Part 8
“Fortunate cousin, since this is so, and I, my father’s best-beloved child, will petition him to grant me my heart’s desire, let us drink the cup of betrothal in the presence of the Hakim Abul Qasim and the lady Imami. Heart of my heart, I pledge you!” and setting the blossom of her lips to the jewelled rim she drank, and filled the other cup for him, and still kneeling before her breathless with adoration, he took the cup in both his hands, and I watched and could say no word because her purpose was clear to me and I knew well that of all women on earth she was the last to endure the insult of his presence. And Imami knelt by the door,—her face like ivory against the heavy gold curtain. Now, as he set his lips to the cup, suddenly Imami sprang to her feet and tottered back against the sculptured marble and with scarce breath to fill her voice——
“The Emperor comes,” she said, and fell again on her knees at the door, hiding her face in her hands.
I saw the sickening terror that struck the colour from the cheeks and lips of the lover. He knelt there with a glassy countenance like a man in the clutch of a nightmare who cannot flee from the advancing doom—his limbs weighted with lead, his heart with the pressure of an exceeding horror. But Glory of Women caught him by the hand.
“Exalted cousin, there is but one way from these rooms, and the Emperor closes it. Fly to the room beyond my bed-chamber, the room of the marble bath, and hide where you can while I hold him in talk. Allah hafiz! (God protect you!) Go!”
And she pushed him from her, and he fled. Then, most singular to see, she composed her veil, glancing in the mirror set in silver that was the gift of the Portuguese priests, and turned to the door, and as she did so the curtain was lifted and Aurungzib Padshah entered and Imami prostrated herself and I also, but the Princess Arjemand knelt.
Now I know not how this should be, but in a room where great events have just happened it is as if the waves of passion beat about the walls and waft the garments of those who have been present, and it seemed to my guilty heart as though the very flowers enamelled on the marble cried aloud,
“Majesty, there is a man—a man in hiding.”
And certainly the Padshah halted and looked with suspicion from one to the other of us. He was ever a man of suspicion, unlike the easy humour of his father Shah-Jahan, and the half drunken good-nature (shot with frightful angers) of his grandfather Jahangir. Aurungzib Padshah was a small man, dark exceedingly, with veiled eyes and shut lips, and never have I seen him warmed by any emotion of love, pity, fear, but always calm, cold, self-collected and austere. For it is well known that his only care was religion, and to this he sacrificed his all.
So looking hard at the kneeling Glory of Women he said coldly,
“In the name of the most beneficent and merciful God, what is this disturbance? Speak, exalted daughter, Princess of the family of chastity. It is revealed to this suppliant at the throne of Allah that there is a hidden thing in these chambers. Speak. What is it?”
And kneeling, my Princess answered.
“May joy attend my exalted father, the adorner of the gardens of happiness, the decorator of the rose-parterre of enjoyment! There is but one hidden thing in these chambers, and it is your unworthy daughter, who is known by your august favour as Makhfi, the Hidden One.”
I saw the eyes of the Padshah fix on the golden dish that lay on the marble with one cup emptied of the pomegranate sherbet and the other half emptied, the sherbet running in a red stream like blood along the marble.
“This was set down in haste!” he said through clipped lips.
“In haste, O Glory of Allah!” said the Princess with the wet beads clamming the silken tendrils on her forehead. “I drank and was about to drink the second when your auspicious feet blessed the threshold.”
“You are thirsty, happy daughter of sovereignty? Then drink the remainder. You have my permission.”
I saw the gleam in either black eye of him as he spoke, watching her sidelong. She lifted the cup to her lips with a hand that shook so that it rattled against her teeth, though she struggled to command herself.
“No, do not drink, royal daughter. It is stale,” he said, still standing and smiling coldly. And the Princess answered with quivering lips:
“Will not the Mirror of God be seated and partake of refreshment offered by the hand of his slave?”
