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| author | pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org> | 2025-08-30 04:22:02 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/76764-0.txt b/76764-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16167a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7378 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76764 *** + + + + + + LANDSCAPE + WITH FIGURES + + _By_ + RONALD FRASER + + _NEW YORK_ + BONI & LIVERIGHT + _MCMXXVI_ + + + COPYRIGHT 1926 :: BY + BONI & LIVERIGHT, +Inc.+ + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + + + + + PREFACE + + +This book is only an attempt to reproduce, in words, experiences that +have come in contemplating the landscapes, flowers and figures in +Chinese pictures and on their porcelain. It is the story of a human +mind that follows the mysterious and half-wanton beckonings of such an +experience until it is seized and understood. The originals of my three +Chinese friends are to be seen in the print-room, the ceramic-room, and +the Asiatic galleries of the British Museum. I am not attempting to +convey any profound meaning, unless it be the meaning of that mystical +proverb, “Everything comes to him who waits.” The system of thought +that I attempt to reproduce is Chinese and very ancient. I have not +been able to make up my mind whether it contains something of general +value, or whether it is merely a thought-puzzle with which those who +find pleasure in such occupations may amuse themselves. + + + + + LANDSCAPE WITH + FIGURES + + 1 + + +We take this flower-filled and graceful story of a summer visit to +a valley of the Far East from the diaries and minutes of Ambrose +Herbert. It grows from his leaves like an image of some choice, +cultivated flower, some Asiatic lake-lily; there is, indeed, a delicate +lily-smell, a faint water-smell, that teases the sense with a hint of +queer landscapes, alien, impenetrable faces, in an unreal world of +paradoxical dreams. + +Yet they visited the real heart of that image, these seven men who +called themselves, in a vein of humour, the Seven Sages, and it appears +that they scarcely held their own, when it came to philosophy, with +the uncompromising practitioners of wisdom they found there. After +all, they were Europeans. Men of considerable sensibility, they yet +did not give the things of the spirit undue attention; still less did +they permit any vision of the universe they might have had to interfere +with their way of life. They lived by common-sense adjustment to the +more obvious in circumstances, occasionally, at sentimental moments, +following a chance gleam—but not following it too far. Five of them, +that is. The other two had gone wrong. + +All seven were associated in business—Lord Sombrewater’s business—and +he was their president. They travelled in his steam-yacht. In England +it was their custom to dine once a week at Lord Sombrewater’s house +or in his bamboo garden, to hear a little music perhaps, drink wine +(except one of them), discuss life and the world. Now the industrial +world was seething at this time, and Lord Sombrewater had seemed to +retire his forces, leaving a picket here, an outpost there, a strong +point where necessary, well held. He had withdrawn into the quiet of +the ocean to mature plans, taking with him these friends and chief +lieutenants, who had each something to contribute. Much business was +done daily by wireless. He kept touch with reluctant Governments, and +controlled his generals in charge of the field, with relentless hand. +Ambrose remarks that a wise captain-general of industry will not omit +to remember that the good faith of a deputy may fail, and he is certain +that Lord Sombrewater, a silent man, harboured during his silences +considerations of that order even in regard to his six friends. + +Ambrose Herbert was annalist and minute-writer to the Sages. He was +not himself a Sage. He recorded the sagacity of others, fitted for +this exercise by the passionless receptivity of his mind. Every +morning, every hour, he swept his mind clean, so that he might receive +unprejudiced the impressions of the day, and no doubt that is why the +lineaments of the people in his records, and the scenery, are so clear. +It came to his ears that this passivity was looked on doubtfully in a +man not yet senile, not yet even middle-aged, hardly mature; it was +complained that he had no character, except in his being characterless; +it was thought unfortunate. But Lord Sombrewater thought otherwise. + + + + + 2 + + +The first time we see them they are in far eastern seas. Lychnis, who +is Lord Sombrewater’s daughter, Ruby Frew-Gaff and her father (the +tall, polished Sir Richard, with pale blue eyes, Lord Sombrewater’s +chief physicist) are in the motor-launch with the light-bearded and +bard-like Terence Fitzgerald and Ambrose himself. Something had gone +wrong with the pelagic trawls that they used for capturing plants out +of the ocean. It seems to them a rather strange and other-worldly +ocean, like a sea in a picture, or on a vase. It is afternoon. There +is a magical warm scent in the wind, as if they were near some land of +delicate spring. Terence, the poet-painter-seer, is riding in the bows, +but his soul is afloat. Sir Richard is busy with the apparatus, and the +two girls, who have stolen a forbidden plunge in the sea, are clinging +to the sides of the launch like wet sea-snails. The ship, into which +the Sages have committed the weight of their philosophy, the _Floating +Leaf_, painted the colour of the bamboo, heaves gently a quarter of a +mile off on waves of a dark liquid green, which is compared with the +green of some claret glasses they used, and as the afternoon wears on +the sky becomes the same colour. + +Ambrose, as usual, takes occasion to note some details. He mentions +the longitude, the latitude, the depth, and the temperature at various +levels as registered by the deep-sea thermometer. In addition, he +mentions some details with regard to the two girls; for instance, that +their arms and legs (bloodless, because of the cold) make changing +lights with their wet, plum-coloured bodies, and the patterns move +rhythmically. There is no doubt which of the two he prefers. At least, +whenever he describes them he gives Lychnis more space, possibly +because she is far more complex in her nature and difficult to +describe. He finds a key to the two girls in all their features. Ruby +is red-haired, well-developed and dimpled. Her mouth is described as +full and red, and (for those who have desires that way) of the kind +which, more than any other that he has seen, Ambrose supposes might +be thought kissable—that is to say, for an upstanding and not too +subtle lover. Lychnis is called, amongst other things, flower-like or +spritish. He speaks of a flower-like face, with some trace on it of +spritish and fairy passion. Her mouth seems to arouse thoughts of a +non-sensual order—in himself, that is, for he records a remark of the +Sage Quentin that to kiss Lychnis on the lips would be to find heaven +through the flames of sensation. But Ambrose asks, would a man want to +maul the body of a primrose with his mouth? In writing of the afternoon +under description, he takes opportunity to point out a relation +between their minds and their physique. Ruby, with reddish hair and +fine shining body, travels tirelessly in the sea like some fabulous, +ocean-going fish, and she is not variable in her moods; but Lychnis +slithers and plays in the fields of the sea fawn-like, and then she is +to be seen at rest considering the waters, or grimacing behind a wave. + +Presently Sir Richard, discovering where they were, commanded them with +tones of displeasure into the boat. Ruby, who had only done what her +friend ordered, obeyed, and Lychnis, stopping first to nose under the +stern as if she were a whale, followed. + +“This is really not very sensible,” he said, with an eye on their +vascular systems. “Down below at once and get dressed.” + +Lychnis stood on the deck for a moment consulting her inward heart. +With her it was not a question of obeying or not obeying. In all +matters she followed some secret and rhythmic way that unfolded +itself to her at a suitable time. Ambrose transfers a sketch of her, +standing there in her plum-coloured bathing dress, to his white pages. +He discusses her head, shown against sky and sea, as a subtle and +beautiful relation of browns and ambers and pinks. Her eyes were a +surprising brown, greenish in face of the light, and her eyelashes +made a line of blackish purple when the eyelids were lowered. Her hair +seemed amber, light amber to brown, but often it held coppery lights +too, and a sort of deep heliotrope sheen and shadow, as now, against +sunset. The bloom of her skin, he says, was too delicate to injure +with human language—he only indicates a flush of health under the tan +of sun and voyage, and a vividness of colouring that came when her +feelings were high. He does tell us that her mouth utterly satisfied +the mind, with its pink deeper than coral, and a stain of some still +richer hue—he never can decide what it is, and vermilion-purple is the +nearest he can come to it. She had a way of turning up the corners of +her mouth at him. Ruby called it making a fox-face. Then he speaks, +geometrically, of certain curves which presented her to notice as a +young woman. He makes more than a score of attempts, one time and +another, to convey the movement and fine beauty of those curves, to +describe certain relations between one part of her and another. + +She replied to Sir Richard, showing small, sharp teeth and umber +shadows in the delicious cavern of her mouth: “I couldn’t help it. +There’s something funny in the afternoon, or in the sea—something that +makes one feel dreamy.” + +He smiled indulgently at her. “What does it make you dream of, +visionary, yet not unpractical Lychnis?” + +She answered his smile. “Do you remember the seascape in some +dessert-plates of daddy’s at home? They came from Asia, I think—old, +buried Asia. I thought I had got melted into that picture.” + +Ruby, willing and adoring slave of the finer girl, never venturing to +move without her except under orders, called from the companion-way: +“Do come, Licky darling.” And Licky, her inward heart at that moment +speaking, did not refuse. But she repeated to Sir Richard, as she went +off: “I believe we have got melted into a picture. We are going to have +an adventure in a dessert-plate.” + +When the two young women came back again, clothed and glowing (we hear +that the tiny cabin was electrically warmed), evening was on the sea. +They drew off a little to watch their ship, a blotch of brown-green +floating on deep green water under a sky of dissolving lemon fire. +Terence Fitzgerald still rode in the bows, tall, rapt and motionless +(except that a sigh would now and then escape him, with a sentence +or two). For him such things as Ambrose notes, axes of reference and +other matters of exact detail, were not of moment. He had a fair +beard, and he was bard-like and communed with the lordly ones, riding +in the bows of the boat. And presently, when the _Floating Leaf_ +drifted across the disc of the sun, he lifted his hands up, and his +brows furrowed in what Ambrose calls the pain of his vision. He spoke: + +“I saw a cloud of them like peach-blossoms blown over the sea.” + +“A cloud of what?” asked Sir Richard. + +“The beautiful people.” + +Sir Richard was tickled. + +“They went sunwards, with an ecstasy on their faces, and we are to +follow them.” + +“Ecstasy’s all very well in these tricky waters, Terence, but I should +prefer to see their navigation certificates.” + +Terence smiled. “Believe me or not, my scientific Richard, we are to +find a heavenly country.” + +Lychnis gazed at him round-eyed and more or less believing. She was +prepared to believe everything that sounded beautiful. “He’s in the +dessert-plate, too,” she murmured. + +Sir Richard started the engine and they went back to the ship. Ambrose +notes how swiftly she loomed up out of the twilight, and adds that as +they went on board a fierce, foreign face scowled at them out of a +port-hole. + + + + + 3 + + +Ambrose had passed but a few minutes in his cabin, arranging his +impressions and making a few colour notes, when Lord Sombrewater’s man +knocked with a message. “His lordship’s compliments, Mr. Herbert, and +will you be good enough to step along to his lordship’s room?” + +Ambrose stepped along, and describes the two men whom he found before a +decanter of sherry in the suffused light of the stateroom. There were +bamboos and clouds painted on the delicate walls, so that they might +have been sitting in the grove where the Sages held their sessions at +home. Lord Sombrewater and George Sprot had each a cigar and a glass +of sherry. The former always had a cigar and a glass of sherry at +seven o’clock, and Sprot would have a cigar and a glass of sherry with +anybody at any time of day. The two were in consultation, if that can +be called a consultation where the one party is merely testing the +reactions of the other party to his announcements. + +Ambrose was greeted affably, but with swiftness and decision. “Come in, +Ambrose. Sit down.” And Ambrose was in a chair. “A council to-morrow +morning.” And Ambrose had made a note on his tablet. “A glass of +sherry.” And the golden liquid was poured out. But Ambrose did not +touch it. + +Lord Sombrewater was economical in thought, in word, in movement. He +wasted no man’s time, and no woman’s. He achieved his desires with the +maximum of deliberation and the minimum of means, and he did not regard +the achievement as an occasion for the wasteful output of sentiment. He +had produced three things of importance—a world-business in electrical +goods, a bamboo garden, and Lychnis. He had created the business by +the remorseless application of drastic and ever-renewed principles of +economy as regards both production and disposal. He had created his +bamboo garden by an economy of mental effort, working to time-schedule, +concentrated utterly during the appointed hour upon the subject in +hand. And he had created Lychnis with an economy in the matter of +demonstrative affection that his wife secretly thought distressing. + +As to appearance, he was short—six inches shorter, except for Sprot, +than the shortest of his six companions. He was bald longitudinally +from the crown. Yet he dominated. He had little plump, masterful hands. +He had a swift, birdlike glance that dwelt shrewdly for a moment and +divined motives. And in the name Sombrewater there was for Ambrose +(who observes that such impressions came vaguely at sea) some reminder +of the deep lakes and the torrents tumbling among the crags where he +had built those murmuring factories—some reminder of the scenes that +from boyhood must have entered into his lordship’s being, to flower in +Lychnis, perhaps to dream in her, vicariously and uneconomically. + +As for George Sprot, he was a plain, ordinary man, with nondescript +hair and unbeautiful form and structureless, unintelligent face. He +was a “practical” man, and he had been attached in some subordinate +capacity to Lord Sombrewater’s enterprise, and invited to join the +Sages (but he did not know it), as representing that great body of +uninstructed, biased and congenitally foolish opinion by which human +affairs are so largely ruled. His motto was, that one man is as good +as another, but towards men who had achieved distinction in the fields +of painting, literature and music he adopted an attitude of convinced +disrespect. Towards an industrial viscount he adopted an attitude of +careful familiarity which scarcely concealed his adulation. + +Just at present he seemed to be in a state of distressing nervous +excitement. One would have said that the restraint of his employer’s +manner was irksome to him, that with some other man he might have been +impatient. He was impatient with Ambrose, indeed, because Ambrose was +in no hurry to ask questions, and with Ambrose he had no hesitation in +showing it. His manner towards Ambrose, we learn, was the manner of +a man towards a paid servant, though Ambrose was not, as a matter of +fact, a paid servant. + +Ambrose did at last put one necessary question: “Is there anything +special for the agenda?” + +Lord Sombrewater shot him a glance. “Mutiny of the crew.” + +Ambrose wrote on his tablet, “Mutiny of the crew.” Then he asked, as +usual: “Anything else?” + +A sound like the collapse of a heart escaped from Sprot. “Mutiny!” he +exclaimed, interrupting under compulsion of his feelings—“Mutiny! Don’t +you understand? The crew have threatened mutiny. There is—you said so, +I think, Lord Sombrewater—there is actual danger.” + +“Mutiny is likely to be accompanied by violence,” remarked Ambrose. + +“But, good God!” Sprot burst out, “don’t you see—I——” He met Lord +Sombrewater’s eye (he was appealing, of course, to him through +the protective ears of Ambrose). “Has it quite been realized +that—er—that—er—we have women on board—girls? That——” + +There was a knock at one of the doors, and he performed what must have +given him the sensation of a considerable saltatory feat. He jumped, in +brief. But it was Lychnis, in a flowered dressing-gown, with her hair +shaken loose to dry. She shrank back a little at sight of Sprot, as a +primrose might shrink from a boot. + +She ran her comb through the waves of hair, making them crackle. “Did I +hear you say there’s going to be mutiny?” + +“That is so,” answered her father. He turned to Sprot. “Thank you +for your advice, and, of course, not a word to the women.” Sprot was +dismissed, in a condition of uncontrol that Ambrose thought pitiable. +Ambrose was asked, by a motion of the hand, to remain. + +It was the half-hour before dinner that Lord Sombrewater liked to +spend with Lychnis. Regularly at seven-thirty o’clock he waited for +her to come in from her adjoining room, and very often she did. +Within limits his affection for his daughter might be said to be +unconsidered. In regard to his daughter there was an abeyance of his +deliberate personality. He loved her, in fact. Ambrose tells us that +the enjoyment of his wealth and his rank had been first and foremost +in the activity of acquiring them, as an end in itself; that it was +a new and exquisite gratification to him when he got Lychnis to dower +with them. He liked Ambrose to be there during those half-hours, partly +because Ambrose gave Lychnis pleasure by his conversation and advice. +Ambrose is aware that Lord Sombrewater thought him to be a harmless +kind of man. He knows that by a method of his own Lord Sombrewater had +formed the opinion, on consideration of his written work, that Ambrose +was the man to transmit his daughter’s beauty, in the written word, +to posterity. Terence Fitzgerald, who painted for the business those +wonderful and inspiring posters of god-like men radiating auras of +golden brilliance, was expected, likewise, to transmit her beauty on +canvas and in verse; but Terence was not asked in for the half-hour +before dinner. Lord Sombrewater had formed the opinion that Terence +also was an innocent man, but he was a poet, and the behaviour of +a poet was less certainly predictable than that of a white-minded +recorder of things done. And, indeed, the innocence of poets, in +juxtaposition with the innocence of maidens, is apt to work out +unhappily, sometimes. + +So Lychnis might go on brushing her hair, and Ambrose might, since +somebody must if her beauty was to be recorded, describe what the +rhythmic movement of her arms should reveal; and if, when her body +twisted in the flowered dressing-gown as she flung her hair out, the +line of breast or back or thigh should please him, he might be allowed +to write it accurately down. + + + + + 4 + + +When dinner was finished, Ambrose and Fulke Arnott sat a long time over +their coffee: in attendance, the fierce, foreign face that had scowled +from a port-hole. + +“There’s a council to-morrow morning, Fulke,” said Ambrose. + +“Is there?” rejoined Fulke. “What about?” + +“Mutiny of the crew.” + +“Mutiny of the—— You mean——” + +“I mean they are going on strike.” + +Fulke Arnott, Ambrose says, was a young man with the soul of a +Greek athlete in the body of a chimpanzee, the thoughts of a saint +and the means of expression of a fish-porter. He describes him +as the cleanest-hearted man who ever set himself to the task of +self-expression in foul language. He allowed the fountain of his genius +to play in a preliminary manner. “You mean to tell me that those +stinking Chinks, those crawling, paste-coloured liver-flukes, those +doped nightmare beetles, have had the bowels to go on strike?” + +“Precisely that.” + +Fulke’s face was greasy with excitement. “Then, Ambrose, we may +solemnly thank God. We meet in the eastern hemisphere what we ran +away from in the west. We learn this hour, comrade Ambrose, that the +blinking revolution is world-wide, and the New World is about to be.” + +“With a population of Chinks, as described?” Ambrose asked. It appears +that Fulke Arnott was a sidereal chemist whom Lord Sombrewater, on +discovering that he knew about the interiors of stars and had a +touch of quaint, constructive genius, had attached to his works with +instructions to reflect upon the interiors of furnaces. It amused Lord +Sombrewater to employ a revolutionary with advantage to his business, +and he was fond of his conversation. Fulke on his part admired his +employer as an artist, while attacking him as the world’s greatest +grinder of the faces of the poor. + +“What do the others make of it?” he asked. + +“Sombrewater discloses nothing.” + +“He has the personality of a dynamo.” + +“Sprot is alarmed.” + +“Naturally, the snail-gutted bourgeois.” + +“Frew-Gaff says they can’t get the better of our trained intelligence.” + +“He believes in science, Frew-Gaff does.” + +“Terence thinks it’s very wonderful. He says the high gods are leading +us.” + +“It’s my belief the high gods are leading us up the garden. What about +Blackwood and Quentin?” + +“I haven’t told them yet.” + +“It’s no good looking for Blackwood now. He’s in a trance in his cabin.” + +Ambrose smiled as he thought of Blackwood in his cabin, striving to +hide from life and desire. Blackwood, a too sensitive man, found the +strain of life in an industrial society more than he could bear. Also, +he was not successful in achieving his somewhat exquisite desires. +He failed, for example, with women. Unlike Fulke Arnott, he took no +consolation from dreaming of a perfect world. Fulke was for changing +his surroundings; Blackwood, on the other hand, had convinced himself +that there never can be happiness for anyone, and he found this belief +sustaining. He had therefore embraced what he understood to be the pure +doctrine of Indian Buddhism, and spent his time dodging existence by +a method of protective mimicry, in which he imitated the appearance +of Nothing. He had resigned the position of physiological adviser in +Lord Sombrewater’s therapeutic apparatus department, and now lived in a +cottage and occupied himself with the technique of self-destruction. +But, as he was soon miserably to learn, he had the processes without +the reality; the form quite without the inspiration. + +“Quentin, I imagine, is not in a trance?” Ambrose queried. + +“Quentin!” Fulke’s brow blackened. “With Lychnis and Ruby for certain. +Showing off his bushy beard and his princely figure in the light of the +moon. The libertine! The outsize, libidinous, bearded rat!” + +“One would not describe him as a rat. There is something too royal and +magnanimous about him.” + +“Oh, no doubt. He has a royal air. And ruddy cheeks. And fine red lips. +And a chest like a beechtree. And the legs of Ulysses. And arms that +hug. The sort of man that young girls dream of.” + +“It cannot be denied that he is a refined scholar.” + +“You don’t grudge him his successes. Nor do I, you fish! In that realm +of endeavour you only have to try and you are successful. But they +don’t know, poor innocents, how deceptive size is. It’s the promise +that attracts them. The performance is apt to be disappointing.” + +“You are warm. And—may I say?—there is a certain odd discrepancy +between your declared views on sex purity and the somewhat promiscuous +and even sordid habits of your imagination in that regard.” + +“Pink-cheeked Ambrose, rosy-fingered Ambrose, continent Ambrose, I +don’t reconcile anything. I am the only man in this ship who doesn’t +reconcile his ideas with one another, the only one who isn’t a blasted +walking logic, the only one——” He stopped and patted Ambrose on the +shoulder. “Come on; let’s go up on deck. I forgot I’m a Sage. The +trouble is, you know, Ambrose, that, I mean to say—I shouldn’t mind +if it wasn’t Lychnis. He can do what he likes about Ruby, but when +it’s Lychnis—— She’s too good to be seduced by anybody but a winged, +frowning Eros, and there aren’t such things. What time is it? She +and Frew-Gaff and I are going to begin a new series of calculations +to-night. The wonder that girl is, Ambrose! She feels about mathematics +the way some people feel about flowers. She told me once that formulæ +bud and blossom for her like roses. She’s all rhythm, that girl. She +has the most astonishing perceptions about physical reality, and all +unknowingly. It’s my belief that with just a little more she’ll find +herself accidentally in possession of some extraordinary secret. +She has something in her that no one else in this ship understands, +something mysterious, insight—I don’t know what to call it—and she +is unconscious of it. The wonder! The darling! Put that down in your +notebooks and ponder it. I can see in your eye that you are composing +sentences as I go along, you soulless, metal-minded register.” + +Ambrose remarks that he couldn’t do better than record the conversation +as it fell. + + + + + 5 + + +Presently they were on deck. They found Quentin with Lychnis and Ruby +(in cloaks of emerald and rose respectively, with glimmering shoes), +showing off his bushy beard and his heroic figure in the light of a +yellow rose-leaf moon. The ship was moving gently in the foam-flowering +fields of the sea. Above them, against a swaying almond-tree of stars, +could be seen the head of a seaman looking over the canvas of the +navigating bridge. There was no sound but the sound of the sea and +Quentin’s rich voice and the girls’ laughter. + +“Five-and-twenty past nine, Lychnis,” said Fulke. + +“Oh, bother!” She frowned. But the thought of the calculations, once +planted in her consciousness, began to attract her. “I’ll come,” she +said; and chose to descend to the lower deck by an iron ladder that the +sailors used in passage from foc’s’le to bridge. She vanished into the +darkness like some faint emerald emanation. + +“And your mother wants you, Ruby,” said Ambrose. + +The rose emanation went slowly and sulkily after the emerald, and +Ambrose delivered his message on the subject of mutiny with a gesture +towards a light that outlined a door in the swaying foc’s’le. + +“Well, I’ll take ’em on single-handed, in defence of virginity,” said +Quentin, “though chastity requires no defence, for, as Judas Thomas +tells us, chastity is an athlete who is not overcome. How beautiful +is the story of Perpetua, the virgin martyred at Carthage, and of +Thekla, for whom the lioness fought with other beasts in the arena! No, +Ambrose. Purity is absolute. The pure virgin cannot be defiled, for +her heart is not in the work. And that is why we need have no scruples +regarding her.” + +“Thekla?” asked Ambrose. “I am not acquainted with that story. I must +look it up.” + + + + + 6 + + +At ten o’clock precisely Ambrose reported to Lord Sombrewater, who +was playing bridge with his captain and two of the three ladies—Lady +Frew-Gaff and Mrs. Sprot. Ruby’s red head was bent over a book and Lady +Sombrewater knitted. The three ladies did not differ in appearance +more noticeably than sparrows. Indeed, they closely resembled +sparrows, among the painted bamboos. They had all three been very +pretty girls, and that was why their husbands had married them. They +had married them before they knew exactly what kind of prettiness and +what accomplishments they required women to have. As regards Lady +Sombrewater, the very negative of her husband, Ambrose wondered how +Lychnis had been gotten out of that nonentity. + +“And where is Lychnis?” she asked, as he came in. + +“She’s with Sir Richard Frew-Gaff and Fulke Arnott, doing sums.” + +“Queer girl. I missed her after dinner. I thought she was with you.” + +“She and Ruby were with Quentin after dinner,” the captain innocently +said. + +Lord Sombrewater’s eye was expressionless, like a pheasant’s. The three +ladies exchanged glances, glanced at Ruby, and when she glanced up from +her book simultaneously glanced back again. + +There was silence for an hour. + +“Game and rubber,” said Mrs. Sprot at last. + +“And bedtime,” added Lady Frew-Gaff. And there was a great pushing back +of chairs and shaking of handbags and jingling of coins and picking +up of dropped odds and ends. The choleric Chink came in with Bovril +and whisky-and-soda, and as he went out again, with a last furious +good-night, the ship gave a distinct heave. + +Then Lychnis came in. “Yes,” she replied to a question, “there’s a +wind blowing. Terence is outside sniffing it. He says it’s full of the +Peach-blossom People. He says they keep on flicking the tops of the +little waves with their pink feet.” + +“And what did you say to that?” asked her father. + +“I said no doubt it was true. He looks at the waves a lot, so he ought +to know. I told him about my waves.” + +“Your waves?” + +“Light waves and that. Calculations about them, in rhyme and blank +verse. We had wonderful ones to-night—long flat ones like trains and +some like falling rockets, and a series like the rhizome of a bamboo +that keeps on putting out a new shoot. Fulke nearly cried because a +demonstration of Sir Richard’s was so beautiful.” + +By an understanding convenient to everybody, Lady Sombrewater retained +the right to use a tone of authority with her daughter, and now she +ordered her daughter to bed. Swiftly she went to bed herself, thus +putting disobedience out of sight. The other two ladies followed, +shepherding Ruby. + +It very often happened that Ambrose spent the last half-hour before +bedtime in conversation with those two. It was Lord Sombrewater’s +custom to drink a whisky-and-soda and to smoke a cigar, and Lychnis +would chatter or gloom or behave idiotically, as her mood might be. +To-night she gloomed. + +“Cross to-night, Licky?” asked her father. + +“Dissatisfied.” She pulled a lock of hair over her eyes and bit it—a +trick of childhood when people looked at her and she was sulking. + +“What beautiful hands Sir Richard Frew-Gaff has got!” she said. “They +move like beings, with minds, contriving things. Mine are merely +something to finish the shape of the arm.” + +Ambrose looked at her arms and hands—orchids waving on stalks. Fit +to express passion, they might be considered. He looked at her feet. +She had pale green stockings to go with her emerald dress, and dark +green snake-skin shoes. Her dress was a sheath to the flower of her +body. Underneath, as Lady Sombrewater had told him, thinking him a most +suitable recipient for the confidence—underneath she wore tenderest +stalk-green silk. She liked to feel that her clothes were petals, a +living integument of nature. + +“Been working too hard?” said Lord Sombrewater. + +“No,” she answered emphatically. “I don’t think I work at all. What I +do comes to me, and it’s not tiring.” + +“Well,” he observed, “it makes you scratch your head a good deal, +judging by your hair.” + +Her hair was erratic in disposition. Loosed from control, it grew and +flowed from her head in fan-like streams. There was evidence that her +hand had been plunged recently in its depths, for the tonic effect of +irritation on the sap of her genius. She took out the pins, and her +hair spread and rippled down her emerald dress, so that to the queer, +associative mind of Ambrose she seemed to gloom from a torrent of some +cascading tropic fern. The high forehead, heavy with thought, the +considering eyes, with the lids and the shadows that spoke of what he +chooses to call her plant-like passions, were seen in a wavy, ferny +fountain. Nor does he stop at that in his curious description. He +often describes her as plant-like, but here he talks of her as having +affinities with the insect. He says that she produced an effect on him +as if she were an insect, with a remote, non-human mind, regarding him +from among the fronds of a fern. + +“Still, I’m not tired,” she said, enigmatically smiling. + +“Nevertheless, you had better go to bed,” put in Ambrose. + +She walked towards the door (painted cloudy between two painted clumps +of bamboo) of her bedroom. She walked with small steps in a line. It +was in her walk that she became a woman. One saw that her knees and +back were a woman’s. In the open door she twisted round on sinuous +hips and thrust out a hand through a torrent of hair in a gesture of +good-night. + +“Why is she so often moody, do you suppose?” asked Lord Sombrewater +when the door was shut. + +“She is twenty-two. She is likely to be dissatisfied until she is +mated,” Ambrose observed. + +Lord Sombrewater accepted this with considerable reluctance. “No doubt +there is something in what you say. The observations of a spectator are +certainly very illuminating. I hardly seem to be putting her in the way +of getting a mate, though, at present.” He smiled, passing it off. + +“It would be difficult, no doubt, for her to find one among those on +board.” He wondered whether, in fact, Lord Sombrewater was not even +consciously hiding her away. + +“How does she react towards Quentin?” he was asked. + +“It is to be presumed that it is a matter of indifference to a flower +what wind carries the pollen, or whence.” + +“You are doubtless right.” + +“Without pursuing a misleading analogy too far, it is to be remarked +that a certain type of flower-minded and flower-passionate young woman +is often strangely careless in selecting a lover.” + +“That is so,” said her father slowly. + + + + + 7 + +Early next morning Ambrose came on deck in a monkish dressing-gown with +a fleecy towel round his neck. The wind had fallen. The morning was +fresh and tender and delicate as a morning in a Chinese silk, and the +sea was rippling and black like a lake. It was time for the matutinal +exercises. Lord Sombrewater’s valet and the fierce Chink were in +attendance with sponges and other matters; fresh and sea-water showers +were fixed conveniently; but it seemed to Ambrose that there began to +be something queer about these English habits in those far eastern seas. + +Five of the Sages were already exercising, or standing under the +showers with expressions of enjoyment or endurance. Lord Sombrewater +was thorough but silent, and occupied himself with the punch-ball. +Fulke Arnott, deep-chested, long-armed, bow-legged and hairy as an +ape, felt his limbs with closed eyes and imagined himself a piece of +Pheidias. Sprot, the pot-bellied and knock-kneed, produced in his +throat a noise which he called singing, and Ambrose presumes that he +felt in the remnant of his soul some echo of what in an ancestor may +have been a free impulse. Terence stood under the fresh-water shower +like a Druid. His exercises were those prescribed for occultists, and +his mind, as the element drenched him, was concentrated on the purity +of the element. Then he moved to the sea-water shower, and concentrated +on salt health. When he had finished he moved over and stood by the +rail, tall and stately, shading his eyes and gazing into the rising +sun. Far and wide the little dark waves broke idly in tiny jets and +sprays of white foam. “We float, not on water,” he was heard to say, +“but on meadows of snowdrops and deep-leaved violets.” + +Sir Richard Frew-Gaff was most amiable of the Sages at that time of +the day. With his higher centres a little relaxed from the preceding +day’s contemplation of physical reality, and warm with anticipation of +another day’s work, he appeared benevolently, as it were, in the world +of living phenomena, and cracked a couple of jokes. At the moment he +was hanging by the knees on the horizontal bar and hailed Ambrose, +passing in his white towel from the shower. + +“Hallo, Ambrose!” + +“Hallo!” The pale blue eyes of the scientist were looking at him upside +down. “You’re pinker than ever—like a pink cherub in a white cloud.” +Sir Richard swung and landed erect on the mat. “What’s the secret of +your morning freshness, Ambrose? You must sleep like the sainted dead +in paradise. Do you dream at all?” + +“Not unless I want to.” + +“Well, I envy you. I do not sleep too well nowadays.” + +Ambrose would not expect to sleep, he tells us, if his brains were full +of imaginations that chained him to the world of physical appearance. + +Then Arthur Ravenhill came gravely from his cabin. He did not use +the gymnastic apparatus. The functions of his body, assimilative and +excretory, were regulated by the operations of his mind. He digested +consciously, and his exercises took place in his inside. He was able +to perform gymnastic feats with his liver and kidneys, and had in mind +to achieve the supreme accomplishment and reverse the processes of the +alimentary canal. He was very thin. He had the air, in fact, of one who +has attained a considerable degree of self-mortification, and he was +able at any time of the day or night to discipline himself into one of +the four trances. + +“Morning,” said Lord Sombrewater. “Didn’t see you yesterday.” + +He stood with folded hands. “Having been led into sensual thoughts +by the beauty of the afternoon, it seemed to me necessary that I +should undertake the four intent contemplations. Thus, abandoning the +idea that there is an ego, realizing that beauty is a glamour in the +mind of that which has no ego, having rid myself of desire for any +but spiritual forms of existence and then convinced myself that all +existence, however abstract, is evil, the sensual images melted away.” + +He passed through the group of gymnasts and stood under the shower like +an ascetic at the door of his forest cave, who by chance receives cold +water on the back of his neck. + +“There’s a council this morning at nine,” Ambrose told him. + +Last of all Quentin came striding from his luxurious bed. He certainly +outshone the rest as a conception in muscle. The deck trembled and +the apparatus shook with the weight of his leaps and his swinging +limbs. From the great pectoral slab to the Achilles tendon he was a +wonder—a muscular temple, a cathedral of bone and sinew, florid and +huge. When he was holding a long arm balance on the parallel bars his +torso resembled the junction of two branches of a beech. Within him, +too, there was no mean nervous system and brain. He knew the classic +poets, Greek and Latin, by heart, and was an expert in the art of +post-mediæval, early Renaissance periods in all countries of the +world. Ambrose describes him finally as a princely ruffian. + +The exercises finished, they took coffee and met in council. At nine +o’clock precisely Lord Sombrewater rapped on the table before him, and +the Sages stopped talking. He was an expert in the chair. He had done a +great deal of business in chairs, and from behind them. They afforded +excellent opportunities for controlling large blocks of business by +means of majorities, for giving harmless vent to the opinions of +cranks, and for obtaining the consent of shareholders to reasonable +proposals. + +He began: “The situation we have to consider is the following: our +intention was to visit Japan. The crew we took on at Sydney, after +that strange trouble we had there, seem to be under the influence of +some mysterious fear. That fierce-faced Chink chose them for us, you +remember. Well, they have intimated that they will sink the ship unless +we land them forthwith at a Chinese port.” + +“Why?” asked Sprot. + +It was a question the chairman expected. Shareholders were apt to ask +“Why?” His technique was to unfold just such a minimum of a situation +as sufficed to answer questions. + +“They allege, as a matter of fact, that they have wireless orders from +their union.” + +“Are all those Chinks and dagos and things in a union?” + +“It’s international now,” put in Fulke Arnott. “I would like to point +out to you the interesting features of this situation. We’re a quarry. +The arch-capitalist escapes from Europe with his accomplices in search +of a year’s quiet to mature his plans, and labour brings him to book in +the middle of the China Seas. It’s good. It’s pretty. It’s encouraging.” + +“It’s all that,” observed Lord Sombrewater. “It’s also pure nonsense. +In any case I do not consider myself a fugitive.” + +“I don’t want to imply that you ran away,” Fulke replied. “The fact is +that your position is one in which you can afford to take a year off, +so long as you watch the intrigues of the henchmen you’ve elevated and +see that they don’t manœuvre you out of the position of control.” + +“You begin to see the point. The central fact is my position. It is +true that I own the mines, the railways, the crops, the whole activity +of large pieces of several continents. If I cannot escape them, neither +can they escape me. I am their light and air. Without my activity, +races perish. Unless I continue to produce business enterprises, as +Terence produces pictures and Richard Frew-Gaff his hypotheses, nations +will starve.” + +“My answer,” said Fulke, “is: Let them.” His green-brown eyes glowed. +He had a vision, as Ambrose presently ascertained, of a few young men +and women, few and free, living on nuts in a wood. + +“We wander from the point,” said the chairman. “I do not believe for +a moment that there are any orders from any union. The trouble is +something quite different. But we have to consider what action we shall +take. Let us have views round the table. What is your view of our +action, Fulke?” + +“In theory——” + +“Never mind that. Let’s hear what another business man has to say. +George Sprot, your views, please.” + +Sprot, who had been agitatedly twisting his fingers, was flattered. +“Defy them! If they won’t work, let them starve. If they mutiny, shoot +them.” + +“So useful, George,” said Quentin. “So practical.” + +Lord Sombrewater tapped with his hammer. “Terence.” + +“I saw a cloud of beings, the colour of peach-blossom, drifting over +the sea. They swayed and bent like one branch blown by the same wind. +They were going towards China.” + +“Attach them, Terence,” exclaimed the irrepressible Quentin. “They’ll +do instead of steam when the boilers go out.” + +Once more the hammer. “Richard.” + +“I suggest that we run the ship ourselves. Fulke and Lychnis and I can +easily work out a theory of navigation. We can complete it in a few +days. Some of us must be crew. Quentin’s a whole crew of stokers in +himself.” + +Quentin passed a remark which Ambrose faithfully records, but we need +not trouble ourselves with it. + +“That’s all very well, Richard,” said the chairman; “but in a tempest I +should hesitate to trust entirely in your very harmonious calculations. +And in any case, the officers have not deserted.” + +“Well, let us be the crew.” + +“I don’t know that Barnes would care to run the ship with a crew +consisting chiefly of professors. Still, it might be practicable, after +we had disposed of the mutineers. Blackwood?” + +“I have nothing to suggest. It is a matter of indifference to me where +I am or what I am asked to do.” + +“Quentin?” + +“I intend,” said Quentin, “to avail myself of the opportunities for +experience in both countries, and I don’t mind which comes first. There +are customs in both that I desire to experience. There are things +that I want to see. And there are, I fancy, in Tokyo, examples of the +miraculous flowering of Sung art, in which we meet with an idealism, a +spirituality, that cannot but be ennobling. What moral grandeur! What +ecstatic visions! And my Buddhist friend on my left should not fail to +consider the Ukiyoyé, those pictures of the frail, vanishing world, +those exquisite reproaches to our transitory desires, those——” + +“Precisely. When we reach Tokyo the matter shall receive consideration. +In the meantime I would propose, as a practical contribution to the +discussion, that we inform the crew that we are entirely ready to fall +in with their suggestions and proceed to a Chinese port.” + +The rest were silent. “I suppose it is the obvious course,” said +Frew-Gaff at last. + +“In the absence of any better proposal, such as I had hoped to +receive,” said his lordship, “I think it is. We can discuss what to do +next to-morrow. Is that agreed?” + +It was agreed, and the meeting broke up. + + + + + 8 + + +The next council took place, not on the following day, but some days +after. In the meantime there had been a tempest, with devils howling in +the wind and waves going all ways at once and other discomforts. The +_Floating Leaf_ got out of control, and now, by what all but Terence +called a stroke of luck, they were aground among the reeds in the mouth +of a river, perhaps a mile up-stream. The river debouched between +fantastic hills like green oyster-shells, and there were some queer +sailing craft, with masts like bent fishing-rods, and other strange +tackle, alongside. The sky was fantastic, like the hills, and there +was in the air a liveliness and odour of spring. Here and there on a +hill-top a plum-tree in blossom, and by a rock on the river bank a +clump of narcissus on green, springing stems. Here and there a willow +or grove of bamboo. “Much like _Arundinaria Simoni_, from here,” Lord +Sombrewater remarked. “Those bamboos should do well in the sea air. +Nothing like sea mists for bringing out their brilliance.” + +Terence dominated the council. All of them were jubilant (except +Blackwood), having been brought safe out of danger of their lives. +Terence harped on the fulfilment of his vision. + +“But what are we to do now?” asked George Sprot—“landed here like this?” + +Sombrewater let his opinion be known at once. “Terence has convinced +me,” he said. “Henceforward we cannot do better than trust ourselves +entirely to his pink-footed fairies. Which direction is now indicated +by the Peach-blossom People, Terence?” + +A light was on the brow of the bard. “They drift up-stream, between the +willows.” + +“Well, now,” broke in Fulke Arnott, “it so happened that I was talking +just now to that fierce-faced Chink. Strangely enough, he knows this +country, and he says that the river is only navigable a few miles up, +except for small craft.” + +“Then,” replied Terence, “we are to proceed in small craft.” + +“Or until we meet some Green Figs going the other way,” put in Quentin. + +Terence did not hear. “This morning as I was walking on the deck,” he +continued, “there passed by among the hills a man riding upon a goat. +He had a face of supernatural majesty and his eyes were terrible, and +he rode beside the river and on into the hills, driving his goat with a +branch of Peach-blossom.” + +“The indications are plain,” said Lord Sombrewater. “We leave the ship +here in the care of Barnes and the officers. The crew, I am told, have +already disappeared, except for Fulke’s friend. We ourselves make a +journey inland with the portable wireless until the Peach-blossom cloud +comes to rest and attaches itself to a tree. If necessary, we accompany +the portent as far as Tibet, but personally I hope the destination of +these ghosts is within reasonable distance. What do you say?” + +“I have a feeling,” said Fulke, “that it won’t be very far. That same +Chinaman spoke of a dragon that is famous in these parts. It lives, I +believe, in the hills yonder.” + +“We must see that bird,” said Lord Sombrewater. + +To George Sprot it was criminal levity to propose exchanging the +conveniences of their expensive machine for the discomforts and dangers +of an excursion through an unknown country, and all because of the +drivelling of a literary man. + +“What will the ladies say!” he exclaimed. + +“Naturally we shall consult everybody concerned. Shall we do so at +once?” + +Taking Ambrose with him, the owner of the vessel went forthwith to +discuss matters with the captain. In twenty minutes the whole thing was +arranged, and Barnes was in receipt of full instructions as to the +course he was to pursue in case of trouble. + +“I shall, of course, keep in close touch by wireless,” said Lord +Sombrewater. + +“That makes it all quite easy,” said Captain Barnes. “There’s one +thing, though. We must have some sort of crew on board.” + +“Oddly enough,” said the first officer, “that Chinaman butler and +man-of-all-work mentioned to me this morning that he would have no +difficulty in getting hold of a thoroughly reliable crew.” + +“Did he indeed?” observed Lord Sombrewater. “Can you tell me whether +the said Chinaman had anything to do with the steering of us the night +before last in the storm?” + +Captain Barnes laughed. “It’s a fact he was on the navigating bridge, +lending a hand. But still—what could he do?” + +“Seems to me he took the opportunity to bring us to his own door. Well, +that’s that. I shall leave the maids behind. Our wives will need them +in any case.” + +They went on deck and found the rest of the company gathered there. The +two mothers, with the advice of Mrs. Sprot, were quite definite; their +daughters should not go on such an absurd expedition. “This is the +maddest thing my husband has agreed to yet,” said Lady Sombrewater. “I +protested from the beginning. I protested against the voyage. I pointed +out that we were quite comfortable at home, but I was not listened to. +I protested against this outlandish China, but I was laughed at. I +protested during the storm. I had a feeling that we were being plotted +against. But nobody seemed to be able to do anything or have any sense +at all. And now look what a pickle we’re in, landed here like this, as +Mr. Sprot so rightly says. I protest——” She looked round for something +to protest against. “I protest against this kind of scenery. It’s most +un-English. My daughter shall not go.” + +“Of course not, mother,” said Lychnis. But she smiled at her father and +pinched Ambrose’s arm. + +Ruby saw it. “Oh, mother,” she pouted, interpreting the signs, “if +Lychnis is going, why can’t I go, too?” + +“But Lychnis is not going,” said Lady Sombrewater, with firm reproof; +and Ruby, who was not so quick as she was red and white and lovely, +looked terribly confused. + +“Then,” put in Quentin, “the sensations that we experience on our +journey will be very much abated in sharpness, because, for a man who +is pure in heart, like myself, there is nothing gives so much point to +the beauty of early morning, to the sudden revelation of a landscape, +the contemplation of the purity of flowers, the noonday rest, and the +bed among bracken under the winds of night, as the neighbourhood of a +couple of maidens.” + +The three ladies glanced at the girls and at one another, and their +eyes were guardian angels. “I absolutely put my foot down,” said Lady +Sombrewater. + +“And I mine,” added Lady Frew-Gaff. “In any case, if one of the girls +fell sick, who would look after her, I should like to know?” + +“Oh, come now, my dear!” put in her husband. “I myself, though not an +expert, know a good deal about the body——” + +“Encyclopædic Richard,” observed Quentin. “And for the matter of that, +I also know something of the body.” + +“And Blackwood was actually a professional physiologist.” + +“A physiologist is not a mother,” said Lady Sombrewater. + +“The body,” observed Blackwood, “is but a collection of obscene guts +and unpleasant juices. Beauty is therefore a superficial illusion and +the reality is extremely revolting. The body——” + +Lady Sombrewater waved the girls away. She was used to these +uncompromising declarations of the Sages, but she had not got to like +them, and she could still protect the girls. + +“The body,” continued Blackwood, “is merely an involuted skin, highly +specialized at various points, and capable of sensations, especially +tactile sensations, which some—as, for instance, Quentin, who has not +received enlightenment—consider desirable. Man, in brief, is nothing +but a piece of skin capable, in contact with another skin, of a supreme +sensation which results in the establishment of a third sensational +skin. Of the behaviour of these skins and their obscene accompaniments, +and of the cunning fluids by which, for their extraordinary object of +perpetuation, the said skins are cleverly kept in what is curiously +known as health, I have a considerable knowledge. The two maiden skins, +therefore, would be in a position to receive expert assistance should +they fall ill and inexplicably wish to recover.” + +“Mr. Blackwood!” began the three ladies at once. + +But Lord Sombrewater put an end to the discussion. “We’ll settle all +that presently,” he said; and they heard in his voice their doom, and +perhaps (though Ambrose was not able to find out whether their thoughts +were precise) the doom of their daughters. + + + + + 9 + + +Ambrose found an opportunity, during the afternoon, to ascertain from +the two girls their views as to the expedition. + +He had gone ashore with them, at the instance of Lychnis, and they had +climbed to the top of a humped green hill so as to survey the country. +There they stood, under a plum-tree in blossom, protected, as Lychnis +observed, by cousins of Terence’s messengers from Paradise. Lychnis +herself was in a fragile plum-colored frock, out of compliment to them, +and her red-haired fellow was in willow-green. + +Behind, between two contortions of cliff, lay the sea. Far away, +across the wrinkled and fissured hills, there were mountains with the +unmelted snows of winter lying on their tops like petals of narcissus. +The afternoon was spring-like, and there seemed to Ambrose to be a +fragrance of lilies; but whether it came from distant fields or whether +the girls were scented with it, he could not quite decide. But he +suddenly remembered that the Chinaman had spoken of a great lake of +water-lilies beyond the mountains of the interior. + +Lychnis stood on the hill with her hands clasped behind her, frowning +at the snows. + +“Is that where we are going?” she asked. + +“The indications point that way, I believe. Does it amuse you to go?” + +“Oh yes! And really, if we don’t find something new, something strange, +there, I think I shall die. Shall we perhaps discover some secret of +life there, do you suppose?” + +“You mean?” + +Ruby was wandering about, rather bored, and Lychnis, as often before, +talked intimately to her confessor. “I am so tired of reading books and +meeting people and thinking, just to fill up the time. I am so tired of +being conscious and trying to be more conscious. It is a disease that a +drink of genuine life would purge out of the system. I want to become +so that I’m waiting to get up in the morning just because it is another +day to live; then, when I lie down in bed at night, sleep would be a +deep physical pleasure. I wish it was a young world, with only a few +people in it, and spring meant that one would go out of doors and ride +away on some quest.” + +“Romantic,” he observed. “And is not that what you are to do now, with +your squires?” + +“But it will be only us, and we only fill up the time, without zest and +unconsciousness. Would you call my father whole-hearted any more? He +knows now that he makes what is not worth making, and he has lost touch +with life. Sir Richard lives merely intellectually, and he only knows +about the how of things and argues fantastically as to their why. He +makes out God to be a symbol in mathematics. Then Terence. His visions +are old, and I think they are pathological and mad. His auras and +reincarnations and glittering spirits from other planes, and all his +vibrations and rhythms and things—they are the cloud-rack of a decaying +personality. They are illusions of visions; and who would follow them +to the world’s end, except daddy, more in contempt than faith? And as +for Blackwood, he is so disillusioned that he wants to come to an end, +and maltreats his mind with some old lost discipline for making it +think of nothing, which it was never meant to do. And Sprot does not +even know that there are thoughts, or doubts, or despairs. He’s merely +a cell, and he can only market goods, I am sure without zest. No, Fulke +is the only one who has any vision of a sweet and joyous world. He has +youth in him, and desire, and all that. But his shape displeases me.” +She looked up at the plum-blossom burning on the branches above her. + +“There is Quentin. He has zest,” Ambrose observed. + +“But what for? Yet he pleases me, and if I find nothing at the end of +this journey I think I may let him please me more—if he can. For one +can have pleasure if one can have nothing else. Yet there are certain +things about love that I don’t thoroughly understand—you could tell me, +if I could ask you. I think I could.” + +Her head was bent in thought. Then she raised up her passion-lidded +eyes, and Ambrose took the opportunity to examine her state of mind. + +“Perhaps it is not life that you desire,” he said thoughtfully. “There +is something else—you will understand what I mean some day.” + +“You mean love, I suppose?” she asked, indifferent. + +“No, not that.” + +“I find love a bore,” she observed. “It might not be, I can conceive. +Several have loved me, and Fulke now I’m afraid, and Quentin, if we +are to call that love. And I love myself undoubtedly. When I see +myself in the mirror I wish, sometimes, that I were a young man, and I +feel that if I were women would love me, and I would take one—perhaps +Ruby, though she is rather stupid. I could love a god, if he wasn’t +too curly-headed and milk-white. Mine would be dark-haired, not fair, +like Terence’s clumsy Irish heroes. But there are no gods, unless +there are some lost here in China. Mine would have an air of profound +thoughtfulness. If there were gods, do you think I would have a chance?” + +She looked so comically serious that Ambrose laughed at her. + +She was petulant at his laughing. “You don’t love me, do you, Ambrose? +You only think I’m funny.” + +He says her sentence came at him like a flung blossom with a little +dart in it. He records his answer: + +“I can make no talk when it comes to ‘I’ and ‘me.’ Really, I’m not sure +that I’m aware of feelings and desires and so forth.” He remarks that +he scarcely knew how to put it. + +“Oh, I know,” she replied scornfully. “You only make notes. We are +all specimens. Still, that’s just as well, because if you were at +all likely to love me”—she flushed, now, at the word spoken before +in a rushing impulse—“there’d be nobody left to talk to. You know, +Ambrose....” She hesitated, looking about in the grass as if words +might spring up there. “It seems funny to say ... I mean, all those men +are a nuisance in one way or another. When they look at me their eyes +are seeing me as a young woman. Daddy, even ... you understand? Fulke +displeasingly, because he’s like a chimpanzee and I find it insulting, +and Sprot sentimentally and disgustingly, and Quentin—rather +excitingly. And Sir Richard, too, Ambrose, though it sounds wicked of +me to say it, but I can’t help knowing. Terence, of course, pretends +I’m his inspiration. Do poets embrace their inspirations? I expect so. +And with Arthur Blackwood it’s the way he sternly doesn’t look at me, +and when I’ve been talking to him he always goes into four or five +kinds of trances. It’s all a nuisance. But you, when you look at me and +talk to me, though I know you perceive every inch and movement of me +and very many of my thoughts, but not all by any means, I don’t mind. +It is so, isn’t it?” + +He bowed, and admired her standing up straight and frowning and flushed +against the stem of the young plum-tree. A pink blossom fluttered down +on her. + +She held on the way of her talk. “Now you are admiring me and making a +mental note of my shape. You will record, later on, that the sky behind +the blossom”—she turned to look—“is all tender apple-green, because +it’s soon going to begin to be evening. Well, look at me.” She stood +up on the toes of her slender shoes, and threw her arms out and her +head back, so that he could study her breast and throat. He did so, and +discusses the twin blossoms of her, and her whole shape, as a relation +of subtle, slender curves that had a most stimulating effect on the +mind and carried it beyond thoughts of physical beauty to profound +thoughts of an informing creative spirit. He mentions that her throat +was a springing flowerstalk. + +“There,” she said at last. “You have looked, and it’s nothing to me. It +would not be nothing if I were in love. I should be glad and happy at +being studied. But I’m glad to be quite assured that I’m not, because +now I know that one day, soon perhaps, I shall be able to ask you +questions—questions I could put to no woman, last of all my mother, and +no other man. You are the only soul in the world, Ambrose, who could +receive from a woman such questions as I shall ask you—the only soul +who could answer them without being silly. Soon—there are things I must +ask you soon. Over there,” she pointed to the distant mountains, now +cold and spiritual in the sinking sun—“over there, perhaps, we shall +find someone, and there will no longer be something missing. There will +be a note found to complete a music. And you,” she added with sudden +malice—“you shall be marriage registrar.” + +Then Ruby came wandering back—a lazy, redheaded Juno—and with her hands +she clasped a mass of flowers to her bosom. “These are for the ship,” +she observed. “Why didn’t you come and help me when I called? And what +have you been jawing about? You’re always jawing, you two.” + +“We’ve been talking most frightful stupid nonsense,” said Lychnis. + +“I expect so,” replied Ruby with unconcern. + +Then some of the others came from the ship, and they all gathered +flowers until the silver moon rose out of the fissure of a hill into +the tender, trembling sky. Mist began to form, and drove them back to +the _Floating Leaf_, and it was not long before there was nothing to +be seen but the mist and the moon, and here and there a plum-tree on a +black knoll rising out of the mist, and a flight of wild geese crossing +the sky. + + + + + 10 + + +Next morning, not unexpectedly, the Chinaman presented himself before +Ambrose in his cabin like a scowling apparition, and proposed, in +respectful and professorial language, that he should accompany the +party. “For,” said he, “a guide to the country, its manners and +customs, its flora and fauna; an interpreter of the language of the +people, and more especially of their state of mind in regard to the +several members of the party; a softener of passions; a holder forth +of the timely coin; and, if need be, one who can remind men at the +appropriate juncture of the unfortunate results that follow unthinking +interference with the obvious will of Fate—such a one would perhaps be +not without use to the party.” + +“Are you such a one?” asked Ambrose. + +“While striving constantly to imitate the tranquil humility of the +narcissus upon which we gaze through the port-hole, I am one who has +made not altogether unavailing efforts to acquire the technique of such +a one as I describe.” + +“Then such a one had better address his further inquiries to Lord +Sombrewater.” + +The other bowed and accompanied Ambrose to the owner’s room, where +he repeated his proposal. Ambrose noted with admiration how swiftly +his chief put on an impassivity that did not seem less than that of +the Chinaman. The little expressionless, pheasant eyes met eyes of +unreadable black lacquer, and Ambrose records that there seemed to be a +sort of communication going on, as between animals or birds. + +Lord Sombrewater at once confirmed an impression which Ambrose +had himself long since received. “You are a man of considerable +understanding,” he said. “You have, very markedly, the characteristic +visage of a Sage.” + +“I have gone but a very little way,” the Chinaman replied, “in +imitation of those who have obtained wisdom, or, more correctly, of +those who have learned to throw wisdom away.” + +“You are a deft waiter as well.” + +“That, noble viscount, comes of having perceived the inner nature of +plates, glasses, table-napkins and the like. It is in such a purely +menial capacity that I venture to offer my inexpert services.” + +“In what capacity were you on the navigating bridge that night we were +driven ashore?” + +“I desired to meditate from that exposed place upon the state of mind +of the master when he said, ‘The self-controlled man occupies himself +with the unseen and not with what is visible,’ and when he said, +‘Purify the means of perception, so that by doing nothing all shall be +accomplished.’” + +“Oh, well, by the means you mention you have accomplished much—or +someone has.” Lord Sombrewater thought for a few minutes. He told +Ambrose, when later observations had told him a great deal, that he +was convinced the ship had been steered by some sort of energy-beam +from the shore. Then he decided. It seemed to be his method, at moments +in his career when important decisions were before him, to adopt any +plan that offered itself. It is probable that he decided on some +instinctive summing up of facts, or indications, intuitively perceived. +He unreservedly accepted the proposal that the Chinaman should act as +guide. “What shall we call him?” he asked. + +“Such-a-one,” Ambrose suggested. + +“Good. I nearly made him minute-writer in your place, Ambrose. I rather +fancy him. But we industrial princes can’t have people assassinated +when they are in the way.” + +Ambrose considered the point. “I suppose not,” he said +thoughtfully—“not as a rule. But here nobody would ever know if you +waited till we were some way inland. Quentin would do it for you.” + +Sombrewater laughed loud and long. “You ignore the possibility of any +affection a fellow might have for you.” + +“No, no,” replied Ambrose. “I make due allowance for it in my +estimation of the probable course of events.” + + + + + 11 + + +Just after sunrise the next day ten figures in the costume of ancient +China (on the advice and with the assistance of Such-a-one) embarked +in a cluster of odd craft that lay alongside the _Floating Leaf_. Each +boat had a windowed cabin, like a gondola. On the sail of each was an +emblem like a flying beast. The Dragon, Quentin pointed out. + +Lychnis went first, swaying like an amber chrysanthemum on its stalk; +Ruby followed, her plump, maiden curves voluptuously shown, as she +balanced, in plum-coloured silk; Lord Sombrewater in marigold and +green; Sir Richard in apricot, with a device in black like a system +of coordinates; Sprot in mauve; Blackwood in lilac; Terence in +flame-orange; Quentin in peacock-blue; Fulke in primrose with sleeves +of green; Ambrose, lastly, in misty white. Clustered in their boats +they seemed like flowers in fantastic baskets floating in the stream. + +The resentment of the three ladies was soon forgotten in the excitement +of the journey. Indeed, it was not long before the sea and the +_Floating Leaf_ and the thought of their life in Europe seemed to +fall under the horizon of the mind, and they saw only the new beauty +and strangeness of the country where they found themselves. As Quentin +remarked, nowhere else in the world were such refined harmonies of +colour in landscape to be seen or such subtleties of tone. The river +wound secretly and intimately deep among the emerald hills, with their +dragon crags; now between lines of willows putting out a mist of +silvery-grey leaves, a mist deepened here into a tender blue, there +into a subtle rose; now through the delicate umber shadows of some +flowery gorge among jade-hued rocks. Here a bridge spanned the river, +springing from a group of trees and gracefully completing the rhythm of +the valley; there a village nestled by some profound logic in the nook +of a hill; once and again was some glimpse of the forest, or of the +white, slender beam of a rushing cascade that plunged down from distant +fells in harmonious passion. Over all floated white clouds like masses +of blossoms, and it was as if the forces of Nature and the hand of man +had united to suggest a landscape-dream of some profoundly meditating, +non-human spirit, in which man had his place with the plum-blossom, the +torrent and the black-bird on the branch. + +They went slowly, by sail and pole, in three boats. Terence, as +mystical leader of the expedition, sat in the first beside Such-a-one. +Quentin took his morning exercise in the second, thrusting with the +bamboo pole, and Frew-Gaff his in the third. They called to one +another, startling coot, mallard and teal from the reeds. Ambrose was +with Frew-Gaff and the two girls in the third boat. Lychnis and Ruby +lay curled up on one side, looking out; Ambrose on the other. + +A shout came over to them from Quentin: “How are the maiden skins?” + +For answer Lychnis clapped the small hands that lay in her sleeves like +petals, and Fulke, in another window, was observed trying in vain to +catch her eye. Then, at another shout from Quentin, she asked to be put +out on the bank, and met him. It was a rice-field, and half a dozen +blue-clad labourers were at work there. + +“I’m tired of standing still,” Quentin observed, strutting and striding +in his magnificent robe, a blur of deep blue that gave emphasis to the +whole riverside scene. + +“So am I,” she answered; “my legs want to run.” She picked up her robe, +and her green trousers flashed over the field like a pair of parrots. +Ruby, who had scrambled ashore after her, followed, and her legs +flashed like flamingoes. + +“By the Virgin Mother, how beautiful!” Quentin sang out, and chased +them down the rice-field like a great swaying peacock. He caught +Lychnis first, as he came up with her among the bamboos, by her +streaming hair and forced her head back, so that all her face and +throat were exposed to him. She saw the red, smiling lips in the +frizzy beard pouting a suggestion of kisses, and turned her face +sharply aside. “The unburnt child dreads the fire!” He grinned his +contempt at her and gave a vigorous tug at the handful of amber hair. +“Rich, ungathered coral! Sweet, shadowy, unentered cavern of a mouth! +Unfleshed teeth! Little tiger that has not yet tasted a man! Little +fool!” + +She stared soberly up at him. “Out of the strong cometh an excess of +sweetness, too luscious pomegranate of a man!” + +He grinned and led her back, still in captivity, to the boats, annexing +the slow Ruby by the way, and as he drove his pair through the field +the labourers began to follow and gather in round them, with a kind +of singing chatter, like a chorus. Fulke, who was also on the bank, a +little shamefaced because he lacked the spontaneity of Quentin and the +two girls to run, started forward; but when the little crowd came near +the boats, Such-a-one raised his voice to such effect that they sped +across the field and vanished like rabbits among the bamboos. + +“Odd, that,” said Quentin. “What is his secret charm? The authority +lay not in the tone, but in the words. Or did he perform a miracle—The +Manifestation and Evanishment of the Blue Men?” + +“I believe anything, now,” Lychnis replied. “Every minute I hope to see +that dragon flying across the hills.” + +Then there was a cry from Terence and a gesture like the waving of a +banner. + +“He wants to go on,” said Quentin. “He’s losing sight of his +Peach-blossom friends.” + +So the boats began to move slowly ahead, those four, with Ambrose, +following along the bank; and at everything Quentin said the girls +laughed, encouraging the flow of his spontaneity. Presently they +came to a village shadowed among huge rocks and trees. Variegated +ducks surrounded them and a flock of geese steadily testified with +outstretched necks to some difficult truth. The village was sombre, +mysterious and deserted, but a girl was searching for some object +among the pebbles at the water’s edge. She looked up, startled, at the +approach of five gorgeous strangers like ghostly mandarins and their +ladies, and began to make off with little tottering steps. + +“Delicious object!” cried Quentin. “Totter, rather, to these arms +and the refuge of this beard, which is indeed a better beard than +any countryman of yours can produce. For the beard in these parts is +scanty,” he explained, turning to Ambrose, “as you will undoubtedly +record.” Then, seizing the girl by the skirt of her jacket, he turned +her about and pinched her chin and her yellow cheeks. She screamed. +At once from the shadowy houses there was a swift, silent arrival of +yellow-skinned relations, and the rest of the party drew together while +Quentin, with sparkling eyes and wide smile, faced the crowd. But +immediately the voice of Such-a-one came from the leading boat, suavely +rising and falling, and once more with mysterious effect, for the +gathering dispersed, not, this time, without conveying, through their +expressionless faces, some hint of a threat like the threat of geese. + +Lord Sombrewater sprang out of his boat. “This is quite enough,” he +said, with acid authority. “Lychnis! Ruby!” He pointed, and they +returned to their window. + +“Funny,” remarked Quentin to Ambrose. “Your Chinaman has some talisman +in his tongue. This will be useful should one of you go too far.” + + + + + 12 + + +Late in the afternoon they disembarked, and Such-a-one led them by a +steep road through a village to a solitary inn halfway up the mountain. +The moon came up behind the mountain, and soft hues and scents of the +spring night stole into the sky. + +A warm, stirring silence. The inn slept, and Ambrose kept watch in the +road—before him a trembling emptiness of sky, and the fantastic roof of +the inn, and a candle burning behind the paper blind. The blind moved, +the candle was extinguished, and Lychnis and Ruby leaned out between +the bamboo shoots. They threw him down flowers, whispering good-night. +Then silence, breathing, scent-laden. + +Ambrose was arranging the events of the day in his mind for purposes of +record. While his mind worked his eyes were fixed on the moon sailing +in a clump of bamboo beyond the inn, like a swan among reeds. His +meditations were disturbed, suddenly, by an outbreak of imprecation in +his near neighbourhood. It was Fulke. The language he used was like +thunder and earthquake among those silent mountains, and seemed to +Ambrose to give a distinctly reddish tinge to the sky. + +He whistled, and Fulke paused like a nightingale disturbed in his song. +Then with a “That you, Ambrose? My God!” he resumed his theme. + +“What is it?” asked Ambrose. + +“What is it! I’ll tell you, so that you put it down in the records, +on parchment, with tender, fragrant little illustrations. What is it! +Only this. I asked Lord Sombrewater this evening if I might propose to +Lychnis. Lychnis!” He groaned at the name, at the stolen taste of a +pleasure never to be his. + +“Oh yes?” + +“Oh yes! You slug-flesh! You snail-guts! Don’t you want to know what he +answered?” + +“As soon as you wish to tell me, revolutionary but propriety-observing +Fulke. I don’t know if you wish to tell Lychnis as well. That’s her +window, you know.” + +Fulke looked up to her window, and Ambrose saw in the moonlight that +his face was all furrowed with desire and despair. He clasped his hands +together. “Exquisite—immaculate, goddess-minded,” he whispered, and +suddenly tore at his hair. + +Ambrose drew him off down the road, pondering on the word “immaculate.” +The demand of the virgin and ineffective for immaculacy—he would have +liked to dwell on that, but it did not seem the right moment. “And what +did Lord Sombrewater say?” he asked. + +“I asked him,” said Fulke, dwelling miserably on the scene, “if I might +ask Lychnis to marry me, and he looked at me for about three seconds +and said: ‘Why, certainly.’” + +“I see.” + +“He summed up my chances in exactly three seconds. ‘Certainly,’ he +said. ‘Walk straight in,’ as it were. Tell me, you duplicating jelly, +is he right?” + +“I think so.” + +“My God! you don’t know how it hurts, Ambrose! You don’t feel pain or +anything like that yourself, do you? But I tell you, I suffer. Make +a note of it. Make a note that the infernal fluids that the spring +disturbs in the blood are hurrying from end to end of me with messages +of desire and love. But don’t make the mistake of supposing that I +am possessed by mere lust. The sensations of my heart are like the +sensations of the opening lilac. I am chaste, and I always have been, +and I only desire to worship her, kneeling among spring flowers. She +only thinks I am ungainly, I know. But my soul loves all that is pure +and virgin and flame-like and verdant and too good and lovely in +her for the world. She is just that. She is my Grail, and, in short, +chastity is a bloody obsession with me.” Wringing Ambrose by the hand, +he plunged away. + +The moon, Ambrose noted, was now clear of the bamboos, swimming in +the shimmering skylake. He continued his meditations. It was not long +before the sound of a voice singing came to his ears, and presently +Quentin arrived, well satisfied with wine and adventure. He greeted +Ambrose mockingly, bowing and shaking himself by the hand. + +“A custom I have learnt in the neighbourhood, O moon-souled one.” + +“Can you tell me why it is,” Ambrose asked him, “that a remarkable +filthiness of language often goes with an unusual purity of mind?” + +“You mean Fulke? These revolutionary environment-altering, +ideal-state-creating people always seem to suffer from a +prolonged adolescence, just as your opposite, return-to-nothing, +environment-rejecting Buddhist blokes, like Blackwood, seem to have +never had any adolescence at all. Early excess, perhaps, in their case; +late excess in the other. How terrible, Ambrose, are the results of a +wrongly-timed excess!” + +“The observation shall be recorded. Don’t wake everyone up when you go +in.” + +“I’m not going in. I shall breathe out the wine that’s in me and watch +Fulke worshipping the narcissus in the early dawn. You can go in. I’ll +relieve you.” + +So Ambrose left him, with one last look at the bamboo grove and the +floating swan-moon. + + + + + 13 + + +Days of such journeying followed; sometimes they went in the boats and +sometimes wandered by dizzy paths along the sides of the zigzagging +mountains among groves of spruce, fir, or high up among pines and +slender cascades. The weather was very fair and warm, and the sun +was only dimmed by the shadow of the lapis lazuli crags that towered +threateningly over the path or by the jade-brown walls of a gorge. +At every turn there was some new glimpse of a sun-bathed horizon, +or a gleam of the sails of their boats on the shining, enamelled +stream. White cranes stalked among the emerald rice-fields. The roofs +of villages reposed under the hills, suitably to the contour, and +sometimes there were to be seen the quaint eaves of a temple appositely +jutting out. And sometimes the glistening cascade fell from their +very feet to some green trough in the snowy bloom of cherry, peach +and magnolia far below. The spring weather, the exhilarating air of +the heights, and a special comradeship that, as Ambrose notes, is apt +to accompany such an adventure—at any rate for the first few days—put +them all in good spirits with themselves and one another, and the +ravines and wrinkled, wizard-faced crags not infrequently echoed with +human song. Lychnis usually glided ahead, like a spirit that seeks the +consummation of life in some perfect gesture of the dance, and her +attendant followed with a more deliberate and serene enjoyment. Terence +came next, officially leading, often in colloquy with Such-a-one; and +the rest streamed out behind in ever-changing order, gay in their +coloured garments, like a marching troop of flowers. + +They camped one warm night, there being no village and no inn, at the +mouth of an unusually gloomy ravine, where the mountains, towering +above them, seemed almost to meet. The moon was in her third quarter. +Three of the Sages—Terence, Frew-Gaff and Sprot—with Ambrose, were +standing among the reeds by the water’s edge, peering into the +mysterious, moon-dappled mouth of the gorge. Terence, profoundly +stirred in spirit, had received illumination, and his eyes were deep +pools troubled by shining moon-angels. He raised his hands up before +the mountains and exclaimed: “The Last Wall!” + +“Meaning,” said Frew-Gaff, “that on the other side of this barrier, +which is to be pierced by means of this gorge, we shall find a sort of +Fairyland of Pantomime Peaches?” + +“The land of the Peach-blossom People, undoubtedly, matter-dividing +Richard.” + +“Dancing about in pink and purple tights, I suppose.” + +“And as real as æther waves, fanatic particle-worshipper.” + +“Well, after all,” said Sprot surprisingly, “there may be something +in what Terence says. There are more things in heaven and earth, as +Wordsworth reminds us. There is much that we cannot comprehend, and I +was never one to scoff at what is beyond our understanding.” It was +clear, Ambrose saw, that he had something up his sleeve. + +“Let me feel your pulse,” said Sir Richard. “Ah! I thought so. The +spring and the excellent wine we drank at dinner, and something that is +no doubt aphrodisiacal in the night itself, have disturbed your blood. +I detect overtones of moonshine in the vibrations of your nervous +system. The sap is stirring in you; you are beginning to Sprot.” + +“Clever—very clever,” replied the little man, with a certain +resentment. He would have shown it more positively, but he knew it was +better not to engage with these men in a contest of words. + +“He has had a vision, perhaps,” fluted Terence from the gorge-mouth in +deep tones. “Illumination comes oftenest to those who are simple in +mind.” + +“True,” observed Sir Richard. + +“Not entirely a vision,” said Sprot, with a sudden falter. Then he +made up his mind. “Look here, you chaps, you mustn’t laugh at me for +once....” + +“Go on,” said Frew-Gaff. + +“How beautiful is the humility of those who have experienced the +Experience!” exclaimed Terence. + +Sprot pointed a finger. “You see Blackwood up there?” + +Following his finger, they dimly saw the motionless form of Blackwood +seated cross-legged on a ledge of the mountain. He was in discipline. +“Yes,” they breathed. + +“Well, I was up there talking to him, because I thought he might do me +a bit of good, and as we were chatting, about self-control and” (he +coughed) “purity and that sort of thing, and it was getting dark, we +both distinctly saw a man pass riding on a goat, like the one you saw, +Terence, beside the ship. He went down that narrow path very silent and +swift, ghost-like; but what got us both a bit startled was his eyes, +which were what you might call fierce and majestic, if I might put it +so.” + +Terence took him by the hand, exclaiming, “Brother!” Then once more +addressing the mountain as “The Last Wall,” he stepped towards the +river and said, to