 Section 4 of the Ninth Vibration and Other Stories by L. Adams Back. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Interpreter, a Romance of the East. Part 1. There are strange things in this story, but so far as I understand them, I tell the truth. If you measure the East with a Western foot rule, you will say impossible. I should have said it myself. Of myself I was as little as I can, for this story is a vandaloring. I am an incident only, though I did not know that at first. My name is Stephen Clifton, and I was eight and thirty, plenty of money, sound, and wind, and limb. I had been by way of being a writer before the war, the hobby of rich man, but if I picked up anything in the welter in France, it was that real work is the only salvation this mad world has to offer. So I meant to begin at the beginning, and learn my trade like a journeyman laborer. I had come to the right place. A very wonderful city is Peshawar, rather, let us say, two cities. The Compounds, the fortifications where Europeans dwell in such peace as their strong right arms can secure them, and the native city in Bazaar humming and buzzing like a hive of angry bees, with the rumors that come up from the lower India, or down the Khyber Pass with the camel caravans loaded with merchandise from Afghanistan, Pokhara, and farther. And it is because of this that Peshawar is the key of India, and a city of romance that stands at every corner and cries aloud in the marketplace. For at Peshawar, every able-bodied man sleeps with his revolver under his pillow, and the old fort is always ready in case it should be necessary at brief and sharp notice to hurry the women and children into it, and possibly to die in their defense. So in Levening is the neighborhood of the frontier tribes that haunt the famous Khyber Pass and the menacing hills where danger is always lurking. But there was society here, and I was swept into it. There was chatter, and it galled me. I was beginning to feel that I had missed my mark, and must go farther afield, perhaps up into Central Asia, when I met Vanna Loring. If I say that her hair was soft and dark, that she had the deepest hazel eyes I have ever seen, and a sensitive tender mouth, that she moved with the flowing grace like a wave of the sea, it sounds like the portrait of a beauty, and she was never that. Also incidentally, it gives none of her charm. I never heard anyone get any further than that she was oddly attractive. Let us leave it at that. She was certainly attractive to me. She was the governess of little Winifred Marion, whose father held the august position of general commanding the frontier forces, and her mother the more commanding position of the reigning beauty of northern India, generally speaking. No one disputed that. She was as pretty as a picture, and her charming photograph had graced as many illustrated papers as there were illustrated papers to grace. But Vanna, I gleaned her story by bits when I came across her with the child in the gardens. I was beginning to piece it together now. Her love of the strange and beautiful she had inherited from a young Italian mother, daughter of a political refugee. Her childhood had been spent in a remote little village in the west of England. Just reluctantly she told me how she had brought herself up after her mother's death and her father's second marriage. Little was said of that, but I gathered that it had been a grief to her, a factor in her flight to the east. We were walking in the circular road, then, with Winifred in front, leading her Pekingese by its blue ribbon. And we had it almost to ourselves except for a few natives passing slow and dignified on their own occasions. Professionable Peshawar was finishing its last rubber of bridge before separating to dress for dinner, and had no time to spare for trivialities and sunsets. So when I came to three and twenty, she said slowly, I felt I must break away from our narrow life. I had a call to India stronger than anything on earth. You would not understand, but that was so, and I had spent every spare moment in teaching myself India. Its history, legends, religions, everything. And I was not wanted at home, and I had grown afraid. I could divine years of patience and repression under this plain tale, but also a power that would be dynamic when the authentic voice called. That was her charm, gentleness and strength, a sweet serenity. What are you afraid of? Of growing old and missing what was waiting for me out here. But I could not get away like other people. No money, you see. So I thought I would come out here and teach. Dare I? Would they let me? I knew I was fighting life, and chances and risks, if I did it. But it was death if I stayed there. And then, do you really care to hear? Of course. Tell me how you broke your chain. I spare you the family quarrels. I can never go back. But I was spurred. Courage would take some wild bleep, and I took it. Six years ago I came out. First I went to a doctor and his wife at Kanpur. They had a wonderful knowledge of the Indian peoples, and there I learned Hindustani and much else. Then he died. But Nant had left me two hundred pounds, and I could wait a little in shoes. And so I came here. It interested me the courage that pale, elastic type of woman has. Have you ever regretted it? Would they take you back if you failed? Never to both questions, she said, smiling. Life is glorious. I've drunk a cup. I'd never thought to taste. And if I died tomorrow, I should know I had done right. I rejoice in every moment I live, even when wind if red and I are wrestling with arithmetic. I shouldn't have thought life was very easy with Lady Maron. Oh, she is kind enough in an indifferent sort of way. I am not the persecuted Jane Eyre sort of governess at all. But that is all on the surface and does not matter. It is India I care for, the people, the sun, the infinite beauty. It was coming home. You would laugh if I told you I knew Peshawar long before I came here. Knew it. Walked here. Lived. Before there were English in India at all. She broke off. You wouldn't understand. Oh, I have had that feeling, too, I said patronizingly. If one has read very much about a place, that was not quite what I meant. Never mind. The people, the place, that is the real thing to me. All this is the dream. The sweep of her hand took in not only Winifred myself, but the general stately residents, which to blaspheme and Peshawar is rank and fidelity. By George I would give thousands to feel that. I can't get out of Europe here. I want to write, Miss Loring. I found myself saying. I'd done a bit, and then the war came and blew my life to pieces. Now I want to get inside the skin of the East, and I can't do it. I see it from outside, with a pane of glass between. No life in it. If you feel as if you say, for God's sake, be my interpreter. I really meant what I said. I knew she was a harp that any breeze would sweep into music. I divined that temperament in her, and proposed to use it for my own ends. She had, and I had not, the power to be a part of all she saw, to feel kindred blood running in her own veins. To the average European, the native life of India is scarcely interesting, so far it is removed from all of comprehension. To me it was interesting, but I could not tell why. I stood outside and had not the fairy gold to pay for my entrance. Here at all events she could buy her way where I could not. Without cruelty, which honestly was not my besetting sin, especially where women were concerned, the egoist in me felt I would use her, would extract the last drop of the enchantment of her knowledge before I went on my way. What more natural than that, Vanna, or any other woman should minister to my thirst for information. Men are like that. I pretended to be no better than the rest. She pleased my fastidiousness, that fastidiousness which is the only austerity in men not otherwise austere. Interpret, she said, looking at me with clear hazel eyes. How could I? You were in the native city yesterday. What did you miss? Everything. I saw masses of color, light, movement. Brilliantly picturesque people, children like Asiatic angels, magnificently scowling ruffians and sheepskin coats, and in fact, a movie staged for my benefit. I was afraid they would wring down the curtain before I had had enough. It had no meaning. When I got back to my diggings, I tried to put down what I had just seen, and I swear there was more inspiration in the guidebook. Did you go alone? Yes. I certainly would not go sightseeing with the Maron crowd. Tell me what you felt when you saw it first. I went with Sir John's uncle. He was a great traveler. The colors struck me dumb. It flames. It sings. Like of the grey-pinched life in the West, I saw a grave-dark potter turning his wheel while his little girl stood by, glad at our pleasure. Her head veiled like a miniature woman, tiny baggy trousers, and a silver nose stud, like a star in one delicate nostril. In her thin arms she held a heavy baby in a gilt cap, like a monkey, and the wheel turned and it whirled until it seemed to be spinning dreams, thick as motes in the sun. The clay rose in smooth spirals under his hand, and the wheel sang, Shall the vessel reprove him who made one to honor and one to dishonor? And they saw the potter thumping his wet clay, and the clay, plastic as dream-stuff, shaped swift as light, and the three fates stood at his shoulder. Dreams, dreams, and all in the spinning of the wheel, and the