The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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L. Adams Beck >> The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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"I cannot stand alone."
"You will not need. What has led you will lead you still. Through
many births it has led you. How should it fail?"
"What should I do?"
"Go forward."
"What should I shun?"
"Sorrow and fear."
"What should I seek?"
"Joy."
"And the end?"
"Joy. Wisdom. They are the Light and Dark of the Divine." A cold
breeze passed and touched my forehead. I was still standing in
the middle of the bridge above the water gliding to the Ocean,
and there was no figure by the Bull of Shiva. I was alone. I
passed back to the tents with the shudder that is not fear but
akin to death upon me. I knew I had been profoundly withdrawn
from what we call actual life, and the return is dread.
The days passed as we floated down the river to Srinagar. On
board the Kedarnath, now lying in our first berth beneath the
chenars near and yet far from the city, the last night had come.
Next morning I should begin the long ride to Baramula and beyond
that barrier of the Happy Valley down to Murree and the Punjab.
Where afterwards? I neither knew nor cared. My lesson was before
me to be learned. I must try to detach myself from all I had
prized - to say to my heart it was but a loan and no gift, and to
cling only to the imperishable. And did I as yet certainly know
more than the A B C of the hard doctrine by which I must live?
"Que vivre est difficile, 0 mon cocur fatigue!" - an immense
weariness possessed me - a passive grief.
Vanna would follow later with the wife of an Indian doctor. I
believed she was bound for Lahore but on that point she had not
spoken certainly and I felt we should not meet again.
And now my packing was finished, and, as far as my possessions
went, the little cabin had the soulless emptiness that comes with
departure. I was enduring as best I could. If she had held
loyally to her pact, could I do less. Was she to blame for my
wild hope that in the end she would relent and step down to the
household levels of love?
She sat by the window - the last time I should see the moonlit
banks and her clear face against them. I made and won my fight
for the courage of words.
"And now I've finished everything - thank goodness! and we can
talk. Vanna - you will write to me?"
"Once. I promise that."
"Only once? Why? I counted on your words."
"I want to speak to you of something else now. I want to tell you
a memory. But look first at the pale light behind the
Takht-i-Suliman."
So I had seen it with her. So I should not see it again. We
watched until a line of silver sparkled on the black water, and
then she spoke again.
"Stephen, do you remember in the ruined monastery near Peshawar,
how I told you of the young Abbot, who came down to Peshawar with
a Chinese pilgrim? And he never returned."
"I remember. There was a Dancer."
"There was a Dancer. She was Lilavanti, and she was brought there
to trap him but when she saw him she loved him, and that was his
ruin and hers. Trickery he would have known and escaped. Love
caught him in an unbreakable net, and they fled down the Punjab
and no one knew any more. But I know. For two years they lived
together and she saw the agony in his heart - the anguish of his
broken vows, the face of the Blessed One receding into an
infinite distance. She knew that every day added a link to the
heavy Karma that was bound about the feet she loved, and her soul
said "Set him free," and her heart refused the torture. But her
soul was the stronger. She set him free."
"How?"
"She took poison. He became an ascetic in the hills and died in
peace but with a long expiation upon him."
"And she?"
"I am she."
"You!" I heard my voice as if it were another man's. Was it
possible that I - a man of the twentieth century, believed this
impossible thing? Impossible, and yet - what had I learnt if not
the unity of Time, the illusion of matter? What is the twentieth
century, what the first? Do they not lie before the Supreme as
one, and clean from our petty divisions? And I myself had seen
what, if I could trust it, asserted the marvels that are no
marvels to those who know.
"You loved him?"
"I love him."
"Then there is nothing at all for me."
She resumed as if she had heard nothing.
"I have lost him for many lives. He stepped above me at once, for
he was clean gold though he fell, and though I have followed I
have not found. But that Buddhist beyond Islamabad - you shall
hear now what he said. It was this. 'The shut door opens, and
this time he awaits.' I cannot yet say all it means, but there is
no Lahore for me. I shall meet him soon."
"Vanna, you would not harm yourself again?"
"Never. I should not meet him. But you will see. Now I can talk
no more. I will be there tomorrow when you go, and I will ride
with you to the poplar road."
She passed like a shadow into her little dark cabin, and I was
left alone. I will not dwell on that black loneliness of the
spirit, for it has passed - it was the darkness of hell, a
madness of jealousy, and could have no enduring life in any heart
that had known her. But it was death while it lasted. I had
moments of horrible belief, of horrible disbelief, but however it
might be I knew that she was out of reach for ever. Near me -
yes! but only as the silver image of the moon floated in the
water by the boat, with the moon herself cold myriads of miles
away. I will say no more of that last eclipse of what she had
wrought in me.
