The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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L. Adams Beck >> The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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Silence - and I pondered. Finally she laid the book aside, and
repeated from memory and in a tone of perfect music; "Kabir says,
'I shall go to the House of my Lord with my Love at my side; then
shall I sound the trumpet of triumph.'"
And when she left me alone in the moonlight silence the old
doubts came back to me - the fear that I saw only through her
eyes, and began to believe in joy only because I loved her. I
remember I wrote in the little book I kept for my stray thoughts,
these words which are not mine but reflect my thought of her;
"Thine is the skill of the Fairy Woman, and the virtue of St.
Bride, and the faith of Mary the Mild, and the gracious way of
the Greek woman, and the beauty of lovely Emer, and the
tenderness of heart-sweet Deirdre, and the courage of Maev the
great Queen, and the charm of Mouth-of-Music."
Yes, all that and more, but I feared lest I should see the heaven
of joy through her eyes only and find it mirage as I had found so
much else.
SECOND PART Early in the pure dawn the men came and our boat was
towed up into the Dal Lake through crystal waterways and flowery
banks, the men on the path keeping step and straining at the rope
until the bronze muscles stood out on their legs and backs,
shouting strong rhythmic phrases to mark the pull.
"They shout the Wondrous Names of God - as they are called," said
Vanna when I asked. "They always do that for a timid effort. Bad
shah! The Lord, the Compassionate, and so on. I don't think there
is any religion about it but it is as natural to them as One,
Two, Three, to us. It gives a tremendous lift. Watch and see."
It was part of the delightful strangeness that we should move to
that strong music. We sat on the upper deck and watched the dream
- like beauty drift slowly by until we emerged beneath a little
bridge into the fairy land of the lake which the Mogul Emperors
loved so well that they made their noble pleasance gardens on the
banks, and thought it little to travel up yearly from far - off
Delhi over the snowy Pir Panjal with their Queens and courts for
the perfect summer of Kashmir.
We moored by a low bank under a great wood of chenar trees, and
saw the little table in the wilderness set in the greenest shade
with our chairs beside it, and my pipe laid reverently upon it by
Kahdra.
Across the glittering water lay on one side the Shalimar Garden
known to all readers of "Lalla Ruhk" - a paradise of roses; and
beyond it again the lovelier gardens of Nour-Mahal, the Light of
the Palace, that imperial woman who ruled India under the weak
Emperor's name - she whose name he set thus upon his coins:
"By order of King Jehangir. Gold has a hundred splendours added
to it by receiving the name of Nour-Jahan the Queen."
Has any woman ever had a more royal homage than this most royal
lady - known first as Mihr-u- nissa - Sun of Women, and later,
Nour-Mahal, Light of the Palace, and latest, Nour-Jahan- Begam,
Queen, Light of the World?
Here in these gardens she had lived - had seen the snow mountains
change from the silver of dawn to the illimitable rose of sunset.
The life, the colour beat insistently upon my brain. They built a
world of magic where every moment was pure gold. Surely - surely
to Vanna it must be the same. I believed in my very soul that she
who gave and shared such joy could not be utterly apart from me?
Could I then feel certain that I had gained any ground in these
days we had been together? Could she still define the cruel
limits she had laid down, or were her eyes kinder, her tones a
more broken music? I did not know. Whenever I could hazard a
guess the next minute baffled me.
Just then, in the sunset, she was sitting on deck, singing under
her breath and looking absently away to the Gardens across the
Lake. I could catch the words here and there, and knew them.
"Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now - who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway far,
Before you agonize them in farewell?"
"Don't!" I said abruptly. It stung me.
"What?" she asked in surprise. "That is the song every one
remembers here. Poor Laurence Hope! How she knew and loved this
India! What are you grumbling at?"
Her smile stung me.
"Never mind," I said morosely. "You don't understand. You never
will."
And yet I believed sometimes that she would - that time was on my
side.
When Kahdra and I pulled her across to Nour-Mahal's garden next
day, how could I not believe it - her face was so full of joy as
she looked at me for sympathy?
"I don't think so much beauty is crowded into any other few miles
in the world - beauty of association, history, nature,
everything!" she said with shining eyes. "The lotus flowers are
not out yet but when they come that is the last touch of
perfection. Do you remember Homer - 'But whoso ate of the
honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, was neither willing to bring me
word again, nor to depart. Nay, their desire was to remain there
for ever, feeding on the lotus with the Lotus Eaters, forgetful
of all return.' You know the people here eat the roots and seeds?