rich shadows of the old broken courtyard where he sat, and the wheel stopped, and the thread broke, and the little new shapes he had made stood all about him, and he was only a potter and peshawar. Her voice was like a song. She had utterly forgotten my existence. I did not dislike it at the moment, for I wanted to hear more, and the impersonal is the rarest gift a woman can give a man. Did you buy anything? He gave me a gift, a flawed jar of turquoise blue, faint turquoise green round the lip. He saw I understood, and then I bought a little gold cap and a wooden box of jade-green cabel grapes, about a rupee, all told, but it was eastern merchandise, and I was trading from Belsora and Baghdad, and a laser's camels were swaying down from the Damascus along the Kyber Pass, and coming in at the great Darwaza, and friends' eyes meet me everywhere. I am profoundly happy here. The sinking sun lit an almost ecstatic face. I envied her more deeply than I had ever envied anyone. She had the secret of immortal youth, and I felt old as I looked at her. One might be eighty and share that passionate impersonal joy. Age could not wither nor custom stale the infinite variety of her world's joys. She had a child as dewy youth in her eyes. There are great sunsets at Peshawar, flaming over the plain, dying in melancholy splendor over the dangerous hills. They too were hers, in a sense in which they could never be mine. But what a companion! In my astonishment a wild thought of marriage flashed across me, to be instantly rebuffed with the shrug. Marriage, that one's wife, might talk poetry to one about the East, absurd, but what was it these people felt and I could not feel? Almost shut up in the prison of self. I knew what Vanna had felt in her village, a maddening desire to escape, to be a part of the loveliness that lay beyond me. So might a man love a king's daughter in her hopeless heights. It may be very beautiful on the surface, I said morosely, but there's a lot of misery below, hateful, they tell me. Of course, we shall get to work one day, but look at the sunset. It opens like a mysterious flower. I must take Winifred home now. One moment, I pleaded. I can only see it through your eyes. I feel it while you speak, and then the good minute goes. She laughed, and so must I. Tom Winifred, look there's an owl, not like the owls in the summer dark in England. Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping, wavy in the dark, lit by one low star. Suddenly she turned again and looked at me half wistfully. It is good to talk to you. You want to know. You are so near at all. I wish I could help you. I am so exquisitely happy myself. My writing was at a standstill. It seemed the groping of a blind man in a radiant world. Once perhaps I had felt that life was good in itself, when the guns came thundering toward the vroomy ridge in a mad gallop of horses, and men shouting and swearing and frantically urging them on, then writing for more than life I had tasted life for an instant, not before or since. But this woman had the secret. Lady Marion, with her escort of girls and subalterns, came daintily past the hotel compound and startled me for my brooding with her pretty silvery voice. Dreaming, Mr. Clifton? It isn't at all wholesome to dream in the East. Come and dine with us to-morrow. A tiny dance afterwards, you know, or bridge for those who like it. I had not the faintest notion whether governesses dined with the family or came in afterward with the coffee. But it was a sporting chance, and I took it. Then Sir John came up and joined us. You can't well dance to-morrow, Kitty, he said to his wife. There's been an outpost affair at the Swat Hills, and young Fitzgerald has been shot. Come to dinner, of course, Clifton. Glad to see you. But no dancing, I think. Kitty Marion's mouth drooped like a pouting child's. Was it for the lost dance, or the lost soldier lying out on the hills in the dying sunset? Who could tell? In either case, it was pretty enough for the illustrated papers. How sad! Such a dear boy! We shall miss him at tennis. Then brightly. Well, we'll have to put the dance off for a week, but come to-morrow anyhow. Two. Next evening I went into Lady Marion's flower-scented drawing-room. The electric fans were fluttering, and the evening air was cool. Five or six pretty girls and as many men made up the party. Kitty Marion, the prettiest of them all, fashionably undressed in faint pink and crystal, with a charming smile and readiness, all her gay little flags flying in the rich man's honor. I am no vainer than other men. But I saw that, whatever her charm might be it was none for me. What could I say to interest her who lived in her foolish little world as one shut in a bright bubble? She had said the wrong word about young Fitzgerald. I wanted Vanna, with her deep-seeing eyes, to say the right one, and adjust those cruel values. Governance's dine had appeared only to fill an unexpected place, or make a decorous entry afterward to play accompaniments. Fortunately, Kitty Marion sang, in a pinched little soprano, not nearly so pretty as her silver ripple of talk. It was when the party had settled down to bridge, and I was standing out, that I ventured to go up to her as she sat knitting by a window, not unwatched by the quick flash of Lady Marion's eyes as I did it. I think you hypnotize me, Miss Loring. When I hear anything, I straightaway want to know what you will say. Have you heard of Fitzgerald's death? That is why we are not dancing tonight. Tomorrow the cable will reach his home in England. He was an only child, and they are the great people of the village where we are the little people. I knew his mother as one knows the great lady who is kind to all the village folk. It may kill her. It is traveling tonight like a bullet to her heart, and she does not know. His father? A brave man, a soldier himself. He will know it was a good death, and that Henry would not fail. He did not appraise. He would not hear. But all joy and hope will be dead in that house tomorrow. And what do you think? I am not sorry for Harry, if you mean that. He knew. We all know that he was on guard here holding the outposts against blood and treachery and terrible things, playing the great game. One never loses at that game if one plays it straight, and I am sure that in the last it was the joy he felt and not fear. He has not lost. Did you notice in the church a niche before every soldier's seat to hold his loaded gun and the tablets on the walls, killed at Cabell River, H-22, killed on outpost duty, murdered by an Afghan fanatic? This will be one memory more. Why be sorry? Presently. I am going up to the hills tomorrow to the Macklin Fort with Mrs. Delaney, Lady Marion's aunt, and we shall see the wonderful Taqtifahi Monastery on the way. You should do that run before you go. The fort is the last but one on the way to Chitral, and beyond that the road is so beset that only soldiers may go farther, and indeed the regiments escort each other up and down, but it is an early start, for we must be back in Peshawar at six for fear of raiding natives. I know. They hauled me up in the dust the other day, and told me I should be swept off to the hills if I fooled about after dusk. But I say, is it safe for you to go? You ought to have a man. Could I go, too? I thought she did not look enthusiastic at the proposal. Ask. You know I settle nothing. I go where I am sent. She said it with the happiest smile. I knew they could send her nowhere that she would not find joy. I thought her mere presence must send the vibrations of happiness through the household. Yet again, why? For where there is no receiver the current speaks in vain. And for an instant I seem to see the air full of messages, of speech striving to utter its passionate truths, to deaf ears stopped forever against the breaking waves of sound. But Banna heard. She left the room, and when the bridge was over I made my request. Lady Marion shrugged her shoulders and declared it would be a terribly dull run, the scenery nothing, and only, she whispered, aunt Selena and poor Miss Loring. Of course I saw at once that she did not like it, but Sir John was all for my going, and that saved the situation. I certainly could have dispensed with Aunt Selena when the automobile drew up in the golden river of the sunrise at the hotel. There were only the driver, a personal servant, and the two ladies, Mrs. Delaney, Cumley, Pleasant, Tocative, and Banna. Her face, in its dark motoring veil, fine and delicate as a young moon in a cloud-drift, the sensitive sweet mouth that had quivered a little when she spoke of Fitzgerald, the pure glance that radiated such kindness to all the world. She sat there with the key of dreams, pressed against her slight bosom, her eyes dreaming above it. Already the strange airs of her unknown world were breathing upon me, and as yet I knew not the things that belonged unto my peace. She glided along the straight military road from Peshawar to Noshwara, the gold-brite sun dazzling in its whiteness, a strange drive through the flat, burnt country, with the ominous cobble river flowing through it. Military preparations everywhere, and the hills looking watchfully down, alive as it were, with keen hostile eyes. Peshawar was at present about us as behind the lines in France, and when we crossed the cobble river on a bridge of boats, and I saw its haunted waters, I began to feel the atmosphere of the place closing down upon me. It