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Rabindranath
Tagore
My kinsman and myself were returning to
Calcutta from our Puja trip when we met the man in a train. From his dress and
bearing we took him at first for an up-country Mahomedan, but we were puzzled
as we heard him talk. He discoursed upon all subjects so confidently that you
might think the Disposer of All Things consulted him at all times in all that
He did. Hitherto we had been perfectly happy, as we did not know that secret
and unheard-of forces were at work, that the Russians had advanced close to us,
that the English had deep and secret policies, that confusion among the native
chiefs had come to a head. But our newly-acquired friend said with a sly smile:
"There happen more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are reported
in your newspapers."
As we had never stirred out of our homes
before, the demeanour of the man struck us dumb with wonder. Be the topic ever
so trivial, he would quote science, or comment on the Vedas, or repeat
quatrains from some Persian poet; and as we had no pretence to a knowledge of
science or the Vedas or Persian, our admiration for him went on increasing, and
my kinsman, a theosophist, was firmly convinced that our fellow-passenger must
have been supernaturally inspired by some strange "magnetism" or "occult
power," by an "astral body" or something of that kind. He
listened to the tritest saying that fell from the lips of our extraordinary
companion with devotional rapture, and secretly took down notes of his
conversation. I fancy that the extraordinary man saw this, and was a little
pleased with it.
When the train reached the junction, we
assembled in the waiting room for the connection. It was then 10 P.M., and as
the train, we heard, was likely to be very late, owing to something wrong in
the lines, I spread my bed on the table and was about to lie down for a
comfortable doze, when the extraordinary person deliberately set about spinning
the following yarn. Of course, I could get no sleep that night.
When, owing to a disagreement about some
questions of administrative policy, I threw up my post at Junagarh, and entered
the service of the Nizam of Hydria, they appointed me at once, as a strong
young man, collector of cotton duties at Barich.
Barich is a lovely place. The Susta
"chatters over stony ways and babbles on the pebbles," tripping, like
a skilful dancing girl, in through the woods below the lonely hills. A flight
of 150 steps rises from the river, and above that flight, on the river's brim
and at the foot of the hills, there stands a solitary marble palace. Around it
there is no habitation of man—the village and the cotton mart of Barich being
far off.
About 250 years ago the Emperor Mahmud
Shah II. had built this lonely palace for his pleasure and luxury. In his days
jets of rose-water spurted from its fountains, and on the cold marble floors of
its spray-cooled rooms young Persian damsels would sit, their hair dishevelled
before bathing, and, splashing their soft naked feet in the clear water of the
reservoirs, would sing, to the tune of the guitar, the ghazals of their
vineyards.
The fountains play no longer; the songs
have ceased; no longer do snow-white feet step gracefully on the snowy marble.
It is but the vast and solitary quarters of cess-collectors like us, men
oppressed with solitude and deprived of the society of women. Now, Karim Khan,
the old clerk of my office, warned me repeatedly not to take up my abode there.
"Pass the day there, if you like," said he, "but never stay the
night." I passed it off with a light laugh. The servants said that they would
work till dark and go away at night. I gave my ready assent. The house had such
a bad name that even thieves would not venture near it after dark.
At first the solitude of the deserted
palace weighed upon me like a nightmare. I would stay out, and work hard as
long as possible, then return home at night jaded and tired, go to bed and fall
asleep.
Before a week had passed, the place
began to exert a weird fascination upon me. It is difficult to describe or to
induce people to believe; but I felt as if the whole house was like a living
organism slowly and imperceptibly digesting me by the action of some stupefying
gastric juice.
Perhaps the process had begun as soon as
I set my foot in the house, but I distinctly remember the day on which I first
was conscious of it.
It was the beginning of summer, and the
market being dull I had no work to do. A little before sunset I was sitting in
an arm-chair near the water's edge below the steps. The Susta had shrunk and
sunk low; a broad patch of sand on the other side glowed with the hues of
evening; on this side the pebbles at the bottom of the clear shallow waters
were glistening. There was not a breath of wind anywhere, and the still air was
laden with an oppressive scent from the spicy shrubs growing on the hills close
by.
As the sun sank behind the hill-tops a
long dark curtain fell upon the stage of day, and the intervening hills cut
short the time in which light and shade mingle at sunset. I thought of going
out for a ride, and was about to get up when I heard a footfall on the steps
behind. I looked back, but there was no one.
