Pearls, and be thus restored
to the sphere that alone is worthy of her. Thus are all anxieties
soothed, and the honours offered to her virtuous spirit shall be
a glorious repayment of the ideal that will ever illuminate my
soul."
The Empress was speechless. She had borne the Emperor in her
womb, but the philosopher outsoared her comprehension. She
retired, leaving his Majesty in a reverie, endeavoring herself to
grasp the moral of which he had spoken, for the guidance of
herself and the ladies concerned. But whether it inculcated
reserve or the reverse in the Dragon Chamber, and what the
Imperial ladies should follow as an example she was, to the end
of her life, totally unable to say. Philosophy indeed walks on
the heights. We cannot all expect to follow it.
That night the Incomparable Lady drank the Draught of Crushed
Pearls.
The Princess of Feminine Propriety and the White Jade Concubine,
learning these circumstances, redoubled their charms, their
coquetries and their efforts to occupy what may be described as
the inner sanctuary of the Emperor's esteem. Both lived to a
green old age, wealthy and honored, alike firm in the conviction
that if the Incomparable Lady had not shown herself so superior
to temptation the Emperor might have been on the whole better
pleased, whatever the sufferings of the philosopher. Both lived
to be the tyrants of many generations of beauties at the
Celestial Court. Both were assiduous in their devotions before
the spirit tablet of the departed lady, and in recommending her
example of reserve and humility to every damsel whom it might
concern.
It will probably occur to the reader of this unique but
veracious story that there is more in it than meets the eye, and
more than the one moral alluded to by the Emperor according to
the point of view of the different actors.
To the discernment of the reader it must accordingly be left.
THE HATRED OF THE QUEEN
A Story of Burma
Most wonderful is the Irawadi, the mighty river of Burma. In all
the world elsewhere is no such river, bearing the melted snows
from its mysterious sources in the high places of the mountains.
The dawn rises upon its league. wide flood; the moon walks upon
it with silver feet. It is the pulsing heart of the land, living
still though so many rules and rulers have risen and fallen
beside it, their pomps and glories drifting like flotsam dawn the
river to the eternal ocean that is the end of all - and the
beginning. Dead civilizations strew its banks, dreaming in the
torrid sunshine of glories that were - of blood-stained gold,
jewels wept from woeful crowns, nightmare dreams of murder and
terror; dreaming also of heavenly beauty, for the Lord Buddha
looks down in moonlight peace upon the land that leaped to kiss
His footprints, that has laid its heart in the hand of the
Blessed One, and shares therefore in His bliss and content. The
Land of the Lord Buddha, where the myriad pagodas lift their
golden flames of worship everywhere, and no idlest wind can pass
but it ruffles the bells below the htees until they send forth
their silver ripple of music to swell the hymn of praise!
There is a little bay on the bank of the flooding river - a
silent, deserted place of sand- dunes and small bills. When a
ship is in sight, some poor folk come and spread out the red
lacquer that helps their scanty subsistence, and the people from
the passing ship land and barter and in a few minutes are gone on
their busy way and silence settles down once more. They neither
know nor care that, near by, a mighty city spread its splendour
for miles along the river bank, that the king known as Lord of
the Golden Palace, The Golden Foot, Lord of the White Elephant,
held his state there with balls of magnificence, obsequious
women, fawning courtiers and all the riot and colour of an
Eastern tyranny. How should they care? Now there are ruins -
ruins, and the cobras slip in and out through the deserted holy
places. They breed their writhing young in the sleeping-chambers
of queens, the tigers mew in the moonlight, and the giant spider,
more terrible than the cobra, strikes with its black poison- claw
and, paralyzing the life of the victim, sucks its brain with
slow, lascivious pleasure.
Are these foul creatures more dreadful than some of the men, the
women, who dwelt in these palaces - the more evil because of the
human brain that plotted and foresaw? That is known only to the
mysterious Law that in silence watches and decrees.
But this is a story of the dead days of Pagan, by the Irawadi,
and it will be shown that, as the Lotus of the Lord Buddha grows
up a white splendour from the black mud of the depths, so also
may the soul of a woman.
In the days of the Lord of the White Elephant, the King Pagan
Men, was a boy named Mindon, son of second Queen and the King.
So, at least, it was said in the Golden Palace, but those who
knew the secrets of such matters whispered that, when the King
had taken her by the hand she came to him no maid, and that the
boy was the son of an Indian trader. Furthermore it was said
that she herself was woman of the Rajputs, knowledgeable in
spells, incantations and elemental spirits such as the Beloos
that terribly haunt waste places, and all Powers that move in the
dark, and that thus she had won the King. Certainly she had been
captured by the King's war-boats off the coast from a
trading-ship bound for Ceylon, and it was her story that, because
of her beauty, she was sent thither to serve as concubine to the
King, Tissa of Ceylon. Being captured, she was brought to the
Lord of the Golden Palace. The tongue she spoke was strange to
all the fighting men, but it was wondrous to see how swiftly she
learnt theirs and spoke it with a sweet ripple such as is in the
throat of a bird.