“Not of that cup and not until I have observed your embroideries and manuscripts, daughter of high dignity,” the Padshah replied, and followed by my Princess, Imami still kneeling by the door, and I by the latticed marble window he walked about the hall and into the chambers beyond, talking pleasantly to the Princess at his shoulder, and so returning took his seat on the divan, and she served sherbets and fruits on a golden dish to his Majesty.
He was later to attend the Am-Khas, the Hall of Audience, and was attired kingly. His vest was of white and delicately flowered satin, with heavy silk and gold embroidery. His cloth-of-gold turban was aigretted with diamonds great as stars, with a topaz at the base that shone like the sun. A chain of great pearls hung to his knees, and above all these jewels was his cold repelling dignity as of a King too great to be approached even by the favourite child of his pride, and all the time he sat she knelt before him.
At length he spoke as if in meditation.
“Glory of Women, you have grown into beauty like that of the Maids of Paradise. Your long lashes need no antimony, your eyes are winter stars, and in that robe of gulnar (pomegranate blossom) you appear like that princess who bewildered the senses of the mighty Suleiman. [I saw a quiver pass over her features as she bowed her head beneath the weight of praise.] Does not the rose long for the nightingale? Does not your heart, exalted daughter, turn to love?”
And with her eyes on the ground, she answered.
“Exhibitor of Perfection, my heart is set on far other matters. If in this land of good fortune I be remembered as a poet, I ask no more of destiny save that the rank of the daughter of Emperors be attached to my name for ever.”
And he.
“It is well. Yet marriage must be considered. Fortunate daughter, have you bathed to-day?”
And she, deadly pale.
“Shadow of the benignity of the Creator, no.”
And with set lips he called to Imami by the door.
“Hasten, lady, and light the fire beneath the great vessel of water in the bathing room of the Begam, and I will remain in discourse with her until it is ready.”
And Imami casting a fearful glance on the kneeling Princess moved slowly to the inner chamber, and it is the truth that my soul sickened within me, for though I knew the young man worthless, and the son of a dangerous father, yet who could bear this without terror of spirit? And the Emperor, laying aside his awful Majesty, made his presence sweet as sunshine in the great chamber of marble, saying:
“Exalted daughter, it is but seldom we have leisure to relax, and yet the olfactory of my soul inhales with delight the ambergris-perfumed breezes of affection and concord, and daily if it were possible would I enjoy them. Yes, even when absent—
“‘I sit beside thee in thought, and my heart is at ease, For that is a union not followed by separation’s pain.’
“It is in my mind to move with my ladies and the living family of dignity and glory to reside for a time at Lahore, and we shall then be more together, partaking of the irrigation of the rivers of affection.”
“Great father, you promise me a joy to increase health and exalt happiness.”
She swayed as she knelt, and leaned against the divan with closed eyes.
“Exalted father, the perfume of flowers and of the rose-water fountain have given me a faintness. May I retire for a moment with the hakim Abul Qasim to my inner chamber lest I fall at your feet?”
“It is granted, Glory of Women, and the lady Imami shall recite to me your latest verses until you return.”
I came forward making the salutation, and helped the Princess to rise, she leaning on my aged arm, and the lady Imami took her place unrolling a manuscript of verses splendid with Persian illuminations in blue and gold. The Emperor composed himself to listen with pleasure, for it is well known that all the sovereigns of that mighty line were skilled in versifying and just critics of _ghazal_ and _suja_.
And as we moved forward, I supporting her, the Princess breathed in my ear:
“I meant his death, but Allah knowing my heart knows I am innocent of this hideous thing. O Abul Qasim, father of my soul, is there aid in earth or heaven?”
But what could I say? Only the Great Physician of the Hidden Dispensary could assist that unfortunate. And meanwhile the sweet voice of the lady Imami read aloud the verses of the Princess.
“O love, I am thy thrall. As on the tulip’s burning petal glows A spot yet more intense, of deeper dye, So in my heart a flower of passion blows, See the dark stain of its intensity Deeper than all.”
And then we lost the words as we moved into the inner chamber.