As I sat down again, thinking it to be
an illusion, I heard many footfalls, as if a large number of persons were
rushing down the steps. A strange thrill of delight, slightly tinged with fear,
passed through my frame, and though there was not a figure before my eyes,
methought I saw a bevy of joyous maidens coming down the steps to bathe in the
Susta in that summer evening. Not a sound was in the valley, in the river, or
in the palace, to break the silence, but I distinctly heard the maidens' gay
and mirthful laugh, like the gurgle of a spring gushing forth in a hundred
cascades, as they ran past me, in quick playful pursuit of each other, towards
the river, without noticing me at all. As they were invisible to me, so I was,
as it were, invisible to them. The river was perfectly calm, but I felt that
its still, shallow, and clear waters were stirred suddenly by the splash of
many an arm jingling with bracelets, that the girls laughed and dashed and
spattered water at one another, that the feet of the fair swimmers tossed the
tiny waves up in showers of pearl.
I felt a thrill at my heart—I cannot say
whether the excitement was due to fear or delight or curiosity. I had a strong
desire to see them more clearly, but naught was visible before me; I thought I
could catch all that they said if I only strained my ears; but however hard I
strained them, I heard nothing but the chirping of the cicadas in the woods. It
seemed as if a dark curtain of 250 years was hanging before me, and I would
fain lift a corner of it tremblingly and peer through, though the assembly on
the other side was completely enveloped in darkness.
The oppressive closeness of the evening
was broken by a sudden gust of wind, and the still surface of the Suista
rippled and curled like the hair of a nymph, and from the woods wrapt in the
evening gloom there came forth a simultaneous murmur, as though they were
awakening from a black dream. Call it reality or dream, the momentary glimpse
of that invisible mirage reflected from a far-off world, 250 years old,
vanished in a flash. The mystic forms that brushed past me with their quick
unbodied steps, and loud, voiceless laughter, and threw themselves into the
river, did not go back wringing their dripping robes as they went. Like
fragrance wafted away by the wind they were dispersed by a single breath of the
spring.
Then I was filled with a lively fear
that it was the Muse that had taken advantage of my solitude and possessed
me—the witch had evidently come to ruin a poor devil like myself making a
living by collecting cotton duties. I decided to have a good dinner—it is the
empty stomach that all sorts of incurable diseases find an easy prey. I sent
for my cook and gave orders for a rich, sumptuous moghlai dinner, redolent of
spices and ghi.
Next morning the whole affair appeared a
queer fantasy. With a light heart I put on a sola hat like the sahebs, and
drove out to my work. I was to have written my quarterly report that day, and
expected to return late; but before it was dark I was strangely drawn to my
house—by what I could not say—I felt they were all waiting, and that I should
delay no longer. Leaving my report unfinished I rose, put on my sola hat, and
startling the dark, shady, desolate path with the rattle of my carriage, I
reached the vast silent palace standing on the gloomy skirts of the hills.
On the first floor the stairs led to a
very spacious hall, its roof stretching wide over ornamental arches resting on
three rows of massive pillars, and groaning day and night under the weight of
its own intense solitude. The day had just closed, and the lamps had not yet
been lighted. As I pushed the door open a great bustle seemed to follow within,
as if a throng of people had broken up in confusion, and rushed out through the
doors and windows and corridors and verandas and rooms, to make its hurried
escape.
As I saw no one I stood bewildered, my
hair on end in a kind of ecstatic delight, and a faint scent of attar and
unguents almost effected by age lingered in my nostrils. Standing in the
darkness of that vast desolate hall between the rows of those ancient pillars,
I could hear the gurgle of fountains plashing on the marble floor, a strange
tune on the guitar, the jingle of ornaments and the tinkle of anklets, the
clang of bells tolling the hours, the distant note of nahabat, the din of the
crystal pendants of chandeliers shaken by the breeze, the song of bulbuls from
the cages in the corridors, the cackle of storks in the gardens, all creating
round me a strange unearthly music.
Then I came under such a spell that this
intangible, inaccessible, unearthly vision appeared to be the only reality in
the world—and all else a mere dream. That I, that is to say, Srijut So-and-so,
the eldest son of So-and-so of blessed memory, should be drawing a monthly
salary of Rs. 450 by the discharge of my duties as collector of cotton duties,
and driving in my dog-cart to my office every day in a short coat and soia hat,
appeared to me to be such an astonishingly ludicrous illusion that I burst into
a horse-laugh, as I stood in the gloom of that vast silent hall.