some hypothetical listener, “I come.” + +“Stop!” cried Sprot. Terence, knee-deep in the reedy water, turned with +an expression of inquiry. + +“There’s more than ghosts in these mountains,” said the man of +business. “Gentlemen, I am not an artist, or a dreamer, or a scientist; +I am a practical man, and as such I keep my eyes and ears pretty wide +open, and perhaps I see things that escape some others. Now this fellow +Such-a-one, and his talisman, and all the tales we’ve heard about this +part of the world—what do you make of it?” He paused, a conjuror about +to produce an idea out of an apparently empty mind. + +“Absolutely nothing,” said Sir Richard, looking down at him with +tolerance in his moonlit, distinguished face. + +“Nothing, naturally, it being a matter plain to be seen without a +microscope, and hence not interesting to a scientific man. Well, Mr. +Poet Fitzgerald, wade into the river by all means, though I might warn +you against catching cold. As I said, I am a practical man. But there’s +something more than a feverish cold hidden in the blackness of that +split in the mountains, in my opinion.” + +He stopped, and the others stared expectantly into the gorge. + +“There’s dragons,” he exclaimed, like an explosion. + +“Credo quia absurdum.” The voice of Quentin unexpectedly broke the +silence, and Sprot jumped round as if his fancies had taken on a +fearful reality. + +“These mountains are certainly full of dragons,” continued Quentin. +“Listen!” They listened, and a murmur of rippling water came down the +gorge. “Do you not hear them drinking and swimming? Do you not realize +that all these past days, as we walked among contorted crags, we were +among dragons, twisting and grinning in their sleep? Look above you at +those gruesome, moonlit shapes among the mountains, and their light, +white breath drifting about the peaks. Look——” He stopped abruptly, and +resumed in a queer tone. “Look, in fact, at that one hanging in the +air.” + +They looked and saw a great, beaked bird floating overhead with wide, +motionless wings. Their mouths hung open, and Ambrose ascertained +afterwards that their sensations were rather of astonishment than +alarm. Frew-Gaff was the first to bring his mind to bear on it. + +“An aeroplane, by all that’s holy!” he exclaimed. + +The bird wheeled round a great circle and vanished over the mountains. + +“Then what silent engines!” replied Quentin. “I fear it is the Dragon. +Remember the emblem on our boats. It is clear that we have come here, +by the hand of Such-a-one, in the capacity of sacrifice for some annual +feast. Hence the respectful attitude of the surrounding population. +Sprot will undoubtedly suffer first.” + +Sprot was pale, trembling. “The camp!” he muttered. “The girls!” + +Taken by his infectious alarm, they rushed back to the camp. All +was well. The blue-clad stewards, under the assiduous tutelage of +Such-a-one, were prostrating themselves forehead to ground. The +others were looking up at the mountains with mingled amusement and +apprehension, as if they preferred to believe that someone had played +a rather uncanny joke. The girls, by their dishevelled hair, had come +from their pillows. This drew Quentin. “A girl fresh from her bed is +among the most intoxicating sights of earth,” he murmured to Ambrose. + +Then Blackwood came flitting through the night with a not altogether +well-disciplined haste, asking: “What is it in the sky?” + +The matter was pretty thoroughly discussed, without satisfactory +conclusion. “Anyway,” said Lord Sombrewater at last, “dragon or +aeroplane, the incident adds piquancy to the adventure. What do you +say, Lychnis? Would you rather go back?” + +She shook her head. “On the contrary.” + +“And you, Ruby?” + +But Ruby had fallen asleep. “What a lovely morsel for sacrifice!” said +Quentin, looking down at her. + + + + + 14 + + +Ambrose’s narrative proceeds with the same observant calm; and it is +from the heightened colour of the things he has to describe, and the +heightened emotion of the conversation he has to set down, rather than +from any deliberately enhanced passion of his language, that we derive +our impression of the beauty of the Peach-blossom Valley. He shows +us the lagoons, the valleys, the oyster-shaped rocks and the distant +mountains, and he describes the reactions of his companions, without +intervention of sentimental comment. + +It seems that in the misty, serene and summer-promising loveliness of +the next daybreak they embarked and entered the gorge almost without +waiting for breakfast, undeterred, confirmed even in their resolution, +by the disappearance of all the servants, except Such-a-one, who +explained that they regarded the manifestation of the Dragon as a +warning, and would undoubtedly spread the news, as they returned to +their villages, that the whole party had been carried away. + +The mists had scarcely lifted from the quivering reeds, and the sky +was still all blue and rose, when they poled across the clear black +water and entered the gorge. There proved to be nothing formidable or +gloomy in the gorge. It was wide and, when mists lifted, warm sunlight +poured down among rock shapes of a dream, throwing queer shadows on +the water. Their passage along these fantastic corridors was slow. +The sails were useless, and the water was too deep for the pole, so +that progress could only be made by the use of paddles and by pushing +on the fissures and protuberances of the rock. But it was not easy, +for the boats were heavy, and either they were continually bumping on +a buttress or coming neatly to rest in an angle, or else one had to +paddle against the stream over an open sheet of water, for here and +there the gorge widened into a mountain-locked lake, and there were +arms of the lake running into green mountain-valleys, and wide bays and +beaches bordered with majestic groves of the tall, springing bamboo. +There were also dragon-hiding pools under contorted cliffs, black +waters and shadowy flights of fish. + +They all worked silently with pole and paddle. At last Quentin wiped +the sweat off his face and asked: “Who’ll swim with me in the Gorge of +Dragons?” + +“I will.” The voices of Lychnis and Ruby chimed high among the rocks, +echoed by Fulke Arnott. + +“Wait a minute,” put in Lord Sombrewater. “Is it safe, swimming here?” +He addressed Such-a-one. + +The Chinaman smiled gravely. “The river is warm and sweet and clear, +Excellence. There are few reeds in the channel, and there is nothing +more formidable, by day, than pike. These, however, are voracious.” + +“I’m not frightened of fish,” said Lychnis. “I’ll kick them.” +Anticipating her father’s consent, she vanished into the interior of +her boat, followed by Ruby; and Ambrose remarks that, after the silk +robes in which they had for so many days suffered obliteration, the +manifestation of their naked limbs and plum-coloured bodies was quite +surprising. Soon four of the party were in the river—the two young +women, Quentin (whom Ambrose likens to a piece of live rock), and Fulke +(who was dragonish). They sported and splashed round the leading boat +like water-gods, or swam far ahead, dark little heads and shining arms +driving showers of water-drops. Then Lychnis and Ruby, when they were +tired of it, played at being hippopotamuses, like children. That was +on the suggestion of Lychnis; and Ambrose, leaning out of his window +when she plunged, saw her shortened body down under the water, and her +pale pretending face, her still eyes, when she floated up through the +water to breathe. She was followed by the dim mass of Quentin, who had +suddenly appeared beside her from under the boat. + +“I nearly had you,” he said, spouting water from his mouth. “Drown with +me, and let us be drifted into some underwater cave, locked together in +a never-ending river-dream.” She made a fox-face at him. + +The others swam in their turn. After the bathe they had a meal, and +some strolled in the groves and some slept in the warmth, and later +in the day they went on again, singing, and satisfied with the still +splendour of evening. They spent the night in a creek, among clumps of +bamboo. + +It was during the following morning that the gorge began to open out, +as the mountain range through which they had passed declined into a +broken litter of jade-green hills, and they saw ahead of them the first +glimpses of the Peach-blossom Valley. They called it the Peach-blossom +Valley then because the journey came to an end there, Terence having +received the necessary intimation; but Ambrose tries over some other +names, as Willow Valley, and Valley of Emerald Hills, and Valley of +Blue Pines. They were so moved, it seems, by the composed beauty of +the scene that met their eyes as they left the mild opening of the +ravine that for a time they forgot each other’s existence and lived +alone in the delicate solitude of that dreamy landscape. The stream, +deep and slow, wound between willows, and through the willow-screen +they saw verdant lawns with a fleeting glimpse of deer. Beyond, there +were orchards of cherry, peach and plum, so that the valley seemed full +of low-drifting clouds, white and pink; above the clouds gleamed the +smooth emerald of the hills, the blue pines and quaint outcroppings of +jade-hued rock. Birds sang. The stream was fed by little tributaries +that murmured among the lawns. Tributaries and stream were spanned +by bridges of lacquer and here, among groves of bamboo, was the +yellow-tiled roof of a pavilion, and there, sticking up out of the +peach-blossom foam, a sunlit pagoda or a porcelain tower; and once, on +the verandah of a pavilion by the water, they saw a figure seated in +meditation, and once an angler under the willows. + +“We are in water-colour land,” said Quentin. “This valley is done on +silk. I fear you others are too gross-minded to subsist here for long.” + +It was a landscape of unrivalled delicacy and refined distinction, +a tone-subtlety of pale pink and blue, amber and apple-green, with +harmonious notes of red and, in the hazy sky, of yellow. A soft wind +fanned them up-stream. The valley widened continually, and the channel +of the stream became lost in the first shimmering stretches of a +lagoon. Now on either side they saw other valleys opening out, and +beyond them glimpses of frowning pine-wood under azure and jade-brown +crags. Azalea flamed on the hillsides. Ahead of them the arm of the +lagoon on which they were sailing was studded with emerald islets, and +the oyster-shell rocks rose out of seas of lilies. The hills toppled +curiously, and in the strange perspective the distant mountains seemed +to zigzag and stagger a little—not, indeed, out of harmony with the +general effect of something artificial, composed and deliberately +fantastic in a scene which might have proceeded from the mind of a +classic artist. + +Now they approached a part where the hills came right down to the +water, and the lagoon took a right-angled turn between gate-posts +of rock, the valley turning with it in its general design. Rounding +the rocks on their left-hand, they saw before them a reach of water +stretching away two or three miles, and perhaps a mile wide. This lake +also, softly lapping in the all-pervading sunlight, was studded with +islets of tender green; but in the middle of it—as near as they could +judge the middle—there stood a greater island of rock, lifted high +out of the water, crowned with pine-trees, flower-bearing, afloat, +as it seemed, in a water-meadow sewn with a million opening buds of +the lotus. The boats drifted unheeded while they all gazed at the +tremulous, tender beauty of the scene—lapping water; island rock in +lotus-meadow; reedy shores; blossom on emerald hills; beyond, a hint +of snow-capped mountains; and all poised before them, clear-cut and +delicate in a dream-medium of quivering, sun-saturated air. + +With one accord they turned to Lychnis, as if to inquire what her +thoughts were. Her face had a flush like the tip of the opening lotus. +“The Dragon Altar on the Dragon Island,” she whispered to Such-a-one, +who was observed to be in the doubled-up position of one who makes +obeisance. + +Nor would he lead them in the boats any nearer the rock. + +“I’ll swim there,” said Quentin. “There’ll be lanes through the +lotus-meadow.” + +“I desire you to be good enough to refrain on this occasion.” Lord +Sombrewater spoke peremptorily. + +“Very well,” Quentin replied. “I obey. My heart is chastened, for the +moment, by the supreme and subtle distinction of the water-colourist +who composed this classic landscape, and there will be opportunities +for enterprise at a later date.” + +“But where are we going to live?” complained Ruby. “We can’t live for +ever in these boats.” + +“What does it matter?” asked Lychnis. “I’d like to go on floating for +ever among the lotuses, dabbling my hands in the lake, until the world +vanished and there was only a single lotus and my contemplation.” There +was profound passion in her voice, and Blackwood turned to controvert +the element of heresy in her point of view. But she woke from reverie +and made some inquiries. “This is perhaps the earthly paradise. Can +we stay here?” She addressed the Chinaman. “Is this valley for us? +May we live in those pavilions and contemplate in those porcelain +towers? Oh, Ruby! did you see the verandahs? What a summer we shall +have—water-parties and lantern-feasts!” + +The black eyes of their guide, unreadable as boot-buttons, regarded her +child-like excitement. He bowed. “Nobody will prevent you, in these +valleys, from the enjoyment of whatever you may find at your disposal. +Let us explore the accommodative facilities.” + +So they skirted the margin of the water for more than a mile, stealing +glances at the mysterious island. They passed many a reedy creek, where +carp, great and little, were swimming in hundreds, and green-headed +ducks; many a lawn coming down to the water’s edge, with willow-tree +or small, twisted pine; and at last they came to a mooring raft of +bamboo poles. There Such-a-one made fast, and led his party, in their +gay silks, by lawn and tall grove of bamboo toward the tributary +valleys. At well-spaced intervals he would indicate some pavilion, +designed and placed with regard to the surrounding contours, that was +at their disposal, and the party began to drop members at one or other +of these. Blackwood chose one by a stream not far from the lake for +himself alone. It had a copper-domed summer-house, where he could sit +and meditate by the water. Quentin, too, chose to be solitary, in a +gorgeous pavilion with a verandah and a pointed roof of yellow and +peacock-blue tiles. Next, farther away from the lake, Lord Sombrewater +chose an airy and complicated summer pavilion for Lychnis and Ruby, +Frew-Gaff, Ambrose and himself. Such-a-one bowed as they entered, +saying: “The Pavilion of the Yellow Emperor.” This Pavilion, situated +among lawns within the crescent of a forest of tall and splendid +bamboo, was a puzzle of open verandahs, screens, windows, interior +courtyards and little chambers and closets in threes. The massive roof, +weighted with curved rows of vermilion tiles, rose from a tangle of +upward-curling horns and grotesque monsters to a central and whirling +creature that was both dragon and spasm of forked lightning. The +furniture was exquisite, and in every room was a shrub or a flower—a +lily floating in a cistern or an oleander in a porcelain tub. A faint +scent of musk pervaded. The dwelling was provided with half a dozen +respectful menservants and three girls. There seemed more, because they +were all alike and always coming and going. The men were taller and +finer than those who had left in a hurry at the mouth of the Gorge of +Dragons. The girls, as Quentin remarked, were beautiful toys. + +Lychnis and Ruby, with Sir Richard Frew-Gaff, vanished, and Ambrose +gathered from their voices, now near, now distant, that they +were exploring the mazes of the Pavilion. With Lord Sombrewater +he accompanied Terence, Fulke and Sprot on a search for further +accommodation. Behind the Pavilion, deep in the bamboo-forest, Terence +came on a graceful, tile-encased tower like a lighthouse among the +bamboo-leaf-spray, and elected to dwell in the topmost watch-chamber. +Finally, Sprot, entreating Fulke not to desert him, found a house of +lacquer and enamel, like a cabinet for a precious gem. There these two +ensconced themselves, neither very satisfied with the other. + +Lord Sombrewater and Ambrose returned to the Yellow Emperor’s Pavilion, +smiling and contented with the graceful fortune that seemed to have +befallen them. Lychnis stood at the door in a new robe of heliotrope. +A deep sash sheathed her hips, and her father, in his pleasure, put an +arm round the slender waist and kissed her. Then, “Where’s Such-a-one?” +he asked. “There are one or two things we ought to discuss.” + +But Such-a-one had completely disappeared, so she told him. + +“Indeed!” said he, turning his expressionless eyes, with a sharp, +bird-movement, on Ambrose. + + + + + 15 + + +Ambrose emerged from his chamber at the side of the house and +looked from the verandah across the quivering bamboo-forest. He was +composing his description of the morning’s adventure. Somewhere in the +neighbourhood he heard the girls chattering, and could not quite locate +the sound. Ruby’s voice came, calling him, and when he looked round in +bewilderment there was laughter. Then a lattice was pushed open at the +other end of the verandah, and Ruby put out her head and shoulders. She +had on a new jacket of geranium-red, and her copper hair was piled up +with combs of tortoise-shell. “Come in and see Licky and me,” she said. +“There’s a door on the verandah round the corner.” + +He went into their room, making a note of the words “refined elegance” +for subsequent use in describing its shape and furniture. There was +an effect of green, gold and black; for the walls were green, and +the furniture was ebony, with marquetry of brass, tortoise-shell and +mother-of-pearl. A clear sunlight, tempered by the lattices, showed +him all the exquisite appointments. The ebony cupboard, with half-open, +gold-enamelled doors, contained a hint of richly coloured clothes, like +petals within the sheath. A profusion of silken jackets was scattered +over an ebony and ivory commode, and hung on the handle of a lacquered +cabinet and over a screen painted with butterflies. The curtains of an +ebony bed, like a houseboat, were drawn, disclosing a heap of garments +on the swan-white coverlet. Lychnis was seated on a stool by a window, +having her hair brushed (but she had forbidden the use of resin) by +a Chinese girl with black-bead eyes and almost imperceptible mouth. +At her side was a lacquer table, laden with ivory brushes, jade and +tortoise-shell combs, pigment trays in rare porcelain. There was a box +with a brass mirror in the lid, and tiny drawers for lip-salve, rouge, +powder, and pencil for the eyebrows. She had in her slender hands a +gilt mirror. She was keeping her head very still, but she put, with her +eyebrows, an inquiry as to his state of mind. He indicated satisfaction. + +“This is very untidy,” he remarked. “How can you be so untidy in this +perfectly proportioned chamber?” + +“We’ve been trying on the clothes,” said geranium-red Ruby. “It took an +awful time to make up our minds. I chose this.” She opened her wide, +black-bordered sleeves like a red butterfly, and turned on her hips to +show him the great black wings of her sash. Her cheeks were flushed a +deep crimson with her enjoyment, and he wondered if, with that and the +advantage that her magnificent figure got from the half-revealing silk, +she did not almost eclipse her slenderer companion. He turned round, +with a view to the formation of a considered judgment. + +Lychnis, the last golden comb stuck in her hair, stood up, and the +wrap that had swathed her shoulders fell to the ground. She, too, had +a faint flush, knowing, perhaps, that she was offered for judgment; or +had she used, he wondered, a little pigment from the porcelain tray? +She turned slowly for him to admire her. She wore a chrysanthemum +robe—dusky flowers on a ground of pale amber. Her neck—as Quentin +was wont to say, you could break it by clenching the hand—was a +chrysanthemum stalk. The big bow at the small of her back gathered +her robe in and disclosed the slim, womanish swell of her hips that +he had so often tried to describe. She raised her robe slightly, to +display trousers of some texture crisp and brown, like the petals of +the flower. “And these comic shoes.” She pointed to them, and walked +towards him, putting her feet one before the other in tiny steps. +“Must we walk like that? Ruby’s beautiful when she does it. Am I?” + +They were lovely, and friendly, those two young women. He watched +them both imitate the swaying and delicate walk of the Chinese girls, +up and down the room, while the maid put away the clothes, paying no +attention. “You’ll turn into Chineses,” he warned them. + +They both sprang at him with cries of “Never!” and pushed and pulled +him from the room and along a corridor just to show what they could do. + +But Lychnis abruptly desisted. “Hark! What’s that?” + +It was a carillon of silver bells pealing in a tower of porcelain, +calling the Sages from their several retreats to a meal in the Yellow +Emperor’s Pavilion. Lord Sombrewater and Sir Richard Frew-Gaff, clothed +respectively in sunset crimson and turquoise-blue, were already seated +in a chamber more sumptuous, but not less elegant, than the bedchamber. +It was furnished with rich tables, and flowers, and great jars of +finest blue-and-white porcelain. The other Sages arriving, changed +likewise into robes of the most brilliant hue, refreshment was served +in the shape of fragrant tea, with a dish of cooked bamboo shoots and +other more doubtful ingredients. + +“I shan’t examine this,” said Quentin. “It smells good, and I’ll risk +the transformation of my lusts that may result from ingesting the +cellular composition of beetles and slugs.” + +“An insubstantial diet will do you no harm,” said Sir Richard. “If I +were to drain you of blood and transfuse the sap of a vegetable, it +might render your temperament less—shall I say?—ardent.” + +“Ah, no! You’d find me doting on a cabbage, or in dalliance with a +brussels sprout.” + +“You approve of our surroundings, I take it?” observed Lord Sombrewater. + +“We are in the garden of an emperor.” + +“Shall we stay here? What are the views of the Sages? It is pleasant, +certainly, beyond anything I have ever seen; but one or two +circumstances are a little mysterious.” + +“It passes my comprehension,” said Sprot, “how anyone owning all +this wealth can leave it absolutely unguarded. We may be murdered in +our beds any night for the sake of the wealth that’s about us. These +servants—can you trust them? They’re not white men, you know. I kicked +one just now, to show who’s master here. I’ve always heard you ought to +kick native servants. But, as I was saying, all this wealth and not +a keeper, or a policeman, or even a ‘Trespassers-will-be-Prosecuted’ +board.” + +“It may be the custom of some Europeans to kick native servants,” said +Lord Sombrewater testily, “but I shall be obliged if, in this case, you +will use the extreme politeness they use with us.” + +“Oh, certainly, certainly. But, if you will excuse me, all this gold +and tortoiseshell, and the bric-à-brac—I suppose that’s valuable, +too—who does it belong to? It must belong to somebody, I suppose. Or do +you think we might—er—appropriate ... as a souvenir, I mean?” + +“I don’t suppose they’d object to your pinching it,” said Fulke. “It’s +clear there’s no capitalist system here.” + +“Then you will be happy here?” asked Lychnis. + +That brought him up short. “Yes, by the split kidneys of St. +Sebastian!—thoroughly, frightfully happy!” He added to Ambrose in an +undertone: “There’s always the Lake.” + +“As for me,” put in Blackwood, “my summer-house down by the Lake is +of marble and has a copper dome. So beautiful are my surroundings +that I would readily stay here for ever, because of the exquisite and +continuous temptation to the senses. But can these servants not be +made to understand that I always have two lumps of sugar in my tea?” + +“Sugar?” exclaimed Sprot. “What’s that got to do with meditation?” + +“It’s a stimulant to the intestinal acrobatics,” said Quentin. “He +rewards his performing vestiges with two lumps of sugar.” + +“And you, Richard?” inquired the chairman. + +“It seems to me we are committed. True, it is a nuisance to be without +any facilities—no instruments, no materials, no laboratory—none to +speak of, that is. Yet the place is very pleasant. Not that I am +particularly susceptible to natural beauty——” + +“It’s not natural,” broke in Terence unexpectedly. It was noticed for +the first time that he seemed dissatisfied. + +“But the air is stimulating, and, as you know, I am something of an +optimist—in short, I particularly desire to find out what it is that +gives these little grassy mountains that peculiar blue tinge, and the +rocks simply shout for examination. Not that I am an expert geologist, +of course. Still, one can record some observations. And I would add +that I think we shall be at peace here. There is an air of happy +serenity that lies on the valley.” + +“And you, Terence?” + +Terence, in the attitude of Rabindranath Tagore in meditation, raised +his large, grey, poetic eyes. “I confess to a certain disappointment. +Dragons are somewhat outside my habit of dreaming, and the Chinese +gods are not, on the whole, attractive. I find something bland and +pawnbroker-like in their faces——” + +“That,” put in Blackwood, “is the everlasting calm of those who have +learnt to despise the world.” + +“I find it unheroic and fatuous. Moreover, I dislike the empty and +unmeaning classicism of this Gentleman’s Park. And these rhododendrons +and magnolias—they are so consciously ornamental and Chinese and +matter-of-fact.” + +“Still,” observed Sombrewater, “you would not wish to depart just yet?” + +“So long as I am allowed to remain in my tower and commune with the +myriad quivering spirits of the bamboo-forest.” + +“By all means—if we may eat a few from time to time. I take it, then, +that it’s settled. We remain.” + +“I shall remain,” observed Lychnis, “till all’s blue. One need not +starve, or stay out in the wet, for there are houses and servants and +food everywhere. And I would like to say,” she added, with a certain +diffidence, “that the matter-of-factness is only apparent. It seems +to me, Terence, that it hides something—what shall I say?—almost +unbearably passionate, all this classical restraint. Yes, the Pavilion +and the little bridges and the landscape and everything else. These +two paintings, for instance—the Flower-Spray. That empty, palpitating +background. It is more than an evening sky. The flowers—don’t you think +so, daddy?”—she appealed to her father to support her declaration +of faith—“the flowers ... oh, they are more than lovely! There is +something moves in them, behind them. Some great artist did that, with +the calmness of a poet-painter who has feared beauty and conquered +his fear. Then”—she looked round and gathered courage from their +attentiveness—“the Geese. Not very romantic, Terence. But the soul of +Geese is there, dear plump things! What is it Quentin would say in +philosophy? Divested of all accident of appearance. They are whatever +it is that is Goose at the perfect moment of evolution. The life of +the universe is seen through the Geese in that picture. The painter +has not hindered it with some sentimental pre-occupation of his own. +Romanticism looks silly beside that sort of reality. I—I did not mean +to have said so much. But it said itself. It was strange—those two +pictures hypnotized me. Something that is not quite life—more than +life; I can’t express it—moved in them, and words came to me.” + +Quentin opened his eyes like a man waking from the illumination of +prayer. “O exquisite penetration of unfolding virginity! These are +the pure eyes and perfect witness of all-judging Jove, and we have +heard a voice from the invisible but all-pervading reality of the +universe. Now, I myself formed the same conclusion with regard to the +art of China in the days of my purity—that is to say, when I was about +thirteen. Some echo of those far-off days came to me as I studied my +dessert-plate. This band of creamy pink enamel. This domestic scene in +the centre of the plate. These two girls—what ivory-textured skins! +what lily-petal hands holding the battledores. If the beauty, and by +consequence the virtue, of the girls of this valley is anything like so +fragile——” + +“It is very fine ware,” put in Sir Richard. “I would like to understand +their process more perfectly. Not that I am an expert in the +manufacture of pottery. I wonder, by the way, if these cabinets are +unlocked.” + +“Obviously,” replied Quentin, “since there is no capitalist system here +and no police. One must lock up things when there are police. There!” +He opened a cabinet and brought out a piece of pottery. “By the +Virgin Mary! it lives. The cellular organization of it lives and the +integument is warm. It blushes under my fingers like a woman’s cheek. +We have here all that’s most precious in the world, including three +maidens.” He dug Fulke in the ribs. “Let us explore the mazy building.” + +He led the party all over the Pavilion, discoursing in every room +with infinite learning on some precious object of Chinese art. Before +the ebony bed in the girls’ bedchamber he stood in an attitude of +respectful adoration. Lychnis tactfully withdrew, leading Ruby. He +spoke in a low voice: “And they lie there in each other’s arms, like +shepherdesses in a Boucher. That precious cabinet enshrines them. My +poor Fulke! To have seen, and to have no chance of possessing. But +come away from this holy place. It is not for the likes of us.” They +withdrew, Fulke suppressing a groan. + +Finally, in a sort of study, they found a cabinet which contained what +appeared to resemble some kind of listening-in apparatus. “Now,” said +Frew-Gaff, “this is really remarkable.” + + + + + 16 + + +When evening fell, warm and flower-scented, they emerged, in their +summer-gorgeous robes, from the vermilion-tiled Pavilion, and filed +down towards the Lake. They stood on a lacquer bridge at the head of a +creek and looked silently across the sheen of water. + +“Look!” whispered Lychnis, “the Rock!” + +It seemed to float before them, in a vapour of evening. The middle and +upper reaches of the sky were clear and summer-foreboding, but clouds +loomed up from behind the mountains beyond the opposite shore, and +opened like large summer flowers. + +The Sages went down and stood on a lawn by the water under a huge +flowering tree of unknown kind. Great petals, coloured deep rose, +floated down among them. Lychnis caught one in her hands and inhaled +its odour. Her petal-eyelids closed. + +Fulke, roaming disconsolately at large, discovered a mooring-stage of +red painted bamboo among reeds, and there were two or three richly +coloured skiffs, with pointed bows and little masts, tied to it. He +leapt on the raft, and there was an outcry of waterfowl among the +reeds, loudly disturbing the silence. They listened. + +“Shall we go out a little way on the water?” He invited Lychnis huskily. + +But Lychnis stood quite still, looking at the Rock. + +“You, Ruby?” To make Lychnis envious, perhaps. + +“I’d rather stay here,” said Ruby, shuddering a little. + +Nobody, not even Quentin, responded to his invitation. The evening was +so still. Perhaps a faint awe was on their hearts. + +The deep colour faded gradually out, and the light died off the lapping +water. A fish leapt. Night stole over the valley and fell about the +Rock. One by one their hearts misgave them at the experience of beauty. +They quailed before the task of mastering it with their souls, and drew +away. Lychnis only still gazed, and Ambrose studied her. + +“Come, my dearest,” said Lord Sombrewater, turning, as he went, to draw +her by the arm. + +An ecstatic sigh escaped her. She seemed unable to move. Ambrose and +her father, and one by one the others, turned to see what held her so +fast. + +The Rock was ablaze with orange-hued lanterns, as if in the middle of +the water a rhododendron bush had suddenly put forth flowers. + +“Almighty, and as we hope merciful, God!” Quentin was spontaneously +upon his knees. + +A rocket crept up the black sky, and twenty dying red suns were +extinguished in the Lake. Another and another. + +“An extremely ceremonious welcome,” muttered Lord Sombrewater. “Who is +our host, I wonder?” + +“Lavish, to say the least,” replied Frew-Gaff. + +The display lasted an hour. The culminating device was a vermilion +dragon that writhed and grinned high up above the Rock. With that the +entertainment abruptly ceased, leaving the night darker. + +“How shall we find the way?” asked Ruby, with a quiver in her voice. +But two or three servants, with kindly-meant if ghostly foresight, +appeared out of nowhere to guide them, and they went their several +ways through the spectral groves of bamboo, looking back now and then +towards the Lake. + + + + + 17 + + +Warm-hued lanterns decorated the Pavilion and filled the bedchambers +with a dim, wavering and unreal light. Ambrose retired and composed +his mind. But outside on the verandah he could hear Lychnis and Ruby +whispering and the swish of their robes on the floor. + +“I don’t like it, Licky darling,” said Ruby’s voice. “I’m frightened. I +don’t like our room.” + +“Well, daddy’s next door, and your father is somewhere close by.” + +“I don’t like the place where we are, not by night.” + +“I do,” was the answer. “It’s the same valley by night as it was by +day. Can’t you feel how warm and redolent it is?” + +“But it’s so strange.” + +“I love what’s strange.” + +“I feel as if something, someone mysterious, might come and seize us.” + +“I should like someone mysterious to come and seize me.” + +“Oh, Lychnis, you are dreadful!” + +There was no answer. Then, after a silence, Ruby spoke again in a +breathless whisper: “Oh, look! There’s somebody under the trees.” + +A pause. + +“Silly! It’s only Quentin. How mad of him!” + +Lord Sombrewater’s voice broke in from somewhere: “Go to bed at once, +you two.” + +Ambrose went out to the verandah in time to see the two silken forms +vanish. But he was quite sure that Lychnis turned and waved to the dim +figure under the trees. Her eyes shone. + + + + + 18 + + +Ambrose went down to the lake in the tremulous mists of daybreak. He +pushed his way in waist-deep among reeds, noiselessly, to observe the +habits of water-fowl. + +Presently, without surprise, for she had the same early morning +habits as himself, he saw the mist-white figure of Lychnis, with her +skirt gathered in her hands, on one of the many little islets of +rock scattered along the shore. She was bending forward, parting the +water-lily leaves, gazing intently into the depths. He liked to see her +once again in her own clothes, unswathed, a slender, air-loving Lychnis. + +He whistled. She turned and waved—negatively, as it were—but after a +minute she turned round again, and slowly began to make her way back, +stepping and leaping and splashing from stone to stone, as if she +walked on the water; and sometimes she swayed and balanced among the +broad leaves, herself an unfolding white lily. + +She came to him in the reeds and took his hand. “I didn’t want to see +you at first. I thought it was Fulke or someone. But you looked so +funny, waist-deep in the reeds and all thoughtful, and I thought I’d +come. Let’s go, a long way—at once, in case any of the others come. I +want to go miles this morning, exploring. Shall we?” + +She was enchanting, in her slip of a dress and white stockings and +delicate shoes. “How can you run and explore in shoes like those?” he +asked. + +“Fast-running things don’t have big hooves,” she replied. + +“Quite true. Come on, then, Fawnsfeet.” + +“My skirt’s not very wide,” she said, stepping out. It was a very +slight affair, a mere shift, caught in on her right flank, so that +the movement of side and hip was seen, to give the eye an unsatiable +satisfaction. And one observed the moulding of shoulders and bust, and +the young mounds that, as one supposed, a lover should one day cup with +his hands and put his lips upon—a thought to make a man such as Quentin +swoon. And the torso is incomparable, Ambrose observed to himself. + +“I felt I couldn’t bear those other clothes any longer,” she +explained—“except sometimes, to dress up. Ruby, on the other hand, +likes them.” + +“She’s asleep?” + +“Fat with it, the pig. She woke up when I was having a bath out of a +basin and thanked God that she was not a fool. The basin has a design +of willow-trees done on it, and someone fishing. Do you fish?” + +“Indeed, yes. Nothing I like better on a summer or autumn afternoon.” + +“Well, I’ll fish with you. We’ll go right to the other end of the Lake +by ourselves and fish all the afternoon. There’s some beauties in here. +I saw them swimming past the rock I was standing on. It’s very deep, +too—quite black with depth, and clear—like a black crystal. I sometimes +think it looks more interesting under water, among water-plants, than +above it. Don’t you?” + +They made their way along the shore of the Lake, talking hard and +laughing, smelling the water-smell and the early-morning smell. +Sometimes they went on lawns, crossing the deep red or bright emerald +bridges that spanned the rivulets; sometimes they trod among pebbles +at the water’s edge; and sometimes, where the quaint hills came right +down to the Lake, they had to scramble round sheer cliffs, jumping over +the deep water from fragment to fragment of broken rock. At one place +they had to creep under the bend of a slender, splashing cataract; at +another they passed a man fishing. He took no notice of them. + +Gently the air filled with the delicate splendours of the risen sun, +and the steep island of rock out in the middle stood clearly to view. A +breeze stirred the water. + +“When the wind ruffles the Lake it looks like a meadow of snowdrops and +violets,” said Lychnis. “I don’t see a sign of life on the island, do +you?” + +“Nothing but the foliage and the flowers.” + +They had come now to a bay with a lawn shelving to the water. Lychnis +stood with her hands behind her, looking seriously at the Rock. “Oh,” +she exclaimed abruptly, “look at the swans!” + +A noble flotilla, led by a god-like bird with frowning brows, swam +royally towards them. + +“How they stare!” She seemed fascinated. “Are they so different from +us—in their lives, I mean, in their thoughts and feelings? Are we +related to swans, Ambrose? I feel that I know them. I think I know them +as well as I know people. Ambrose”—she bent her brows on him—“I think I +shall ask you questions soon—to-day, perhaps. May I?” + +“But yes, my silver birch.” + +She considered. “Last night, Ambrose, Quentin kissed me!” + +“Oh yes?” + +She glanced at him, but her eyes were full of her thoughts. “Yes, +he kissed me. I went back to him after you’d gone. The night was so +strange and exciting. It was full of some promise. The night was full +of some dark, passionate flower, waiting to open if I had the secret. I +tried.” + +“And you found it?” + +“No; it was nothing to be kissed by Quentin—no more than my father’s +kiss, or Ruby’s, or the peck of a bird—except that his beard was +prickly and he smelt a good deal of wine. That’s why I must ask you +questions. I don’t ask for facts. I know facts. I want to know how it +can ever become so that they don’t obtrude rather unpleasantly on one’s +consciousness. Do they ever stand out of the way of passion, Ambrose? +Is there a desire that burns them all up into nothing?” + +He was silent. + +“It is possible that you do not know,” she said slowly. + +“You must give me time, if I am to answer you fully. The subject is +important, and wide.” + +“Do you mean to write me an essay?” + +“Not precisely.” He, too, considered. “It will take me some little +while to arrange the logic, the perspective, of my reply.” + +“Oh, well; take time over it, if you must. But I’m not often in the +mood to ask you things.” + +“In the meantime, I take it you have been disappointed?” + +“I only hope Quentin was as disappointed as I was.” + +“You won’t be ashamed with him? You don’t mind meeting him again?” + +“But why? After all, I disappointed him. It’s for him to be ashamed if +he can’t do better than that. He got nothing from me but my will to +experiment, and I easily made it seem as if he was in fault. He went +off feeling ridiculous, I fancy. But look! they’re asking for bread.” + +There was always bread in her pockets. The splendid birds were +clustered at the edge of the lawn, and she ran down and fed them, and +put her slender white hands among their plumage. The god-like leader +dug at her with his beak. + +“How he stares! How insolent he is!” she exclaimed. “He pesters me—like +Quentin.” + +She retired a little. The great bird followed, bridling and opening his +wings and frowning on her like a Jupiter. She stood still and taut, +fascinated. Suddenly he spread his huge wings about her and laid his +scarlet beak on her breast. She stood in his embrace for a moment, +with thrown-back head, and his beak moved on the slender stalk of her +throat. Then, swiftly and calmly, she disengaged herself and ran to +Ambrose. The swan seemed quite crestfallen. “Look! I’ve disappointed +him,” she said. “For my part, I prefer him to Quentin, but not very +much.” + +“You are a great mystery, my water-lily,” Ambrose replied. + +They made their way back along the sides of the hills. + + + + + 19 + + +Nothing happened for three days. A few of the party found that +eventlessness had a faint, queer effect on their nervous systems, +and the pervading scent of musk was enervating. The days were a warm +monochrome. The fiery procession of the sun across the diagonal of the +valley was slow, perceptible and unvaried. One might have been glad +to alter it. The profound peace and happiness of the valley became +even oppressive, even almost sinister for Sprot. The valley smiled +ceaselessly, and, as Quentin said, there is nothing more irritating. +At night, Lychnis told Ambrose, Ruby clung to her in some sort of +irrational fear. Only Lord Sombrewater remained entirely unaffected. +And Lychnis liked it. And Ambrose made observations in his diary. + +Then, on the fourth day, there blew up a storm of wind, and the clouds +writhed like dragons, and the distant tiger-roar was heard as the wind +stroked the cracking forests on the fells. + +“What music!” Lychnis listened to her emotions, her brows heavy. + +“Mendelssohn only,” put in Quentin. “Everything in measure here. None +of your devastating German symphonies—not in these parts; even the +storms are civilized—still less your incoherent Irish harps.” + +“I did really begin to feel,” said Terence, “that our environment was +unsympathetic. I haven’t had a dream, still less a vision, since we +came. And I find the Spirits of the Bamboo Forest, though they are +undoubtedly present in quivering myriads, more than a trifle hard +to elicit. But this is better; this is more hopeful. The wind may +bring things. I will therefore retire to my tower, and keep watch +for a messenger from one of those many worlds that are undoubtedly +interfolded with this. If you would like to share my vigil...?” He +turned his great misty eyes upon Lychnis. “I feel it coming upon me +that I am to begin a new portrait of you, in those elaborate clothes, +with your hair so, formally, but half-hidden in veils of bamboo leaves.” + +Lychnis declined. She was going out to the forest to hear the great +branches cracking, she said. She and Ruby went to their bedroom to put +on clothes they could walk in—mediæval hunting-clothes. + +“Half-hidden! You always have to keep your subject half-hidden, +Terence,” mocked Quentin. “Why don’t you paint her swimming naked in a +mystical bamboo-leaf sea? I should, by heaven! if I were a painter. She +wouldn’t be hidden! I should swoon, painting her.” + +“You handle my daughter with your imagination a bit freely, Quentin,” +observed Lord Sombrewater. + +“We are all Sages here, I think,” replied Quentin. “We can all embark +on the adventures of conversation, I think, for conversation’s sake, +without being horrified at what we are compelled to say in artistic +justice to our theme. It is true, certainly, that your daughter raises +in me exquisite lusts of the imagination. But if I want to marry her in +my imagination I may, I take it, without asking her parent’s imaginary +consent.” + +“It is a pretty point,” said Lord Sombrewater tartly; for, where +Lychnis was concerned, even though a Sage, he would have put +restrictions on the art of conversation. + +The girls came back, dressed for the excursion. “I shall accompany +you,” he said. + +“And I,” said Sir Richard. + +“And I,” said Quentin and Sprot. + +“And I,” said Fulke, “if I may.” + +Ambrose, naturally, joined himself to their party, as likely to provide +more material for description. They set off, leaving only Blackwood +and Terence Fitzgerald behind. + +An hour’s march, mostly along the course of a stream that ran to +the Lake, brought them out of the jewel-like, smooth-surfaced and +quaint-conceited scenery, among which the Lotus Lake and the pavilions +lay, into scenery of a wilder description. Quentin was walking with +Lychnis, Lord Sombrewater and Ambrose. + +“Terence should be here,” he remarked. “This is unfinished; this is +romantic.” + +“But a bit wizardous,” said Lychnis. “You would scarcely expect to meet +one of his fair-haired Lohengrins—not among these oddly twisted pines +and misshapen rocks. Some strange, gnarled old man, perhaps, with a +staff—some very still old man, with a wrinkled, wicked smile, like a +bit of the scenery suddenly living and peering at you.” + +“The mountain air is very bracing,” observed Lord Sombrewater, “and the +wind fortifies me exceedingly; but for a man who makes a regular habit +of six cigars a day the pace is beginning to tell. So much loose rock +about, isn’t there?” + +“As for me,” said Quentin, “I am energy, I am vitality itself. I could +tread the mountains flat. When we get up there on the crags I shall +breathe in the streaming clouds and blow them out again in your faces. +I shall fill my chest with the atmosphere and leave you all gasping for +breath. You will entreat me for life, and I shall give it—on terms.” + +“I don’t need air,” replied Lychnis. “I subsist on the æther.” + +“You are the æther,” he answered, “or whatever medium there is on which +all things are founded. Without you....” At this point she deftly +skipped out of earshot—or, to be more exact, with Ambrose, nearly out +of earshot. “Without you,” he continued, to the wild, surrounding +forest—“without you we should not subsist at all. There would be +neither matter to desire cleavage with you, nor spirit to imagine the +immortality of love.” + +“Your knowledge of the bawdy literature of the Middle Ages is more +profound than your physics,” interrupted Sir Richard. + +“I create my physics, as per necessity, to conform with my imagined +world, like God,” he retorted. + +Sir Richard smiled, in his courteous, grave way. “I confine my +observation to the world which has been created by the distinguished +colleague whom you mention. I find there traces of the existence of +consistency, order, law, and nothing beyond that, but those traces lead +me confidently to suppose that in due course we shall find the whole +mechanism to fall out pat.” + +“I see the day coming,” said Quentin, “when some mechanico-scientific +bloke will pull the universe to pieces just to see if he can reassemble +it. I hate you people who are always poking in the works. Everyone +does it now. People buy cars. Do they drive them? No. They spread them +out on the lawn. Do people listen-in? Never. They muck about with the +valves. There is no art; there is only psycho-analysis. We pull up +all our flowers nowadays to examine the root-hairs and the system of +water-absorption. The wonders of the deep have vanished since we took +to dredging the Pacific. There’s no universe left; there’s only a +shedful of spare parts. I am the only child of Nature now living.” + +“A child, yes,” said Sir Richard, “and ungoverned, save by whim. +Spontaneous as a jet of spring water, but every wind blows you towards +a new quarter. You are a man without self-direction. You cleave where +your desire leads you.” + +“I was wrong,” said Quentin gaily, “when I said that I was the only +child of Nature living. Here are a dozen others.” + +They had come down between overhanging rocks from a considerable height +of crag into a glen full of small pines and boulders, and before +them stood a great hump of mountain range and wind-tossed forest. On +their right hand was a little stony hill with small bushes on it and +an arbour, or summer-house. A stream—or, rather, a kind of flowing +moat—surrounded it. And in the arbour, or under the bushes, or by the +stream were men—men in mandarin robes—engaged, all of them (save two, +who were chatting mirthfully by the stream), in a meditation that +seemed characterized by an expression of hilarious vacuity. Some had +long black moustaches, others scanty white beards. All had their hands +folded in their sleeves, and all had a look—a look of youth, that, as +Lychnis said, was most unsuitable and monkey-like on their wizened +faces. + +The party filed by the little mountain of meditation, glancing +sideways, but no one of its strange inhabitants took any notice of them +at all, even though Sprot went close up and peered at them across the +stream (without making any intelligent observation), as if they were +inhabitants of the Mappin Terraces. + +“Wizards,” whispered Lychnis—“or Sages.” + +“Wizards, Adepts, Rishi,” her father replied. “The sort of thing +Blackwood tries to be. Extreme cases of Blackwood.” + +“I think not,” put in Quentin. “Taoists, I fancy, not Buddhists. There +are fundamental differences.” + +“Lunatics, if I may be allowed an opinion,” said Sprot—“from the local +asylum. Blackwood ought to be with them.” He grew warm. “I call it +preposterous that grown men should be allowed to sit all day on a rock, +grinning. They ought to have something better to do.” + +“It is unpractical, isn’t it?” observed Ruby. “I despise men who don’t +do something.” + +“And I simply can’t think,” said Lychnis, “why anybody ever does +anything at all. Because really there are so many reasons against doing +things—except, perhaps”—she pondered a little—“the things that bring +you new and strange experiences, and those, after all, involve you in +disappointment.” + +Quentin winked at her. “Ætherial Lychnis,” he replied. “You will soon +be ready to join the gentlemen on the rock. As for me, I have been +a man of action—muscular action. I am a motor man. Yet, to have you +always near me, I will dissolve my fleshy substance, and consist of +a vacancy that meditates on nothing. I’ll be no more than a large, +empty shirt dreaming on a clothes-line. We’ll become sighing winds and +mingle our particles. We’ll be two doctrines of inaction, inert in one +another’s arms.” + +“Always sensual, Quentin,” she replied. + +By now they were at the edge of the deep forest that clothed the great +flanks of the mountain. Out of the forest rose craggy peaks that they +did not that day propose to climb. Lord Sombrewater, Sir Richard and +Sprot were already spreading the lunch. The wind had died, and they +sat in a thicket, listening to the last spasmodic sobs of the gale, +and looking out under the leaves that protected them away down the +mountain-side and across the glen they had traversed. Far down, one +among many fantastic outcroppings and erections of rock, was the little +mountain of meditation, and the dozen motionless figures could still +be descried. Here were no pavilions or eaves of temples. They had +come away, as it occurred to the mind of Ambrose to think, from the +civilized and composed harmony of the Peach-blossom Valley to outer +spaces undealt with by any ordering mind. + +“This is undoubtedly for Terence,” said Sir Richard. “This is untidy.” + +“And what do you think of it all, Fulke?” asked Lychnis. + +These were the first words she had spoken to him that day, and he +brightened (unreasonably), as if he hoped she might love him, after +all. Yet he couldn’t agree with her opinions. “I am with Ruby,” he +said. “Men have no right to lie and dream about abstractions when there +is so much ugliness and misery in the world. They ought to be building +the New Jerusalem.” + +“In China’s green and pleasant land,” observed Lord Sombrewater. “Well, +let ’em. We don’t want it in England.” + +“They’d have a better chance here,” retorted Fulke. “There’s no +capitalist system here that must be destroyed before you can build. +What lovely thing did the capitalist system ever produce, I ask?” + +“My daughter,” suggested Lord Sombrewater. “Very definitely, I think, +it produced my daughter.” + +Fulke ignored that. It was, as Ambrose notes, one of those unfair +arguments. “We could make England as lovely as this,” he said, “with a +little preliminary destruction and the aid of science.” + +“Sheer, criminal balderdash!” exclaimed Sprot. + +“What I can’t understand about you builders of superfluous Jerusalems,” +said Quentin, “is your utter dependence on your surroundings. Now I can +be happy in a Houndsditch slum. Where I am, the heavenly city is about +me. I am content with what I find. I do not ask to see the distant +scene—one step enough for me.” + +“Don’t blaspheme,” said Sprot, who was a Christian. + +“Ruby thinks it’s heaven where it’s comfortable and she can sleep,” +said Lychnis. “Personally, I can’t form the least idea what heaven may +consist in. It certainly isn’t in my heart. It isn’t round us here, +even—still less if Fulke turns it into a red-villa Jerusalem, or even a +marble one. Are those twelve on the little mountain in heaven? A little +too wizened for such a place, perhaps. One somehow expects heaven to +be full of beautiful Greeks. And I suppose one expects to be the only +woman there. Do you expect to be the only man there, Quentin?” + +“I should hope so,” he answered, “since I expect to obtain heaven when +I....” She silenced him with a gesture, but his red lips smiled in his +frizzy beard. + +“At any rate,” she went on, “one will not see western Europeans there, +unshaved Polish Jews, cross-looking, mingy English tradesmen. I would +like to see a man who didn’t look as if he was preoccupied with a corn. +Not that I wish to be rude to any of you. I love your sweet, lined, +thought-laden, nerve-ridden European faces. But when may I expect to +see a face that is all pure beauty? When, Ambrose?” + +“I should think you very well might about here,” he answered. “The +Dragon perhaps. Someone who lives on that rock in the Lotus Lake. +Someone who broods on the stupendous forces of Nature out of the heart +of repose.” + +“But Chinese can’t be handsome,” said Ruby. “They’re so fatuous, or +else so fierce—and in any case so foreign.” + +But Lychnis suddenly held up her small orchid-hand enjoining silence. A +wind came rustling along the forest, and boomed out across the valley +like some fabulous dragonish bird. Sprot moved uneasily. “Someone +coming,” he muttered. + +“Terence’s goat-rider!” Ruby clung to her father’s arm. + +He came riding along the edge of the forest, seated on a goat of more +than natural size. He drove it with a branch of peach-blossom. His +dress was fantastically rich, and he had a little red button in his +hat. His face was plump and imperious; his tiny mouth ineffably calm. +He turned in his saddle as he rode past, and the dark, slant-slit +eyes in his face of dry gold bored into the thicket where they were +hidden—terrible eyes, attentive and fierce, like the eyes of the tiger +when they shine and are rapt with the mysterious and dreadful forces of +Nature. + + + + + 20 + + +Now Ambrose gives an evening picture—an evening of emerald and fire. +They have come back to the Pavilion, the wind has fallen, and Lychnis +and Ruby are walking with him in the mazy paths of the bamboo-forest. +The walls of bamboo curl over their heads like breakers under a +flaring sky, and now and then, at some last fierce puff of the gale, +there is a splutter of green foam. Ahead of them are the hills, like +rollers darkening and lightening on a horizon of sea. And low down +in the west rides the round sun, breaking in upon them through the +leaves—inquisitive, unescapable, like the face of the goat-rider. It +was Ruby (the red tinge of her hair and the peony colour of her robe +making a sharp, exquisite chord with the bamboo green) who made that +comparison. She was really restless under the sun’s stare. “I thought +we should be safe here,” she said. + +“Safe? Safe from what?” asked Lychnis (in purple and deep violet). + +“From that face.” + +“Oh, I thought you meant safe from ... from other things. Safe with +old Ambrose. Safe, I mean, from the strain of people always pulling at +you, attracting you, trying to get you.” + +“I don’t mind that so much. But I didn’t like that man on the goat, who +looked at us as if he saw some caterpillars on a bush.” + +“He didn’t see us,” said Lychnis. “He only knew there was something or +someone in the thicket. But you are afraid because if a man like that +looked at you closely in the eyes he’d paralyse all your desire for +resistance.” + +Ruby was indignant. Ambrose describes with enjoyment the encounter +between a resentful, sunset-headed Titania and a slim, bantering spirit +in a purple thundercloud. + +“He wouldn’t,” said Ruby. + +“Well, search carefully in your mind and try and tell me exactly +why his face frightens you. Reject your first thoughts and tell me +precisely.” + +Ruby sought, as desired. “Well,” she said, “his hands are too plump and +womanish.” + +“So, I believe, were Napoleon’s. But his hands are not his face. It may +be your real reason, but I want to hear more of his face.” + +“He had an absurd round hat, with fur on it, like Henry the Eighth.” + +“A little lower and we shall come to his face.” + +“He had a ridiculous coat on.” + +“Too low. Mount him.” + +“And I couldn’t see his legs.” + +“They are important, certainly. But for God’s sake tell me about his +face!” + +“Oh well, then! I don’t like a man to have a yellow skin, and +moth-eyebrows, and such a tiny mouth, and a jaw round instead of +square, and eyes that look and look without moving.” + +“I see. Delicate hands and a tiny mouth. Not European, it’s true. Not +the sort of man who takes you in his grasp and sucks passionate kisses +off your mouth, as if he were licking an oyster out of its gape.” + +“Oh, Licky, you’re dreadful! You won’t understand. I can’t explain. I +only mean there’s something about him that gives me the shivers.” + +“Precisely—and deliciously. With a terrific, god-like power that comes +of the very calm and delicateness of his face.” + +“I shall dream of him in the night.” + +“A calm, shining and awful figure, with a golden skin and slanting +eyes, standing over you in a transfiguration; a visitor from some +untroubled Nirvana; a being without thoughts, looking with wonder at +your thought-troubled face. Not that thought troubles you much, my +Juno.” + +“Oh yes, it does,” protested Ruby. “I wonder and wonder—sometimes for +hours. But not like you, Licky. You’re strange and say funny things.” + +Lychnis suddenly changed her mood. “That’s for Ambrose to put down in +his book. Dear Ambrose——” She took his arm and studied his face. He +felt her eyes on him like the eyes of a violet. “Ambrose is a little +Chinese,” she said. “He’s calm.” Then suddenly: “You can’t tell what +thoughts are going on behind his serene, pink forehead. Does he ever +give you the shivers, Ruby?” + +“Oh, never!” cried Ruby. + +Then they took him for a walk in the groves of the bamboo, one on each +arm, and Lychnis whispered to him: “What terrific nonsense I’ve been +talking!” They mounted Terence’s tower, and purple night stole over the +Lotus Lake, and a myriad fireflies flickered over the forest. + + + + + 21 + + +Next morning there was a council of the Sages. It was very hot, and the +Sages lay in chairs on a lawn before the Pavilion. + +“The position is as follows,” said the chairman. “I have received +an invitation, very much resembling a command, to make a ceremonial +call, along with the rest of you, upon the Mandarin who inhabits the +rock-island in the Lotus Lake. The invitation, or command—one moment, +please, Sprot—is written in English, and the Mandarin’s name appears to +be Lung, or, as he kindly translates, Dragon. The question is, Shall we +go? Now, my friend.” + +“I say, Certainly not,” Sprot burst out. “Who is he, that we should +obey his commands? I vote we don’t go, just to show him we’re free, +independent Englishmen!” + +Quentin whistled a few bars of the National Anthem. + +“And in the alternative?” queried Lord Sombrewater. + +“Stay here,” replied Sprot firmly. + +“But that would hardly be courteous.” + +“Why? They’re only Chinese. A lot of dirty, hugger-mugger, gibbering +Orientals. But let’s go away altogether, if you like. I don’t want to +stay. A place like this, where nothing ever happens, gets on my nerves. +I want to go back to England and see a good old flaring advertisement +of Beecham’s Pills. You know where you are, then.” + +“And supposing,” asked Sir Richard, “they won’t let us go back?” + +“What d’you mean?” Sprot went pale all at once. + +Lord Sombrewater’s eyes were suddenly on Frew-Gaff. “Will you enlarge +that a little, Richard?” + +“What I mean is this: One has been sensible ever since we landed of +the existence in these parts of somebody with very considerable power. +Looking back, one may perhaps see that influence, or power, working +even before we landed. And I myself am sensible of a deliberate, +forming hand, not only in events, but in our material environment, even +in the landscape. More than that—we are living at the generosity of +someone who can afford to be very slow and ceremonious in discovering +himself. I feel myself that underneath this prodigality of forethought +for our comfort there lies an immense sureness, based on power. I feel +that it is a kindly power, but it may be otherwise. In any case I am +not afraid. I am profoundly interested; and for that reason, as well +as for the sake of that high-breeding which I still hope distinguishes +some Englishmen, I vote that we accept the invitation, in appropriate +terms.” + +“You express me exactly, Richard,” said the chairman, with an abrupt +nod—“except that I shall have something to add.” + +“I think it’s very unfair,” said Sprot, “to those of us who are +uncomfortable in this valley. I do protest most earnestly against my +surroundings. Who are our neighbours here? Twelve lunatics who drivel +all day on a rock; a most suspicious-looking individual who rides about +on a goat, which is contempt of civilization; a flock of gibbering +servants; and a person who calls himself Dragon and lives on an island +in the middle of a lake. I ask you, Can anybody feel confidence in +people who behave like that?” + +“What do you think, Quentin?” Sombrewater hoped to extinguish Sprot +in the draught of Quentin’s eloquence; but Quentin was lazy in the +heat, and Europe-sick, and only murmured of some scandalous adventure +with a brocaded young lady on a summer’s afternoon in Spain (where he +was engaged in the sale of electrical goods). She had consented, he +remembered, because of a poetical feeling for the warm and indolent +splendour of the afternoon, and there was a whole Spanish landscape in +her torrid embrace. + +“Interesting,” said the chairman, “but irrelevant. Terence, I think we +can anticipate your views—and yours, Blackwood. Your vote is to remain, +I am sure, Fulke?” + +“My vote,” said Fulke sullenly, “is to stay here, if we must, but to +send the girls immediately back to the ship.” + +“Hear, hear,” said Sprot. + +“Why?” asked Quentin, stirring. + +“Because, in my opinion, as far as one of them is concerned, if +she doesn’t go away from this valley now she never will. She’ll be +bewitched, if she isn’t already, and go against Nature.” + +“But how nice for her,” said Quentin, “to go against Nature! It will +be an experience. That’s what we all desire, I presume, and find so +difficult to get—experiences, strange experiences. People are so +unwilling to lend themselves to experience.” + +“Ambrose knows what I mean,” replied Fulke, still sullen and hang-dog +with thwarted passion. + +“May we this once invite you to contribute to the debate, Ambrose?” +asked the chairman, folding his plump, capable hands and looking down +at his papers. + +Ambrose replied that as regards both the girls he could vouch that +their instincts were infallible for whatever was in accordance with +Nature, complex as the reactions of one of them might be and tortuous +in working to a conclusion. As regards what might prove to be in +accordance with Nature, it was inadvisable to dogmatize. + +“Very well, then,” said Lord Sombrewater, shooting him a glance. “There +is a majority for remaining. And in deciding, myself, to remain, let +me say that I accept certain risks, as I may call them. All my life I +have taken risks, when I felt within myself a certain compulsion, which +was itself, perhaps, born of a hidden knowledge of what the result +was bound to be. I have never been wrong. I may be wrong, possibly, +this time. But do not the indications all point one way, and are we +not really compelled to see this adventure out? We are a band of men +who have come together because of a common interest. Business, yes—but +as well as that we are seeking something in life. Like all Europeans, +we are seekers after something vaguely defined. We find ourselves, +suddenly, unexpectedly, in a more than merely other-than-European +world. It is a world that so nearly resembles our own world that the +subtle differences are the more surprising. It is our world in a +slightly distorted mirror. Already some one or two of us find ourselves +uncomfortable. There is something in the environment that is not +agreeable to our conceptions of what ought to be, or indeed of what +is. But I am convinced, with Quentin, that we must not desert this +opportunity of experience, be the results what they may, until we have +searched it to its last end. We must go on. I propose it.” + +Ambrose wondered how far Lord Sombrewater, or any of them, would go. +Lychnis, he fancied, would outstrip them in searching an experience to +the bottom. + +There being a majority, the chairman’s proposal was adopted, and the +meeting broke up. Lord Sombrewater took Ambrose by the arm and walked +with him to the red mooring-raft among the reeds of the Lake. “A +somewhat obscure speech of yours, Ambrose,” he said. “I feel you know +my daughter better than I do, and better than any other man ever will. +I am her father, and my feelings are strong. One day, no doubt, she +will have a lover, and his feelings will presumably be strong too.” (He +seemed to think it unnecessary, though, that she should have a lover.) +“But you are detached, and the more observant. What were you getting +at? To what sort of eventuality did you refer?” + +“I have not gone so far in my mind as to formulate an eventuality,” +Ambrose replied. + +“You are an old pike,” said Sombrewater. “You never bite and you will +never be caught.” + + + + + 22 + + +Arrayed in harmonious splendours, they floated, next morning, in a +crowd of fragile and fantastic boats of red, yellow and black, through +lanes of flushed lotuses towards the Rock. Servants paddled them. Here +and there an unknown white bird with crimson beak walked sedately on +the carpet of leaves, or a green-headed duck dabbled with his bill +among the stalks of the water-lilies. The Rock itself, at the distance +of half a mile, covered with foliage and flowers, looked as if some +lake-dragon, rising from the fathomless bottom, had thrust up the +carpet of lilies with his back and fallen asleep on the water. + +“It’s black and mysterious down there, among the stalks of the lilies,” +whispered Lychnis. “One would like to be a fish and swim down among +oozy roots. It must be wonderful to be a fish and nose about in a +reed-world. But aren’t they pure, the lotuses? Like the flushing +thoughts that sometimes come up from our black insides.” + +“It is remarkable,” observed Quentin from under his canopy, “that a +creature with so much in the way of tripes should throw off the dewy +cobwebs of imaginations that one so often has.” + +“Illusions,” said Blackwood. + +“It’s lovely floating on water,” said Ruby. “I’m ready to live any +number of lives like this, Mr. Blackwood.” + +He firmly shut his ascetic lips, and his eyelids too (notes Ambrose), +shutting them down on the bright summer-morning picture of Lychnis, +full length and slender in her floating casket of coral. + +“You’re not frightened, Ruby?” queried her friend across the separating +leaf-carpet. + +She shook her head. + +But perhaps Lychnis herself was just a little dubious when they came +within a hundred yards of the sun-beaten Rock and closely saw its +dragon-spine ridge, its burden of pine and fig-tree, and its steep +side, with little exquisite summer-houses pat to the colour and design +of contour and foliage. And they were all a little silent when, +rounding the head of the island, they entered its shadow and paddled +under its towering wall. This was on the side of the Lake away from +their Pavilion; they were cut off, so to speak, from what they knew. + +But the island seemed civilized and friendly enough. The wall of rock, +coming up sheer out of the depths of the Lake (one could see great carp +and wondrous fish nosing in crannies many feet below), was alive, a +wrinkled meditation in stone. Reeds fringed it here and there, foliage +hung in cascades from the summit, an arbour or a garden seat stood by +some perilous path, under pine, rhododendron or orange-tree. Then, +coming to a sheltered bight between two flying and fantastic buttresses +of rock, they saw a flight of steps, gleaming and twisting up the cliff +like a devil in anguish, and at the foot of the steps, by the water’s +edge, the Dragon itself waited courteously on a marble quay to receive +them. + +The Dragon, a brilliant coloured bird, resolved itself into three +Chinese gentlemen. The first, in pale heliotrope, was very old and +bright and clean, with blind eyes, scanty white beard, and a hilarious +appearance. The second was a shapeless little dump of a man in mauve, +darkly pigmented, with black top-knot, little wisp of black chin-tuft, +long slits for eyes, and a general appearance of inspired ugliness. The +third, in a richly embroidered robe the colour of a peony stalk, was +the goat-rider. He was younger and taller than the others, and now, at +close quarters, one saw that the clear, penetrating eyes in the face of +dry gold were candid, mild and grave—or so, usually, they seemed; but +at moments they were more difficult to read than the eyes of the hawk +or the leopard. + +All three received the visitors with smiles and many assurances of +welcome, yet also with a certain well-bred air of aloofness—an air +that refused to presume on the willingness of the visitors to know them +and at the same time esteemed itself at a pretty high price, modestly, +as a fine jewel might. A highly civilized trio. + +The tall youth stepped forward. Entreating them to mount the stairs +(which they did), making also from time to time, in concert with his +two companions, gestures expressive of his desire to assist them in the +intolerably steep ascent, he explained that the laughing old gentleman +with the scanty white beard was his great-grandfather, Wang Li; and the +ugly, poetical gentleman, named Hsiao Chai, his grandfather. His own +name was Yuan Ch’ien. His father was making a pilgrimage. + +Arriving at the top of the stairs, he indicated a direction. “Not to +weary you,” he said, “with the florid and excessive courtesy which is +the custom among ourselves, this path leads to my great-grandfather’s +summer pavilion, where, begging you to excuse the omission of a number +of preliminary calls and other formalities, he would desire you to take +luncheon.” + +Adopting the same high-mannered air as their hosts, the party moved +forward without remarking to one another on the strangeness of this +or that—except Sprot, who loudly whispered to Lord Sombrewater and +Ambrose, “Speaks English!” + +Lord Sombrewater and Ambrose, who had noticed it for themselves, made +no sign of having heard him, and it was disconcerting when Yuan, ten +yards away, spoke as if he were answering the thought. “Anticipating,” +he said, “the surprise which you are bound to feel, I may speak of +myself so far as to explain that I have been acquainted with London and +many of your European capitals, not to mention the cities of the United +States of America. And we have had visitors from England before.” + +Sprot paled. Where were those visitors now? In dungeons, perhaps, under +the island, or mouldering on the oozy bed of the Lake. One hoped not to +see white skeletons, ominously marred, their parts disposed after some +plan other than the usual. + +“My knowledge of your customs,” continued Yuan, “enables me to be +certain that you will pardon what my countrymen and many of my +relations might regard as an immoral absence of ceremony. We run our +affairs here on lines which are not precisely national, in any sense.” + +Wang Li and Hsiao signified approval of this last sentiment. Lord +Sombrewater observed to the very old man that he considered the +surroundings most elegant. + +“We are now,” replied Wang Li, “almost at that invisible centre on +which the unity of the whole depends”; and he smiled in a way that +Ambrose at first tentatively describes as imbecile. + +The surroundings were indeed elegant. The party had come to the house +of the Dragon—not so much a house as a walled village of tasteful, +if startling, elegance. It was full, as they afterwards found, of +relations; but now, instead of entering the stout red gates, they +proceeded, by a harmonious approach, amid scenery with the character of +a contrived design on a dessert-plate, to the summer pavilion of Wang +Li. + +“This way,” said Wang, indicating a complicated geometrical harmony +of vermilion lines and arcs, perched among trees, a symphony of red +balconies and lemon-yellow roof; and they went up into an airy pavilion +like a nest of red straws in the pines, sunny, but mysteriously cool. +It was on the side of the island where they had landed, and a red +balcony hung out over the water. Lychnis seated herself there, on the +floor. + +“The invisible centre of Unity,” observed Wang. And here they noticed, +looking down avenues of tree-tops, that the landscape surrounding the +island and the Lake had changed, in the sense that the secret of its +design, hidden from every other view-point, was strikingly revealed. +From everywhere else it baffled, and perhaps a little chafed, the mind. +From here it ever variously satisfied and rested one. And the more +one looked at the Rock itself, the more one was convinced by a volume +or surface, a space of yellow or blue tiling, a green and grinning +monster, a bending cypress or sophora. + +There was no furniture in the room, except a few stools, an affair +of ebony and enamel that looked like a smoking table, a musical +instrument, or an unknown parlour game, and some jars which Quentin at +once recognized as products of the Tang and Ming dynasties—in fact, he +identified the signatures, with the applause of old Wang Li. “Though,” +the old man strangely observed, “the name which can be written down is +not the everlasting name.” + +“That is, of course, true,” replied Quentin. But he replied absently, +for there came in two exquisite and fragile girls, who, after +ceremoniously saluting the company, ran like mice, the one to Lychnis, +the other to Ruby, and, squatting beside them, began to chatter softly +in a shy and welcoming, if incomprehensible, way. + +Then, when the visitors had been allowed time to feast their +imaginations on the rhythmic wonders of pavilion and arch, marble +pathway and bronze dragon, sweeping terrace and dreaming cedar, that +sought their attention at every window (or else, according to their +natures, wondered what freak could have made himself responsible for +this freakish fantasia of unexpected colour and disconcerting line), a +light but sumptuous luncheon of pigeons’ eggs floating in soup, braised +bamboo-shoots and other things was served, under the direction of a +sort of major-domo whose choleric features they at once recognized. +Sprot plucked at Lord Sombrewater’s gay sleeve and whispered, but Lord +Sombrewater shook him off. + +“It would scarcely be polite,” said Yuan at this point, “to leave you +in a state of doubt at what must have appeared to be a remarkable +series of coincidences. With the permission of my great-grandfather, I +will enter upon some details.” + +Old Wang Li nodded and assumed an expression of almost idiotic vacancy, +murmuring: “That which can be told is not to be compared for excellence +with that which cannot be told.” The hideous and poetical Hsiao, who +had exchanged with Quentin a number of cups of wine, had fallen into +an inspired contemplation of half a melon. Yuan, impassive (and was he +humble or imperious, smiling or fierce?—Lychnis and Ambrose could not +make up their minds), entered upon details. + +“The founder of our line, himself a descendant of the Wu-Lung, or Five +Dragons, first lived on this Rock in the time of Huang-ti, the Yellow +Emperor. It was about the year 2630 +B.C.+, as you reckon dates in +Europe. There are, it is true, discrepancies between the dates given in +the Bamboo Books and those given by the majority of Chinese historians. +In any case the event was not very recent, and in consequence we are +a highly civilized family. At times our influence has been very wide, +especially in days when the philosophy of Lao-tzu, which was embraced +by my family not long after 600 +B.C.+, has been in the ascendant. +At other times our influence has been less, but at no time have we +lost possession of this island, owing to a faculty long cherished in +the family for devising instruments of considerable ingenuity and +precision.” + +Lychnis laughed almost aloud at the look on Sprot’s face—a look of +depressed triumph at the justification of a dismal prophecy. + +“It was a member of the Dragon family,” continued Yuan, “who invented +the south-pointing needle, gun-powder, anæsthetics, and the flying +chariot. It would be idle to pretend that we have not even now at our +disposal matters of still greater ingenuity, so that it has for a long +time past been the custom to regard this neighbourhood as one where it +is not unreasonable to flatter our quite unexpressed desire to enjoy +the pleasures of unmolested contemplation. There have, of course, been +those who were rash enough to ignore the tradition. Thus, generation by +generation, we have built our pavilions, set our hands to these valleys +and turned them into our pleasure garden, with summer-houses for the +use of the visitors who have honoured our possessions by sharing them. +And the desires of our visitors are, of course, flattered equally with +our own.” + +Hence the respect accorded to the visitors on their journey. Ambrose +received a glance from Lychnis. + +“And hasn’t anybody ever got away with some of the boodle?” asked Sprot. + +“To a very great extent we are unmolested because of the respect +which is paid, in this country, to intelligence. And no doubt many +suppose that because we spend a great deal of time in apparently +idle contemplation no wealth is produced. But visitors have had the +curious desire to remove precious articles to their own homes, and they +have, as you put it, got away. But that—do I divine the more interior +workings of your mind?