I ate them last year and perhaps that is why I cannot stay away.
But look at Nour- Mahal's garden!"
We were pulling in among the reeds and the huge carven leaves of
the water plants, and the snake-headed buds lolling upon them
with the slippery half-sinister look that water-flowers have, as
though their cold secret life belonged to the hidden water world
and not to ours. But now the boat was touching the little wooden
steps.
O beautiful - most beautiful the green lawns, shaded with huge
pyramids of the chenar trees, the terraced gardens where the
marble steps climbed from one to the other, and the mountain
streams flashed singing and shining down the carved marble slopes
that cunning hands had made to delight the Empress of Beauty,
between the wildernesses of roses. Her pavilion stands still
among the flowers, and the waters ripple through it to join the
lake - and she is - where? Even in the glory of sunshine the
passing of all fair things was present with me as I saw the empty
shell that had held the Pearl of Empire, and her roses that still
bloom, her waters that still sing for others.
The spray of a hundred fountains was misty diamond dust in the
warm air laden with the scent of myriad flowers. Kahdra followed
us everywhere, singing his little tuneless happy song. The world
brimmed with beauty and joy. And we were together. Words broke
from me.
"Vanna, let it be for ever! Let us live here. I'll give up all
the world for this and you."
"But you see," she said delicately, "it would be 'giving up.' You
use the right word. It is not your life. It is a lovely holiday,
no more. You would weary of it. You would want the city life and
your own kind."
I protested with all my soul.
"No. Indeed I will say frankly that it would be lowering yourself
to live a lotus-eating life among my people. It is a life with
which you have no tie. A Westerner who lives like that steps
down; he loses his birthright just as an Oriental does who
Europeanizes himself. He cannot live your life nor you his. If
you had work here it would be different. No - six or eight weeks
more; then go away and forget it."
I turned from her. The serpent was in Paradise. When is he
absent?
On one of the terraces a man was beating a tom-tom, and veiled
women listened, grouped about him in brilliant colours.
"Isn't that all India?" she said; "that dull reiterated sound? It
half stupefies, half maddens. Once at Darjiling I saw the Lamas'
Devil Dance - the soul, a white-faced child with eyes unnaturally
enlarged, fleeing among a rabble of devils - the evil passions.
It fled wildly here and there and every way was blocked. The
child fell on its knees, screaming dumbly - you could see the
despair in the staring eyes, but all was drowned in the thunder
of Tibetan drums. No mercy - no escape. Horrible!"
"Even in Europe the drum is awful," I said. "Do you remember in
the French Revolution how they Drowned the victims' voices in a
thunder roll of drums?"
"I shall always see the face of the child, hunted down to hell,
falling on its knees, and screaming without a sound, when I hear
the drum. But listen - a flute! Now if that were the Flute of
Krishna you would have to follow. Let us come!"
I could hear nothing of it, but she insisted and we followed the
music, inaudible to me, up the slopes of the garden that is the
foot-hill of the mighty mountain of Mahadeo, and still I could
hear nothing. And Vanna told me strange stories of the Apollo of
India whom all hearts must adore, even as the herd-girls adored
him in his golden youth by Jumna river and in the pastures of
Brindaban.
Next day we were climbing the hill to the ruins where the evil
magician brought the King's daughter nightly to his will, flying
low under a golden moon. Vanna took my arm and I pulled her
laughing up the steepest flowery slopes until we reached the
height, and lo! the arched windows were eyeless and a lonely
breeze blowing through the cloisters, and the beautiful yellowish
stone arches supported nothing and were but frames for the blue
of far lake and mountain and the divine sky. We climbed the
broken stairs where the lizards went by like flashes, and had I
the tongue of men and angels I could not tell the wonder that lay
before us, - the whole wide valley of Kashmir in summer glory,
with its scented breeze singing, singing above it.
We sat on the crushed aromatic herbs and among the wild roses and
looked down.
"To think," she said, "that we might have died and never seen
it!"
There followed a long silence. I thought she was tired, and would
not break it. Suddenly she spoke in a strange voice, low and
toneless;
"The story of this place. She was the Princess Padmavati, and her
home was in Ayodhya. When she woke and found herself here by the
lake she was so terrified that she flung herself in and was
drowned. They held her back, but she died."
"How do you know?"