At that moment my servant entered with a
lighted kerosene lamp in his hand. I do not know whether he thought me mad, but
it came back to me at once that I was in very deed Srijut So-and-so, son of
So-and-so of blessed memory, and that, while our poets, great and small, alone
could say whether inside of or outside the earth there was a region where
unseen fountains perpetually played and fairy guitars, struck by invisible
fingers, sent forth an eternal harmony, this at any rate was certain, that I
collected duties at the cotton market at Banch, and earned thereby Rs. 450 per
mensem as my salary. I laughed in great glee at my curious illusion, as I sat
over the newspaper at my camp-table, lighted by the kerosene lamp.
After I had finished my paper and eaten
my moghlai dinner, I put out the lamp, and lay down on my bed in a small
side-room. Through the open window a radiant star, high above the Avalli hills
skirted by the darkness of their woods, was gazing intently from millions and
millions of miles away in the sky at Mr. Collector lying on a humble
camp-bedstead. I wondered and felt amused at the idea, and do not knew when I
fell asleep or how long I slept; but I suddenly awoke with a start, though I
heard no sound and saw no intruder—only the steady bright star on the hilltop
had set, and the dim light of the new moon was stealthily entering the room
through the open window, as if ashamed of its intrusion.
I saw nobody, but felt as if some one
was gently pushing me. As I awoke she said not a word, but beckoned me with her
five fingers bedecked with rings to follow her cautiously. I got up
noiselessly, and, though not a soul save myself was there in the countless
apartments of that deserted palace with its slumbering sounds and waiting
echoes, I feared at every step lest any one should wake up. Most of the rooms
of the palace were always kept closed, and I had never entered them.
I followed breathless and with silent
steps my invisible guide—I cannot now say where. What endless dark and narrow
passages, what long corridors, what silent and solemn audience-chambers and
close secret cells I crossed!
Though I could not see my fair guide,
her form was not invisible to my mind's eye,—an Arab girl, her arms, hard and
smooth as marble, visible through her loose sleeves, a thin veil falling on her
face from the fringe of her cap, and a curved dagger at her waist! Methought
that one of the thousand and one Arabian Nights had been wafted to me from the
world of romance, and that at the dead of night I was wending my way through
the dark narrow alleys of slumbering Bagdad to a trysting-place fraught with peril.
At last my fair guide stopped abruptly
before a deep blue screen, and seemed to point to something below. There was
nothing there, but a sudden dread froze the blood in my heart-methought I saw
there on the floor at the foot of the screen a terrible negro eunuch dressed in
rich brocade, sitting and dozing with outstretched legs, with a naked sword on
his lap. My fair guide lightly tripped over his legs and held up a fringe of
the screen. I could catch a glimpse of a part of the room spread with a Persian
carpet—some one was sitting inside on a bed—I could not see her, but only
caught a glimpse of two exquisite feet in gold-embroidered slippers, hanging
out from loose saffron-coloured paijamas and placed idly on the orange-coloured
velvet carpet. On one side there was a bluish crystal tray on which a few
apples, pears, oranges, and bunches of grapes in plenty, two small cups and a
gold-tinted decanter were evidently waiting the guest. A fragrant intoxicating
vapour, issuing from a strange sort of incense that burned within, almost
overpowered my senses.
As with trembling heart I made an
attempt to step across the outstretched legs of the eunuch, he woke up suddenly
with a start, and the sword fell from his lap with a sharp clang on the marble
floor. A terrific scream made me jump, and I saw I was sitting on that
camp-bedstead of mine sweating heavily; and the crescent moon looked pale in
the morning light like a weary sleepless patient at dawn; and our crazy Meher
Ali was crying out, as is his daily custom, "Stand back! Stand
back!!" while he went along the lonely road.
Such was the abrupt close of one of my
Arabian Nights; but there were yet a thousand nights left.
Then followed a great discord between my
days and nights. During the day I would go to my work worn and tired, cursing
the bewitching night and her empty dreams, but as night came my daily life with
its bonds and shackles of work would appear a petty, false, ludicrous vanity.
After nightfall I was caught and
overwhelmed in the snare of a strange intoxication, I would then be transformed
into some unknown personage of a bygone age, playing my part in unwritten
history; and my short English coat and tight breeches did not suit me in the
least. With a red velvet cap on my head, loose paijamas, an embroidered vest, a
long flowing silk gown, and coloured handkerchiefs scented with attar, I would
complete my elaborate toilet, sit on a high-cushioned chair, and replace my
cigarette with a many-coiled narghileh filled with rose-water, as if in eager
expectation of a strange meeting with the beloved one.