She was beautiful exceedingly, with a colour of pale gold upon
her and lengths of silk-spun hair, and eyes like those of a
jungle-deer, and water might run beneath the arch of her foot
without wetting it, and her breasts were like the cloudy pillows
where the sun couches at setting. Now, at Pagan, the name they
called her was Dwaymenau, but her true name, known only to
herself, was Sundari, and she knew not the Law of the Blessed
Buddha but was a heathen accursed. In the strong hollow of her
hand she held the heart of the King, so that on the birth of her
son she had risen from a mere concubine to be the second Queen
and a power to whom all bowed. The First Queen, Maya, languished
in her palace, her pale beauty wasting daily, deserted and
lonely, for she had been the light of the King's eyes until the
coming of the Indian woman, and she loved her lord with a great
love and was a noble woman brought up in honour and all things
becoming a queen. But sigh as she would, the King came never. All
night he lay in the arms of Dwaymenau, all day he sat beside her,
whether at the great water pageants or at the festival when the
dancing-girls swayed and postured before him in her gilded
chambers. Even when be went forth to hunt the tiger, she went
with him as far as a woman may go, and then stood back only
because he would not risk his jewel, her life. So all that was
evil in the man she fostered and all that was good she cherished
not at all, fearing lest he should return to the Queen. At her
will he had consulted the Hlwot Daw, the Council of the
Woon-gyees or Ministers, concerning a divorce of the Queen, but
this they told him could not be since she had kept all the laws
of Manu, being faithful, noble and beautiful and having borne him
a son.
For, before the Indian woman had come to the King, the Queen had
borne a son, Ananda, and he was pale and slender and the King
despised him because of the wiles of Dwaymenau, saying he was fit
only to sit among the women, having the soul of a slave, and he
laughed bitterly as the pale child crouched in the corner to see
him pass. If his eyes had been clear, he would have known that
here was no slave, but a heart as much greater than his own as
the spirit is stronger than the body. But this he did not know
and he strode past with Dwaymenau's boy on his shoulder, laughing
with cruel glee.
And this boy, Mindon, was beautiful and strong as his mother,
pale olive of face, with the dark and crafty eyes of the cunning
Indian traders, with black hair and a body straight, strong and
long in the leg for his years - apt at the beginnings of bow,
sword and spear - full of promise, if the promise was only words
and looks.
And so matters rested in the palace until Ananda had ten years
and Mindon nine.
It was the warm and sunny winter and the days were pleasant, and
on a certain day the Queen, Maya, went with her ladies to worship
the Blessed One at the Thapinyu Temple, looking down upon the
swiftly flowing river. The temple was exceedingly rich and
magnificent, so gilded with pure gold-leaf that it appeared of
solid gold. And about the upper part were golden bells beneath
the jewelled htee, which wafted very sweetly in the wind and gave
forth a crystal-clear music. The ladies bore in their hands more
gold-leaf, that they might acquire merit by offering this for the
service of the Master of the Law, and indeed this temple was the
offering of the Queen herself, who, because she bore the name of
the Mother of the Lord, excelled in good works and was the Moon
of this lower world in charity and piety.
Though wan with grief and anxiety, this Queen was beautiful. Her
eyes, like mournful lakes of darkness, were lovely in the pale
ivory of her face. Her lips were nobly cut and calm, and by the
favour of the Guardian Nats, she was shaped with grace and
health, a worthy mother of kings. Also she wore her jewels like a
mighty princess, a magnificence to which all the people shikoed
as she passed, folding their hands and touching the forehead
while they bowed down, kneeling.
Before the colossal image of the Holy One she made her offering
and, attended by her women, she sat in meditation, drawing
consolation from the Tranquillity above her and the silence of
the shrine. This ended, the Queen rose and did obeisance to the
Lord and, retiring, paced back beneath the White Canopy and
entered the courtyard where the palace stood - a palace of noble
teakwood, brown and golden and carved like lace into strange
fantasies of spires and pinnacles and branches where Nats and
Tree Spirits and Beloos and swaying river maidens mingled and met
amid fruits and leaves and flowers in a wild and joyous
confusion. The faces, the blowing garments, whirled into points
with the swiftness of the dance, were touched with gold, and so
glad was the building that it seemed as if a very light wind
might whirl it to the sky, and even the sad Queen stopped to
rejoice in its beauty as it blossomed in the sunlight.
And even as she paused, her little son Ananda rushed to meet her,
pale and panting, and flung himself into her arms with dry sobs
like those of an overrun man. She soothed him until he could
speak, and then the grief made way in a rain of tears.
"Mindon has killed my deer. He bared his knife, slit his throat
and cast him in the ditch and there he lies."
"There will he not lie long!" shouted Mindon, breaking from the
palace to the group where all were silent now. "For the worms
will eat him and the dogs pick clean his bones, and he will show
his horns at his lords no more. If you loved him, White-liver,
you should have taught him better manners to his betters.
With a stifled shriek Ananda caught the slender knife from his
girdle and flew at Mindon like a cat of the woods. Such things
were done daily by young and old, and this was a long sorrow come
to a head between the boys.
