The ninth vibration and other stories Part 25

And Ustad Isa, having heard, said, "Upon my head and eyes!" and went out from the Presence.

So, musing upon the words of the Padishah, he went to his house in Agra, and there pondered the matter long and deeply; and for a whole day and night he refused all food and secluded himself from the society of all men; for he said:--

"This is a weighty thing, for this Lady (upon whom be peace) must visibly dwell in her tomb-palace on the sh.o.r.e of the river; and how shall I, who have never seen her, imagine the grace that was in her, and restore it to the world? Oh, had I but the memory of her face! Could I but see it as the Shah-in-Shah sees it, remembering the past! Prophet of G.o.d, intercede for me, that I may look through his eyes, if but for a moment!"

That night he slept, wearied and weakened with fasting; and whether it were that the body guarded no longer the gates of the soul, I cannot say; for, when the body ails, the soul soars free above its weakness.

But a strange marvel happened.

For, as it seemed to him, he awoke at the mid-noon of the night, and he was sitting, not in his own house, but upon the roof of the royal palace, looking down on the gliding Jumna, where the low moon slept in silver, and the light was alone upon the water; and there were no boats, but sleep and dream, hovering hand-in-hand, moved upon the air, and his heart was dilated in the great silence.

Yet he knew well that he waked in some supernatural sphere: for his eyes could see across the river as if the opposite sh.o.r.e lay at his feet; and he could distinguish every leaf on every tree, and the flowers moon-blanched and ghost-like. And there, in the blackest shade of the pippala boughs, he beheld a faint light like a pearl; and looking with unspeakable anxiety, he saw within the light, slowly growing, the figure of a lady exceedingly glorious in majesty and crowned with a rayed crown of mighty jewels of white and golden splendour. Her gold robe fell to her feet, and--very strange to tell--her feet touched not the ground, but hung a span's length above it, so that she floated in the air.

But the marvel of marvels was her face--not, indeed, for its beauty, though that transcended all, but for its singular and compa.s.sionate sweetness, wherewith she looked toward the Palace beyond the river as if it held the heart of her heart, while death and its river lay between.

And Ustad Isa said:--"O dream, if this sweetness be but a dream, let me never wake! Let me see forever this exquisite work of Allah the Maker, before whom all the craftsmen are as children! For my knowledge is as nothing, and I am ashamed in its presence."

And as he spoke, she turned those br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes on him, and he saw her slowly absorbed into the glory of the moonlight; but as she faded into dream, he beheld, slowly rising, where her feet had hung in the blessed air, a palace of whiteness, warm as ivory, cold as chast.i.ty, domes and cupolas, slender minars, arches of marble fretted into sea-foam, screen within screen of purest marble, to hide the sleeping beauty of a great Queen--silence in the heart of it, and in every line a harmony beyond all music. Grace was about it--the grace of a Queen who prays and does not command; who, seated in her royalty yet inclines all hearts to love.

And he saw that its grace was her grace, and its soul her soul, and that she gave it for the consolation of the Emperor.

And he fell on his face and worshipped the Master-Builder of the Universe, saying,--"Praise cannot express thy Perfection. Thine Essence confounds thought. Surely I am but the tool in the hand of the Builder."

And when he awoke, he was lying in his own secret chamber, but beside him was a drawing such as the craftsmen make of the work they have imagined in their hearts. And it was the Palace of the Tomb.

Henceforward, how should he waver? He was as a slave who obeys his master, and with haste he summoned to Agra his Army of Beauty.

Then were a.s.sembled all the master craftsmen of India and of the outer world. From Delhi, from Shiraz, even from Baghdad and Syria, they came.

Muhammad Hanif, the wise mason, came from Kandahar, Muhammad Sayyid from Mooltan. Amanat Khan, and other great writers of the holy Koran, who should make the scripts of the Book upon fine marble. Inlayers from Kanauj, with fingers like those of the Spirits that bowed before Solomon the King, who should make beautiful the pure stone with inlay of jewels, as did their forefathers for the Rajah of Mewar; mighty dealers with agate, cornelian, and lapis lazuli. Came also, from Bokhara, Ata Muhammad and Shakri Muhammad, that they might carve the lilies of the field, very glorious, about that Flower of the World. Men of India, men of Persia, men of the outer lands, they came at the bidding of Ustad Isa, that the spirit of his vision might be made manifest.