—was because we did not stop them, as, indeed, +why should we?” + +“I presume,” said Sprot, suddenly going turkey-cock red, “that one has +complete liberty of movement here?” + +“Until one transgresses the ordinary laws of ceremony,” answered Yuan. + +“What I mean to say is——” began Sprot. + +Lord Sombrewater enjoined silence on him, and exchanged explanatory and +understanding glances with Yuan. But Sprot meant to assert himself. + +“What I mean to say is, that we are British. The might of the British +Empire——” + +“If I may anticipate your remarks,” said Yuan, “there is, in a sense, +no British Empire. There is only myself and a few friends.” Lord +Sombrewater resumed his attitude of attentive politeness, and Hsiao +transferred his inspired contemplation to the other half of the melon. + +“No Br——!” began Sprot. + +“It is possible that occasion may serve to demonstrate that we have +here facilities for the complete destruction of any empire that ever +was, except the empire of contemplative activity. But what have we to +do with the making or unmaking of empires? It breaks into the day so.” + +“I take it,” said Lord Sombrewater at last, “that you have in your +hands discoveries of which you make no use—no industrial use, shall I +suggest?” + +“Precisely. We use them only for our convenience and for the +convenience of visitors—as, for instance, you will, I am sure, agree +that our fireworks have an unrivalled variety and brilliance.” + +“Marvellous!” said Quentin. “I love fireworks.” + +“And we have done much to improve the weather.” + +“These discoveries,” asked Sir Richard, leaning forward, “are +discoveries of physical science?” + +“They are what physical science is hoping to discover by tortuous +methods of its own. In the West, if I may say so, you seek reality +through the examination of appearances, and you have little sense of +it. Here we experience reality and are able to reproduce phenomena, as +may be desirable.” + +“Indeed! Very interesting,” said Sir Richard, biting his lip. “You have +laboratories....” + +But Fulke burst in: “My God! these people could build the Ideal +State in about ten minutes, and they sit here thinking and enjoying +themselves.” + +“Those who think do not enjoy,” said Blackwood. “It is in a state of +non-thinking that one approaches the final bliss of annihilation.” + +“Bliss of your big toe!” said old Wang, waking suddenly. The veils fell +from his eyes, and one saw that they were used to looking fixedly at +things non-human, that they were full of an almost dreadful humour. “In +argument on matters of reality,” he added quaintly, “there are no rules +of courtesy.” + +“It is not to be thought,” said Yuan, “that we dream of Utopias. We +contemplate reality, each of us from generation to generation in his +own way. We perceive the inward structure of things, and occasionally, +when apposite, one of us may bring up a discovery from those profound +fishings, in the shape of a picture, a poem, or a mechanical +contrivance. There have been men of our family who saw that it would +be spontaneous to destroy their surroundings in order to shape them +according to a greater perfectness perceived in contemplation. They +obeyed their natures, but it usually happens that we pass in due time +(as my great-grandfather has passed) beyond all interest in the seen +world, and lose ourselves in the experience of what is beneath all +appearance, whether of life or death.” + +“Well,” said Lord Sombrewater, “we have already detained you from your +contemplative activities long enough for one day. I look forward to +many pleasant conversations; and I desire to thank you on behalf of +all of us for the very kindly way in which you have looked after our +interests for some time past, and for your really lavish provision for +our entertainment and comfort.” + +The company rose. “Oh, but may I ask one question?” said Lychnis, with +timidity. The Chinese girls twittered round her, smoothing her clothes. +“Did you—I can’t help wanting to know—did you actually fetch us here, +or have we come of our own free wills?” + +There was a certain feeling of embarrassment, but Yuan, who had been +regarding her with profound attention, replied: “We were informed of +your intention to visit Asia, and since then it has been our most +earnest desire that Fate would guide you to this valley.” + +Lychnis hoped that the rest of their desires in regard to the party +would prove convenient, being so difficult to resist. Then aloud: “But +supposing you hadn’t liked us?” + +“We did like you. We allowed ourselves the gratification of studying +your very pleasing appearance, and only the laws of politeness +prevented us from listening to your elegant conversation.” + +“You saw us!” cried the Sages. + +“Look!” said Yuan, introducing Lychnis to a cabinet in the wall. + +She looked in, and swung round at him on her hips. “The _Floating +Leaf_! My mother, knitting under the awning! Oh! can you see inside +things, too? Or in the dark?” She flushed and frowned, remembering her +afternoon with Ambrose under the plum-tree in blossom, when she had +given herself to his regard. + +“This adds a terror to life,” observed Quentin. “It teaches us to be +careful.” + +“One can invent many things when it is appropriate to invent them,” +said Yuan, “and there are several matters on this Rock that may +interest you during your visit to our valley.” + +“Excellent!” said Lord Sombrewater, and indicated a desire that the +boats should be brought. So they were conducted back to the stairway, +but not before Hsiao, rising abruptly from his meditation, had executed +in three or four sweeps a painting of half a melon. + +“What skill!” exclaimed Terence. “What sweeping brushwork! And +really, what a significant melon! One would say that it was the most +significant object in the universe. It leads the mind out to those +half-realized worlds that are interwoven with ours.” + +“It is merely,” said Hsiao Chai, “that I have drawn the reality of the +melon. You are a painter, too, I know—a European painter; that is, a +painter of superficial appearances.” + +“As a matter of fact,” said Sir Richard, “he paints souls, emanations, +auras and things.” + +“Oh, that!” said Hsiao, with indifference, and they descended the +stairway to the marble quay. They floated off in the little boats down +water lanes among the lotuses, and once more the three brilliant and +bowing figures resolved themselves into one. + +“It is a charming dragon,” sang out Quentin to Lychnis; but she pulled +out her jade combs and disappeared in a cascade of hair. “Just as,” +notes Ambrose, “some slender and savage fairy might vanish in a forest +cave to interrogate her thoughts in solitude.” For, as she confessed +in due course, her mind was entirely taken up with a picture of that +still unexplained island, with its marble quay, its writhing staircase, +its pavilions, paths and cypresses, its vermilion theorem in some +unfamiliar geometry perched up in the trees. + +He tells us that there was no doubt in his mind that their journey +to the valley had in some way been compelled by that keen-eyed young +man, or by his hilarious great-grandparent, but for what object was at +present not clear. + + + + + 23 + + +In due course the visit was returned by the three Chinese gentlemen, +who brought with them several beautiful girls. To entertain them, +Lord Sombrewater decreed a picnic; so under an enamel sky, blue to +apricot, tables were spread on the lawn between the horns of the grove, +and echoes of laughter and sprightly conversation quivered among the +delicately shimmering clumps of bamboo. Before them an exceedingly +up-to-date lawn-mower was cutting green swathes in a carpet of daisies, +like a plough driving through the Milky Way. Willow and elm and +plane-tree were mirrored in the glassy lake. Everybody was happy—even +Blackwood, who enjoyed the opportunity to reject the opportunity of +enjoyment. Old Wang Li, wearing the appearance of an aged villager +who has for some time lapsed from mental efficiency, laughed much +to himself at nothing; but from time to time there issued from his +vacuity some startling observation, and terrifying depths of knowledge +were sometimes revealed in a sudden lightning that flickered through +the veils of his eyes. Hsiao Chai abandoned himself frankly to the +pleasures of the table and occasionally to silent contemplation of the +landscape. Yuan engaged in discussion with a certain smiling ardour and +charm of youth. But it seemed to Lychnis that he, too, was absentminded +part of the time, even when he discussed. His eyes, she said, were +not seeing what was around them. There was a rapt, a heart-chilling +look in them, she said, as if they pierced through appearances and +contemplated realities that might have been frightening for ordinary +people to perceive. Ambrose makes it clear that there was nothing +impolite in the behaviour of the three guests. They were self-effacing, +unself-conscious and simple, but, watching their patrician faces, +one felt oneself to be in the company of great gentlemen. It was +beyond their power to obscure themselves. All three were in touch, as +inconspicuously as might be managed, with some fountain—in communion, +secretly, with some tremendous reality. They had become vehicles for +it, and it could not be hidden. With Wang it flowered in unexpected and +unreasonable laughter; with Hsiao in the frown of creative inspiration; +with Yuan in an imperious raptness of gaze. On him also there sat +a certain majesty of self-dedication and the foreknowledge of some +difficult paradise. + +As the meal progressed, the system of thought that was to be inferred +from the talk of the three Chinese gentlemen seemed to the others more +and more curiously upside down. But perhaps not to Quentin. + +“You are a man to be much admired,” said Hsiao at some free remark of +his. + +“So he is, indeed,” said Lord Sombrewater dryly, “though it has +been our experience, on our travels, to hear him referred to less +sympathetically.” + +“That is doubtless because men seek to impose their own ideas of +conduct on the rest of mankind,” observed Yuan. + +“He has discarded purpose,” said Hsiao. “He behaves as his impulses +dictate.” + +“I am appreciated,” said Quentin. + +“He despises,” continued Hsiao, “the artificial bonds that check +our natural impulses. He has become primitive. He gives rein to his +nature. He gratifies it, and this is right, because life is short, +and our days should not be occupied with conforming to external +practices and submitting our natures to impossible inhibitions. There +is only one virtue, and that is to behave according to our natures. +Men are remembered not for their virtue or their wickedness, but +only for having lived to their full bent. And all is soon enough +forgotten. Indulge, therefore, the ear and the eye, the mouth and the +belly—indulge the desires of body and mind.” + +“I am understood,” said Quentin. + +“It will be observed,” put in Yuan, “that Hsiao has halted in the +pleasures of sense. He has been caught, like a fly in amber, in the +beauty of appearances. He perceives, and indicates to us, the spirit, +the underlying reality of Nature, but he permits himself the desires of +sense, thus adding to the sum of human emotion. Such a man is not the +perfect man.” + +“I should think not, indeed,” said Sprot. “Such a man is most +dangerous.” + +“And what in your view is the perfect man?” asked Lord Sombrewater, +with interest. + +“The perfect man,” replied Yuan, to an accompaniment of profound +hilarity on the part of Wang Li, “is without passion, desires nothing +and indicates nothing. He has the appearance of a fool and is usually +ugly. In speaking I depart from wisdom. In speaking we limit truth. +Yet, to come in the neighbourhood of definition, let me say that the +perfect man neglects himself and is preserved; forgets himself and +is remembered; takes what comes; makes no plans; eats what he likes; +sleeps without dreams; wakes without care; breathes deep; conforms to +custom, lest he become self-conscious; seems to be of the world while +his thoughts are with eternity; uses language while communing in +silence with what is beyond language; ignores the distinction between +spirit and matter; is neither benevolent nor malevolent, wicked nor +good, adding nothing to the sum of human emotion; and, his mind being +utterly in repose, he dwells for ever with the unnameable.” + +“That again,” said Quentin, toying with a dish of spiced wild duck, “is +me.” + +“But does not the true Sage calmly await annihilation?” ventured +Blackwood. + +“The true Sage awaits nothing, calmly or otherwise.” It was Wang Li who +thought fit to speak. He spoke or kept silence at random, recognizing +no rule. “He pays no heed either to becoming or ceasing-to-be. +He rejects distinctions of life or death, remaining as nearly as +possible unconscious until, in the course of Nature, he returns to the +non-relative—which is not to be described as annihilation.” + +“Mr. Blackwood is wrong,” said Hsiao, with decision, “in rejecting +life. One should reject nothing that is in accordance with Nature. And +Wang Li is wrong to spend his years in a state of unconsciousness. For +even now as he talks to you he is unconscious. He is not even conscious +that he is unconscious—otherwise there would be in his mind the shadow +of pride, which is a shadow of passion. He is with eternity, and only +peripherally speaks. Yuan, I fear, is going the same way. For me, the +object of life is enjoyment. One is born and one will die. In between +one has life. I do not reject it. I accept it and gratify my senses +while they can be gratified. I perceive the unnameable, but one can +perceive without embracing. When one has returned to the unnameable one +will have no senses. In the meantime, from the point of view of the +senses, death is a fact; life’s another.” + +“Neither is a fact,” said Wang, his eyes lit with a terrifying gleam of +amusement. “There is only one Fact. From it all apparent distinctions +derive. In it they disappear.” + +“Do you mean to say,” clamoured Sprot incredulously, “that I ... Me +...” (he pointed to himself) “am not a fact?” + +“You are as the shadow of a non-existing cloud passing over a lawn that +isn’t there,” said Quentin, with a wink at Hsiao. + +“Did I hear a voice?” asked Wang. “How can I, that am not, hear a voice +from nothing?” And Sprot clasped his head in desperation, proving +himself to himself by the hardness of his skull. + + + + + 24 + + +The meal came to an end in a somewhat startling manner, for Wang ceased +abruptly from conversation and entered a trance of contemplation, while +Hsiao went fast asleep. + +“This,” said Lord Sombrewater to Ambrose, “is a great compliment. +I quite see that it may be regarded as the last gesture of true +refinement.” He rose, and with Frew-Gaff and Ruby followed Lychnis and +Yuan, who were strolling among the paths of the bamboo grove. “I desire +to hear more of the conversation of that young man,” he remarked. + +“I don’t believe he is young,” said Sprot to Ambrose. “I shouldn’t be +surprised to find he was a hundred. I don’t like these people. Did +you ever hear such views? And I think it very wrong to let Lychnis go +walking off confidentially like that with a young married man. He’s +sure to be married. And anyway, he’s a foreigner—more than a foreigner. +In my opinion a Chinaman’s more than foreign—like a frog. You don’t +suppose”—he came closer to Ambrose—“you don’t suppose Lychnis would +... I mean, a nice young girl wouldn’t....” + +“I should recommend you, as a mental exercise,” said Ambrose, “to +formulate to yourself more precisely what is in your mind. It makes my +record of the conversation more precise.” + +Lord Sombrewater beckoned, and he joined the brilliant figures in the +bamboo grove. Yuan was discoursing of the bamboo and Lychnis listening +bright-eyed. + +“There are many plants here that I have not seen before,” said Lord +Sombrewater. “They are of a rare beauty.” + +“We have assisted Nature,” said Yuan, smiling. + +“How do you propagate? May I ask?” + +“In the usual ways—by seed, by division, by cuttings of the base of the +culm, by cuttings of rhizomes. Layering is impossible for most of these +plants. We create a favourable position for them, and make special +soils and dressings.” + +“The warmth and the sea-mists are helpful, I have no doubt. What about +rats and voles?” + +“We have exterminated them, except for some that we keep for special +purposes.” + +“They really are very beautiful plants,” said Lord Sombrewater, with +envy. + +“It is most wonderful,” replied Yuan, “when all of them over an +immense region flower at once.” + +“And do you find that they die?” + +“They disappear.” + +“Many travellers have agreed that the plants die after flowering.” + +“How are the plants renewed? My opinion is that they do not die, after +flowering, until they have given off suckers from the roots.” + +They discussed technical questions of extreme difficulty. Lychnis and +Ambrose followed in a world of fluttering green butterflies, peering at +spikelet and bract, while Yuan described and demonstrated, until Wang +Li and Hsiao were heard calling from their barge. + + + + + 25 + + +At a suitable interval from their first visit to the Rock they were +bidden to a water-picnic, and thereafter with increasing frequency to a +luncheon-party, or a supper, or some excursion with various members of +the family, male and female, among the intricate and distant windings +of the Lake. They were invited into the most interior chambers of the +house itself. Lychnis and Ruby made friends of young girls or married +women with exquisite names. The depression that some of the party +had begun to feel lifted, and there was great gaiety and friendship. +Messengers were soon dispensed with, and all their arrangements were +made by wireless, once they had learned to use the apparatus discovered +in a cabinet on the day of their arrival at the Pavilion. It was, +Ambrose reports, a better instrument than any known in Europe, the +principle of it, Sir Richard and Fulke agreed, being in advance of +European physical knowledge—a thing guessed at, but not grasped. They +began to know the coves, shrubberies and summer-houses, and some of +the mysteries of the island; and they began to see what Sprot and +Fulke called the sinister side of their hosts’ lives. The weather was +wonderful—clear, warm and mellow, with mist in the morning. Peaches +and apricots ripened on the brown flanks of the island, and the two +parties spent glorious days and wonderful summer evenings about the +Lake and the valleys among those fantastic oyster-shell hills. The only +rule that Lord Sombrewater made was that Lychnis and Ruby were on no +account to visit the Rock unless accompanied by himself, Sir Richard +Frew-Gaff, or Ambrose. + +Ambrose found that in one way the task of keeping the record of their +activities began to present difficult problems. Wang, Hsiao and Yuan +baffled analysis and gave him no confidences. Their characters did +not seem to have recognizable springs. Merry old Wang said little +and laughed immoderately, smiting his clean, blanched-yellow old +head without obvious occasion; his sayings, moreover, usually seemed +inappropriate and without sense. Hsiao, who with his top-knot resembled +an inspired turnip, drank a great deal and painted divinely. Yuan was +perhaps easier to understand. He had a certain candour, almost an +impulsiveness; but then, as his great-grandfather said, he had not +yet quite learned to cease from activity and return to his centre. +He ranged abroad and vanished sometimes for days at a time, while +his elders kept to the Lake and the island, and seemed to find great +contentment in an almost perpetual motionlessness. He liked to be +among mountains and pines. “He persists,” Wang said, “in riding among +wind-storms and adding to the sum of human emotion.” And then he +explained that for countless centuries every generation of the family +had produced a Sage. There was always one to whom it came as nature, +and in his own generation the mantle had fallen on Yuan. But Yuan had +yet much to learn. Ambrose thereupon grasped the situation—Wang was +a complete Sage, a perfect or superior man, as they put it. Yuan’s +father, Sage of another generation, was on a pilgrimage. Hsiao was a +side-line. Yuan, the beginner (from the point of view of the Europeans +he was already far enough on the way to wisdom), was in training. Like +the elders, he would spend hours in the neighbourhood of a flower or a +water-fowl—he used courtesy towards flowers and animals—and more than +once in her walks Lychnis came upon him wrapped in his meditation, +self-unconscious, quite lost to the world. It charmed her. + +In another way Ambrose’s task became easier, because, as their +reactions to their strange circumstances became stronger, and as their +troubles increased, the Sages all came with their confidences. Even +Ruby had something to say and advice to ask, and Lychnis made him +absolutely her conscience and heart. + + + + + 26 + + +Late at night, when the moon was up and Ruby and the rest of the +household were asleep, Lychnis crept from the curtains of her black, +roomy bed, and stole out on the verandah. Ambrose perceived her, +standing in the moon like a pink crêpe-de-Chine ghost with a white +core, her feet together and her hands behind her head, in a lovely, +dart-like attitude, as if she were balancing for a flight into the +scented, dark heart of the foliage. Waiting a moment to observe +accurately the excellent shape of her head, with the hair drawn in to +the neck, and to commit to memory certain curves of her bust, which +slightly lifted the front of her glimmering shift and purified the +soul like a vision of the Grail, he stirred. She turned, smiled, and +vanished, returning again with a wrap like a mist about the moon. They +sat side by side. + +“It is hot, is it not?” she asked. + +“I was composing my account of the day,” he answered. “I want your +impressions.” + +“Do you record impressions of all of us?” she inquired. + +“Most of you, from time to time, tell me things that are of interest.” + +“Of interest! You have interests, of course. One forgets that.” + +“Oh yes, I have interests. To record with accuracy the essentials of an +episode—that is one of them.” + +“What an interest! Really, an interest is not very interesting—not so +interesting as a passion. You have no passions?” + +“They only cloud the vision of clear-eyed desire,” he answered—“in +fact, they actually prevent attainment.” + +“I’m afraid I’ve got a passion,” she observed—“a sort of general, +unattached passion. If it suddenly fastened on someone the results +might be frightful.” + +“Abeyance it, and give me to-day’s impressions.” + +“Oh, impressions! Well, in the first place, it’s hot. Then—I don’t +quite know what impressions I have. I mean, they may come from inside +me. Can one make impressions on oneself?” + +“Let’s hear.” + +“Well, I have the idea that life may have some point, after all—that +there may be a moment when you can say, Now one has really flowered +into a moment of existence between nothing and nothing. I desire to +exist, to be—not merely to remain a vague thing, an I, that cannot +possess a single experience. One is only the beginning of a being, the +material for one.” + +“True. But you think you may be about to begin to exist. What are the +symptoms?” + +“I don’t quite know. How shall I put it?” She considered the question +in silence. Then: “Would you say there was something unusually splendid +and beautiful about the night?” + +“Perhaps there is, now you mention it.” + +“Do you happen to notice anything more than ordinarily intoxicating in +the scent of the trees?” + +He sniffed. “Perhaps, now you point it out.” + +“Have you by any chance a sort of feeling that out there in the +darkness, in a halo of extreme darkness, there might be some unseen +experience that would complete you?” + +“Um! I recognize the state of mind you describe as one which is +familiar to human beings.” + +She rose and stepped from the verandah down on to the lawn. Some jewel +on her slipper shone in the grass like a glow-worm. He followed and +walked beside her. + +“Those are my impressions,” she said. The moon shone in her eyes +through a hank of hair. + +“The condition,” he lectured, “is the condition of one whose +generalized passion, as I think you called it, is about to be attached +to an object.” + +“Oh!” She made a fox-face at him and led the way up a path in the +bamboo grove. Presently they were hidden there, and the round moon hung +in a deep sky behind a delicate pattern of leaves. “Sultry, is it not?” +she continued, and loosened her wrap. She glimmered, in her frail gown, +like a firefly or some sort of bamboo-fairy. “I would like ... it would +be cool. One would bathe in night ... I might, almost, with only you +here.” She stood looking at him, as if she really were considering it. +Or was there even a mocking? Then “Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed, and +shrouded her bosom in her wrap, “do you think Yuan might see us?” + +“I fancy he would hardly be looking,” Ambrose replied. + +“I really did think of doing it,” she asserted. “Has my reality-sense +gone wrong? It seems quite odd that I should hesitate, with only you +here, and in fairyland. Of course, with others about, reality is +different. But you and I live in heaven, don’t we? I presume a person +will be naked there? So you think the man on the island would not be +looking. He does strike one as being a gentleman.” + +“Does he please you?” + +“I find him mysterious. What Ruby dislikes about him, I like—I mean the +feeling that a cold and merciless god is looking at you. I wish I could +be as unself-conscious as that. It’s like being looked at by something +impersonal—the wind, the sky. Do you think he is a man? Or some human +spirit of the mountains? You do not think him supercilious, do you? +Those moth-eyebrows, I mean, and that slanting glance.” + +“I think his mouth remarkable,” said Ambrose. + +“Yes. It’s so small and innocent and unpitying, like a flower that +can’t feel, or suffer, or know of its own destruction. A mouth that +would look the same in torture. You can use that, Ambrose.” He smiled. +“A mouth that he surely never uses to eat or kiss with. Will you use +some of these words when you are writing in your diary?” + +“Possibly. Do you understand all that he says?” + +“What is the difficulty? I don’t find it a matter of understanding. +I don’t have to say to myself, ‘What does he mean?’ I feel it in my +bones.” + +Ambrose pondered. “Perhaps you have the same means of consciousness as +these Chinese.” He remembered her remarkable insights. + +“Do you suppose I am a Sage?” she asked. + +“At any rate,” he replied, “you resemble them in certain respects. You +are at bottom only interested in what they would call the reality +behind the flow of phenomena. You actually do live in constant touch +with it, and find it exciting. Nothing else will ever quite give you +satisfaction. It is a faculty which men of action lose. If they didn’t +the flow of phenomena would cease.” + +She stripped the dark leaves one by one from a bamboo. + +“And what about men who record action and inaction with equal +dispassion?” + +“Oh,” he answered, “they also sometimes get in touch with reality, in a +mild way. But about Yuan. What does he tell you?” + +“He told me that when he has once thoroughly investigated the nature of +objects, and understood the identity of all things, he will do as his +great-grandfather wishes—abandon all desire, and wholly give himself +up to what he calls the unnameable. But he will go much farther than +his great-grandfather, he says. Already he is convinced of the ultimate +unreality of the world. He wishes one day to leave the world of +relativity, to contemplate Nature in its absolute aspect, and finally +to sleep a white and dreamless sleep of the mind, knowing only what is +beyond mind. This is what he said, and in this state he won’t know his +nose from his mouth, and his flesh and bones will be dissolved, and he +will drift with the wind, not knowing whether he is the wind itself or +a leaf riding on it.” + +“In old age,” said Ambrose, “he will come down to the less picturesque +and more human mysticism of his great-grandfather. But first he has, as +you say, to put away desire.” + +“He often does, already,” she answered eagerly. “He fasts in heart. It +is quite simple, apparently. You only forget there is a you, and when +there’s no you it can’t have desires.” + +“Quite simple.” + +“He says it is the more subtle desires, the desires of the intellect, +that trouble him.” + +“No doubt they do. And in other matters he is without passions?” + +“As far as I can see. Well—he’s not a neuter.” + +“He has the eye of a man?” + +She hesitated. “Of more than a man.” + +“It has expression in it—warmth, feeling, electricity?” + +“I don’t know. I cannot say what there is in his eyes. I can only say +that they are not dead. They have looked straight at mysterious things, +and they are unreadable. All his face is unreadable. He is like rocks +and forests. His eyes are the mysterious presences that are among +trees. And they slant beautifully.” + +“And what is your chief feeling about him?” + +“If only I could always think of him as a figure on a vase....” + +She smiled at Ambrose faintly, enigmatically, baffling further inquiry. +Strange creature, she seemed to him, neither child nor woman—at any +rate half-fairy. “I don’t dare look at him very close,” she concluded. +“He’s so still, so different. If he came walking by now in a meditation +I should shiver. Oh! listen, Ambrose. Someone really is coming!” + +Ambrose stepped back into the bamboo thicket, and the shimmering, +scented girl shrank in under his arm. There were voices, in English and +Chinese—chiefly little exclamations and some laughter. Whoever it was +passed on and the voices died out in the forest. + +“Quentin,” whispered Ambrose, “and some young women we don’t know.” + +They emerged on the white moonlit lawn, crossed the shadow of a great +cedar, and entered the house. + + + + + 27 + + +One afternoon Lychnis, Ruby, Ambrose, Quentin and Fulke were on the +island in company with Wang, Hsiao and Yuan. All were meditative, or +sleepy, and they lay about on a little turfy place jutting out from +the cliff a few feet above the water. They looked like a handful of +orchids. Lychnis lay on her front with her head hanging over the Lake. +She was gazing intently at the water, and her hair parted and fell +down on either side of her face, leaving the slender neck bare, as if +she had been laid on the plank of the guillotine. “How satisfying,” +muttered Quentin, “to wring that neck!” + +Yuan regarded the neck, but no shade or thought of emotion appeared on +his countenance; nor did his fingers tighten. + +“What a hateful thing to say!” said Ruby, who neither slept nor +meditated, and only lay motionless. + +Old Wang, after studying her for some time, had been heard to murmur: +“The room has been made empty for the Master, but he does not enter it.” + +Lychnis was fascinated by the water. She was thinking, if only she +could wriggle out of her tunic and trousers, shoulders first, and +slide over the cliff into the Lake and glide neatly among the stems of +the water-lilies! To dip the chin first, and the mouth, tentatively, +gingerly, in the cold element of a different universe; to bury the +eyes, next, in its queer sights; to feel it slide over neck and +back and legs; then suddenly to dart through it and surprise the +inhabitants, like an unexpected meteor. + +“I simply must know what it’s like to be a water-creature.” A sentence +had emerged from the depths of her water-feelings. + +“You can,” said Yuan, “by entering into subjective relationship with +them.” + +She looked at him as one who balances an infinity of considerations. +“No doubt. But how does one enter into subjective relationship with, +say, a water-beetle?” + +“First,” began Yuan, “by forgetting self; then by emptying the mind....” + +But old Wang interrupted, as if to give the young man instruction on an +important matter. “Those who know, say nothing,” he observed; “those +who say, know nothing.” + +“But,” said Lychnis, “that makes conversation so difficult.” + +“Why converse?” Wang asked her, with a sardonic grin. “Speak only when +compelled, and then reluctantly, and only in the words of the Sages.” + +“In the meantime,” said Yuan, who, in relation to his +great-grandfather, was only at the beginning of wisdom, “let us take a +walk under the water.” + +Lychnis lifted her head and glanced round at Ambrose. “Among all those +plants? I’m not afraid, but isn’t it rather impossible?” + +“I’ll dive in and save you,” said Quentin. + +“I don’t like you under water,” she replied—“a spread-out monster with +a dim, waving beard. Besides, I’ve no costume.” + +“That is not a thing that matters—” began Yuan. + +“Of course not,” put in Quentin, with immense approval. + +The Chinese gentleman continued: “What I mean is, that we go as we are. +It is not a miracle.” + +The scattered orchids stood up, mystified, and undulated in a gay chain +along the paths on the side of the cliffs. Presently Yuan halted at +a place where glassy-green steps led down into deep waters between +reed-clumps. + +“A good place for pike, no doubt,” remarked Ambrose. + +“You are a fisherman, then?” Yuan suddenly enveloped him, as it +were, in an all-seeing gaze, which, while extremely polite, was also +extremely inexorable. + +“I fish, and meditate, and compose my thoughts.” Ambrose returned his +gaze with a polite stare which, so Lychnis told him, was beautifully +inflexible. + +“Then we will fish and meditate together.” + +“With the greatest pleasure.” + +The two men bowed, and Yuan led the way down the glassy-green steps. +They found themselves entering a roomy, inclined tunnel of some +substance so transparent that they seemed to be entering a partition +of the water. One by one they stepped down, taking a last glance, when +their eyes came to its level, across the many-leaved surface of the +Lake. In a few minutes they were walking in the depths of a forest +of stalks where strange creatures loomed. It was very silent, very +dim, very still, under that ceiling of flat leaves, or under an open +sky of lake-water. Sometimes a flight of small, ghostly fish darted +invisibly through the stalk-forest, or suddenly wheeling their sides in +a light-beam became a thousand rainbows. Sometimes a beetle-creature +struggled up skywards through the water, swimming as if faint for +heaven. Or swans swam overhead like June clouds, or thrust their +snaky necks down between lilies. A cormorant, breaking the limit +of the water into a shiver of crystal, passed them in silent white +pursuit of a hurrying fish. And in one region of the brownish-greenish +water-universe a solemn carp, opening and shutting his mouth like a +machine, took part with myriads of his kind in a mazy, rhythmical, +interminable, involuted and apparently purposeful dance. + +“Just like human beings,” observed Quentin. + +“Why do they do that?” asked Lychnis. She and Ruby were walking on +either side of Yuan; Fulke was following with despairful, scowling +face. “Are they happy?” + +“They obey their nature,” said Yuan. “According to the doctrine of +Hsiao, they are Sages.” + +“They cannot be Sages,” she put in, “because they have never been +conscious. To be a Sage means to have abandoned human consciousness and +to have adopted the demeanour of a fish or a vegetable.” + +But he merely stood with bent head considering the glaucous lairs of +the water-world. He was not thinking. He was abandoned, unconscious of +self or of any process, to what his eyes saw. He was in relation with +the water, the fish, the beetles, through the reality which filled him +and them and superseded delimitation. He had ceased to exist. He was +no longer separate. But an onlooker would have been struck by his +self-possession. + +Fulke went close to Lychnis and faint-heartedly touched her. His desire +to put his arms round her nearly achieved itself. Distracted by himself +and by his desire, he was now without inward resource. Entangled in the +inhibitions of self-consciousness, he blushed, stammered, and did not +know how to stand or where to put his hands. + +Ambrose made notes on the behaviour of all concerned. + +“Lychnis.” Fulke faltered a whisper. + +She gave no sign of having heard. + +“Lychnis. I.... Why won’t you talk to me? I could answer your +questions.... I....” + +She made no answer. + +“I know things, too. I am intelligent. Oh, slime and hell! I hardly +know what I’m saying!” + +“Yes, yes. You are very intelligent—very nice.” She spoke as if +half-asleep. + +He stumbled back over the damp sand to Ruby. “Look at her!” he +exclaimed. “She’s following him. He’s drawing her into his own mad +world. What can we do, Ruby?” + +“I don’t know.” Ruby was dejected, alarmed. “She’s funny. I do wish she +wouldn’t be. You don’t think——” She stopped. “I don’t like it much +here. It’s not a place for people to be. Could I go back? Would they +mind?” + +“My God!” he answered. “I think I’ll come with you. She’ll be all +right. Ambrose is here. You and I—we are of no use to her.” Their eyes +met in a perfect orgasm of wretchedness, and they glided off, the two +of them, along the tunnel and up out of the water-world into the air +and the sun. + +Hsiao appeared to be disappointed. He had given himself up to the +contemplation of Ruby’s torch of red hair that glimmered through the +shadows of the stalk-forest. But, instantly dismissing anything so +painful as disappointment, he addressed himself to a contemplation of +Lychnis. “She has hands like the white opening water-lily,” he was +understood to say. “They would be cool and fragrant to the mouth, and +delicately scented.” + +Wang Li tapped Ambrose on the shoulder, and pointed at his +great-grandson. + +“A young man,” he said, “not free from the chains of desire.” + +“Desire?” queried Ambrose. + +“Desire. An itch of the mind; the mind still itching to experience, +to understand, to know. He still takes an interest in things. He +approaches the matter from the wrong angle. Seek first the kingdom of +non-being and the world of appearances will be yours at a later date.” + +He notices a good deal for an old man who is permanently unconscious, +thought Ambrose. Peripherally, no doubt. + +As for Lychnis and Yuan, they had gone on ahead. They looked as if +they were swimming in a gloom of stalks. One was going now deeper +into the Lake, into a pool of shadows, into a treeless, inter-stellar +space, lit only by the faint emanation of some distant, strange sun. +The empty universe was inhabited by flights of fish, like angels going +on heavenly errands, and also by monstrous shapes of fiendish though +fish-like aspect. + +“If these are the work of God,” said Ambrose, “I am hitherto +imperfectly acquainted with the full variety of His resources.” + +“Of God,” replied Wang, “by the hand of my great-grandson, Yuan. Some +experiments of his.” + +“I must bring my friend Sprot to see them,” said Ambrose, and received +a wink of consciousness from the Sage’s right eye. Old Wang and his two +descendants had a power of divination in the matter of character and +motive that was quite extraordinary. From Wang especially there was +nothing hidden. + +“My great-grandson considers,” the old philosopher went on, “that, +while he is taking an interest in appearances, a man may as well +lend a hand in the temporary work of evolution, and add, by reason +of his conscious artistry, a certain distinction, either of ugliness +or beauty, to what sometimes appears to be the product of a bungler +working in the dark. It is the function of the artist to give point, to +relieve, to dramatize. For example——” He pointed abruptly to a glorious +creature that floated past like a sun, raying out veils of splendour, +and again to a slender torpedo-shape marvellously adapted for speed. +“No doubt also you have remarked the rarity of the birds in these +parts, and the perfect colour and shape of the flowers. Yuan’s. Nothing +but a certain indifference to the scientific point of view on the part +of his numerous relations has prevented him from experimenting with the +human species.” + +“I am willing,” said Quentin, “to act as his agent, or vehicle, in any +experiments he may make with the human species, provided they are of a +creative, and not of a merely negative, order.” + +“How,” asked Ambrose, “does he justify his pre-occupation with +objective existences?” + +“He does not justify it,” said Wang, with what might have been taken +for a great-grandfatherly groan; “he boasts of it. It is a phase, of +course. It will pass. In time he will embrace his duty and become a +Sage.” + +“In the meantime,” remarked Hsiao, “his activities greatly enhance the +amenities of the landscape and multiply the conveniences of life.” + +Rounding a turn in the tunnel they came on Lychnis and Yuan, who were +both gazing upward. High overhead floated the red hull of a coracle, +and on either side of it a paddle, like a web foot, occasionally broke +the surface. “Fulke and Ruby, I have no doubt,” said Yuan. “Lazy, are +they not? Or else urgently discussing something.” + +“Don’t let’s bother about them,” she replied. “Go on. Tell me more +about strange things.” + +Willingly enough he returned to his subject, and the pair of them sped +on, absorbed in whatever theme they were discussing. Or perhaps it +was not the theme they enjoyed, but the experience—the experience of +sinking through the levels of consciousness and meeting in the deeps +where there is no opposition between this and that. + +Presently there was a shaft in the tunnel with a spiral stair. This +the party ascended, and found themselves in the middle of the Lake. A +boat was moored there, and far away among the lotuses was the red craft +that had passed over their heads. Old Wang was smiling to himself with +abandon, and continued to smile until they landed on the island. + +“And the joke?” asked Ambrose politely. + +“I laughed to see how easily young trees bend to a breeze. It would not +be in accordance with wisdom to resist a main impulse of Nature. Here I +am in agreement with Hsiao. This is the doctrine of spontaneity.” + +“Excellent,” replied Ambrose. “But, I take it, if there is any flaw in +the spontaneity the result will appear as indecision?” + +“You are right,” said Wang, with a piercing look. + + + + + 28 + + +Soon enough there began to be a fuss about Lychnis and Yuan. It +appeared that Fulke and Ruby, on their ascent into the familiar world, +had taken a red cockle-shell skiff and spent the afternoon floating +about the Lake, tasting a certain joy in their common misery. No harm +in that. But on landing and returning home to the Pavilion, and on +finding it in the sole occupation of Sprot, they had communicated to +him their fears. These he received with the liveliest satisfaction, +spoke much of the accuracy of his forecasting, and spent the evening +stamping up and down in a resolved manner. When the party from the +island returned, he drew Quentin aside and significantly questioned +him, in the presence of Fulke and Terence, as to the proceedings of the +afternoon. + +“What are you getting at, Sprotling?” asked Quentin. + +“I am going to make representations to Lord Sombrewater. I am going to +convince him that it is desirable for us to leave the valley without +delay.” + +Terence lifted up his face and spoke inspired words: “I have a most +convincing reason for that. This afternoon, in a dream, I saw the +mountains of my native country, and a picture of the whole party of +us eating honey in Innisfree. And there came on me a great impulse +to arise and go there, which I would have obeyed at once had not the +vision clearly said that the rest of you are to go, too.” He stood for +a moment looking into the distance, and his grey eyes were undoubtedly +alight with the apprehension of something not immediately attainable. +“I starve here,” he added, “for the sights and the sounds of Europe. +I am out of touch with the Other Side. There is no veil of misery to +pierce; no heaven to reach, because no hell to reach from.” + +“The dirt and the poverty,” said Quentin, “the factories and the +brothels, the advertisements, the bankruptcy courts, the demure women +who know the game of love—I agree. I hate this calm, this perfection. +What you say is true. There are no arcs here, consequently no perfect +rounds to long for.” + +“Oh, for some work to do!” cried Fulke. “A world to redeem from the +clutches of industrialism—a State to build—a race to create!” + +“I am with you in the last item only,” said Quentin, putting out his +crisp, curly beard. + +“At all events,” summed up Sprot with enthusiasm, “we hate this +neighbourhood. We are all for returning to the ship. But first, how to +get rid of this Chink, this Yuan?” + +“I could knife him, if necessary,” said Quentin, with a certain genuine +earnestness. + +“Why not?” asked Sprot. “Nobody would know. It’s often done in these +Asiatic countries. There are no police here. But first—evidence. +Lychnis must be watched.” + +Fulke swung round. “You damned, newt-livered, beetle-tongued, +slug-sticky, crawling miasma! Use Lychnis, will you? Besmirch her +reputation because you’re unhappy away from your kennel? My God! if I +hear her name on your slime-coated tongue one single time again, I’ll +drag your entrails out through your eye-sockets!” + +“He’s in a temper,” explained Quentin. “He’s in love—but hopelessly, I +fear.” + +Fulke looked at him with a light in his eyes like a sullen sunset +drowning in a tide of misery. “Oh!” he cried, “you’re not capable of +love. You’re not clean men. And I that am clean am of all of you the +most miserable. I hate life!” He broke off, and made for the house. He +met Ruby coming out, and once more a circuit of emotion was established +between them. + +“Where’s Lychnis?” she asked, with some anxiety. + +The others listened. + +“Heaven knows,” he answered. “Can’t you find her?” + +On investigation it turned out that Lychnis had disappeared. There was +no sign of her anywhere. “Where can she be?” asked Ruby, with tears in +her voice. + +They all stood on the lawn staring over the Lake like men who have lost +a vision. Sombrewater and Frew-Gaff, returning late from a geological +expedition in the mountains, were met with the intelligence by an +almost elated Sprot. + +“I knew it,” said the little man. “I have warned you, Lord Sombrewater.” + +Lord Sombrewater turned and stared at him so that he began fumbling +with his collar. “You have warned me of what?” + +He had nothing to say. + +“Be so good as to keep your thoughts to yourself.” + +Lord Sombrewater went abruptly into the Pavilion. + + + + + 29 + + +Lychnis, in the meanwhile, was off to the south-west with Yuan in the +Dragon. The stars were on fire in heaven; there was a space of white +light about the moon; far below slid the perfumed forest. She sat +behind Yuan in the hollow body of the creature, and he, slung between +the wings, bent this way and that, wheeling and dipping his fantastic +chariot; and sometimes, when he had climbed the peak of the wind, he +would fling himself forward, and she would see the dark, rushing world +beyond the streak of moon on his shoulders as they swooped on a hundred +miles through the night. Then, after a few moments of rest on some hill +that loomed up out of the void, a soft purr of his mysterious engine or +a beat of the wings and the chariot sprang up and forward like an eagle. + +Slung behind him, sometimes touching him, Lychnis felt with her body +that Yuan knew the air, knew all the roads, the precipices, the rapids +of the air. He behaved as a far-travelling bird would behave, beating +along the vast empty ways of the night with repeated crutch-strokes, +or spreading out silver wings along the swift surface of a wind. Or, +if he wearied, the tiny engine was switched on, and they traversed the +sky with the speed of a meteor. Through him she knew the airways and +lent him her movements, balancing and clinging with him on the huge +precipice-face of the winds they were climbing, giving herself without +shrinking to the fearful descent into a huge, opening nothingness. +From time to time she caught a glimpse of his cheek. He threw her +back an unsounded word, and she made noiseless answers with her small +whispering mouth to his ear. He was intent and still, and his stillness +held her, so that in spite of the dark void below she had no fear. Only +the wind and the world moved, and they seemed intensely still in the +midst of the sky, with their small heads so close. + +Time had no meaning, and space twisted and wheeled around them. Soon, +very far off, under a slanting beam of the moon, there came, as if the +edge of space were advancing toward them, a glimmering of white petals, +a flush of sacred lilies floating on the dark pool of the sky, lotuses +waving about the feet of some Boddhisatva, for whom the Dragon was +bearing on his back a beautiful captive to minister to his contempt of +desire. But before the lilies came close, Yuan leant forward, and the +dark pool of the world rushed up and engulfed them. The forest streamed +up and out like black foam. Yuan hung over it, a silver moth, then +brought the breast of the Dragon to the flood of a gleaming river. “The +jungle,” he whispered. + +There was a clamour of wild creatures. It suddenly faded to a far +distance. + +“They smell a flesh-eater,” he murmured. + +Around them a circle of silence spread outwards till the distant +circumference of howling died. But there was a movement. They seemed to +Lychnis to be surrounded by looming shapes, by moving jewelled hands +gesturing in darkness. There were movements in the unseen masses of +foliage on the banks—swift movements of night hunters, slow movements +of ancient creatures. There were long plungings and swirlings in the +water. A vapour of heat drifted over them. The river flowed by unseen, +and the Dragon held his breast to it like a soul in the flow of time. +There were presences. Glancing at Yuan, half-visible, Lychnis found +him, now, less than human, or perhaps more. Over the jungle there +gleamed those lily petals, and a light from them seemed to illuminate +his face. The eyes became oblongs of darkness in a mask of dry gold. +The small closed mouth was a carved symbol of eternal serenity. He +became a god, and she found him almost intolerably strange. + +“Forget your humanness,” murmured the mask. It was like a breath of the +jungle speaking. “Forget it and know the creatures of the jungle.” + +They were drifting a little down-stream towards the bank on their +right. They were aware of a movement in the reeds, an arrival of +concentrated silence. The darkness watched them. Then the reeds waved +and parted, and there shone at them two savage emeralds. Lychnis, +feeling the beautiful ferocity that crouched for her, glanced at Yuan, +perhaps to see if she could share her experience with him. But he was +in combat with the tiger, putting out the fierceness of the tiger, +meeting, subduing the hunger that was about to spring. He entered +through the deeps of being into the nature of tiger, and in some sort +of wrestle in the realm of the tiger’s understanding dissipated the +desire that sought to satisfy itself on Lychnis’s flesh. + +They became aware that the knot of silence was resolved. Presently as +if the tiger had spread some kind of intelligence, howling was heard +again in the distance, and before long the rim of howling contracted. +The forest had forgotten them. They were free in it. + +“You are not afraid?” The pale gold mask uttered voice. + +“Only a little.” But her fear was a fear of the being beside her. All +other fear had vanished and survived only in that. “Are you never +afraid?” she asked. “Here, or in the sky?” + +“The personal I,” he answered, “the individual local Yuan, was a mass +of fears. But the man I am becoming, the man whose I is vanishing, the +god-saturated man, cannot experience fear. The wine-drunken man is +not afraid, and if he falls out of the cart he breaks no bones. The +god-intoxicated man is not afraid, and if he falls out of the sky all +is well.” + +“I am not god-intoxicated, as far as I know.” + +“Nevertheless your perceptions are like those of one who is thus +intoxicated. You perceive rhythms that only the heart of the infinite +perceives.” + +“I had not thought I was anything out of the way,” she said. + +“Will you walk in the jungle under the cloak of my understanding?” he +asked. + +“Oh yes!” She was instant. How often, at night, one had heard some +young man, or some older man, or even an aged man, say: Shall we walk +in the wood a little? But this was to reenter the Garden by night, and +walk in Eden with an archangel, or even with the Lord God. Possibly to +see the Serpent, and the Tree of Knowledge. Looking at Yuan, to follow +him, she asked herself: Are you the Serpent? He was leading her to +knowledge, certainly, but not of good and evil, for he had said good +and evil are local oppositions; in the unnameable they become one. + +He was looking past her, boring into the reeds. She liked the dark, +oblong eyes with their gimlet centres of blackness. She liked the +imperious line of the cheek. + +“We will not land here,” he said. + +They shot up and sideways, skirting the trees like a dragon-fly; came +down presently at a place where wild beasts drank. He made fast there. +She had a curious sensation, she told Ambrose, as Yuan helped her down +from the machine. It was strange, she said, to put her hand into his +foreign hand. (No doubt the being so much with Ambrose, the perpetual +comradeship that was between them, had trained her to note things.) +Pleasant? Unpleasant? Not altogether unpleasant. Some slight antipathy, +the diarist supposes. Certainly she forgot the sensation at once as +they made their way into the darkness, the thrilling terror of the deep +forest. She had no objection at all to the envelopment of her person by +his cloak of understanding. If she had any sort of antipathy to his +flesh, she had none whatever to his mind. He walked the forest like +some shepherd of tigers. The snakes and insects let pass one of their +kind, startled only by the shadow that followed him, bright-eyed and +staring. They were mounting, and presently, when they had crossed the +spine of the hill, the ground fell again slightly, only to mount beyond +them in wave after wave of forest until the further waves had a white +ridge, and far off, gleaming in outer space, were the snow-petals, the +sacred lilies of ice. + +Lychnis gasped. “I’m not sure—I think I’m afraid. They are so huge, so +cold.” Fear of the mountains had entered her, and with it a host of +other fears. She began to look round anxiously, to shrink. He was her +only refuge from fear, and she shrank from him, too. Looking at her, +she felt he divined the whole secret of her. + +“You are afraid now?” he asked. “It’s natural. Fear must come in before +it can be cast out. One must be conscious before one is unconscious. +Sit down with your back to a tree.” He prevented, in some way, her +impulse to look down in case a snake was coiled where she was to sit. + +She obeyed him. He sat down opposite, with his back to a tree, and drew +from his garment a small sort of flute and played. She found presently, +as she listened to his slow, meditative theme, that she had forgotten +her fear of the mountains. She began to gaze at them, seeking to become +conscious of them, to shape the vague and profound emotion that they +gave rise to, and express it. “Eternity,” she said. “They are eternal.” + +“On the contrary,” he replied. “In a little while they will have gone, +and an ocean perhaps will flow there.” + +“Then it is I that am eternal, and the mountains made me remember.” + +“Eternity is in you, but you are not eternal.” + +Swiftly a thought of old Wang Li came to her mind. + +“The truth that can be stated is not truth,” she shot at him. + +He smiled. “The truth can be played with the flute, though. Listen.” + +It was so, she thought, hearing something behind the notes he played +that was like the mountains, but with no terror. And she saw without +shrinking that the glittering eyes of fierce beasts were gazing +steadfastly from the darkness, and tenderer creatures were near them. +Then a python swayed down his head from the branch of a tree close +by, and she put out her orchid-hand and touched the ivory skin. All +that she remembered afterwards, for at the time she was not conscious +of python, tiger, or deer; only of that which sounded from Yuan’s +flute, that sang, as she put it, to itself in her and in the beasts, +the intoxicating godhead that remains when ice vanishes, music is not +listened to, and spirit itself has disappeared into nothing. + +But afterwards, when the spell of the singing flute had lifted, +she came to the conclusion that the experience of sublimity is +unnecessarily serious. “I should prefer something suaver,” she told +Ambrose, “more restrained—the god without the intoxication.” + + + + + 30 + + +Lychnis told Ambrose that the coldness of her reception, when she came +back next morning, was a surprise to her. “I was only thinking and +thinking of what I had seen and done in the night, of how I felt about +Yuan,” she said, “and to find all that anger was horrible. There has +been a change. Sir Richard frowns at me. Sprot is delighted, the little +beast, because he can impute something to me. Fulke hates me. I prefer +it. But our party is breaking up, and it is not like it used to be. +I can’t help it. They have no business to interfere when I am going +through with an experience.” Her anger rose. “They shall stay here +until I have finished with it, or I will stay here alone, or with you. +You will never be against me?” + +He saw that her mind was in tumult, but by no means altogether because +of the trouble she had got into with her father and the others. In +any case she had an inextinguishable obstinacy. It appears that she +had come back alone across the Lake in a boat, pre-occupied, lovely +with the flush of her thoughts, only to find herself when she stepped +on shore among grave and resentful faces. Her father was indoors. +“Naturally,” she said, “he would never question me before all the +others. He and I have always had our quarrels in private.” Ruby, too, +was indoors. + +It was the incredible Sprot, almost dancing with the pleasure of his +accusing thoughts, who put the question: “Where have you been?” + +She looked round at Fulke, in her eyes a command that Sprot should +die. But there had been a change in Fulke, and he only glowered at +her. Quentin answered her appeal with a grin of somewhat resentful +amusement. She had therefore to speak for herself: + +“Mr. Sprot, I am sorry to learn that you have to leave us.” + +“What on earth do you mean?” he stammered. “I am not leaving. Your +father has not said so.” + +“I have said so.” + +“I won’t leave.” He squared up. “And what will you do about it?” + +“If I see you anywhere about to-morrow morning I shall ask Yuan to +attend to you.” She went to the Pavilion, and they all watched her +walking with bent head across the lawn. Then they turned to consider +the case of Sprot, who was palely protesting that he would in no +circumstances go. + +“Especially,” said Quentin pleasantly, “with the country in its present +state, when the traveller is more than likely to meet with robbery and +violent outrage.” + +“I appeal to you.” Sprot clasped, as it were, the knees of Sir Richard +Frew-Gaff. But Sir Richard politely regretted that he could do nothing, +and walked away. + +Sprot exploded. “It’s perfectly scandalous that hard-working, +reasonable-minded men should be at the beck and call of a piece of +goods like that! Why does everyone pay so much attention to her, I +should like to be told. She doesn’t work. She doesn’t produce anything. +What right has she to say what shall be? Walking off like a sprig of +lilac with a ‘You clear out!’ and all—her and her fat-faced Chink. It’s +my opinion....” + +“We don’t want your opinion,” said Fulke morosely. + +“Yes, we do. You run away and weep with your Ruby,” said Quentin, with +a wink to the rest. + +Fulke flared. “You shut up, you stinking mud-pump! I’ve had just about +enough of your interference.” + +“No naughty temper,” said Quentin, and being strong, though a sinner, +he immersed young righteousness in the Lake. + +A native servant came down with a message that Lord Sombrewater would +be glad if Ambrose would step up to the Pavilion. Ambrose therefore +left the group on the shore of the Lake, thinking that the harmony of +the party was indeed sadly disturbed, and the serene lawns and fine +brooding trees disfigured by their quarrelling. Lord Sombrewater was +with Lychnis, she moody, he severe. But it was his custom to approach +a quarrel with his daughter in a business-like spirit, and he had not +allowed the matter to interrupt his eleven o’clock cigar. He motioned +Ambrose to a seat by a little lacquer table. + +“Good-morning, Ambrose. I want you to know that there are now no +restrictions on my daughter’s liberty of movement. She may go where she +likes and with whom she likes, and I”—he spoke without bitterness—“I +wash my hands of it. I admit that it was foolish to make rules for +a daughter who takes as much notice of my wishes as the very solid +gate-post of this Pavilion. Facts are facts. She has argued with me, +and I think conclusively, that her life is her own. I have fully agreed +that her friendship with Yuan is not a matter with which I am closely +concerned. We must face the facts, and I see that it is useless to +attempt to control her. I want you to convey this to the others. Now, +Lychnis, I have done what you have asked. Will you kindly leave us?” + +“I never said that you do not come closely into my life. You do. I want +you to.” + +He waved her away. Ambrose knew that he would never hear in what +terms they had quarrelled. But this dismissal, he perceived, was a +retaliation on Lord Sombrewater’s part. If she had no place for her +father, if she desired to be independent, she would be independent, +very much so, and alone; she should feel the cold. Her eyes, Ambrose +saw, filled with tears as she went through to her green-and-gold +bedroom, and there was no turning on her hips at the door to make a +friendly gesture. No doubt she felt that another harbour was closing to +her. + +“When I made a rule that she should not do this or that, I made a +mistake,” said his lordship, and his cigar had gone out. “Lychnis makes +her own rules as she goes along. She acts by an inner light, and cannot +see why others should have any views on the matter except the views +that are so clear to her. No doubt she is right, as maybe we all are, +in some deep sense; but it is hard, when she does these strange things, +for those who have merely to watch and trust. I find it difficult, +Ambrose. I love my daughter. I am jealous, and find it hard to be shut +out from her inner life. If I were in her heart, no doubt I should +agree that whatever she did was good. I should know what was going to +happen, and I should not now be afraid as to where the necessity under +which she doubtless acts might be going to lead her. I am honoured, as +one should be, for having created a thing that is useless and beautiful +... but not, very naturally, by the thing. What do you say?” + +“I say,” Ambrose replied, “that this is false sentiment. Love of a +father is one thing; love of someone else is another. You should not be +jealous of any kind of love that is not specifically yours to claim. +Without jealousy, or, as our Chinese friends would say, without desire, +or, as I may qualify it, without the addition of an inappropriate +desire to the specific and proper desire of a father, or of a lover, as +the case may be, there would exist no clash, or undue passion.” + +Lord Sombrewater observed him. “You would not permit anything that +might occur to alter whatever the relation between you and Lychnis may +be?” + +“There is a specific and possibly unique friendship between Lychnis and +me which, if I do not allow it to be disturbed by irrelevant humours, +can be left to take care of itself.” + +“That tells me little.” + +“Not having been choked by weeds, it has become a thing by itself, with +life and a destiny. I have only to keep it pure of irrelevant desires.” + +“You are an extraordinary man. If you would not mind my asking—if +anything were to happen, and we left her here in China, would you miss +her? Would you, let us say, be aware of a hiatus?” + +“The mind,” Ambrose records himself as saying, “is its own place, as +the poet so justly says, agreeing with our Chinese friends. Desire +perishes, and that which is without desire is immortal.” + +“I’m hanged if you don’t out-Wang old Wang!” Lord Sombrewater relit +his cigar. Then he suddenly exploded: “And by God! Ambrose, I agree +absolutely with Lychnis about Sprot! Out he shall go!” + +It was lucky, Ambrose thought, that there should be someone handy to +take off the full torrent of Lord Sombrewater’s emotion. + + + + + 31 + + +Lychnis, when she had given Ambrose an account of her doings, went +swiftly in her short white dress under the heavy summer trees to the +mooring-raft of red-painted bamboo, unfastened her coracle, and paddled +through water lanes among lotuses to the island. She saw Hsiao in an +arbour by the water’s edge, and waved in a friendly manner, but he +was asleep. She brought her coracle to the marble quay, ascended the +dragon-staircase, and sped along the ridge of the island, passing old +Wang in meditation by a dung-heap. She climbed into the vermilion +summer-house among the tree-tops, but Yuan was not there. She went out +on to the verandah, and stood looking down over the scarlet rail into +the Lake, where golden shapes of fish were passing like half-visible +summer clouds. She saw the roof of Hsiao’s arbour and his two feet +sticking out. + +She went into the bare, sun-swept room again, and swung out an +instrument from its cupboard. Not familiar with its use, but perceiving +the principle of it and the method of adjustment by some scarcely +conscious effort, she made the whole countryside disclose itself +to her. First of all, there appeared in the field of view that +dozen of queer philosophers on the rock over towards the mountains; +next, through too wide an adjustment, a tract of country which she +recognized—a little hill near the _Floating Leaf_, with a plum-tree, +now in fruit, where she had talked with Ambrose, and Ruby had come +back with her arms full of flowers. It was strange that she could hear +the leaves rustling. She did not look for the ship. To see those three +ladies knitting under the awning would have been to jolt the progress +of a dream. She came back to the Peach-blossom Valley, and turned with +a gesture of wrath from the spectacle of Sprot in altercation with +her father. Then a few moments of growing impatience, until she found +Yuan, waist-deep and busy in an enclosed pool at a distant point of the +island. She heard the Lake rippling and the wash of water when he moved +or plunged his hands in the pool. Breeding experiments, she thought. +She had meant to go to him when she should have found him. It was so +with her now that she demanded his presence constantly. But he was +busy; he might prefer to be alone. She paused to inquire into her state +of mind, realizing that she found it a necessity to be with him, and +wondering what that might amount to. + +Now that she had found him it did not seem right to watch him. She +paced the open rooms and balconies of that airy summer-house, like a +slim fly caught in a scarlet cage; going out to feast her heart on the +Lake, now a garden of lilies, white, rose, and golden; returning to the +instrument to see if Yuan was still at work. She opened a cabinet of +drawers, found it full of paintings on silk, and idly inspected them. +There was a portrait of a young boy. It was so perfect a work of art, +a unity composed of an infinite number of rhythms, that its effect on +the mind was hypnotic. The tone was a variety of rich browns touched +with a lotus flush of almost unbelievable precision. The young boy was +kneeling on a lotus daïs with his hands joined in prayer. The eyebrows +were delicate as small painted moths. The tiny mouth was like a flower +that will never open and wither, beautiful and small and calm. The eyes +were purer than the deep and velvet pansy. Was it a boy, after all, +or a girl? She saw in the face a certain severity of saintliness, the +signs of a state of mind that she could remember, when she had been, +as it were, both boy and girl, with a desire for heaven. But what was +solemn and beautiful in the face was a shadow, a foreknowledge, of some +predestined renunciation, of some experience circled round with burning +flames, seen from afar off, before the thought of pain had meaning. +Pondering thus, she realized with a shock that the features were the +features of Yuan. + +She looked at the image in the long-sight instrument, saw that Yuan was +still at work, and returned to the portrait. + +Could Hsiao have painted it? Could he have received that sublime +inspiration in the stupor of wine? If he could paint a melon, when he +was drunk, in a way to disclose cosmical secrets, why not the portrait +of a saintly young boy? There was no signature. That was like Hsiao. +For him not the painting, but the contemplation in which he conceived +it. She understood that. The painting was a mere discharge, the symbol +of an experience fully grasped. + +The face was not so much Yuan’s as the face of some perfect being, +predestined for the bliss of non-existence seen in the vision of an +artist. Not so much Yuan’s face. With the portrait in her hand she +returned to the instrument, and found after a little experimenting +that it was possible to deal with the field of view so as to fill it +with the image of a small object. She studied the image of Yuan with +the shame of Psyche studying the revealed face of the god. There had +been a change. The mild face of the boy had become severe, even fierce, +from the discipline of contemplation; in the place of innocence was +the calm, unvarying gaze of eyes that have rested on a reality that is +neither pure nor impure. She was afraid, as she had been afraid before +the mountains, and put the portrait away and swung the instrument back +into its cabinet. But first, with a swift mounting of her fear, she saw +that Yuan had left his pool, and was coming towards her with his eyes +fixed on hers. + +He was coming to her. He would be there in a few minutes. He had only +been looking at the scarlet nest in the tree-tops, of course, and he +could not have descried her figure, where she was. But he would know, +and in a rush of passion she hated his insight and his domination; in +her mind she saw his face again, serene and alien. Her flesh shuddered. + +Soon he stood between the scarlet posts of the doorway, yellow-brown +against a deep blue sky, attentive, impassive. + + + + + 32 + + +They were alone till the afternoon, when Sir Richard and his daughter, +both a trifle constrained, came over to the island with Fulke. The +sight of those three restored to Lychnis a sense of reality. In the +morning she had been drawn into the realms of Yuan’s vast interior +life, fascinated, hardly conscious that her identity was submerged. +Now in the afternoon, with her friends by, she could look on him as +an object, a man with whom she could enter on given relations, regard +being had to other considerations, as, for example, his race, her +father’s wishes, the pull of her home in England. She became happy, +contented that she should be in that frame of mind. + +There was to be a water-party after sundown, and they spent the +afternoon making a promised inspection of some of Yuan’s laboratories +hidden in the rock. There they saw various matters in their several +stages of advancement. + +“What funny old frights!” whispered Ruby, when she saw the artificers +at work. “I really believe they are the twelve men we saw looking so +idiotic on that rock.” + +And certainly the twelve ancient or middle-aged gentlemen, who were +achieving machines of extreme delicacy out of an apparently vacant +stupor, did seem to be the same. For Sir Richard, when he saw the +artificers at work, the problem as to how Yuan procured his apparatus +was solved. “I wondered whether you sent plans to Europe,” he explained. + +Yuan smiled. “I do not want to lay Europe in ruins. No. I indicate the +nature of my mechanical problems to these friends of mine, and they +work out the details in contemplation. They know the inner secrets of +platinum and ebonite and wood.” + +“You are kind to Europe.” Sir Richard’s upper lip was firm. It is +inconvenient that the amateur should know more than the professor, +and it was only because of the paramount claims of science that he +endeavoured to draw Yuan into a discussion. The two gentlemen talked at +great length, while Lychnis listened entranced, and Ruby yawned. But +discussion was not easy, because Yuan was dealing in symbols that were +entirely strange and in realms of experience where his companion had +never been. Some formulæ that he wrote down were excessively pleasing; +to Sir Richard they meant as much as the experiences of a mystic, while +Lychnis recognized that they were indeed precisely that. + +From the laboratories they went to the gardens and hot-houses, full of +unfamiliar plants and insects; from the gardens and hot-houses to the +breeding-grounds; and it was here that even Sir Richard’s scientific +mind shrank a little at sight of some of the monsters Yuan had created, +in what seemed an irresponsible way. In particular a frightful cross +between an ape and a tiger shocked his moral sense. But Yuan took no +pains to justify himself, and only replied that all those who help in +the great work of creation will have their jokes from time to time. + +Towards evening Yuan left them to make his preparations for the +water-party, and Sir Richard sat by the Lake with the two girls +pondering deeply on the afternoon’s talk. He evidently desired to +unburden himself, and found a certain difficulty in speaking to +Lychnis, the only possible listener. But in the end, if he was +displeased with her, the contents of his mind were too much for him. + +“That man could alter the world,” he said, turning to her somewhat +constrainedly at last. “I do not pretend to be an expert in more +than one or two of the sciences we touched on, but I know enough to +recognize that what he says is of first-class importance. Do you +understand, my dear girl, that he has discovered all we know in +physiology by pure contemplation? I would go farther and guess that +physiology is no problem to him at all; he simply perceives the +nature of the body, and it is my opinion that he will live for ever. +There seems practically no nervous expenditure. He avails himself of +some sort of cosmical energy and forgets about his own organization, +which has become merely the sphere, so to speak, in which the energy I +speak of is present. And I don’t mind confessing that I am completely +baffled in my own branch. He talks, Lychnis, as if he had experienced +everything he knows, as if he actually saw, felt, even heard, physical +reality. He proceeds, as it were, from insight; and, really, there +doesn’t seem to be anything hidden. Odd, if reality should, after all, +be something more than a state of affairs in a field of electrical +stresses. It is profoundly disconcerting. It is as if the most refined +discoveries of science should prove to be familiar to an ape or to an +idiot. They are ape-like, these friends of yours, and a trifle idiotic. +I am not an anthropologist—not an expert—but I perceive something +orangoid in your friends, in the disposition, for example, of the lower +limbs horizontally, in the posture of the hands.” + +Sir Richard, forgetting his constraint, seemed to ask for sympathy; but +she was angry with him for his frame of mind towards her, and made only +some brief reply. + + + + + 33 + + +The mood which they all fell into, staring out over the Lake at +the warm shadows of evening, was broken by the dip of paddles and +the simultaneous arrival, with the party from the Yellow Emperor’s +Pavilion, of Yuan, Hsiao and Wang, with several slight and exquisite +girls. They had a remarkable faculty, those three, of waking from +reverie on the tick of an appointment. Lychnis sat and watched as each +one, in gorgeous robe of mediæval China, stepped from the dusk of the +water, like some mystery of the summer night breaking into flower. +Darkness fell swiftly, and an ochre moon rose over the sombre side of +the valley. She sat on in silence, white and wraith-like among those +shapes of splendour, and they gathered around her, waiting on her will, +and there was a consciousness that for all of them for that moment the +universe turned about her. Ambrose records that it occurred to Yuan and +himself at the same time to announce to her that all was ready, and +they stood, the two of them (Yuan in a magnificent robe of deep green, +himself in dark amber), looking at one another across her moon-golden +head. Ambrose immediately gave place, and stood, so Lychnis afterwards +told him, smiling complaisantly at the glimmer of stars that was +breaking over the trees. + +Soon they were all out on the Lake in a ceremonial barge, towing a +cluster of painted boats, and the island became a dark complex in +the moonlight, illuminated by the dying reflection of a farewell +rocket that shot up from the point. In answer Yuan lit a score of +lanterns—orange, violet, and brown—swaying moons that cast unearthly +reflections in the Lake. But there was silence among the visitors, a +certain uneasiness, because of the relation that had arisen as between +Lychnis and Yuan and as between those two and the rest. + +But Lord Sombrewater would not permit any breach of etiquette, and +presently there was a murmur of talk under the ochre moon as the barge +swished slowly through dark red lilies towards the distant sources of +the Lake, where they were to picnic by the waterfalls. Two or three +of the Chinese girls perched like finches on their favourite, their +amusing Quentin, and soon enough there was plenty of laughter at +his incomprehensible jokes. Ambrose, sitting beside Frew-Gaff, took +opportunity to observe that there was no cause for any reasonable +anxiety. + +“I suppose Sombrewater is right,” replied Sir Richard. “It is not that +I suspect Lychnis for a moment of folly, as you know; but in this world +we must be ready to hear of strange things. I know it; but really, if +we were told, one day, of a marriage with this Oriental (who exerts +an extraordinary fascination, I admit), I should have the creeps. I +somehow cannot tolerate the thought of a union between an English +girl—a girl like Lychnis—and him.” + +The thoughts that arise in the brain, Ambrose observed to himself, are +governed, like economic men, by a master of whom they are not aware. + +“I have been compelled to give Ruby the same freedom of movement,” +added Sir Richard. “She is quite capable, I am sure, of looking after +herself. A very sensible girl. We shall have no surprises from her.” + +“And as to Sprot?” queried Ambrose. + +“He refuses to go.” + +“Lychnis has spoken to Yuan.” + +“I wonder what Yuan will do.” + +Ambrose looked at Sprot, who was showing a certain defiant and stupid +courage in face of the danger of staying, which he preferred to the +danger of going away. Appositely they passed three white pelicans on an +islet. They had monstrous beaks, those pelicans, the creation of Yuan. +And Ambrose wondered, with Sir Richard, what Yuan would do. + +When they came to the waterfalls among the high rocks at the Lake’s +source the moon was shining into the night-sombre valley, and they +disembarked and climbed and spread supper in face of the golden and +shadowy scene, and the murmur of their talk was subdued to the steady +diapason of the main torrent that poured from the crags, not dissonant +with the peace and ordered serenity of the landscape. Nothing moved. +Far off the island slept, small and brooding. A spirit of peace fell on +them all. + +“You are philosophic in great comfort here,” observed Lord Sombrewater. + +“We are civilized,” Yuan mildly replied. “It is not philosophy to +evolve noble and consolatory systems, or systems of despair, among +misery and ruin. Those who require to perform their meditations among +desolations or desert wastes are merely unable to cope with the claims +of a domestic environment. Contemplation is an activity that can +only be pursued by people who have mastered Nature. It is only then +that pure reality can be seen. In all other circumstances thought is +conditioned by the actualities of being, and is directed towards the +problem of evil or some antithetic good. Here we have so wrought that +we are free to take part in the experience of a reality that is, as it +were, behind. Our environment does not hinder us; our bodies claim no +attention; we forget ourselves; we cease to be, and what is everlasting +rushes in to fill the place of what was.” + +“You seek annihilation,” murmured Blackwood. + +“Seek your big toe!” replied Wang, going to the foot of the matter with +characteristic efficiency. Indeed, as he lifted his right eyelid, he +seemed to emit a trickle of some elemental force that could have dried +up the cataract. “In seeking death, you seek what does not exist.” + +“Perhaps I have been wrong,” sadly admitted Blackwood. “I must seek, I +see now, for some deeper life.” + +“Seek your eyebrows!” retorted Wang. “In seeking life, you seek also +what does not exist.” + +“Then what on earth is a man who is all wrong with the world to do?” + +Wang opened him with the blade of insight. “You do not get rid of +desire by sitting on it. That is what your thoughts of annihilation +are—desire gone to mildew. Only they think in terms of annihilation who +are extremely conscious of self. Abandon your methods. Desire neither +life nor death, and eat red meat.” + +“I fear I have sadly misinterpreted the wisdom of the Sages,” +Blackwood faltered, and actually the moon glowed in a tear on his cheek. + +“This is the beginning, and only the beginning, of wisdom,” +replied Wang. “Retrace your steps, give rein to the passions of a +man, and in ten years’ time you may take some gentle exercise in +self-forgetfulness.” With this somewhat paradoxical statement he seemed +to close himself to all outside influence, and the spray of the moonlit +cascade gradually wetted his old bald head. + +“It seems likely,” remarked Sir Richard, “that Hsiao will presently be +altogether forgetful of his body, since the goblet in his hand contains +about a pint and a half of your really very powerful and delicious +wine, and that is the third I have seen him consume.” + +“In the days when Hsiao thought in terms of good and evil, of restraint +and excess, he used to be very sick,” Yuan replied. “Rid the mind of +purely relative distinctions between drunk and sober, and you will not +be troubled with the gout.” + +“Thank you for that recipe,” said Quentin. + +“Wang Li does not take wine, I notice,” said Lord Sombrewater. + +“That is because he requires no aids to contemplation.” + +“Then why does Hsiao take it?” asked Ruby. + +“He is an artist, which is a weakness of the will, and he needs some +attachment to the illusions of sense.” + +Lord Sombrewater had been deeply pondering. “It seems to me,” he said, +“that there is something to be argued for our western habit of life. +You here—I do not speak of the mass of your countrymen, who present, if +I may say so, the appearance of an immense swarm of toiling insects—you +in this valley have abandoned the world to its fate. You have +abandoned, so it seems to me, much that makes men specifically men, and +you have become the abodes of great impersonal forces. Sometimes when I +talk with you I feel I am talking with the nightwind, or the moonlight, +or the spraying waterfall. God-intoxicated, you have given up your +organisms to be the dwellingplace of the great unknown principle of the +universe, and any pleasure, any joy, that is in you, is its.” + +“Precisely,” said Yuan. “Our bodies, to a more or less extent, +according to the measure of our renunciation, become temples of +godhead. Using your western phraseology, we have come strangely near to +Christian doctrine.” + +“That is so; but my point is that in the West most of us hold that it +is the business of man to forget God, to immerse himself, while he is a +man, in his no doubt blind and temporary manhood, so that he may work +out whatever the purpose of creation was in creating him. It is the +duty of man to erect his ego into a god. He must be immensely conscious +of himself and the world, immensely unconscious of the universe. He +must be tremendously aware of man and his destiny. In Europe, in +America, we have formed the idea of Destiny and Progress.” + +“And do you progress?” Wang Li suddenly spoke like a voice coming out +of the wind. + +Lord Sombrewater began to search in his mind for the answer to that +question. But, except Frew-Gaff, the others did not await his reply, +and wandered off as their fancy directed. Hsiao disappeared. Quentin +attached a couple of admiring young girls and drove off Sprot, who +tried to accompany him, with lively pictures of his approaching fate. +Blackwood retired thoughtfully to a dark corner alone; Terence was +listlessly meditating on Yuan’s aura; Fulke and Ruby gloomily watched +to see what Lychnis would do. But Lychnis only sat with two Chinese +girls on the cliff-edge at the side of the torrent, and they were all +holding out crystal goblets in their orchid-hands to catch the spray +drops. They talked in their own languages and seemed well contented +with each other. Fifty feet below them the swaying moons of the barge +smote strange colours on the foam of the rapids, and the cluster of +small tethered boats streamed and leapt astern. Above them dreamed the +motionless Wang Li, with the moon on his scanty white beard. + +An hour passed, and Sombrewater and Frew-Gaff were still in +conversation with Yuan. Ambrose surveyed the party, and there came +to his mind, as he watched Yuan, the description Lychnis had made to +him of eyes that were oblongs of darkness in a mask of dry gold. He +sought, too, for an adequate description of the power that lurked in +the disposed beauty of that petal-mouth of dark enamel. He traced