The bright morning came, sunny as if my joys were beginning
instead of ending. Vanna mounted her horse and led the way from
the boat. I cast one long look at the little Kedarnath, the home
of those perfect weeks, of such joy and sorrow as would have
seemed impossible to me in the chrysalis of my former existence.
Little Kahdra stood crying bitterly on the bank - the kindly folk
who had served us were gathered saddened and quiet. I set my
teeth and followed her.
How dear she looked, how kind, how gentle her appealing eyes, as
I drew up beside her. She knew what I felt. She knew that the
sight of little Kahdra crying as he said good - bye was the last
pull at my sore heart. Still she rode steadily on, and still I
followed. Once she spoke.
"Stephen, there was a man in Peshawar, kind and true, who loved
that Lilavanti who had no heart for him. And when she died, it
was in his arms, as a sister might cling to a brother, for the
man she loved had left her. It seems that will not be in this
life, but do not think I have been so blind that I did not know
my friend."
I could not answer - it was the realization of the utmost I could
hope and it came like healing to my spirit. Better that bond
between us, slight as most men might think it, than the dearest
and closest with a woman not Vanna. It was the first thrill of a
new joy in my heart - the first, I thank the Infinite, of many
and steadily growing joys and hopes that cannot be uttered here.
I bent to take the hand she stretched to me, but even as they
touched, I saw, passing behind the trees by the road, the young
man I had seen in the garden at Vernag - most beautiful, in the
strange miter of his jewelled diadem. His flute was at his lips
and the music rang out sudden and crystal clear as though a
woodland god were passing to awaken all the joys of the dawn.
The horses heard too. In an instant hers had swerved wildly, and
she lay on the ground at my feet. The music had ceased.
Days had gone before I could recall what had happened then. I
lifted her in my arms and carried her into the rest-house near at
hand, and the doctor came and looked grave, and a nurse was sent
from the Mission Hospital. No doubt all was done that was
possible, hut I knew from the first what it meant and how it
would be. She lay in a white stillness, and the room was quiet as
death. I remembered with unspeakable gratitude later that the
nurse had been merciful and had not sent me away.
So Vanna lay all day and through the night, and when the dawn
came again she stirred and motioned with her hand, although her
eyes were closed. I understood, and kneeling, I put my hand
under her head, and rested it against my shoulder. Her faint
voice murmured at my ear.
"I dreamed - I was in the pine wood at Pahlgam and it was the
Night of No Moon, and I was afraid for it was dark, but suddenly
all the trees were covered with little lights like stars, and the
greater light was beyond. Nothing to be afraid of."
"Nothing, Beloved."
"And I looked beyond Peshawar, further than eyes could see, and
in the ruins of the monastery where we stood, you and I - I saw
him, and he lay with his head at the feet of the Blessed One.
That is well, is it not?"
"Well, Beloved."
"And it is well I go? Is it not?"
"It is well."
A long silence. The first sun ray touched the floor. Again the
whisper.
"Believe what I have told you. For we shall meet again." I
repeated-
"We shall meet again."
In my arms she died.
Later, when all was over I asked myself if I believed this and
answered with full assurance - Yes.
If the story thus told sounds incredible it was not incredible to
me. I had had a profound experience. What is a miracle? It is
simply the vision of the Divine behind nature. It will come in
different forms according to the eyes that see, but the soul will
know that its perception is authentic.
I could not leave Kashmir, nor was there any need. On the
contrary I saw that there was work for me here among the people
she had loved, and my first aim was to fit myself for that and
for the writing I now felt was to be my career in life. After
much thought I bought the little Kedarnath and made it my home,
very greatly to the satisfaction of little Kahdra and all the
friendly people to whom I owed so much.
Vanna's cabin I made my sleeping room, and it is the simple truth
that the first night I slept in the place that was a Temple of
Peace in my thoughts, I had a dream of wordless bliss, and
starting awake for sheer joy I saw her face in the night, human
and dear, looking down upon me with that poignant sweetness
which would seem to be the utmost revelation of love and pity.
And as I stretched my hands, another face dawned solemnly from
the shadow beside her with grave brows bent on mine - one I had
known and seen in the ruins at Bijbehara. Outside and very near I
could hear the silver weaving of the Flute that in India is the
symbol of the call of the Divine. A dream - yes, but it taught me
to live. At first, in my days of grief and loss, I did but dream
- the days were hard to endure. I will not dwell on that illusion
of sorrow, now long dead. I lived only for the night.