And a great council was held among these servants of beauty, so they made a model in little of the glory that was to be, and laid it at the feet of the Shah-in-Shah; and he allowed it, though not as yet fully discerning their intent. And when it was approved, Ustad Isa called to him a man of Kashmir; and the very hand of the Creator was upon this man, for he could make gardens second only to the Gardens of Paradise, having been born by that Dal Lake where are those roses of the earth, the Shalimar and the Nishat Bagh; and to him said Ustad Isa,--

"Behold, Rain Lal Kashmiri, consider this design! Thus and thus shall a white palace, exquisite in perfection, arise on the banks of Jumna.

Here, in little, in this model of sandalwood, see what shall be.

Consider these domes, rounded as the Bosom of Beauty, recalling the mystic fruit of the lotus flower. Consider these four minars that stand about them like Spirits about the Throne. And remembering that all this shall stand upon a great dais of purest marble, and that the river shall be its mirror, repeating to everlasting its loveliness, make me a garden that shall be the throne room to this Queen."

And Ram Lal Kashmiri salaamed and said, "Obedience!" and went forth and pondered night and day, journeying even over the snows of the Pir Panjal to Kashmir, that he might bathe his eyes in beauty where she walks, naked and divine, upon the earth, and he it was who imagined the black marble and white that made the way of approach.

So grew the palace that should murmur, like a seash.e.l.l, in the ear of the world the secret of love.

Veiled had that loveliness been in the shadow of the palace; but now the sun should rise upon it and turn its ivory to gold, should set upon it and flush its snow with rose. The moon should lie upon it like the pearls upon her bosom, the visible grace of her presence breathe about it, the music of her voice hover in the birds and trees of the garden.

Times there were when Ustad Isa despaired lest even these mighty servants of beauty should miss perfection. Yet it grew and grew, rising like the growth of a flower.

So on a certain day it stood completed, and beneath the small tomb in the sanctuary, veiled with screens of wrought marble so fine that they might lift in the breeze,--the veils of a Queen,--slept the Lady Arjemand; and above her a narrow coffer of white marble, enriched in a great script with the Ninety-Nine Wondrous Names of G.o.d. And the Shah-in-Shah, now grey and worn, entered and, standing by her, cried in a loud voice,--"I ascribe to the Unity, the only Creator, the perfection of his handiwork made visible here by the hand of mortal man. For the beauty that was secret in my Palace is here revealed; and the Crowned Lady shall sit forever upon the banks of the Jumna River. It was love that commanded this Tomb."

And the golden echo carried his voice up into the high dome, and it died away in whispers of music.

But Ustad Isa standing far off in the throng (for what are craftsmen in the presence of the mighty?), said softly in his beard, "It was Love also that built, and therefore it shall endure."

Now it is told that, on a certain night in summer, when the moon is full, a man who lingers by the straight water, where the cypresses stand over their own image, may see a strange marvel--may see the Palace of the Taj dissolve like a pearl, and so rise in a mist into the moonlight; and in its place, on her dais of white marble, he shall see the Lady Arjemand, Mumtaz-i-Mahal, the Chosen of the Palace, stand there in the white perfection of beauty, smiling as one who hath attained unto the Peace. For she is its soul.

And kneeling before the dais, he shall see Ustad Isa, who made this body of her beauty; and his face is hidden in his hands.

"HOW GREAT IS THE GLORY OF KWANNON!"

A j.a.pANESE STORY

(O Lovely One-O thou Flower! With Thy beautiful face, with Thy beautiful eyes, pour light upon the world! Adoration to Kwannon.)

In j.a.pan in the days of the remote Ancestors, near the little village of Shiobara, the river ran through rocks of a very strange blue colour, and the bed of the river was also composed of these rocks, so that the clear water ran blue as turquoise gems to the sea.