Now this inner chamber was all of pearl-pure marble, and in the midst a deeply sunk bath of marble long and wide and with its walls decorated with lotuses and their leaves, and a silver pipe led the water to this from a mighty silver vessel six feet and more in height and of great capacity, supported on a tripod of sculptured silver, and below it a place for fire, enclosed and fed with sweet-scented woods and balls of perfume made of rare gums. And, O Allah most Merciful, there the lady Imami had kindled fire by command of the Emperor, and within might be seen the brilliant blue flame licking up the perfumes and crawling like snakes about the cedar wood below the vessel. And certainly I looked that the Princess should do some desperate deed for the enlargement of the man most miserable hidden within the vessel, and releasing her I stood like a graven image of terror, expecting what she would do.
She laid her hand on the silver, and amid the crackling of the flames she said in a clear small voice:
“You came unsought. You violated the secrecy of the Hidden One. What then is your duty, exalted cousin?”
And from within he spoke in a voice—O Allah, most compassionate, grant that I may never hear such again!—the one word:
“Silence.”
And she:
“It is true. Keep silence if you are my true lover, for the sake of my honour. For if your voice is heard I am a dead woman. But I too will be faithful to death.”
And he answered:
“On my head and eyes.”
And by her command I gave her water to drink and applied an essence to her nostrils, and we left the room, pulling the heavy curtains before it, and we returned to where the Padshah sat with the pale lady Imami reading aloud and he smiling in calm content. Seeing us return, he motioned my Princess to a seat on the divan saying:
“I would hear your verses of ‘The Lover.’
“What is the fate of a lover? It is to be crucified for the world’s pleasure.”
And taking the manuscript from the hands of Imami she read aloud:
“Dust falls within the cup of Kaikobad And King Jamshid, Nor recks the world if they were sad or glad, Or what they did.
“How many hearts, O Love, thy sword hath slain And yet will slay! They bless thee, nor to Allah they complain At Judgment Day.”
And so read on steadfastly for the space of an hour, until the Padshah, replete with the sweetness of the melody, rose from the divan, and said graciously:
“May the tree of hereditary affection watered by this hour of converse grow in leaf and fruit and overshadow us both in peace. Go now, exalted daughter, and bathe your angelic person and rest with a soul sunned in the favour of the Emperor.”
And he went, we attending him to the door of the secluded chambers, and when we returned, the Princess lay in a dead faint on the divan, and the fire beneath the great vessel of silver was red and silent, and within was silence also.
The courage of Babar the gallant and Akbar the greatly dreaming was not dead in their descendant and thus in a great self-sacrifice he became a traveller on the road of non-existence, and I wept for him.
So the Court moved to Lahore.
But after this on my Princess came a change hard to be told.
She had despised the Prince alive. For his death she loved him, and with a poet’s passion and tenderness mingled with a woman’s. Her sole relief was in solitude, pouring forth the burning thoughts wherein the phoenix of her soul was consumed in perfumed flame which will forever kindle the heart of man to like ecstasies.
Great Princes sought her, among them Akil Khan, a most beautiful young man, aglow with courage and splendour. He had seen her, dreaming on the roof of her pavilion in the dawn, pensive and lovely, clothed in dawn-colour, her long hair braided with pearls falling about her, and mad with love, he sent her this one line, awaiting completion:
“A vision in crimson appears on the roof of the Palace.”
Kneeling, I implored her to give him some solace,
“For O, Light of my soul,” said I, “the years drift by like leaves, and shall this miracle of beauty and of intelligence clear as diamonds lead its graces to the grave and leave the world no copy? My Princess, my Princess, have pity on your youth! True, the high Prince died a hero for the sake of a lady’s honour, yet remember that until then the soul of him was at home in Devilsville, and not in the rose-gardens of Allah. You have mourned him long enough: awake now to joy.”
But she put it gently aside, saying:
“The soul washed in the lustration of death is pure. What is Shaitanpur to him now? He has forgotten it. And shall I who accepted the sacrifice, forget? O, that I had not failed in courage—that I had died with him! Give me the paper of Akil Khan.”