I have no power to describe the
marvellous incidents that unfolded themselves, as the gloom of the night
deepened. I felt as if in the curious apartments of that vast edifice the
fragments of a beautiful story, which I could follow for some distance, but of
which I could never see the end, flew about in a sudden gust of the vernal
breeze. And all the same I would wander from room to room in pursuit of them
the whole night long.
Amid the eddy of these dream-fragments,
amid the smell of henna and the twanging of the guitar, amid the waves of air
charged with fragrant spray, I would catch like a flash of lightning the
momentary glimpse of a fair damsel. She it was who had saffron-coloured
paijamas, white ruddy soft feet in gold-embroidered slippers with curved toes,
a close-fitting bodice wrought with gold, a red cap, from which a golden frill
fell on her snowy brow and cheeks.
She had maddened me. In pursuit of her I
wandered from room to room, from path to path among the bewildering maze of
alleys in the enchanted dreamland of the nether world of sleep.
Sometimes in the evening, while arraying
myself carefully as a prince of the blood-royal before a large mirror, with a
candle burning on either side, I would see a sudden reflection of the Persian
beauty by the side of my own. A swift turn of her neck, a quick eager glance of
intense passion and pain glowing in her large dark eyes, just a suspicion of
speech on her dainty red lips, her figure, fair and slim crowned with youth
like a blossoming creeper, quickly uplifted in her graceful tilting gait, a dazzling
flash of pain and craving and ecstasy, a smile and a glance and a blaze of
jewels and silk, and she melted away. A wild glist of wind, laden with all the
fragrance of hills and woods, would put out my light, and I would fling aside
my dress and lie down on my bed, my eyes closed and my body thrilling with
delight, and there around me in the breeze, amid all the perfume of the woods
and hills, floated through the silent gloom many a caress and many a kiss and
many a tender touch of hands, and gentle murmurs in my ears, and fragrant
breaths on my brow; or a sweetly-perfumed kerchief was wafted again and again
on my cheeks. Then slowly a mysterious serpent would twist her stupefying coils
about me; and heaving a heavy sigh, I would lapse into insensibility, and then
into a profound slumber.
One evening I decided to go out on my
horse—I do not know who implored me to stay-but I would listen to no entreaties
that day. My English hat and coat were resting on a rack, and I was about to
take them down when a sudden whirlwind, crested with the sands of the Susta and
the dead leaves of the Avalli hills, caught them up, and whirled them round and
round, while a loud peal of merry laughter rose higher and higher, striking all
the chords of mirth till it died away in the land of sunset.
I could not go out for my ride, and the
next day I gave up my queer English coat and hat for good.
That day again at dead of night I heard
the stifled heart-breaking sobs of some one—as if below the bed, below the
floor, below the stony foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a
dark damp grave, a voice piteously cried and implored me: "Oh, rescue me!
Break through these doors of hard illusion, deathlike slumber and fruitless
dreams, place by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart, and, riding
through hills and woods and across the river, take me to the warm radiance of
your sunny rooms above!"
Who am I? Oh, how can I rescue thee?
What drowning beauty, what incarnate passion shall I drag to the shore from
this wild eddy of dreams? O lovely ethereal apparition! Where didst thou
flourish and when? By what cool spring, under the shade of what date-groves,
wast thou born—in the lap of what homeless wanderer in the desert? What Bedouin
snatched thee from thy mother's arms, an opening bud plucked from a wild
creeper, placed thee on a horse swift as lightning, crossed the burning sands,
and took thee to the slave-market of what royal city? And there, what officer
of the Badshah, seeing the glory of thy bashful blossoming youth, paid for thee
in gold, placed thee in a golden palanquin, and offered thee as a present for
the seraglio of his master? And O, the history of that place! The music of the sareng,
the jingle of anklets, the occasional flash of daggers and the glowing wine of
Shiraz poison, and the piercing flashing glance! What infinite grandeur, what
endless servitude!
The slave-girls to thy right and left
waved the chamar as diamonds flashed from their bracelets; the Badshah, the
king of kings, fell on his knees at thy snowy feet in bejewelled shoes, and
outside the terrible Abyssinian eunuch, looking like a messenger of death, but
clothed like an angel, stood with a naked sword in his hand! Then, O, thou
flower of the desert, swept away by the blood-stained dazzling ocean of
grandeur, with its foam of jealousy, its rocks and shoals of intrigue, on what
shore of cruel death wast thou cast, or in what other land more splendid and
more cruel?
Suddenly at this moment that crazy Meher
Ali screamed out: "Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is
false!!" I opened my eyes and saw that it was already light. My chaprasi
came and handed me my letters, and the cook waited with a salam for my orders.