"When sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away-
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep,
I run - I run! I am gathered to thy heart!"
To the heart of her pity. Thus for awhile I lived. Slowly I
became conscious of her abiding presence about me, day or night
It grew clearer, closer.
Like the austere Hippolytus to his unseen Goddess, I could say;
"Who am more to thee than other mortals are,
Whose is the holy lot,
As friend with friend to walk and talk with thee,
Hearing thy sweet mouth's music in mine ear,
But thee beholding not."
That was much, but later, the sunshine was no bar, the bond
strengthened and there have been days in the heights of the
hills, in the depths of the woods, when I saw her as in life,
passing at a distance, but real and lovely. Life? She had never
lived as she did now - a spirit, freed and rejoicing. For me the
door she had opened would never shut. The Presences were about
me, and I entered upon my heritage of joy, knowing that in
Kashmir, the holy land of Beauty, they walk very near, and lift
up the folds of the Dark that the initiate may see the light
behind.
So I began my solitary life of gladness. I wrote, aided by the
little book she had left me, full of strangest stories, stranger
by far than my own brain could conceive. Some to be revealed -
some to be hidden. And thus the world will one day receive the
story of the Dancer of Peshawar in her upward lives, that it may
know, if it will, that death is nothing - for Life and Love are
all.
THE INCOMPARABLE LADY
A STORY OF CHINA WITH A MORAL
It is recorded that when the Pearl Empress (his mother) asked of
the philosophic Yellow Emperor which he considered the most
beautiful of the Imperial concubines, he replied instantly: "The
Lady A-Kuei": and when the Royal Parent in profound astonishment
demanded bow this could be, having regard to the exquisite
beauties in question, the Emperor replied;
"I have never seen her. It was dark when I entered the Dragon
Chamber and dusk of dawn when I rose and left her."
Then said the Pearl Princess;
"Possibly the harmony of her voice solaced the Son of Heaven?"
But he replied;
"She spoke not."
And the Pearl Empress rejoined:
"Her limbs then are doubtless softer than the kingfisher's
plumage?"
But the Yellow Emperor replied;
"Doubtless. Yet I have not touched them. I was that night
immersed in speculations on the Yin and the Yang. How then should
I touch a woman?"
And the Pearl Empress was silent from very great amazement, not
daring to question further but marveling how the thing might be.
And seeing this, the Yellow Emperor recited a poem to the
following effect:
"It is said that Power rules the world
And who shall gainsay it?
But Loveliness is the head-jewel upon the brow of Power."
And when the Empress had listened with reverence to the Imperial
Poet, she quitted the August Presence.
Immediately, having entered her own palace of the Tranquil
Motherly Virtues, she caused the Lady A-Kuei to be summoned to
her presence, who came, habited in a purple robe and with pins of
jade and coral in her hair. And the Pearl Empress considered her
attentively, recalling the perfect features of the White Jade
Concubine, the ambrosial smile of the Princess of Feminine
Propriety, and the willow-leaf eyebrows of the Lady of Chen, and
her astonishment was excessive, because the Lady A-Kuei could not
in beauty approach any one of these ladies. Reflecting further
she then placed her behind the screen, and summoned the court
artist, Lo Cheng, who had been formerly commissioned to paint the
heavenly features of the Emperor's Ladies, mirrored in still
water, though he had naturally not been permitted to view the
beauties themselves. Of him the Empress demanded:
"Who is the most beautiful - which the most priceless jewel of
the dwellers in the Dragon Palace?"
And, with humility, Lo Cheng replied:
"What mortal man shall decide between the white Crane and the
Swan, or between the paeony flower and the lotus?" And having
thus said he remained silent, and in him was no help. Finally and
after exhortation the Pearl Empress condescended to threaten him
with the loss of a head so useless to himself and to her majesty.
Then, in great fear and haste he replied:
"Of all the flowers that adorn the garden of the Sun of Heaven,
the Lady A-Kuei is the fittest to be gathered by the Imperial
Hand, and this is my deliberate opinion."
Now, hearing this statement, the Pearl Empress was submerged in
bewilderment, knowing that the Lady A-Kuei had modestly retired
when the artist had depicted the reflection of the assembled
loveliness of the Inner Chambers, as not counting herself worthy
of portraiture, and her features were therefore unknown to him.
Nor could the Empress further question the artist, for when she
had done so, he replied only:
"This is the secret of the Son of Heaven," and, having gained
permission, he swiftly departed.