And considering the line he had written—
“A vision in crimson appears on the roof of the Palace,” she wrote beneath it this line completing the couplet:
“Neither supplications nor force nor gold can win her.” And so returned it.
Yet, gallant man as he was, this did not stifle his hope, and knowing that in her garden at Lahore she was building a noble marble pavilion, he entered the garden one day disguising his princeliness under the garment of a mason, carrying his hod on his shoulder, and passed where she stood apart watching her girls who were playing at chausar.
And as he drew near he whispered,
“In my longing for thee I have become as dust wandering round the earth,” and she whose soul was fixed as a lonely star, responded immediately,
“If thou hadst become as the wind yet shouldst thou not touch a tress of my hair.”
So it was always. An embassage was sent from the Shah Abbas of Persia entreating her hand for Mirza Farukh his son, and the Prince came with it, a gallant wooer. She dared not at once refuse the insistence of her father Aurungzib Padshah, and consented that he should come to Delhi that she might judge of his worthiness. And with a glorious retinue resembling a galaxy of stars he came, and she feasted the prince in the pleasure-pavilion in her own garden, and in its marble colonnade with her own fair hand offered him wine and sweetmeats, but veiled in gold gauze, so that not one glimpse had he of the hidden eyes. And exalted with wine and folly he asked for a certain sweetmeat in words which by a laughing play on words signify—a kiss!
This, to the proudest of women! One moment she paused and then haughtily,
“Ask for what you desire from the slaves of our kitchen,” and so went straight to her royal father and told him that though face and jewels were well enough, the man had the soul of a groom under his turban of honour, and she would have none of him. She had her royal way.
Raging with foiled pride and desire he sent her this verse,
“I am determined never to leave this temple. Here will I bow my head, here will I prostrate myself. Here will I serve, and here alone is happiness.”
But he beat against marble, for she returned this answer only:
“Child, how lightly dost thou esteem this game of love! Nothing dost thou know of the fever of longing and the fire of separation, and the burning flame of love!”
Alas, her heart knew them too well!
So he went away despairing and that was the last of her suitors.
Very sad grew my Princess. The dead have more power than the living, and the clutch of a dead hand chills the blood. She had the soul of a mystic and in her poems desire for the Eternal Beloved was mingled with love of him who was now also behind the Veil of non-existence, and I know not which was more in her thoughts when she wrote with tears that fall and falling gather,
“O idle arms, Never the lost Beloved have ye caressed: Better that ye were broken than like this Empty and cold eternally to rest.
“O useless eyes, Never the lost Beloved for all these years Have ye beheld: better that ye were blind Than dimmed thus by my unavailing tears.
“O fading rose, Dying unseen as hidden thou wert born: So my heart’s blossom fallen in the dust Was ne’er ordained his turban to adorn.”
Very strange is the heart of a woman! I, remembering her scorn for this very Prince and her will to slay him with her own hand, could not at all commend nor comprehend her passion for him dead whom living she trod as the dust beneath her feet. She permitted my speech gently, but would reply only,
“He loved me and gave his life for me.” And I venturing to rejoin,
“But O exalted Lady, men will give their lives for a little thing, a jewel, a worthless intrigue, the slaying of a tiger, and is his sacrifice worth such a return as yours?” she replied with calm; “Greater love hath no man than in silence to lay down his life uncheered by commendation or the joy of battle, and to him I swore fidelity. Should I change? In his death was the high heart that in life would have grown to glory—and I broke it.”
And I said:
“It is greater love to live for a woman than to die for her and this he could never have done, for his profligacy and selfishness would have swept all love to ruin,”—and she, smiling, put this by, as one who has attained in her own heart to behold the innermost secrets of love. And which of us was right I cannot now tell.