Suddenly, lifting the hangings of the palace gateway, before them
stood the mother of Mindon, the Lady Dwaymenau, pale as wool,
having heard the shout of her boy, so that the two Queens faced
each other, each holding the shoulders of her son, and the ladies
watched, mute as fishes, for it was years since these two had
met.
"What have you done to my son?" breathed Maya the Queen, dry in
the throat and all but speechless with passion. For indeed his
face, for a child, was ghastly.
"Look at his knife! What would he do to my son?" Dwaymenau was
stiff with hate and spoke as to a slave.
"He has killed my deer and mocks me because I loved him, He is
the devil in this place. Look at the devils in his eyes. Look
quick before he smiles, my mother."
And indeed, young as the boy was, an evil thing sat in either eye
and glittered upon them. Dwaymenau passed her hand across his
brow, and he smiled and they were gone.
"The beast ran at me and would have flung me with his horns," he
said, looking up brightly at his mother. "He had the madness upon
him. I struck once and he was dead. My father would have done the
same.
"That would he not!" said Queen Maya bitterly. "Your father would
have crept up, fawning on the deer, and offered him the fruits he
loved, stroking him the while. And in trust the beast would have
eaten, and the poison in the fruit would have slain him. For the
people of your father meet neither man nor beast in fair fight.
With a kiss they stab!"
Horror kept the women staring and silent. No one had dreamed that
the scandal had reached the Queen. Never had she spoken or looked
her knowledge but endured all in patience. Now it sprang out like
a sword among them, and they feared for Maya, whom all loved.
Mindon did not understand. It was beyond him, but he saw he was
scorned. Dwaymenau, her face rigid as a mask, looked pitilessly
at the shaking Queen, and each word dropped from her mouth, hard
and cold as the falling of diamonds. She refused the insult.
"If it is thus you speak of our lord and my love, what wonder he
forsakes you? Mother of a craven milk runs in your veins and his
for blood. Take your slinking brat away and weep together! My son
and I go forth to meet the King as he comes from hunting, and to
welcome him kingly!" She caught her boy to her with a magnificent
gesture; he flung his little arm about her, and laughing loudly
they went off together.
The tension relaxed a little when they were out of sight. The
women knew that, since Dwaymenau had refused to take the Queen's
meaning, she would certainly not carry her complaint to the King.
They guessed at her reason for this forbearance, but, be that as
it might, it was Certain that no other person would dare to tell
him and risk the fate that waits the messenger of evil.
The eldest lady led away the Queen, now almost tottering in the
reaction of fear and pain. Oh, that she had controlled her
speech! Not for her own sake - for she had lost all and the
beggar can lose no more - but for the boy's sake, the unloved
child that stood between the stranger and her hopes. For him she
had made a terrible enemy. Weeping, the boy followed her.
"Take comfort, little son," she said, drawing him to her
tenderly. "The deer can suffer no more. For the tigers, he does
not fear them. He runs in green woods now where there is none to
hunt. He is up and away. The Blessed One was once a deer as
gentle as yours."
But still the child wept, and the Queen broke down utterly. "Oh,
if life be a dream, let us wake, let us wake!" she sobbed. "For
evil things walk in it that cannot live in the light. Or let us
dream deeper and forget. Go, little son, yet stay - for who can
tell what waits us when the King comes. Let us meet him here."
For she believed that Dwaymenau would certainly carry the tale of
her speech to the King, and, if so, what hope but death together?
That night, after the feasting, when the girls were dancing the
dance of the fairies and spirits, in gold dresses, winged on the
legs and shoulders, and high, gold-spired and pinnacled caps, the
King missed the little Prince, Ananda, and asked why he was
absent.
No one answered, the women looking upon each other, until
Dwaymenau, sitting beside him, glimmering with rough pearls and
rubies, spoke smoothly: "Lord, worshipped and beloved, the two
boys quarreled this day, and Ananda's deer attacked our Mindon.
He had a madness upon him and thrust with his horns. But, Mindon,
your true son, flew in upon him and in a great fight he slit the
beast's throat with the knife you gave him. Did he not well?"
"Well," said the King briefly. "But is there no hurt? Have
searched? For he is mine."
There was arrogance in the last sentence and her proud soul
rebelled, but smoothly as ever she spoke: "I have searched and
there is not the littlest scratch. But Ananda is weeping because
the deer is dead, and his mother is angry. What should I do?"
"Nothing. Ananda is worthless and worthless let him be! And for
that pale shadow that was once a woman, let her be forgotten.
And now, drink, my Queen!"
And Dwaymenau drank but the drink was bitter to her, for a ghost
had risen upon her that day. She had never dreamed that such a
scandal had been spoken, and it stunned her very soul with fear,
that the Queen should know her vileness and the cheat she had put
upon the King. As pure maid he had received her, and she knew,
none better, what the doom would be if his trust were broken and
he knew the child not his. She herself had seen this thing done
to a concubine who had a little offended. She was thrust living
in a sack and this hung between two earthen jars pierced with
small holes, and thus she was set afloat on the terrible river.
And not till the slow filling and sinking of the jars was the
agony over and the cries for mercy stilled. No, the Queen's
speech was safe with her, but was it safe with the Queen? For her
silence, Dwaymenau must take measures.
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