Nor could the Lady A-Kuei herself aid her Imperial Majesty, for
on being questioned she was overwhelmed with modesty and
confusion, and with stammering lips could only repeat:
"This is the secret of his Divine Majesty," imploring with the
utmost humility, forgiveness from the Imperial Mother.
The Pearl Empress was unable to eat her supper. In vain were
spread before her the delicacies of the Empire. She could but
trifle with a shark's fin and a "Silver Ear" fungus and a dish of
slugs entrapped upon roses, with the dew-like pearls upon them.
Her burning curiosity had wholly deprived her of appetite, nor
could the amusing exertions of the Palace mimes, or a lantern
fete upon the lake restore her to any composure. "This
circumstance will cause my flight on the Dragon (death)," she
said to herself, "unless I succeed in unveiling the mystery. What
therefore should be my next proceeding?"
And so, deeply reflecting, she caused the Chief of the Eunuchs to
summon the Princess of Feminine Propriety, the White Jade
Concubine and all the other exalted beauties of the Heavenly
Palace.
In due course of time these ladies arrived, paying suitable
respect and obeisance to the Mother of his Divine Majesty. They
were resplendent in king-fisher ornaments, in jewels of jade,
crystal and coral, in robes of silk and gauze, and still more
resplendent in charms that not the Celestial Empire itself could
equal, setting aside entirely all countries of the foreign
barbarians. And in grace and elegance of manners, in skill in the
arts of poetry and the lute, what could surpass them?
Like a parterre of flowers they surrounded her Majesty, and
awaited her pleasure with perfect decorum, when, having saluted
them with affability she thus addressed them - "Lovely ones -
ladies distinguished by the particular attention of your
sovereign and mine, I have sent for you to resolve a doubt and a
difficulty. On questioning our sovereign as to whom he regarded
as the loveliest of his garden of beauty he benignantly replied:
"The Lady A-Kuei is incomparable," and though this may well be,
he further graciously added that he had never seen her. Nor, on
pursuing the subject, could I learn the Imperial reason. The
artist Lo Cheng follows in his Master's footsteps, he also never
having seen the favored lady, and he and she reply to me that
this is an Imperial secret. Declare to me therefore if your
perspicacity and the feminine interest which every lady property
takes in the other can unravel this mystery, for my liver is
tormented with anxiety beyond measure."
As soon as the Pearl Empress had spoken she realized that she had
committed a great indiscretion. A babel of voices, of cries,
questions and contradictions instantly arose. Decorum was
abandoned. The Lady of Chen swooned, nor could she be revived for
an hour, and the Princess of Feminine Propriety and the White
Jade Concubine could be dragged apart only by the united efforts
of six of the Palace matrons, so great was their fury the one
with the other, each accusing each of encouragement to the Lady
A-Kuei's pretensions. So also with the remaining ladies. Shrieks
resounded through the Hall of Virtuous Tranquillity, and when the
Pearl Empress attempted to pour oil on the troubled waters by
speaking soothing and comfortable words, the august Voice was
entirely inaudible in the tumult.
All sought at length in united indignation for the Lady A-Kuei,
but she had modestly withdrawn to the Pearl Pavilion in the
Imperial Garden and, foreseeing anxieties, had there secured
herself on hearing the opening of the Royal Speech.
Finally the ladies were led away by their attendants, weeping,
lamenting, raging, according to their several dispositions, and
the Pearl Empress, left with her own maidens, beheld the floor
strewn with jade pins, kingfisher and coral jewels, and even with
fragments of silk and gauze. Nor was she any nearer the solution
of the desired secret.
That night she tossed upon a bed sleepless though heaped with
down, and her mind raged like a fire up and down all possible
answers to the riddle, but none would serve. Then, at the dawn,
raising herself on one august elbow she called to her venerable
nurse and foster mother, the Lady Ma, wise and resourceful in the
affairs and difficulties of women, and, repeating the
circumstances, demanded her counsel.
The Lady Ma considering the matter long and deeply, slowly
replied:
"This is a great riddle and dangerous, for to intermeddle with
the divine secrets is the high road to the Yellow Springs
(death). But the child of my breasts and my exalted Mistress
shall never ask in vain, for a thwarted curiosity is dangerous as
a suppressed fever. I will conceal myself nightly in the Dragon
Bedchamber and this will certainly unveil the truth. And if I
perish I perish."
It is impossible to describe how the Empress heaped Lady Ma with
costly jewels and silken brocades and taels of silver beyond
measuring - how she placed on her breast the amulet of jade that
had guarded herself from all evil influences, how she called the
ancestral spirits to witness that she would provide for the Lady
Ma's remotest descendants if she lost her life in this sublime
devotion to duty.