"Because a wandering monk came to the abbey of Tahkt-i-Bahi near
Peshawar and told Vasettha the Abbot."
I had nearly spoilt all by an exclamation, but I held myself
back. I saw she was dreaming awake and was unconscious of what
she said.
"The Abbot said, 'Do not describe her. What talk is this for holy
men? The young monks must not hear. Some of them have never seen
a woman. Should a monk speak of such toys?' But the wanderer
disobeyed and spoke, and there was a great tumult, and the monks
threw him out at the command of the young Abbot, and he wandered
down to Peshawar, and it was he later - the evil one! - that
brought his sister, Lilavanti the Dancer, to Peshawar, and the
Abbot fell into her snare. That was his revenge!"
Her face was fixed and strange, for a moment her cheek looked
hollow, her eyes dim and grief- worn. What was she seeing? - what
remembering? Was it a story - a memory? What was it?
"She was beautiful?" I prompted.
"Men have said so, but for it he surrendered the Peace. Do not
speak of her accursed beauty."
Her voice died away to a drowsy murmur; her head dropped on my
shoulder and for the mere de- light of contact I sat still and
scarcely breathed, praying that she might speak again, but the
good minute was gone. She drew one or two deep breaths, and sat
up with a bewildered look that quickly passed.
"I was quite sleepy for a minute. The climb was so strenuous.
Hark - I hear the Flute of Krishna again."
And again I could hear nothing, but she said it was sounding from
the trees at the base of the hill. Later when we climbed down I
found she was right - that a peasant lad, dark and amazingly
beautiful as these Kashmiris often are, was playing on the flute
to a girl at his feet - looking up at him with rapt eyes. He
flung Vanna a flower as we passed. She caught it and put it in
her bosom. A singular blossom, three petals of purest white, set
against three leaves of purest green, and lower down the stem the
three green leaves were repeated. It was still in her bosom after
dinner, and I looked at it more closely.
"That is a curious flower," I said. "Three and three and three.
Nine. That makes the mystic number. I never saw a purer white.
What is it?"
"Of course it is mystic," she said seriously. "It is the Ninefold
Flower. You saw who gave it?"
"That peasant lad."
She smiled.
"You will see more some day. Some might not even have seen that."
"Does it grow here?"
"This is the first I have seen. It is said to grow only where the
gods walk. Do you know that throughout all India Kashmir is said
to be holy ground? It was called long ago the land of the gods,
and of strange, but not evil, sorceries. Great marvels were seen
here."
I felt the labyrinthine enchantments of that enchanted land were
closing about me - a slender web, grey, almost impalpable, finer
than fairy silk, was winding itself about my feet. My eyes were
opening to things I had not dreamed. She saw my thought.
"Yes, you could not have seen even that much of him in Peshawar.
You did not know then."
"He was not there," I answered, falling half unconsciously into
her tone.
"He is always there - everywhere, and when he plays, all who hear
must follow. He was the Pied Piper in Hamelin, he was Pan in
Hellas. You will hear his wild fluting in many strange places
when you know how to listen. When one has seen him the rest comes
soon. And then you will follow."
"Not away from you, Vanna."
"From the marriage feast, from the Table of the Lord," she said,
smiling strangely. "The man who wrote that spoke of another call,
but it is the same - Krishna or Christ. When we hear the music we
follow. And we may lose or gain heaven."
It might have been her compelling personality - it might have
been the marvels of beauty about me, but I knew well I had
entered at some mystic gate. A pass word had been spoken for me -
I was vouched for and might go in. Only a little way as yet.
Enchanted forests lay beyond, and perilous seas, but there were
hints, breaths like the wafting of the garments of unspeakable
Presences. My talk with Vanna grew less personal, and more
introspective. I felt the touch of her finger-tips leading me
along the ways of Quiet - my feet brushed a shining dew. Once, in
the twilight under the chenar trees, I saw a white gleaming and
thought it a swiftly passing Being, but when in haste I gained
the tree I found there only a Ninefold flower, white as a spirit
in the evening calm. I would not gather it but told Vanna what I
had seen.
"You nearly saw;' she said. "She passed so quickly. It was the
Snowy One, Uma, Parvati, the Daughter of the Himalaya. That
mountain is the mountain of her lord - Shiva. It is natural she
should be here. I saw her last night lean over the height - her
face pillowed on her folded arms, with a low star in the mists of
her hair. Her eyes were like lakes of blue darkness. Vast and
wonderful. She is the Mystic Mother of India. You will see soon.