The great forests murmured beside it, and through their swaying boughs was breathed the song of Eternity. Those who listen may hear if their ears are open. To others it is but the idle sighing of the wind.

Now because of all this beauty there stood in these forests a roughly built palace of unbarked wood, and here the great Emperor would come from City-Royal to seek rest for his doubtful thoughts and the cares of state, turning aside often to see the moonlight in Shiobara. He sought also the free air and the sound of falling water, yet dearer to him than the plucked strings of sho and biwa. For he said;

"Where and how shall We find peace even for a moment, and afford Our heart refreshment even for a single second?"

And it seemed to him that he found such moments at Shiobara.

Only one of his great n.o.bles would His Majesty bring with him--the Dainagon, and him be chose because he was a worthy and honorable person and very simple of heart.

There was yet another reason why the Son of Heaven inclined to the little Shiobara. It had reached the Emperor that a Recluse of the utmost sanct.i.ty dwelt in that forest. His name was Semimaru. He had made himself a small hut in the deep woods, much as a decrepit silkworm might spin his last Coc.o.o.n and there had the Peace found him.

It had also reached His Majesty that, although blind, he was exceedingly skilled in the art of playing the biwa, both in the Flowing Fount manner and the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r manner, and that, especially on nights when the moon was full, this aged man made such music as transported the soul. This music His Majesty desired very greatly to hear.

Never had Semimaru left his hut save to gather wood or seek food until the Divine Emperor commanded his attendance that he might soothe his august heart with music.

Now on this night of nights the moon was full and the snow heavy on the pines, and the earth was white also, and when the moon shone through the boughs it made a cold light like dawn, and the shadows of the trees were black upon it.

The attendants of His Majesty long since slept for sheer weariness, for the night was far spent, but the Emperor and the Dainagon still sat with their eyes fixed on the venerable Semimaru. For many hours he had played, drawing strange music from his biwa. Sometimes it had been like rain blowing over the plains of Adzuma, sometimes like the winds roaring down the pa.s.ses of the Yoshino Mountains, and yet again like the voice of far cities. For many hours they listened without weariness, and thought that all the stories of the ancients might flow past them in the weird music that seemed to have neither beginning nor end.

"It is as the river that changes and changes not, and is ever and ever the same," said the Emperor in his own soul.

And certainly had a voice announced to His Augustness that centuries were drifting by as he listened, he could have felt no surprise.

Before them, as they sat upon the silken floor cushions, was a small shrine with a Buddha shelf, and a hanging picture of the Amida Buddha within it--the expression one of rapt peace. Figures of Fugen and Fudo were placed before the curtain doors of the shrine, looking up in adoration to the Blessed One. A small and aged pine tree was in a pot of grey porcelain from Chosen--the only ornament in the chamber.

Suddenly His Majesty became aware that the Dainagon also had fallen asleep from weariness, and that the recluse was no longer playing, but was speaking in a still voice like a deeply flowing stream. The Emperor had observed no change from music to speech, nor could he recall when the music had ceased, so that it altogether resembled a dream.

"When I first came here"--the Venerable one continued--"it was not my intention to stay long in the forest. As each day dawned, I said; 'In seven days I go.' And again--'In seven.' Yet have I not gone. The days glided by and here have I attained to look on the beginnings of peace.

Then wherefore should I go?--for all life is within the soul. Shall the fish weary of his pool? And I, who through my blind eyes feel the moon illuming my forest by night and the sun by day, abide in peace, so that even the wild beasts press round to hear my music. I have come by a path overblown by autumn leaves. But I have come."

Then said the Divine Emperor as if unconsciously;

"Would that I also might come! But the august duties cannot easily be laid aside. And I have no wife--no son."

And Semimaru, playing very softly on the strings of his biwa made no other answer, and His Majesty, collecting his thoughts, which had become, as it were, frozen with the cold and the quiet and the strange music, spoke thus, as if in a waking dream;