That night Lady Ma concealed herself behind the Imperial couch in
the Dragon Chamber, to await the coming of the Son of Heaven.
Slowly dripped the water-clock as the minutes fled away; sorely
ached the venerable limbs of the Lady Ma as she crouched in the
shadows and saw the rising moon scattering silver through the
elegant traceries of carved ebony and ivory; wildly beat her
heart as delicately tripping footsteps approached the Dragon
Chamber, and the Princess of Feminine Propriety, attended by her
maidens, ascended the Imperial Couch and hastily dismissed them.
Yet no sweet repose awaited this favored lady. The Lady Ma could
hear her smothered sobs, her muttered exclamations - nay could
even feel the couch itself tremble as the Princess uttered the
hated name of the Lady A-Kuei, the poison of jealousy running in
every vein. It was impossible for Lady Ma to decide which was the
most virulent, this, or the poison of curiosity in the heart of
the Pearl Empress. Though she loved not the Princess she was
compelled to pity such suffering. But all thought was banished by
the approach of the Yellow Emperor, prepared for repose and
unattended, in simple but divine grandeur.
It cannot indeed be supposed that a Celestial Emperor is human,
yet there was mortality in the start which his Augustness gave
when the Princess of Feminine Propriety flinging herself from the
Dragon couch, threw herself at his feet and with tears that
flowed like that river known as "The Sorrow of China," demanded
to know what she had done that another should be preferred before
her; reciting in frantic haste such imperfections of the Lady
A-Kuei's appearance as she could recall (or invent) in the haste
of that agitating moment.
"That one of her eyes is larger than the other - no human being
can doubt" sobbed the lady -" and surely your Divine Majesty
cannot be aware that her hair reaches but to her waist, and that
there is a brown mole on the nape of her neck? When she sings it
resembles the croak of the crow. It is true that most of the
Palace ladies are chosen for anything but beauty, yet she is the
most ill-favored. And is it this - this bat-faced lady who is
preferred to me! Would I had never been born: Yet even your
Majesty's own lips have told me I am fair!"
The Yellow Emperor supported the form of the Princess in his
arms. There are moments when even a Son of Heaven is but human.
"Fair as the rainbow," he murmured, and the Princess faintly
smiled; then gathering the resolution of the Philosopher he added
manfully - "But the Lady A-Kuei is incomparable. And the reason
is -"
The Lady Ma eagerly stretched her head forward with a hand to
either ear. But the Princess of Feminine Propriety with one
shriek had swooned and in the hurry of summoning attendants and
causing her to be conveyed to her own apartments that precious
sentence was never completed.
Still the Lady Ma groveled behind the Dragon Couch as the Son of
Heaven, left alone, approached the veranda and apostrophizing the
moon, murmured -
"0 loveliest pale watcher of the destinies of men, illuminate the
beauty of the Lady A-Kuei, and grant that I who have never seen
that beauty may never see it, but remain its constant admirer!"
So saying, he sought his solitary couch and slept, while the Lady
Ma, in a torment of bewilderment, glided from the room.
The matter remained in suspense for several days. The White Jade
Concubine was the next lady commanded to the Dragon Chamber, and
again the Lady Ma was in her post of observation. Much she heard,
much she saw that was not to the point, but the scene ended as
before by the dismissal of the lady in tears, and the departure
of the Lady Ma in ignorance of the secret.
The Emperor's peace was ended.
The singular circumstance was that the Lady A-Kuei was never
summoned by the Yellow Emperor. Eagerly as the Empress watched,
no token of affection for her was ever visible. Nothing could be
detected. It was inexplicable. Finally, devoured by curiosity
that gave her no respite, she resolved on a stratagem that should
dispel the mystery, though it carried with it a risk on which she
trembled to reflect. It was the afternoon of a languid summer
day, and the Yellow Emperor, almost unattended, had come to pay a
visit of filial respect to the Pearl Empress. She received him
with the ceremony due to her sovereign in the porcelain pavilion
of the Eastern Gardens, with the lotos fish ponds before them,
and a faint breeze occasionally tinkling the crystal wind-bells
that decorated the shrubs on the cloud and dragon-wrought slopes
of the marble approach. A bird of brilliant plumage uttered a cry
of reverence from its gold cage as the Son of Heaven entered. As
was his occasional custom, and after suitable inquiries as to his
parent's health, the attendants were all dismissed out of earshot
and the Emperor leaned on his cushions and gazed reflectively
into the sunshine outside. So had the Court Artist represented
him as "The Incarnation of Philosophic Calm."
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