had a sinister beauty, it breathed suspense, and I wished, as I was sure Vanna did, for silence that was not at our command. For Mrs. Delaney felt nothing of it. A bright, shallow ripple of talk was her contribution to the joys of the day, though it was, fortunately enough for her happiness if we listened and agreed. I knew Vanna listened only in show. Her intent eyes were fixed on the Taqt Ibahi Hills after we had swept out of Noshwara, and when the car drew up at the rough track she had a strange look of suspense and pallor. I remember I wondered at the time if she were nervous in the wild open country. Now, pray, don't be shocked, said Mrs. Delaney comfortably, but you two young people may go up to the monastery, and I shall stay here. I am dreadfully ashamed of myself, but the sight of that hill is enough for me. Don't hurry, I may have a little dose, and be all the better company when you get back. Now, don't try to persuade me, Mr. Clifton. It isn't the part of a friend. I cannot say I was sorry, though I had a moment of panic when Vanna offered to stay with her. Very much, too, as if she really meant it. So we set out, perverse, Vanna leading steadily as if she knew the way. She never looked up, and her wish for silence was so evident that I followed, lending my hand mutely when the difficulties obliged it, she accepting absently, and as if her thoughts were far away. Suddenly she quickened her pace. We had climbed about nine hundred feet, and now the narrow track twisted through the rocks, a track that looked as age-worn as no doubt it was. We threaded it, and struggled over the ridge, and looked down victorious on the other side. There she stopped. A very wonderful sight, of which I had never seen the like labourful oas. Rock and waste and towering crags, and the mighty ruin of the monastery set in the fangs of the mountain, like a robber baron's castle, looking far away to the blue mountains of the debatable land, the land of mystery and danger. It stood there the great ruin of the vast habitation of men, building after building, mysterious and broken, corridors, halls, refractories, cells, the dwelling of a faith so alien that I could not reconstruct the life that gave it being, and all sinking gently into ruin that, in a century more, would confound it with the roots of the mountain. Gray and wonderful, it plung to the heights and looked with eyeless windows at the past. Somehow I found it infinitely pathetic. The very faith that expressed is dead in India. None left so poor to do it reverence. But Banna knew her way. Unairingly, she led me from point to point, and she was visibly at home in the intricacies. Such knowledge is the young woman bewildered me. Could she have studied the plans in the museum? How else should she know where the abbot lived, or where the refractory brothers were punished? Once I missed her, while I stooped to examine some scroll work, and following found her before one of the few images of the Buddha that the rapacious museum had spared, a singularly beautiful, vast relief, the hand raised to enforce the truth the calm lifts were speaking, the drapery falling and stately folds to the bare feet. As I came up she had an air as if she had just ceased for movement, and I had a distinct feeling that she had knelt before it. I saw the look of worship. The thing troubled me like a dream, haunting, impossible, but real. How beautiful, I said in spite of myself, as she pointed to the image. In this utter solitude it seems the very spirit of the place. He was, he is, said Vanna. Explain to me, I don't understand. I know so little of him. What is the subject? She hesitated, then shows her words as if for a beginner. It is the blessed one preaching to the tree spirits. See how eagerly they lean from the boughs to listen. This other relief represents him in the state of mystic vision. Here he is drowned in peace. See how it overflows from the closed eyes, the closed lips, the air is filled with his quiet. What is he dreaming? Dreaming, seeing, peace. He sits at the point where time and infinity meet. To attain that vision was the aim of the monks who lived here. Did they attain? I found myself speaking as if she could certainly answer. A few. There was one, Vassetta, the Brahmin, a young man who had renounced all his possessions and riches, and seated here before this image of the blessed one. He fell often into the mystic state. He had a strange vision at one time of the future of India, which will surely be fulfilled. He did not forget it in his rebirths. He remembers she broke off suddenly and said with forced indifference. He would sit here often looking out over the mountains. The monks sat at his feet to hear. He became Abbot while still young, but his story is a sad one. I entreat you to tell me. She looked away over the mountains. While he was Abbott here, still a young man, a famous Chinese pilgrim came down through Kashmir to visit the holy places in India. The Abbott went forward with him to Peshawar that he might make him welcome. And there came a dancer to Peshawar. Named Lilo Levante. Most beautiful. I dare not tell you her beauty. I tremble now to think. Again she paused, and again the faint creeping sense of mystery invaded me. She resumed. The Abbott saw her, and he loved her. He was young still, you remember. She was a woman of the Hindu faith and hated Buddhism. It swept him down into the lower worlds of storm and desire. He fled with Lilo Levante and never returned here. So in his rebirth he fell. She stopped at her face pale as death. How do you know? Where have you read it? If I could only find what you find and know what you know, the East is like an open book to you. Tell me the rest. How should I know any more, she said hurriedly. We must be going back. You should study the plans of this place at Peshawar. They were very learned monks who lived here. It is famous for learning. The life had gone out of her words, out of the ruins. There was no more to be said. We clamber down the hill in the hot sunshine, speaking only of the view, the strange shrubs and flowers, and once the swift gliding of a snake and found Mrs. Delaney blissfully asleep in the most padded corner of the car. The spirit of the East vanished in her comfortable presence and luncheon seemed the only matter of moment. I wonder, my dears, she said, if you would be very disappointed and thank me very dense if I proposed I were giving up the Malacan fort. The driver has been giving me in very poor English such an account of the dangers of that awful road up the hill that I feel no fort would repay me for its terrors. Do you say what you feel, Miss Loring? Mr. Clifton can lunch with the afters, sirs, at Noshera and come any time. I know I am an atrocity. There could only be one answer. The van and I knew perfectly well the crafty design of the driver to spare himself work. Mrs. Delaney remained brightly awake for the rent home and favored us with many remarkable views on India and its shortcomings. Vanna, who had a sincere liking for her, laughing with delight at her description of a visit of condolence with Lady Marion to the five widows of one of the hill rajas. But I own I was preoccupied. I knew those moments at the monastery had given me a glimpse into the wonderland of her soul that made me long for more. It was rapidly becoming clear to me that unless my intentions developed on very different lines I must flee Peshawar. For love is born of sympathy and sympathy was strengthening daily. But for love I had no courage yet. I feared it as men fear the unknown. I despised myself, but I feared. I will confess my aggregers of folly and vanity. I had no doubt as to her reception of my offer if I should make it. But possessed by a colossal selfishness I thought only of myself and from that point of view could not decide how I stood to lose her gain. In my wildest accesses of vanity I did not suppose Vanna loved me. But I felt she liked me and I believed the advantages I had to offer would be overwhelming to a woman in her position. So tossed on the waves of indecision I inclined to flight. That night I resolutely began my packing and wrote a note of farewell to Lady Marion. The next morning I furiously undid it and destroyed the note. And that afternoon I took the shortest way to the sunset road to Lounge Bout and wait for Vanna and Winifred. She never came and I was as unreasonably angry as if I had deserved the blessing of her presence. Next day I could see that she tried gently but clearly to discourage our meeting and for three days I never saw her at all. Yet I knew that in her solitary life our talks counted for a pleasure and when we met again I thought I saw a new softness in the lovely hazel deeps of her eyes. End of section four. Section five of the ninth vibration and other stories by L. Adams Beck. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Three. On the day when things became clear to me I was walking towards Marian's gates when I met her coming alone along the sunset road in the late gold of the afternoon. She looked pale and a little wearied and I remembered I wished I did not know every change of her face as I did. It was a symptom that alarmed my selfishness. It galled me with the sense that I was no longer my own despot. So you have been up the kyber past, she said as I fell into step at her side. Tell me, was it as wonderful as you expected? No, no, you tell me. It will give me what I missed. Begin at the beginning. Tell me what I saw. I could not miss the delight of her words when she left, knowing my whim. Oh, that pass! The wonder of those old roads that have borne the traffic and romance of the world for ages. Do you think there is anything in the world so fascinating as they are? But did you go on Tuesday or Friday? For these are the only days in the week when the kyber can be safely entered. The British then turned out the kyber rifles and man every craig, and the loaded caravans move like a tide and go up and down the narrow road on their occasions. Naturally, mere sightseers are not welcomed, for much business must be got through in that urgent forty-eight hours in which life is not risked in entering. Tuesday. But make a picture for me. Well, you gave your word not to photograph or sketch as if one wanted to when every bit of it is stamped on one's brain and you went up to Jamrod Fort at the entrance. Did they tell you it is an old, sick fort and has been on duty in that turbulent place for five hundred years? And did you see the machine guns in the court? And everyone armed, even the boys with the belts of cartridges? Then you went up the narrow winding track between the mountains and you said to yourself, this is the road of pure romance. It goes up to Silken Samarkand and I can ride to Bokhara of the beautiful women and to all the dreams. Am I alive and is it real? Felt that all every bit. Go on, she smiled with pleasure. And you saw the little forts on the crags and the men on guard all along the hills, rifles ready. You could hear the guns rattle as they saluted. Do you know that up there men plow with rifles loaded besides them? They have to be men indeed. Do you mean to imply that we are not men? Different men, at least. This is life in a border ballad. Such a life as you knew in France, but beautiful in a wild hawk sort of way. Don't the Kyber rifles bewilder you? They are drawn from these very hill tribes and will shoot their own fathers and brothers in the way of duty as comfortably as if they were jackals. Once there was a scrap here and one of the tribesmen sniped our men unbearably. What do you suppose happened? A Kyber rifle came to the colonel and said, let me put an end to him, Colonel Sahib. I know exactly where he sits. He is my grandfather. And he did it, the bond of bread and salt. Yes, and discipline. I'm sometimes half frightened of discipline. It molds a man like wax. Even God doesn't do that. Well, then you have the traitors, wild shaggy men and sheepskin and women in massive jewelry of silver and turquoise, great earrings, heavy bracelets loading their arms, wild fierce handsome. And the camels, thousands of them, some going up, some coming down, a mass of human and animal life. Above you moving figures against the keen blue sky or deep below you in the ravines. The camels were swaying along with huge bales of goods and dark beautiful women in wicker cages perched on them. Silks and carpets from Bokhara and blue-eyed Persian cats and bluer Persian turquoises. Wonderful. And the dust gilded by the sunshine makes a vaporous golden atmosphere for it all. What was the most wonderful thing you saw there? The most beautiful, I think, was a man, a splendid dark ruffian lounging along. He wanted to show off and his swagger was perfect, long black onyx eyes and a tumble of black curls and teeth like almonds. But what do you think he carried on his wrist? A hawk with fierce yellow eyes ringed and chained. Hawking is a favorite sport in the hills. Oh, why doesn't some great painter come and paint it all before they take to trains and cars? I long to see it all again, but I never shall. Why not, I said I? Surely Sir John can get you up there any day. Not now. The fighting makes it difficult. But it isn't that. I am leaving. Leaving? My heart gave a leap. Why? Where? Leaving, Lady Marion. Why, for heaven's sake? I had rather not tell you. But I must know. You cannot. I shall ask, Lady Marion. I forbid you. And then, the unexpected happened, and an unbearable impulse swept me into folly. Or was it wisdom? Listen to me. I would not have said it yet, but this settles it. I want you to marry me. I want it atrociously. It was a strange word. What I felt for her at that moment was difficult to describe. I endured it like a pain that could only be asswitched by your presence. But I endured it angrily. We were walking on the sunset road, very deserted and quiet at the time. The place was propitious if nothing else was. She looked at me in transparent astonishment. Mr. Clifton, are you dreaming? You can't mean what you say. Why can't I? I do. I want you. You have the key of all I care for. I think of the world without you, and I find it tasteless. Surely you have all the world can give. What do you want more? The power to enjoy it. To understand it. You have got that. I haven't. I want you always with me to interpret, like a guide to a blind fellow. I am no better. Say like a dog at once, she interrupted. At least you are frank enough to put it on that ground. You have not said you loved me. You could not say it. I don't know whether I do or not. I know nothing about love. I want you, indescribably. Perhaps that is love, is it? I never wanted anyone before. I have tried to get away, and I can't. I was brutally frank, you see. She compelled my very thoughts. Why have you tried? Because every man likes freedom. But I like you better. I can tell you the reason, she said, in her gentle, unwavering voice. I am Lady Marion's governess and an undesirable You have felt that? Don't make me such a snob. No. Yes, you forced me into honesty. I did feel it at first, like the miserable fool I am. But I could kick myself when I think of that now. It is utterly forgotten. Take me and make me what you will, and forgive me. Only tell me your secret of joy. How is it you understand everything, alive or dead? I want to live, to see, to know. It was a rhapsody like a boy's. Yet at the moment I was not even ashamed of it, so sharp was my need. I think, she said, slowly, looking straight before her, that I had better be quite frank. I don't love you. I don't know what love means in the Western sense. It has a very different meaning for me. Your voice comes to me from an immense distance when you speak in that way. You want me, but never with the thought of what I might want. Is that love? I like you very deeply as a friend, but we are of different races. There is a gulf. A gulf? You are English. By birth, yes. In mind, no. And there are things that go deeper, that you could not understand. So I refuse, quite definitely, and our ways part here, for in a few days I go. I shall not see you again, but I wish to say goodbye. The bitterest chigrin was working in my soul. I felt as if all were deserting me, a sickening feeling of loneliness. I did not know the man who was in me, and was a stranger to myself. I entreat you to tell me why and where. Since you have made me this offer, I will tell you why. Lady Marion objected to my friendship with you, and objected in a way which she stopped, flushing pilly. I caught her hand. That settles it, that she should have dared. I'll go up this minute and tell her we are engaged. Vanna, Vanna! For she disengaged her hand, quietly but firmly. Oh, on no account! How can I make it more plain to you? I should have gone soon, in any case. My place is in the native city. That is the life I want. I have worked there. I knew it before I came out. My sympathies are all with them. They know what life is. Why even the beggars, poorer than poorer, are perfectly happy, basking in the great, generous sun. Oh, the splendor and riot of life and color! That's my life. I sicken of this. But I'll give it to you. Marry me, and we will travel to you tired of it. Yes, and look on as at a play, sitting in the stalls and applauding when we are pleased. No, I'm going to work there. For God's sake, how? Let me come, too. You can't. You are not in it. I am going to attach myself to the medical mission at Lahore and learn nursing, and then I shall go to my own people. Missionaries? You've nothing in common with them? Nothing. But they teach what I want. Mr. Clifton, I shall not come this way again, if I remember, I'll write to you and tell you what the real world is like. She smiled. The absorbed little smile I knew and feared. I saw pleading was useless then. I would wait and never lose sight of her and of hope. Vanna, before you go, give me your gift of sight. Interpret for me. Stay with me a little and make me see. What do you mean exactly? She asked, in her gentlest voice, half turning to me, make one journey with me as my sister if you will do no more. Though I warn you that all the time I shall be trying to win my wife, but come with me once, and after that, if you will go, you must. Say yes. Madness. But she hesitated, a hesitation full of hope, and looked at me with intent eyes. I will tell you frankly, she said at last, that I know my knowledge of the East and kinship with it goes far beyond mere words. In my case the doors were not shut. I believe I know that long ago this was my life. If I spoke forever I could not make you understand how much I know and why. So I shall quite certainly go back to it. Nothing you least of all can hold me, but you are my friend. That is a true bond. And if you would wish me to give you two months before I go, I might do that, if it would in any way help you, as your friend only. You clearly understand. You would not reproach me afterwards when I left