You could not have seen the flower until now."
"Do you know," she added, "that in the mountains there are
poppies of clear blue - blue as turquoise. We will go up into the
heights and find them."
And next moment she was planning the camping details, the men,
the ponies, with a practical zest that seemed to relegate the
occult to the absurd. Yet the very next day came a wonderful
moment.
The sun was just setting and, as it were, suddenly the purple
glooms banked up heavy with thunder. The sky was black with fury,
the earth passive with dread. I never saw such lightning - it was
continuous and tore in zigzag flashes down the mountains like
rents in the substance of the world's fabric. And the thunder
roared up in the mountain gorges with shattering echoes. Then
fell the rain, and the whole lake seemed to rise to meet it, and
the noise was like the rattle of musketry. We were standing by
the cabin window and she suddenly caught my hand, and I saw in a
light of their own two dancing figures on the tormented water
before us. Wild in the tumult, embodied delight, with arms tossed
violently above their heads, and feet flung up behind them,
skimming the waves like seagulls, they passed. Their sex I could
not tell - I think they had none, but were bubble emanations of
the rejoicing rush of the rain and the wild retreating laughter
of the thunder. I saw the fierce aerial faces and their inhuman
glee as they fled by, and she dropped my hand and they were gone.
Slowly the storm lessened, and in the west the clouds tore
raggedly asunder and a flood of livid yellow light poured down
upon the lake - an awful light that struck it into an abyss of
fire. Then, as if at a word of command, two glorious rainbows
sprang across the water with the mountains for their piers, each
with its proper colours chorded. They made a Bridge of Dread that
stood out radiant against the background of storm - the Twilight
of the Gods, and the doomed gods marching forth to the last
fight. And the thunder growled sullenly away into the recesses of
the hill and the terrible rainbows faded until the stars came
quietly out and it was a still night.
But I had seen that what is our dread is the joy of the spirits
of the Mighty Mother, and though the vision faded and I doubted
what I had seen, it prepared the way for what I was yet to see. A
few days later we started on what was to be the most exquisite
memory of my life. A train of ponies carried our tents and
camping necessaries and there was a pony for each of us. And so,
in the cool grey of a divine morning, with little rosy clouds
flecking the eastern sky, we set out from Islamabad for Vernag.
And this was the order of our going. She and I led the way,
attended by a sais (groom) and a coolie carrying the luncheon
basket. Half way we would stop in some green dell, or by some
rushing stream, and there rest and eat our little meal while the
rest of the cavalcade passed on to the appointed camping place,
and in the late afternoon we would follow, riding slowly, and
find the tents pitched and the kitchen department in full swing.
If the place pleased us we lingered for some days; - if not, the
camp was struck next morning, and again we wandered in search of
beauty.
The people were no inconsiderable part of my joy. I cannot see
what they have to gain from such civilization as ours - a kindly
people and happy. Courtesy and friendliness met us everywhere,
and if their labor was hard, their harvest of beauty and laughter
seemed to be its reward. The little villages with their groves of
walnut and fruit trees spoke of no unfulfilled want, the
mulberries which fatten the sleek bears in their season fattened
the children too. I compared their lot with that of the toilers
in our cities and knew which I would choose. We rode by
shimmering fields of barley, with red poppies floating in the
clear transparent green as in deep sea water, through fields of
millet like the sky fallen on the earth, so innocently blue were
its blossoms, and the trees above us were trellised with the
wild roses, golden and crimson, and the ways tapestried with the
scented stars of the large white jasmine.
It was strange that later much of what she said, escaped me. Some
I noted down at the time, but there were hints, shadows of
lovelier things beyond that eluded all but the fringes of memory
when I tried to piece them together and make a coherence of a
living wonder. For that reason, the best things cannot be told in
this history. It is only the cruder, grosser matters that words
will hold. The half-touchings -vanishing looks, breaths - O God,
I know them, but cannot tell.
In the smaller villages, the head man came often to greet us and
make us welcome, bearing on a flat dish a little offering of
cakes and fruit, the produce of the place. One evening a man so
approached, stately in white robes and turban, attended by a
little lad who carried the patriarchal gift beside him. Our tents
were pitched under a glorious walnut tree with a run- ning stream
at our feet.