the +effect of power to the absence of muscular compression, of visible +will. It was unconscious and placid, like the dark, fathomless Lake, +where doubtless men had been drowned. Then suitably to his thoughts +came Sprot, with terror-stricken face, scrambling up the rocks, crying +out: “Hsiao! Hsiao the drunken painter! Hsiao is drowned!” Wang Li +dreamed on. + +The visitors gathered together and discussed what Sprot called +the fatality in tones of horror or dismay. Sombrewater sadly but +efficiently put questions to the witness. “I saw the body bobbing about +in the wash under the bank,” Sprot averred. “A frightful-looking thing.” + +“You are quite sure it was ... our friend Hsiao?” + +“Absolutely. That fearful, black, waving top-knot. It was awful—awful!” + +Presently they turned towards Yuan, who was studying a glistening fern. + +“He does not seem to realize ...” said Lord Sombrewater. “He cannot +have understood ... I had perhaps better speak to him.” He approached +Yuan. “Yuan, my dear friend, I am afraid we have terrible news. Hsiao +has been drowned.” Yuan did not look up. “Hsiao is dead.” + +“Quick and dead are relative terms,” responded Yuan. “Hsiao is Hsiao.” + +“The blow has stunned him,” whispered Sprot, and suddenly found the +basilisk eye of Yuan upon him. + +“You would desire, I gather, that the party should break up?” Yuan +inquired. + +“But, my God——” began Sprot. + +Sombrewater silenced him. “We would naturally not wish to go on +merrymaking,” he said to Yuan. + +Yuan seemed to fall in with their wishes. The party descended the rocks +in silence, and boarded the vessel with eyes turned from the bank. Wang +Li remained. He was in contemplation, and need not be disturbed, Yuan +said. They floated off on the current, Quentin and Terence at the oars. + +“Will you not extinguish the lanterns?” asked Lord Sombrewater. + +“As you wish,” Yuan politely replied. + +Lychnis watched. The death of Hsiao did not greatly affect her, she +admitted. It was a pity, certainly. In any case death did not seem to +be reality to her, and her heart approved Yuan’s demeanour. Suddenly a +scream rang out, and Ruby pointed hysterically to the hideous floating +corpse. With a shudder Lord Sombrewater turned to Yuan. “We must +recover him.” + +“Why?” Yuan asked. He did not seem to be able to understand this +preoccupation with a trivial event. + + + + + 34 + + +The following was compiled by Ambrose after listening to both the +girls. At two o’clock in the morning a lamp still burned in their +bedroom. Ruby, with a garment in her hand, was being addressed by +Lychnis, who still wore her white dress and had not even unbuttoned her +shoes. + +“Can’t you see, little idiot, that death’s not important? It isn’t +real. Neither is life real. Life and death are not real. Something else +is, and that something else is in Yuan and Wang Li, and it goes on and +is everywhere, and death doesn’t make any difference. Yuan and Wang are +dead, too. I mean they are not alive in the way we understand life.” + +But Ruby was not in an amiable mood. “At any rate,” she said savagely, +“there’s no doubt that we shall go away now from this horrible place.” + +“Why do you think that?” + +“I heard daddy say to your father that he couldn’t feel comfortable +here again. ‘With those cold-blooded freaks,’ he said.” + +“Oh! And did my father agree?” + +“I think so. He nodded.” + +“Well——” Lychnis was aware of an unwonted nervous disturbance, a desire +to cry, at the secession and hostility of her obedient friend. She +concealed it. “It’s time we were in bed.” She stood up, unfastened her +dress, and let it slide to the floor, bending meanwhile on Ruby her +frowning brows. “We shall stay,” she added definitely. + +Her anger had usually the effect of reducing Ruby to sulks or +submission. To-night she became defiant, and replied, looking at her +persecutor with shining, fascinated eyes. (And no wonder, thought +Ambrose, as he pictured the slim, contemptuous figure that had the +matter of subjugation in hand.) + +“You think it’s for you to decide, Lychnis. It isn’t. We’ve made up our +minds to consider ourselves in future.” + +“You’ve been plotting with Fulke, have you?” + +Ruby’s eyes quivered. “Let me tell you daddy thinks so, too. If we want +to go now we shall.” + +“Not without my permission—and Yuan’s.” + +“Oh, Yuan! Why don’t you go to him altogether?” + +The words had slipped out, and with the realization of what she had +said came the end of her courage. + +The reply darted at her was, “Get into bed.” + +She still had an ounce or two. “I won’t!” + +“Do you remember last time you said that?” + +Ruby remembered a night when a fury who exuded a sort of elemental +invincibleness had used a slipper on her until she howled for pain. She +did not care for pain. + +Lychnis slid in beside her, and switched out all the lights in the room +except the one that hung in the ebony ceiling of their bed. “You hate +it when that light goes out, don’t you?” she asked in a cold voice. +“Every night you shake for fear of the strangeness of this house and +this valley and the tall, plum-cheeked Yuan with gimlet eyes. When the +queer moonlight creeps in through the lattices, as if Yuan were there, +flooding us with some cold emanation of his cold, unhuman spirit, you +lie and tremble. I am going to put the light out now.” + +She switched it out with one hand and with the other gave Ruby a pinch. +Ruby sat up. “I hate you! Oh, you beast, I hate you!” + +“You’d better ask Fulke to do something about it.” Lychnis spoke in a +ghostly voice. + +But all at once Ruby collapsed into her pillow and began violently +crying. “Don’t—oh, please don’t tease me about Fulke!” she sobbed. + +Lychnis had an intimation. “What’s the matter?” + +For some time there was no answer; then a buried voice came from the +pillow: “I can’t bear you to speak of him.” A silence. Then: “I—I want +him. I love him.” + +Lychnis peered into the dim moonlight, silent for a little. Then: “But, +my dear, I didn’t realize it was like that. I am surprised.” She put +her arms round Ruby. “Since when?” + +There followed long confidences and comfortings. “And that’s why,” +concluded the afflicted one, “I said I hate you. I’ve been hating you a +long time—because you keep him from me!” + +Lychnis smiled in the dark. “But don’t you see? That’s nearly over. You +will have him from me altogether—very soon.” + +“Do you really think so?” Consoled, glowing, and happily doubtful, +Ruby fell asleep. When she was asleep Lychnis turned over on her +face and sobbed her heart out. She saw clearly that Ruby would soon +have Fulke—the chimpanzee-like Fulke—away from her altogether. She +didn’t mind that. But it gave her a sense of desertion. It was strange +that soon Fulke should lie in her place, or take Ruby to his. She +would be alone. It was the case that she was losing her friends—even +her father. Her heart sank at the deep silence. The shadow of the +lattice lengthened out on the floor. Outside a spray of leaves brushed +monotonously against the roof of the verandah. Soon she would be alone, +quite alone—face to face with a queer reality—except for Ambrose. The +name floated to her in the silence. Ambrose. Perhaps he was on the +verandah composing. She crept from the bed, crept out on the verandah. +Outside there was nothing but the warm moonlight and the leaves +brushing on the roof. She came back, alone with the spectre of Yuan. +She shivered and lay deathly still, clutching the bedclothes, while the +ghostly moonlight peered in through the lattice, stole in and embraced +her like an emanation from his cold, unearthly mind. The spray of +leaves swished to and fro on the roof of the verandah. + + + + + 35 + + +Before making an important decision, which Ambrose presently records, +Lychnis suffered several changes of mood of a subtle kind, and she +was able under his expert questioning to describe them, to give an +account of the happenings in the mental, the emotional, the spiritual +sphere—the slight happenings that irresistibly fixed her course. + +She woke heavy-eyed. After a long wandering in the hot mists of +early morning by the reedy shore of the Lake and among the creeks +and cliffs and waterfalls, she came clearly to see herself isolated. +Since the first morning when she had explored the valley with Ambrose +and encountered the swans, she alone (Ambrose not for the moment +considered) had made progress in experience. The others, she perceived, +had all abandoned the experience which they had begun, content to +remain on the fringe, to let it go ungrasped, uncomprehended. They +had stopped short on the threshold of the valley, on the threshold +of a dream. She had entered the dream. To her life was yielding up +secrets. She looked back from the dome of an emerald hill and saw the +vermilion roof, with its horns and glittering dragons, of the Yellow +Emperor’s Pavilion, in the crescent of the bamboo grove. They were +all sleeping there, except Ambrose, the recorder of other people’s +experiences, whose white-clad figure she saw in the far distance down +by the Lake. They were sleeping, while she woke and strove with what +life was offering to the mind. She would keep them there until she had +finished, until the valley and its denizens had no more to give, for +it is the privilege of those who wrestle with the stuff of experience +that they should sacrifice the others. Looking up, she saw that a great +mass of clouds in the east was thrusting its arms about the valley. An +encircling wall seemed to shut her off from the nearly forgotten world +of Europe. It made it easier not to go back. + +Ambrose pictures her standing on the top of her hill like a fluttering +flag. Lonely she must have been. It is lonely, he remarks, to be in the +advanced posts in the matter of human experience. + + + + + 36 + + +In the afternoon, lying idle and alone on the verandah, she reflected +that she had not spoken to Terence Fitzgerald for a long time. She +could not remember that he had looked at her with hate or resentment. +He had been aloof, but that was his habit, and it might be that still +he was bound to her in spirit, not resenting her actions. So she went +to her bedroom, put on a twelfth-century robe of amber with a design +of black and red butterflies, sped across the lawn, and slid through +the bamboo-forest, that was heavy and dark with summer, to the tiled +watchtower. + +She climbed the stairs, peering through little windows that she +passed, and came to his blue-tiled room. It was littered with painting +apparatus. He sat at the window, in his bard-like, painter’s gown, with +his hands clasped, looking sadly out over the quivering bamboo grove. +When she came in his great eyes filled with fire and his voice rang +with joy. + +“At last the high gods have told you to come?” Then reproach shadowed +his face. “But in that alien dress. This is not Lychnis, not my divine +inspiration materialized.” + +“I have abandoned the other dress,” she replied, “for ever.” + +“For ever!” + +“I must look the part I am going to play.” + +“But we are going back. Lord Sombrewater has decided.” He spoke with +great earnestness. + +“Are we? Not quite yet perhaps.” She concealed her meaning, giving +him great distress. They sat together in the wide window, on a ledge +of pale yellow tiles. The poet eyed her long and dreamily; sometimes +(through dreaming) his knee touched hers, or his hand, if he spoke, +found it necessary to pat her fingers or her shoulder. The innocence of +the poet permitted itself some intimacies. But they woke no thrill in +her. She only leaned out and caressed the close ivy, or gazed up at the +swifts circling over a group of elms in the midst of the bamboo. + +“The dress is alien, but it is enchanting,” he said, after a pause. “It +falls about you like an amber spell.” + +“Paint me,” she replied. “I came to be painted, as promised.” + +He obeyed. “I believe it is a spell,” he went on. “You are under a +spell, woven on you by your Chinese. The robe has definitely altered +your aura.” + +“Is that the case? Tell me, has Yuan got an aura?” + +“As far as I can discover,” said Terence, with the air of making a +mysterious confidence, “he has got practically nothing else.” + +“You mean—no body?” + +“No corporeal habitation at all—not to speak of. Does that interest +you? Is it a point of any importance?” + +But she was watching the swifts, and only threw out an aside: “You must +write an article, ‘The Influence of Environment on the Aura.’” + +“But it is profound, I can tell you—in fact, it is disconcerting. +I cannot understand these people. It is all part and parcel of the +mysterious, sinister unresponsiveness of the place. I am unhappy here.” +His grey eyes were mournful. “I sit all day without any illumination, +unvisited by any messenger from those mysterious worlds that touch so +closely on ours. The astral plane is quite closed to me.” + +“Something has gone wrong with the trapdoor,” she ventured, +unsympathetically. + +“Unvisited by anyone,” he added, with meaning. But she was absorbed in +the gliding swifts. + +“I believe some evil spirit on the Other Side has done this by way +of a joke. Those three friends of yours, Lychnis, are elementals, +vampires.” + +“It was you brought us here,” she threw out, with her eyes on the sky. +“The Peach-blossom People—pink feet, I remember.” + +“It was to punish me for some error. They have brought me here and +blown out the candle of my vision. I cannot contemplate. My harp and my +tongue are silent; my hand is paralysed. And now the word descends on +me in the mists of morning that I must arise and go back to Ireland. +Everything is so designed and so finished, so dead; and I find your +friends so on top of life, so beyond the capacity to feel the world’s +sorrow, so smug.” + +She spoke to the bamboo grove. “And so clean. And everyone is so happy. +And inspiration only comes to you when you are in an untidy, poverty +stricken, romantic country where the people are superstitious and +incompetent. In your Paradise everyone must be Celtic and ridiculous. +To be poetical, to have beautiful fancies and run to press with them +is diseased. You dress up the cold substance of experience with +starry crowns and gauze wings to make it look like fairies. A country +should produce either men who can think straight or men who can live +hard—especially the first. That is what compels me in a man.” + +The wild anger that flashed in his eyes died down when she suddenly +turned her face. + +“There is distress in your eyes, not scorn.” His concern became +apparent in a disposition to offer her the protection of his bosom. + +At that moment, indeed, if Terence wanted Ireland, Lychnis wanted +England. Hypnotized by the wheeling of the swifts over the elms, she +had seen her home, and the pull at her was agonizing. The elm-clump +beyond the sea of bamboo was an island of the familiar in a sea of +strangeness. She suffered an intolerable desire for England, for the +Georgian house, for the tennis-lawns, the stables, the cornfields. Her +nerves stormed for the satisfaction that those old habits could give, +and her more complex desire for the undefined satisfaction that she +was pursuing in the Peach-blossom Valley all but suffered shipwreck. +But she gave no hint of this to the poet. He was friendly to her, +but because he loved her she must put him far away, increasing her +isolation. They sat in stillness and silence while the blazing summer +sun sank down the afternoon sky and the swifts mounted and swerved and +flickered high up over the elms. + + + + + 37 + + +At evening, when the sky was a flaming garden in the glass of the Lake, +Ambrose and Lychnis sat side by side in a punt at a distant part of the +shore, quietly fishing. Their punt was moored by two poles. Behind them +a wall of reeds; before them the green reflection; a step beyond it the +sky mirrored in an abyss. They were fishing for pike, perch and the +like. + +“Yes, it had been decided to return,” he replied to a question, +“until Sprot disappeared. It is not known whether he went back to the +_Floating Leaf_ or whether—— Do you, perhaps, know what has become of +him?” + +“I haven’t a notion.” She hooked a gudgeon of suitable size through the +appropriate membrane and cast her line. “Until it is known, I suppose, +my father will stay on. I mean, he wouldn’t desert even Sprot. In any +case I do not think he will go back just yet.” + +Ambrose lifted his eyes for a moment from his float to glance at her—a +reed-fairy with amber robe and amber hair, steadily holding her rod +with slender hands, frowning at the float that bobbed in the ripples. +She was a novice at fishing. It was certainly accurate to describe her +as a most lovely young woman. The meaning of her words would no doubt +be given presently. She had clearly brought him here to deliver it. + +“They can’t bear it any more because Hsiao’s death doesn’t make any +difference to Yuan and Wang. Why, Ambrose?” + +“You know why. You have grasped the principle. They cherish the +personality, and cannot endure the indifference to personality that +Yuan and Wang display.” + +“Yes,” she responded; “I do know. They cannot bear to think that they +are of no more importance than a grain of dust, or a slug, or a tomato. +What do you think about personality?” + +“The strange thing about it is,” he pointed out, “that Wang and +Yuan, who ignore it, have more of it. It is a strange truth. But we +understand—do we not?—that the personality is not their own. They +merely contain, as it were, something cosmical, something that streams +and emanates from them.” + +“It has the effect, merely, of personality,” she observed. “But it is +very fascinating.” + +“You find it so?” + +“My float has gone.” It had disappeared in the clouds that seemed to +drift under it. + +“Don’t strike for a few seconds,” he put in. “It’s pike. They run off +with the bait and begin to swallow it afterwards. Now!” + +She struck. + +“Don’t pull,” he continued. “Hold gently when you can.” + +“I feel it,” she gasped. “I’m in communication. It’s wonderful to feel +the weight of something in a world you can’t see.” + +By a method of her own the fish was got into the boat. “It’s a pike,” +said Ambrose, “but with improvements of Yuan’s.” + +“Yes, I find Yuan fascinating,” she continued, when she had cast her +line again. + +“You are in love with him?” + +“Must you put it in the diary? If he were a figure on a vase ... if he +would behave as such after marriage ... I don’t know if I am in love. +That’s what I have to find out. I couldn’t go away without finding out, +could I? I must find out. Nothing else matters, and that is the sole +reason why I am making so much trouble—not intellectual curiosity, or +friendship, or anything like that, but simply an unanswerable desire to +understand what is happening to me. At present it’s like this—I can’t +do without him. I feel I must always be in his presence, watching him, +hearing him. Is that love?” + +“It is foolish,” said Ambrose, “to ask ourselves ‘Is she in love?’ We +have no definition of love. We do not know what it is. This is the only +question we need put, in the case before us: ‘Is your desire towards +him strong enough, and more especially single enough, to decide you +to make an experiment with him that would create a situation complex +enough to be awkward from the point of view of some of the parties less +intimately, but to an important extent, concerned?’” + +“Yes, that is the question we ought to put,” she agreed. “The answer +is——” + +But he was momentarily engaged in pulling a fine red perch of about six +pounds out of the water. He landed it, and they bent over the tank, to +watch it swimming about in company with her improved pike. + +“The answer,” she resumed, gazing at his image in the tank, “is that +she doesn’t know, but she has made up her mind that the only way to +find out is to live in conditions similar to those which would obtain +if the whole experiment were in hand, and with this object she proposes +to accept an invitation extended to her some time back and live on the +island for a little while in close company with Wang and Yuan, sharing +quarters with two or three of the Chinese girls. Is that the kind +of answer you like? The kind of sentence, I should say.” They left +the tank and went back to their rods. Brown shadows of night were now +lurking in the luxuriant summer foliage of the valley. + +“At any rate it leaves me clear as to your meaning.” He fitted out his +hook with a fresh gudgeon. “You intend to pursue your experience, if +necessary to the last conclusion?” + +“Well—nobody could blame me if I did.” + +“Nobody could, but plenty would. It is the custom to blame people who +put things to the test for themselves.” + +“You would not blame me?” + +“Praise and blame do seem so profoundly irrelevant. Was that a bite? +No. It is getting too dark to see. The chief point is that at present +you are not sure. You will go near the terrible fruit of knowledge, but +will you pluck it?” + +“You see inside of me, Ambrose. I like it. Yes, there is perhaps +something I cannot get over. I don’t know if I loathe that, or whether +I like it. Perhaps you can tell me which. Or ... or what it would be +like ... if something would make it ... easy.” + +Her speech did not often falter. This little hard grain of knowledge +in regard to physical facts she still hesitated to put to the test of +experience. The unilluminated fact discomposed her. + +“That statement you were to prepare for me...?” + +He smiled to himself in the gathering brown darkness. “I am afraid it +is not quite ready.” + +The night fell swiftly at last, faintly lit by a moon still low down +among the hills, like a lotus among great brown petals. Both felt the +weight of a fish when they went to put away rod and line. Soon all was +packed up, and Ambrose rowed the punt slowly away. + +“You will put me on the island?” she asked. + +“Certainly.” + +“And tell my father?—explain to him?” + +“I will.” + +“And remain my friend when they all misunderstand and hate me?” + +“Why, yes.” + +“What a darling you are!” + +He records that when he put her ashore on the Rock she kissed him and +wept. He rowed the punt slowly back through the lanes in the water-lily +leaves. + + + + + 38 + + +Lychnis made her way through its main gates into the walled collection +of courtyards and one-storied houses where the relatives of old Wang +and Yuan lived. During many days spent on the island she had made +acquaintance with numbers of them, and now they gave her an eager +welcome, overjoyed that the fair-haired and fairy-like stranger should +have accepted their invitation. But her first night, alone with two +Chinese girls in the lanterned chamber, was strange. They chattered +to her in a speech like the speech of birds; they rolled themselves +up fantastically on their queer beds; and, kind and affectionate with +her as they might be, she lay shaking by herself in the darkness, +unutterably alone. + +With morning there were many things, apart from the pursuit of her +enterprise, to fill her mind. It was amusing to watch her companions +plastering their hair down with resin. Other young women came in to +assist at her toilet, some dressed, as was more usual among them, +in the ordinary costume of a Chinese girl; others, for the sake of +pleasing her, or because it was their custom, in robes copied from the +fashions of many centuries. An embarrassing interest was shown in her +affairs. They offered her a quantity of clothes to choose from, and +watched her with delighted and confusion-producing comment while she +managed the combination she effected of her own soft underclothes with +robe and trousers in heliotrope and green. They laughed over her. She +pleased them. + +After breakfast, when she was introduced to some gentle elder women, +she was taken by four or five of her friends to a room with an effect, +in the clear morning heat, of pink and pale green and gold. There were +elaborate chairs, Chinese books, a chessboard in ebony and amber, a +stringed instrument (which later she learned to play), two or three +landscapes on silk, objects in ivory and jade and unknown precious +metals. An attempt was made at conversation of an explanatory kind. + +The youngest of them—a demure, slender girl, who bent and twisted her +body with the grace of a willow in the wind—indicated names, such as +Golden Apricot, Blue Lotus, or Scarlet Moth. Then she put a question: +“Married?” + +“Not married,” Lychnis replied. + +“Those two married,” the child indicated, pointing to an elaborate, +indolent beauty, and a girl with a sad, intelligent face. “Hsiao’s +wives.” + +Lychnis was shocked. They seemed so young for that hideous painter, and +it was tactless of the child to have introduced the subject. The beauty +smiled secretly, as if she had some fountain, and no mystical one, of +consolation, and the sad one wrung her hands. It was to be gathered +that the reactions of these two young widows were of the human kind, +not like those of their extraordinary relatives. + +It occurred to Lychnis to ask whether Yuan was married. It came to +her that he might have a wife or two wives. There was an exasperating +titter. “Yuan!” Two or three shaped their mouths to his name, +producing an effect as if they were astonished, or scandalized, or +contemptuous—she could not tell what. + +Then the beauty spoke—in English, surprisingly: “Yuan not a man—neither +is Wang Li.” + +“You mean?” + +But she would do no more than smile, and Lychnis leaned back on her +apple-green cushion, angrily wondering how to find out what she meant. +Was it meant that Yuan was a spirit, or ghost? A Yuan that was a ghost +might be more agreeable in the capacity of husband. She suddenly felt, +among these matter-of-fact and human young women, and there came with +it a dismaying sense of unreality, that she must have been dreaming +about some porcelain image in a museum or a figure on a scroll. + +“Are you sad that Yuan is not a man?” asked the beauty, with quite +European cattishness. + +“How well you speak English!” Lychnis graciously replied, desirous of +friendly relations. + +At this also there was a titter, and the demure child explained with +readiness and a remarkable virtuosity in the method of allusion that +her lovely cousin had learnt this and more from Quentin. + +Lychnis closed her eyes, not caring to learn whether the slender +young lady had also learnt at the same knee. Quentin, in his hateful +irresponsibility, she savagely reflected, knew no restraints. But how +would it be to spend the rest of her life among these twittering golden +mice? The sad one, the intelligent one, perhaps she would not lightly +permit herself what seemed to Lychnis to require the profound assent +of reason and imagination. Yuan might take her away, of course. She +suffered a wave of anger that he did not come. + + + + + 39 + + +Yuan was away in the mountains, and as day after day passed without him +Lychnis sank deeper into doubt and misery. Then at last he came back, +sought her out, spent all his time with her, and they began to weave +their lives into one strand. They spent days and nights in the Flying +Dragon, often at great distances from the valley; or sometimes they +sought strange experiences among the neighbouring forests and crags; +and the summer wore on to its full splendour. Afterwards she gave +Ambrose some account of these various experiences, and he chose three +or four to illustrate the progress of her relations with Yuan. + +She began to be influenced increasingly, it appears, by the silent and +deliberate guidance of his mind. He had means of conveying his thoughts +to her without speech, and this means he used more and more effectively +as their intimacy deepened. One afternoon of serene and golden beauty +they were strolling, steeped in this conversation, through a birch-wood +among the hills. They came upon three Rishi, or mountain wizards, +contemplating the smoke of incense in a green circle under the trees. +Behind the Rishi was a porcelain image, shrined among leaves, a thing +of infinite stillness. The two friends silently joined the group; Yuan +leaned against a birch trunk, chin in hand. Lychnis lay prone. But from +time to time she looked round at Yuan, for he seemed to have withdrawn +his mind from her, to have plunged himself, without thought for her, in +the contemplation of the smoke of incense. And the three Rishi were of +the most repulsive ugliness—the first huge and sensual, with a belly +that burst through filthy rags, distended ears, and the face of a demon +of wrath; the second small and thin, with the face of a froward newt; +the third deformed in the spine, crab-armed, lascivious and cruel. +They took no notice whatever of the newcomers, and sat for so long in +a tremendous immobility, like that of the brooding porcelain figure, +that the flap of a leaf overhead reverberated through the forest and +seemed to echo down long passages in the mind. Their foul and repulsive +appearance began to be more incongruous with so profound a stillness; +their ugliness was so clearly not the sign of any present passion that +they seemed to grow unreal. They might be about to vanish. She suddenly +perceived in their faces the signs of immortal, worldforgetting youth. +Then came a solitary message from Yuan, that these were men who had +left behind them the passions of the world and given themselves to the +experience of reality. “It is the presence of reality,” he said to her +mind, “that displays the unreality of the outward world.” The wrathful +one stirred faintly at the passage of thought from mind to mind; his +wrinkled eyelids perceptibly twitched. + +Yuan returned to the contemplation, and Lychnis found herself being +drawn in—wandering, rather, in a world of fancies on the edge of what +was too cold and uncongenial for her to enter. At first the sensations +in her body intensified. There was an itch for movement in legs and +fingers. She was acutely aware of the thrust of her chin in her hand, +the strain of the muscles at waist and abdomen, a fly buzzing in her +hair, a pebble under her knee. But a gentle wind played on her calves +and head. Discomforts faded. She became aware of the beautiful lines +and relations of her body. She relaxed, and the tree-roots on which +she was lying seemed to embrace her, to gain contact with her; the +life of the tree gained contact with her life. She turned on her back +in the embrace of the birch-tree, and began pondering on the delicate +tracery of leaves, swaying and glowing in the peaceful sky. She was in +a world of trees—birch, poplar, chestnut and ash; tall silver trunks, +brown twisted trunks, smooth boles, tender shoots, branches carrying +a weight of ivy; green tranquil leaves, broad, flat leaves hanging on +long stems, white fluttering leaves like clouds of butterflies; in a +world of pale green and misty substance, and deep green with dark, +lucid caves, splashes of golden yellow, blurs of red-brown. There was +an imperceptible, infinite rustling, an unseen flitting of birds, +sometimes a note; a tranquil diffused light, and beyond the tree-tops +an immense pure well and medium of light, a warm sun-drenched region +of inter-stellar space, longed for by the senses. The roots under her +body stretched up to a silver trunk that lifted its weight of foliage +into the world of foliage and light, lifting her spirit with it. She +was among myriads of leaves, exulting, whispering choirs. It seemed to +her that the spirits of those who have loved the light of the sky dwelt +in them, tasting the sun and the warm winds, saturated with light, +with air, with the unseen medium of life and being. A profound calm, a +strength of reposed, victorious soul, pervaded the leaves, a dignity of +that which fears neither life nor death, not subject to them. Sometimes +a bevy of young leaves fluttered with a gust of angelic laughter, or +there was a vast stir of passionless conversation, a communion of +those who are beyond passion, reposing in the myriad forest leaves. +She felt, certainly, a presence. It was what she had perceived in the +hideous faces of the Rishi. A presence that was not a presence; a +presence seen in the structure of beauty, but yet it was not beauty; +she found it also in music, in a formula, in the valley, in the eyes +of Yuan, but it was not any of these; not happiness or unhappiness, +nor life or death, but pre-existent and yet non-existent—such phrases +from Yuan’s conversation came to her mind. She turned her gaze to the +serene and smiling face of the porcelain figure among the leaves. It +was a thing of great stillness. It was inactive, but it seemed charged +with activity. “It lives,” was her first thought; and pat came the +silent answer from Yuan: “It more than lives. There is more than life.” +A vista was opened to her. The presence in the life of the trees, in +the not-life of the figure, in the unreal faces of the Rishi, was the +same presence—the intangible, the unnameable. She perceived a reality +outside thought, unhuman and without the warmth and pleasure of +thought, a reality that she could not grasp with mind or senses; but +the experience of it brought joy. + +And dimly, only dimly, she felt Yuan beside her in the sea of forest +thoughts, leaf thoughts, as if he guided her where she floated. In +the apprehension of him, in that realm of experience, there was no +distaste. She felt closer to him when her senses were submerged. She +was where there are no distinctions of this and that. + +Her thoughts were broken into by spoken words. The Rishi were coming +to the end of their contemplation, and they returned to the world in a +state of unhuman gaiety. There still sounded in them the mirth of the +Paradise where they had been. + +Their gaiety abruptly came to an end. “There are two imperfect beings +in contemplation with us,” said the demon of wrath. + +“One,” added the newt, “is very imperfect, being full of half-thoughts, +and even whole thoughts, and long pauses of irrelevant dreaming. Those +who have thoughts in their minds should not gather round the smoke of +incense.” + +“The other,” contributed the third, “is nearly thoughtless, nearly +unconscious; but he impedes the flow of reality into himself and among +us by some attachment to the passions and desires of men.” + +“A brother!” piped the newt, with a gurgle of newt-like laughter, “an +immortal, has drowned the never-ending merriment of the immortals in a +draught of red and serious desire!” + +Yuan did not change countenance, but he drew her away, and they were +followed as they went down the rocky path among the birches by sounds +of immense hilarity. This is the life he is destined for by family +tradition, reflected Lychnis, and he is to become like these, though +not so ugly. + +His conversation on the way down was somewhat of that which is more +important than desire and life, beside which human pleasure is +insignificant. “Those,” he said, explaining the point of view of his +three acquaintances, “who have once found the satisfaction of non-being +desire it, and they shun the things that belong to existence, as, for +example, friendship and love.” + +That might not be inconvenient, in some circumstances, was the thought +that presented itself to her attention. It came forcibly at first, then +faded in a myriad quivering forest thoughts, at the heart of which, in +a radiation of light and power, through a wisp of the smoke of incense, +the image of the porcelain saint eternally smiled. An unearthly smile, +it was, without scorn and without pity—a smile that made all human +experience seem irrelevant, and all human language conceited. + + + + + 40 + + +At the height of summer the rains came; the fiery flowers and the +fantastic hills were extinguished in a blur of rain, in a steam and +smell of rain throughout the valley, in clouds of rain drifting among +the crags, arrows of rain slanting across the Lake. + +For a day or two Yuan and Lychnis stayed at home, amusing themselves +in the laboratories, talking in the library, studying paintings on +silk, handling bronzes and porcelain, looking out at the rain. They +had plenty to say and do, but the deluge had a voice for Lychnis, and +she desired to feel the drench on her body, to be enveloped in the +embrace of warm rain. The third day, therefore, they took a punt and +a cormorant, and went fishing, with only the protection of a flat +umbrella, she in her glass-green silk, he in his hunting costume of +russet-brown with a note of crimson. Forthwith they were gasping under +the minute insistent drive of the myriad rain arrows. They made their +way down the squelching path, among dripping laurels, to the shore. + +She laughed. “We are in the power of the rain. It’s delicious.” And he +smiled back, knowing how softly and surely the rain prevails. + +“See,” he called, “the subject for a picture—Rain on a Sheet of Water +and Ducks swimming under a Willow.” + +They found their punt, and she remembers the touch of his wet hand as +he helped her on board. They pushed off, and the rain fell steadily and +softly all about them. The sky was full of grey, swirling veils; pale, +driving gusts swept the leaves and the white lilies. The shore receded, +there was a blur of willows in a slant of rain, a glimpse of rock like +a grey core of rain, and then they were together in a warm, misty +oblivion. + +Lychnis put up her face to the soft downpour, taking warm caresses +on her eyes, in her mouth. The rain drenched her, soaked into her +hair, smoothed the silk robe to her body so that she seemed stripped, +blinded her, beat her, knew every part of her, and prevailed. She felt +shameless and searching caresses down back and limbs, between her +breasts and over her torso, on knees and feet. The rain was possessing +her, but the face of the rain that watched her was Yuan’s. She held up +her mouth to the down-drenching lover, saying, “I adore you.” + +The voice of Yuan replied, “Water-lily.” He was regarding her, +she realized, with a keen gaze, more than ordinarily prolonged and +remorseless. He held her with his gaze, as if he admitted, now, a +special relation between them, and wished her to admit it, too. +Close to her, shut in by the changing wall of rain, he seemed big +and immediate, like a god, like the rain-god. His features, his +yellow skin, his piercing eyes, the slash of crimson on his brown +tunic—sole note of colour in a drifting, grey universe—had a terrifying +distinctness. He was very close and real and living, though his +life—the life behind his unreadable eyes—was not the life of men. +Perhaps because it was not Yuan who looked at her, but the swirling +rain, not Yuan, but the voice of the universe who spoke, distaste for +his flesh vanished. Yuan was dissolved and received into the body of +the rain, and she desired him. Past and future vanished; all else was +shut out; there was no earth or heaven—only herself in a space of warm, +saturating water, floating on water; herself, a cormorant with a fish, +and the god of the universe. In his eyes, deep and unreadable and +fascinating like the black lake-water, she was about to drown. + +He came towards her. She felt her hands taken. The face, impending, +intent, was close to hers. The mouth, a calm flower in the rain, was +stretched out to her. + +She offered herself to the terror of his mouth and the fierce and +shining infinity that looked out of his eyes. There was no person in +them, only a stupendous power. Yuan had vanished; what held her was +not Yuan. Her own body, her own person, seemed also to dissolve and +stream away in the rain. There was a sudden blinding drive, a hurricane +embrace of rain, and in the midst of it his small mouth was a spot of +fire. + + + + + 41 + + +Next day they climbed up among the crags in gusty weather, and as +evening drew on they were overtaken by a shower. There was a mountain +temple by a torrent in the shadow of a rock. They crossed the torrent +by a bridge and took shelter. + +While Yuan contemplated a bronze image of Kwannon, Lychnis looked +out at the crags, the pines, the valley below where the torrent fell +booming. Far away was the Lake and the island in a mist of rain. Or +sometimes she watched Yuan. She had abandoned everything to him, and +waited for what he might be about to command. She was living in the +intoxication of what seemed an unending now, and made no conjectures as +to what might happen when now ended. + +All day their talk had been of the regions where he had taken her with +the power of his mind (and where she had followed easily), of tree +life, of insect life (a weird region), of chill regions beyond, out of +which life takes origin. This seemed to her cold talk for lovers, and +she fancied she was ready that it should become warmer. + +She called to him: “Yuan.” + +His voice answered from within: “Lychnis.” + +“We are like the gods up here. Down there I see the world, where Wang +Li is.” Her mind did not admit the thought of others on the far side of +the Lake. + +“Do the gods live for ever, and are they eternally happy?” she asked. +Her thoughts were all of an immense duration of happiness in some +illimitable space of light, with dim shapes of mountains and pavilions. +But a shadow fell across her mind, an annihilating thought of a +cessation, of a space of nothing, of her lover wilfully dissolving in +emptiness, deliberately ceasing to be. + +At her question, a swift, stony chill seemed to pass across his face. +“Your question has no relation to reality,” he coldly replied. + +“I know you think it,” she answered. “I see quite well that it is +absurd. You have made me understand that life is relative and all that. +But it is a queer thought for a woman in love. My brains have all gone, +you see, because of it, and I—the I that is the living Lychnis, and +this body—clamour to be recognized.” + +She had not spoken to him or to herself so boldly before, but the +thought of what he was always calling the eternal, non-existing +Lychnis, with no body for caresses, the Lychnis pre-existent in a +state precedent to matter and intelligence and life, was not congenial +to her. But was she ready for an alternative? At once her words +presented their own meaning clearly to her mind, and she experienced +a terror that she chose to find delicious. There he was, tall and +brooding, near her in the gloom of the evening. She was ready to +think of herself as having been seized, as captive to the masked, +expressionless god. + +A gust of wind boomed in the roof of the hut. + +“It is chilly here,” she said. “Are we going away to-night to the +forests in the south, where it is so warm?” + +He stood close to her, and her orchid-petal hands lay in his. She +divined a formidable debate in his mind, and wished that she could have +read the eyes that gazed past her through the window. If he did not +take her to the forests.... If they stayed here.... This might become +her bridal chamber. She let the thought take her fully, and in the face +of reality looked through the window for an escape. There was only rain +and frowning crags and the valley, and perhaps the shadow of a picture +of someone far off who could have given her advice. The bridal chamber! +She was happy as she was, after all, in a now that might as well be +unending, and perhaps, if she was to be possessed by Yuan, it would +have to be in the glow of that moment of assent in the rain-world, now +somewhat past. + +He made no reply to her thoughts. With him it was crisis. He chose the +flowering moment of desire to show his contempt for it. Most probably +the moments of silence were an eternity of the anguish of renunciation. + +“Is anything the matter?” She caught some faint shadow of dismay on the +strong mask of his visage. “Are you displeased?” + +There was no answer. There had been a change in Yuan, like the change +that comes over a man at the moment of death. Her breath troubled her, +and she beat in terror at the gates of his mind. “Oh, Yuan! Yuan! +Answer for pity’s sake!” But he had closed the gates of his mind +against her for ever. She stormed, now, to come in, to be his, to +accept the whole sequel of her actions, to accept the experience to +which she had given herself in its entirety. But the experience had +committed treason against her; she was forsaken of God. + +“Oh what has happened? What is the matter?” she pleaded. “Why have +you gone cold to me?” But she pleaded with a porcelain idol in a dark +mountain temple. Her lands still lay in his like lilies in the hands +of an image. She tore them away, and took hold of the window-sill and +bowed her head into them and sobbed, until the fear of the universe +that had turned mercilessly against her silenced even her sobbing with +its formidable cold. Then there was a movement on the still face of +the image; the god put out a ray of protection against the terror that +threatened to overwhelm her, but he left her without refuge from her +grief and dismay. She was to face that, he seemed cruelly to determine, +unaided. + +After a time he touched her on the shoulder and beckoned her to follow +him. She went after him into the twilight garden behind the temple, and +there he plucked a peach from a little tree and bade her eat it. “This +fruit,” he said, “is only for the favoured of God when they have become +fitted to endure deep experiences.” + +Saying this he walked away, and she followed him across the torrent, +homeward through rain that beat her now and loved her no more. He held +his face from her. Once, indeed, he turned to her suddenly, and she +seemed, almost against credence, to see an expression of suffering. +But before it had gained a hold even on her memory it was gone, and he +strode on again. + + + + + 42 + + +The oppressive heat of summer was over, and during the still nights +when the lotus fades Lychnis heard of the wild geese flying southward. +She saw nothing of Yuan for nine days. But entering the summer +pavilion among the tree-tops one brilliant night of autumn she found +him seated cross-legged on the floor, in a haze of moonlight, ragged, +bare-chested, in a rapt meditation. He made no sign of having perceived +her. She sat herself down in his neighbourhood and waited, recognizing +in the moonlight—ghostly remembrance of summer sunshine she was used to +there—details of the bleached, airswept room. Her eyes were drawn to +the space of vast, shimmering sky in the door. A branch of pine thrust +across that space, she remembers, and she watched the delicate shadow +of the pine-branch swaying slightly on the bare floor, travelling +remorselessly like time towards the idol seated by the doorway. He was +so still that soon she believed herself to be dreaming. + +When at last a voice issued from his profound immobility she felt the +assault of terror, as if a phantom had spoken. “There is an imperfect +being in contemplation with me,” the figure said. + +“It is I, Lychnis,” she answered meekly. + +He seemed scarcely aware of her. He was indeed dead in the body. “An +echo reaches me. A voice that spoke once in the world of unreality.” +His tones were the high, uncertain tones of a spirit. He turned his +face, and it was illuminated by an unearthly brilliance. It was like +talking with a god enthroned in a ghostly radiance of the night sky, +and the floor between them seemed a gulf of interstellar space. + +“Here on this lonely earth,” she answered, “speaks a mouth you have +kissed.” + +“What do you desire of me?” + +“I desire to talk about ourselves and about love.” She was suddenly +sharp and insistent. One sees her seated on a cushion, her head bent +attentively towards him, or hanging somewhat like a child’s, and when +her head was hanging like that, one learns, it was because she had +become aware of a new, surprising element—an element of disrespect. + +“Ourselves? Love? Self and love are renounced and forgotten, or if +remembered they are the remembered pain of some past life.” He spoke +like a dreamer in paradise, unwilling to wake. + +“That is taking things very seriously,” she said, speaking thoughts +that astonished her as they came into her mind. “Perhaps, after all, +love is not a thing to be taken so seriously.” A quiver of pain +troubled her as she said it, remembering what delights she had thought +to obtain from life and love. + +Did he stir in his cave of radiance? “The moment of love is past. It +was perfect, and needs no addition. In any sense that is not tedious it +lives forever, and may be continually enjoyed by those who live in the +blissful regions of non-being. The personal in love is nothing.” + +“All the same,” she put in, “it is delicious.” + +“In love,” he repeated, “there is one moment that is eternal. As in +art there is a moment of perfect balance, which cannot be added to or +diminished without ruin, so in love.” + +“Then,” she said, mocking, “I am for promiscuity. The more moments the +better.” + +“But the delights of the lover and the artist,” he replied, “if they +could be prolonged for ever, would not be worth even a hint of the +experience of non-being.” + +Alongside this verbal exchange, alongside the mockery that had come so +unexpectedly to life in her mind, she was hurt with images of days they +had spent together. She resumed: “I will not talk mockery. Let us be +plain about the issue. We loved. We experienced the beginnings of a +perfect life together. You have broken it. You have made a renunciation +in accordance with the tradition of your family. You have sacrificed +me to attain your queer paradise. I want you to satisfy me that it was +right to do so.” + +He said nothing for a long time. She thought that he might reply with +questions: whether they had indeed loved; whether their life together +would have remained perfect; whether, indeed, there had not been +already a hesitation on her part. Then he spoke: + +“The supreme experience of the senses is the renunciation of love.” + +This did not seem to her an answer. She still waited, and soon he +spoke again, looking steadily out through the doorway into the space +of moonlight. His face was frozen and pure. “Do you still trouble my +peace?” + +“I grieve for our beautiful ruined love. I cannot, cannot forget it.” + +His tones fell now with strange modulations, and there came to her +cadences of the flute he played to her in the forest. “The shadow of +the pine-branch travels across the floor, reaches my foot, passes over +my body, but does not enter me. It is thus with the memory of love. +It is thus also with the memory of the world. Around me, when I was +a boy, I saw a world of rock and grass and blue sky. Then, when I had +meditated on these, and perceived the secret life of water-meadow, +torrent and flower, the seen world dissolved. Rock and grass became +vaporous like the sky. I saw trees like apparitions, landscapes of +shifting smoke, mountains of mist beyond mountains of mist melting +endlessly away into an infinite horizon of æther. The world became a +contemplation in the smoke of incense. It has gone, and now I meditate +on what has taken its place. I am possessed of what is greater than +joy. I have come into the calm of nothingness, into the lightless and +ineffable regions of non-being, where there is neither splendour nor +darkness. It is an ecstasy. There is no ripple from the created world; +no tremor of the pain or passion of men; nothing that appertains to the +mind of men; nothing in terms of thought and feeling, of aspiration or +regret. The pure lily is no more than the filthy fungus; the loftiness +of mountains and depth of waters are as the flatness and mud of the +river-bed. I believe in the unnameable, without shape or substance, +infinite and inexpressible; one in man, plant and inanimate matter; +spirit of spirit, origin of origin, form of form. I believe in the way +that cannot be followed, the truth that cannot be taught, the life +which is more than life. It does nothing, yet there is nothing which +it does not achieve; creates all things, yet in itself is not; all +worlds and systems of worlds are born in it, yet it cannot be seen or +heard; in its nothingness life and death and all modes of conceivable +being reside; it does not exist, yet it is home to the soul of man. It +is ineffable. I therefore renounce the world. I renounce joy and pain; +the vision of spring and the solemn reaping of autumn; the delight in +mountain and tree, in cloudscape, in the fierce tiger, in the flight of +wild geese. I renounce the pride of life and the pleasure of the body, +and I renounce for ever the memory and taste of love.” + +The cadences that came like waves out of the moonlit silence ceased. +His visage was white and numb. One could not tell if the deep, oblong +eyes were seeing or if they were blind. Did he breathe? Did the bare +porcelain chest move? He might have been some hypnotic image, drowning +her resentment in sleep. + +But the rim of the moon came suddenly into the doorway, making a +change, releasing her from a spell. It was intolerable that he should +despise the memory of their intimacy, and reject all she had given him +of her mind and senses. “Why, why did you kiss me that time?” she +asked, in a storm of protest. + +“I do not remember,” said the calm voice. + +Now he seemed immensely foreign and impenetrable, as if she had been +in love with a creature. Fiercely she remembered the Jupiter swan that +had made love to her that first morning, in a fit of inexplicable +desire. Had it been like that with Yuan? No communion of spirit at +all? Her ideas about him had been fictions of the mind. The angry +desire to be kissed once again by that fiction whose mouth was a spot +of fire at once consumed her. She longed in a storm of resentment to +wake his senses again, to see those flower-lips crumpled with the +fire of passion, to see them grey with the ashes of it. But what art +had she to tempt him with? Or, indeed, what art could have equalled +the natural beauty of her shape, the fragile and intoxicating bloom +and mystery of her person, the troubled loveliness of her mouth, of +her eyes? Troubled, certainly, they were, but in them was a gleam of +that unstriving and creative energy on which her lover meditated. In +those subtle and moving relations between shoulder and breast, in the +ineffable curves of her body, shone openly his uncreated principle from +which all order and beauty proceeds. + +These, maybe, were his thoughts, and evidently he perceived hers. “That +which is accidental in your loveliness has no force with me. Only the +eternal has force. The eternal shines in you.” + +Once again, amazingly, there streamed up in her a fountain of mockery, +but the icy reality of his renunciation froze her mockery at her lips. +“I believe,” she said, hesitatingly—“I believe that I am more of an +adept than Yuan, for I could laugh. I could laugh like old Wang and +the Rishi. I am less bound to the world and to passion than Yuan if I +can laugh. To renounce is to be bound by the tie of renunciation.” But +no sign of emotion or any response appeared on his face, and swiftly +once more she fell under the hypnotic spell of his stillness. He could +not be mocked into life. She had to meet him in the reality in which +he rested. “I am a woman,” she said. “I see no opposition between your +unnameable and my now. Time may surely be made delicious, for the +unnameable must be in time, too, and in the usage of love. It certainly +is for a woman.” + +“The supreme experience of the senses,” he repeated, “is the +renunciation of love. The renunciation is imperfect if it is only made +by the one. You have apprehended the bliss that I now experience. I +brought it to your spirit, but your own nature made you capable of +receiving it. Your thoughts and desires are not altogether of earth. +The earth in you is earth, not of human flesh, but of the narcissus. +You have eaten the mystic peach. Why cannot you therefore go all the +way with me and renounce your share of what we had in the world?” + +She felt a vague terror. She faltered. “Even the narcissus needs the +usage of love.” + +“Why do you not learn to attain the full ecstasy of contemplation in +the heart of the unnameable?” + +“I do not desire to sit here motionless, like a dreaming flower, +without texture or colour, and receive in my dream a seed from your +dream to beget a dream.” + +“It is life that is a dream,” he corrected. “To dread the unnameable is +to be a lost child that dreads to find home.” + +“Home! You have found home ... through me!” She received illumination. +“You brought me here as an excuse for renunciation, as an exercise; you +used me to make your renunciation as difficult, as exquisite, and as +notable as you could. And now, perhaps, some shadow of earthly passion +makes you urge me to accompany you. I will not. I have a home for my +spirit as well....” She broke off, for now terror snatched at her like +the cold hand of death. It was the dread that he would paralyse her +life and make her sit there for ever in a cold and spiritual trance. +There was some unknown and compelling reason why she should escape; +there was some urgent and unrecognized desire. The satisfaction of her +being, she now knew, was elsewhere. With a cry she fled from that bare, +moon-swept pavilion, and left the symbol of her experience staring into +the moonlight. + + + + + 43 + + +Ambrose finds it difficult to decide from the recital that Lychnis +gave him what was her dominant mood during the following days. There +was an element she did not dwell on, but it was important—an element +of incredulity, perhaps, at finding her grief supportable. We see her +flitting about the woods, driven, in company with the leaves; the +wind was her own bewilderment. Mostly she went with her eyes on the +ground. Sometimes, no doubt, she would stamp her foot in anger for the +pleasant days Yuan had ruined, and wring her hands out of helplessness. +But it seems there were also days of which she tells little—days when +she surprisingly lost her trouble in adoration of their splendid +heedlessness. That heedlessness was a character of the universe with +which she now discovered in herself a surprising affinity. + +Of one critical day she told nothing at all until long after, and for +some time Ambrose left blank pages in the diary. But one day he was +able to fill them in. + +All was turning brown in the woods. Not a green leaf of summer. +Nothing but early twilight falling over the mountain hut, and sad +autumn rain. Yet, oddly, she did not feel a commensurate gloom. The +clouds drove across the sky, now lowering and resentful, now swift +and angry, now melting in vapour of tears, now piling onward high and +contemptuous. But her spirit did not answer these changes; it remained +calm; it derived a satisfaction from the magnificence of the moving +cloudscape; it exulted, even, in the deep and steady passion of the +waterfall pouring from the wooded shoulder of a mountain, in the vast +tranquillity of the high crags that floated above seas of rain. She +stood in the shelter of an overhung rock—a tiny, green-robed figure in +the majesty of the mountains—and examined her state of mind. Where was +her grief? Washed away on the rain that swept in gusts over the distant +Lake. Where was the bundle of moods that made up her troublesome self? +Blown away on the winds that tore through the pines, shattered and +obliterated like the leaves of summer. Had she any regret for her +loneliness? She was incredulous to find that she desired no companion, +that she had need of no human being. Had she any fear of the solitude +of the mountains? She looked round at the wizard shapes of pine-tree +and rock to see if she could frighten herself, and there was nothing in +her mind but a strange, sweet, and growing exultation. All alone under +the huge overhung crag she laughed her tiny insect laugh—and checked +herself, for surely it was absurd that she felt no grief. But there it +was, a sensation as if waves out of heaven had flowed into the body +that her self, Lychnis, had vacated. Such a thing was preposterous, she +decided; and pursued her way homeward, resolvedly denying the almost +intolerable pleasure that invaded her. She walked with the heavy gait +of one who suffers. + +Then, fronting her, in a thicket by a glade, she perceived the merry, +blanched face of Wang Li, peeping among brown leaves that fluttered +and danced on his aged bald head. A wild fawn nuzzled in his hand. He +called her, and she approached him with the demure gait of one who is +sorrow-stricken, but underneath this dissembling her heart beat like a +bird’s, for she seemed to be standing within the play of forces that +flowed from him. Out of the corner of her eye she stole a glance at +the smiling, scant-bearded visage. He was unguessably old, yet younger +than the flowers that had been in the glade that April. He was full of +a frightening, unhuman wisdom; on his face there played the wrinkles +of a vast laughter. And unmistakably she found in herself something +corresponding. + +“So Yuan has abandoned you,” he said, “and you do not know where to +find some relief from your temporary sorrow.” + +She caught his eye. There were lightnings in it before which her +dissembling vanished like silk on hot coals. She broke into peal +after peal of laughter, and Wang beat his old head in an ecstasy of +merriment. The fawn cropped the grass in complete indifference. + +But swiftly she became grave again. “I do not understand myself,” she +told him. + +“It is simple enough.” + +“All the same, I don’t understand why, when I was so dearly in love +with Yuan....” + +“In love with your left knee!” + +“What do you mean then? Was I not in love?” She reflected, almost +prepared, now, to believe it. “It is true, there was always a +hesitation. But I can explain that.” + +He doubled up with laughter. + +“I really can. There was a difference of flesh between us. He was a +foreigner, you see.” + +The echoes of his laughter drifted to the mountains. + +She was a little mortified. “It is insulting of you not to believe +me. I only know that I shall never love any man again.” Now the deep +pleasures of the summer came back to her heart, giving it a twist. + +The fountains of Wang’s mirth were too much for him. His bleached and +shrunken old body could hardly contain the elemental upwelling. The +universe itself laughed at her in his old eyes as it had rained in +Yuan’s. “Let us walk,” he gasped; “let us go home.” He wiped tears from +his cheeks. Then once more the beauty of it overwhelmed him. “She can +never love again!” He held his sides. + +“Well,” she expostulated, “there is nobody. I could not love my father +or my old friend Ambrose. The rest bore me. I do not want love. I have +this queer new pleasure in me instead.” + +They scrambled down the valleys, he subject to recurrent fits of +amusement. She could not withstand him, and at last allowed herself to +regard Yuan’s seriousness and her own bewilderment as a joke. “What has +come to me?” she asked the old Sage. + +“Death,” he answered. + +Was this true? She felt as one who recognizes that a tide is about to +seize and drown her. + +“If not dead, you are dying,” he continued. “Did not Yuan give you the +mystic peach that shrivels the soul and leaves a house for another +inhabitant?” + +“But you said I am to love,” she protested, displaying an agitation +that came uppermost in spite of herself, an agitation that did not +really seem to belong to her. “How can I love when I am dead and have +no desire?” + +“Cannot the immortal take pleasure in love—in compelling lips, in hands +that awaken, in...?” In so-and-so and in so-and-so. The old man made +her blush with his account of the delights of the senses. + +“But you,” she interpolated—“you are a Sage ... you are above +desire....” + +“A Sage is not necessarily a drivelling idiot,” he replied. “I am very +old. It is more than a hundred years since I was interested in what may +interest a younger man, and the immortal in-dweller has other objects +with me. But there was a time.... The unnameable, when he takes the +place of the self, has no objection whatever to making use of the +furniture. But he is master of desire.” + +“But why did I not stay with Yuan and meditate with him for ever?” + +“Because you are a woman and have more sense. Oh, the seriousness of +these young men! He will get over it, as I did. But he has done his +duty.” + +“But why did he give me the peach?” She had so many questions to ask. + +“The immediate occasion was your firmness of heart in following the +strange beckonings of the imagination. In consequence you have lost +your soul and gained the no-soul. This is immortality. Regard yourself +as one of the lucky ones of the world, for infinity now lives in you. +Joy and sorrow will be lost in transcending experience. None can +withstand the silent and invisible force that possesses you, and nobody +can take it away. Accept what has happened to you, young woman. Regard +yourself as being dead to the world, and at the same time, when your +lover kisses that coral mouth, bite his lip with your little teeth.” + +They had come to the shore of the Lake, and he took her back to the +island in his boat. She gave herself to the tide of immortality that +was flowing into her throat, choking the life in her. She had become +very serious now, but suddenly he looked up and said: “What fools +we are to speak what cannot be spoken, imagining that what we say +corresponds with reality!” His ironical laughter rang out over the Lake. + + + + + 44 + + +Once more Ambrose is sitting with Lychnis on the verandah. It is a warm +autumn afternoon, and they are taking pleasure in the sunset glory of +aster, dahlia and chrysanthemum that surrounds the Pavilion, and in the +golden cloud-rack of leaves that now drifts on the lawn. + +She came back, he tells us, so self-possessed, this once moody and +relentless fairy. She had a certain calm dignity, unself-conscious and +convincing—because, as Wang told her, she had lost her self in what is +more authoritative than self; she had opened the way and permitted in +herself the play of forces that brook no questioning, at once terrible +and lovely. + +She was perched on the rail of the verandah, clinging to a post, in a +fit of meditation, and sometimes a leaf drifted against her cheek or +shoulder. + +“I realize now,” she said, “how completely I had forgotten you all. I +do really think you had passed—all of you—utterly out of my mind. It +is surprising. It would have been quite easy never to see you—any of +you—again.” + +“So loosely,” remarked Ambrose, “are people bound to one another! It is +true—many men might be one’s father, or one’s husband. It is a habit +formed accidentally.” + +“I find it odd that my lot should have fallen with just you and the +others.” + +“You do not find it disturbing that human relationships should be so +fluid, sentiment so flimsy, and the universe so heedless?” + +“I find it beautiful. I should hate the world, now, if it were not all +death and change. I have no use for anything that is not inexorable. I +like the universe to stare pitilessly—with eyes resembling Yuan’s. It +is only the cold and the passionless that I can admire. Ambrose, fancy +a universe all mushy with love, like an over-ripe pear!” + +“Excellent!” Ambrose remembers being conscious of enthusiasm in his +voice, more surprisingly of a flush on the flower-texture of her face. + +“Yuan helped me to enter the mind of tiger and eagle, to become the +tiger and the eagle, and I found in them what I now find in myself, +something I can’t describe—something immense. I have been a tree, too, +you know, and a lotus, and a beetle. What I found in all of them Yuan +has now become. He has given himself entirely to the contemplation of +it in its nakedness, untransformed into bird, or mountain, or man. +I did not want to follow his example, I suppose, because there are +things I may find amusing in the world. Wang says that, having found +the kingdom of the unnameable, the world has been given to me as well, +and this is in order. But I think I have still just a little farther to +go. The peach hasn’t quite done its work, and when I’m entirely dead +perhaps I shall be like Yuan.” + +Lord Sombrewater came along the verandah and sat down beside Ambrose. +His eye was more pheasant-like than ever. He was glum. Lychnis had +given him the outline of her story, and informed him of her willingness +to go where he liked, but she had not given him certain information. +He could have got it with a question, but he did not care at any time +to get his information by direct questioning, and this was a question +somewhat difficult to put. + +Ambrose replied to her thoughts. + +“There are people,” he observed, “so securely in alliance with our +friend Yuan’s unnameable that they do not fear to step down into the +world and drink deeply of its pleasures.” + +“You, too, have tasted—” she began, and relapsed—refused, swiftly, to +meet him in a common experience. “There are so many ways of approaching +what it is I desire to say,” she continued, “and no words for it. But +it really doesn’t matter. The chief thing is that nothing any longer +matters, except the continual experience. One is so at peace.” + +“The peace of God,” Ambrose interjected. + +“I suppose one must say ‘God.’ But there is a great danger of being +misunderstood.” + +“This experience,” he observed, “is enjoyed in various forms by many +people, yet it is one experience. The truth is one truth, expressed +with modifications due to climatic or other circumstances. It is named +after the system of Jesus, or Mithra, or Buddha. There is the Holy +Ghost, or the intent contemplation; the paradise of Nirvana or the Holy +City, with tastefully-jewelled gates—a hundred different expressions of +the same thing. There is a form of the experience marketed by priests, +another by wine-merchants at twelve and sixpence the bottle, and this +has the advantage that it augments the national revenue. But whether +the experience in itself has anything at all to do with reality, we are +not in a position to decide.” + +“I am glad you can laugh at it,” she said, with friendliness. “It +is the mark of those elected to salvation that they can laugh at +themselves. Those who have known truth laugh a lot—like Wang. I have +learnt that.” + +“You have learnt a great deal, Lychnis.” Lord Sombrewater entered the +conversation. “Does there remain any region of experience which you +have not understood?” + +Ambrose perceived from her enigmatic smile that she understood her +father’s question. She did not seem willing to give an unequivocal +answer. Lord Sombrewater had no hesitation in questioning her +intimately before him, and it would have been in accordance with her +own relation with him to reply plainly. But she did not answer plainly. +He noted that there had been some change, and wondered whether he +should not seek an opportunity to withdraw. + +“There is no region of experience that I have not understood,” she +replied. + +“Upon exploration, I presume?” queried Lord Sombrewater. + +“It is a question whether a thing that has not been physically +experienced can be understood,” she murmured. + +He turned his head away in swift impatience. + +“Hallo! hallo!” A stinging shout travelled to them across the lawn. It +was Quentin coming back from an expedition with Fulke Arnott and Ruby. +Seeing Lychnis on the verandah, he rushed over the lawn like a bear, +leapt the rail, put his arm round her, where she clung to the post, +and kissed her full on the lips. Then he drew back and gazed at her, +saying reverently: “The Holy Spirit returns. The morning dew is once +more seen on the flowers. The lamp of heaven shines, banishing for ever +the dissensions of this little band and, as we hope, the bad temper of +our host. If you require a husband, command me——” He paused for her +reply, and Lord Sombrewater remained still, shading his face with a +plump, capable hand. She shook her head, laughing. “Then I will be your +virgin for ever,” he exclaimed. + +But she looked at him so that he began to laugh, and laughed until he +shook the verandah. + +“Tell me,” she desired him, “if I answered ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to a plain +question, would you believe that I told truth?” + +“I should never listen to what you said,” he replied, “but to you +speaking. There is no question of believing you. There is that in you, +I perceive, that cannot disguise itself with lies. But permit me, +once more, before I resign the world. We have not seen that autumn +gold-brown hair for so many days, those shadows like mauve asters—or +are they heliotrope?