you, as I should most certainly do. I swear I would not. I swear I would protect you even from myself. I want you forever, but if you will only give me two months, come. But have you thought that people will talk? It may injure you. I am not worth that, God knows, and you willing to take nothing I could give you in return. She spoke very quietly. That does not trouble me. It would only trouble me, if you ask what I have not to give. For two months I would travel with you as a friend. If, like a friend, I pay my own expenses, I would have interrupted. But she brushed that firmly aside. No, I must do as I say. And I am quite able to, or I should not suggest it. It would go on no other term. It would be hard if, because we are man and woman, I might not do one act of friendship for you before we part. For though I refuse your offer utterly, I appreciate it. And I would make what little return I can. It would be a sharp pain to me to distress you. For gentleness and calm the magnitude of the offer she was making stunned me so that I could scarcely speak. There was such an extraordinary simplicity and generosity in her manner that it appeared to me more enthralling and bewildering than the most finished coquetry I had ever known. She gave me opportunities that the most ardent lover could in his wildest dream desire. And with the remoteness in her eyes and her still voice she deprived them of all hope. It kindled in me a flame that made my throat dry when I tried to speak. Vanna, is it a promise? You mean it? If you wish it, yes. But I warn you, I think it will not make it easier for you when the time is over. Why two months? Partly because I can afford no more. No, I know what she would say. Partly because I can spare no more time. But I will give you that, if you wish, though honestly I had very much rather not. I think it unwise for you. I would protect you if I could. Indeed I would. It was my turn to hesitate now. Every moment revealed to me some new sweetness, some charm that I saw would weave itself into the very fiber of me I had been. Was I not now a fool? Could it not, being if the opportunity were given, oh fool, that it be better to let her go before she had become a part of my daily experience? I began to fear I was courting my own shipwreck. She read my thoughts clearly. Indeed, you would be wise to decide against it. Release me from my promise. It was a mad scheme, the superiority, or so I felt it, of her gentleness maddened me. It might have been I who needed protection, who was running the risk of misjudgment, not she, a lonely woman. She looked at me, waiting, trying to be wise for me, never for one instant thinking of herself. I felt utterly exiled from the real purpose of her life. I will never release you. I claim your promise. I hold to it. Very well, then, I will write, and tell you where I shall be. Goodbye, and if you change your mind, as I hope you will, tell me. She extended her hand, cool as a snowflake, and was gone, walking swiftly up the road. Ah, let a man beware when his wishes fulfilled rain down upon him. To what had I committed myself? She knew her strength and had no fears. I could scarcely realize that she had liking enough for me to make the offer. And it meant no shade more than she had said I knew well. She was safe. But what was to be the result for me? I knew nothing. She was a beloved mystery, strange she is and secret, strange her eyes. Her cheeks are cold as cold seashells. Yet I would risk it, for I knew there was no hope if I let her go now, and if I saw her again some glimmer might fall upon my dark. Next day this reached me. Dear Mr. Clifton, I am going to some Indian friends for a time. On the fifteenth of June I shall be at Srinagar in Kashmir. A friend has allowed me to take her little houseboat, the Kandarnath. If you like this plan we will share the cost for two months. I warn you it is not luxurious, but I think you will like it. I shall do this whether you come or know, for I want a quiet time before I take up my nursing in Lahore. In thinking of all this you will remember that I am not a girl but a woman. I shall be twenty-nine my next birthday. Sincerely yours, Vanna Lauren. P.S. But I still think you would be wiser not to come. I hope to hear you will not. I replied only this. Dear Miss Loring, I think I understand the position fully. I will be there. I thank you with all my heart. Grateful yours, Stephen Clifton. 4. Three days later I met Lady Marion and was swept into tea. Her manner was distinctly more cordial as she mentioned casually that Vanna had left. She understood to take up missionary work, which is odd, she added, with a woman's acrimony, for she had no more in common with missionaries than I have. And that is saying a good deal. Of course she speaks in Dostani perfectly, and could be useful, but I haven't grasped the point of it yet. I saw she counted on my knowing nothing of the real reason of Vanna's going, and left it, of course, of that. The talk drifted away under my guidance. Vanna evidently puzzled her. She half-feared, and wholly misunderstood her. No message came to me, as time went by, and for the time she had vanished completely, but I held fast to her promise and lived on that only. I take up my life where it ceased to be mere suspense and became life once more. On the fifteenth of June I found myself riding into Srinagar, in Kashmir, through the pure tremulous green of the mighty poplars that hedged the road into the city. The beauty of the country had half-stunned me when I entered the mountain barrier of Brahmala and saw the snowy peaks that guard the happy valley, with the jellum flowing through its tranquil of needliness. The flush of the almond blossom was over, but the iris, like a blue sea of peace, had overflowed the world. The azure meadows smiled back at the radiant sky. Such blossom! The blue shading in the sky was so bright, that I could not see it. I could not see it. I could not see it. I could not see it. I could not see it. The blue shading into clear violet, like a shoal in the sea. The earth, like a cup, held in the hand of a god, brimmed with the draught of youth and summer. And love? But no, for me the very word was sinister. Vanas' face, immutably calm, confronted it. That night I slept in a boat at Soapar, and I remember that, waking at midnight, I looked out and saw a mountain with a glorial of hazy silver about it, misty and faint as a cobweb, threaded with dew. The river, there spreading into a lake, was dark under it, flowing in a deep smooth blackness of shadow, and everything awaited. What? And even while I looked, the moon floated serenely above the peak, and all was bathed in pure light, the water rippling and shining in broken silver and pearl. So had Vanna floated into my sky, luminous, sweet, remote. I did not question my heart any more. I knew I loved her. Two days later I rode into Srinagar, and could scarcely see the wild beauty of that strange Venice of the East. My heart was so beating in my eyes. I rode past the lovely wooden bridges where the balcony houses totter to each other across the canals in dim splendor of carving and age, where the many-colored native life crowds down the river steppes and cleanses its blower-bright robes, its gold-bright brass vessels in the shining stream, and my heart said only, Vanna, Vanna. One day one thought of her absence had taught me what she was to me, and if humility and patient endeavor could raise me to her feet, I was resolved that I would spend my life in labor and think it will spend. My servant dismounted and led his horse, asking from every one where the kendara could be found, and eager black eyes sparkled, and two little bronze images detached themselves from the crowd of boys, and ran fully to spawns before us. Above the last bridge at the Jellum broadens out into a stately river, controlled at one side by the bank to walk, known as the Bund, with the clubhouse upon it and the line of houseboats beneath. Here the visitors flutter up and down and exchange the gossip, the bridge appointments, the little dinners that sit so incongruously on the pure orient that is cashmere. She would not be here. My heart told me that, and sure enough the boys were leading across the bridge and by a quiet, shady way to one of the many backwaters that the great river makes in the enchanting city. There is one waterway stretching on afar to the dull lake. It looks like a river. It is the very haunt of peace. Under those mighty chenar, or plain trees, that are the glory of cashmere, clouding the water with deep green shadows, the sun can scarcely pierce, save in a dipping sparkle here and there to intensify the green bloom. The murmur of the city, the chatter of the club, are hundreds of miles away. We rode downward under the towering trees, and dismounting saw a little houseboat tethered to the bank. It was not of the richer sort that haunts the Bund, where the native servants follow in a separate boat, and even the electric light is turned on as a part of the luxury. This was a long, low craft, very broad, thatched like a country cottage afloat. In the four part lived the native owner and his family, their crew, our cooks and servants, for they played many parts in our service, and in the after part, room for life, a dream, the joy or curse, and many days to be. Then I saw only one thing. Fanna sat under the trees, reading, or looking at the cool, dim, watery vista, with a single boat loaded to the river's edge, with