Vanna of course, was the interpreter, and I called her from her
tent as the man stood salaaming before me. It was strange that
when she came, dressed in white, he stopped in his salutation,
and gazed at her in what, I thought, was silent wonder.
She spoke earnestly to him, standing before him with clasped
hands, almost, I could think, in the attitude of a suppliant. The
man listened gravely, with only an interjection, now and again,
and once he turned and looked curiously at me. Then he spoke,
evidently making some announcement which she received with bowed
head - and when he turned to go with a grave salute, she
performed a very singular ceremony, moving slowly round him three
times with clasped hands; keeping him always on the right. He
repaid it with the usual salaam and greeting of peace, which he
bestowed also on me, and then departed in deep meditation, his
eyes fixed on the ground. I ventured to ask what it all meant,
and she looked thoughtfully at me before replying.
"It was a strange thing. I fear you will not altogether
understand, but I will tell you what I can. That man though
living here among Mahomedans, is a Brahman from Benares, and,
what is very rare in India, a Buddhist. And when he saw me he
believed he remembered me in a former birth. The ceremony you
saw me perform is one of honour in India. It was his due."
"Did you remember him?" I knew my voice was incredulous.
"Very well. He has changed little but is further on the upward
path. I saw him with dread for he holds the memory of a great
wrong I did. Yet he told me a thing that has filled my heart with
joy."
"Vanna-what is it?"
She had a clear uplifted look which startled me. There was
suddenly a chill air blowing between us.
"I must not tell you yet but you will know soon. He was a good
man. I am glad we have met."
She buried herself in writing in a small book I had noticed and
longed to look into, and no more was said.
We struck camp next day and trekked on towards Vernag - a rough
march, but one of great beauty, beneath the shade of forest
trees, garlanded with pale roses that climbed from bough to bough
and tossed triumphant wreaths into the uppermost blue.
In the afternoon thunder was flapping its wings far off in the
mountains and a little rain fell while we were lunching under a
big tree. I was considering anxiously how to shelter Vanna, when
a farmer invited us to his house - a scene of Biblical
hospitality that delighted us both. He led us up some break-neck
little stairs to a large bare room, open to the clean air all
round the roof, and with a kind of rough enclosure on the wooden
floor where the family slept at night. There he opened our
basket, and then, with anxious care, hung clothes and rough
draperies about us that our meal might be unwatched by one or two
friends who had followed us in with breathless interest. Still
further to entertain us a great rarity was brought out and laid
at Vanna's feet as something we might like to watch - a curious
bird in a cage, with brightly barred wings and a singular cry.
She fed it with fruit, and it fluttered to her hand. Just so
Abraham might have welcomed his guests, and when we left with
words of deepest gratitude, our host made the beautiful obeisance
of touching his forehead with joined hands as he bowed. To me the
whole incident had an extraordinary grace, and ennobled both host
and guest. But we met an ascending scale of loveliness so varied
in its aspects that I passed from one emotion to another and knew
no sameness.
That afternoon the camp was pitched at the foot of a mighty hill,
under the waving pyramids of the chenars, sweeping their green
like the robes of a goddess. Near by was a half circle of low
arches falling into ruin, and as we went in among them I beheld a
wondrous sight - the huge octagonal tank or basin made by the
Mogul Emperor Jehangir to receive the waters of a mighty Spring
which wells from the hill and has been held sacred by Hindu and
Moslem. And if loveliness can sanctify surely it is sacred
indeed.
The tank was more than a hundred feet in diameter and circled by
a roughly paved pathway where the little arched cells open that
the devotees may sit and contemplate the lustral waters. There on
a black stone, is sculptured the Imperial inscription comparing
this spring to the holier wells of Paradise, and I thought no
less of it, for it rushes straight from the rock with no aiding
stream, and its waters are fifty feet deep, and sweep away from
this great basin through beautiful low arches in a wild foaming
river - the crystal life-blood of the mountains for ever welling
away. The colour and perfect purity of this living jewel were
most marvellous -clear blue-green like a chalcedony, but changing
as the lights in an opal - a wonderful quivering brilliance,
flickering with the silver of shoals of sacred fish.
But the Mogul Empire is with the snows of yesteryear and the
wonder has passed from the Moslems into the keeping of the Hindus
once more, and the Lingam of Shiva, crowned with flowers, is the
symbol in the little shrine by the entrance. Surely in India, the
gods are one and have no jealousies among them - so swiftly do
their glories merge the one into the other.
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