Tonight, eternally lovely as in the thought of the man who made it. Nothing that is beautiful is lost, though in the sight of the unwise it seems to die. Death is in the eyes we look through -when they are cleansed we see Life only. Now take my hand and come. Delay no more."She caught my hand and we entered the dim magnificence of the great hall. The moon entered with us.
Instantly I had the feeling of supernatural presence. Yet I only write this in deference to common use, for it was absolutely natural - more so than any I have met in the state called daily life. It was a thing in which I had a part, and if this was supernatural so also was I.
Again I saw the Dark One, the Beloved, the young Krishna, above the women who loved him. He motioned with his hand as we passed, as though he waved us smiling on our way. Again the dancers moved in a rhythmic tread to the feet of the mountain Goddess - again we followed to where she bent to hear. But now, solemn listening faces crowded in the shadows about her, grave eyes fixed immovably upon what lay at her feet - a man, submerged in the pure light that fell from her presence, his dark face stark and fine, lips locked, eyes shut, arms flung out cross-wise in utter abandonment, like a figure of grief invisibly crucified upon his shame. I stopped a few feet from him, arrested by a barrier Icould not pass. Was it sleep or death or some mysterious state that partook of both? Not sleep, for there was no flutter of breath. Not death - no rigid immobility struck chill into the air. It was the state of subjection where the spirit set free lies tranced in the mighty influences which surround us invisibly until we have entered, though but for a moment, the Ninth Vibration.
And now, with these Listeners about us, a clear voice began and stirred the air with music. I have since been asked in what tongue it spoke and could only answer that it reached my ears in the words of my childhood, and that I know whatever that language had been it would so have reached me.
"Great Lady, hear the story of this man's fall, for it is the story of man. Be pitiful to the blind eyes and give them light."There was long since in Ranipur a mighty King and at his birth the wise men declared that unless he cast aside all passions that debase the soul, relinquishing the lower desires for the higher until a Princess laden with great gifts should come to be his bride, he would experience great and terrible misfortunes. And his royal parents did what they could to possess him with this belief, but they died before he reached manhood. Behold him then, a young King in his palace, surrounded with splendour. How should he withstand the passionate crying of the flesh or believe that through pleasure comes satiety and the loss of that in the spirit whereby alone pleasure can be enjoyed? For his gift was that he could win all hearts. They swarmed round him like hiving bees and hovered about him like butterflies. Sometimes he brushed them off. Often he caressed them, and when this happened, each thought proudly "I am the Royal Favourite. There is none other than me."Also the Princess delayed who would be the crest-jewel of the crown, bringing with her all good and the blessing of the High Gods, and in consequence of all these things the King took such pleasures as he could, and they were many, not knowing they darken the inner eye whereby what is royal is known through disguises.
(Most pitiful to see, beneath the close-shut lids of the man at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights, tears forced themselves, as though a corpse dead to all else lived only to anguish. They flowed like blood-drops upon his face as he lay enduring, and the voice proceeded.) What was the charm of the King? Was it his stately height and strength? Or his faithless gayety? Or his voice, deep and soft as the sitar when it sings of love? His women said - some one thing, some another, but none of these ladies were of royal blood, and therefore they knew not.
Now one day, the all-privileged jester of the King, said, laughing harshly:
"Maharaj, you divert yourself. But how if, while we feast and play, the Far Away Princess glided past and was gone, unknown and unwelcomed?"And the King replied:
"Fool, content yourself. I shall know my Princess, but she delays so long that I weary.
Now in a far away country was a Princess, daughter of the Greatest, and her Father hesitated to give her in marriage to such a King for all reported that he was faithless of heart, but having seen his portrait she loved him and fled in disguise from the palaces of her Father, and being captured she was brought before the King in Ranipur.
He sat upon a cloth of gold and about him was the game he had killed in hunting, in great masses of ruffled fur and plumage, and he turned the beauty of his face carelessly upon her, and as the Princess looked upon him, her heart yearned to him, and he said in his voice that was like the male string of the sitar:
"Little slave, what is your desire?"
Then she saw that the long journey had scarred her feet and dimmed her hair with dust, and that the King's eyes, worn with days and nights of pleasure did not pierce her disguise. Now in her land it is a custom that the blood royal must not proclaim itself, so she folded her hands and said gently:
"A place in the household of the King." And he, hearing that the Waiting slave of his chief favorite Jayashri was dead, gave her that place. So the Princess attended on those ladies, courteous and obedient to all authority as beseemed her royalty, and she braided her bright hair so that it hid the little crowns which the Princesses of her House must wear always in token of their rank, and every day her patience strengthened.
Sometimes the King, carelessly desiring her laughing face and sad eyes, would send for her to wile away an hour, and he would say;"Dance, little slave, and tell me stories of the far countries.