melons and scarlet tomatoes, punting lazily down to Srinagar in the sleepy afternoon. She was dressed in white with a shady hat, and her delicate dark face seemed to glow in the shadow like part of a pale rose. For the first time I knew she was beautiful. Beauty shone in her like the flame in a nalabaster lamp. Sirene diffused in the very air about her, so that to me she moved in a mild radiance. She rose to meet me with both hands outstretched, the kindest, most cordial welcome, not an eyelash flickered, not a trace of self-consciousness. If I could have seen her flush or tremble, but no, her eyes were clear and calm as a forest pool. So I remembered her. So I saw her once more. I tried, with a hopeless pretense, to follow her example and hide what I felt, where she had nothing to hide. What a place you have found! Why, it's like the deep heart of a wood. Yes, I saw it once when I was here with the marions. But we lay at the bun, then, just under the club. This is better. Did you like the ride up? I threw myself on the grass beside her with a feeling of perfect rest. It was like a new heaven and a new earth. What a country! The very spirit of quiet seemed to be drowsing in those branches towering up into the blue, dipping their green fingers into the crystal of the water. What a heaven! Now you shall have your tea, and then I will show you your rooms, she said, smiling at my delight. We shall stay here a few days more, that you may see Srinagar, and then they tow us up into the Dal Lake opposite the gardens of the mogul emperors. And if you think this is beautiful, what will you say then? I shut my eyes and see still that first meal of my new life. The little table that per box, breathing full east in his jade green turban, set before her with its cloth worked in a pattern of the chainer leaves that are the symbol of Kashmir. The brown cakes made by Ahmad Khan in a miraculous kitchen of his own invention. A few holes burrowed in the river bank, a smoldering fire beneath them, and a width of a canvas for roof. But it served, and no more need be asked of luxury. And Vanna making it mysteriously the first home I had ever known, the central joy of it all. Oh, wonderful days of life that breathed the spirit of immortality and passed so quickly. Surely they must be treasured somewhere in eternity, that we may look upon their beloved life once more. Now you must see the boat. The kendernath is not a dreadnut, but she is broad and very comfortable. And we have many chaperones. They all live in the bows, and exist simply to protect the sahib block from all discomfort, and very well they do it. This is Ahmad Khan by the kitchen. He cooks for us. Salama owns the boat and steers her and engages the men to tow us when we move. And when I arrived he aired a little English and said piously, the Lord help me to give you no trouble, and the Lord help you. That is his wife sitting on the bank. She speaks little but Kashmiri, but I know a little of that. Look at the hundred rat-tail plates of her hair, lengthened with wool, and see her silver and turquoise jewelry. She wears much of the family fortune and is quite a walking bank. Salama, Ahmad Khan and I talk by the hour. Ahmad comes from Fizabad. Look at Salama's boy. I call him the orange-jimp. Did you ever see anything so beautiful? I looked in sheer delight and grasped my camera. Sitting near us was a lovely little Kashmiri boy of about eight, and in a faded orange coat, and a turban exactly like his father's. His curled black eyelashes were so long that they made a soft gloom over the upper part of the little golden face. The perfect bow of his scarlet lips, the long eyes, the shy smile, suggested in Indian arrows. He sat dipping his feet in the water with little pigeon-like cries of contempt. He paddles at the bow of our little Shakara boat with the paddle exactly like a water lily leaf. Do you like our friends? I love them already and know all of their affairs. And now for the boat. One moment. If we are friends on a great adventure, I must call you Vanna, and you, me, Stephen. Yes, I suppose that is a part of it, she said, smiling. Come, Stephen. It was like music, but a cold music that chilled me. She should have hesitated, should have flushed. It was I who troubled. So I followed her across the broad plank into our new home. This is our sitting room. Look how charming. It was better than charming. It was home indeed. Windows at each side opening down almost to the water. A little table for meals that lived mostly on the bank with the gray pot of iris in the middle, another table for writing, photography, and all the little pursuits of travel. A bookshelf with some well-worn friends, two long cushioned chairs, two for meals, and a bokara rug, soft and pleasant for the feet. The interior was plain, unpainted wood, but sat so that the grain showed like satin in the rippling lights from the water. That is the inventory of the place I have loved best in the world. But what eloquence can describe what it gave me, what its memory gives to me to stay? And I have no eloquence for what I felt leaves me dumb. It is perfect, was all I said as she waved her hand proudly. It is home. And if you had come alone to Kashmir, you would have had a great, rich boat with electric light and a butler. You would have never seen the people except at mealtimes. I think you will like this better. Well, this is your tiny bedroom and your bathroom, and beyond the sitting-room are mine. Do you like it all? But I could say no more. The charm of her own personality had touched everything and left its fragrance like a flower of breath in the air. I was beggared of thanks, but my whole soul was gratitude. We dined on the bank that evening, the lamp burning steadily in the still air and throwing broken reflections in the water while the moon looked in upon them through the leaves. I felt extraordinarily young and happy. The quiet of her voice was soft as the little lap of water against the boughs of the boat. And Kedra, the orange imp, was singing a little wordless song to himself as he washed the plates beside us. It was a simple meal, and Vanna, have stemious as a hermit, never ate anything but rice and fruit. But I could remember no meal in all my days of luxury where I had eaten with such zest. It looks very grand to have some any weight on us, doesn't it? But this is one of the cheapest countries in the world, the old-timers mourn over the present expenses. You will laugh when I show you your share of the cost. The wealth of the world could not buy this, I said, and was silent. But you must listen to my plans. We must do a little camping the last three weeks before we part, up in the mountains. Are they not marvelous? They stand like a rampart round us, but not cold and terrible. But like as the hills stand round about Jerusalem, their guardian presences, and running up into them, high, very high, are the valleys and hills where we shall camp. Tomorrow we shall row through Srinagar by the old Marahajaz Palace. End of Section 5. Section 6 of the 9th Vibration and Other Stories by L. Adams Beck. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, and so began a life of sheer enchantment. We knew no one. The visitors in Kashmir changed nearly every season, and no one cared. No one asked anything of us. And as for our shipmates, a willing affectionate service was their gift, and no more. Looking back, I know what a wonder world I was privileged to live. Vanna would talk with them all. She did not move apart, descending or indifferent foreigner. Kadra would come up to her knee and prattle to her of the great snake that lived up on Mahadeo to devour airing boys who omitted their prayers at proper Muslim intervals. She would sit with the baby in her lap, while the mother busied herself in the sunny boughs with the mysterious dishes that smelled so savory to a hungry man. The cuts, the bruises of the neighborhood, came to Vanna for treatment. I am graduating as a nurse, she would say laughingly as she bent over the lean arm of some weirdly wrinkled old lady, bandaging and soothing at the same moment. Her reward would be some bit of folklore, some quaintness of gratitude that I noted down in the little book I kept for remembrance, that I do not need, for every word is in my heart. We rode down through the city next day, the llama rowing and little Cajra lazily paddling at the bow, a wonderful city with its narrow ways begrimed with the dirt of ages, and its balcony-touses, looking as if disease and sin had soaked into them and given them a vicious, tottering beauty, horrible and yet lovely too. We saw the swarming life of the bazaar, the white turbans coming and going, diversified by the rose and yellow Hindu turbans and the cast marks, orange and red, on the dark brows. I saw two women, girls, painted and teared like Jezebel, looking out of one window carved and old, and the gray burnished doves flying about it. They leaned indelibly, like all the old, old wickedness of the East that yet is ever young, with a flower of delight, with smooth black hair braided with gold and blossoms and covered with pale rose veils and gold embossed discs swinging like lamps beside the olive cheeks, the great eyes artificially lengthened and darkened with surma, and the curves of the full lips emphasized with vermilion. They looked down upon us with apathy, a dull weariness that held all the old evil humming city in a taken shape in those indolent bodies and heavy eyes that could