—those copper lights, those dahlia-red lips, that +delicious cavern, those little white teeth....” He kissed her again. +“And now,” prayerfully folding his hands, “to that All which is more +than Nothing, that Nothing which is less than Everything.” He looked +sideways at her. + +“You are a restless man,” she said, smiling. “You have no peace in you.” + +Ruby and Fulke Arnott followed on to the verandah, he sheep-faced, she +with her radiance a little qualified. + +“The wedded pair,” Quentin announced—“at least, not yet wedded in time. +A marriage has been imagined, let us say, and will shortly be achieved +in matter, between—and so forth. Rejecting Achilles, Venus prefers and +elevates the chimpanzee. I am envious. I have no morsel.” + +Fulke glowered, powerless to silence him. He would not look in the +direction of Lychnis. Ruby, on the whole, tended to behave as if it did +not matter what Lychnis had done, since it was Lychnis who had done +it, and always provided that Lychnis made no attempt to recapture the +affections of Fulke. But her impulses were checked by the somewhat cold +behaviour of her father, who presently came out on the verandah. + +“Good-afternoon, Lychnis,” he said. “Back again?” + +She smiled at him and said nothing. + +“To-morrow we depart, early in the morning.” Once more Lord Sombrewater +entered the conversation, abruptly. He glanced at his daughter, +Ambrose saw, for the effect of his words. She displayed nothing but an +infrangible placidity. + +“Thank God!” muttered Fulke. “Back to dear, dirty old Europe, with all +there is to fight in it. By the tripes of St. Francis——” + +“Fulke, dear!” It was Ruby who remonstrated. + +“I forgot, darling.” He glanced at Lychnis, and went scarlet. “What I +mean is, I long sometimes for the good old fight against the forces of +capital....” + +Lychnis laughed out—a laugh of pure, satisfying joyousness. “Fulke—my +dear Fulke—you are coming to life too, like Quentin. You are all coming +to life again. For I must confess,” she explained, “that you had all +become a little faded before I went to stay on the Rock. You had lost +personality, you know, beside Wang and Yuan.” + +“By the foul liver of St. Eno ...” began Fulke. “I’m sorry, my dearest.” + +“Well I’m blessed!” exclaimed Sir Richard. He looked uncertainly at +Sombrewater, bit his lip, and gravely said his say. “It is reported, +Arnold, that there are bandits in the countryside.” + +“I am disinclined to remain,” Sombrewater replied. “We must trust to +the name of the Dragon. He owes us that, I think. What do you say, +Lychnis? I do not desire to force you to go or to stay.” + +“Let us go.” + +“We are at one, then, on this, at any rate.” He spoke testily. “You had +all better begin to pack.” + +They departed, except Sir Richard. Lychnis also made as if to go to her +room. + +“Your room has been changed,” Ambrose had to point out. + +She turned, puzzled. “By whose orders?” + +“At my request, Lychnis,” said Sir Richard gravely. + +“What does this mean, Richard? I had not been told of this.” Lord +Sombrewater was sharp. + +“I had in mind to save her the inconvenience of the questioning to +which Ruby would no doubt subject her.” + +“This is not at all kindly done, Richard. You say in effect——” His +lordship’s anger was rising, and then he seemed to realize the weakness +of his position and turned on his daughter. “For God’s sake, Lychnis, +tell us—are you my daughter still, or ... or another man’s wife ... or +... my God! this hurts me ... his mistress!” + +Ambrose watched the scene with interest. The dusk was gathering. The +questions seemed to flap and flutter against the luminous calm of her +spirit like blundering bats. She stood among them smiling a little +(though her breast did indeed heave somewhat), and replied: “You compel +me to answer a question that seems impertinent. What is it to anyone +here what has happened to me while I have been away? But if you place +so much importance on the difference between one state and another, and +if it hurts you to be kept in suspense, I will tell you—I am a virgin.” + +There was silence. Then Sir Richard spoke: “I beg your pardon, +Lychnis,” and went into the Pavilion. + +When he was gone, her father hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks. +“Thank God, my darling, you are still my daughter! You belong to no +other man.” He drew back, and looked at her as if to reassure himself. +“It is true—quite true—is it not?” + +She suffered his kissing and his question, and answered: “Quite true.” +Then he, too, went into the house; but whether he felt quite sure that +he was secure of her love and sole possessor of her, Ambrose doubts. + +Lychnis, on her part, looked at Ambrose with a somewhat dubious smile. +“In his business affairs my father has much of the calm of Wang Li. He +makes use of impersonal forces, and that is why he is pre-eminent. But +in his relations with me he is destroyed by desire. It is odd, is it +not? They do not realize, they do not mind, that morally I was Yuan’s +mistress. I was prepared”—she spoke to him with a hesitation that was +unusual in their talking together—“I was prepared to be his entirely. I +did not shirk that, Ambrose. It was only accident that I was not. You +understand that, don’t you?” + +“In such cases it is so often accident.” + +“In such cases.... Am I a case?” + +Her eyes were the dusk looking at him, the brown autumn night, +the velvety secret of interstellar space, the cold and heedless +contemplation of God. He feasted on the beauty of it, when she had gone. + + + + + 45 + + +The last night in the valley was deep and secret and starry, deep +blue with a streak of night-changed green where the bamboo grove was, +mysterious with secret processes in grove and torrent, blue and starry +like a still painting on a screen. Not far from the Pavilion a stream +flowed slow and deep through a tunnel of trees and hanging creeper. +Ambrose stood by a gleaming gilded bridge, listening to the rhythm of +the water, feeling the close, secret life of the foliage. Over against +the living wall of the grove he saw cigar-ends moving in irregular +paths, fantastic planets in a dense æther. Over the bamboo flickered a +myriad superb fire-insects, creation of Yuan’s. Beyond the grove burned +a million gold stars. + +The gurgle of the mysterious river in the darkness was flowing sound, +hypnotic rhythm, music streaming out in streaks of some foreign colour +through the thick and shifting blue substance of the dark night. After +some time, he tells us, he became aware that his strange and peaceful +meditation now held a different element—a queer thridding, an insect +noise coming from within the grove of bamboo. Of a sudden it rose high +and clear, and he remembered that it was Lychnis—Lychnis with her lute, +playing the thoughts and motions of her spirit. “Lily-blossom of the +world!” he murmured to the dim lilies that swayed at his feet. “Cold +loveliness of being that buds for a moment of time out of the secrecy +and darkness of unbeing!” He worshipped at this living monstrance of +the body of God. + +Then again he listened intently to the queer realities of spirit that +she was creating with form and movement in the night. The plectrum that +had made a thridding of crickets now made a whispering of the leaves +of the bamboo. Next, solid and clear out of her vision, a sound like +the patter of pearls raining on a temple of porcelain. With composure +and quiet deliberation she made her lute sing the secret of life of the +valley, strength of giant pine, depth and stillness of the lake, high +wind among crags; in it dreamed the exaggerated shapes of Yuan, Hsiao +and Wang Li. It was there in the grove she sang. Ambrose gazed, as one +gazes with the mind into an experience striving to see what is there, +as if he should see her at the heart of the grove in a transfiguration. +But there obtruded upon his gaze, now used to the darkness, the figures +of the seven Sages, listening in their chairs. Had Richard Frew-Gaff +ears, he wondered, to hear her turn the stars and all physical reality +into voices of ghosts? Did Blackwood receive some whisper of the truth +Wang aimed at him? Quentin listened with limbs stretched out in a +rigor of emotion. Terence he dimly perceived with hands wrung between +his knees, frowning perhaps on some new, queer beauty. Sombrewater +had bowed his head in his hand—understanding too fully that he had a +strange lost girl for a daughter. Fulke and Ruby, no doubt, were making +love among the trees, perhaps out on the starry Lake; perhaps they +heard and were afraid. + +His mind returned to the lute-player in the grove. Now she was making +a music that was icy and terrible. Image of pine, lake, and crag +became faint and vanishing. There was nothing human in it, but only a +loneliness of Himalayan peaks and a coldness of outer space. It was the +vision of Yuan. The coldness descended even on the heart of Ambrose as +he was floated near upon the edge of extinction. The starry sky, the +lawn, the grove, the bright gilded bridge, swam, and there was nothing +solid. Suddenly her plectrum tore the strings with a sound like the +rending of silk. There was silence, and out of it there grew a divine +laughter. + + + + + 46 + + +Ambrose gave a pull with his paddle and drove his canoe head-on into +the grey and misty margin of an islet. He shivered, for the cold of +daybreak was still on the water. He had meant to stop here, at the bend +of the Lake, and look finally at the valley and the island, to reflect +on the march of time, taste for a due moment an emotion nobler than +sadness, as the beloved valley and the rich experience of the summer +faded from bright now into dim past. But valley and rock had vanished +in morning vapour. There was nothing but an islet glimpsed in a sepia +mist, a blur of willow, a crag high overhead in the vapour, a dejected +heron brooding on one leg in the shallows. + +Idle for a moment, he let his craft drift out from the reeds. Even the +Lake itself, he reflected, some current in it, was bearing him away +towards the river, towards the hidden Dragon Gorge. He dipped a blade, +and paddled slowly across the water, past islets of reed and bamboo +that stood out of the mist, looking for some place where a lane in the +mist might give him a glimpse of the Valley. Once, indeed, there was a +rift, a view of what seemed some part of the Rock. He was like a man +seeking in his memory for something familiar and forgotten. + +Silently over the water came Lychnis in her white dress, paddling +alone, looking steadfastly in front of her. Their boats rasped. + +“I am sorry,” he said quietly. “I did not mean to intercept you.” + +“It seems to be fated that our paths in life should drift together.” +She spoke very coldly, and he admitted to himself that something was +gone from their relationship. He cleared his mind—opened it to the +possible implications of that change. They came to him. + +“The mist is lifting,” he said, and they both looked back over the +islet-studded water. The distant Rock, the shore of the Lake with their +own mooring-raft of bamboo, a deep grey blur, came into sight like a +dream remembered at morning when sleep cannot be regained. + +She turned her head steadily away, and the mists closed again, blotting +out lake and islet and crag. A voice came from her. “One had pleasant +days there.” The blade of her paddle hung, and the voice came from her +again: “It is not the same, only remembering.” + +She sped her canoe, and he watched her become a blot of white and pale +brown, vanishing in grey vapour. + + + + + 47 + + +Under the leadership, once more, of Such-a-one, the homeward journey +began. Sprot had been released from imprisonment on the mountain of +meditation. The mists lifted soon after they had entered the Gorge of +Dragons; the autumn sunshine was warm; violets were to be seen where +lawn or grove came down to the water’s edge, and a memory of early +summer lingered among the sombre brown shadows under and about the +cliffs. Lychnis would not let them camp in the creek where they had +spent a night when they were journeying the other way. The violets were +ghosts, and the autumn song of birds was an echo, for it seems that her +firmness of heart had left her when they entered the Gorge. + +So they went swiftly on, helped by the seaward current. Lord +Sombrewater watched Lychnis with anxiety, and Quentin lay in wait, +hoping to catch some advantage out of her reaction. But she shunned +everyone, and was a fiend to Ruby, who lay in her boat. + +Late at night they came to the mouth of the Gorge and pitched their +tents (but not where they had pitched them before) and slept. Ambrose, +however, preferred to keep watch for any portent that might appear, and +at dawn, when he was fishing among the reeds at the deep-flowing mouth +of the Gorge, Lychnis came to him, sweet with the morning, flushed with +despair. + +“It has gone,” she said flatly. “Gone! What shall I do if I am seduced +and deserted by my experience that I loved, Ambrose?” + +“Do you consider,” he asked, “that you have had the experience of God?” + +“Do women have the experience of God unless they are in love?” She +laughed a little, twisting her fingers among the reeds. “God? It is +not a word that means anything. I only had an experience. I don’t know +how to describe it, unless you have had it yourself. I had come to see +the world, men and trees and mountains, as a varying manifestation +of the same substance. I saw that everything was continuous, and the +pine and pheasant on the branch were only another form of me. Me, did +I say? There was no longer any me. Something else was there, and it +gave me joy. It was more wonderful and satisfying than anything I had +ever supposed could happen. I felt myself a piece of the universe, no +longer in opposition to it, an unhappy little piece of separation. The +infinite and inevitable had taken the place of my soul, and now it has +left me, and however shall I get it back?” + +“Calling this experience, for convenience, the experience of God,” he +replied, “one can only reply that God is not to be thought of as a +common seducer. Believe me, before long the satisfaction you speak of +will again fill your heart. Why, there is no cause for despair. This +reaction was to be foreseen!” + +Her slender body was enshrined within the radiance of the rising sun +in a frame of burning willows; her hair was an aureole of gossamer; +but the heart in the midst of her was black. “I cannot feel hope!” she +exclaimed. “I think God will forget me. He must have so many friends.” + +“A thing not really worth saying,” he replied. + +“You are angry with me.” She lifted her face to study him. “You are +almost not impersonal.” + +There was a silence. She would not sit down beside him. It seemed she +must say something that desired to be said with the advantage that +standing gave her. Or was she about to take flight before it could +say itself? There is a disguised desire in her, was his thought—some +powerful desire that she does not recognize, yet, for what it is. + +“You cannot comfort me,” she told him. “My coldness of heart, that +made me laugh, has left me, and I am weak enough to be crying for the +Valley and the Pavilion, and all those summer days and the deep nights, +and—and Yuan. Ambrose—Ambrose—” She seemed on the point of vanishing, +but she spoke on: “You are a man of whom I can ask this—the only one. +You are calm, passive. You will not mind. You see, your memory is so +marvellous, you will never forget one hour of all the weeks we spent +there or one thing that was ever said. And you have seen my soul +stripped naked, so that it is wrong I should ever be the bride of +another man. I desire you to marry me, so that I can always be near you +and look in your mind and be reminded of the Valley, and always possess +the days we spent there. Will you, Ambrose?” + +She blushed very furiously. + +Ambrose sat and looked steadily at his float passing him slowly on the +stream. He smiled queerly to himself. Desire has marvellous ways of +presenting itself to the mind, he reflected. Then, aloud: “In all this +it seems to be assumed that I should be prepared to remain a flawless +and in no way troublesome glass in which you could feast your heart +on the scenes of the past. I ought to warn you—the assumption, which +you perhaps make, that I should be a cold, convenient husband, is +unjustified.” + +She swayed on her feet, and her eyes stared at his unreadable face as +if a spear from an unseen hand had smitten her side, and she was at +grips with the reluctant secret of death. The delicious cavern of her +mouth opened, but no words came. He gave her no help. He met her stare +coldly, giving no shadow of a look that might carry the word of love. + +“Think that over,” he added, and returned to his fishing. + + + + + 48 + + +Late in the afternoon, three days’ journey from the Gorge, they put up +for the night at a mountain-village inn. The inn was high and isolated, +the innkeeper attentive (obedient to the sign of the Dragon). But he +warned them that a band of revolutionary troops was thought to be +approaching the neighbourhood, with fire and sword. + +“Are they, the festering blackheads?” Fulke’s revolutionary sympathies +were a little alienated since his engagement to Ruby. “A lot of +scrofulous thieves unworthy of the high name of revolutionary. By the +giblets of St. Francis’s little dog——! I beg pardon, my darling.” + +“You were going to remark,” put in Quentin, “that these do not carry +bricks for the New Jerusalem.” + +The Sages, the two girls, and Ambrose were gathered in the eating-room +of the inn, talking, and watching the effect of sunset among the hills. +Lychnis alone was silent, turning a matter over and over. Apparently +she had recovered her firmness of heart, but not the transcendent +experience. She had come to a point where she was indifferent to the +past and future. The green tip of a budding flower of joy was fighting +the winter snow and icy wind, the cold death in her mind. + +The Sages and Ruby were apprehensive, at the same time somewhat +boastful. Ambrose found a great deal to amuse him in their +conversation, for, strangely enough, each considered that he alone +among all the others had probed the experience of the summer to the +bottom. Blackwood, perhaps, was the most jaunty. He did not really +quite know where he stood in regard to life, but he fully trusted +that he should soon find out, and in the meantime took an extra lump +of sugar in coffee. Ambrose surmises that the words of Wang Li had +given sanction for the release of impulses too long pent up and not +dissipated or re-directed, and in the first capital they came to there +would be an expenditure of energy. + +Sprot was assertive. “I always said,” he pointed out to them, “that +you would come round to my point of view. You admit that I was right +about....” He did not venture to name names. + +“A fool,” observed Lord Sombrewater, who had no longer any regard to +Sprot’s feelings—“a fool is a man who knows from birth what it takes +others seventy years to find out.” + +But Sprot was not put out. “I do hope,” he continued, “that we are not +in real danger here.” + +“If we are not,” observed Frew-Gaff, “it will probably be due to your +friends in the Valley.” + +“I would like to feel certain that we shall see Europe again,” put in +Blackwood anxiously. + +“I trust,” said Frew-Gaff, “that the Dragon will fulfil his +obligations. I fear, from what the villagers say, that we are in for +trouble.” + +“It would always be possible to go back,” said Fulke. “We had a +wonderful time there, after all. I for one should be contented to stay +there for the rest of my life—now.” He looked fondly at his wench, who +leaned against his shoulder. + +“No,” said Blackwood promptly, “do not let us go back—not unless the +danger is really considerable.” + +“Great things are awaiting us in Europe,” said Terence. “I feel it. I +have seen Europe in a vision, and we are to arrive there safely after +this time of exile and cleansing purgatory.” + +“The Valley would be a very nice place with a decent up-to-date +hotel and a golf-course,” said Sprot. “I should like to see a little +enterprise and capital put into that Valley. Men were made to work, not +to think. I shall never forget....” He shuddered as he thought of that +frightful period of imprisonment with twelve lunatics on the mountain +of meditation. + +“I have not yet understood,” remarked Lord Sombrewater, “what there +was to prevent your coming away.” + +“What there was...! Well, if you were put on a rock surrounded by +water, and every time you put your foot in the water to wade across you +were sort of shrivelled all up your legs and spine with a frightful +tingling pain, you’d soon know what there was to prevent you coming +away.” + +“Couldn’t you jump?” + +“Jump? I tried once! Those devils always seemed to know what you were +thinking about, night and day, and when I jumped one of them gave me a +twitch that sent me in head first. Not till my dying day shall I forget +it. I couldn’t remember where I was for a week. My God! if I had my way +with them!” He went purple at the thought of the indignities to which +he had been subjected. “Go back you may,” he added, “but you go without +George Sprot.” + +“There are some experiments that I greatly desire to make,” added +Frew-Gaff. “I believe I can reproduce some things we have seen lately, +if I can only grasp one or two principles that baffle me.” He kindled +his brows. + +“That you never will,” thought Lychnis. She despised them for having +hopes and fears. It was all one to her, she told herself, if she were +slain there that night. She was looking out through the window of the +inn. Opposite, a toppling jade crag flamed with a faint fire of sunset +from beyond the Valley. The scene did not move her greatly, she found. +She was calm in face of the once heart-hurting beauty of sunsets. She +turned once more to examine her thoughts, all upside down as Ambrose +had put them. He sat there with his back to her, but the current of all +her moods was toward him. + +As the last rays of light departed from the Chinese landscape, stranger +here to them than in the Valley, they heard sounds of considerable +excitement in the village. They all went out into the street, and +presently little crowds of chattering peasants began to pass the inn. +The innkeeper came out at Lord Sombrewater’s request. Such-a-one had +vanished. + +“Ask what the trouble is, Lychnis,” commanded Lord Sombrewater. + +“Refugees,” the innkeeper conveyed, standing impassively with his hands +hidden in his sleeves. + +“What is happening, then?” she asked. + +He directed their gaze across the Valley. A young moon had risen over +the zigzagging mountain, and there on the precipitous side of it, not +half a mile from the inn, were a hundred lights—the camp-fires of the +revolutionaries—and on other hills there were other lights. + +Even as the Sages were looking at one another, and Ruby and Fulke, +in each other’s arms, were making appointments for eternity, a flash +came from the hillside. The revolutionaries had discharged their +field-piece. The shell burst very short. They tried again, with the +same effect, and this seemed to put them in a frenzy, for they began +a furious cannonade and opened fire with their rifles. But not a shot +came over the village, and they slew nothing but the breeze. The +villagers, perceiving that the strangers were miraculously protected, +sought to share in the working of the charm, and soon the party was +surrounded by a dense crowd of bead-eyed Orientals, chattering in the +dark. The flash of guns and a flare in the sky told that the attack was +proceeding over a wide front. + +Lychnis watched the proceedings with unconcern. + +Very soon, perceiving the uselessness of his artillery, the enemy +commander changed tactics, and seemed, from the noise that his troops +made, about to deliver a hand assault. + +“There are perhaps five thousand of them,” muttered Sombrewater. +“Richard—if we could get the girls away? If you could steal down to the +river and get off in the boats?” + +“It could be tried,” said Sir Richard tentatively. “But it is for you +to go, Arnold....” + +“Leg it with me,” suggested Quentin, prepared to die if his last hours +might be amorous. + +“I will not leave this spot in any circumstances whatever,” Lychnis +answered, low and decisively. + +Lord Sombrewater was about to speak, but the words perished in his +mouth, for at that moment the colossal apparition of a dragon, with +eyes like burning topaz, writhed in fearful silence through the Valley +and vanished among the hills. The clamour of the attack ceased, and the +people of the village prostrated themselves. + +“We were rewarded by heaven,” said Quentin devoutly, “for the purity of +our lives!” + +But the attack was forward again. The enemy came on, yelling like +pandemonium, and one after another the flame-beasts came galloping out +of the mountains, and where they passed through the attacking forces +their trail was blazed with paralysed men. + +“This helps,” exclaimed Sombrewater, “but they’re still swarming up +every valley. Do you see them where the flame goes? They’re not being +held.” He sought for his daughter’s hand, and she gave it him. She wore +the smile of a holy one. It had come to her that there was nothing but +a quietness akin to the quietness of space in her heart. The world +might crack and she would be calm, for there was now nothing in her +subject to death. + +It was true that the enemy were not being held, but the mind that +was defending the Sages had reserves in hand; indeed, he disposed of +the attack in a way that was cynically humorous. In the days when +Yuan had taken interest in appearances his interest had been keen and +productive. As he had told them, he was able to reproduce appearances +and conjure up phenomena. The secret of the toys he had devised for the +defence of the Valley had been communicated, in accordance with family +tradition, to the engineers, and they, doubtless, were handling the +matter at the present time. With great subtlety the fiery dragons were +managed so as to force the attack into certain defined areas. They did +not kill, except inadvertently, and, once he was used to them, they +served to provoke the enemy to defiance, so that he was gradually drawn +on. Yet for a long time it seemed to the Sages as if the defence must +fail. But now the dragons were followed by monsters in human form, with +blue, scowling faces and tongues of red fire, who floated over the +forest. Their robes seemed to blow and flap in the breeze, disclosing +the limbs of demons; shadows of hate lurked on their brows, and their +green eyeballs glowed balefully. Each carried a scimitar under his +arm, and one of them, by way of preparatory gesture, cynically shaved +a forest from the mountain. The revolutionaries were checked, but amid +scenes of compulsion and terror their commander forced his way to the +village—a big, hideous man—hewing and slaughtering with an immense +curved blade. + +He was on them, with a dozen followers, before the Sages realized +what had happened, and Fulke and Ruby were already in their hands. +The commander himself, smiling like a death’s head, fixed his eyes on +Lychnis and swung his blade. She found herself looking darkness in +the face, and there was only one thought in her mind—Ambrose would +die too. His existence and hers would disappear in the non-existing. +Already from the cold threshold she looked back at the world, and saw +it as a bright place where those who had learnt to stare in the face +of darkness might command and enjoy desire. Then she saw Ambrose. His +eyes were very far away. He, too, was looking in the face of darkness. +Or did he not love her then? For her, now, he suddenly became the +darkness, the heedless, the unnameable. It was in him, in him, that her +existence was to disappear. + +The bandit lifted his curved blade. It swung once, twice, hissing, +and she still brooded on her revelation. But Such-a-one appeared +at an upper window in the inn with a device in his hand, and at the +third death-bringing swing of the blade he dealt with the chemical +composition of the bandit in such a way that the characteristics which +distinguish the living from the dead suddenly ceased to be present. +Thus also with his followers. + +The din and yelling were now terrific. Lychnis ran to help Ruby, who +had fainted, and tended her while the conflict raged. The angel of +annunciation had visited her and her eyes shone, and Ruby, coming to +herself, perceived that something had happened to her friend. “Oh, +Licky,” she exclaimed, “are we dead? For you look like a spirit in +heaven.” + +“Yes,” answered Lychnis. “I have died, and I am looking back at the +world. I see that I never knew till I died what it was that I wanted.” + +But Ruby, seeing the battle and hearing the din, was puzzled. “I do not +know what you mean,” she murmured. “I only feel that you have become +different from the living.” + +“It is true, my dearest—really true.” Lychnis smiled at her friend. + +A vast blaze of light thrust the reeling hills out into blackness, +and they saw a mass of the enemy pallid and paralysed in the ghastly +glare. Then Ruby shrieked, for a monstrous flame-demon swung a +scythe through a huge circle of the night, and the men who had been +standing huddled before him stood no more. The rest of the attacking +horde turned to save themselves while they could. Then, with a hiss +and a roar that seemed to blast the forests, fire sprang from every +hillside and streamed over the flying forces. The sky became full of +burning villages, and the ears were stifled with the streaming of +unearthly flames. Stricken phantom hosts scattered in panic terror +along the spines of the mountains; crags of burning sulphur toppled +down upon them in obliterating thunder; the mountains themselves seemed +to collapse upon flying armies of spectres; and of the actual and +substantial fugitives who sought among the rocks for some cover from +this spectacle there was none whose heart was not squeezed and ruptured +by the cold hand of fear. + +Our friends watched in silence until the cynical and jocular fireworks +came to an end in fitful lightning and muttering thunder. The terror of +the Dragon was in their minds. But there were two in whom terror had no +place. + + + + + 49 + + +They did not at once enter the paradise that was now theirs. They did +not even speak of it to each other. They pondered the golden future +in secret, and only sometimes, by a glance more subtly effective than +kisses, acknowledged that their blood ran to the same rhythm. For those +who feed their hearts on the substance of eternity there is no haste. + +At last, on a spring morning, the _Floating Leaf_ lay in Southampton +Water. They stood at the rail, the two of them, looking at the bed +of smokestacks, masts and cranes that flourished in the Hampshire +foreshore. It was necessary that something should be said, now that +this daily companionship was to end. + +He regarded her steadfastly. The corners of her mouth were turned up, +and she smiled faintly at the water. + +“You are making a fox-face,” he observed. + +“I was thinking of the Valley.” + +“Pleasantly?” + +“Oh, very pleasantly! But how far away it seems, and how strange the +things we all talked about, even the words we used! They would sound +comic in this atmosphere. Was it real, or did we dream it? Or is this +unreal, England and these liners and railways?” + +“All life is unreal, as you and I know,” he answered her. “We accept +it, because we must; but sometimes reality is felt. It sticks through, +and the world seems queer beside it. You and I have it for always in +our hearts.” + +“That is true,” she said, “even if we dreamt, even if we did really for +a time live in a landscape on a vase or a silk. But how did it come to +you, this experience of unbreakable, calm joy that has come to me?” + +“I came by it years back, in war and disaster.” + +“Why do you and I have it, and not the others?” + +“I cannot answer that. It is predestination. There are some that cannot +help but be saved.” + +She touched his hand. “We are in love with one another, are we not, +Ambrose?” + +He answered, “Yes.” + +“It took me so long to find out. One could not recognize a happiness +that was so wonderful and so close. Why did you not tell me?” + +“I did not want to plant love in you. I wanted it to come of necessity, +from the centre of your being.” + +“Did it hurt, when you saw me in love with Yuan?” + +He smiled. + +“Oh!” she cried, “I love you because you are cold and unmoved and +unescapable, like Fate! I love you because you do not desire me and +my beauty is nothing to you. I die and am forgotten in the night of +your being. You are death and change itself, the beautiful, pitiless +universe in which we are all swallowed and become nothing.” + +“You also,” he answered. “We have eaten the peaches of immortality, +you and I, and we are no longer you and I. We have tasted the fruit, +the substance of the universe, that is eaten in the endless fields of +Nirvana. We are dead, and we can descend into the world like gods, to +command and enjoy desire.” + +“You do desire me?” + +“Yes, my flower, my insect.” + +She was in his arms, face to face with his unswerving regard. What she +found in his eyes must have contented her. + +“You understand—everything?” He asked to hear her say “Yes.” + +“Everything.” + +“And this time there is nothing to get over?—no repugnance?” + +Once more she drew up the corners of her mouth, and, “On the contrary,” +he heard. + +He kissed her, and there was that in his embrace to catch away her +breath with surprise and joy. + +When Lord Sombrewater came along the deck and saw them sitting together +he was struck by something new in their attitude. An immense and +unexpected possibility presented itself to his mind. + +“What’s this?” he asked, with his swift, birdlike regard. + +Lychnis told him, and he made no attempt to conceal his satisfaction. +“Well, really, this is most gratifying! As you must marry—I suppose you +must—some day——” + +“To-day,” she interpolated. + +He was somewhat taken aback. “We’ll see—we’ll see. Time enough. But +if it must happen, I’d rather a thousand times it was Ambrose than +anyone else in the world. Really, very gratifying—very gratifying—and +surprising. You old pike! I shall feel that her husband has not taken +her away from me—has not——” He coughed. “A half-share, perhaps—really, +not more than a half-share. Why, with Ambrose you’ll hardly be married +at all.” He beamed, and they exchanged a tingling glance. Then, +formally, they received his blessing. “God bless you both—a thousand +times. You old pike!” Lord Sombrewater blew his nose and, as a second +thought, went off to announce the news to the Sages, and, in due +course, to his wife. + +They sat side by side, and looked at the smooth water and the spring +sky, and wondered at the instant and almost intolerable reality of the +happiness that was in them. + + * * * * * + +Ambrose did not forsake his notebooks upon his marriage, but he does +not write much about himself or intimately about Lychnis. One sees +them, though, with that infinite serenity in their souls, contemplating +the world with instructed affection and containedly giving themselves +to the surprises and exquisite pleasures of love. + + * * * * * + +Lord Sombrewater seems to have regarded the birth of a grandson with +mixed feelings. Apparently it was not somehow what he had expected. + + +The End+ + + + Transcriber’s Notes: + + • Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + • Text enclosed by pluses is in small caps (+small caps+). + • Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. + • Redundant title pages removed. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76764 *** diff --git a/76764-h/76764-h.htm b/76764-h/76764-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86d74aa --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/76764-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7890 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="utf-8"> + <title>Landscape with Figures | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + + body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; + } + + h1 { + font-size: 4em; + font-weight: normal; + } + + h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + p { + margin-top: .5em; + margin-bottom: .5em; 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+ border: 1px solid; + color: black; + font-size: small; + padding: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 5em; + font-family: sans-serif, serif; + } + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76764 ***</div> +<figure class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + <img class="illowp67" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<div class="titlepage"> +<figure class="illowp93 mt2 mb2 bbox1"> + <img src="images/title.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<div class="illowp94 bbox"> +<div class="bbox2"> +<h1>LANDSCAPE<br> + <span style="font-size: 85%;">WITH FIGURES</span></h1> + +<div class="xxlarge bold lh1"><i>By</i><br> + RONALD FRASER</div> + +<figure class="illowp18 mt10"> + <img src="images/colophon.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<div class="xlarge bold mt10 mb5 lh1"><i>NEW YORK</i><br> +<span class="xxlarge">BONI & LIVERIGHT</span><br> +<i>MCMXXVI</i> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<figure class="illowp93 mt2 mb2 bbox4"> + <img src="images/title.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> +</div> + +<div class="titlepage bold mt10 mb10"> + <hr class="title"> + <div class="small lh1"><span class="gesperrt1">COPYRIGHT 1926 :: BY</span><br> + <span class="smcap large">BONI & LIVERIGHT, Inc.</span><br> + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES</div> + <img class="illowp5" src="images/logo.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="TOC">Table of contents</h2> +</div> +<ul class="center" style="padding-left: 0;"> +<li><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a><li> +<li><a href="#1">1</a><li> +<li><a href="#2">2</a><li> +<li><a href="#3">3</a><li> +<li><a href="#4">4</a><li> +<li><a href="#5">5</a><li> +<li><a href="#6">6</a><li> +<li><a href="#7">7</a><li> +<li><a href="#8">8</a><li> +<li><a href="#9">9</a><li> +<li><a href="#10">10</a><li> +<li><a href="#11">11</a><li> +<li><a href="#12">12</a><li> +<li><a href="#13">13</a><li> +<li><a href="#14">14</a><li> +<li><a href="#15">15</a><li> +<li><a href="#16">16</a><li> +<li><a href="#17">17</a><li> +<li><a href="#18">18</a><li> +<li><a href="#19">19</a><li> +<li><a href="#20">20</a><li> +<li><a href="#21">21</a><li> +<li><a href="#22">22</a><li> +<li><a href="#23">23</a><li> +<li><a href="#24">24</a><li> +<li><a href="#25">25</a><li> +<li><a href="#26">26</a><li> +<li><a href="#27">27</a><li> +<li><a href="#28">28</a><li> +<li><a href="#29">29</a><li> +<li><a href="#30">30</a><li> +<li><a href="#31">31</a><li> +<li><a href="#32">32</a><li> +<li><a href="#33">33</a><li> +<li><a href="#34">34</a><li> +<li><a href="#35">35</a><li> +<li><a href="#36">36</a><li> +<li><a href="#37">37</a><li> +<li><a href="#38">38</a><li> +<li><a href="#39">39</a><li> +<li><a href="#40">40</a><li> +<li><a href="#41">41</a><li> +<li><a href="#42">42</a><li> +<li><a href="#43">43</a><li> +<li><a href="#44">44</a><li> +<li><a href="#45">45</a><li> +<li><a href="#46">46</a><li> +<li><a href="#47">47</a><li> +<li><a href="#48">48</a><li> +<li><a href="#49">49</a><li></li> +</ul> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2> +</div> + +<p>This book is only an attempt to reproduce, in words, experiences that +have come in contemplating the landscapes, flowers and figures in +Chinese pictures and on their porcelain. It is the story of a human +mind that follows the mysterious and half-wanton beckonings of such an +experience until it is seized and understood. The originals of my three +Chinese friends are to be seen in the print-room, the ceramic-room, and +the Asiatic galleries of the British Museum. I am not attempting to +convey any profound meaning, unless it be the meaning of that mystical +proverb, “Everything comes to him who waits.” The system of thought +that I attempt to reproduce is Chinese and very ancient. I have not +been able to make up my mind whether it contains something of general +value, or whether it is merely a thought-puzzle with which those who +find pleasure in such occupations may amuse themselves.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span> + <div class="xxlarge center bold">LANDSCAPE WITH<br>FIGURES</div> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="1">1</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_w.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="width: 6em;"></span>WE +take this flower-filled and graceful story of a summer visit to +a valley of the Far East from the diaries and minutes of Ambrose +Herbert. It grows from his leaves like an image of some choice, +cultivated flower, some Asiatic lake-lily; there is, indeed, a delicate +lily-smell, a faint water-smell, that teases the sense with a hint of +queer landscapes, alien, impenetrable faces, in an unreal world of +paradoxical dreams.</p> + +<p>Yet they visited the real heart of that image, these seven men who +called themselves, in a vein of humour, the Seven Sages, and it appears +that they scarcely held their own, when it came to philosophy, with +the uncompromising practitioners of wisdom they found there. After +all, they were Europeans. Men of considerable sensibility, they yet +did not give the things of the spirit undue attention; still less did +they permit any vision of the universe they might have had to interfere +with <span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>their way of life. They lived by common-sense adjustment to the +more obvious in circumstances, occasionally, at sentimental moments, +following a chance gleam—but not following it too far. Five of them, +that is. The other two had gone wrong.</p> + +<p>All seven were associated in business—Lord Sombrewater’s business—and +he was their president. They travelled in his steam-yacht. In England +it was their custom to dine once a week at Lord Sombrewater’s house +or in his bamboo garden, to hear a little music perhaps, drink wine +(except one of them), discuss life and the world. Now the industrial +world was seething at this time, and Lord Sombrewater had seemed to +retire his forces, leaving a picket here, an outpost there, a strong +point where necessary, well held. He had withdrawn into the quiet of +the ocean to mature plans, taking with him these friends and chief +lieutenants, who had each something to contribute. Much business was +done daily by wireless. He kept touch with reluctant Governments, and +controlled his generals in charge of the field, with relentless hand. +Ambrose remarks that a wise captain-general of industry will not omit +to remember that the good faith of a deputy may fail, and he is certain +that Lord Sombrewater, a silent man, harboured during his silences +considerations of that order even in regard to his six friends.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span></p> + +<p>Ambrose Herbert was annalist and minute-writer to the Sages. He was +not himself a Sage. He recorded the sagacity of others, fitted for +this exercise by the passionless receptivity of his mind. Every +morning, every hour, he swept his mind clean, so that he might receive +unprejudiced the impressions of the day, and no doubt that is why the +lineaments of the people in his records, and the scenery, are so clear. +It came to his ears that this passivity was looked on doubtfully in a +man not yet senile, not yet even middle-aged, hardly mature; it was +complained that he had no character, except in his being characterless; +it was thought unfortunate. But Lord Sombrewater thought otherwise.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="2">2</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="width: 6em;"></span>THE +first time we see them they are in far eastern seas. Lychnis, who +is Lord Sombrewater’s daughter, Ruby Frew-Gaff and her father (the +tall, polished Sir Richard, with pale blue eyes, Lord Sombrewater’s +chief physicist) are in the motor-launch with the light-bearded and +bard-like Terence Fitzgerald and Ambrose himself. Something had gone +wrong with the pelagic trawls that they used for capturing plants out +of the ocean. It seems to them a rather strange and other-worldly +ocean, like a sea in a picture, or on a vase. It is afternoon. There +is a magical warm scent in the wind, as if they were near some land +of delicate spring. Terence, the poet-painter-seer, is riding in the +bows, but his soul is afloat. Sir Richard is busy with the apparatus, +and the two girls, who have stolen a forbidden plunge in the sea, are +clinging to the sides of the launch like wet sea-snails. The ship, into +which the Sages have committed the weight of their philosophy, the +<cite>Floating Leaf</cite>, painted the colour of the bamboo, heaves gently +a quarter of a mile off on waves of a dark liquid green, which is +compared with the green of some claret glasses <span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>they used, and as the +afternoon wears on the sky becomes the same colour.</p> + +<p>Ambrose, as usual, takes occasion to note some details. He mentions +the longitude, the latitude, the depth, and the temperature at various +levels as registered by the deep-sea thermometer. In addition, he +mentions some details with regard to the two girls; for instance, that +their arms and legs (bloodless, because of the cold) make changing +lights with their wet, plum-coloured bodies, and the patterns move +rhythmically. There is no doubt which of the two he prefers. At least, +whenever he describes them he gives Lychnis more space, possibly +because she is far more complex in her nature and difficult to +describe. He finds a key to the two girls in all their features. Ruby +is red-haired, well-developed and dimpled. Her mouth is described as +full and red, and (for those who have desires that way) of the kind +which, more than any other that he has seen, Ambrose supposes might +be thought kissable—that is to say, for an upstanding and not too +subtle lover. Lychnis is called, amongst other things, flower-like or +spritish. He speaks of a flower-like face, with some trace on it of +spritish and fairy passion. Her mouth seems to arouse thoughts of a +non-sensual order—in himself, that is, for he records a remark of the +Sage Quentin that to kiss Lychnis <span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>on the lips would be to find heaven +through the flames of sensation. But Ambrose asks, would a man want to +maul the body of a primrose with his mouth? In writing of the afternoon +under description, he takes opportunity to point out a relation +between their minds and their physique. Ruby, with reddish hair and +fine shining body, travels tirelessly in the sea like some fabulous, +ocean-going fish, and she is not variable in her moods; but Lychnis +slithers and plays in the fields of the sea fawn-like, and then she is +to be seen at rest considering the waters, or grimacing behind a wave.</p> + +<p>Presently Sir Richard, discovering where they were, commanded them with +tones of displeasure into the boat. Ruby, who had only done what her +friend ordered, obeyed, and Lychnis, stopping first to nose under the +stern as if she were a whale, followed.</p> + +<p>“This is really not very sensible,” he said, with an eye on their +vascular systems. “Down below at once and get dressed.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis stood on the deck for a moment consulting her inward heart. +With her it was not a question of obeying or not obeying. In all +matters she followed some secret and rhythmic way that unfolded +itself to her at a suitable time. Ambrose transfers a sketch of her, +standing there in her plum-coloured bathing dress, to his white pages. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>He discusses her head, shown against sky and sea, as a subtle and +beautiful relation of browns and ambers and pinks. Her eyes were a +surprising brown, greenish in face of the light, and her eyelashes +made a line of blackish purple when the eyelids were lowered. Her hair +seemed amber, light amber to brown, but often it held coppery lights +too, and a sort of deep heliotrope sheen and shadow, as now, against +sunset. The bloom of her skin, he says, was too delicate to injure +with human language—he only indicates a flush of health under the tan +of sun and voyage, and a vividness of colouring that came when her +feelings were high. He does tell us that her mouth utterly satisfied +the mind, with its pink deeper than coral, and a stain of some still +richer hue—he never can decide what it is, and vermilion-purple is the +nearest he can come to it. She had a way of turning up the corners of +her mouth at him. Ruby called it making a fox-face. Then he speaks, +geometrically, of certain curves which presented her to notice as a +young woman. He makes more than a score of attempts, one time and +another, to convey the movement and fine beauty of those curves, to +describe certain relations between one part of her and another.</p> + +<p>She replied to Sir Richard, showing small, sharp teeth and umber +shadows in the delicious cavern <span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>of her mouth: “I couldn’t help it. +There’s something funny in the afternoon, or in the sea—something that +makes one feel dreamy.”</p> + +<p>He smiled indulgently at her. “What does it make you dream of, +visionary, yet not unpractical Lychnis?”</p> + +<p>She answered his smile. “Do you remember the seascape in some +dessert-plates of daddy’s at home? They came from Asia, I think—old, +buried Asia. I thought I had got melted into that picture.”</p> + +<p>Ruby, willing and adoring slave of the finer girl, never venturing to +move without her except under orders, called from the companion-way: +“Do come, Licky darling.” And Licky, her inward heart at that moment +speaking, did not refuse. But she repeated to Sir Richard, as she went +off: “I believe we have got melted into a picture. We are going to have +an adventure in a dessert-plate.”</p> + +<p>When the two young women came back again, clothed and glowing (we hear +that the tiny cabin was electrically warmed), evening was on the sea. +They drew off a little to watch their ship, a blotch of brown-green +floating on deep green water under a sky of dissolving lemon fire. +Terence Fitzgerald still rode in the bows, tall, rapt and motionless +(except that a sigh would now and then escape him, with a sentence +or two). For him such things as Ambrose notes, axes of reference and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>other matters of exact detail, were not of moment. He had a fair +beard, and he was bard-like and communed with the lordly ones, riding +in the bows of the boat. And presently, when the <cite>Floating Leaf</cite> +drifted across the disc of the sun, he lifted his hands up, and his +brows furrowed in what Ambrose calls the pain of his vision. He spoke:</p> + +<p>“I saw a cloud of them like peach-blossoms blown over the sea.”</p> + +<p>“A cloud of what?” asked Sir Richard.</p> + +<p>“The beautiful people.”</p> + +<p>Sir Richard was tickled.</p> + +<p>“They went sunwards, with an ecstasy on their faces, and we are to +follow them.”</p> + +<p>“Ecstasy’s all very well in these tricky waters, Terence, but I should +prefer to see their navigation certificates.”</p> + +<p>Terence smiled. “Believe me or not, my scientific Richard, we are to +find a heavenly country.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis gazed at him round-eyed and more or less believing. She was +prepared to believe everything that sounded beautiful. “He’s in the +dessert-plate, too,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>Sir Richard started the engine and they went back to the ship. Ambrose +notes how swiftly she loomed up out of the twilight, and adds that as +they went on board a fierce, foreign face scowled at them out of a +port-hole.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="3">3</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="width: 6em;"></span>AMBROSE +had passed but a few minutes in his cabin, arranging his +impressions and making a few colour notes, when Lord Sombrewater’s man +knocked with a message. “His lordship’s compliments, Mr. Herbert, and +will you be good enough to step along to his lordship’s room?”</p> + +<p>Ambrose stepped along, and describes the two men whom he found before a +decanter of sherry in the suffused light of the stateroom. There were +bamboos and clouds painted on the delicate walls, so that they might +have been sitting in the grove where the Sages held their sessions at +home. Lord Sombrewater and George Sprot had each a cigar and a glass +of sherry. The former always had a cigar and a glass of sherry at +seven o’clock, and Sprot would have a cigar and a glass of sherry with +anybody at any time of day. The two were in consultation, if that can +be called a consultation where the one party is merely testing the +reactions of the other party to his announcements.</p> + +<p>Ambrose was greeted affably, but with swiftness and decision. “Come in, +Ambrose. Sit <span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>down.” And Ambrose was in a chair. “A council to-morrow +morning.” And Ambrose had made a note on his tablet. “A glass of +sherry.” And the golden liquid was poured out. But Ambrose did not +touch it.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater was economical in thought, in word, in movement. He +wasted no man’s time, and no woman’s. He achieved his desires with the +maximum of deliberation and the minimum of means, and he did not regard +the achievement as an occasion for the wasteful output of sentiment. He +had produced three things of importance—a world-business in electrical +goods, a bamboo garden, and Lychnis. He had created the business by +the remorseless application of drastic and ever-renewed principles of +economy as regards both production and disposal. He had created his +bamboo garden by an economy of mental effort, working to time-schedule, +concentrated utterly during the appointed hour upon the subject in +hand. And he had created Lychnis with an economy in the matter of +demonstrative affection that his wife secretly thought distressing.</p> + +<p>As to appearance, he was short—six inches shorter, except for Sprot, +than the shortest of his six companions. He was bald longitudinally +from the crown. Yet he dominated. He had little plump, masterful hands. +He had a swift, birdlike <span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>glance that dwelt shrewdly for a moment and +divined motives. And in the name Sombrewater there was for Ambrose +(who observes that such impressions came vaguely at sea) some reminder +of the deep lakes and the torrents tumbling among the crags where he +had built those murmuring factories—some reminder of the scenes that +from boyhood must have entered into his lordship’s being, to flower in +Lychnis, perhaps to dream in her, vicariously and uneconomically.</p> + +<p>As for George Sprot, he was a plain, ordinary man, with nondescript +hair and unbeautiful form and structureless, unintelligent face. He +was a “practical” man, and he had been attached in some subordinate +capacity to Lord Sombrewater’s enterprise, and invited to join the +Sages (but he did not know it), as representing that great body of +uninstructed, biased and congenitally foolish opinion by which human +affairs are so largely ruled. His motto was, that one man is as good +as another, but towards men who had achieved distinction in the fields +of painting, literature and music he adopted an attitude of convinced +disrespect. Towards an industrial viscount he adopted an attitude of +careful familiarity which scarcely concealed his adulation.</p> + +<p>Just at present he seemed to be in a state of distressing nervous +excitement. One would have said <span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>that the restraint of his employer’s +manner was irksome to him, that with some other man he might have been +impatient. He was impatient with Ambrose, indeed, because Ambrose was +in no hurry to ask questions, and with Ambrose he had no hesitation in +showing it. His manner towards Ambrose, we learn, was the manner of +a man towards a paid servant, though Ambrose was not, as a matter of +fact, a paid servant.</p> + +<p>Ambrose did at last put one necessary question: “Is there anything +special for the agenda?”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater shot him a glance. “Mutiny of the crew.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose wrote on his tablet, “Mutiny of the crew.” Then he asked, as +usual: “Anything else?”</p> + +<p>A sound like the collapse of a heart escaped from Sprot. “Mutiny!” he +exclaimed, interrupting under compulsion of his feelings—“Mutiny! Don’t +you understand? The crew have threatened mutiny. There is—you said so, +I think, Lord Sombrewater—there is actual danger.”</p> + +<p>“Mutiny is likely to be accompanied by violence,” remarked Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“But, good God!” Sprot burst out, “don’t you see—I——” He met Lord +Sombrewater’s eye (he was appealing, of course, to him through +the protective ears of Ambrose). “Has it quite been <span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>realized +that—er—that—er—we have women on board—girls? That——”</p> + +<p>There was a knock at one of the doors, and he performed what must have +given him the sensation of a considerable saltatory feat. He jumped, in +brief. But it was Lychnis, in a flowered dressing-gown, with her hair +shaken loose to dry. She shrank back a little at sight of Sprot, as a +primrose might shrink from a boot.</p> + +<p>She ran her comb through the waves of hair, making them crackle. “Did I +hear you say there’s going to be mutiny?”</p> + +<p>“That is so,” answered her father. He turned to Sprot. “Thank you +for your advice, and, of course, not a word to the women.” Sprot was +dismissed, in a condition of uncontrol that Ambrose thought pitiable. +Ambrose was asked, by a motion of the hand, to remain.</p> + +<p>It was the half-hour before dinner that Lord Sombrewater liked to +spend with Lychnis. Regularly at seven-thirty o’clock he waited for +her to come in from her adjoining room, and very often she did. +Within limits his affection for his daughter might be said to be +unconsidered. In regard to his daughter there was an abeyance of his +deliberate personality. He loved her, in fact. Ambrose tells us that +the enjoyment of his wealth and his rank had been first and foremost +in the activity <span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>of acquiring them, as an end in itself; that it was +a new and exquisite gratification to him when he got Lychnis to dower +with them. He liked Ambrose to be there during those half-hours, partly +because Ambrose gave Lychnis pleasure by his conversation and advice. +Ambrose is aware that Lord Sombrewater thought him to be a harmless +kind of man. He knows that by a method of his own Lord Sombrewater had +formed the opinion, on consideration of his written work, that Ambrose +was the man to transmit his daughter’s beauty, in the written word, +to posterity. Terence Fitzgerald, who painted for the business those +wonderful and inspiring posters of god-like men radiating auras of +golden brilliance, was expected, likewise, to transmit her beauty on +canvas and in verse; but Terence was not asked in for the half-hour +before dinner. Lord Sombrewater had formed the opinion that Terence +also was an innocent man, but he was a poet, and the behaviour of +a poet was less certainly predictable than that of a white-minded +recorder of things done. And, indeed, the innocence of poets, in +juxtaposition with the innocence of maidens, is apt to work out +unhappily, sometimes.</p> + +<p>So Lychnis might go on brushing her hair, and Ambrose might, since +somebody must if her beauty was to be recorded, describe what the +rhythmic <span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>movement of her arms should reveal; and if, when her body +twisted in the flowered dressing-gown as she flung her hair out, the +line of breast or back or thigh should please him, he might be allowed +to write it accurately down.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="4">4</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_w.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="width: 6em;"></span>WHEN +dinner was finished, Ambrose and Fulke Arnott sat a long time over +their coffee: in attendance, the fierce, foreign face that had scowled +from a port-hole.</p> + +<p>“There’s a council to-morrow morning, Fulke,” said Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“Is there?” rejoined Fulke. “What about?”</p> + +<p>“Mutiny of the crew.”</p> + +<p>“Mutiny of the—— You mean——”</p> + +<p>“I mean they are going on strike.”</p> + +<p>Fulke Arnott, Ambrose says, was a young man with the soul of a +Greek athlete in the body of a chimpanzee, the thoughts of a saint +and the means of expression of a fish-porter. He describes him +as the cleanest-hearted man who ever set himself to the task of +self-expression in foul language. He allowed the fountain of his genius +to play in a preliminary manner. “You mean to tell me that those +stinking Chinks, those crawling, paste-coloured liver-flukes, those +doped nightmare beetles, have had the bowels to go on strike?”</p> + +<p>“Precisely that.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span></p> + +<p>Fulke’s face was greasy with excitement. “Then, Ambrose, we may +solemnly thank God. We meet in the eastern hemisphere what we ran +away from in the west. We learn this hour, comrade Ambrose, that the +blinking revolution is world-wide, and the New World is about to be.”</p> + +<p>“With a population of Chinks, as described?” Ambrose asked. It appears +that Fulke Arnott was a sidereal chemist whom Lord Sombrewater, on +discovering that he knew about the interiors of stars and had a +touch of quaint, constructive genius, had attached to his works with +instructions to reflect upon the interiors of furnaces. It amused Lord +Sombrewater to employ a revolutionary with advantage to his business, +and he was fond of his conversation. Fulke on his part admired his +employer as an artist, while attacking him as the world’s greatest +grinder of the faces of the poor.</p> + +<p>“What do the others make of it?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Sombrewater discloses nothing.”</p> + +<p>“He has the personality of a dynamo.”</p> + +<p>“Sprot is alarmed.”</p> + +<p>“Naturally, the snail-gutted bourgeois.”</p> + +<p>“Frew-Gaff says they can’t get the better of our trained intelligence.”</p> + +<p>“He believes in science, Frew-Gaff does.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span></p> + +<p>“Terence thinks it’s very wonderful. He says the high gods are leading +us.”</p> + +<p>“It’s my belief the high gods are leading us up the garden. What about +Blackwood and Quentin?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t told them yet.”</p> + +<p>“It’s no good looking for Blackwood now. He’s in a trance in his cabin.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose smiled as he thought of Blackwood in his cabin, striving to +hide from life and desire. Blackwood, a too sensitive man, found the +strain of life in an industrial society more than he could bear. Also, +he was not successful in achieving his somewhat exquisite desires. +He failed, for example, with women. Unlike Fulke Arnott, he took no +consolation from dreaming of a perfect world. Fulke was for changing +his surroundings; Blackwood, on the other hand, had convinced himself +that there never can be happiness for anyone, and he found this belief +sustaining. He had therefore embraced what he understood to be the pure +doctrine of Indian Buddhism, and spent his time dodging existence by +a method of protective mimicry, in which he imitated the appearance +of Nothing. He had resigned the position of physiological adviser in +Lord Sombrewater’s therapeutic apparatus department, and now lived in a +cottage and occupied himself with the technique <span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>of self-destruction. +But, as he was soon miserably to learn, he had the processes without +the reality; the form quite without the inspiration.</p> + +<p>“Quentin, I imagine, is not in a trance?” Ambrose queried.</p> + +<p>“Quentin!” Fulke’s brow blackened. “With Lychnis and Ruby for certain. +Showing off his bushy beard and his princely figure in the light of the +moon. The libertine! The outsize, libidinous, bearded rat!”</p> + +<p>“One would not describe him as a rat. There is something too royal and +magnanimous about him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no doubt. He has a royal air. And ruddy cheeks. And fine red lips. +And a chest like a beechtree. And the legs of Ulysses. And arms that +hug. The sort of man that young girls dream of.”</p> + +<p>“It cannot be denied that he is a refined scholar.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t grudge him his successes. Nor do I, you fish! In that realm +of endeavour you only have to try and you are successful. But they +don’t know, poor innocents, how deceptive size is. It’s the promise +that attracts them. The performance is apt to be disappointing.”</p> + +<p>“You are warm. And—may I say?—there is a certain odd discrepancy +between your declared <span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>views on sex purity and the somewhat promiscuous +and even sordid habits of your imagination in that regard.”</p> + +<p>“Pink-cheeked Ambrose, rosy-fingered Ambrose, continent Ambrose, I +don’t reconcile anything. I am the only man in this ship who doesn’t +reconcile his ideas with one another, the only one who isn’t a blasted +walking logic, the only one——” He stopped and patted Ambrose on the +shoulder. “Come on; let’s go up on deck. I forgot I’m a Sage. The +trouble is, you know, Ambrose, that, I mean to say—I shouldn’t mind +if it wasn’t Lychnis. He can do what he likes about Ruby, but when +it’s Lychnis—— She’s too good to be seduced by anybody but a winged, +frowning Eros, and there aren’t such things. What time is it? She +and Frew-Gaff and I are going to begin a new series of calculations +to-night. The wonder that girl is, Ambrose! She feels about mathematics +the way some people feel about flowers. She told me once that formulæ +bud and blossom for her like roses. She’s all rhythm, that girl. She +has the most astonishing perceptions about physical reality, and all +unknowingly. It’s my belief that with just a little more she’ll find +herself accidentally in possession of some extraordinary secret. +She has something in her that no one else in this ship understands, +something mysterious, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>insight—I don’t know what to call it—and she +is unconscious of it. The wonder! The darling! Put that down in your +notebooks and ponder it. I can see in your eye that you are composing +sentences as I go along, you soulless, metal-minded register.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose remarks that he couldn’t do better than record the conversation +as it fell.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="5">5</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_p.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>PRESENTLY +they were on deck. They found Quentin with Lychnis and Ruby +(in cloaks of emerald and rose respectively, with glimmering shoes), +showing off his bushy beard and his heroic figure in the light of a +yellow rose-leaf moon. The ship was moving gently in the foam-flowering +fields of the sea. Above them, against a swaying almond-tree of stars, +could be seen the head of a seaman looking over the canvas of the +navigating bridge. There was no sound but the sound of the sea and +Quentin’s rich voice and the girls’ laughter.</p> + +<p>“Five-and-twenty past nine, Lychnis,” said Fulke.</p> + +<p>“Oh, bother!” She frowned. But the thought of the calculations, once +planted in her consciousness, began to attract her. “I’ll come,” she +said; and chose to descend to the lower deck by an iron ladder that the +sailors used in passage from foc’s’le to bridge. She vanished into the +darkness like some faint emerald emanation.</p> + +<p>“And your mother wants you, Ruby,” said Ambrose.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span></p> + +<p>The rose emanation went slowly and sulkily after the emerald, and +Ambrose delivered his message on the subject of mutiny with a gesture +towards a light that outlined a door in the swaying foc’s’le.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll take ’em on single-handed, in defence of virginity,” said +Quentin, “though chastity requires no defence, for, as Judas Thomas +tells us, chastity is an athlete who is not overcome. How beautiful +is the story of Perpetua, the virgin martyred at Carthage, and of +Thekla, for whom the lioness fought with other beasts in the arena! No, +Ambrose. Purity is absolute. The pure virgin cannot be defiled, for +her heart is not in the work. And that is why we need have no scruples +regarding her.”</p> + +<p>“Thekla?” asked Ambrose. “I am not acquainted with that story. I must +look it up.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="6">6</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AT +ten o’clock precisely Ambrose reported to Lord Sombrewater, who +was playing bridge with his captain and two of the three ladies—Lady +Frew-Gaff and Mrs. Sprot. Ruby’s red head was bent over a book and Lady +Sombrewater knitted. The three ladies did not differ in appearance +more noticeably than sparrows. Indeed, they closely resembled +sparrows, among the painted bamboos. They had all three been very +pretty girls, and that was why their husbands had married them. They +had married them before they knew exactly what kind of prettiness and +what accomplishments they required women to have. As regards Lady +Sombrewater, the very negative of her husband, Ambrose wondered how +Lychnis had been gotten out of that nonentity.</p> + +<p>“And where is Lychnis?” she asked, as he came in.</p> + +<p>“She’s with Sir Richard Frew-Gaff and Fulke Arnott, doing sums.”</p> + +<p>“Queer girl. I missed her after dinner. I thought she was with you.”</p> + +<p>“She and Ruby were with Quentin after dinner,” the captain innocently +said.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span></p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater’s eye was expressionless, like a pheasant’s. The three +ladies exchanged glances, glanced at Ruby, and when she glanced up from +her book simultaneously glanced back again.</p> + +<p>There was silence for an hour.</p> + +<p>“Game and rubber,” said Mrs. Sprot at last.</p> + +<p>“And bedtime,” added Lady Frew-Gaff. And there was a great pushing back +of chairs and shaking of handbags and jingling of coins and picking +up of dropped odds and ends. The choleric Chink came in with Bovril +and whisky-and-soda, and as he went out again, with a last furious +good-night, the ship gave a distinct heave.</p> + +<p>Then Lychnis came in. “Yes,” she replied to a question, “there’s a +wind blowing. Terence is outside sniffing it. He says it’s full of the +Peach-blossom People. He says they keep on flicking the tops of the +little waves with their pink feet.”</p> + +<p>“And what did you say to that?” asked her father.</p> + +<p>“I said no doubt it was true. He looks at the waves a lot, so he ought +to know. I told him about my waves.”</p> + +<p>“Your waves?”</p> + +<p>“Light waves and that. Calculations about them, in rhyme and blank +verse. We had wonderful ones to-night—long flat ones like trains and +some like falling rockets, and a series like the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>rhizome of a bamboo +that keeps on putting out a new shoot. Fulke nearly cried because a +demonstration of Sir Richard’s was so beautiful.”</p> + +<p>By an understanding convenient to everybody, Lady Sombrewater retained +the right to use a tone of authority with her daughter, and now she +ordered her daughter to bed. Swiftly she went to bed herself, thus +putting disobedience out of sight. The other two ladies followed, +shepherding Ruby.</p> + +<p>It very often happened that Ambrose spent the last half-hour before +bedtime in conversation with those two. It was Lord Sombrewater’s +custom to drink a whisky-and-soda and to smoke a cigar, and Lychnis +would chatter or gloom or behave idiotically, as her mood might be. +To-night she gloomed.</p> + +<p>“Cross to-night, Licky?” asked her father.</p> + +<p>“Dissatisfied.” She pulled a lock of hair over her eyes and bit it—a +trick of childhood when people looked at her and she was sulking.</p> + +<p>“What beautiful hands Sir Richard Frew-Gaff has got!” she said. “They +move like beings, with minds, contriving things. Mine are merely +something to finish the shape of the arm.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose looked at her arms and hands—orchids waving on stalks. Fit +to express passion, they might be considered. He looked at her feet. +She had pale green stockings to go with her emerald <span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>dress, and dark +green snake-skin shoes. Her dress was a sheath to the flower of her +body. Underneath, as Lady Sombrewater had told him, thinking him a most +suitable recipient for the confidence—underneath she wore tenderest +stalk-green silk. She liked to feel that her clothes were petals, a +living integument of nature.</p> + +<p>“Been working too hard?” said Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“No,” she answered emphatically. “I don’t think I work at all. What I +do comes to me, and it’s not tiring.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” he observed, “it makes you scratch your head a good deal, +judging by your hair.”</p> + +<p>Her hair was erratic in disposition. Loosed from control, it grew and +flowed from her head in fan-like streams. There was evidence that her +hand had been plunged recently in its depths, for the tonic effect of +irritation on the sap of her genius. She took out the pins, and her +hair spread and rippled down her emerald dress, so that to the queer, +associative mind of Ambrose she seemed to gloom from a torrent of some +cascading tropic fern. The high forehead, heavy with thought, the +considering eyes, with the lids and the shadows that spoke of what he +chooses to call her plant-like passions, were seen in a wavy, ferny +fountain. Nor does he stop at that in his curious description. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>He +often describes her as plant-like, but here he talks of her as having +affinities with the insect. He says that she produced an effect on him +as if she were an insect, with a remote, non-human mind, regarding him +from among the fronds of a fern.</p> + +<p>“Still, I’m not tired,” she said, enigmatically smiling.</p> + +<p>“Nevertheless, you had better go to bed,” put in Ambrose.</p> + +<p>She walked towards the door (painted cloudy between two painted clumps +of bamboo) of her bedroom. She walked with small steps in a line. It +was in her walk that she became a woman. One saw that her knees and +back were a woman’s. In the open door she twisted round on sinuous +hips and thrust out a hand through a torrent of hair in a gesture of +good-night.</p> + +<p>“Why is she so often moody, do you suppose?” asked Lord Sombrewater +when the door was shut.</p> + +<p>“She is twenty-two. She is likely to be dissatisfied until she is +mated,” Ambrose observed.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater accepted this with considerable reluctance. “No doubt +there is something in what you say. The observations of a spectator are +certainly very illuminating. I hardly seem to be putting her in the way +of getting a mate, though, at present.” He smiled, passing it off.</p> + +<p>“It would be difficult, no doubt, for her to find <span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>one among those on +board.” He wondered whether, in fact, Lord Sombrewater was not even +consciously hiding her away.</p> + +<p>“How does she react towards Quentin?” he was asked.</p> + +<p>“It is to be presumed that it is a matter of indifference to a flower +what wind carries the pollen, or whence.”</p> + +<p>“You are doubtless right.”</p> + +<p>“Without pursuing a misleading analogy too far, it is to be remarked +that a certain type of flower-minded and flower-passionate young woman +is often strangely careless in selecting a lover.”</p> + +<p>“That is so,” said her father slowly.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="7">7</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_e.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>EARLY +next morning Ambrose came on deck in a monkish dressing-gown with +a fleecy towel round his neck. The wind had fallen. The morning was +fresh and tender and delicate as a morning in a Chinese silk, and the +sea was rippling and black like a lake. It was time for the matutinal +exercises. Lord Sombrewater’s valet and the fierce Chink were in +attendance with sponges and other matters; fresh and sea-water showers +were fixed conveniently; but it seemed to Ambrose that there began to +be something queer about these English habits in those far eastern seas.</p> + +<p>Five of the Sages were already exercising, or standing under the +showers with expressions of enjoyment or endurance. Lord Sombrewater +was thorough but silent, and occupied himself with the punch-ball. +Fulke Arnott, deep-chested, long-armed, bow-legged and hairy as an +ape, felt his limbs with closed eyes and imagined himself a piece of +Pheidias. Sprot, the pot-bellied and knock-kneed, produced in his +throat a noise which he called singing, and Ambrose presumes that he +felt in the remnant of his soul some echo of what <span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>in an ancestor may +have been a free impulse. Terence stood under the fresh-water shower +like a Druid. His exercises were those prescribed for occultists, and +his mind, as the element drenched him, was concentrated on the purity +of the element. Then he moved to the sea-water shower, and concentrated +on salt health. When he had finished he moved over and stood by the +rail, tall and stately, shading his eyes and gazing into the rising +sun. Far and wide the little dark waves broke idly in tiny jets and +sprays of white foam. “We float, not on water,” he was heard to say, +“but on meadows of snowdrops and deep-leaved violets.”</p> + +<p>Sir Richard Frew-Gaff was most amiable of the Sages at that time of +the day. With his higher centres a little relaxed from the preceding +day’s contemplation of physical reality, and warm with anticipation of +another day’s work, he appeared benevolently, as it were, in the world +of living phenomena, and cracked a couple of jokes. At the moment he +was hanging by the knees on the horizontal bar and hailed Ambrose, +passing in his white towel from the shower.</p> + +<p>“Hallo, Ambrose!”</p> + +<p>“Hallo!” The pale blue eyes of the scientist were looking at him upside +down. “You’re pinker than ever—like a pink cherub in a white cloud.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>Sir Richard swung and landed erect on the mat. “What’s the secret of +your morning freshness, Ambrose? You must sleep like the sainted dead +in paradise. Do you dream at all?”</p> + +<p>“Not unless I want to.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I envy you. I do not sleep too well nowadays.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose would not expect to sleep, he tells us, if his brains were full +of imaginations that chained him to the world of physical appearance.</p> + +<p>Then Arthur Ravenhill came gravely from his cabin. He did not use +the gymnastic apparatus. The functions of his body, assimilative and +excretory, were regulated by the operations of his mind. He digested +consciously, and his exercises took place in his inside. He was able +to perform gymnastic feats with his liver and kidneys, and had in mind +to achieve the supreme accomplishment and reverse the processes of the +alimentary canal. He was very thin. He had the air, in fact, of one who +has attained a considerable degree of self-mortification, and he was +able at any time of the day or night to discipline himself into one of +the four trances.</p> + +<p>“Morning,” said Lord Sombrewater. “Didn’t see you yesterday.”</p> + +<p>He stood with folded hands. “Having been led into sensual thoughts +by the beauty of the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>afternoon, it seemed to me necessary that I +should undertake the four intent contemplations. Thus, abandoning the +idea that there is an ego, realizing that beauty is a glamour in the +mind of that which has no ego, having rid myself of desire for any +but spiritual forms of existence and then convinced myself that all +existence, however abstract, is evil, the sensual images melted away.”</p> + +<p>He passed through the group of gymnasts and stood under the shower like +an ascetic at the door of his forest cave, who by chance receives cold +water on the back of his neck.</p> + +<p>“There’s a council this morning at nine,” Ambrose told him.</p> + +<p>Last of all Quentin came striding from his luxurious bed. He certainly +outshone the rest as a conception in muscle. The deck trembled and +the apparatus shook with the weight of his leaps and his swinging +limbs. From the great pectoral slab to the Achilles tendon he was a +wonder—a muscular temple, a cathedral of bone and sinew, florid and +huge. When he was holding a long arm balance on the parallel bars his +torso resembled the junction of two branches of a beech. Within him, +too, there was no mean nervous system and brain. He knew the classic +poets, Greek and Latin, by heart, and was an expert in the art of +post-mediæval, early Renaissance periods in all <span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>countries of the +world. Ambrose describes him finally as a princely ruffian.</p> + +<p>The exercises finished, they took coffee and met in council. At nine +o’clock precisely Lord Sombrewater rapped on the table before him, and +the Sages stopped talking. He was an expert in the chair. He had done a +great deal of business in chairs, and from behind them. They afforded +excellent opportunities for controlling large blocks of business by +means of majorities, for giving harmless vent to the opinions of +cranks, and for obtaining the consent of shareholders to reasonable +proposals.</p> + +<p>He began: “The situation we have to consider is the following: our +intention was to visit Japan. The crew we took on at Sydney, after +that strange trouble we had there, seem to be under the influence of +some mysterious fear. That fierce-faced Chink chose them for us, you +remember. Well, they have intimated that they will sink the ship unless +we land them forthwith at a Chinese port.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked Sprot.</p> + +<p>It was a question the chairman expected. Shareholders were apt to ask +“Why?” His technique was to unfold just such a minimum of a situation +as sufficed to answer questions.</p> + +<p>“They allege, as a matter of fact, that they have wireless orders from +their union.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span></p> + +<p>“Are all those Chinks and dagos and things in a union?”</p> + +<p>“It’s international now,” put in Fulke Arnott. “I would like to point +out to you the interesting features of this situation. We’re a quarry. +The arch-capitalist escapes from Europe with his accomplices in search +of a year’s quiet to mature his plans, and labour brings him to book in +the middle of the China Seas. It’s good. It’s pretty. It’s encouraging.”</p> + +<p>“It’s all that,” observed Lord Sombrewater. “It’s also pure nonsense. +In any case I do not consider myself a fugitive.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to imply that you ran away,” Fulke replied. “The fact is +that your position is one in which you can afford to take a year off, +so long as you watch the intrigues of the henchmen you’ve elevated and +see that they don’t manœuvre you out of the position of control.”</p> + +<p>“You begin to see the point. The central fact is my position. It is +true that I own the mines, the railways, the crops, the whole activity +of large pieces of several continents. If I cannot escape them, neither +can they escape me. I am their light and air. Without my activity, +races perish. Unless I continue to produce business enterprises, as +Terence produces pictures and Richard Frew-Gaff his hypotheses, nations +will starve.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span></p> + +<p>“My answer,” said Fulke, “is: Let them.” His green-brown eyes glowed. +He had a vision, as Ambrose presently ascertained, of a few young men +and women, few and free, living on nuts in a wood.</p> + +<p>“We wander from the point,” said the chairman. “I do not believe for +a moment that there are any orders from any union. The trouble is +something quite different. But we have to consider what action we shall +take. Let us have views round the table. What is your view of our +action, Fulke?”</p> + +<p>“In theory——”</p> + +<p>“Never mind that. Let’s hear what another business man has to say. +George Sprot, your views, please.”</p> + +<p>Sprot, who had been agitatedly twisting his fingers, was flattered. +“Defy them! If they won’t work, let them starve. If they mutiny, shoot +them.”</p> + +<p>“So useful, George,” said Quentin. “So practical.”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater tapped with his hammer. “Terence.”</p> + +<p>“I saw a cloud of beings, the colour of peach-blossom, drifting over +the sea. They swayed and bent like one branch blown by the same wind. +They were going towards China.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span></p> + +<p>“Attach them, Terence,” exclaimed the irrepressible Quentin. “They’ll +do instead of steam when the boilers go out.”</p> + +<p>Once more the hammer. “Richard.”</p> + +<p>“I suggest that we run the ship ourselves. Fulke and Lychnis and I can +easily work out a theory of navigation. We can complete it in a few +days. Some of us must be crew. Quentin’s a whole crew of stokers in +himself.”</p> + +<p>Quentin passed a remark which Ambrose faithfully records, but we need +not trouble ourselves with it.</p> + +<p>“That’s all very well, Richard,” said the chairman; “but in a tempest I +should hesitate to trust entirely in your very harmonious calculations. +And in any case, the officers have not deserted.”</p> + +<p>“Well, let us be the crew.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that Barnes would care to run the ship with a crew +consisting chiefly of professors. Still, it might be practicable, after +we had disposed of the mutineers. Blackwood?”</p> + +<p>“I have nothing to suggest. It is a matter of indifference to me where +I am or what I am asked to do.”</p> + +<p>“Quentin?”</p> + +<p>“I intend,” said Quentin, “to avail myself of the opportunities for +experience in both countries, and I don’t mind which comes first. There +are <span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>customs in both that I desire to experience. There are things +that I want to see. And there are, I fancy, in Tokyo, examples of the +miraculous flowering of Sung art, in which we meet with an idealism, a +spirituality, that cannot but be ennobling. What moral grandeur! What +ecstatic visions! And my Buddhist friend on my left should not fail to +consider the Ukiyoyé, those pictures of the frail, vanishing world, +those exquisite reproaches to our transitory desires, those——”</p> + +<p>“Precisely. When we reach Tokyo the matter shall receive consideration. +In the meantime I would propose, as a practical contribution to the +discussion, that we inform the crew that we are entirely ready to fall +in with their suggestions and proceed to a Chinese port.”</p> + +<p>The rest were silent. “I suppose it is the obvious course,” said +Frew-Gaff at last.</p> + +<p>“In the absence of any better proposal, such as I had hoped to +receive,” said his lordship, “I think it is. We can discuss what to do +next to-morrow. Is that agreed?”</p> + +<p>It was agreed, and the meeting broke up.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="8">8</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>THE +next council took place, not on the following day, but some days +after. In the meantime there had been a tempest, with devils howling +in the wind and waves going all ways at once and other discomforts. +The <cite>Floating Leaf</cite> got out of control, and now, by what all but +Terence called a stroke of luck, they were aground among the reeds in +the mouth of a river, perhaps a mile up-stream. The river debouched +between fantastic hills like green oyster-shells, and there were some +queer sailing craft, with masts like bent fishing-rods, and other +strange tackle, alongside. The sky was fantastic, like the hills, and +there was in the air a liveliness and odour of spring. Here and there +on a hill-top a plum-tree in blossom, and by a rock on the river bank a +clump of narcissus on green, springing stems. Here and there a willow +or grove of bamboo. “Much like <i>Arundinaria Simoni</i>, from here,” +Lord Sombrewater remarked. “Those bamboos should do well in the sea +air. Nothing like sea mists for bringing out their brilliance.”</p> + +<p>Terence dominated the council. All of them were jubilant (except +Blackwood), having been <span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>brought safe out of danger of their lives. +Terence harped on the fulfilment of his vision.</p> + +<p>“But what are we to do now?” asked George Sprot—“landed here like this?”</p> + +<p>Sombrewater let his opinion be known at once. “Terence has convinced +me,” he said. “Henceforward we cannot do better than trust ourselves +entirely to his pink-footed fairies. Which direction is now indicated +by the Peach-blossom People, Terence?”</p> + +<p>A light was on the brow of the bard. “They drift up-stream, between the +willows.”</p> + +<p>“Well, now,” broke in Fulke Arnott, “it so happened that I was talking +just now to that fierce-faced Chink. Strangely enough, he knows this +country, and he says that the river is only navigable a few miles up, +except for small craft.”</p> + +<p>“Then,” replied Terence, “we are to proceed in small craft.”</p> + +<p>“Or until we meet some Green Figs going the other way,” put in Quentin.</p> + +<p>Terence did not hear. “This morning as I was walking on the deck,” he +continued, “there passed by among the hills a man riding upon a goat. +He had a face of supernatural majesty and his eyes were terrible, and +he rode beside the river and on into the hills, driving his goat with a +branch of Peach-blossom.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span></p> + +<p>“The indications are plain,” said Lord Sombrewater. “We leave the ship +here in the care of Barnes and the officers. The crew, I am told, have +already disappeared, except for Fulke’s friend. We ourselves make a +journey inland with the portable wireless until the Peach-blossom cloud +comes to rest and attaches itself to a tree. If necessary, we accompany +the portent as far as Tibet, but personally I hope the destination of +these ghosts is within reasonable distance. What do you say?”</p> + +<p>“I have a feeling,” said Fulke, “that it won’t be very far. That same +Chinaman spoke of a dragon that is famous in these parts. It lives, I +believe, in the hills yonder.”</p> + +<p>“We must see that bird,” said Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>To George Sprot it was criminal levity to propose exchanging the +conveniences of their expensive machine for the discomforts and dangers +of an excursion through an unknown country, and all because of the +drivelling of a literary man.</p> + +<p>“What will the ladies say!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Naturally we shall consult everybody concerned. Shall we do so at +once?”</p> + +<p>Taking Ambrose with him, the owner of the vessel went forthwith to +discuss matters with the captain. In twenty minutes the whole thing was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>arranged, and Barnes was in receipt of full instructions as to the +course he was to pursue in case of trouble.</p> + +<p>“I shall, of course, keep in close touch by wireless,” said Lord +Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“That makes it all quite easy,” said Captain Barnes. “There’s one +thing, though. We must have some sort of crew on board.”</p> + +<p>“Oddly enough,” said the first officer, “that Chinaman butler and +man-of-all-work mentioned to me this morning that he would have no +difficulty in getting hold of a thoroughly reliable crew.”</p> + +<p>“Did he indeed?” observed Lord Sombrewater. “Can you tell me whether +the said Chinaman had anything to do with the steering of us the night +before last in the storm?”</p> + +<p>Captain Barnes laughed. “It’s a fact he was on the navigating bridge, +lending a hand. But still—what could he do?”</p> + +<p>“Seems to me he took the opportunity to bring us to his own door. Well, +that’s that. I shall leave the maids behind. Our wives will need them +in any case.”