But as love rose about her like a tide her thoughts turned more and more to the Supreme, the Self-Existent,—and this love also consumed her for He wounded her heart with the august secrets of His beauty, and perceiving in vision wafts of His sweetness she sank into a deep melancholy, desiring that to which no earthly passion may attain. So in this poem she beheld Him as the Hunter of the Soul:
“I have no peace, the quarry I, a Hunter chases me, It is Thy memory. I turn to flee but fall: for over me He casts His snare, His perfumed hair, Who can escape Thy chain? no heart is free From love of Thee.”
So passioning for the Divine she spent her days in longing, and a great wisdom came upon her, for even as her mighty father narrowed in vision, persecuting the Hindus, and breaking the very Empire against the rock of their tortured faith, so she like the sun at setting illumined all beliefs, even the lowliest, with her level rays, declaring that where any prayer is made that place is the mosque and the Kiblah.
Had that lady been Emperor it is not too much to say she had saved the Empire. Would to Allah that she had been. But He knows all.
Yet a better fate was decreed for her for she lived, exhaling love as the lily its perfume, and departed in a white peace, a gently fading light like the cresset that for a little illumines the quiet of a tomb, and this she said in dying,
“I am the daughter of a King but I have taken the path of renunciation, and this shall be my glory, as my title signifies that I am the Glory of Women.”
This she is, for in India she is remembered by all who burn in the fire of love, human or divine.
Yet, since she was a woman and therefore a creature of unreason, must I condemn her passion for the worthless prince to whom her royal life was dedicate.
And here I set down the last words that Makhfi—the Hidden One—wrote with her dying hand, and they were these—
“Yet, Makhfi, unveiled is thy secret, Abroad all thy passion be told, Who saw not the beauty of Yusuf When he in the market was sold.”
and as she lived she died, lamenting that too late she had known his hidden heart.
When she was departed a poet of Persia made these verses of her: concerning the serenity of her spirit:
“Love sings to himself of love and the worlds dance to that music, As wise snakes dance to the Charmer playing upon his pipe, Love gazes on deep waters for ever dreaming his face. Slay all my senses but hearing that I may immortally listen. Calm every wave of my soul that it may mirror the Dream.”
And her father the Emperor, grieving, made her a glorious tomb of marble domed and pinnacled with gold and the tower and minars roofed with turquoise tiles. Nay, the very sand of the paths was dust of turquoises, and about it a glorious garden where her sweet spirit might gladden to dream in the moonlight, her griefs forgotten, her joys completed in the ecstasy of union with the One, the Alone.
And yet—yet—thus wrote my Princess:
“If on the Day of Reckoning God saith, ‘In due proportion I will pay And recompense thee for thy suffering.’
“Lo, all the joys of heaven it would outweigh. Were all God’s gladness poured upon me, yet He would be in my debt.”
May the lights of Allah be her testimony and make bright her tomb.
For I loved her, and pray that her memory may be fragrant when I am dust.
And very strange and secret is the heart of a woman.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS
THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS
(Salutation to the Elephant-Headed God, who is the Remover of Obstacles and the Giver of discretion, and may he enable his worshipper the Pandit Gurdit Singh to relate this story with well-chosen words and harmonious periods that so it may enchain the hearts of all.)
Of all the lands that smile upon their lover the sun, surely the land of Kashmir is the loveliest. All round that Valley of Beauty the mountains stand like the guardians of a great Queen. No harsh winds may ruffle the lakes, darkly blue as the eyes of the goddess Shri, where the lotuses dream above their mirrored images in amazement at their own divinity, for the shields of the eternal snows piercing even the heavens turn aside all tempests and only a sweet and calm sunshine makes the air milk-warm.
And because the beauty that surrounds them is absorbed by the princesses of Kashmir until they become like the slender-waisted beauties of the ancient poems and stories of India, radiant as the sun, fair as the full moon mirrored in a lake dreaming of her own beauty, so are they eagerly sought by all the Kings from North to South, and great dowries are given for them with jewels piled high like grain in harvest, and elephants and garments with beaten gold laid on them such as would dazzle the eyes of the Queens of other countries. And nothing is too much to give for their seductive beauties.