flash into life as a snake wakes into fierce darting energy when the time comes to spring, directing heritrixes from Lilith in the first setting of the world, the almost exhausted vice of an oriental city as old as time. And look below here, Savannah, pointing to one of the goth's long-regard steps running down to the river. When I came yesterday, a great broken crowd was collected here, almost shouldering each other into the water where the boat lay rocking. In it lay the body of a man, brutally murdered for the sake of a few rupees and flung into the river. I could see the poor brown body starked in the boat with a friend weeping beside it. On the lovely Deodor Bridge, people leaned over, the rim opened mouthed curiosity and business went on gaily where the jewelers make the silver bangles for slender wrists and the rows of silver chains that make the necks like the tower of Damascus filled with burnarmory. It was all very wild and cruel. I went down to them and, Vanna, you went down? Horrible! No, you see, I heard them say the wife was almost a child so I went. Once long ago at Peshawar I saw the same thing happen and they came and took the child for the service of the gods for she was most lovely and she clung to the feet of a man in terror and the priest stabbed her to the heart. She died in my arms. Good God, I said, shuddering, what a sight for you! Did they never hang him? He was not punished. I told you it was a very long time ago. Her expression had a brooding quiet as she looked down into the running river. Almost it might be as if she saw the picture of that past misery in the deep water. She said no more. But in her words and the terrible crowding of its life Srinagar seemed to me more of a nightmare than anything I had seen accepting only banners for the holy banners is a memory of horror with a sense of blood hidden under its frantic, crazy devotion and not far hidden either. Our own green shade when we pulled back into the evening cool was a refuge of unspeakable quiet. She read aloud to me that evening by the small light of our lamp beneath the trees and singularly she read of joy I have drunk of the cup of the ineffable. I have found the key of the mystery. Travelling by no track I have come to the sorrowless land. Very easily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me. Wonderful is that land of rest to which no merit can win. There have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy. He dances in rapture and waves of form arise from his dance. He holds all within his bliss. What is that? A mystic caver. Let me read you more. It is like the singing of a lark lost in the infinite of light in heaven. So in the soft darkness I heard for the first time those immortal words and hearing a faint glimmer of understanding broke upon me as to the source of the peace that surrounded her. I had accepted it as an emanation of her own heart when it was the pulsing of the tide and she read choosing a verse here and there and I listened with absorption. Suppose I had been wrong in believing that sorrow is the keynote of life, that pain is the road of assent if road there be that an implacable nature and that only presides over all our pitiful struggles and ceakings and writes a black finish to the holograph of our existence. But then she was teaching me was she the interpreter of a beauty eternal in the heavens and reflected like a broken prism in the beauty that walked visible beside me? So I listened like a child to an unknown language yet ventured my protest. In India, in this wonderful country where men have time and will for speculation such thoughts may be natural can they be found in the west? This is from the west. Might not Caber himself have said it? Certainly he would have felt it. Happy is he who seeks not to understand the mystery of God. But who, merging his spirit into thine, sings to thy face O Lord, like a harp understanding how difficult it is to know, how easy to love thee. We debate and argue and the vision passes us by. We try to prove it and kill it in the laboratory of our minds when on the altar of our souls it will dwell forever. Silence and I pondered. Finally she laid us the books aside and repeated from memory and in a tone of perfect music. Caber says I shall go to the house of my Lord with my love at my side then shall I sound the trumpet 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 saint bride of Mary the mild and the gracious way of the Greek woman and the beauty of lovely emir and the tenderness of heart sweet deardre and the courage of maith the great queen and the charm of mouth of music. Yes all that more but I feared lest I should see the heaven of joy through her eyes only and find it mirage as I found so much else. The men came and our boat was towed up into the doll 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 Savannah when I asked they always do that for a timid effort bad shot the lord, the compassionate and so on I don't think there is any religion about it but it is 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 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 pleasant's gardens on the banks and thought it little to travel up yearly from far off deli over the snowy, pure pageel with their queens and courts for the perfect summer of cashmere we moored by a low bank under a great wood of chainer trees and saw the little table in the wilderness set in the greenest shade with our chairs beside it and my pipe laid reverentially upon it by Kedra across the glittering water lay on one side the Shalimar garden known to all readers of Lala Rook a paradise of roses and beyond it again the lovelier gardens of Nurmal 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 Jahangir gold has a hundred splendors added to it by receiving the name of Nur Jahan the queen has any woman ever had a more royal homage paid than this most royal lady known first as Mir Unissa son of woman and later Nur Mahal the light of the palace and latest Nur Shahan Bigham 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 rows of sunset the life the color beat insistently upon my brain I felt 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 when we had been together could she still define the cruel limits she had laid down or were her eyes kinder her tone some 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 shalamar 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 said in reprise that is the song everyone remembers here poor Lawrence 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 Kedra and I pulled her across to Noor 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 by who so 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 forever 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 Noor Mahal's garden we were pulling in among the reeds and the huge carbon leaves of the water plants and the snake headed buds lolling upon them with their slippery half sinister look that waterflowers 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 oh, beautiful most beautiful the green lawns shaded with huge pyramids of the chainertrees 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 wilderness 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 the 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 Kedra followed us everywhere singing his little tuneless happy song the world brimmed with beauty and joy and we were together words broke for me Fanna, let it all be forever let us live here I'll give up all the world for this and you but you see she said delicately 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 sell frankly that it would be lowering yourself to live a lotus eating life among my people 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 in the town and availed women glistened grouped about him in brilliant colors isn't that all india she said that dull reiterated sound at half stupefies half maddens once at Darjeeling I saw the lama devil dance the soul a white faced child with eyes unnaturally enlarged fleeing among the 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 always drowned in the thunder of Tibetan drums no mercy, no escape horrible even in europe the drum is awful I said do you remember the french revolution how they drowned the victims voices in a thunder roll of drums how we 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 foothill of the mighty mountain of Mahedo 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 Gemna river and in the pastures of Brindavan 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 we were laughing up the steepest flowery slopes until we reached the height and low the arched windows were eyeless in the 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 divine sky we climbed the broken stairs where the lizards went by like flashes and had I the tongue of men and angels 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 crusted 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 along 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 Ahoyda when she woke and found herself here by the lake she was so terrified that she flung herself in it and was drowned they held her back but she died how do you know because a wandering monk came to the abbey of Takabahi near Peshawar and told Vasheta the abbot I had nearly spoiled 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 her eyes dimmed in grief warm what was she seeing what remembering was it a story a memory she was beautiful I prompted