</p> + +<p>They went on deck and found the rest of the company gathered there. The +two mothers, with the advice of Mrs. Sprot, were quite definite; their +daughters should not go on such an absurd <span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>expedition. “This is the +maddest thing my husband has agreed to yet,” said Lady Sombrewater. “I +protested from the beginning. I protested against the voyage. I pointed +out that we were quite comfortable at home, but I was not listened to. +I protested against this outlandish China, but I was laughed at. I +protested during the storm. I had a feeling that we were being plotted +against. But nobody seemed to be able to do anything or have any sense +at all. And now look what a pickle we’re in, landed here like this, as +Mr. Sprot so rightly says. I protest——” She looked round for something +to protest against. “I protest against this kind of scenery. It’s most +un-English. My daughter shall not go.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not, mother,” said Lychnis. But she smiled at her father and +pinched Ambrose’s arm.</p> + +<p>Ruby saw it. “Oh, mother,” she pouted, interpreting the signs, “if +Lychnis is going, why can’t I go, too?”</p> + +<p>“But Lychnis is not going,” said Lady Sombrewater, with firm reproof; +and Ruby, who was not so quick as she was red and white and lovely, +looked terribly confused.</p> + +<p>“Then,” put in Quentin, “the sensations that we experience on our +journey will be very much abated in sharpness, because, for a man who +is <span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>pure in heart, like myself, there is nothing gives so much point to +the beauty of early morning, to the sudden revelation of a landscape, +the contemplation of the purity of flowers, the noonday rest, and the +bed among bracken under the winds of night, as the neighbourhood of a +couple of maidens.”</p> + +<p>The three ladies glanced at the girls and at one another, and their +eyes were guardian angels. “I absolutely put my foot down,” said Lady +Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“And I mine,” added Lady Frew-Gaff. “In any case, if one of the girls +fell sick, who would look after her, I should like to know?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, come now, my dear!” put in her husband. “I myself, though not an +expert, know a good deal about the body——”</p> + +<p>“Encyclopædic Richard,” observed Quentin. “And for the matter of that, +I also know something of the body.”</p> + +<p>“And Blackwood was actually a professional physiologist.”</p> + +<p>“A physiologist is not a mother,” said Lady Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“The body,” observed Blackwood, “is but a collection of obscene guts +and unpleasant juices. Beauty is therefore a superficial illusion and +the reality is extremely revolting. The body——”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span></p> + +<p>Lady Sombrewater waved the girls away. She was used to these +uncompromising declarations of the Sages, but she had not got to like +them, and she could still protect the girls.</p> + +<p>“The body,” continued Blackwood, “is merely an involuted skin, highly +specialized at various points, and capable of sensations, especially +tactile sensations, which some—as, for instance, Quentin, who has not +received enlightenment—consider desirable. Man, in brief, is nothing +but a piece of skin capable, in contact with another skin, of a supreme +sensation which results in the establishment of a third sensational +skin. Of the behaviour of these skins and their obscene accompaniments, +and of the cunning fluids by which, for their extraordinary object of +perpetuation, the said skins are cleverly kept in what is curiously +known as health, I have a considerable knowledge. The two maiden skins, +therefore, would be in a position to receive expert assistance should +they fall ill and inexplicably wish to recover.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Blackwood!” began the three ladies at once.</p> + +<p>But Lord Sombrewater put an end to the discussion. “We’ll settle all +that presently,” he said; and they heard in his voice their doom, and +perhaps (though Ambrose was not able to find out whether their thoughts +were precise) the doom of their daughters.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="9">9</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AMBROSE +found an opportunity, during the afternoon, to ascertain from +the two girls their views as to the expedition.</p> + +<p>He had gone ashore with them, at the instance of Lychnis, and they had +climbed to the top of a humped green hill so as to survey the country. +There they stood, under a plum-tree in blossom, protected, as Lychnis +observed, by cousins of Terence’s messengers from Paradise. Lychnis +herself was in a fragile plum-colored frock, out of compliment to them, +and her red-haired fellow was in willow-green.</p> + +<p>Behind, between two contortions of cliff, lay the sea. Far away, +across the wrinkled and fissured hills, there were mountains with the +unmelted snows of winter lying on their tops like petals of narcissus. +The afternoon was spring-like, and there seemed to Ambrose to be a +fragrance of lilies; but whether it came from distant fields or whether +the girls were scented with it, he could not quite decide. But he +suddenly remembered that the Chinaman had spoken of a great lake of +water-lilies beyond the mountains of the interior.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span></p> + +<p>Lychnis stood on the hill with her hands clasped behind her, frowning +at the snows.</p> + +<p>“Is that where we are going?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“The indications point that way, I believe. Does it amuse you to go?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes! And really, if we don’t find something new, something strange, +there, I think I shall die. Shall we perhaps discover some secret of +life there, do you suppose?”</p> + +<p>“You mean?”</p> + +<p>Ruby was wandering about, rather bored, and Lychnis, as often before, +talked intimately to her confessor. “I am so tired of reading books and +meeting people and thinking, just to fill up the time. I am so tired of +being conscious and trying to be more conscious. It is a disease that a +drink of genuine life would purge out of the system. I want to become +so that I’m waiting to get up in the morning just because it is another +day to live; then, when I lie down in bed at night, sleep would be a +deep physical pleasure. I wish it was a young world, with only a few +people in it, and spring meant that one would go out of doors and ride +away on some quest.”</p> + +<p>“Romantic,” he observed. “And is not that what you are to do now, with +your squires?”</p> + +<p>“But it will be only us, and we only fill up the time, without zest and +unconsciousness. Would <span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>you call my father whole-hearted any more? He +knows now that he makes what is not worth making, and he has lost touch +with life. Sir Richard lives merely intellectually, and he only knows +about the how of things and argues fantastically as to their why. He +makes out God to be a symbol in mathematics. Then Terence. His visions +are old, and I think they are pathological and mad. His auras and +reincarnations and glittering spirits from other planes, and all his +vibrations and rhythms and things—they are the cloud-rack of a decaying +personality. They are illusions of visions; and who would follow them +to the world’s end, except daddy, more in contempt than faith? And as +for Blackwood, he is so disillusioned that he wants to come to an end, +and maltreats his mind with some old lost discipline for making it +think of nothing, which it was never meant to do. And Sprot does not +even know that there are thoughts, or doubts, or despairs. He’s merely +a cell, and he can only market goods, I am sure without zest. No, Fulke +is the only one who has any vision of a sweet and joyous world. He has +youth in him, and desire, and all that. But his shape displeases me.” +She looked up at the plum-blossom burning on the branches above her.</p> + +<p>“There is Quentin. He has zest,” Ambrose observed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span></p> + +<p>“But what for? Yet he pleases me, and if I find nothing at the end of +this journey I think I may let him please me more—if he can. For one +can have pleasure if one can have nothing else. Yet there are certain +things about love that I don’t thoroughly understand—you could tell me, +if I could ask you. I think I could.”</p> + +<p>Her head was bent in thought. Then she raised up her passion-lidded +eyes, and Ambrose took the opportunity to examine her state of mind.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it is not life that you desire,” he said thoughtfully. “There +is something else—you will understand what I mean some day.”</p> + +<p>“You mean love, I suppose?” she asked, indifferent.</p> + +<p>“No, not that.”</p> + +<p>“I find love a bore,” she observed. “It might not be, I can conceive. +Several have loved me, and Fulke now I’m afraid, and Quentin, if we +are to call that love. And I love myself undoubtedly. When I see +myself in the mirror I wish, sometimes, that I were a young man, and I +feel that if I were women would love me, and I would take one—perhaps +Ruby, though she is rather stupid. I could love a god, if he wasn’t +too curly-headed and milk-white. Mine would be dark-haired, not fair, +like Terence’s clumsy Irish heroes. But there are no gods, unless +there are some lost here in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>China. Mine would have an air of profound +thoughtfulness. If there were gods, do you think I would have a chance?”</p> + +<p>She looked so comically serious that Ambrose laughed at her.</p> + +<p>She was petulant at his laughing. “You don’t love me, do you, Ambrose? +You only think I’m funny.”</p> + +<p>He says her sentence came at him like a flung blossom with a little +dart in it. He records his answer:</p> + +<p>“I can make no talk when it comes to ‘I’ and ‘me.’ Really, I’m not sure +that I’m aware of feelings and desires and so forth.” He remarks that +he scarcely knew how to put it.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know,” she replied scornfully. “You only make notes. We are +all specimens. Still, that’s just as well, because if you were at +all likely to love me”—she flushed, now, at the word spoken before +in a rushing impulse—“there’d be nobody left to talk to. You know, +Ambrose....” She hesitated, looking about in the grass as if words +might spring up there. “It seems funny to say ... I mean, all those men +are a nuisance in one way or another. When they look at me their eyes +are seeing me as a young woman. Daddy, even ... you understand? Fulke +displeasingly, because he’s like a chimpanzee and I find it insulting, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>and Sprot sentimentally and disgustingly, and Quentin—rather +excitingly. And Sir Richard, too, Ambrose, though it sounds wicked of +me to say it, but I can’t help knowing. Terence, of course, pretends +I’m his inspiration. Do poets embrace their inspirations? I expect so. +And with Arthur Blackwood it’s the way he sternly doesn’t look at me, +and when I’ve been talking to him he always goes into four or five +kinds of trances. It’s all a nuisance. But you, when you look at me and +talk to me, though I know you perceive every inch and movement of me +and very many of my thoughts, but not all by any means, I don’t mind. +It is so, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>He bowed, and admired her standing up straight and frowning and flushed +against the stem of the young plum-tree. A pink blossom fluttered down +on her.</p> + +<p>She held on the way of her talk. “Now you are admiring me and making a +mental note of my shape. You will record, later on, that the sky behind +the blossom”—she turned to look—“is all tender apple-green, because +it’s soon going to begin to be evening. Well, look at me.” She stood +up on the toes of her slender shoes, and threw her arms out and her +head back, so that he could study her breast and throat. He did so, and +discusses the twin blossoms of her, and her whole shape, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>as a relation +of subtle, slender curves that had a most stimulating effect on the +mind and carried it beyond thoughts of physical beauty to profound +thoughts of an informing creative spirit. He mentions that her throat +was a springing flowerstalk.</p> + +<p>“There,” she said at last. “You have looked, and it’s nothing to me. It +would not be nothing if I were in love. I should be glad and happy at +being studied. But I’m glad to be quite assured that I’m not, because +now I know that one day, soon perhaps, I shall be able to ask you +questions—questions I could put to no woman, last of all my mother, and +no other man. You are the only soul in the world, Ambrose, who could +receive from a woman such questions as I shall ask you—the only soul +who could answer them without being silly. Soon—there are things I must +ask you soon. Over there,” she pointed to the distant mountains, now +cold and spiritual in the sinking sun—“over there, perhaps, we shall +find someone, and there will no longer be something missing. There will +be a note found to complete a music. And you,” she added with sudden +malice—“you shall be marriage registrar.”</p> + +<p>Then Ruby came wandering back—a lazy, redheaded Juno—and with her hands +she clasped a mass of flowers to her bosom. “These are for the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>ship,” +she observed. “Why didn’t you come and help me when I called? And what +have you been jawing about? You’re always jawing, you two.”</p> + +<p>“We’ve been talking most frightful stupid nonsense,” said Lychnis.</p> + +<p>“I expect so,” replied Ruby with unconcern.</p> + +<p>Then some of the others came from the ship, and they all gathered +flowers until the silver moon rose out of the fissure of a hill into +the tender, trembling sky. Mist began to form, and drove them back to +the <cite>Floating Leaf</cite>, and it was not long before there was nothing +to be seen but the mist and the moon, and here and there a plum-tree +on a black knoll rising out of the mist, and a flight of wild geese +crossing the sky.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="10">10</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_n.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>NEXT +morning, not unexpectedly, the Chinaman presented himself before +Ambrose in his cabin like a scowling apparition, and proposed, in +respectful and professorial language, that he should accompany the +party. “For,” said he, “a guide to the country, its manners and +customs, its flora and fauna; an interpreter of the language of the +people, and more especially of their state of mind in regard to the +several members of the party; a softener of passions; a holder forth +of the timely coin; and, if need be, one who can remind men at the +appropriate juncture of the unfortunate results that follow unthinking +interference with the obvious will of Fate—such a one would perhaps be +not without use to the party.”</p> + +<p>“Are you such a one?” asked Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“While striving constantly to imitate the tranquil humility of the +narcissus upon which we gaze through the port-hole, I am one who has +made not altogether unavailing efforts to acquire the technique of such +a one as I describe.”</p> + +<p>“Then such a one had better address his further inquiries to Lord +Sombrewater.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span></p> + +<p>The other bowed and accompanied Ambrose to the owner’s room, where +he repeated his proposal. Ambrose noted with admiration how swiftly +his chief put on an impassivity that did not seem less than that of +the Chinaman. The little expressionless, pheasant eyes met eyes of +unreadable black lacquer, and Ambrose records that there seemed to be a +sort of communication going on, as between animals or birds.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater at once confirmed an impression which Ambrose +had himself long since received. “You are a man of considerable +understanding,” he said. “You have, very markedly, the characteristic +visage of a Sage.”</p> + +<p>“I have gone but a very little way,” the Chinaman replied, “in +imitation of those who have obtained wisdom, or, more correctly, of +those who have learned to throw wisdom away.”</p> + +<p>“You are a deft waiter as well.”</p> + +<p>“That, noble viscount, comes of having perceived the inner nature of +plates, glasses, table-napkins and the like. It is in such a purely +menial capacity that I venture to offer my inexpert services.”</p> + +<p>“In what capacity were you on the navigating bridge that night we were +driven ashore?”</p> + +<p>“I desired to meditate from that exposed place upon the state of mind +of the master when he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>said, ‘The self-controlled man occupies himself +with the unseen and not with what is visible,’ and when he said, +‘Purify the means of perception, so that by doing nothing all shall be +accomplished.’”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, by the means you mention you have accomplished much—or +someone has.” Lord Sombrewater thought for a few minutes. He told +Ambrose, when later observations had told him a great deal, that he +was convinced the ship had been steered by some sort of energy-beam +from the shore. Then he decided. It seemed to be his method, at moments +in his career when important decisions were before him, to adopt any +plan that offered itself. It is probable that he decided on some +instinctive summing up of facts, or indications, intuitively perceived. +He unreservedly accepted the proposal that the Chinaman should act as +guide. “What shall we call him?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Such-a-one,” Ambrose suggested.</p> + +<p>“Good. I nearly made him minute-writer in your place, Ambrose. I rather +fancy him. But we industrial princes can’t have people assassinated +when they are in the way.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose considered the point. “I suppose not,” he said +thoughtfully—“not as a rule. But here nobody would ever know if you +waited till we were some way inland. Quentin would do it for you.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span></p> + +<p>Sombrewater laughed loud and long. “You ignore the possibility of any +affection a fellow might have for you.”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” replied Ambrose. “I make due allowance for it in my +estimation of the probable course of events.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="11">11</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img1"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_j.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>JUST +after sunrise the next day ten figures in the costume of ancient +China (on the advice and with the assistance of Such-a-one) embarked +in a cluster of odd craft that lay alongside the <cite>Floating Leaf</cite>. +Each boat had a windowed cabin, like a gondola. On the sail of each was +an emblem like a flying beast. The Dragon, Quentin pointed out.</p> + +<p>Lychnis went first, swaying like an amber chrysanthemum on its stalk; +Ruby followed, her plump, maiden curves voluptuously shown, as she +balanced, in plum-coloured silk; Lord Sombrewater in marigold and +green; Sir Richard in apricot, with a device in black like a system +of coordinates; Sprot in mauve; Blackwood in lilac; Terence in +flame-orange; Quentin in peacock-blue; Fulke in primrose with sleeves +of green; Ambrose, lastly, in misty white. Clustered in their boats +they seemed like flowers in fantastic baskets floating in the stream.</p> + +<p>The resentment of the three ladies was soon forgotten in the excitement +of the journey. Indeed, it was not long before the sea and the +<cite>Floating Leaf</cite> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>and the thought of their life in Europe seemed to +fall under the horizon of the mind, and they saw only the new beauty +and strangeness of the country where they found themselves. As Quentin +remarked, nowhere else in the world were such refined harmonies of +colour in landscape to be seen or such subtleties of tone. The river +wound secretly and intimately deep among the emerald hills, with their +dragon crags; now between lines of willows putting out a mist of +silvery-grey leaves, a mist deepened here into a tender blue, there +into a subtle rose; now through the delicate umber shadows of some +flowery gorge among jade-hued rocks. Here a bridge spanned the river, +springing from a group of trees and gracefully completing the rhythm of +the valley; there a village nestled by some profound logic in the nook +of a hill; once and again was some glimpse of the forest, or of the +white, slender beam of a rushing cascade that plunged down from distant +fells in harmonious passion. Over all floated white clouds like masses +of blossoms, and it was as if the forces of Nature and the hand of man +had united to suggest a landscape-dream of some profoundly meditating, +non-human spirit, in which man had his place with the plum-blossom, the +torrent and the black-bird on the branch.</p> + +<p>They went slowly, by sail and pole, in three <span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>boats. Terence, as +mystical leader of the expedition, sat in the first beside Such-a-one. +Quentin took his morning exercise in the second, thrusting with the +bamboo pole, and Frew-Gaff his in the third. They called to one +another, startling coot, mallard and teal from the reeds. Ambrose was +with Frew-Gaff and the two girls in the third boat. Lychnis and Ruby +lay curled up on one side, looking out; Ambrose on the other.</p> + +<p>A shout came over to them from Quentin: “How are the maiden skins?”</p> + +<p>For answer Lychnis clapped the small hands that lay in her sleeves like +petals, and Fulke, in another window, was observed trying in vain to +catch her eye. Then, at another shout from Quentin, she asked to be put +out on the bank, and met him. It was a rice-field, and half a dozen +blue-clad labourers were at work there.</p> + +<p>“I’m tired of standing still,” Quentin observed, strutting and striding +in his magnificent robe, a blur of deep blue that gave emphasis to the +whole riverside scene.</p> + +<p>“So am I,” she answered; “my legs want to run.” She picked up her robe, +and her green trousers flashed over the field like a pair of parrots. +Ruby, who had scrambled ashore after her, followed, and her legs +flashed like flamingoes.</p> + +<p>“By the Virgin Mother, how beautiful!” Quentin <span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>sang out, and chased +them down the rice-field like a great swaying peacock. He caught +Lychnis first, as he came up with her among the bamboos, by her +streaming hair and forced her head back, so that all her face and +throat were exposed to him. She saw the red, smiling lips in the +frizzy beard pouting a suggestion of kisses, and turned her face +sharply aside. “The unburnt child dreads the fire!” He grinned his +contempt at her and gave a vigorous tug at the handful of amber hair. +“Rich, ungathered coral! Sweet, shadowy, unentered cavern of a mouth! +Unfleshed teeth! Little tiger that has not yet tasted a man! Little +fool!”</p> + +<p>She stared soberly up at him. “Out of the strong cometh an excess of +sweetness, too luscious pomegranate of a man!”</p> + +<p>He grinned and led her back, still in captivity, to the boats, annexing +the slow Ruby by the way, and as he drove his pair through the field +the labourers began to follow and gather in round them, with a kind +of singing chatter, like a chorus. Fulke, who was also on the bank, a +little shamefaced because he lacked the spontaneity of Quentin and the +two girls to run, started forward; but when the little crowd came near +the boats, Such-a-one raised his voice to such effect that they sped +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>across the field and vanished like rabbits among the bamboos.</p> + +<p>“Odd, that,” said Quentin. “What is his secret charm? The authority +lay not in the tone, but in the words. Or did he perform a miracle—The +Manifestation and Evanishment of the Blue Men?”</p> + +<p>“I believe anything, now,” Lychnis replied. “Every minute I hope to see +that dragon flying across the hills.”</p> + +<p>Then there was a cry from Terence and a gesture like the waving of a +banner.</p> + +<p>“He wants to go on,” said Quentin. “He’s losing sight of his +Peach-blossom friends.”</p> + +<p>So the boats began to move slowly ahead, those four, with Ambrose, +following along the bank; and at everything Quentin said the girls +laughed, encouraging the flow of his spontaneity. Presently they +came to a village shadowed among huge rocks and trees. Variegated +ducks surrounded them and a flock of geese steadily testified with +outstretched necks to some difficult truth. The village was sombre, +mysterious and deserted, but a girl was searching for some object +among the pebbles at the water’s edge. She looked up, startled, at the +approach of five gorgeous strangers like ghostly mandarins and their +ladies, and began to make off with little tottering steps.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span></p> + +<p>“Delicious object!” cried Quentin. “Totter, rather, to these arms +and the refuge of this beard, which is indeed a better beard than +any countryman of yours can produce. For the beard in these parts is +scanty,” he explained, turning to Ambrose, “as you will undoubtedly +record.” Then, seizing the girl by the skirt of her jacket, he turned +her about and pinched her chin and her yellow cheeks. She screamed. +At once from the shadowy houses there was a swift, silent arrival of +yellow-skinned relations, and the rest of the party drew together while +Quentin, with sparkling eyes and wide smile, faced the crowd. But +immediately the voice of Such-a-one came from the leading boat, suavely +rising and falling, and once more with mysterious effect, for the +gathering dispersed, not, this time, without conveying, through their +expressionless faces, some hint of a threat like the threat of geese.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater sprang out of his boat. “This is quite enough,” he +said, with acid authority. “Lychnis! Ruby!” He pointed, and they +returned to their window.</p> + +<p>“Funny,” remarked Quentin to Ambrose. “Your Chinaman has some talisman +in his tongue. This will be useful should one of you go too far.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="12">12</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_l.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>LATE +in the afternoon they disembarked, and Such-a-one led them by a +steep road through a village to a solitary inn halfway up the mountain. +The moon came up behind the mountain, and soft hues and scents of the +spring night stole into the sky.</p> + +<p>A warm, stirring silence. The inn slept, and Ambrose kept watch in the +road—before him a trembling emptiness of sky, and the fantastic roof of +the inn, and a candle burning behind the paper blind. The blind moved, +the candle was extinguished, and Lychnis and Ruby leaned out between +the bamboo shoots. They threw him down flowers, whispering good-night. +Then silence, breathing, scent-laden.</p> + +<p>Ambrose was arranging the events of the day in his mind for purposes of +record. While his mind worked his eyes were fixed on the moon sailing +in a clump of bamboo beyond the inn, like a swan among reeds. His +meditations were disturbed, suddenly, by an outbreak of imprecation in +his near neighbourhood. It was Fulke. The language he used was like +thunder and earthquake <span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>among those silent mountains, and seemed to +Ambrose to give a distinctly reddish tinge to the sky.</p> + +<p>He whistled, and Fulke paused like a nightingale disturbed in his song. +Then with a “That you, Ambrose? My God!” he resumed his theme.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” asked Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“What is it! I’ll tell you, so that you put it down in the records, +on parchment, with tender, fragrant little illustrations. What is it! +Only this. I asked Lord Sombrewater this evening if I might propose to +Lychnis. Lychnis!” He groaned at the name, at the stolen taste of a +pleasure never to be his.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes! You slug-flesh! You snail-guts! Don’t you want to know what he +answered?”</p> + +<p>“As soon as you wish to tell me, revolutionary but propriety-observing +Fulke. I don’t know if you wish to tell Lychnis as well. That’s her +window, you know.”</p> + +<p>Fulke looked up to her window, and Ambrose saw in the moonlight that +his face was all furrowed with desire and despair. He clasped his hands +together. “Exquisite—immaculate, goddess-minded,” he whispered, and +suddenly tore at his hair.</p> + +<p>Ambrose drew him off down the road, pondering on the word “immaculate.” +The demand of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>the virgin and ineffective for immaculacy—he would have +liked to dwell on that, but it did not seem the right moment. “And what +did Lord Sombrewater say?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I asked him,” said Fulke, dwelling miserably on the scene, “if I might +ask Lychnis to marry me, and he looked at me for about three seconds +and said: ‘Why, certainly.’”</p> + +<p>“I see.”</p> + +<p>“He summed up my chances in exactly three seconds. ‘Certainly,’ he +said. ‘Walk straight in,’ as it were. Tell me, you duplicating jelly, +is he right?”</p> + +<p>“I think so.”</p> + +<p>“My God! you don’t know how it hurts, Ambrose! You don’t feel pain or +anything like that yourself, do you? But I tell you, I suffer. Make +a note of it. Make a note that the infernal fluids that the spring +disturbs in the blood are hurrying from end to end of me with messages +of desire and love. But don’t make the mistake of supposing that I +am possessed by mere lust. The sensations of my heart are like the +sensations of the opening lilac. I am chaste, and I always have been, +and I only desire to worship her, kneeling among spring flowers. She +only thinks I am ungainly, I know. But my soul loves all that is pure +and virgin and flame-like and verdant and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>too good and lovely in +her for the world. She is just that. She is my Grail, and, in short, +chastity is a bloody obsession with me.” Wringing Ambrose by the hand, +he plunged away.</p> + +<p>The moon, Ambrose noted, was now clear of the bamboos, swimming in +the shimmering skylake. He continued his meditations. It was not long +before the sound of a voice singing came to his ears, and presently +Quentin arrived, well satisfied with wine and adventure. He greeted +Ambrose mockingly, bowing and shaking himself by the hand.</p> + +<p>“A custom I have learnt in the neighbourhood, O moon-souled one.”</p> + +<p>“Can you tell me why it is,” Ambrose asked him, “that a remarkable +filthiness of language often goes with an unusual purity of mind?”</p> + +<p>“You mean Fulke? These revolutionary environment-altering, +ideal-state-creating people always seem to suffer from a +prolonged adolescence, just as your opposite, return-to-nothing, +environment-rejecting Buddhist blokes, like Blackwood, seem to have +never had any adolescence at all. Early excess, perhaps, in their case; +late excess in the other. How terrible, Ambrose, are the results of a +wrongly-timed excess!”</p> + +<p>“The observation shall be recorded. Don’t wake everyone up when you go +in.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span></p> + +<p>“I’m not going in. I shall breathe out the wine that’s in me and watch +Fulke worshipping the narcissus in the early dawn. You can go in. I’ll +relieve you.”</p> + +<p>So Ambrose left him, with one last look at the bamboo grove and the +floating swan-moon.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="13">13</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_d.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>DAYS +of such journeying followed; sometimes they went in the boats and +sometimes wandered by dizzy paths along the sides of the zigzagging +mountains among groves of spruce, fir, or high up among pines and +slender cascades. The weather was very fair and warm, and the sun +was only dimmed by the shadow of the lapis lazuli crags that towered +threateningly over the path or by the jade-brown walls of a gorge. +At every turn there was some new glimpse of a sun-bathed horizon, +or a gleam of the sails of their boats on the shining, enamelled +stream. White cranes stalked among the emerald rice-fields. The roofs +of villages reposed under the hills, suitably to the contour, and +sometimes there were to be seen the quaint eaves of a temple appositely +jutting out. And sometimes the glistening cascade fell from their +very feet to some green trough in the snowy bloom of cherry, peach +and magnolia far below. The spring weather, the exhilarating air of +the heights, and a special comradeship that, as Ambrose notes, is apt +to accompany such an adventure—at any rate for the first few days—put +them all in good spirits with themselves <span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>and one another, and the +ravines and wrinkled, wizard-faced crags not infrequently echoed with +human song. Lychnis usually glided ahead, like a spirit that seeks the +consummation of life in some perfect gesture of the dance, and her +attendant followed with a more deliberate and serene enjoyment. Terence +came next, officially leading, often in colloquy with Such-a-one; and +the rest streamed out behind in ever-changing order, gay in their +coloured garments, like a marching troop of flowers.</p> + +<p>They camped one warm night, there being no village and no inn, at the +mouth of an unusually gloomy ravine, where the mountains, towering +above them, seemed almost to meet. The moon was in her third quarter. +Three of the Sages—Terence, Frew-Gaff and Sprot—with Ambrose, were +standing among the reeds by the water’s edge, peering into the +mysterious, moon-dappled mouth of the gorge. Terence, profoundly +stirred in spirit, had received illumination, and his eyes were deep +pools troubled by shining moon-angels. He raised his hands up before +the mountains and exclaimed: “The Last Wall!”</p> + +<p>“Meaning,” said Frew-Gaff, “that on the other side of this barrier, +which is to be pierced by means of this gorge, we shall find a sort of +Fairyland of Pantomime Peaches?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span></p> + +<p>“The land of the Peach-blossom People, undoubtedly, matter-dividing +Richard.”</p> + +<p>“Dancing about in pink and purple tights, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“And as real as æther waves, fanatic particle-worshipper.”</p> + +<p>“Well, after all,” said Sprot surprisingly, “there may be something +in what Terence says. There are more things in heaven and earth, as +Wordsworth reminds us. There is much that we cannot comprehend, and I +was never one to scoff at what is beyond our understanding.” It was +clear, Ambrose saw, that he had something up his sleeve.</p> + +<p>“Let me feel your pulse,” said Sir Richard. “Ah! I thought so. The +spring and the excellent wine we drank at dinner, and something that is +no doubt aphrodisiacal in the night itself, have disturbed your blood. +I detect overtones of moonshine in the vibrations of your nervous +system. The sap is stirring in you; you are beginning to Sprot.”</p> + +<p>“Clever—very clever,” replied the little man, with a certain +resentment. He would have shown it more positively, but he knew it was +better not to engage with these men in a contest of words.</p> + +<p>“He has had a vision, perhaps,” fluted Terence from the gorge-mouth in +deep tones. “Illumination <span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>comes oftenest to those who are simple in +mind.”</p> + +<p>“True,” observed Sir Richard.</p> + +<p>“Not entirely a vision,” said Sprot, with a sudden falter. Then he +made up his mind. “Look here, you chaps, you mustn’t laugh at me for +once....”</p> + +<p>“Go on,” said Frew-Gaff.</p> + +<p>“How beautiful is the humility of those who have experienced the +Experience!” exclaimed Terence.</p> + +<p>Sprot pointed a finger. “You see Blackwood up there?”</p> + +<p>Following his finger, they dimly saw the motionless form of Blackwood +seated cross-legged on a ledge of the mountain. He was in discipline. +“Yes,” they breathed.</p> + +<p>“Well, I was up there talking to him, because I thought he might do me +a bit of good, and as we were chatting, about self-control and” (he +coughed) “purity and that sort of thing, and it was getting dark, we +both distinctly saw a man pass riding on a goat, like the one you saw, +Terence, beside the ship. He went down that narrow path very silent and +swift, ghost-like; but what got us both a bit startled was his eyes, +which were what you might call fierce and majestic, if I might put it +so.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span></p> + +<p>Terence took him by the hand, exclaiming, “Brother!” Then once more +addressing the mountain as “The Last Wall,” he stepped towards the +river and said, to some hypothetical listener, “I come.”</p> + +<p>“Stop!” cried Sprot. Terence, knee-deep in the reedy water, turned with +an expression of inquiry.</p> + +<p>“There’s more than ghosts in these mountains,” said the man of +business. “Gentlemen, I am not an artist, or a dreamer, or a scientist; +I am a practical man, and as such I keep my eyes and ears pretty wide +open, and perhaps I see things that escape some others. Now this fellow +Such-a-one, and his talisman, and all the tales we’ve heard about this +part of the world—what do you make of it?” He paused, a conjuror about +to produce an idea out of an apparently empty mind.</p> + +<p>“Absolutely nothing,” said Sir Richard, looking down at him with +tolerance in his moonlit, distinguished face.</p> + +<p>“Nothing, naturally, it being a matter plain to be seen without a +microscope, and hence not interesting to a scientific man. Well, Mr. +Poet Fitzgerald, wade into the river by all means, though I might warn +you against catching cold. As I said, I am a practical man. But there’s +something more than a feverish cold hidden in the blackness of that +split in the mountains, in my opinion.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span></p> + +<p>He stopped, and the others stared expectantly into the gorge.</p> + +<p>“There’s dragons,” he exclaimed, like an explosion.</p> + +<p>“Credo quia absurdum.” The voice of Quentin unexpectedly broke the +silence, and Sprot jumped round as if his fancies had taken on a +fearful reality.</p> + +<p>“These mountains are certainly full of dragons,” continued Quentin. +“Listen!” They listened, and a murmur of rippling water came down the +gorge. “Do you not hear them drinking and swimming? Do you not realize +that all these past days, as we walked among contorted crags, we were +among dragons, twisting and grinning in their sleep? Look above you at +those gruesome, moonlit shapes among the mountains, and their light, +white breath drifting about the peaks. Look——” He stopped abruptly, and +resumed in a queer tone. “Look, in fact, at that one hanging in the +air.”</p> + +<p>They looked and saw a great, beaked bird floating overhead with wide, +motionless wings. Their mouths hung open, and Ambrose ascertained +afterwards that their sensations were rather of astonishment than +alarm. Frew-Gaff was the first to bring his mind to bear on it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span></p> + +<p>“An aeroplane, by all that’s holy!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The bird wheeled round a great circle and vanished over the mountains.</p> + +<p>“Then what silent engines!” replied Quentin. “I fear it is the Dragon. +Remember the emblem on our boats. It is clear that we have come here, +by the hand of Such-a-one, in the capacity of sacrifice for some annual +feast. Hence the respectful attitude of the surrounding population. +Sprot will undoubtedly suffer first.”</p> + +<p>Sprot was pale, trembling. “The camp!” he muttered. “The girls!”</p> + +<p>Taken by his infectious alarm, they rushed back to the camp. All +was well. The blue-clad stewards, under the assiduous tutelage of +Such-a-one, were prostrating themselves forehead to ground. The +others were looking up at the mountains with mingled amusement and +apprehension, as if they preferred to believe that someone had played +a rather uncanny joke. The girls, by their dishevelled hair, had come +from their pillows. This drew Quentin. “A girl fresh from her bed is +among the most intoxicating sights of earth,” he murmured to Ambrose.</p> + +<p>Then Blackwood came flitting through the night with a not altogether +well-disciplined haste, asking: “What is it in the sky?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span></p> + +<p>The matter was pretty thoroughly discussed, without satisfactory +conclusion. “Anyway,” said Lord Sombrewater at last, “dragon or +aeroplane, the incident adds piquancy to the adventure. What do you +say, Lychnis? Would you rather go back?”</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “On the contrary.”</p> + +<p>“And you, Ruby?”</p> + +<p>But Ruby had fallen asleep. “What a lovely morsel for sacrifice!” said +Quentin, looking down at her.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="14">14</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AMBROSE’S +narrative proceeds with the same observant calm; and it is +from the heightened colour of the things he has to describe, and the +heightened emotion of the conversation he has to set down, rather than +from any deliberately enhanced passion of his language, that we derive +our impression of the beauty of the Peach-blossom Valley. He shows +us the lagoons, the valleys, the oyster-shaped rocks and the distant +mountains, and he describes the reactions of his companions, without +intervention of sentimental comment.</p> + +<p>It seems that in the misty, serene and summer-promising loveliness of +the next daybreak they embarked and entered the gorge almost without +waiting for breakfast, undeterred, confirmed even in their resolution, +by the disappearance of all the servants, except Such-a-one, who +explained that they regarded the manifestation of the Dragon as a +warning, and would undoubtedly spread the news, as they returned to +their villages, that the whole party had been carried away.</p> + +<p>The mists had scarcely lifted from the quivering <span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>reeds, and the sky +was still all blue and rose, when they poled across the clear black +water and entered the gorge. There proved to be nothing formidable or +gloomy in the gorge. It was wide and, when mists lifted, warm sunlight +poured down among rock shapes of a dream, throwing queer shadows on +the water. Their passage along these fantastic corridors was slow. +The sails were useless, and the water was too deep for the pole, so +that progress could only be made by the use of paddles and by pushing +on the fissures and protuberances of the rock. But it was not easy, +for the boats were heavy, and either they were continually bumping on +a buttress or coming neatly to rest in an angle, or else one had to +paddle against the stream over an open sheet of water, for here and +there the gorge widened into a mountain-locked lake, and there were +arms of the lake running into green mountain-valleys, and wide bays and +beaches bordered with majestic groves of the tall, springing bamboo. +There were also dragon-hiding pools under contorted cliffs, black +waters and shadowy flights of fish.</p> + +<p>They all worked silently with pole and paddle. At last Quentin wiped +the sweat off his face and asked: “Who’ll swim with me in the Gorge of +Dragons?”</p> + +<p>“I will.” The voices of Lychnis and Ruby <span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>chimed high among the rocks, +echoed by Fulke Arnott.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute,” put in Lord Sombrewater. “Is it safe, swimming here?” +He addressed Such-a-one.</p> + +<p>The Chinaman smiled gravely. “The river is warm and sweet and clear, +Excellence. There are few reeds in the channel, and there is nothing +more formidable, by day, than pike. These, however, are voracious.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not frightened of fish,” said Lychnis. “I’ll kick them.” +Anticipating her father’s consent, she vanished into the interior of +her boat, followed by Ruby; and Ambrose remarks that, after the silk +robes in which they had for so many days suffered obliteration, the +manifestation of their naked limbs and plum-coloured bodies was quite +surprising. Soon four of the party were in the river—the two young +women, Quentin (whom Ambrose likens to a piece of live rock), and Fulke +(who was dragonish). They sported and splashed round the leading boat +like water-gods, or swam far ahead, dark little heads and shining arms +driving showers of water-drops. Then Lychnis and Ruby, when they were +tired of it, played at being hippopotamuses, like children. That was +on the suggestion of Lychnis; and Ambrose, leaning out of his window +when she <span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>plunged, saw her shortened body down under the water, and her +pale pretending face, her still eyes, when she floated up through the +water to breathe. She was followed by the dim mass of Quentin, who had +suddenly appeared beside her from under the boat.</p> + +<p>“I nearly had you,” he said, spouting water from his mouth. “Drown with +me, and let us be drifted into some underwater cave, locked together in +a never-ending river-dream.” She made a fox-face at him.</p> + +<p>The others swam in their turn. After the bathe they had a meal, and +some strolled in the groves and some slept in the warmth, and later +in the day they went on again, singing, and satisfied with the still +splendour of evening. They spent the night in a creek, among clumps of +bamboo.</p> + +<p>It was during the following morning that the gorge began to open out, +as the mountain range through which they had passed declined into a +broken litter of jade-green hills, and they saw ahead of them the first +glimpses of the Peach-blossom Valley. They called it the Peach-blossom +Valley then because the journey came to an end there, Terence having +received the necessary intimation; but Ambrose tries over some other +names, as Willow Valley, and Valley of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>Emerald Hills, and Valley of +Blue Pines. They were so moved, it seems, by the composed beauty of +the scene that met their eyes as they left the mild opening of the +ravine that for a time they forgot each other’s existence and lived +alone in the delicate solitude of that dreamy landscape. The stream, +deep and slow, wound between willows, and through the willow-screen +they saw verdant lawns with a fleeting glimpse of deer. Beyond, there +were orchards of cherry, peach and plum, so that the valley seemed full +of low-drifting clouds, white and pink; above the clouds gleamed the +smooth emerald of the hills, the blue pines and quaint outcroppings of +jade-hued rock. Birds sang. The stream was fed by little tributaries +that murmured among the lawns. Tributaries and stream were spanned +by bridges of lacquer and here, among groves of bamboo, was the +yellow-tiled roof of a pavilion, and there, sticking up out of the +peach-blossom foam, a sunlit pagoda or a porcelain tower; and once, on +the verandah of a pavilion by the water, they saw a figure seated in +meditation, and once an angler under the willows.</p> + +<p>“We are in water-colour land,” said Quentin. “This valley is done on +silk. I fear you others are too gross-minded to subsist here for long.”</p> + +<p>It was a landscape of unrivalled delicacy and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>refined distinction, +a tone-subtlety of pale pink and blue, amber and apple-green, with +harmonious notes of red and, in the hazy sky, of yellow. A soft wind +fanned them up-stream. The valley widened continually, and the channel +of the stream became lost in the first shimmering stretches of a +lagoon. Now on either side they saw other valleys opening out, and +beyond them glimpses of frowning pine-wood under azure and jade-brown +crags. Azalea flamed on the hillsides. Ahead of them the arm of the +lagoon on which they were sailing was studded with emerald islets, and +the oyster-shell rocks rose out of seas of lilies. The hills toppled +curiously, and in the strange perspective the distant mountains seemed +to zigzag and stagger a little—not, indeed, out of harmony with the +general effect of something artificial, composed and deliberately +fantastic in a scene which might have proceeded from the mind of a +classic artist.</p> + +<p>Now they approached a part where the hills came right down to the +water, and the lagoon took a right-angled turn between gate-posts +of rock, the valley turning with it in its general design. Rounding +the rocks on their left-hand, they saw before them a reach of water +stretching away two or three miles, and perhaps a mile wide. This lake +also, softly lapping in the all-pervading sunlight, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>was studded with +islets of tender green; but in the middle of it—as near as they could +judge the middle—there stood a greater island of rock, lifted high +out of the water, crowned with pine-trees, flower-bearing, afloat, +as it seemed, in a water-meadow sewn with a million opening buds of +the lotus. The boats drifted unheeded while they all gazed at the +tremulous, tender beauty of the scene—lapping water; island rock in +lotus-meadow; reedy shores; blossom on emerald hills; beyond, a hint +of snow-capped mountains; and all poised before them, clear-cut and +delicate in a dream-medium of quivering, sun-saturated air.</p> + +<p>With one accord they turned to Lychnis, as if to inquire what her +thoughts were. Her face had a flush like the tip of the opening lotus. +“The Dragon Altar on the Dragon Island,” she whispered to Such-a-one, +who was observed to be in the doubled-up position of one who makes +obeisance.</p> + +<p>Nor would he lead them in the boats any nearer the rock.</p> + +<p>“I’ll swim there,” said Quentin. “There’ll be lanes through the +lotus-meadow.”</p> + +<p>“I desire you to be good enough to refrain on this occasion.” Lord +Sombrewater spoke peremptorily.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span></p> + +<p>“Very well,” Quentin replied. “I obey. My heart is chastened, for the +moment, by the supreme and subtle distinction of the water-colourist +who composed this classic landscape, and there will be opportunities +for enterprise at a later date.”</p> + +<p>“But where are we going to live?” complained Ruby. “We can’t live for +ever in these boats.”</p> + +<p>“What does it matter?” asked Lychnis. “I’d like to go on floating for +ever among the lotuses, dabbling my hands in the lake, until the world +vanished and there was only a single lotus and my contemplation.” There +was profound passion in her voice, and Blackwood turned to controvert +the element of heresy in her point of view. But she woke from reverie +and made some inquiries. “This is perhaps the earthly paradise. Can +we stay here?” She addressed the Chinaman. “Is this valley for us? +May we live in those pavilions and contemplate in those porcelain +towers? Oh, Ruby! did you see the verandahs? What a summer we shall +have—water-parties and lantern-feasts!”</p> + +<p>The black eyes of their guide, unreadable as boot-buttons, regarded her +child-like excitement. He bowed. “Nobody will prevent you, in these +valleys, from the enjoyment of whatever you <span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>may find at your disposal. +Let us explore the accommodative facilities.”</p> + +<p>So they skirted the margin of the water for more than a mile, stealing +glances at the mysterious island. They passed many a reedy creek, where +carp, great and little, were swimming in hundreds, and green-headed +ducks; many a lawn coming down to the water’s edge, with willow-tree +or small, twisted pine; and at last they came to a mooring raft of +bamboo poles. There Such-a-one made fast, and led his party, in their +gay silks, by lawn and tall grove of bamboo toward the tributary +valleys. At well-spaced intervals he would indicate some pavilion, +designed and placed with regard to the surrounding contours, that was +at their disposal, and the party began to drop members at one or other +of these. Blackwood chose one by a stream not far from the lake for +himself alone. It had a copper-domed summer-house, where he could sit +and meditate by the water. Quentin, too, chose to be solitary, in a +gorgeous pavilion with a verandah and a pointed roof of yellow and +peacock-blue tiles. Next, farther away from the lake, Lord Sombrewater +chose an airy and complicated summer pavilion for Lychnis and Ruby, +Frew-Gaff, Ambrose and himself. Such-a-one bowed as they entered, +saying: “The Pavilion of the Yellow Emperor.” <span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>This Pavilion, situated +among lawns within the crescent of a forest of tall and splendid +bamboo, was a puzzle of open verandahs, screens, windows, interior +courtyards and little chambers and closets in threes. The massive roof, +weighted with curved rows of vermilion tiles, rose from a tangle of +upward-curling horns and grotesque monsters to a central and whirling +creature that was both dragon and spasm of forked lightning. The +furniture was exquisite, and in every room was a shrub or a flower—a +lily floating in a cistern or an oleander in a porcelain tub. A faint +scent of musk pervaded. The dwelling was provided with half a dozen +respectful menservants and three girls. There seemed more, because they +were all alike and always coming and going. The men were taller and +finer than those who had left in a hurry at the mouth of the Gorge of +Dragons. The girls, as Quentin remarked, were beautiful toys.</p> + +<p>Lychnis and Ruby, with Sir Richard Frew-Gaff, vanished, and Ambrose +gathered from their voices, now near, now distant, that they +were exploring the mazes of the Pavilion. With Lord Sombrewater +he accompanied Terence, Fulke and Sprot on a search for further +accommodation. Behind the Pavilion, deep in the bamboo-forest, Terence +came on a graceful, tile-encased tower like a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>lighthouse among the +bamboo-leaf-spray, and elected to dwell in the topmost watch-chamber. +Finally, Sprot, entreating Fulke not to desert him, found a house of +lacquer and enamel, like a cabinet for a precious gem. There these two +ensconced themselves, neither very satisfied with the other.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater and Ambrose returned to the Yellow Emperor’s Pavilion, +smiling and contented with the graceful fortune that seemed to have +befallen them. Lychnis stood at the door in a new robe of heliotrope. +A deep sash sheathed her hips, and her father, in his pleasure, put an +arm round the slender waist and kissed her. Then, “Where’s Such-a-one?” +he asked. “There are one or two things we ought to discuss.”</p> + +<p>But Such-a-one had completely disappeared, so she told him.</p> + +<p>“Indeed!” said he, turning his expressionless eyes, with a sharp, +bird-movement, on Ambrose.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="15">15</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AMBROSE +emerged from his chamber at the side of the house and +looked from the verandah across the quivering bamboo-forest. He was +composing his description of the morning’s adventure. Somewhere in the +neighbourhood he heard the girls chattering, and could not quite locate +the sound. Ruby’s voice came, calling him, and when he looked round in +bewilderment there was laughter. Then a lattice was pushed open at the +other end of the verandah, and Ruby put out her head and shoulders. She +had on a new jacket of geranium-red, and her copper hair was piled up +with combs of tortoise-shell. “Come in and see Licky and me,” she said. +“There’s a door on the verandah round the corner.”</p> + +<p>He went into their room, making a note of the words “refined elegance” +for subsequent use in describing its shape and furniture. There was +an effect of green, gold and black; for the walls were green, and +the furniture was ebony, with marquetry of brass, tortoise-shell and +mother-of-pearl. A clear sunlight, tempered by the lattices, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>showed +him all the exquisite appointments. The ebony cupboard, with half-open, +gold-enamelled doors, contained a hint of richly coloured clothes, like +petals within the sheath. A profusion of silken jackets was scattered +over an ebony and ivory commode, and hung on the handle of a lacquered +cabinet and over a screen painted with butterflies. The curtains of an +ebony bed, like a houseboat, were drawn, disclosing a heap of garments +on the swan-white coverlet. Lychnis was seated on a stool by a window, +having her hair brushed (but she had forbidden the use of resin) by +a Chinese girl with black-bead eyes and almost imperceptible mouth. +At her side was a lacquer table, laden with ivory brushes, jade and +tortoise-shell combs, pigment trays in rare porcelain. There was a box +with a brass mirror in the lid, and tiny drawers for lip-salve, rouge, +powder, and pencil for the eyebrows. She had in her slender hands a +gilt mirror. She was keeping her head very still, but she put, with her +eyebrows, an inquiry as to his state of mind. He indicated satisfaction.</p> + +<p>“This is very untidy,” he remarked. “How can you be so untidy in this +perfectly proportioned chamber?”</p> + +<p>“We’ve been trying on the clothes,” said geranium-red Ruby. “It took an +awful time to make <span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>up our minds. I chose this.” She opened her wide, +black-bordered sleeves like a red butterfly, and turned on her hips to +show him the great black wings of her sash. Her cheeks were flushed a +deep crimson with her enjoyment, and he wondered if, with that and the +advantage that her magnificent figure got from the half-revealing silk, +she did not almost eclipse her slenderer companion. He turned round, +with a view to the formation of a considered judgment.</p> + +<p>Lychnis, the last golden comb stuck in her hair, stood up, and the +wrap that had swathed her shoulders fell to the ground. She, too, had +a faint flush, knowing, perhaps, that she was offered for judgment; or +had she used, he wondered, a little pigment from the porcelain tray? +She turned slowly for him to admire her. She wore a chrysanthemum +robe—dusky flowers on a ground of pale amber. Her neck—as Quentin +was wont to say, you could break it by clenching the hand—was a +chrysanthemum stalk. The big bow at the small of her back gathered +her robe in and disclosed the slim, womanish swell of her hips that +he had so often tried to describe. She raised her robe slightly, to +display trousers of some texture crisp and brown, like the petals of +the flower. “And these comic shoes.” She pointed to them, and walked +towards him, putting her feet <span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>one before the other in tiny steps. +“Must we walk like that? Ruby’s beautiful when she does it. Am I?”</p> + +<p>They were lovely, and friendly, those two young women. He watched +them both imitate the swaying and delicate walk of the Chinese girls, +up and down the room, while the maid put away the clothes, paying no +attention. “You’ll turn into Chineses,” he warned them.</p> + +<p>They both sprang at him with cries of “Never!” and pushed and pulled +him from the room and along a corridor just to show what they could do.</p> + +<p>But Lychnis abruptly desisted. “Hark! What’s that?”</p> + +<p>It was a carillon of silver bells pealing in a tower of porcelain, +calling the Sages from their several retreats to a meal in the Yellow +Emperor’s Pavilion. Lord Sombrewater and Sir Richard Frew-Gaff, clothed +respectively in sunset crimson and turquoise-blue, were already seated +in a chamber more sumptuous, but not less elegant, than the bedchamber. +It was furnished with rich tables, and flowers, and great jars of +finest blue-and-white porcelain. The other Sages arriving, changed +likewise into robes of the most brilliant hue, refreshment was served +in the shape of fragrant tea, with a dish of cooked bamboo shoots and +other more doubtful ingredients.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span></p> + +<p>“I shan’t examine this,” said Quentin. “It smells good, and I’ll risk +the transformation of my lusts that may result from ingesting the +cellular composition of beetles and slugs.”</p> + +<p>“An insubstantial diet will do you no harm,” said Sir Richard. “If I +were to drain you of blood and transfuse the sap of a vegetable, it +might render your temperament less—shall I say?—ardent.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, no! You’d find me doting on a cabbage, or in dalliance with a +brussels sprout.”</p> + +<p>“You approve of our surroundings, I take it?” observed Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“We are in the garden of an emperor.”</p> + +<p>“Shall we stay here? What are the views of the Sages? It is pleasant, +certainly, beyond anything I have ever seen; but one or two +circumstances are a little mysterious.”</p> + +<p>“It passes my comprehension,” said Sprot, “how anyone owning all +this wealth can leave it absolutely unguarded. We may be murdered in +our beds any night for the sake of the wealth that’s about us. These +servants—can you trust them? They’re not white men, you know. I kicked +one just now, to show who’s master here. I’ve always heard you ought to +kick native servants. But, as I was saying, all this wealth and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>not +a keeper, or a policeman, or even a ‘Trespassers-will-be-Prosecuted’ +board.”</p> + +<p>“It may be the custom of some Europeans to kick native servants,” said +Lord Sombrewater testily, “but I shall be obliged if, in this case, you +will use the extreme politeness they use with us.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, certainly, certainly. But, if you will excuse me, all this gold +and tortoiseshell, and the bric-à-brac—I suppose that’s valuable, +too—who does it belong to? It must belong to somebody, I suppose. Or do +you think we might—er—appropriate ... as a souvenir, I mean?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose they’d object to your pinching it,” said Fulke. “It’s +clear there’s no capitalist system here.”</p> + +<p>“Then you will be happy here?” asked Lychnis.</p> + +<p>That brought him up short. “Yes, by the split kidneys of St. +Sebastian!—thoroughly, frightfully happy!” He added to Ambrose in an +undertone: “There’s always the Lake.”</p> + +<p>“As for me,” put in Blackwood, “my summer-house down by the Lake is +of marble and has a copper dome. So beautiful are my surroundings +that I would readily stay here for ever, because of the exquisite and +continuous temptation to the senses. But can these servants not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>be +made to understand that I always have two lumps of sugar in my tea?”</p> + +<p>“Sugar?” exclaimed Sprot. “What’s that got to do with meditation?”</p> + +<p>“It’s a stimulant to the intestinal acrobatics,” said Quentin. “He +rewards his performing vestiges with two lumps of sugar.”</p> + +<p>“And you, Richard?” inquired the chairman.</p> + +<p>“It seems to me we are committed. True, it is a nuisance to be without +any facilities—no instruments, no materials, no laboratory—none to +speak of, that is. Yet the place is very pleasant. Not that I am +particularly susceptible to natural beauty——”</p> + +<p>“It’s not natural,” broke in Terence unexpectedly. It was noticed for +the first time that he seemed dissatisfied.</p> + +<p>“But the air is stimulating, and, as you know, I am something of an +optimist—in short, I particularly desire to find out what it is that +gives these little grassy mountains that peculiar blue tinge, and the +rocks simply shout for examination. Not that I am an expert geologist, +of course. Still, one can record some observations. And I would add +that I think we shall be at peace here. There is an air of happy +serenity that lies on the valley.”</p> + +<p>“And you, Terence?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span></p> + +<p>Terence, in the attitude of Rabindranath Tagore in meditation, raised +his large, grey, poetic eyes. “I confess to a certain disappointment. +Dragons are somewhat outside my habit of dreaming, and the Chinese +gods are not, on the whole, attractive. I find something bland and +pawnbroker-like in their faces——”</p> + +<p>“That,” put in Blackwood, “is the everlasting calm of those who have +learnt to despise the world.”</p> + +<p>“I find it unheroic and fatuous. Moreover, I dislike the empty and +unmeaning classicism of this Gentleman’s Park. And these rhododendrons +and magnolias—they are so consciously ornamental and Chinese and +matter-of-fact.”</p> + +<p>“Still,” observed Sombrewater, “you would not wish to depart just yet?”</p> + +<p>“So long as I am allowed to remain in my tower and commune with the +myriad quivering spirits of the bamboo-forest.”</p> + +<p>“By all means—if we may eat a few from time to time. I take it, then, +that it’s settled. We remain.”</p> + +<p>“I shall remain,” observed Lychnis, “till all’s blue. One need not +starve, or stay out in the wet, for there are houses and servants and +food everywhere. And I would like to say,” she added, with a certain +diffidence, “that the matter-of-factness <span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>is only apparent. It seems +to me, Terence, that it hides something—what shall I say?—almost +unbearably passionate, all this classical restraint. Yes, the Pavilion +and the little bridges and the landscape and everything else. These +two paintings, for instance—the Flower-Spray. That empty, palpitating +background. It is more than an evening sky. The flowers—don’t you think +so, daddy?”—she appealed to her father to support her declaration +of faith—“the flowers ... oh, they are more than lovely! There is +something moves in them, behind them. Some great artist did that, with +the calmness of a poet-painter who has feared beauty and conquered +his fear. Then”—she looked round and gathered courage from their +attentiveness—“the Geese. Not very romantic, Terence. But the soul of +Geese is there, dear plump things! What is it Quentin would say in +philosophy? Divested of all accident of appearance. They are whatever +it is that is Goose at the perfect moment of evolution. The life of +the universe is seen through the Geese in that picture. The painter +has not hindered it with some sentimental pre-occupation of his own. +Romanticism looks silly beside that sort of reality. I—I did not mean +to have said so much. But it said itself. It was strange—those two +pictures hypnotized me. Something <span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>that is not quite life—more than +life; I can’t express it—moved in them, and words came to me.”</p> + +<p>Quentin opened his eyes like a man waking from the illumination of +prayer. “O exquisite penetration of unfolding virginity! These are +the pure eyes and perfect witness of all-judging Jove, and we have +heard a voice from the invisible but all-pervading reality of the +universe. Now, I myself formed the same conclusion with regard to the +art of China in the days of my purity—that is to say, when I was about +thirteen. Some echo of those far-off days came to me as I studied my +dessert-plate. This band of creamy pink enamel. This domestic scene in +the centre of the plate. These two girls—what ivory-textured skins! +what lily-petal hands holding the battledores. If the beauty, and by +consequence the virtue, of the girls of this valley is anything like so +fragile——”</p> + +<p>“It is very fine ware,” put in Sir Richard. “I would like to understand +their process more perfectly. Not that I am an expert in the +manufacture of pottery. I wonder, by the way, if these cabinets are +unlocked.”</p> + +<p>“Obviously,” replied Quentin, “since there is no capitalist system here +and no police. One must lock up things when there are police. There!” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>He opened a cabinet and brought out a piece of pottery. “By the +Virgin Mary! it lives. The cellular organization of it lives and the +integument is warm. It blushes under my fingers like a woman’s cheek. +We have here all that’s most precious in the world, including three +maidens.” He dug Fulke in the ribs. “Let us explore the mazy building.”</p> + +<p>He led the party all over the Pavilion, discoursing in every room +with infinite learning on some precious object of Chinese art. Before +the ebony bed in the girls’ bedchamber he stood in an attitude of +respectful adoration. Lychnis tactfully withdrew, leading Ruby. He +spoke in a low voice: “And they lie there in each other’s arms, like +shepherdesses in a Boucher. That precious cabinet enshrines them. My +poor Fulke! To have seen, and to have no chance of possessing. But +come away from this holy place. It is not for the likes of us.” They +withdrew, Fulke suppressing a groan.</p> + +<p>Finally, in a sort of study, they found a cabinet which contained what +appeared to resemble some kind of listening-in apparatus. “Now,” said +Frew-Gaff, “this is really remarkable.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="16">16</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_w.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>WHEN +evening fell, warm and flower-scented, they emerged, in their +summer-gorgeous robes, from the vermilion-tiled Pavilion, and filed +down towards the Lake. They stood on a lacquer bridge at the head of a +creek and looked silently across the sheen of water.</p> + +<p>“Look!” whispered Lychnis, “the Rock!”</p> + +<p>It seemed to float before them, in a vapour of evening. The middle and +upper reaches of the sky were clear and summer-foreboding, but clouds +loomed up from behind the mountains beyond the opposite shore, and +opened like large summer flowers.</p> + +<p>The Sages went down and stood on a lawn by the water under a huge +flowering tree of unknown kind. Great petals, coloured deep rose, +floated down among them. Lychnis caught one in her hands and inhaled +its odour. Her petal-eyelids closed.</p> + +<p>Fulke, roaming disconsolately at large, discovered a mooring-stage of +red painted bamboo among reeds, and there were two or three richly +coloured skiffs, with pointed bows and little masts, tied to it. He +leapt on the raft, and there was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>an outcry of waterfowl among the +reeds, loudly disturbing the silence. They listened.</p> + +<p>“Shall we go out a little way on the water?” He invited Lychnis huskily.</p> + +<p>But Lychnis stood quite still, looking at the Rock.</p> + +<p>“You, Ruby?” To make Lychnis envious, perhaps.</p> + +<p>“I’d rather stay here,” said Ruby, shuddering a little.</p> + +<p>Nobody, not even Quentin, responded to his invitation. The evening was +so still. Perhaps a faint awe was on their hearts.</p> + +<p>The deep colour faded gradually out, and the light died off the lapping +water. A fish leapt. Night stole over the valley and fell about the +Rock. One by one their hearts misgave them at the experience of beauty. +They quailed before the task of mastering it with their souls, and drew +away. Lychnis only still gazed, and Ambrose studied her.</p> + +<p>“Come, my dearest,” said Lord Sombrewater, turning, as he went, to draw +her by the arm.</p> + +<p>An ecstatic sigh escaped her. She seemed unable to move. Ambrose and +her father, and one by one the others, turned to see what held her so +fast.</p> + +<p>The Rock was ablaze with orange-hued lanterns, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>as if in the middle of +the water a rhododendron bush had suddenly put forth flowers.</p> + +<p>“Almighty, and as we hope merciful, God!” Quentin was spontaneously +upon his knees.</p> + +<p>A rocket crept up the black sky, and twenty dying red suns were +extinguished in the Lake. Another and another.</p> + +<p>“An extremely ceremonious welcome,” muttered Lord Sombrewater. “Who is +our host, I wonder?”</p> + +<p>“Lavish, to say the least,” replied Frew-Gaff.</p> + +<p>The display lasted an hour. The culminating device was a vermilion +dragon that writhed and grinned high up above the Rock. With that the +entertainment abruptly ceased, leaving the night darker.</p> + +<p>“How shall we find the way?” asked Ruby, with a quiver in her voice. +But two or three servants, with kindly-meant if ghostly foresight, +appeared out of nowhere to guide them, and they went their several +ways through the spectral groves of bamboo, looking back now and then +towards the Lake.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="17">17</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_w.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>WARM-HUED +lanterns decorated the Pavilion and filled the bedchambers +with a dim, wavering and unreal light. Ambrose retired and composed +his mind. But outside on the verandah he could hear Lychnis and Ruby +whispering and the swish of their robes on the floor.</p> + +<p>“I don’t like it, Licky darling,” said Ruby’s voice. “I’m frightened. I +don’t like our room.”</p> + +<p>“Well, daddy’s next door, and your father is somewhere close by.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t like the place where we are, not by night.”</p> + +<p>“I do,” was the answer. “It’s the same valley by night as it was by +day. Can’t you feel how warm and redolent it is?”</p> + +<p>“But it’s so strange.”</p> + +<p>“I love what’s strange.”</p> + +<p>“I feel as if something, someone mysterious, might come and seize us.”</p> + +<p>“I should like someone mysterious to come and seize me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lychnis, you are dreadful!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span></p> + +<p>There was no answer. Then, after a silence, Ruby spoke again in a +breathless whisper: “Oh, look! There’s somebody under the trees.”</p> + +<p>A pause.</p> + +<p>“Silly! It’s only Quentin. How mad of him!”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater’s voice broke in from somewhere: “Go to bed at once, +you two.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose went out to the verandah in time to see the two silken forms +vanish. But he was quite sure that Lychnis turned and waved to the dim +figure under the trees. Her eyes shone.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="18">18</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AMBROSE went down to the lake in the tremulous mists of daybreak. He +pushed his way in waist-deep among reeds, noiselessly, to observe the +habits of water-fowl.</p> + +<p>Presently, without surprise, for she had the same early morning +habits as himself, he saw the mist-white figure of Lychnis, with her +skirt gathered in her hands, on one of the many little islets of +rock scattered along the shore. She was bending forward, parting the +water-lily leaves, gazing intently into the depths. He liked to see her +once again in her own clothes, unswathed, a slender, air-loving Lychnis.</p> + +<p>He whistled. She turned and waved—negatively, as it were—but after a +minute she turned round again, and slowly began to make her way back, +stepping and leaping and splashing from stone to stone, as if she +walked on the water; and sometimes she swayed and balanced among the +broad leaves, herself an unfolding white lily.</p> + +<p>She came to him in the reeds and took his hand. “I didn’t want to see +you at first. I thought it was Fulke or someone. But you looked so +funny, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>waist-deep in the reeds and all thoughtful, and I thought I’d +come. Let’s go, a long way—at once, in case any of the others come. I +want to go miles this morning, exploring. Shall we?”</p> + +<p>She was enchanting, in her slip of a dress and white stockings and +delicate shoes. “How can you run and explore in shoes like those?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“Fast-running things don’t have big hooves,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“Quite true. Come on, then, Fawnsfeet.”</p> + +<p>“My skirt’s not very wide,” she said, stepping out. It was a very +slight affair, a mere shift, caught in on her right flank, so that +the movement of side and hip was seen, to give the eye an unsatiable +satisfaction. And one observed the moulding of shoulders and bust, and +the young mounds that, as one supposed, a lover should one day cup with +his hands and put his lips upon—a thought to make a man such as Quentin +swoon. And the torso is incomparable, Ambrose observed to himself.</p> + +<p>“I felt I couldn’t bear those other clothes any longer,” she +explained—“except sometimes, to dress up. Ruby, on the other hand, +likes them.”</p> + +<p>“She’s asleep?”</p> + +<p>“Fat with it, the pig. She woke up when I was having a bath out of a +basin and thanked <span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>God that she was not a fool. The basin has a design +of willow-trees done on it, and someone fishing. Do you fish?”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, yes. Nothing I like better on a summer or autumn afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll fish with you. We’ll go right to the other end of the Lake +by ourselves and fish all the afternoon. There’s some beauties in here. +I saw them swimming past the rock I was standing on. It’s very deep, +too—quite black with depth, and clear—like a black crystal. I sometimes +think it looks more interesting under water, among water-plants, than +above it. Don’t you?”</p> + +<p>They made their way along the shore of the Lake, talking hard and +laughing, smelling the water-smell and the early-morning smell. +Sometimes they went on lawns, crossing the deep red or bright emerald +bridges that spanned the rivulets; sometimes they trod among pebbles +at the water’s edge; and sometimes, where the quaint hills came right +down to the Lake, they had to scramble round sheer cliffs, jumping over +the deep water from fragment to fragment of broken rock. At one place +they had to creep under the bend of a slender, splashing cataract; at +another they passed a man fishing. He took no notice of them.</p> + +<p>Gently the air filled with the delicate splendours <span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>of the risen sun, +and the steep island of rock out in the middle stood clearly to view. A +breeze stirred the water.</p> + +<p>“When the wind ruffles the Lake it looks like a meadow of snowdrops and +violets,” said Lychnis. “I don’t see a sign of life on the island, do +you?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing but the foliage and the flowers.”</p> + +<p>They had come now to a bay with a lawn shelving to the water. Lychnis +stood with her hands behind her, looking seriously at the Rock. “Oh,” +she exclaimed abruptly, “look at the swans!”</p> + +<p>A noble flotilla, led by a god-like bird with frowning brows, swam +royally towards them.</p> + +<p>“How they stare!” She seemed fascinated. “Are they so different from +us—in their lives, I mean, in their thoughts and feelings? Are we +related to swans, Ambrose? I feel that I know them. I think I know them +as well as I know people. Ambrose”—she bent her brows on him—“I think I +shall ask you questions soon—to-day, perhaps. May I?”</p> + +<p>“But yes, my silver birch.”</p> + +<p>She considered. “Last night, Ambrose, Quentin kissed me!”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes?”</p> + +<p>She glanced at him, but her eyes were full of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>her thoughts. “Yes, +he kissed me. I went back to him after you’d gone. The night was so +strange and exciting. It was full of some promise. The night was full +of some dark, passionate flower, waiting to open if I had the secret. I +tried.”</p> + +<p>“And you found it?”</p> + +<p>“No; it was nothing to be kissed by Quentin—no more than my father’s +kiss, or Ruby’s, or the peck of a bird—except that his beard was +prickly and he smelt a good deal of wine. That’s why I must ask you +questions. I don’t ask for facts. I know facts. I want to know how it +can ever become so that they don’t obtrude rather unpleasantly on one’s +consciousness. Do they ever stand out of the way of passion, Ambrose? +Is there a desire that burns them all up into nothing?”</p> + +<p>He was silent.</p> + +<p>“It is possible that you do not know,” she said slowly.</p> + +<p>“You must give me time, if I am to answer you fully. The subject is +important, and wide.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to write me an essay?”</p> + +<p>“Not precisely.” He, too, considered. “It will take me some little +while to arrange the logic, the perspective, of my reply.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well; take time over it, if you must. But I’m not often in the +mood to ask you things.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span></p> + +<p>“In the meantime, I take it you have been disappointed?”</p> + +<p>“I only hope Quentin was as disappointed as I was.”</p> + +<p>“You won’t be ashamed with him? You don’t mind meeting him again?”</p> + +<p>“But why? After all, I disappointed him. It’s for him to be ashamed if +he can’t do better than that. He got nothing from me but my will to +experiment, and I easily made it seem as if he was in fault. He went +off feeling ridiculous, I fancy. But look! they’re asking for bread.”</p> + +<p>There was always bread in her pockets. The splendid birds were +clustered at the edge of the lawn, and she ran down and fed them, and +put her slender white hands among their plumage. The god-like leader +dug at her with his beak.</p> + +<p>“How he stares! How insolent he is!” she exclaimed. “He pesters me—like +Quentin.”</p> + +<p>She retired a little. The great bird followed, bridling and opening his +wings and frowning on her like a Jupiter. She stood still and taut, +fascinated. Suddenly he spread his huge wings about her and laid his +scarlet beak on her breast. She stood in his embrace for a moment, +with thrown-back head, and his beak moved on the slender stalk of her +throat. Then, swiftly and calmly, she disengaged herself and ran to +Ambrose. The <span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>swan seemed quite crestfallen. “Look! I’ve disappointed +him,” she said. “For my part, I prefer him to Quentin, but not very +much.”</p> + +<p>“You are a great mystery, my water-lily,” Ambrose replied.</p> + +<p>They made their way back along the sides of the hills.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="19">19</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_n.