I said; "No, I can stay here no
longer." That very day I packed up, and moved to my office. Old Karim Khan
smiled a little as he saw me. I felt nettled, but said nothing, and fell to my
work.
As evening approached I grew
absent-minded; I felt as if I had an appointment to keep; and the work of
examining the cotton accounts seemed wholly useless; even the Nizamat of the
Nizam did not appear to be of much worth. Whatever belonged to the present,
whatever was moving and acting and working for bread seemed trivial,
meaningless, and contemptible.
I threw my pen down, closed my ledgers,
got into my dog-cart, and drove away. I noticed that it stopped of itself at
the gate of the marble palace just at the hour of twilight. With quick steps I
climbed the stairs, and entered the room.
A heavy silence was reigning within. The
dark rooms were looking sullen as if they had taken offence. My heart was full
of contrition, but there was no one to whom I could lay it bare, or of whom I
could ask forgiveness. I wandered about the dark rooms with a vacant mind. I
wished I had a guitar to which I could sing to the unknown: "O fire, the
poor moth that made a vain effort to fly away has come back to thee! Forgive it
but this once, burn its wings and consume it in thy flame!"
Suddenly two tear-drops fell from
overhead on my brow. Dark masses of clouds overcast the top of the Avalli hills
that day. The gloomy woods and the sooty waters of the Susta were waiting in
terrible suspense and in an ominous calm. Suddenly land, water, and sky
shivered, and a wild tempest-blast rushed howling through the distant pathless
woods, showing its lightning-teeth like a raving maniac who had broken his
chains. The desolate halls of the palace banged their doors, and moaned in the
bitterness of anguish.
The servants were all in the office, and
there was no one to light the lamps. The night was cloudy and moonless. In the
dense gloom within I could distinctly feel that a woman was lying on her face
on the carpet below the bed—clasping and tearing her long dishevelled hair with
desperate fingers. Blood was tricking down her fair brow, and she was now
laughing a hard, harsh, mirthless laugh, now bursting into violent wringing
sobs, now rending her bodice and striking at her bare bosom, as the wind roared
in through the open window, and the rain poured in torrents and soaked her
through and through.
All night there was no cessation of the
storm or of the passionate cry. I wandered from room to room in the dark, with
unavailing sorrow. Whom could I console when no one was by? Whose was this
intense agony of sorrow? Whence arose this inconsolable grief?
And the mad man cried out: "Stand
back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!"
I saw that the day had dawned, and Meher
Ali was going round and round the palace with his usual cry in that dreadful
weather. Suddenly it came to me that perhaps he also had once lived in that
house, and that, though he had gone mad, he came there every day, and went
round and round, fascinated by the weird spell cast by the marble demon.
Despite the storm and rain I ran to him
and asked: "Ho, Meher Ali, what is false?"
The man answered nothing, but pushing me
aside went round and round with his frantic cry, like a bird flying fascinated
about the jaws of a snake, and made a desperate effort to warn himself by
repeating: "Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!"
I ran like a mad man through the pelting
rain to my office, and asked Karim Khan: "Tell me the meaning of all
this!"
What I gathered from that old man was
this: That at one time countless unrequited passions and unsatisfied longings
and lurid flames of wild blazing pleasure raged within that palace, and that
the curse of all the heart-aches and blasted hopes had made its every stone
thirsty and hungry, eager to swallow up like a famished ogress any living man
who might chance to approach. Not one of those who lived there for three
consecutive nights could escape these cruel jaws, save Meher Ali, who had
escaped at the cost of his reason.
I asked: "Is there no means
whatever of my release?" The old man said: "There is only one means,
and that is very difficult. I will tell you what it is, but first you must hear
the history of a young Persian girl who once lived in that pleasure-dome. A
stranger or a more bitterly heart-rending tragedy was never enacted on this
earth."
Just at this moment the coolies
announced that the train was coming. So soon? We hurriedly packed up our
luggage, as the tram steamed in. An English gentleman, apparently just aroused
from slumber, was looking out of a first-class carriage endeavouring to read
the name of the station. As soon as he caught sight of our fellow-passenger, he
cried, "Hallo," and took him into his own compartment. As we got into
a second-class carriage, we had no chance of finding out who the man was nor
what was the end of his story.
I said; "The man evidently took us
for fools and imposed upon us out of fun. The story is pure fabrication from
start to finish." The discussion that followed ended in a lifelong rupture
between my theosophist kinsman and myself.
~x~
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