men have said so but for it he surrendered the peace do not speak of her curious beauty her voice died away to a drowsy murmur her head dropped on my shoulder and for the mere delight 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 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 wrapped eyes he flung Vanna a flower as we passed she caught it and put it near bosom a single blossom three petals of purest white 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 pure white what is it? of course it is mystic it is the ninefold flower you saw who gave it that peasant lad she smiled you will see more someday 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 gray 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 I did 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 here must follow he was the pied piper in Hamlin he was pan and helis he 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 and marvels of beauty about me but I knew well I had entered at some mystic gate a password 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 fingertips leading me along the ways of quiet my feet brushed a shining dew once in the twilight under the chain of trees I saw white gleaming and thought it 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 the 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 mountain 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 the practical zest 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 torn zigzag flashes down the mountains like wrents 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 in delight 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 bubbles 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 I stopped my hand and they were gone slowly the storm lessened and in the west the clouds tore regularly asunder and a flood of livid yellow light poured down upon the lake an awful light that struck into an abyss of fire then as if a word of command two glorious rainbows spring across the water with the mountains for their peers each with its proper colors corded 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 gray of a divine morning with little rosy clouds flucking the eastern sky we set out from Islamabad for vernaig and this was the order of our work going she and I led the way attended by a say the groom and a coulee carrying the luncheon basket half way we would stop some green dell or by some rushing stream and there rest 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 in 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 such beauty the people were no inconsiderable part of their 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 fattened the children too I compared their lot with that of the toilets 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 seawater through fields of millet like the sky fallen on the earth so innocently blue were its blossoms and the trees above us were trellis with the wild roses golden and crimson and the ways tapestreed with the scented stars of the white large 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 alluded 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 oh god I know them but cannot tell in the smaller villages the headman came often to greet us and make us welcome bearing on a flat dish little offering of cake 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 running stream at our feet Vanna of course was the interpreter and I called her from her tent as the man stood solemnly before me it was strange that when she came dressed in white 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 supplient the man listened gravely with only an interjection now and again and once he turned and looked curiously at me then he spoke evidently 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 around him three times with clasped hands keeping him always on the right he repaid it with the usual salam and greeting a 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 all together understand but I will tell you what I can that man though living here among Muhammadans is a Brahmin from Benares and what he is very aware 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 do 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 and 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 bow to bow 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 wondering 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 breakneck 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 in 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 house 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 in 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 the mighty hill under the waving pyramids of the chainers sweeping their green like the robes of goddess nearby 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 trank or brazen made by the mogul emperor Jahangir to receive the waters of a mighty spring which wells from the hill and has been held sacred by Hindu and Muslim and if loveliness can sanctify surely it is sacred indeed the tank was more than a hundred feet diameter encircled 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 the 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 lifeblood of the mountains forever welling away the color and perfect color the color and perfect purity of this living jewel were most marvelous clear blue-green like a chalcedon 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 Muslims 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 to their glories merge the one into another how all the mogul emperors loved the running waters said Banna I can see them leaning over it in their carved pavilions with delicate dark faces with their turbans lost in the endless reverie of the east while liquid melody passes into their dream it was the music they best loved she was leading me into the royal garden below where the young river flows beneath the pavilion set above and across the rush of the water I remember before I came to India she went on there were certain words and phrases that meant the whole east to me the first flash picture I had was Milton's dark faces with white silk and turbans reathed and it still is I have thought ever since that every man should wear a turban it dignifies the uncomliest and it is quite curious to see how many inches a man descends in the scale of beauty the moment he takes it off and you see only the skullcap about which they wind it they wind it with wonderful skill too I have seen a man take 18 yards of muslin and throw it round his head with a few turns and in 5 or 6 minutes the beautiful folds were all in order and he looked like a king some of the gujars here wear black ones and they are very effective and worth painting the black folds in the sullen tempestuous black brows underneath we sat in the pavilion for a while looking down the rushing waters she spoke of Akbar the greatest of the moguls and spoke with a curious personal touch as I thought I wish you would try to write a story of him one on more human lines that has been done yet no one has accounted for the passionate quest of truth that was the real secret of his life strange in an oriental despot if you think of it it really can only be understood from the buddhist belief which curiously seems to have been the only one he neglected that a mysterious karma influenced all his thoughts if I tell you a key note for your story that in the past life he had been a buddhist priest one who had fallen away would that in any way account to you for attempts to recover the lost way try to think that out and to write the story not as a western mind sees it but pure east that would be a great book to write if one could catch the voices of the past but how to do it I will give you one day a little book that may help you the other story I wish you would write is the story of a dancer of Peshawar there is a connection between the two a story of ruin of ruin and repentance will you tell it to me a part in this same book you will find much more but not all all cannot be told you must imagine much but I think your imagination will be true why do you think so because in these few days you have learnt so much you have seen the nine fold flower and the rain spirits you will soon hear the flute of Krishna which none can hear who cannot dream true that night I heard it I waked suddenly to music and standing in the door of my tent in the dead silence of the night lit only by a few low stars I heard the poignant notes of a flute if it had called my name it would not have summoned me more clearly and I followed without a thought of delay forgetting even Vanna in a strange urgency that filled me the music was elusive seeming to come first from one side then from the other but finally I tracked it as the bee does a flower by the scent to the gate of the royal garden the pleasure place of the dead emperors the gate stood ajar strange for I had seen the custodian close it that evening wide and I went in walking noiselessly over the dewy grasses I knew and could not tell how that I must be noiseless passing as if I were guided down the course of the strong young river I came to the pavilion that spanned it the place where we had stood that afternoon and there to my profound amazement I saw Vanna leaning against a slight wooden pillar as if she had expected me she laid one finger on her lip and stretching out her hand took mine and drew me beside her as a mother mind to child and instantly I saw end of section 6