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>NOTHING +happened for three days. A few of the party found that +eventlessness had a faint, queer effect on their nervous systems, +and the pervading scent of musk was enervating. The days were a warm +monochrome. The fiery procession of the sun across the diagonal of the +valley was slow, perceptible and unvaried. One might have been glad +to alter it. The profound peace and happiness of the valley became +even oppressive, even almost sinister for Sprot. The valley smiled +ceaselessly, and, as Quentin said, there is nothing more irritating. +At night, Lychnis told Ambrose, Ruby clung to her in some sort of +irrational fear. Only Lord Sombrewater remained entirely unaffected. +And Lychnis liked it. And Ambrose made observations in his diary.</p> + +<p>Then, on the fourth day, there blew up a storm of wind, and the clouds +writhed like dragons, and the distant tiger-roar was heard as the wind +stroked the cracking forests on the fells.</p> + +<p>“What music!” Lychnis listened to her emotions, her brows heavy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span></p> + +<p>“Mendelssohn only,” put in Quentin. “Everything in measure here. None +of your devastating German symphonies—not in these parts; even the +storms are civilized—still less your incoherent Irish harps.”</p> + +<p>“I did really begin to feel,” said Terence, “that our environment was +unsympathetic. I haven’t had a dream, still less a vision, since we +came. And I find the Spirits of the Bamboo Forest, though they are +undoubtedly present in quivering myriads, more than a trifle hard +to elicit. But this is better; this is more hopeful. The wind may +bring things. I will therefore retire to my tower, and keep watch +for a messenger from one of those many worlds that are undoubtedly +interfolded with this. If you would like to share my vigil...?” He +turned his great misty eyes upon Lychnis. “I feel it coming upon me +that I am to begin a new portrait of you, in those elaborate clothes, +with your hair so, formally, but half-hidden in veils of bamboo leaves.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis declined. She was going out to the forest to hear the great +branches cracking, she said. She and Ruby went to their bedroom to put +on clothes they could walk in—mediæval hunting-clothes.</p> + +<p>“Half-hidden! You always have to keep your subject half-hidden, +Terence,” mocked Quentin. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>“Why don’t you paint her swimming naked in a +mystical bamboo-leaf sea? I should, by heaven! if I were a painter. She +wouldn’t be hidden! I should swoon, painting her.”</p> + +<p>“You handle my daughter with your imagination a bit freely, Quentin,” +observed Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“We are all Sages here, I think,” replied Quentin. “We can all embark +on the adventures of conversation, I think, for conversation’s sake, +without being horrified at what we are compelled to say in artistic +justice to our theme. It is true, certainly, that your daughter raises +in me exquisite lusts of the imagination. But if I want to marry her in +my imagination I may, I take it, without asking her parent’s imaginary +consent.”</p> + +<p>“It is a pretty point,” said Lord Sombrewater tartly; for, where +Lychnis was concerned, even though a Sage, he would have put +restrictions on the art of conversation.</p> + +<p>The girls came back, dressed for the excursion. “I shall accompany +you,” he said.</p> + +<p>“And I,” said Sir Richard.</p> + +<p>“And I,” said Quentin and Sprot.</p> + +<p>“And I,” said Fulke, “if I may.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose, naturally, joined himself to their party, as likely to provide +more material for description. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>They set off, leaving only Blackwood +and Terence Fitzgerald behind.</p> + +<p>An hour’s march, mostly along the course of a stream that ran to +the Lake, brought them out of the jewel-like, smooth-surfaced and +quaint-conceited scenery, among which the Lotus Lake and the pavilions +lay, into scenery of a wilder description. Quentin was walking with +Lychnis, Lord Sombrewater and Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“Terence should be here,” he remarked. “This is unfinished; this is +romantic.”</p> + +<p>“But a bit wizardous,” said Lychnis. “You would scarcely expect to meet +one of his fair-haired Lohengrins—not among these oddly twisted pines +and misshapen rocks. Some strange, gnarled old man, perhaps, with a +staff—some very still old man, with a wrinkled, wicked smile, like a +bit of the scenery suddenly living and peering at you.”</p> + +<p>“The mountain air is very bracing,” observed Lord Sombrewater, “and the +wind fortifies me exceedingly; but for a man who makes a regular habit +of six cigars a day the pace is beginning to tell. So much loose rock +about, isn’t there?”</p> + +<p>“As for me,” said Quentin, “I am energy, I am vitality itself. I could +tread the mountains flat. When we get up there on the crags I shall +breathe in the streaming clouds and blow them <span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>out again in your faces. +I shall fill my chest with the atmosphere and leave you all gasping for +breath. You will entreat me for life, and I shall give it—on terms.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t need air,” replied Lychnis. “I subsist on the æther.”</p> + +<p>“You are the æther,” he answered, “or whatever medium there is on which +all things are founded. Without you....” At this point she deftly +skipped out of earshot—or, to be more exact, with Ambrose, nearly out +of earshot. “Without you,” he continued, to the wild, surrounding +forest—“without you we should not subsist at all. There would be +neither matter to desire cleavage with you, nor spirit to imagine the +immortality of love.”</p> + +<p>“Your knowledge of the bawdy literature of the Middle Ages is more +profound than your physics,” interrupted Sir Richard.</p> + +<p>“I create my physics, as per necessity, to conform with my imagined +world, like God,” he retorted.</p> + +<p>Sir Richard smiled, in his courteous, grave way. “I confine my +observation to the world which has been created by the distinguished +colleague whom you mention. I find there traces of the existence of +consistency, order, law, and nothing beyond that, but those traces lead +me confidently to suppose <span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>that in due course we shall find the whole +mechanism to fall out pat.”</p> + +<p>“I see the day coming,” said Quentin, “when some mechanico-scientific +bloke will pull the universe to pieces just to see if he can reassemble +it. I hate you people who are always poking in the works. Everyone +does it now. People buy cars. Do they drive them? No. They spread them +out on the lawn. Do people listen-in? Never. They muck about with the +valves. There is no art; there is only psycho-analysis. We pull up +all our flowers nowadays to examine the root-hairs and the system of +water-absorption. The wonders of the deep have vanished since we took +to dredging the Pacific. There’s no universe left; there’s only a +shedful of spare parts. I am the only child of Nature now living.”</p> + +<p>“A child, yes,” said Sir Richard, “and ungoverned, save by whim. +Spontaneous as a jet of spring water, but every wind blows you towards +a new quarter. You are a man without self-direction. You cleave where +your desire leads you.”</p> + +<p>“I was wrong,” said Quentin gaily, “when I said that I was the only +child of Nature living. Here are a dozen others.”</p> + +<p>They had come down between overhanging rocks from a considerable height +of crag into a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>glen full of small pines and boulders, and before +them stood a great hump of mountain range and wind-tossed forest. On +their right hand was a little stony hill with small bushes on it and +an arbour, or summer-house. A stream—or, rather, a kind of flowing +moat—surrounded it. And in the arbour, or under the bushes, or by the +stream were men—men in mandarin robes—engaged, all of them (save two, +who were chatting mirthfully by the stream), in a meditation that +seemed characterized by an expression of hilarious vacuity. Some had +long black moustaches, others scanty white beards. All had their hands +folded in their sleeves, and all had a look—a look of youth, that, as +Lychnis said, was most unsuitable and monkey-like on their wizened +faces.</p> + +<p>The party filed by the little mountain of meditation, glancing +sideways, but no one of its strange inhabitants took any notice of them +at all, even though Sprot went close up and peered at them across the +stream (without making any intelligent observation), as if they were +inhabitants of the Mappin Terraces.</p> + +<p>“Wizards,” whispered Lychnis—“or Sages.”</p> + +<p>“Wizards, Adepts, Rishi,” her father replied. “The sort of thing +Blackwood tries to be. Extreme cases of Blackwood.”</p> + +<p>“I think not,” put in Quentin. “Taoists, I <span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>fancy, not Buddhists. There +are fundamental differences.”</p> + +<p>“Lunatics, if I may be allowed an opinion,” said Sprot—“from the local +asylum. Blackwood ought to be with them.” He grew warm. “I call it +preposterous that grown men should be allowed to sit all day on a rock, +grinning. They ought to have something better to do.”</p> + +<p>“It is unpractical, isn’t it?” observed Ruby. “I despise men who don’t +do something.”</p> + +<p>“And I simply can’t think,” said Lychnis, “why anybody ever does +anything at all. Because really there are so many reasons against doing +things—except, perhaps”—she pondered a little—“the things that bring +you new and strange experiences, and those, after all, involve you in +disappointment.”</p> + +<p>Quentin winked at her. “Ætherial Lychnis,” he replied. “You will soon +be ready to join the gentlemen on the rock. As for me, I have been +a man of action—muscular action. I am a motor man. Yet, to have you +always near me, I will dissolve my fleshy substance, and consist of +a vacancy that meditates on nothing. I’ll be no more than a large, +empty shirt dreaming on a clothes-line. We’ll become sighing winds and +mingle our particles. We’ll be two doctrines of inaction, inert in one +another’s arms.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span></p> + +<p>“Always sensual, Quentin,” she replied.</p> + +<p>By now they were at the edge of the deep forest that clothed the great +flanks of the mountain. Out of the forest rose craggy peaks that they +did not that day propose to climb. Lord Sombrewater, Sir Richard and +Sprot were already spreading the lunch. The wind had died, and they +sat in a thicket, listening to the last spasmodic sobs of the gale, +and looking out under the leaves that protected them away down the +mountain-side and across the glen they had traversed. Far down, one +among many fantastic outcroppings and erections of rock, was the little +mountain of meditation, and the dozen motionless figures could still +be descried. Here were no pavilions or eaves of temples. They had +come away, as it occurred to the mind of Ambrose to think, from the +civilized and composed harmony of the Peach-blossom Valley to outer +spaces undealt with by any ordering mind.</p> + +<p>“This is undoubtedly for Terence,” said Sir Richard. “This is untidy.”</p> + +<p>“And what do you think of it all, Fulke?” asked Lychnis.</p> + +<p>These were the first words she had spoken to him that day, and he +brightened (unreasonably), as if he hoped she might love him, after +all. Yet he couldn’t agree with her opinions. “I am <span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>with Ruby,” he +said. “Men have no right to lie and dream about abstractions when there +is so much ugliness and misery in the world. They ought to be building +the New Jerusalem.”</p> + +<p>“In China’s green and pleasant land,” observed Lord Sombrewater. “Well, +let ’em. We don’t want it in England.”</p> + +<p>“They’d have a better chance here,” retorted Fulke. “There’s no +capitalist system here that must be destroyed before you can build. +What lovely thing did the capitalist system ever produce, I ask?”</p> + +<p>“My daughter,” suggested Lord Sombrewater. “Very definitely, I think, +it produced my daughter.”</p> + +<p>Fulke ignored that. It was, as Ambrose notes, one of those unfair +arguments. “We could make England as lovely as this,” he said, “with a +little preliminary destruction and the aid of science.”</p> + +<p>“Sheer, criminal balderdash!” exclaimed Sprot.</p> + +<p>“What I can’t understand about you builders of superfluous Jerusalems,” +said Quentin, “is your utter dependence on your surroundings. Now I can +be happy in a Houndsditch slum. Where I am, the heavenly city is about +me. I am content with what I find. I do not ask to see the distant +scene—one step enough for me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span></p> + +<p>“Don’t blaspheme,” said Sprot, who was a Christian.</p> + +<p>“Ruby thinks it’s heaven where it’s comfortable and she can sleep,” +said Lychnis. “Personally, I can’t form the least idea what heaven may +consist in. It certainly isn’t in my heart. It isn’t round us here, +even—still less if Fulke turns it into a red-villa Jerusalem, or even a +marble one. Are those twelve on the little mountain in heaven? A little +too wizened for such a place, perhaps. One somehow expects heaven to +be full of beautiful Greeks. And I suppose one expects to be the only +woman there. Do you expect to be the only man there, Quentin?”</p> + +<p>“I should hope so,” he answered, “since I expect to obtain heaven when +I....” She silenced him with a gesture, but his red lips smiled in his +frizzy beard.</p> + +<p>“At any rate,” she went on, “one will not see western Europeans there, +unshaved Polish Jews, cross-looking, mingy English tradesmen. I would +like to see a man who didn’t look as if he was preoccupied with a corn. +Not that I wish to be rude to any of you. I love your sweet, lined, +thought-laden, nerve-ridden European faces. But when may I expect to +see a face that is all pure beauty? When, Ambrose?”</p> + +<p>“I should think you very well might about <span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>here,” he answered. “The +Dragon perhaps. Someone who lives on that rock in the Lotus Lake. +Someone who broods on the stupendous forces of Nature out of the heart +of repose.”</p> + +<p>“But Chinese can’t be handsome,” said Ruby. “They’re so fatuous, or +else so fierce—and in any case so foreign.”</p> + +<p>But Lychnis suddenly held up her small orchid-hand enjoining silence. A +wind came rustling along the forest, and boomed out across the valley +like some fabulous dragonish bird. Sprot moved uneasily. “Someone +coming,” he muttered.</p> + +<p>“Terence’s goat-rider!” Ruby clung to her father’s arm.</p> + +<p>He came riding along the edge of the forest, seated on a goat of more +than natural size. He drove it with a branch of peach-blossom. His +dress was fantastically rich, and he had a little red button in his +hat. His face was plump and imperious; his tiny mouth ineffably calm. +He turned in his saddle as he rode past, and the dark, slant-slit +eyes in his face of dry gold bored into the thicket where they were +hidden—terrible eyes, attentive and fierce, like the eyes of the tiger +when they shine and are rapt with the mysterious and dreadful forces of +Nature.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="20">20</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_n.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>NOW +Ambrose gives an evening picture—an evening of emerald and fire. +They have come back to the Pavilion, the wind has fallen, and Lychnis +and Ruby are walking with him in the mazy paths of the bamboo-forest. +The walls of bamboo curl over their heads like breakers under a +flaring sky, and now and then, at some last fierce puff of the gale, +there is a splutter of green foam. Ahead of them are the hills, like +rollers darkening and lightening on a horizon of sea. And low down +in the west rides the round sun, breaking in upon them through the +leaves—inquisitive, unescapable, like the face of the goat-rider. It +was Ruby (the red tinge of her hair and the peony colour of her robe +making a sharp, exquisite chord with the bamboo green) who made that +comparison. She was really restless under the sun’s stare. “I thought +we should be safe here,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Safe? Safe from what?” asked Lychnis (in purple and deep violet).</p> + +<p>“From that face.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I thought you meant safe from ... <span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>from other things. Safe with +old Ambrose. Safe, I mean, from the strain of people always pulling at +you, attracting you, trying to get you.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mind that so much. But I didn’t like that man on the goat, who +looked at us as if he saw some caterpillars on a bush.”</p> + +<p>“He didn’t see us,” said Lychnis. “He only knew there was something or +someone in the thicket. But you are afraid because if a man like that +looked at you closely in the eyes he’d paralyse all your desire for +resistance.”</p> + +<p>Ruby was indignant. Ambrose describes with enjoyment the encounter +between a resentful, sunset-headed Titania and a slim, bantering spirit +in a purple thundercloud.</p> + +<p>“He wouldn’t,” said Ruby.</p> + +<p>“Well, search carefully in your mind and try and tell me exactly +why his face frightens you. Reject your first thoughts and tell me +precisely.”</p> + +<p>Ruby sought, as desired. “Well,” she said, “his hands are too plump and +womanish.”</p> + +<p>“So, I believe, were Napoleon’s. But his hands are not his face. It may +be your real reason, but I want to hear more of his face.”</p> + +<p>“He had an absurd round hat, with fur on it, like Henry the Eighth.”</p> + +<p>“A little lower and we shall come to his face.”</p> + +<p>“He had a ridiculous coat on.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span></p> + +<p>“Too low. Mount him.”</p> + +<p>“And I couldn’t see his legs.”</p> + +<p>“They are important, certainly. But for God’s sake tell me about his +face!”</p> + +<p>“Oh well, then! I don’t like a man to have a yellow skin, and +moth-eyebrows, and such a tiny mouth, and a jaw round instead of +square, and eyes that look and look without moving.”</p> + +<p>“I see. Delicate hands and a tiny mouth. Not European, it’s true. Not +the sort of man who takes you in his grasp and sucks passionate kisses +off your mouth, as if he were licking an oyster out of its gape.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Licky, you’re dreadful! You won’t understand. I can’t explain. I +only mean there’s something about him that gives me the shivers.”</p> + +<p>“Precisely—and deliciously. With a terrific, god-like power that comes +of the very calm and delicateness of his face.”</p> + +<p>“I shall dream of him in the night.”</p> + +<p>“A calm, shining and awful figure, with a golden skin and slanting +eyes, standing over you in a transfiguration; a visitor from some +untroubled Nirvana; a being without thoughts, looking with wonder at +your thought-troubled face. Not that thought troubles you much, my +Juno.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, it does,” protested Ruby. “I wonder and wonder—sometimes for +hours. But not like <span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>you, Licky. You’re strange and say funny things.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis suddenly changed her mood. “That’s for Ambrose to put down in +his book. Dear Ambrose——” She took his arm and studied his face. He +felt her eyes on him like the eyes of a violet. “Ambrose is a little +Chinese,” she said. “He’s calm.” Then suddenly: “You can’t tell what +thoughts are going on behind his serene, pink forehead. Does he ever +give you the shivers, Ruby?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, never!” cried Ruby.</p> + +<p>Then they took him for a walk in the groves of the bamboo, one on each +arm, and Lychnis whispered to him: “What terrific nonsense I’ve been +talking!” They mounted Terence’s tower, and purple night stole over the +Lotus Lake, and a myriad fireflies flickered over the forest.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="21">21</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_n.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>NEXT +morning there was a council of the Sages. It was very hot, and the +Sages lay in chairs on a lawn before the Pavilion.</p> + +<p>“The position is as follows,” said the chairman. “I have received +an invitation, very much resembling a command, to make a ceremonial +call, along with the rest of you, upon the Mandarin who inhabits the +rock-island in the Lotus Lake. The invitation, or command—one moment, +please, Sprot—is written in English, and the Mandarin’s name appears to +be Lung, or, as he kindly translates, Dragon. The question is, Shall we +go? Now, my friend.”</p> + +<p>“I say, Certainly not,” Sprot burst out. “Who is he, that we should +obey his commands? I vote we don’t go, just to show him we’re free, +independent Englishmen!”</p> + +<p>Quentin whistled a few bars of the National Anthem.</p> + +<p>“And in the alternative?” queried Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“Stay here,” replied Sprot firmly.</p> + +<p>“But that would hardly be courteous.”</p> + +<p>“Why? They’re only Chinese. A lot of dirty, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>hugger-mugger, gibbering +Orientals. But let’s go away altogether, if you like. I don’t want to +stay. A place like this, where nothing ever happens, gets on my nerves. +I want to go back to England and see a good old flaring advertisement +of Beecham’s Pills. You know where you are, then.”</p> + +<p>“And supposing,” asked Sir Richard, “they won’t let us go back?”</p> + +<p>“What d’you mean?” Sprot went pale all at once.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater’s eyes were suddenly on Frew-Gaff. “Will you enlarge +that a little, Richard?”</p> + +<p>“What I mean is this: One has been sensible ever since we landed of +the existence in these parts of somebody with very considerable power. +Looking back, one may perhaps see that influence, or power, working +even before we landed. And I myself am sensible of a deliberate, +forming hand, not only in events, but in our material environment, even +in the landscape. More than that—we are living at the generosity of +someone who can afford to be very slow and ceremonious in discovering +himself. I feel myself that underneath this prodigality of forethought +for our comfort there lies an immense sureness, based on power. I feel +that it is a kindly power, but it may be otherwise. In any case I am +not afraid. I am profoundly interested; and for that reason, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>as well +as for the sake of that high-breeding which I still hope distinguishes +some Englishmen, I vote that we accept the invitation, in appropriate +terms.”</p> + +<p>“You express me exactly, Richard,” said the chairman, with an abrupt +nod—“except that I shall have something to add.”</p> + +<p>“I think it’s very unfair,” said Sprot, “to those of us who are +uncomfortable in this valley. I do protest most earnestly against my +surroundings. Who are our neighbours here? Twelve lunatics who drivel +all day on a rock; a most suspicious-looking individual who rides about +on a goat, which is contempt of civilization; a flock of gibbering +servants; and a person who calls himself Dragon and lives on an island +in the middle of a lake. I ask you, Can anybody feel confidence in +people who behave like that?”</p> + +<p>“What do you think, Quentin?” Sombrewater hoped to extinguish Sprot +in the draught of Quentin’s eloquence; but Quentin was lazy in the +heat, and Europe-sick, and only murmured of some scandalous adventure +with a brocaded young lady on a summer’s afternoon in Spain (where he +was engaged in the sale of electrical goods). She had consented, he +remembered, because of a poetical feeling for the warm and indolent +splendour of the afternoon, and there was a whole Spanish landscape in +her torrid embrace.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span></p> + +<p>“Interesting,” said the chairman, “but irrelevant. Terence, I think we +can anticipate your views—and yours, Blackwood. Your vote is to remain, +I am sure, Fulke?”</p> + +<p>“My vote,” said Fulke sullenly, “is to stay here, if we must, but to +send the girls immediately back to the ship.”</p> + +<p>“Hear, hear,” said Sprot.</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked Quentin, stirring.</p> + +<p>“Because, in my opinion, as far as one of them is concerned, if +she doesn’t go away from this valley now she never will. She’ll be +bewitched, if she isn’t already, and go against Nature.”</p> + +<p>“But how nice for her,” said Quentin, “to go against Nature! It will +be an experience. That’s what we all desire, I presume, and find so +difficult to get—experiences, strange experiences. People are so +unwilling to lend themselves to experience.”</p> + +<p>“Ambrose knows what I mean,” replied Fulke, still sullen and hang-dog +with thwarted passion.</p> + +<p>“May we this once invite you to contribute to the debate, Ambrose?” +asked the chairman, folding his plump, capable hands and looking down +at his papers.</p> + +<p>Ambrose replied that as regards both the girls he could vouch that +their instincts were infallible for whatever was in accordance with +Nature, complex <span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>as the reactions of one of them might be and tortuous +in working to a conclusion. As regards what might prove to be in +accordance with Nature, it was inadvisable to dogmatize.</p> + +<p>“Very well, then,” said Lord Sombrewater, shooting him a glance. “There +is a majority for remaining. And in deciding, myself, to remain, let +me say that I accept certain risks, as I may call them. All my life I +have taken risks, when I felt within myself a certain compulsion, which +was itself, perhaps, born of a hidden knowledge of what the result +was bound to be. I have never been wrong. I may be wrong, possibly, +this time. But do not the indications all point one way, and are we +not really compelled to see this adventure out? We are a band of men +who have come together because of a common interest. Business, yes—but +as well as that we are seeking something in life. Like all Europeans, +we are seekers after something vaguely defined. We find ourselves, +suddenly, unexpectedly, in a more than merely other-than-European +world. It is a world that so nearly resembles our own world that the +subtle differences are the more surprising. It is our world in a +slightly distorted mirror. Already some one or two of us find ourselves +uncomfortable. There is something in the environment that is not +agreeable to our conceptions of what ought <span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>to be, or indeed of what +is. But I am convinced, with Quentin, that we must not desert this +opportunity of experience, be the results what they may, until we have +searched it to its last end. We must go on. I propose it.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose wondered how far Lord Sombrewater, or any of them, would go. +Lychnis, he fancied, would outstrip them in searching an experience to +the bottom.</p> + +<p>There being a majority, the chairman’s proposal was adopted, and the +meeting broke up. Lord Sombrewater took Ambrose by the arm and walked +with him to the red mooring-raft among the reeds of the Lake. “A +somewhat obscure speech of yours, Ambrose,” he said. “I feel you know +my daughter better than I do, and better than any other man ever will. +I am her father, and my feelings are strong. One day, no doubt, she +will have a lover, and his feelings will presumably be strong too.” (He +seemed to think it unnecessary, though, that she should have a lover.) +“But you are detached, and the more observant. What were you getting +at? To what sort of eventuality did you refer?”</p> + +<p>“I have not gone so far in my mind as to formulate an eventuality,” +Ambrose replied.</p> + +<p>“You are an old pike,” said Sombrewater. “You never bite and you will +never be caught.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="22">22</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>ARRAYED +in harmonious splendours, they floated, next morning, in a +crowd of fragile and fantastic boats of red, yellow and black, through +lanes of flushed lotuses towards the Rock. Servants paddled them. Here +and there an unknown white bird with crimson beak walked sedately on +the carpet of leaves, or a green-headed duck dabbled with his bill +among the stalks of the water-lilies. The Rock itself, at the distance +of half a mile, covered with foliage and flowers, looked as if some +lake-dragon, rising from the fathomless bottom, had thrust up the +carpet of lilies with his back and fallen asleep on the water.</p> + +<p>“It’s black and mysterious down there, among the stalks of the lilies,” +whispered Lychnis. “One would like to be a fish and swim down among +oozy roots. It must be wonderful to be a fish and nose about in a +reed-world. But aren’t they pure, the lotuses? Like the flushing +thoughts that sometimes come up from our black insides.”</p> + +<p>“It is remarkable,” observed Quentin from under his canopy, “that a +creature with so much in the way of tripes should throw off the dewy +cobwebs of imaginations that one so often has.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span></p> + +<p>“Illusions,” said Blackwood.</p> + +<p>“It’s lovely floating on water,” said Ruby. “I’m ready to live any +number of lives like this, Mr. Blackwood.”</p> + +<p>He firmly shut his ascetic lips, and his eyelids too (notes Ambrose), +shutting them down on the bright summer-morning picture of Lychnis, +full length and slender in her floating casket of coral.</p> + +<p>“You’re not frightened, Ruby?” queried her friend across the separating +leaf-carpet.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>But perhaps Lychnis herself was just a little dubious when they came +within a hundred yards of the sun-beaten Rock and closely saw its +dragon-spine ridge, its burden of pine and fig-tree, and its steep +side, with little exquisite summer-houses pat to the colour and design +of contour and foliage. And they were all a little silent when, +rounding the head of the island, they entered its shadow and paddled +under its towering wall. This was on the side of the Lake away from +their Pavilion; they were cut off, so to speak, from what they knew.</p> + +<p>But the island seemed civilized and friendly enough. The wall of rock, +coming up sheer out of the depths of the Lake (one could see great carp +and wondrous fish nosing in crannies many feet below), was alive, a +wrinkled meditation in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>stone. Reeds fringed it here and there, foliage +hung in cascades from the summit, an arbour or a garden seat stood by +some perilous path, under pine, rhododendron or orange-tree. Then, +coming to a sheltered bight between two flying and fantastic buttresses +of rock, they saw a flight of steps, gleaming and twisting up the cliff +like a devil in anguish, and at the foot of the steps, by the water’s +edge, the Dragon itself waited courteously on a marble quay to receive +them.</p> + +<p>The Dragon, a brilliant coloured bird, resolved itself into three +Chinese gentlemen. The first, in pale heliotrope, was very old and +bright and clean, with blind eyes, scanty white beard, and a hilarious +appearance. The second was a shapeless little dump of a man in mauve, +darkly pigmented, with black top-knot, little wisp of black chin-tuft, +long slits for eyes, and a general appearance of inspired ugliness. The +third, in a richly embroidered robe the colour of a peony stalk, was +the goat-rider. He was younger and taller than the others, and now, at +close quarters, one saw that the clear, penetrating eyes in the face of +dry gold were candid, mild and grave—or so, usually, they seemed; but +at moments they were more difficult to read than the eyes of the hawk +or the leopard.</p> + +<p>All three received the visitors with smiles and many assurances of +welcome, yet also with a certain <span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>well-bred air of aloofness—an air +that refused to presume on the willingness of the visitors to know them +and at the same time esteemed itself at a pretty high price, modestly, +as a fine jewel might. A highly civilized trio.</p> + +<p>The tall youth stepped forward. Entreating them to mount the stairs +(which they did), making also from time to time, in concert with his +two companions, gestures expressive of his desire to assist them in the +intolerably steep ascent, he explained that the laughing old gentleman +with the scanty white beard was his great-grandfather, Wang Li; and the +ugly, poetical gentleman, named Hsiao Chai, his grandfather. His own +name was Yuan Ch’ien. His father was making a pilgrimage.</p> + +<p>Arriving at the top of the stairs, he indicated a direction. “Not to +weary you,” he said, “with the florid and excessive courtesy which is +the custom among ourselves, this path leads to my great-grandfather’s +summer pavilion, where, begging you to excuse the omission of a number +of preliminary calls and other formalities, he would desire you to take +luncheon.”</p> + +<p>Adopting the same high-mannered air as their hosts, the party moved +forward without remarking to one another on the strangeness of this +or <span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>that—except Sprot, who loudly whispered to Lord Sombrewater and +Ambrose, “Speaks English!”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater and Ambrose, who had noticed it for themselves, made +no sign of having heard him, and it was disconcerting when Yuan, ten +yards away, spoke as if he were answering the thought. “Anticipating,” +he said, “the surprise which you are bound to feel, I may speak of +myself so far as to explain that I have been acquainted with London and +many of your European capitals, not to mention the cities of the United +States of America. And we have had visitors from England before.”</p> + +<p>Sprot paled. Where were those visitors now? In dungeons, perhaps, under +the island, or mouldering on the oozy bed of the Lake. One hoped not to +see white skeletons, ominously marred, their parts disposed after some +plan other than the usual.</p> + +<p>“My knowledge of your customs,” continued Yuan, “enables me to be +certain that you will pardon what my countrymen and many of my +relations might regard as an immoral absence of ceremony. We run our +affairs here on lines which are not precisely national, in any sense.”</p> + +<p>Wang Li and Hsiao signified approval of this last sentiment. Lord +Sombrewater observed to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>the very old man that he considered the +surroundings most elegant.</p> + +<p>“We are now,” replied Wang Li, “almost at that invisible centre on +which the unity of the whole depends”; and he smiled in a way that +Ambrose at first tentatively describes as imbecile.</p> + +<p>The surroundings were indeed elegant. The party had come to the house +of the Dragon—not so much a house as a walled village of tasteful, +if startling, elegance. It was full, as they afterwards found, of +relations; but now, instead of entering the stout red gates, they +proceeded, by a harmonious approach, amid scenery with the character of +a contrived design on a dessert-plate, to the summer pavilion of Wang +Li.</p> + +<p>“This way,” said Wang, indicating a complicated geometrical harmony +of vermilion lines and arcs, perched among trees, a symphony of red +balconies and lemon-yellow roof; and they went up into an airy pavilion +like a nest of red straws in the pines, sunny, but mysteriously cool. +It was on the side of the island where they had landed, and a red +balcony hung out over the water. Lychnis seated herself there, on the +floor.</p> + +<p>“The invisible centre of Unity,” observed Wang. And here they noticed, +looking down avenues of tree-tops, that the landscape surrounding <span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>the +island and the Lake had changed, in the sense that the secret of its +design, hidden from every other view-point, was strikingly revealed. +From everywhere else it baffled, and perhaps a little chafed, the mind. +From here it ever variously satisfied and rested one. And the more +one looked at the Rock itself, the more one was convinced by a volume +or surface, a space of yellow or blue tiling, a green and grinning +monster, a bending cypress or sophora.</p> + +<p>There was no furniture in the room, except a few stools, an affair +of ebony and enamel that looked like a smoking table, a musical +instrument, or an unknown parlour game, and some jars which Quentin at +once recognized as products of the Tang and Ming dynasties—in fact, he +identified the signatures, with the applause of old Wang Li. “Though,” +the old man strangely observed, “the name which can be written down is +not the everlasting name.”</p> + +<p>“That is, of course, true,” replied Quentin. But he replied absently, +for there came in two exquisite and fragile girls, who, after +ceremoniously saluting the company, ran like mice, the one to Lychnis, +the other to Ruby, and, squatting beside them, began to chatter softly +in a shy and welcoming, if incomprehensible, way.</p> + +<p>Then, when the visitors had been allowed time <span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>to feast their +imaginations on the rhythmic wonders of pavilion and arch, marble +pathway and bronze dragon, sweeping terrace and dreaming cedar, that +sought their attention at every window (or else, according to their +natures, wondered what freak could have made himself responsible for +this freakish fantasia of unexpected colour and disconcerting line), a +light but sumptuous luncheon of pigeons’ eggs floating in soup, braised +bamboo-shoots and other things was served, under the direction of a +sort of major-domo whose choleric features they at once recognized. +Sprot plucked at Lord Sombrewater’s gay sleeve and whispered, but Lord +Sombrewater shook him off.</p> + +<p>“It would scarcely be polite,” said Yuan at this point, “to leave you +in a state of doubt at what must have appeared to be a remarkable +series of coincidences. With the permission of my great-grandfather, I +will enter upon some details.”</p> + +<p>Old Wang Li nodded and assumed an expression of almost idiotic vacancy, +murmuring: “That which can be told is not to be compared for excellence +with that which cannot be told.” The hideous and poetical Hsiao, who +had exchanged with Quentin a number of cups of wine, had fallen into +an inspired contemplation of half a melon. Yuan, impassive (and was he +humble or imperious, smiling or fierce?—Lychnis and Ambrose could <span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>not +make up their minds), entered upon details.</p> + +<p>“The founder of our line, himself a descendant of the Wu-Lung, or +Five Dragons, first lived on this Rock in the time of Huang-ti, the +Yellow Emperor. It was about the year 2630 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, as you +reckon dates in Europe. There are, it is true, discrepancies between +the dates given in the Bamboo Books and those given by the majority of +Chinese historians. In any case the event was not very recent, and in +consequence we are a highly civilized family. At times our influence +has been very wide, especially in days when the philosophy of Lao-tzu, +which was embraced by my family not long after 600 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, has +been in the ascendant. At other times our influence has been less, but +at no time have we lost possession of this island, owing to a faculty +long cherished in the family for devising instruments of considerable +ingenuity and precision.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis laughed almost aloud at the look on Sprot’s face—a look of +depressed triumph at the justification of a dismal prophecy.</p> + +<p>“It was a member of the Dragon family,” continued Yuan, “who invented +the south-pointing needle, gun-powder, anæsthetics, and the flying +chariot. It would be idle to pretend that we have not even now at our +disposal matters of still greater ingenuity, so that it has for a long +time <span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>past been the custom to regard this neighbourhood as one where it +is not unreasonable to flatter our quite unexpressed desire to enjoy +the pleasures of unmolested contemplation. There have, of course, been +those who were rash enough to ignore the tradition. Thus, generation by +generation, we have built our pavilions, set our hands to these valleys +and turned them into our pleasure garden, with summer-houses for the +use of the visitors who have honoured our possessions by sharing them. +And the desires of our visitors are, of course, flattered equally with +our own.”</p> + +<p>Hence the respect accorded to the visitors on their journey. Ambrose +received a glance from Lychnis.</p> + +<p>“And hasn’t anybody ever got away with some of the boodle?” asked Sprot.</p> + +<p>“To a very great extent we are unmolested because of the respect +which is paid, in this country, to intelligence. And no doubt many +suppose that because we spend a great deal of time in apparently +idle contemplation no wealth is produced. But visitors have had the +curious desire to remove precious articles to their own homes, and they +have, as you put it, got away. But that—do I divine the more interior +workings of your mind?—was because we did not stop them, as, indeed, +why should we?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span></p> + +<p>“I presume,” said Sprot, suddenly going turkey-cock red, “that one has +complete liberty of movement here?”</p> + +<p>“Until one transgresses the ordinary laws of ceremony,” answered Yuan.</p> + +<p>“What I mean to say is——” began Sprot.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater enjoined silence on him, and exchanged explanatory and +understanding glances with Yuan. But Sprot meant to assert himself.</p> + +<p>“What I mean to say is, that we are British. The might of the British +Empire——”</p> + +<p>“If I may anticipate your remarks,” said Yuan, “there is, in a sense, +no British Empire. There is only myself and a few friends.” Lord +Sombrewater resumed his attitude of attentive politeness, and Hsiao +transferred his inspired contemplation to the other half of the melon.</p> + +<p>“No Br——!” began Sprot.</p> + +<p>“It is possible that occasion may serve to demonstrate that we have +here facilities for the complete destruction of any empire that ever +was, except the empire of contemplative activity. But what have we to +do with the making or unmaking of empires? It breaks into the day so.”</p> + +<p>“I take it,” said Lord Sombrewater at last, “that you have in your +hands discoveries of which you make no use—no industrial use, shall I +suggest?”</p> + +<p>“Precisely. We use them only for our convenience <span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>and for the +convenience of visitors—as, for instance, you will, I am sure, agree +that our fireworks have an unrivalled variety and brilliance.”</p> + +<p>“Marvellous!” said Quentin. “I love fireworks.”</p> + +<p>“And we have done much to improve the weather.”</p> + +<p>“These discoveries,” asked Sir Richard, leaning forward, “are +discoveries of physical science?”</p> + +<p>“They are what physical science is hoping to discover by tortuous +methods of its own. In the West, if I may say so, you seek reality +through the examination of appearances, and you have little sense of +it. Here we experience reality and are able to reproduce phenomena, as +may be desirable.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed! Very interesting,” said Sir Richard, biting his lip. “You have +laboratories....”</p> + +<p>But Fulke burst in: “My God! these people could build the Ideal +State in about ten minutes, and they sit here thinking and enjoying +themselves.”</p> + +<p>“Those who think do not enjoy,” said Blackwood. “It is in a state of +non-thinking that one approaches the final bliss of annihilation.”</p> + +<p>“Bliss of your big toe!” said old Wang, waking suddenly. The veils fell +from his eyes, and one <span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>saw that they were used to looking fixedly at +things non-human, that they were full of an almost dreadful humour. “In +argument on matters of reality,” he added quaintly, “there are no rules +of courtesy.”</p> + +<p>“It is not to be thought,” said Yuan, “that we dream of Utopias. We +contemplate reality, each of us from generation to generation in his +own way. We perceive the inward structure of things, and occasionally, +when apposite, one of us may bring up a discovery from those profound +fishings, in the shape of a picture, a poem, or a mechanical +contrivance. There have been men of our family who saw that it would +be spontaneous to destroy their surroundings in order to shape them +according to a greater perfectness perceived in contemplation. They +obeyed their natures, but it usually happens that we pass in due time +(as my great-grandfather has passed) beyond all interest in the seen +world, and lose ourselves in the experience of what is beneath all +appearance, whether of life or death.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Lord Sombrewater, “we have already detained you from your +contemplative activities long enough for one day. I look forward to +many pleasant conversations; and I desire to thank you on behalf of +all of us for the very kindly way in which you have looked after our +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>interests for some time past, and for your really lavish provision for +our entertainment and comfort.”</p> + +<p>The company rose. “Oh, but may I ask one question?” said Lychnis, with +timidity. The Chinese girls twittered round her, smoothing her clothes. +“Did you—I can’t help wanting to know—did you actually fetch us here, +or have we come of our own free wills?”</p> + +<p>There was a certain feeling of embarrassment, but Yuan, who had been +regarding her with profound attention, replied: “We were informed of +your intention to visit Asia, and since then it has been our most +earnest desire that Fate would guide you to this valley.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis hoped that the rest of their desires in regard to the party +would prove convenient, being so difficult to resist. Then aloud: “But +supposing you hadn’t liked us?”</p> + +<p>“We did like you. We allowed ourselves the gratification of studying +your very pleasing appearance, and only the laws of politeness +prevented us from listening to your elegant conversation.”</p> + +<p>“You saw us!” cried the Sages.</p> + +<p>“Look!” said Yuan, introducing Lychnis to a cabinet in the wall.</p> + +<p>She looked in, and swung round at him on her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>hips. “The <cite>Floating +Leaf</cite>! My mother, knitting under the awning! Oh! can you see inside +things, too? Or in the dark?” She flushed and frowned, remembering her +afternoon with Ambrose under the plum-tree in blossom, when she had +given herself to his regard.</p> + +<p>“This adds a terror to life,” observed Quentin. “It teaches us to be +careful.”</p> + +<p>“One can invent many things when it is appropriate to invent them,” +said Yuan, “and there are several matters on this Rock that may +interest you during your visit to our valley.”</p> + +<p>“Excellent!” said Lord Sombrewater, and indicated a desire that the +boats should be brought. So they were conducted back to the stairway, +but not before Hsiao, rising abruptly from his meditation, had executed +in three or four sweeps a painting of half a melon.</p> + +<p>“What skill!” exclaimed Terence. “What sweeping brushwork! And +really, what a significant melon! One would say that it was the most +significant object in the universe. It leads the mind out to those +half-realized worlds that are interwoven with ours.”</p> + +<p>“It is merely,” said Hsiao Chai, “that I have drawn the reality of the +melon. You are a painter, too, I know—a European painter; that is, a +painter of superficial appearances.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span></p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact,” said Sir Richard, “he paints souls, emanations, +auras and things.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that!” said Hsiao, with indifference, and they descended the +stairway to the marble quay. They floated off in the little boats down +water lanes among the lotuses, and once more the three brilliant and +bowing figures resolved themselves into one.</p> + +<p>“It is a charming dragon,” sang out Quentin to Lychnis; but she pulled +out her jade combs and disappeared in a cascade of hair. “Just as,” +notes Ambrose, “some slender and savage fairy might vanish in a forest +cave to interrogate her thoughts in solitude.” For, as she confessed +in due course, her mind was entirely taken up with a picture of that +still unexplained island, with its marble quay, its writhing staircase, +its pavilions, paths and cypresses, its vermilion theorem in some +unfamiliar geometry perched up in the trees.</p> + +<p>He tells us that there was no doubt in his mind that their journey +to the valley had in some way been compelled by that keen-eyed young +man, or by his hilarious great-grandparent, but for what object was at +present not clear.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="23">23</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img1"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_i.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>IN +due course the visit was returned by the three Chinese gentlemen, +who brought with them several beautiful girls. To entertain them, +Lord Sombrewater decreed a picnic; so under an enamel sky, blue to +apricot, tables were spread on the lawn between the horns of the grove, +and echoes of laughter and sprightly conversation quivered among the +delicately shimmering clumps of bamboo. Before them an exceedingly +up-to-date lawn-mower was cutting green swathes in a carpet of daisies, +like a plough driving through the Milky Way. Willow and elm and +plane-tree were mirrored in the glassy lake. Everybody was happy—even +Blackwood, who enjoyed the opportunity to reject the opportunity of +enjoyment. Old Wang Li, wearing the appearance of an aged villager +who has for some time lapsed from mental efficiency, laughed much +to himself at nothing; but from time to time there issued from his +vacuity some startling observation, and terrifying depths of knowledge +were sometimes revealed in a sudden lightning that flickered through +the veils of his eyes. Hsiao Chai abandoned <span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>himself frankly to the +pleasures of the table and occasionally to silent contemplation of the +landscape. Yuan engaged in discussion with a certain smiling ardour and +charm of youth. But it seemed to Lychnis that he, too, was absentminded +part of the time, even when he discussed. His eyes, she said, were +not seeing what was around them. There was a rapt, a heart-chilling +look in them, she said, as if they pierced through appearances and +contemplated realities that might have been frightening for ordinary +people to perceive. Ambrose makes it clear that there was nothing +impolite in the behaviour of the three guests. They were self-effacing, +unself-conscious and simple, but, watching their patrician faces, +one felt oneself to be in the company of great gentlemen. It was +beyond their power to obscure themselves. All three were in touch, as +inconspicuously as might be managed, with some fountain—in communion, +secretly, with some tremendous reality. They had become vehicles for +it, and it could not be hidden. With Wang it flowered in unexpected and +unreasonable laughter; with Hsiao in the frown of creative inspiration; +with Yuan in an imperious raptness of gaze. On him also there sat a +certain majesty of self-dedication and the foreknowledge of some +difficult paradise.</p> + +<p>As the meal progressed, the system of thought <span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>that was to be inferred +from the talk of the three Chinese gentlemen seemed to the others more +and more curiously upside down. But perhaps not to Quentin.</p> + +<p>“You are a man to be much admired,” said Hsiao at some free remark of +his.</p> + +<p>“So he is, indeed,” said Lord Sombrewater dryly, “though it has +been our experience, on our travels, to hear him referred to less +sympathetically.”</p> + +<p>“That is doubtless because men seek to impose their own ideas of +conduct on the rest of mankind,” observed Yuan.</p> + +<p>“He has discarded purpose,” said Hsiao. “He behaves as his impulses +dictate.”</p> + +<p>“I am appreciated,” said Quentin.</p> + +<p>“He despises,” continued Hsiao, “the artificial bonds that check +our natural impulses. He has become primitive. He gives rein to his +nature. He gratifies it, and this is right, because life is short, +and our days should not be occupied with conforming to external +practices and submitting our natures to impossible inhibitions. There +is only one virtue, and that is to behave according to our natures. +Men are remembered not for their virtue or their wickedness, but +only for having lived to their full bent. And all is soon enough +forgotten. Indulge, therefore, the ear <span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>and the eye, the mouth and the +belly—indulge the desires of body and mind.”</p> + +<p>“I am understood,” said Quentin.</p> + +<p>“It will be observed,” put in Yuan, “that Hsiao has halted in the +pleasures of sense. He has been caught, like a fly in amber, in the +beauty of appearances. He perceives, and indicates to us, the spirit, +the underlying reality of Nature, but he permits himself the desires of +sense, thus adding to the sum of human emotion. Such a man is not the +perfect man.”</p> + +<p>“I should think not, indeed,” said Sprot. “Such a man is most +dangerous.”</p> + +<p>“And what in your view is the perfect man?” asked Lord Sombrewater, +with interest.</p> + +<p>“The perfect man,” replied Yuan, to an accompaniment of profound +hilarity on the part of Wang Li, “is without passion, desires nothing +and indicates nothing. He has the appearance of a fool and is usually +ugly. In speaking I depart from wisdom. In speaking we limit truth. +Yet, to come in the neighbourhood of definition, let me say that the +perfect man neglects himself and is preserved; forgets himself and +is remembered; takes what comes; makes no plans; eats what he likes; +sleeps without dreams; wakes without care; breathes deep; conforms to +custom, lest he become self-conscious; seems to be of the world while +his <span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>thoughts are with eternity; uses language while communing in +silence with what is beyond language; ignores the distinction between +spirit and matter; is neither benevolent nor malevolent, wicked nor +good, adding nothing to the sum of human emotion; and, his mind being +utterly in repose, he dwells for ever with the unnameable.”</p> + +<p>“That again,” said Quentin, toying with a dish of spiced wild duck, “is +me.”</p> + +<p>“But does not the true Sage calmly await annihilation?” ventured +Blackwood.</p> + +<p>“The true Sage awaits nothing, calmly or otherwise.” It was Wang Li who +thought fit to speak. He spoke or kept silence at random, recognizing +no rule. “He pays no heed either to becoming or ceasing-to-be. +He rejects distinctions of life or death, remaining as nearly as +possible unconscious until, in the course of Nature, he returns to the +non-relative—which is not to be described as annihilation.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Blackwood is wrong,” said Hsiao, with decision, “in rejecting +life. One should reject nothing that is in accordance with Nature. And +Wang Li is wrong to spend his years in a state of unconsciousness. For +even now as he talks to you he is unconscious. He is not even conscious +that he is unconscious—otherwise there would be in his mind the shadow +of pride, which is a shadow <span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>of passion. He is with eternity, and only +peripherally speaks. Yuan, I fear, is going the same way. For me, the +object of life is enjoyment. One is born and one will die. In between +one has life. I do not reject it. I accept it and gratify my senses +while they can be gratified. I perceive the unnameable, but one can +perceive without embracing. When one has returned to the unnameable one +will have no senses. In the meantime, from the point of view of the +senses, death is a fact; life’s another.”</p> + +<p>“Neither is a fact,” said Wang, his eyes lit with a terrifying gleam of +amusement. “There is only one Fact. From it all apparent distinctions +derive. In it they disappear.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say,” clamoured Sprot incredulously, “that I ... Me +...” (he pointed to himself) “am not a fact?”</p> + +<p>“You are as the shadow of a non-existing cloud passing over a lawn that +isn’t there,” said Quentin, with a wink at Hsiao.</p> + +<p>“Did I hear a voice?” asked Wang. “How can I, that am not, hear a voice +from nothing?” And Sprot clasped his head in desperation, proving +himself to himself by the hardness of his skull.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="24">24</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>THE +meal came to an end in a somewhat startling manner, for Wang ceased +abruptly from conversation and entered a trance of contemplation, while +Hsiao went fast asleep.</p> + +<p>“This,” said Lord Sombrewater to Ambrose, “is a great compliment. +I quite see that it may be regarded as the last gesture of true +refinement.” He rose, and with Frew-Gaff and Ruby followed Lychnis and +Yuan, who were strolling among the paths of the bamboo grove. “I desire +to hear more of the conversation of that young man,” he remarked.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe he is young,” said Sprot to Ambrose. “I shouldn’t be +surprised to find he was a hundred. I don’t like these people. Did +you ever hear such views? And I think it very wrong to let Lychnis go +walking off confidentially like that with a young married man. He’s +sure to be married. And anyway, he’s a foreigner—more than a foreigner. +In my opinion a Chinaman’s more than foreign—like a frog. You don’t +suppose”—he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>came closer to Ambrose—“you don’t suppose Lychnis would +... I mean, a nice young girl wouldn’t....”</p> + +<p>“I should recommend you, as a mental exercise,” said Ambrose, “to +formulate to yourself more precisely what is in your mind. It makes my +record of the conversation more precise.”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater beckoned, and he joined the brilliant figures in the +bamboo grove. Yuan was discoursing of the bamboo and Lychnis listening +bright-eyed.</p> + +<p>“There are many plants here that I have not seen before,” said Lord +Sombrewater. “They are of a rare beauty.”</p> + +<p>“We have assisted Nature,” said Yuan, smiling.</p> + +<p>“How do you propagate? May I ask?”</p> + +<p>“In the usual ways—by seed, by division, by cuttings of the base of the +culm, by cuttings of rhizomes. Layering is impossible for most of these +plants. We create a favourable position for them, and make special +soils and dressings.”</p> + +<p>“The warmth and the sea-mists are helpful, I have no doubt. What about +rats and voles?”</p> + +<p>“We have exterminated them, except for some that we keep for special +purposes.”</p> + +<p>“They really are very beautiful plants,” said Lord Sombrewater, with +envy.</p> + +<p>“It is most wonderful,” replied Yuan, “when <span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>all of them over an +immense region flower at once.”</p> + +<p>“And do you find that they die?”</p> + +<p>“They disappear.”</p> + +<p>“Many travellers have agreed that the plants die after flowering.”</p> + +<p>“How are the plants renewed? My opinion is that they do not die, after +flowering, until they have given off suckers from the roots.”</p> + +<p>They discussed technical questions of extreme difficulty. Lychnis and +Ambrose followed in a world of fluttering green butterflies, peering at +spikelet and bract, while Yuan described and demonstrated, until Wang +Li and Hsiao were heard calling from their barge.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="25">25</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AT +a suitable interval from their first visit to the Rock they were +bidden to a water-picnic, and thereafter with increasing frequency to a +luncheon-party, or a supper, or some excursion with various members of +the family, male and female, among the intricate and distant windings +of the Lake. They were invited into the most interior chambers of the +house itself. Lychnis and Ruby made friends of young girls or married +women with exquisite names. The depression that some of the party +had begun to feel lifted, and there was great gaiety and friendship. +Messengers were soon dispensed with, and all their arrangements were +made by wireless, once they had learned to use the apparatus discovered +in a cabinet on the day of their arrival at the Pavilion. It was, +Ambrose reports, a better instrument than any known in Europe, the +principle of it, Sir Richard and Fulke agreed, being in advance of +European physical knowledge—a thing guessed at, but not grasped. They +began to know the coves, shrubberies and summer-houses, and some of +the mysteries of the island; and they began to see what Sprot and +Fulke called the sinister side of their hosts’ lives. The weather was +wonderful—clear, warm and mellow, with mist in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>the morning. Peaches +and apricots ripened on the brown flanks of the island, and the two +parties spent glorious days and wonderful summer evenings about the +Lake and the valleys among those fantastic oyster-shell hills. The only +rule that Lord Sombrewater made was that Lychnis and Ruby were on no +account to visit the Rock unless accompanied by himself, Sir Richard +Frew-Gaff, or Ambrose.</p> + +<p>Ambrose found that in one way the task of keeping the record of their +activities began to present difficult problems. Wang, Hsiao and Yuan +baffled analysis and gave him no confidences. Their characters did +not seem to have recognizable springs. Merry old Wang said little +and laughed immoderately, smiting his clean, blanched-yellow old +head without obvious occasion; his sayings, moreover, usually seemed +inappropriate and without sense. Hsiao, who with his top-knot resembled +an inspired turnip, drank a great deal and painted divinely. Yuan was +perhaps easier to understand. He had a certain candour, almost an +impulsiveness; but then, as his great-grandfather said, he had not +yet quite learned to cease from activity and return to his centre. +He ranged abroad and vanished sometimes for days at a time, while +his elders kept to the Lake and the island, and seemed to find great +contentment in an almost <span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>perpetual motionlessness. He liked to be +among mountains and pines. “He persists,” Wang said, “in riding among +wind-storms and adding to the sum of human emotion.” And then he +explained that for countless centuries every generation of the family +had produced a Sage. There was always one to whom it came as nature, +and in his own generation the mantle had fallen on Yuan. But Yuan had +yet much to learn. Ambrose thereupon grasped the situation—Wang was +a complete Sage, a perfect or superior man, as they put it. Yuan’s +father, Sage of another generation, was on a pilgrimage. Hsiao was a +side-line. Yuan, the beginner (from the point of view of the Europeans +he was already far enough on the way to wisdom), was in training. Like +the elders, he would spend hours in the neighbourhood of a flower or a +water-fowl—he used courtesy towards flowers and animals—and more than +once in her walks Lychnis came upon him wrapped in his meditation, +self-unconscious, quite lost to the world. It charmed her.</p> + +<p>In another way Ambrose’s task became easier, because, as their +reactions to their strange circumstances became stronger, and as their +troubles increased, the Sages all came with their confidences. Even +Ruby had something to say and advice to ask, and Lychnis made him +absolutely her conscience and heart.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="26">26</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_l.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>LATE +at night, when the moon was up and Ruby and the rest of the +household were asleep, Lychnis crept from the curtains of her black, +roomy bed, and stole out on the verandah. Ambrose perceived her, +standing in the moon like a pink crêpe-de-Chine ghost with a white +core, her feet together and her hands behind her head, in a lovely, +dart-like attitude, as if she were balancing for a flight into the +scented, dark heart of the foliage. Waiting a moment to observe +accurately the excellent shape of her head, with the hair drawn in to +the neck, and to commit to memory certain curves of her bust, which +slightly lifted the front of her glimmering shift and purified the +soul like a vision of the Grail, he stirred. She turned, smiled, and +vanished, returning again with a wrap like a mist about the moon. They +sat side by side.</p> + +<p>“It is hot, is it not?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I was composing my account of the day,” he answered. “I want your +impressions.”</p> + +<p>“Do you record impressions of all of us?” she inquired.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span></p> + +<p>“Most of you, from time to time, tell me things that are of interest.”</p> + +<p>“Of interest! You have interests, of course. One forgets that.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, I have interests. To record with accuracy the essentials of an +episode—that is one of them.”</p> + +<p>“What an interest! Really, an interest is not very interesting—not so +interesting as a passion. You have no passions?”</p> + +<p>“They only cloud the vision of clear-eyed desire,” he answered—“in +fact, they actually prevent attainment.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I’ve got a passion,” she observed—“a sort of general, +unattached passion. If it suddenly fastened on someone the results +might be frightful.”</p> + +<p>“Abeyance it, and give me to-day’s impressions.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, impressions! Well, in the first place, it’s hot. Then—I don’t +quite know what impressions I have. I mean, they may come from inside +me. Can one make impressions on oneself?”</p> + +<p>“Let’s hear.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I have the idea that life may have some point, after all—that +there may be a moment when you can say, Now one has really flowered +into a moment of existence between nothing and nothing. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>I desire to +exist, to be—not merely to remain a vague thing, an I, that cannot +possess a single experience. One is only the beginning of a being, the +material for one.”</p> + +<p>“True. But you think you may be about to begin to exist. What are the +symptoms?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t quite know. How shall I put it?” She considered the question +in silence. Then: “Would you say there was something unusually splendid +and beautiful about the night?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps there is, now you mention it.”</p> + +<p>“Do you happen to notice anything more than ordinarily intoxicating in +the scent of the trees?”</p> + +<p>He sniffed. “Perhaps, now you point it out.”</p> + +<p>“Have you by any chance a sort of feeling that out there in the +darkness, in a halo of extreme darkness, there might be some unseen +experience that would complete you?”</p> + +<p>“Um! I recognize the state of mind you describe as one which is +familiar to human beings.”</p> + +<p>She rose and stepped from the verandah down on to the lawn. Some jewel +on her slipper shone in the grass like a glow-worm. He followed and +walked beside her.</p> + +<p>“Those are my impressions,” she said. The moon shone in her eyes +through a hank of hair.</p> + +<p>“The condition,” he lectured, “is the condition <span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>of one whose +generalized passion, as I think you called it, is about to be attached +to an object.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” She made a fox-face at him and led the way up a path in the +bamboo grove. Presently they were hidden there, and the round moon hung +in a deep sky behind a delicate pattern of leaves. “Sultry, is it not?” +she continued, and loosened her wrap. She glimmered, in her frail gown, +like a firefly or some sort of bamboo-fairy. “I would like ... it would +be cool. One would bathe in night ... I might, almost, with only you +here.” She stood looking at him, as if she really were considering it. +Or was there even a mocking? Then “Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed, and +shrouded her bosom in her wrap, “do you think Yuan might see us?”</p> + +<p>“I fancy he would hardly be looking,” Ambrose replied.</p> + +<p>“I really did think of doing it,” she asserted. “Has my reality-sense +gone wrong? It seems quite odd that I should hesitate, with only you +here, and in fairyland. Of course, with others about, reality is +different. But you and I live in heaven, don’t we? I presume a person +will be naked there? So you think the man on the island would not be +looking. He does strike one as being a gentleman.”</p> + +<p>“Does he please you?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span></p> + +<p>“I find him mysterious. What Ruby dislikes about him, I like—I mean the +feeling that a cold and merciless god is looking at you. I wish I could +be as unself-conscious as that. It’s like being looked at by something +impersonal—the wind, the sky. Do you think he is a man? Or some human +spirit of the mountains? You do not think him supercilious, do you? +Those moth-eyebrows, I mean, and that slanting glance.”</p> + +<p>“I think his mouth remarkable,” said Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“Yes. It’s so small and innocent and unpitying, like a flower that +can’t feel, or suffer, or know of its own destruction. A mouth that +would look the same in torture. You can use that, Ambrose.” He smiled. +“A mouth that he surely never uses to eat or kiss with. Will you use +some of these words when you are writing in your diary?”</p> + +<p>“Possibly. Do you understand all that he says?”</p> + +<p>“What is the difficulty? I don’t find it a matter of understanding. +I don’t have to say to myself, ‘What does he mean?’ I feel it in my +bones.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose pondered. “Perhaps you have the same means of consciousness as +these Chinese.” He remembered her remarkable insights.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose I am a Sage?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“At any rate,” he replied, “you resemble them in certain respects. You +are at bottom only interested <span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span>in what they would call the reality +behind the flow of phenomena. You actually do live in constant touch +with it, and find it exciting. Nothing else will ever quite give you +satisfaction. It is a faculty which men of action lose. If they didn’t +the flow of phenomena would cease.”</p> + +<p>She stripped the dark leaves one by one from a bamboo.</p> + +<p>“And what about men who record action and inaction with equal +dispassion?”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” he answered, “they also sometimes get in touch with reality, in a +mild way. But about Yuan. What does he tell you?”</p> + +<p>“He told me that when he has once thoroughly investigated the nature of +objects, and understood the identity of all things, he will do as his +great-grandfather wishes—abandon all desire, and wholly give himself +up to what he calls the unnameable. But he will go much farther than +his great-grandfather, he says. Already he is convinced of the ultimate +unreality of the world. He wishes one day to leave the world of +relativity, to contemplate Nature in its absolute aspect, and finally +to sleep a white and dreamless sleep of the mind, knowing only what is +beyond mind. This is what he said, and in this state he won’t know his +nose from his mouth, and his flesh and bones will be dissolved, and he +will drift with the wind, not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>knowing whether he is the wind itself or +a leaf riding on it.”</p> + +<p>“In old age,” said Ambrose, “he will come down to the less picturesque +and more human mysticism of his great-grandfather. But first he has, as +you say, to put away desire.”</p> + +<p>“He often does, already,” she answered eagerly. “He fasts in heart. It +is quite simple, apparently. You only forget there is a you, and when +there’s no you it can’t have desires.”</p> + +<p>“Quite simple.”</p> + +<p>“He says it is the more subtle desires, the desires of the intellect, +that trouble him.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt they do. And in other matters he is without passions?”</p> + +<p>“As far as I can see. Well—he’s not a neuter.”</p> + +<p>“He has the eye of a man?”</p> + +<p>She hesitated. “Of more than a man.”</p> + +<p>“It has expression in it—warmth, feeling, electricity?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. I cannot say what there is in his eyes. I can only say +that they are not dead. They have looked straight at mysterious things, +and they are unreadable. All his face is unreadable. He is like rocks +and forests. His eyes are the mysterious presences that are among +trees. And they slant beautifully.”</p> + +<p>“And what is your chief feeling about him?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span></p> + +<p>“If only I could always think of him as a figure on a vase....”</p> + +<p>She smiled at Ambrose faintly, enigmatically, baffling further inquiry. +Strange creature, she seemed to him, neither child nor woman—at any +rate half-fairy. “I don’t dare look at him very close,” she concluded. +“He’s so still, so different. If he came walking by now in a meditation +I should shiver. Oh! listen, Ambrose. Someone really is coming!”</p> + +<p>Ambrose stepped back into the bamboo thicket, and the shimmering, +scented girl shrank in under his arm. There were voices, in English and +Chinese—chiefly little exclamations and some laughter. Whoever it was +passed on and the voices died out in the forest.</p> + +<p>“Quentin,” whispered Ambrose, “and some young women we don’t know.”</p> + +<p>They emerged on the white moonlit lawn, crossed the shadow of a great +cedar, and entered the house.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="27">27</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_o.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>ONE +afternoon Lychnis, Ruby, Ambrose, Quentin and Fulke were on the +island in company with Wang, Hsiao and Yuan. All were meditative, or +sleepy, and they lay about on a little turfy place jutting out from +the cliff a few feet above the water. They looked like a handful of +orchids. Lychnis lay on her front with her head hanging over the Lake. +She was gazing intently at the water, and her hair parted and fell +down on either side of her face, leaving the slender neck bare, as if +she had been laid on the plank of the guillotine. “How satisfying,” +muttered Quentin, “to wring that neck!”</p> + +<p>Yuan regarded the neck, but no shade or thought of emotion appeared on +his countenance; nor did his fingers tighten.</p> + +<p>“What a hateful thing to say!” said Ruby, who neither slept nor +meditated, and only lay motionless.</p> + +<p>Old Wang, after studying her for some time, had been heard to murmur: +“The room has been made empty for the Master, but he does not enter it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span></p> + +<p>Lychnis was fascinated by the water. She was thinking, if only she +could wriggle out of her tunic and trousers, shoulders first, and +slide over the cliff into the Lake and glide neatly among the stems of +the water-lilies! To dip the chin first, and the mouth, tentatively, +gingerly, in the cold element of a different universe; to bury the +eyes, next, in its queer sights; to feel it slide over neck and +back and legs; then suddenly to dart through it and surprise the +inhabitants, like an unexpected meteor.</p> + +<p>“I simply must know what it’s like to be a water-creature.” A sentence +had emerged from the depths of her water-feelings.</p> + +<p>“You can,” said Yuan, “by entering into subjective relationship with +them.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him as one who balances an infinity of considerations. +“No doubt. But how does one enter into subjective relationship with, +say, a water-beetle?”</p> + +<p>“First,” began Yuan, “by forgetting self; then by emptying the mind....”</p> + +<p>But old Wang interrupted, as if to give the young man instruction on an +important matter. “Those who know, say nothing,” he observed; “those +who say, know nothing.”</p> + +<p>“But,” said Lychnis, “that makes conversation so difficult.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span></p> + +<p>“Why converse?” Wang asked her, with a sardonic grin. “Speak only when +compelled, and then reluctantly, and only in the words of the Sages.”</p> + +<p>“In the meantime,” said Yuan, who, in relation to his +great-grandfather, was only at the beginning of wisdom, “let us take a +walk under the water.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis lifted her head and glanced round at Ambrose. “Among all those +plants? I’m not afraid, but isn’t it rather impossible?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll dive in and save you,” said Quentin.</p> + +<p>“I don’t like you under water,” she replied—“a spread-out monster with +a dim, waving beard. Besides, I’ve no costume.”</p> + +<p>“That is not a thing that matters—” began Yuan.</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” put in Quentin, with immense approval.</p> + +<p>The Chinese gentleman continued: “What I mean is, that we go as we are. +It is not a miracle.”</p> + +<p>The scattered orchids stood up, mystified, and undulated in a gay chain +along the paths on the side of the cliffs. Presently Yuan halted at +a place where glassy-green steps led down into deep waters between +reed-clumps.</p> + +<p>“A good place for pike, no doubt,” remarked Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“You are a fisherman, then?” Yuan suddenly <span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>enveloped him, as it +were, in an all-seeing gaze, which, while extremely polite, was also +extremely inexorable.</p> + +<p>“I fish, and meditate, and compose my thoughts.” Ambrose returned his +gaze with a polite stare which, so Lychnis told him, was beautifully +inflexible.</p> + +<p>“Then we will fish and meditate together.”</p> + +<p>“With the greatest pleasure.”</p> + +<p>The two men bowed, and Yuan led the way down the glassy-green steps. +They found themselves entering a roomy, inclined tunnel of some +substance so transparent that they seemed to be entering a partition +of the water. One by one they stepped down, taking a last glance, when +their eyes came to its level, across the many-leaved surface of the +Lake. In a few minutes they were walking in the depths of a forest +of stalks where strange creatures loomed. It was very silent, very +dim, very still, under that ceiling of flat leaves, or under an open +sky of lake-water. Sometimes a flight of small, ghostly fish darted +invisibly through the stalk-forest, or suddenly wheeling their sides in +a light-beam became a thousand rainbows. Sometimes a beetle-creature +struggled up skywards through the water, swimming as if faint for +heaven. Or swans swam overhead like June clouds, or thrust their +snaky necks down between <span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>lilies. A cormorant, breaking the limit +of the water into a shiver of crystal, passed them in silent white +pursuit of a hurrying fish. And in one region of the brownish-greenish +water-universe a solemn carp, opening and shutting his mouth like a +machine, took part with myriads of his kind in a mazy, rhythmical, +interminable, involuted and apparently purposeful dance.</p> + +<p>“Just like human beings,” observed Quentin.</p> + +<p>“Why do they do that?” asked Lychnis. She and Ruby were walking on +either side of Yuan; Fulke was following with despairful, scowling +face. “Are they happy?”</p> + +<p>“They obey their nature,” said Yuan. “According to the doctrine of +Hsiao, they are Sages.”</p> + +<p>“They cannot be Sages,” she put in, “because they have never been +conscious. To be a Sage means to have abandoned human consciousness and +to have adopted the demeanour of a fish or a vegetable.”</p> + +<p>But he merely stood with bent head considering the glaucous lairs of +the water-world. He was not thinking. He was abandoned, unconscious of +self or of any process, to what his eyes saw. He was in relation with +the water, the fish, the beetles, through the reality which filled him +and them and superseded delimitation. He had ceased to exist. He was +no longer separate. But an onlooker <span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>would have been struck by his +self-possession.</p> + +<p>Fulke went close to Lychnis and faint-heartedly touched her. His desire +to put his arms round her nearly achieved itself. Distracted by himself +and by his desire, he was now without inward resource. Entangled in the +inhibitions of self-consciousness, he blushed, stammered, and did not +know how to stand or where to put his hands.</p> + +<p>Ambrose made notes on the behaviour of all concerned.</p> + +<p>“Lychnis.” Fulke faltered a whisper.</p> + +<p>She gave no sign of having heard.</p> + +<p>“Lychnis. I.... Why won’t you talk to me? I could answer your +questions.... I....”</p> + +<p>She made no answer.</p> + +<p>“I know things, too. I am intelligent. Oh, slime and hell! I hardly +know what I’m saying!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes. You are very intelligent—very nice.” She spoke as if +half-asleep.</p> + +<p>He stumbled back over the damp sand to Ruby. “Look at her!” he +exclaimed. “She’s following him. He’s drawing her into his own mad +world. What can we do, Ruby?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.” Ruby was dejected, alarmed. “She’s funny. I do wish she +wouldn’t be. You don’t think——” She stopped. “I don’t like it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>much +here. It’s not a place for people to be. Could I go back? Would they +mind?”</p> + +<p>“My God!” he answered. “I think I’ll come with you. She’ll be all +right. Ambrose is here. You and I—we are of no use to her.” Their eyes +met in a perfect orgasm of wretchedness, and they glided off, the two +of them, along the tunnel and up out of the water-world into the air +and the sun.</p> + +<p>Hsiao appeared to be disappointed. He had given himself up to the +contemplation of Ruby’s torch of red hair that glimmered through the +shadows of the stalk-forest. But, instantly dismissing anything so +painful as disappointment, he addressed himself to a contemplation of +Lychnis. “She has hands like the white opening water-lily,” he was +understood to say. “They would be cool and fragrant to the mouth, and +delicately scented.”</p> + +<p>Wang Li tapped Ambrose on the shoulder, and pointed at his +great-grandson.</p> + +<p>“A young man,” he said, “not free from the chains of desire.”</p> + +<p>“Desire?” queried Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“Desire. An itch of the mind; the mind still itching to experience, +to understand, to know. He still takes an interest in things. He +approaches the matter from the wrong angle. Seek first the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>kingdom of +non-being and the world of appearances will be yours at a later date.”</p> + +<p>He notices a good deal for an old man who is permanently unconscious, +thought Ambrose. Peripherally, no doubt.</p> + +<p>As for Lychnis and Yuan, they had gone on ahead. They looked as if +they were swimming in a gloom of stalks. One was going now deeper +into the Lake, into a pool of shadows, into a treeless, inter-stellar +space, lit only by the faint emanation of some distant, strange sun. +The empty universe was inhabited by flights of fish, like angels going +on heavenly errands, and also by monstrous shapes of fiendish though +fish-like aspect.</p> + +<p>“If these are the work of God,” said Ambrose, “I am hitherto +imperfectly acquainted with the full variety of His resources.”</p> + +<p>“Of God,” replied Wang, “by the hand of my great-grandson, Yuan. Some +experiments of his.”</p> + +<p>“I must bring my friend Sprot to see them,” said Ambrose, and received +a wink of consciousness from the Sage’s right eye. Old Wang and his two +descendants had a power of divination in the matter of character and +motive that was quite extraordinary. From Wang especially there was +nothing hidden.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span></p> + +<p>“My great-grandson considers,” the old philosopher went on, “that, +while he is taking an interest in appearances, a man may as well +lend a hand in the temporary work of evolution, and add, by reason +of his conscious artistry, a certain distinction, either of ugliness +or beauty, to what sometimes appears to be the product of a bungler +working in the dark. It is the function of the artist to give point, to +relieve, to dramatize. For example——” He pointed abruptly to a glorious +creature that floated past like a sun, raying out veils of splendour, +and again to a slender torpedo-shape marvellously adapted for speed. +“No doubt also you have remarked the rarity of the birds in these +parts, and the perfect colour and shape of the flowers. Yuan’s. Nothing +but a certain indifference to the scientific point of view on the part +of his numerous relations has prevented him from experimenting with the +human species.”</p> + +<p>“I am willing,” said Quentin, “to act as his agent, or vehicle, in any +experiments he may make with the human species, provided they are of a +creative, and not of a merely negative, order.”</p> + +<p>“How,” asked Ambrose, “does he justify his pre-occupation with +objective existences?”</p> + +<p>“He does not justify it,” said Wang, with what might have been taken +for a great-grandfatherly <span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>groan; “he boasts of it. It is a phase, of +course. It will pass. In time he will embrace his duty and become a +Sage.”</p> + +<p>“In the meantime,” remarked Hsiao, “his activities greatly enhance the +amenities of the landscape and multiply the conveniences of life.”</p> + +<p>Rounding a turn in the tunnel they came on Lychnis and Yuan, who were +both gazing upward. High overhead floated the red hull of a coracle, +and on either side of it a paddle, like a web foot, occasionally broke +the surface. “Fulke and Ruby, I have no doubt,” said Yuan. “Lazy, are +they not? Or else urgently discussing something.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t let’s bother about them,” she replied. “Go on. Tell me more +about strange things.”</p> + +<p>Willingly enough he returned to his subject, and the pair of them sped +on, absorbed in whatever theme they were discussing. Or perhaps it +was not the theme they enjoyed, but the experience—the experience of +sinking through the levels of consciousness and meeting in the deeps +where there is no opposition between this and that.</p> + +<p>Presently there was a shaft in the tunnel with a spiral stair. This +the party ascended, and found themselves in the middle of the Lake. A +boat was moored there, and far away among the lotuses was the red craft +that had passed over their heads. Old Wang was smiling to himself with +abandon, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>and continued to smile until they landed on the island.</p> + +<p>“And the joke?” asked Ambrose politely.</p> + +<p>“I laughed to see how easily young trees bend to a breeze. It would not +be in accordance with wisdom to resist a main impulse of Nature. Here I +am in agreement with Hsiao. This is the doctrine of spontaneity.”</p> + +<p>“Excellent,” replied Ambrose. “But, I take it, if there is any flaw in +the spontaneity the result will appear as indecision?”</p> + +<p>“You are right,” said Wang, with a piercing look.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="28">28</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_s.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>SOON +enough there began to be a fuss about Lychnis and Yuan. It +appeared that Fulke and Ruby, on their ascent into the familiar world, +had taken a red cockle-shell skiff and spent the afternoon floating +about the Lake, tasting a certain joy in their common misery. No harm +in that. But on landing and returning home to the Pavilion, and on +finding it in the sole occupation of Sprot, they had communicated to +him their fears. These he received with the liveliest satisfaction, +spoke much of the accuracy of his forecasting, and spent the evening +stamping up and down in a resolved manner. When the party from the +island returned, he drew Quentin aside and significantly questioned +him, in the presence of Fulke and Terence, as to the proceedings of the +afternoon.</p> + +<p>“What are you getting at, Sprotling?” asked Quentin.</p> + +<p>“I am going to make representations to Lord Sombrewater. I am going to +convince him that it is desirable for us to leave the valley without +delay.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span></p> + +<p>Terence lifted up his face and spoke inspired words: “I have a most +convincing reason for that. This afternoon, in a dream, I saw the +mountains of my native country, and a picture of the whole party of +us eating honey in Innisfree. And there came on me a great impulse +to arise and go there, which I would have obeyed at once had not the +vision clearly said that the rest of you are to go, too.” He stood for +a moment looking into the distance, and his grey eyes were undoubtedly +alight with the apprehension of something not immediately attainable. +“I starve here,” he added, “for the sights and the sounds of Europe. +I am out of touch with the Other Side. There is no veil of misery to +pierce; no heaven to reach, because no hell to reach from.”</p> + +<p>“The dirt and the poverty,” said Quentin, “the factories and the +brothels, the advertisements, the bankruptcy courts, the demure women +who know the game of love—I agree. I hate this calm, this perfection. +What you say is true. There are no arcs here, consequently no perfect +rounds to long for.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, for some work to do!” cried Fulke. “A world to redeem from the +clutches of industrialism—a State to build—a race to create!”</p> + +<p>“I am with you in the last item only,” said Quentin, putting out his +crisp, curly beard.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span></p> + +<p>“At all events,” summed up Sprot with enthusiasm, “we hate this +neighbourhood. We are all for returning to the ship. But first, how to +get rid of this Chink, this Yuan?”</p> + +<p>“I could knife him, if necessary,” said Quentin, with a certain genuine +earnestness.</p> + +<p>“Why not?” asked Sprot. “Nobody would know. It’s often done in these +Asiatic countries. There are no police here. But first—evidence. +Lychnis must be watched.”</p> + +<p>Fulke swung round. “You damned, newt-livered, beetle-tongued, +slug-sticky, crawling miasma! Use Lychnis, will you? Besmirch her +reputation because you’re unhappy away from your kennel? My God! if I +hear her name on your slime-coated tongue one single time again, I’ll +drag your entrails out through your eye-sockets!”</p> + +<p>“He’s in a temper,” explained Quentin. “He’s in love—but hopelessly, I +fear.”</p> + +<p>Fulke looked at him with a light in his eyes like a sullen sunset +drowning in a tide of misery. “Oh!” he cried, “you’re not capable of +love. You’re not clean men. And I that am clean am of all of you the +most miserable. I hate life!” He broke off, and made for the house. He +met Ruby coming out, and once more a circuit of emotion was established +between them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span></p> + +<p>“Where’s Lychnis?” she asked, with some anxiety.</p> + +<p>The others listened.</p> + +<p>“Heaven knows,” he answered. “Can’t you find her?”</p> + +<p>On investigation it turned out that Lychnis had disappeared. There was +no sign of her anywhere. “Where can she be?” asked Ruby, with tears in +her voice.</p> + +<p>They all stood on the lawn staring over the Lake like men who have lost +a vision. Sombrewater and Frew-Gaff, returning late from a geological +expedition in the mountains, were met with the intelligence by an +almost elated Sprot.</p> + +<p>“I knew it,” said the little man. “I have warned you, Lord Sombrewater.”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater turned and stared at him so that he began fumbling +with his collar. “You have warned me of what?”</p> + +<p>He had nothing to say.</p> + +<p>“Be so good as to keep your thoughts to yourself.”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater went abruptly into the Pavilion.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="29">29</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_l.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>LYCHNIS, +in the meanwhile, was off to the south-west with Yuan in the +Dragon. The stars were on fire in heaven; there was a space of white +light about the moon; far below slid the perfumed forest. She sat +behind Yuan in the hollow body of the creature, and he, slung between +the wings, bent this way and that, wheeling and dipping his fantastic +chariot; and sometimes, when he had climbed the peak of the wind, he +would fling himself forward, and she would see the dark, rushing world +beyond the streak of moon on his shoulders as they swooped on a hundred +miles through the night. Then, after a few moments of rest on some hill +that loomed up out of the void, a soft purr of his mysterious engine or +a beat of the wings and the chariot sprang up and forward like an eagle.</p> + +<p>Slung behind him, sometimes touching him, Lychnis felt with her body +that Yuan knew the air, knew all the roads, the precipices, the rapids +of the air. He behaved as a far-travelling bird would behave, beating +along the vast empty ways of the night with repeated crutch-strokes, +or <span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>spreading out silver wings along the swift surface of a wind. Or, +if he wearied, the tiny engine was switched on, and they traversed the +sky with the speed of a meteor. Through him she knew the airways and +lent him her movements, balancing and clinging with him on the huge +precipice-face of the winds they were climbing, giving herself without +shrinking to the fearful descent into a huge, opening nothingness. +From time to time she caught a glimpse of his cheek. He threw her +back an unsounded word, and she made noiseless answers with her small +whispering mouth to his ear. He was intent and still, and his stillness +held her, so that in spite of the dark void below she had no fear. Only +the wind and the world moved, and they seemed intensely still in the +midst of the sky, with their small heads so close.</p> + +<p>Time had no meaning, and space twisted and wheeled around them. Soon, +very far off, under a slanting beam of the moon, there came, as if the +edge of space were advancing toward them, a glimmering of white petals, +a flush of sacred lilies floating on the dark pool of the sky, lotuses +waving about the feet of some Boddhisatva, for whom the Dragon was +bearing on his back a beautiful captive to minister to his contempt of +desire. But before the lilies came close, Yuan leant forward, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span>and the +dark pool of the world rushed up and engulfed them. The forest streamed +up and out like black foam. Yuan hung over it, a silver moth, then +brought the breast of the Dragon to the flood of a gleaming river. “The +jungle,” he whispered.</p> + +<p>There was a clamour of wild creatures. It suddenly faded to a far +distance.</p> + +<p>“They smell a flesh-eater,” he murmured.</p> + +<p>Around them a circle of silence spread outwards till the distant +circumference of howling died. But there was a movement. They seemed to +Lychnis to be surrounded by looming shapes, by moving jewelled hands +gesturing in darkness. There were movements in the unseen masses of +foliage on the banks—swift movements of night hunters, slow movements +of ancient creatures. There were long plungings and swirlings in the +water. A vapour of heat drifted over them. The river flowed by unseen, +and the Dragon held his breast to it like a soul in the flow of time. +There were presences. Glancing at Yuan, half-visible, Lychnis found +him, now, less than human, or perhaps more. Over the jungle there +gleamed those lily petals, and a light from them seemed to illuminate +his face. The eyes became oblongs of darkness in a mask of dry gold. +The small <span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>closed mouth was a carved symbol of eternal serenity. He +became a god, and she found him almost intolerably strange.</p> + +<p>“Forget your humanness,” murmured the mask. It was like a breath of the +jungle speaking. “Forget it and know the creatures of the jungle.”</p> + +<p>They were drifting a little down-stream towards the bank on their +right. They were aware of a movement in the reeds, an arrival of +concentrated silence. The darkness watched them. Then the reeds waved +and parted, and there shone at them two savage emeralds. Lychnis, +feeling the beautiful ferocity that crouched for her, glanced at Yuan, +perhaps to see if she could share her experience with him. But he was +in combat with the tiger, putting out the fierceness of the tiger, +meeting, subduing the hunger that was about to spring. He entered +through the deeps of being into the nature of tiger, and in some sort +of wrestle in the realm of the tiger’s understanding dissipated the +desire that sought to satisfy itself on Lychnis’s flesh.</p> + +<p>They became aware that the knot of silence was resolved. Presently as +if the tiger had spread some kind of intelligence, howling was heard +again in the distance, and before long the rim of howling contracted. +The forest had forgotten them. They were free in it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span></p> + +<p>“You are not afraid?” The pale gold mask uttered voice.</p> + +<p>“Only a little.” But her fear was a fear of the being beside her. All +other fear had vanished and survived only in that. “Are you never +afraid?” she asked. “Here, or in the sky?”</p> + +<p>“The personal I,” he answered, “the individual local Yuan, was a mass +of fears. But the man I am becoming, the man whose I is vanishing, the +god-saturated man, cannot experience fear. The wine-drunken man is +not afraid, and if he falls out of the cart he breaks no bones. The +god-intoxicated man is not afraid, and if he falls out of the sky all +is well.”</p> + +<p>“I am not god-intoxicated, as far as I know.”</p> + +<p>“Nevertheless your perceptions are like those of one who is thus +intoxicated. You perceive rhythms that only the heart of the infinite +perceives.”</p> + +<p>“I had not thought I was anything out of the way,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Will you walk in the jungle under the cloak of my understanding?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!” She was instant. How often, at night, one had heard some +young man, or some older man, or even an aged man, say: Shall we walk +in the wood a little? But this was to reenter the Garden by night, and +walk in Eden <span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>with an archangel, or even with the Lord God. Possibly to +see the Serpent, and the Tree of Knowledge. Looking at Yuan, to follow +him, she asked herself: Are you the Serpent? He was leading her to +knowledge, certainly, but not of good and evil, for he had said good +and evil are local oppositions; in the unnameable they become one.</p> + +<p>He was looking past her, boring into the reeds. She liked the dark, +oblong eyes with their gimlet centres of blackness. She liked the +imperious line of the cheek.</p> + +<p>“We will not land here,” he said.</p> + +<p>They shot up and sideways, skirting the trees like a dragon-fly; came +down presently at a place where wild beasts drank. He made fast there. +She had a curious sensation, she told Ambrose, as Yuan helped her down +from the machine. It was strange, she said, to put her hand into his +foreign hand. (No doubt the being so much with Ambrose, the perpetual +comradeship that was between them, had trained her to note things.) +Pleasant? Unpleasant? Not altogether unpleasant. Some slight antipathy, +the diarist supposes. Certainly she forgot the sensation at once as +they made their way into the darkness, the thrilling terror of the deep +forest. She had no objection at all to the envelopment of her person by +his <span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>cloak of understanding. If she had any sort of antipathy to his +flesh, she had none whatever to his mind. He walked the forest like +some shepherd of tigers. The snakes and insects let pass one of their +kind, startled only by the shadow that followed him, bright-eyed and +staring. They were mounting, and presently, when they had crossed the +spine of the hill, the ground fell again slightly, only to mount beyond +them in wave after wave of forest until the further waves had a white +ridge, and far off, gleaming in outer space, were the snow-petals, the +sacred lilies of ice.</p> + +<p>Lychnis gasped. “I’m not sure—I think I’m afraid. They are so huge, so +cold.” Fear of the mountains had entered her, and with it a host of +other fears. She began to look round anxiously, to shrink. He was her +only refuge from fear, and she shrank from him, too. Looking at her, +she felt he divined the whole secret of her.</p> + +<p>“You are afraid now?” he asked. “It’s natural. Fear must come in before +it can be cast out. One must be conscious before one is unconscious. +Sit down with your back to a tree.” He prevented, in some way, her +impulse to look down in case a snake was coiled where she was to sit.</p> + +<p>She obeyed him. He sat down opposite, with his back to a tree, and drew +from his garment a small sort of flute and played. She found presently, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>as she listened to his slow, meditative theme, that she had forgotten +her fear of the mountains. She began to gaze at them, seeking to become +conscious of them, to shape the vague and profound emotion that they +gave rise to, and express it. “Eternity,” she said. “They are eternal.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary,” he replied. “In a little while they will have gone, +and an ocean perhaps will flow there.”</p> + +<p>“Then it is I that am eternal, and the mountains made me remember.”</p> + +<p>“Eternity is in you, but you are not eternal.”</p> + +<p>Swiftly a thought of old Wang Li came to her mind.</p> + +<p>“The truth that can be stated is not truth,” she shot at him.</p> + +<p>He smiled. “The truth can be played with the flute, though. Listen.”</p> + +<p>It was so, she thought, hearing something behind the notes he played +that was like the mountains, but with no terror. And she saw without +shrinking that the glittering eyes of fierce beasts were gazing +steadfastly from the darkness, and tenderer creatures were near them. +Then a python swayed down his head from the branch of a tree close +by, and she put out her orchid-hand and touched the ivory skin. All +that she remembered afterwards, for at the time she was not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>conscious +of python, tiger, or deer; only of that which sounded from Yuan’s +flute, that sang, as she put it, to itself in her and in the beasts, +the intoxicating godhead that remains when ice vanishes, music is not +listened to, and spirit itself has disappeared into nothing.</p> + +<p>But afterwards, when the spell of the singing flute had lifted, +she came to the conclusion that the experience of sublimity is +unnecessarily serious. “I should prefer something suaver,” she told +Ambrose, “more restrained—the god without the intoxication.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="30">30</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_l.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>LYCHNIS +told Ambrose that the coldness of her reception, when she came +back next morning, was a surprise to her. “I was only thinking and +thinking of what I had seen and done in the night, of how I felt about +Yuan,” she said, “and to find all that anger was horrible. There has +been a change. Sir Richard frowns at me. Sprot is delighted, the little +beast, because he can impute something to me. Fulke hates me. I prefer +it. But our party is breaking up, and it is not like it used to be. +I can’t help it. They have no business to interfere when I am going +through with an experience.” Her anger rose. “They shall stay here +until I have finished with it, or I will stay here alone, or with you. +You will never be against me?”</p> + +<p>He saw that her mind was in tumult, but by no means altogether because +of the trouble she had got into with her father and the others. In +any case she had an inextinguishable obstinacy. It appears that she +had come back alone across the Lake in a boat, pre-occupied, lovely +with the flush of her thoughts, only to find herself when <span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>she stepped +on shore among grave and resentful faces. Her father was indoors. +“Naturally,” she said, “he would never question me before all the +others. He and I have always had our quarrels in private.” Ruby, too, +was indoors.</p> + +<p>It was the incredible Sprot, almost dancing with the pleasure of his +accusing thoughts, who put the question: “Where have you been?”</p> + +<p>She looked round at Fulke, in her eyes a command that Sprot should +die. But there had been a change in Fulke, and he only glowered at +her. Quentin answered her appeal with a grin of somewhat resentful +amusement. She had therefore to speak for herself:</p> + +<p>“Mr. Sprot, I am sorry to learn that you have to leave us.”</p> + +<p>“What on earth do you mean?” he stammered. “I am not leaving. Your +father has not said so.”</p> + +<p>“I have said so.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t leave.” He squared up. “And what will you do about it?”</p> + +<p>“If I see you anywhere about to-morrow morning I shall ask Yuan to +attend to you.” She went to the Pavilion, and they all watched her +walking with bent head across the lawn. Then they turned to consider +the case of Sprot, who was palely protesting that he would in no +circumstances go.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span></p> + +<p>“Especially,” said Quentin pleasantly, “with the country in its present +state, when the traveller is more than likely to meet with robbery and +violent outrage.”</p> + +<p>“I appeal to you.” Sprot clasped, as it were, the knees of Sir Richard +Frew-Gaff. But Sir Richard politely regretted that he could do nothing, +and walked away.</p> + +<p>Sprot exploded. “It’s perfectly scandalous that hard-working, +reasonable-minded men should be at the beck and call of a piece of +goods like that! Why does everyone pay so much attention to her, I +should like to be told. She doesn’t work. She doesn’t produce anything. +What right has she to say what shall be? Walking off like a sprig of +lilac with a ‘You clear out!’ and all—her and her fat-faced Chink. It’s +my opinion....”</p> + +<p>“We don’t want your opinion,” said Fulke morosely.</p> + +<p>“Yes, we do. You run away and weep with your Ruby,” said Quentin, with +a wink to the rest.</p> + +<p>Fulke flared. “You shut up, you stinking mud-pump! I’ve had just about +enough of your interference.”</p> + +<p>“No naughty temper,” said Quentin, and being <span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>strong, though a sinner, +he immersed young righteousness in the Lake.</p> + +<p>A native servant came down with a message that Lord Sombrewater would +be glad if Ambrose would step up to the Pavilion. Ambrose therefore +left the group on the shore of the Lake, thinking that the harmony of +the party was indeed sadly disturbed, and the serene lawns and fine +brooding trees disfigured by their quarrelling. Lord Sombrewater was +with Lychnis, she moody, he severe. But it was his custom to approach +a quarrel with his daughter in a business-like spirit, and he had not +allowed the matter to interrupt his eleven o’clock cigar. He motioned +Ambrose to a seat by a little lacquer table.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning, Ambrose. I want you to know that there are now no +restrictions on my daughter’s liberty of movement. She may go where she +likes and with whom she likes, and I”—he spoke without bitterness—“I +wash my hands of it. I admit that it was foolish to make rules for +a daughter who takes as much notice of my wishes as the very solid +gate-post of this Pavilion. Facts are facts. She has argued with me, +and I think conclusively, that her life is her own. I have fully agreed +that her friendship with Yuan is not a matter with which I am closely +concerned. We must face the facts, and I see that it is useless <span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>to +attempt to control her. I want you to convey this to the others. Now, +Lychnis, I have done what you have asked. Will you kindly leave us?”</p> + +<p>“I never said that you do not come closely into my life. You do. I want +you to.”</p> + +<p>He waved her away. Ambrose knew that he would never hear in what +terms they had quarrelled. But this dismissal, he perceived, was a +retaliation on Lord Sombrewater’s part. If she had no place for her +father, if she desired to be independent, she would be independent, +very much so, and alone; she should feel the cold. Her eyes, Ambrose +saw, filled with tears as she went through to her green-and-gold +bedroom, and there was no turning on her hips at the door to make a +friendly gesture. No doubt she felt that another harbour was closing to +her.</p> + +<p>“When I made a rule that she should not do this or that, I made a +mistake,” said his lordship, and his cigar had gone out. “Lychnis makes +her own rules as she goes along. She acts by an inner light, and cannot +see why others should have any views on the matter except the views +that are so clear to her. No doubt she is right, as maybe we all are, +in some deep sense; but it is hard, when she does these strange things, +for those who have merely to watch and trust. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>I find it difficult, +Ambrose. I love my daughter. I am jealous, and find it hard to be shut +out from her inner life. If I were in her heart, no doubt I should +agree that whatever she did was good. I should know what was going to +happen, and I should not now be afraid as to where the necessity under +which she doubtless acts might be going to lead her. I am honoured, as +one should be, for having created a thing that is useless and beautiful +... but not, very naturally, by the thing. What do you say?”</p> + +<p>“I say,” Ambrose replied, “that this is false sentiment. Love of a +father is one thing; love of someone else is another. You should not be +jealous of any kind of love that is not specifically yours to claim. +Without jealousy, or, as our Chinese friends would say, without desire, +or, as I may qualify it, without the addition of an inappropriate +desire to the specific and proper desire of a father, or of a lover, as +the case may be, there would exist no clash, or undue passion.”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater observed him. “You would not permit anything that +might occur to alter whatever the relation between you and Lychnis may +be?”</p> + +<p>“There is a specific and possibly unique friendship between Lychnis and +me which, if I do not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>allow it to be disturbed by irrelevant humours, +can be left to take care of itself.”</p> + +<p>“That tells me little.”</p> + +<p>“Not having been choked by weeds, it has become a thing by itself, with +life and a destiny. I have only to keep it pure of irrelevant desires.”</p> + +<p>“You are an extraordinary man. If you would not mind my asking—if +anything were to happen, and we left her here in China, would you miss +her? Would you, let us say, be aware of a hiatus?”</p> + +<p>“The mind,” Ambrose records himself as saying, “is its own place, as +the poet so justly says, agreeing with our Chinese friends. Desire +perishes, and that which is without desire is immortal.”</p> + +<p>“I’m hanged if you don’t out-Wang old Wang!” Lord Sombrewater relit +his cigar. Then he suddenly exploded: “And by God! Ambrose, I agree +absolutely with Lychnis about Sprot! Out he shall go!”</p> + +<p>It was lucky, Ambrose thought, that there should be someone handy to +take off the full torrent of Lord Sombrewater’s emotion.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="31">31</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_l.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>LYCHNIS, +when she had given Ambrose an account of her doings, went +swiftly in her short white dress under the heavy summer trees to the +mooring-raft of red-painted bamboo, unfastened her coracle, and paddled +through water lanes among lotuses to the island. She saw Hsiao in an +arbour by the water’s edge, and waved in a friendly manner, but he +was asleep. She brought her coracle to the marble quay, ascended the +dragon-staircase, and sped along the ridge of the island, passing old +Wang in meditation by a dung-heap. She climbed into the vermilion +summer-house among the tree-tops, but Yuan was not there. She went out +on to the verandah, and stood looking down over the scarlet rail into +the Lake, where golden shapes of fish were passing like half-visible +summer clouds. She saw the roof of Hsiao’s arbour and his two feet +sticking out.</p> + +<p>She went into the bare, sun-swept room again, and swung out an +instrument from its cupboard. Not familiar with its use, but perceiving +the principle of it and the method of adjustment by some scarcely +conscious effort, she made the whole countryside <span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>disclose itself +to her. First of all, there appeared in the field of view that +dozen of queer philosophers on the rock over towards the mountains; +next, through too wide an adjustment, a tract of country which she +recognized—a little hill near the <cite>Floating Leaf</cite>, with a +plum-tree, now in fruit, where she had talked with Ambrose, and Ruby +had come back with her arms full of flowers. It was strange that she +could hear the leaves rustling. She did not look for the ship. To see +those three ladies knitting under the awning would have been to jolt +the progress of a dream. She came back to the Peach-blossom Valley, +and turned with a gesture of wrath from the spectacle of Sprot in +altercation with her father. Then a few moments of growing impatience, +until she found Yuan, waist-deep and busy in an enclosed pool at a +distant point of the island. She heard the Lake rippling and the wash +of water when he moved or plunged his hands in the pool. Breeding +experiments, she thought. She had meant to go to him when she should +have found him. It was so with her now that she demanded his presence +constantly. But he was busy; he might prefer to be alone. She paused to +inquire into her state of mind, realizing that she found it a necessity +to be with him, and wondering what that might amount to.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span></p> + +<p>Now that she had found him it did not seem right to watch him. She +paced the open rooms and balconies of that airy summer-house, like a +slim fly caught in a scarlet cage; going out to feast her heart on the +Lake, now a garden of lilies, white, rose, and golden; returning to the +instrument to see if Yuan was still at work. She opened a cabinet of +drawers, found it full of paintings on silk, and idly inspected them. +There was a portrait of a young boy. It was so perfect a work of art, +a unity composed of an infinite number of rhythms, that its effect on +the mind was hypnotic. The tone was a variety of rich browns touched +with a lotus flush of almost unbelievable precision. The young boy was +kneeling on a lotus daïs with his hands joined in prayer. The eyebrows +were delicate as small painted moths. The tiny mouth was like a flower +that will never open and wither, beautiful and small and calm. The eyes +were purer than the deep and velvet pansy. Was it a boy, after all, +or a girl? She saw in the face a certain severity of saintliness, the +signs of a state of mind that she could remember, when she had been, +as it were, both boy and girl, with a desire for heaven. But what was +solemn and beautiful in the face was a shadow, a foreknowledge, of some +predestined renunciation, of some experience circled round with burning +flames, seen from <span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>afar off, before the thought of pain had meaning. +Pondering thus, she realized with a shock that the features were the +features of Yuan.</p> + +<p>She looked at the image in the long-sight instrument, saw that Yuan was +still at work, and returned to the portrait.</p> + +<p>Could Hsiao have painted it? Could he have received that sublime +inspiration in the stupor of wine? If he could paint a melon, when he +was drunk, in a way to disclose cosmical secrets, why not the portrait +of a saintly young boy? There was no signature. That was like Hsiao. +For him not the painting, but the contemplation in which he conceived +it. She understood that. The painting was a mere discharge, the symbol +of an experience fully grasped.</p> + +<p>The face was not so much Yuan’s as the face of some perfect being, +predestined for the bliss of non-existence seen in the vision of an +artist. Not so much Yuan’s face. With the portrait in her hand she +returned to the instrument, and found after a little experimenting +that it was possible to deal with the field of view so as to fill it +with the image of a small object. She studied the image of Yuan with +the shame of Psyche studying the revealed face of the god. There had +been a change. The mild face of the boy had become severe, even fierce, +from the discipline <span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>of contemplation; in the place of innocence was +the calm, unvarying gaze of eyes that have rested on a reality that is +neither pure nor impure. She was afraid, as she had been afraid before +the mountains, and put the portrait away and swung the instrument back +into its cabinet. But first, with a swift mounting of her fear, she saw +that Yuan had left his pool, and was coming towards her with his eyes +fixed on hers.</p> + +<p>He was coming to her. He would be there in a few minutes. He had only +been looking at the scarlet nest in the tree-tops, of course, and he +could not have descried her figure, where she was. But he would know, +and in a rush of passion she hated his insight and his domination; in +her mind she saw his face again, serene and alien. Her flesh shuddered.</p> + +<p>Soon he stood between the scarlet posts of the doorway, yellow-brown +against a deep blue sky, attentive, impassive.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="32">32</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>THEY +were alone till the afternoon, when Sir Richard and his daughter, +both a trifle constrained, came over to the island with Fulke. The +sight of those three restored to Lychnis a sense of reality. In the +morning she had been drawn into the realms of Yuan’s vast interior +life, fascinated, hardly conscious that her identity was submerged. +Now in the afternoon, with her friends by, she could look on him as +an object, a man with whom she could enter on given relations, regard +being had to other considerations, as, for example, his race, her +father’s wishes, the pull of her home in England. She became happy, +contented that she should be in that frame of mind.</p> + +<p>There was to be a water-party after sundown, and they spent the +afternoon making a promised inspection of some of Yuan’s laboratories +hidden in the rock. There they saw various matters in their several +stages of advancement.</p> + +<p>“What funny old frights!” whispered Ruby, when she saw the artificers +at work. “I really believe they are the twelve men we saw looking so +idiotic on that rock.”</p> + +<p>And certainly the twelve ancient or middle-aged gentlemen, who were +achieving machines of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>extreme delicacy out of an apparently vacant +stupor, did seem to be the same. For Sir Richard, when he saw the +artificers at work, the problem as to how Yuan procured his apparatus +was solved. “I wondered whether you sent plans to Europe,” he explained.</p> + +<p>Yuan smiled. “I do not want to lay Europe in ruins. No. I indicate the +nature of my mechanical problems to these friends of mine, and they +work out the details in contemplation. They know the inner secrets of +platinum and ebonite and wood.”</p> + +<p>“You are kind to Europe.” Sir Richard’s upper lip was firm. It is +inconvenient that the amateur should know more than the professor, +and it was only because of the paramount claims of science that he +endeavoured to draw Yuan into a discussion. The two gentlemen talked at +great length, while Lychnis listened entranced, and Ruby yawned. But +discussion was not easy, because Yuan was dealing in symbols that were +entirely strange and in realms of experience where his companion had +never been. Some formulæ that he wrote down were excessively pleasing; +to Sir Richard they meant as much as the experiences of a mystic, while +Lychnis recognized that they were indeed precisely that.</p> + +<p>From the laboratories they went to the gardens and hot-houses, full of +unfamiliar plants and insects; <span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>from the gardens and hot-houses to the +breeding-grounds; and it was here that even Sir Richard’s scientific +mind shrank a little at sight of some of the monsters Yuan had created, +in what seemed an irresponsible way. In particular a frightful cross +between an ape and a tiger shocked his moral sense. But Yuan took no +pains to justify himself, and only replied that all those who help in +the great work of creation will have their jokes from time to time.</p> + +<p>Towards evening Yuan left them to make his preparations for the +water-party, and Sir Richard sat by the Lake with the two girls +pondering deeply on the afternoon’s talk. He evidently desired to +unburden himself, and found a certain difficulty in speaking to +Lychnis, the only possible listener. But in the end, if he was +displeased with her, the contents of his mind were too much for him.</p> + +<p>“That man could alter the world,” he said, turning to her somewhat +constrainedly at last. “I do not pretend to be an expert in more +than one or two of the sciences we touched on, but I know enough to +recognize that what he says is of first-class importance. Do you +understand, my dear girl, that he has discovered all we know in +physiology by pure contemplation? I would go farther and guess that +physiology is no problem <span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>to him at all; he simply perceives the +nature of the body, and it is my opinion that he will live for ever. +There seems practically no nervous expenditure. He avails himself of +some sort of cosmical energy and forgets about his own organization, +which has become merely the sphere, so to speak, in which the energy I +speak of is present. And I don’t mind confessing that I am completely +baffled in my own branch. He talks, Lychnis, as if he had experienced +everything he knows, as if he actually saw, felt, even heard, physical +reality. He proceeds, as it were, from insight; and, really, there +doesn’t seem to be anything hidden. Odd, if reality should, after all, +be something more than a state of affairs in a field of electrical +stresses. It is profoundly disconcerting. It is as if the most refined +discoveries of science should prove to be familiar to an ape or to an +idiot. They are ape-like, these friends of yours, and a trifle idiotic. +I am not an anthropologist—not an expert—but I perceive something +orangoid in your friends, in the disposition, for example, of the lower +limbs horizontally, in the posture of the hands.”</p> + +<p>Sir Richard, forgetting his constraint, seemed to ask for sympathy; but +she was angry with him for his frame of mind towards her, and made only +some brief reply.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="33">33</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>THE +mood which they all fell into, staring out over the Lake at +the warm shadows of evening, was broken by the dip of paddles and +the simultaneous arrival, with the party from the Yellow Emperor’s +Pavilion, of Yuan, Hsiao and Wang, with several slight and exquisite +girls. They had a remarkable faculty, those three, of waking from +reverie on the tick of an appointment. Lychnis sat and watched as each +one, in gorgeous robe of mediæval China, stepped from the dusk of the +water, like some mystery of the summer night breaking into flower. +Darkness fell swiftly, and an ochre moon rose over the sombre side of +the valley. She sat on in silence, white and wraith-like among those +shapes of splendour, and they gathered around her, waiting on her will, +and there was a consciousness that for all of them for that moment the +universe turned about her. Ambrose records that it occurred to Yuan and +himself at the same time to announce to her that all was ready, and +they stood, the two of them (Yuan in a magnificent robe of deep green, +himself in dark amber), looking at one <span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>another across her moon-golden +head. Ambrose immediately gave place, and stood, so Lychnis afterwards +told him, smiling complaisantly at the glimmer of stars that was +breaking over the trees.</p> + +<p>Soon they were all out on the Lake in a ceremonial barge, towing a +cluster of painted boats, and the island became a dark complex in +the moonlight, illuminated by the dying reflection of a farewell +rocket that shot up from the point. In answer Yuan lit a score of +lanterns—orange, violet, and brown—swaying moons that cast unearthly +reflections in the Lake. But there was silence among the visitors, a +certain uneasiness, because of the relation that had arisen as between +Lychnis and Yuan and as between those two and the rest.</p> + +<p>But Lord Sombrewater would not permit any breach of etiquette, and +presently there was a murmur of talk under the ochre moon as the barge +swished slowly through dark red lilies towards the distant sources of +the Lake, where they were to picnic by the waterfalls. Two or three +of the Chinese girls perched like finches on their favourite, their +amusing Quentin, and soon enough there was plenty of laughter at +his incomprehensible jokes. Ambrose, sitting beside Frew-Gaff, took +opportunity to observe that there was no cause for any reasonable +anxiety.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span></p> + +<p>“I suppose Sombrewater is right,” replied Sir Richard. “It is not that +I suspect Lychnis for a moment of folly, as you know; but in this world +we must be ready to hear of strange things. I know it; but really, if +we were told, one day, of a marriage with this Oriental (who exerts +an extraordinary fascination, I admit), I should have the creeps. I +somehow cannot tolerate the thought of a union between an English +girl—a girl like Lychnis—and him.”</p> + +<p>The thoughts that arise in the brain, Ambrose observed to himself, are +governed, like economic men, by a master of whom they are not aware.</p> + +<p>“I have been compelled to give Ruby the same freedom of movement,” +added Sir Richard. “She is quite capable, I am sure, of looking after +herself. A very sensible girl. We shall have no surprises from her.”</p> + +<p>“And as to Sprot?” queried Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“He refuses to go.”</p> + +<p>“Lychnis has spoken to Yuan.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder what Yuan will do.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose looked at Sprot, who was showing a certain defiant and stupid +courage in face of the danger of staying, which he preferred to the +danger of going away. Appositely they passed three white pelicans on an +islet. They had monstrous beaks, those pelicans, the creation of Yuan. +And <span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>Ambrose wondered, with Sir Richard, what Yuan would do.</p> + +<p>When they came to the waterfalls among the high rocks at the Lake’s +source the moon was shining into the night-sombre valley, and they +disembarked and climbed and spread supper in face of the golden and +shadowy scene, and the murmur of their talk was subdued to the steady +diapason of the main torrent that poured from the crags, not dissonant +with the peace and ordered serenity of the landscape. Nothing moved. +Far off the island slept, small and brooding. A spirit of peace fell on +them all.</p> + +<p>“You are philosophic in great comfort here,” observed Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“We are civilized,” Yuan mildly replied. “It is not philosophy to +evolve noble and consolatory systems, or systems of despair, among +misery and ruin. Those who require to perform their meditations among +desolations or desert wastes are merely unable to cope with the claims +of a domestic environment. Contemplation is an activity that can +only be pursued by people who have mastered Nature. It is only then +that pure reality can be seen. In all other circumstances thought is +conditioned by the actualities of being, and is directed towards the +problem of evil or some antithetic good. Here we have so wrought <span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>that +we are free to take part in the experience of a reality that is, as it +were, behind. Our environment does not hinder us; our bodies claim no +attention; we forget ourselves; we cease to be, and what is everlasting +rushes in to fill the place of what was.”</p> + +<p>“You seek annihilation,” murmured Blackwood.</p> + +<p>“Seek your big toe!” replied Wang, going to the foot of the matter with +characteristic efficiency. Indeed, as he lifted his right eyelid, he +seemed to emit a trickle of some elemental force that could have dried +up the cataract. “In seeking death, you seek what does not exist.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I have been wrong,” sadly admitted Blackwood. “I must seek, I +see now, for some deeper life.”</p> + +<p>“Seek your eyebrows!” retorted Wang. “In seeking life, you seek also +what does not exist.”</p> + +<p>“Then what on earth is a man who is all wrong with the world to do?”</p> + +<p>Wang opened him with the blade of insight. “You do not get rid of +desire by sitting on it. That is what your thoughts of annihilation +are—desire gone to mildew. Only they think in terms of annihilation who +are extremely conscious of self. Abandon your methods. Desire neither +life nor death, and eat red meat.”</p> + +<p>“I fear I have sadly misinterpreted the wisdom <span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>of the Sages,” +Blackwood faltered, and actually the moon glowed in a tear on his cheek.</p> + +<p>“This is the beginning, and only the beginning, of wisdom,” +replied Wang. “Retrace your steps, give rein to the passions of a +man, and in ten years’ time you may take some gentle exercise in +self-forgetfulness.” With this somewhat paradoxical statement he seemed +to close himself to all outside influence, and the spray of the moonlit +cascade gradually wetted his old bald head.</p> + +<p>“It seems likely,” remarked Sir Richard, “that Hsiao will presently be +altogether forgetful of his body, since the goblet in his hand contains +about a pint and a half of your really very powerful and delicious +wine, and that is the third I have seen him consume.”</p> + +<p>“In the days when Hsiao thought in terms of good and evil, of restraint +and excess, he used to be very sick,” Yuan replied. “Rid the mind of +purely relative distinctions between drunk and sober, and you will not +be troubled with the gout.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you for that recipe,” said Quentin.</p> + +<p>“Wang Li does not take wine, I notice,” said Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“That is because he requires no aids to contemplation.”</p> + +<p>“Then why does Hsiao take it?” asked Ruby.</p> + +<p>“He is an artist, which is a weakness of the will, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>and he needs some +attachment to the illusions of sense.”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater had been deeply pondering. “It seems to me,” he said, +“that there is something to be argued for our western habit of life. +You here—I do not speak of the mass of your countrymen, who present, if +I may say so, the appearance of an immense swarm of toiling insects—you +in this valley have abandoned the world to its fate. You have +abandoned, so it seems to me, much that makes men specifically men, and +you have become the abodes of great impersonal forces. Sometimes when I +talk with you I feel I am talking with the nightwind, or the moonlight, +or the spraying waterfall. God-intoxicated, you have given up your +organisms to be the dwellingplace of the great unknown principle of the +universe, and any pleasure, any joy, that is in you, is its.”</p> + +<p>“Precisely,” said Yuan. “Our bodies, to a more or less extent, +according to the measure of our renunciation, become temples of +godhead. Using your western phraseology, we have come strangely near to +Christian doctrine.”</p> + +<p>“That is so; but my point is that in the West most of us hold that it +is the business of man to forget God, to immerse himself, while he is a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>man, in his no doubt blind and temporary manhood, so that he may work +out whatever the purpose of creation was in creating him. It is the +duty of man to erect his ego into a god. He must be immensely conscious +of himself and the world, immensely unconscious of the universe. He +must be tremendously aware of man and his destiny. In Europe, in +America, we have formed the idea of Destiny and Progress.”</p> + +<p>“And do you progress?” Wang Li suddenly spoke like a voice coming out +of the wind.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater began to search in his mind for the answer to that +question. But, except Frew-Gaff, the others did not await his reply, +and wandered off as their fancy directed. Hsiao disappeared. Quentin +attached a couple of admiring young girls and drove off Sprot, who +tried to accompany him, with lively pictures of his approaching fate. +Blackwood retired thoughtfully to a dark corner alone; Terence was +listlessly meditating on Yuan’s aura; Fulke and Ruby gloomily watched +to see what Lychnis would do. But Lychnis only sat with two Chinese +girls on the cliff-edge at the side of the torrent, and they were all +holding out crystal goblets in their orchid-hands to catch the spray +drops. They talked in their own languages and seemed well contented +with each other. Fifty feet below them the swaying <span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>moons of the barge +smote strange colours on the foam of the rapids, and the cluster of +small tethered boats streamed and leapt astern. Above them dreamed the +motionless Wang Li, with the moon on his scanty white beard.</p> + +<p>An hour passed, and Sombrewater and Frew-Gaff were still in +conversation with Yuan. Ambrose surveyed the party, and there came +to his mind, as he watched Yuan, the description Lychnis had made to +him of eyes that were oblongs of darkness in a mask of dry gold. He +sought, too, for an adequate description of the power that lurked in +the disposed beauty of that petal-mouth of dark enamel. He traced the +effect of power to the absence of muscular compression, of visible +will. It was unconscious and placid, like the dark, fathomless Lake, +where doubtless men had been drowned. Then suitably to his thoughts +came Sprot, with terror-stricken face, scrambling up the rocks, crying +out: “Hsiao! Hsiao the drunken painter! Hsiao is drowned!” Wang Li +dreamed on.</p> + +<p>The visitors gathered together and discussed what Sprot called +the fatality in tones of horror or dismay. Sombrewater sadly but +efficiently put questions to the witness. “I saw the body bobbing about +in the wash under the bank,” Sprot averred. “A frightful-looking thing.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span></p> + +<p>“You are quite sure it was ... our friend Hsiao?”</p> + +<p>“Absolutely. That fearful, black, waving top-knot. It was awful—awful!”</p> + +<p>Presently they turned towards Yuan, who was studying a glistening fern.</p> + +<p>“He does not seem to realize ...” said Lord Sombrewater. “He cannot +have understood ... I had perhaps better speak to him.” He approached +Yuan. “Yuan, my dear friend, I am afraid we have terrible news. Hsiao +has been drowned.” Yuan did not look up. “Hsiao is dead.”</p> + +<p>“Quick and dead are relative terms,” responded Yuan. “Hsiao is Hsiao.”</p> + +<p>“The blow has stunned him,” whispered Sprot, and suddenly found the +basilisk eye of Yuan upon him.</p> + +<p>“You would desire, I gather, that the party should break up?” Yuan +inquired.</p> + +<p>“But, my God——” began Sprot.</p> + +<p>Sombrewater silenced him. “We would naturally not wish to go on +merrymaking,” he said to Yuan.</p> + +<p>Yuan seemed to fall in with their wishes. The party descended the rocks +in silence, and boarded the vessel with eyes turned from the bank. Wang +Li remained. He was in contemplation, and need <span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>not be disturbed, Yuan +said. They floated off on the current, Quentin and Terence at the oars.</p> + +<p>“Will you not extinguish the lanterns?” asked Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“As you wish,” Yuan politely replied.</p> + +<p>Lychnis watched. The death of Hsiao did not greatly affect her, she +admitted. It was a pity, certainly. In any case death did not seem to +be reality to her, and her heart approved Yuan’s demeanour. Suddenly a +scream rang out, and Ruby pointed hysterically to the hideous floating +corpse. With a shudder Lord Sombrewater turned to Yuan. “We must +recover him.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” Yuan asked. He did not seem to be able to understand this +preoccupation with a trivial event.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="34">34</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>THE +following was compiled by Ambrose after listening to both the +girls. At two o’clock in the morning a lamp still burned in their +bedroom. Ruby, with a garment in her hand, was being addressed by +Lychnis, who still wore her white dress and had not even unbuttoned her +shoes.</p> + +<p>“Can’t you see, little idiot, that death’s not important? It isn’t +real. Neither is life real. Life and death are not real. Something else +is, and that something else is in Yuan and Wang Li, and it goes on and +is everywhere, and death doesn’t make any difference. Yuan and Wang are +dead, too. I mean they are not alive in the way we understand life.”</p> + +<p>But Ruby was not in an amiable mood. “At any rate,” she said savagely, +“there’s no doubt that we shall go away now from this horrible place.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you think that?”</p> + +<p>“I heard daddy say to your father that he couldn’t feel comfortable +here again. ‘With those cold-blooded freaks,’ he said.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! And did my father agree?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span></p> + +<p>“I think so. He nodded.”</p> + +<p>“Well——” Lychnis was aware of an unwonted nervous disturbance, a desire +to cry, at the secession and hostility of her obedient friend. She +concealed it. “It’s time we were in bed.” She stood up, unfastened her +dress, and let it slide to the floor, bending meanwhile on Ruby her +frowning brows. “We shall stay,” she added definitely.</p> + +<p>Her anger had usually the effect of reducing Ruby to sulks or +submission. To-night she became defiant, and replied, looking at her +persecutor with shining, fascinated eyes. (And no wonder, thought +Ambrose, as he pictured the slim, contemptuous figure that had the +matter of subjugation in hand.)</p> + +<p>“You think it’s for you to decide, Lychnis. It isn’t. We’ve made up our +minds to consider ourselves in future.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve been plotting with Fulke, have you?”</p> + +<p>Ruby’s eyes quivered. “Let me tell you daddy thinks so, too. If we want +to go now we shall.”</p> + +<p>“Not without my permission—and Yuan’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Yuan! Why don’t you go to him altogether?”</p> + +<p>The words had slipped out, and with the realization of what she had +said came the end of her courage.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span></p> + +<p>The reply darted at her was, “Get into bed.”</p> + +<p>She still had an ounce or two. “I won’t!”</p> + +<p>“Do you remember last time you said that?”</p> + +<p>Ruby remembered a night when a fury who exuded a sort of elemental +invincibleness had used a slipper on her until she howled for pain. She +did not care for pain.</p> + +<p>Lychnis slid in beside her, and switched out all the lights in the room +except the one that hung in the ebony ceiling of their bed. “You hate +it when that light goes out, don’t you?” she asked in a cold voice. +“Every night you shake for fear of the strangeness of this house and +this valley and the tall, plum-cheeked Yuan with gimlet eyes. When the +queer moonlight creeps in through the lattices, as if Yuan were there, +flooding us with some cold emanation of his cold, unhuman spirit, you +lie and tremble. I am going to put the light out now.”</p> + +<p>She switched it out with one hand and with the other gave Ruby a pinch. +Ruby sat up. “I hate you! Oh, you beast, I hate you!”</p> + +<p>“You’d better ask Fulke to do something about it.” Lychnis spoke in a +ghostly voice.</p> + +<p>But all at once Ruby collapsed into her pillow and began violently +crying. “Don’t—oh, please don’t tease me about Fulke!” she sobbed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span></p> + +<p>Lychnis had an intimation. “What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>For some time there was no answer; then a buried voice came from the +pillow: “I can’t bear you to speak of him.” A silence. Then: “I—I want +him. I love him.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis peered into the dim moonlight, silent for a little. Then: “But, +my dear, I didn’t realize it was like that. I am surprised.” She put +her arms round Ruby. “Since when?”</p> + +<p>There followed long confidences and comfortings. “And that’s why,” +concluded the afflicted one, “I said I hate you. I’ve been hating you a +long time—because you keep him from me!”</p> + +<p>Lychnis smiled in the dark. “But don’t you see? That’s nearly over. You +will have him from me altogether—very soon.”</p> + +<p>“Do you really think so?” Consoled, glowing, and happily doubtful, +Ruby fell asleep. When she was asleep Lychnis turned over on her +face and sobbed her heart out. She saw clearly that Ruby would soon +have Fulke—the chimpanzee-like Fulke—away from her altogether. She +didn’t mind that. But it gave her a sense of desertion. It was strange +that soon Fulke should lie in her place, or take Ruby to his. She +would be alone. It was the case that she was losing her friends—even +her father. Her heart sank at the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>deep silence. The shadow of the +lattice lengthened out on the floor. Outside a spray of leaves brushed +monotonously against the roof of the verandah. Soon she would be alone, +quite alone—face to face with a queer reality—except for Ambrose. The +name floated to her in the silence. Ambrose. Perhaps he was on the +verandah composing. She crept from the bed, crept out on the verandah. +Outside there was nothing but the warm moonlight and the leaves +brushing on the roof. She came back, alone with the spectre of Yuan. +She shivered and lay deathly still, clutching the bedclothes, while the +ghostly moonlight peered in through the lattice, stole in and embraced +her like an emanation from his cold, unearthly mind. The spray of +leaves swished to and fro on the roof of the verandah.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="35">35</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_b.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>BEFORE +making an important decision, which Ambrose presently records, +Lychnis suffered several changes of mood of a subtle kind, and she +was able under his expert questioning to describe them, to give an +account of the happenings in the mental, the emotional, the spiritual +sphere—the slight happenings that irresistibly fixed her course.</p> + +<p>She woke heavy-eyed. After a long wandering in the hot mists of +early morning by the reedy shore of the Lake and among the creeks +and cliffs and waterfalls, she came clearly to see herself isolated. +Since the first morning when she had explored the valley with Ambrose +and encountered the swans, she alone (Ambrose not for the moment +considered) had made progress in experience. The others, she perceived, +had all abandoned the experience which they had begun, content to +remain on the fringe, to let it go ungrasped, uncomprehended. They +had stopped short on the threshold of the valley, on the threshold +of a dream. She had entered the dream. To her life was yielding up +secrets. She looked back <span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>from the dome of an emerald hill and saw the +vermilion roof, with its horns and glittering dragons, of the Yellow +Emperor’s Pavilion, in the crescent of the bamboo grove. They were +all sleeping there, except Ambrose, the recorder of other people’s +experiences, whose white-clad figure she saw in the far distance down +by the Lake. They were sleeping, while she woke and strove with what +life was offering to the mind. She would keep them there until she had +finished, until the valley and its denizens had no more to give, for +it is the privilege of those who wrestle with the stuff of experience +that they should sacrifice the others. Looking up, she saw that a great +mass of clouds in the east was thrusting its arms about the valley. An +encircling wall seemed to shut her off from the nearly forgotten world +of Europe. It made it easier not to go back.</p> + +<p>Ambrose pictures her standing on the top of her hill like a fluttering +flag. Lonely she must have been. It is lonely, he remarks, to be in the +advanced posts in the matter of human experience.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="36">36</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img1"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_i.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>IN +the afternoon, lying idle and alone on the verandah, she reflected +that she had not spoken to Terence Fitzgerald for a long time. She +could not remember that he had looked at her with hate or resentment. +He had been aloof, but that was his habit, and it might be that still +he was bound to her in spirit, not resenting her actions. So she went +to her bedroom, put on a twelfth-century robe of amber with a design +of black and red butterflies, sped across the lawn, and slid through +the bamboo-forest, that was heavy and dark with summer, to the tiled +watchtower.</p> + +<p>She climbed the stairs, peering through little windows that she +passed, and came to his blue-tiled room. It was littered with painting +apparatus. He sat at the window, in his bard-like, painter’s gown, with +his hands clasped, looking sadly out over the quivering bamboo grove. +When she came in his great eyes filled with fire and his voice rang +with joy.</p> + +<p>“At last the high gods have told you to come?” Then reproach shadowed +his face. “But in that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>alien dress. This is not Lychnis, not my divine +inspiration materialized.”</p> + +<p>“I have abandoned the other dress,” she replied, “for ever.”</p> + +<p>“For ever!”</p> + +<p>“I must look the part I am going to play.”</p> + +<p>“But we are going back. Lord Sombrewater has decided.” He spoke with +great earnestness.</p> + +<p>“Are we? Not quite yet perhaps.” She concealed her meaning, giving +him great distress. They sat together in the wide window, on a ledge +of pale yellow tiles. The poet eyed her long and dreamily; sometimes +(through dreaming) his knee touched hers, or his hand, if he spoke, +found it necessary to pat her fingers or her shoulder. The innocence of +the poet permitted itself some intimacies. But they woke no thrill in +her. She only leaned out and caressed the close ivy, or gazed up at the +swifts circling over a group of elms in the midst of the bamboo.</p> + +<p>“The dress is alien, but it is enchanting,” he said, after a pause. “It +falls about you like an amber spell.”</p> + +<p>“Paint me,” she replied. “I came to be painted, as promised.”</p> + +<p>He obeyed. “I believe it is a spell,” he went on. “You are under a +spell, woven on you by <span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>your Chinese. The robe has definitely altered +your aura.”</p> + +<p>“Is that the case? Tell me, has Yuan got an aura?”</p> + +<p>“As far as I can discover,” said Terence, with the air of making a +mysterious confidence, “he has got practically nothing else.”</p> + +<p>“You mean—no body?”</p> + +<p>“No corporeal habitation at all—not to speak of. Does that interest +you? Is it a point of any importance?”</p> + +<p>But she was watching the swifts, and only threw out an aside: “You must +write an article, ‘The Influence of Environment on the Aura.’”</p> + +<p>“But it is profound, I can tell you—in fact, it is disconcerting. +I cannot understand these people. It is all part and parcel of the +mysterious, sinister unresponsiveness of the place. I am unhappy here.” +His grey eyes were mournful. “I sit all day without any illumination, +unvisited by any messenger from those mysterious worlds that touch so +closely on ours. The astral plane is quite closed to me.”</p> + +<p>“Something has gone wrong with the trapdoor,” she ventured, +unsympathetically.</p> + +<p>“Unvisited by anyone,” he added, with meaning. But she was absorbed in +the gliding swifts.</p> + +<p>“I believe some evil spirit on the Other Side <span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span>has done this by way +of a joke. Those three friends of yours, Lychnis, are elementals, +vampires.”</p> + +<p>“It was you brought us here,” she threw out, with her eyes on the sky. +“The Peach-blossom People—pink feet, I remember.”</p> + +<p>“It was to punish me for some error. They have brought me here and +blown out the candle of my vision. I cannot contemplate. My harp and my +tongue are silent; my hand is paralysed. And now the word descends on +me in the mists of morning that I must arise and go back to Ireland. +Everything is so designed and so finished, so dead; and I find your +friends so on top of life, so beyond the capacity to feel the world’s +sorrow, so smug.”</p> + +<p>She spoke to the bamboo grove. “And so clean. And everyone is so happy. +And inspiration only comes to you when you are in an untidy, poverty +stricken, romantic country where the people are superstitious and +incompetent. In your Paradise everyone must be Celtic and ridiculous. +To be poetical, to have beautiful fancies and run to press with them +is diseased. You dress up the cold substance of experience with +starry crowns and gauze wings to make it look like fairies. A country +should produce either men who can think straight or men who can live +hard—especially the first. That is what compels me in a man.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span></p> + +<p>The wild anger that flashed in his eyes died down when she suddenly +turned her face.</p> + +<p>“There is distress in your eyes, not scorn.” His concern became +apparent in a disposition to offer her the protection of his bosom.</p> + +<p>At that moment, indeed, if Terence wanted Ireland, Lychnis wanted +England. Hypnotized by the wheeling of the swifts over the elms, she +had seen her home, and the pull at her was agonizing. The elm-clump +beyond the sea of bamboo was an island of the familiar in a sea of +strangeness. She suffered an intolerable desire for England, for the +Georgian house, for the tennis-lawns, the stables, the cornfields. Her +nerves stormed for the satisfaction that those old habits could give, +and her more complex desire for the undefined satisfaction that she +was pursuing in the Peach-blossom Valley all but suffered shipwreck. +But she gave no hint of this to the poet. He was friendly to her, +but because he loved her she must put him far away, increasing her +isolation. They sat in stillness and silence while the blazing summer +sun sank down the afternoon sky and the swifts mounted and swerved and +flickered high up over the elms.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="37">37</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AT +evening, when the sky was a flaming garden in the glass of the Lake, +Ambrose and Lychnis sat side by side in a punt at a distant part of the +shore, quietly fishing. Their punt was moored by two poles. Behind them +a wall of reeds; before them the green reflection; a step beyond it the +sky mirrored in an abyss. They were fishing for pike, perch and the +like.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it had been decided to return,” he replied to a question, +“until Sprot disappeared. It is not known whether he went back to the +<cite>Floating Leaf</cite> or whether—— Do you, perhaps, know what has become +of him?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t a notion.” She hooked a gudgeon of suitable size through the +appropriate membrane and cast her line. “Until it is known, I suppose, +my father will stay on. I mean, he wouldn’t desert even Sprot. In any +case I do not think he will go back just yet.”</p> + +<p>Ambrose lifted his eyes for a moment from his float to glance at her—a +reed-fairy with amber robe and amber hair, steadily holding her rod +with slender hands, frowning at the float that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>bobbed in the ripples. +She was a novice at fishing. It was certainly accurate to describe her +as a most lovely young woman. The meaning of her words would no doubt +be given presently. She had clearly brought him here to deliver it.</p> + +<p>“They can’t bear it any more because Hsiao’s death doesn’t make any +difference to Yuan and Wang. Why, Ambrose?”</p> + +<p>“You know why. You have grasped the principle. They cherish the +personality, and cannot endure the indifference to personality that +Yuan and Wang display.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she responded; “I do know. They cannot bear to think that they +are of no more importance than a grain of dust, or a slug, or a tomato. +What do you think about personality?”</p> + +<p>“The strange thing about it is,” he pointed out, “that Wang and +Yuan, who ignore it, have more of it. It is a strange truth. But we +understand—do we not?—that the personality is not their own. They +merely contain, as it were, something cosmical, something that streams +and emanates from them.”</p> + +<p>“It has the effect, merely, of personality,” she observed. “But it is +very fascinating.”</p> + +<p>“You find it so?”</p> + +<p>“My float has gone.” It had disappeared in the clouds that seemed to +drift under it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span></p> + +<p>“Don’t strike for a few seconds,” he put in. “It’s pike. They run off +with the bait and begin to swallow it afterwards. Now!”</p> + +<p>She struck.</p> + +<p>“Don’t pull,” he continued. “Hold gently when you can.”</p> + +<p>“I feel it,” she gasped. “I’m in communication. It’s wonderful to feel +the weight of something in a world you can’t see.”</p> + +<p>By a method of her own the fish was got into the boat. “It’s a pike,” +said Ambrose, “but with improvements of Yuan’s.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I find Yuan fascinating,” she continued, when she had cast her +line again.</p> + +<p>“You are in love with him?”</p> + +<p>“Must you put it in the diary? If he were a figure on a vase ... if he +would behave as such after marriage ... I don’t know if I am in love. +That’s what I have to find out. I couldn’t go away without finding out, +could I? I must find out. Nothing else matters, and that is the sole +reason why I am making so much trouble—not intellectual curiosity, or +friendship, or anything like that, but simply an unanswerable desire to +understand what is happening to me. At present it’s like this—I can’t +do without him. I feel I must always be in his presence, watching him, +hearing him. Is that love?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span></p> + +<p>“It is foolish,” said Ambrose, “to ask ourselves ‘Is she in love?’ We +have no definition of love. We do not know what it is. This is the only +question we need put, in the case before us: ‘Is your desire towards +him strong enough, and more especially single enough, to decide you +to make an experiment with him that would create a situation complex +enough to be awkward from the point of view of some of the parties less +intimately, but to an important extent, concerned?’”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that is the question we ought to put,” she agreed. “The answer +is——”</p> + +<p>But he was momentarily engaged in pulling a fine red perch of about six +pounds out of the water. He landed it, and they bent over the tank, to +watch it swimming about in company with her improved pike.</p> + +<p>“The answer,” she resumed, gazing at his image in the tank, “is that +she doesn’t know, but she has made up her mind that the only way to +find out is to live in conditions similar to those which would obtain +if the whole experiment were in hand, and with this object she proposes +to accept an invitation extended to her some time back and live on the +island for a little while in close company with Wang and Yuan, sharing +quarters with two or three of the Chinese girls. Is that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>the kind +of answer you like? The kind of sentence, I should say.” They left +the tank and went back to their rods. Brown shadows of night were now +lurking in the luxuriant summer foliage of the valley.</p> + +<p>“At any rate it leaves me clear as to your meaning.” He fitted out his +hook with a fresh gudgeon. “You intend to pursue your experience, if +necessary to the last conclusion?”</p> + +<p>“Well—nobody could blame me if I did.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody could, but plenty would. It is the custom to blame people who +put things to the test for themselves.”</p> + +<p>“You would not blame me?”</p> + +<p>“Praise and blame do seem so profoundly irrelevant. Was that a bite? +No. It is getting too dark to see. The chief point is that at present +you are not sure. You will go near the terrible fruit of knowledge, but +will you pluck it?”</p> + +<p>“You see inside of me, Ambrose. I like it. Yes, there is perhaps +something I cannot get over. I don’t know if I loathe that, or whether +I like it. Perhaps you can tell me which. Or ... or what it would be +like ... if something would make it ... easy.”</p> + +<p>Her speech did not often falter. This little hard grain of knowledge +in regard to physical facts she still hesitated to put to the test of +experience. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>The unilluminated fact discomposed her.</p> + +<p>“That statement you were to prepare for me...?”</p> + +<p>He smiled to himself in the gathering brown darkness. “I am afraid it +is not quite ready.”</p> + +<p>The night fell swiftly at last, faintly lit by a moon still low down +among the hills, like a lotus among great brown petals. Both felt the +weight of a fish when they went to put away rod and line. Soon all was +packed up, and Ambrose rowed the punt slowly away.</p> + +<p>“You will put me on the island?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Certainly.”</p> + +<p>“And tell my father?—explain to him?”</p> + +<p>“I will.”</p> + +<p>“And remain my friend when they all misunderstand and hate me?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes.”</p> + +<p>“What a darling you are!”</p> + +<p>He records that when he put her ashore on the Rock she kissed him and +wept. He rowed the punt slowly back through the lanes in the water-lily +leaves.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="38">38</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_l.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>LYCHNIS +made her way through its main gates into the walled collection +of courtyards and one-storied houses where the relatives of old Wang +and Yuan lived. During many days spent on the island she had made +acquaintance with numbers of them, and now they gave her an eager +welcome, overjoyed that the fair-haired and fairy-like stranger should +have accepted their invitation. But her first night, alone with two +Chinese girls in the lanterned chamber, was strange. They chattered +to her in a speech like the speech of birds; they rolled themselves +up fantastically on their queer beds; and, kind and affectionate with +her as they might be, she lay shaking by herself in the darkness, +unutterably alone.</p> + +<p>With morning there were many things, apart from the pursuit of her +enterprise, to fill her mind. It was amusing to watch her companions +plastering their hair down with resin. Other young women came in to +assist at her toilet, some dressed, as was more usual among them, +in the ordinary costume of a Chinese girl; others, for <span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>the sake of +pleasing her, or because it was their custom, in robes copied from the +fashions of many centuries. An embarrassing interest was shown in her +affairs. They offered her a quantity of clothes to choose from, and +watched her with delighted and confusion-producing comment while she +managed the combination she effected of her own soft underclothes with +robe and trousers in heliotrope and green. They laughed over her. She +pleased them.</p> + +<p>After breakfast, when she was introduced to some gentle elder women, +she was taken by four or five of her friends to a room with an effect, +in the clear morning heat, of pink and pale green and gold. There were +elaborate chairs, Chinese books, a chessboard in ebony and amber, a +stringed instrument (which later she learned to play), two or three +landscapes on silk, objects in ivory and jade and unknown precious +metals. An attempt was made at conversation of an explanatory kind.</p> + +<p>The youngest of them—a demure, slender girl, who bent and twisted her +body with the grace of a willow in the wind—indicated names, such as +Golden Apricot, Blue Lotus, or Scarlet Moth. Then she put a question: +“Married?”</p> + +<p>“Not married,” Lychnis replied.</p> + +<p>“Those two married,” the child indicated, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>pointing to an elaborate, +indolent beauty, and a girl with a sad, intelligent face. “Hsiao’s +wives.”</p> + +<p>Lychnis was shocked. They seemed so young for that hideous painter, and +it was tactless of the child to have introduced the subject. The beauty +smiled secretly, as if she had some fountain, and no mystical one, of +consolation, and the sad one wrung her hands. It was to be gathered +that the reactions of these two young widows were of the human kind, +not like those of their extraordinary relatives.</p> + +<p>It occurred to Lychnis to ask whether Yuan was married. It came to +her that he might have a wife or two wives. There was an exasperating +titter. “Yuan!” Two or three shaped their mouths to his name, +producing an effect as if they were astonished, or scandalized, or +contemptuous—she could not tell what.</p> + +<p>Then the beauty spoke—in English, surprisingly: “Yuan not a man—neither +is Wang Li.”</p> + +<p>“You mean?”</p> + +<p>But she would do no more than smile, and Lychnis leaned back on her +apple-green cushion, angrily wondering how to find out what she meant. +Was it meant that Yuan was a spirit, or ghost? A Yuan that was a ghost +might be more agreeable in the capacity of husband. She suddenly felt, +among these matter-of-fact and human <span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>young women, and there came with +it a dismaying sense of unreality, that she must have been dreaming +about some porcelain image in a museum or a figure on a scroll.</p> + +<p>“Are you sad that Yuan is not a man?” asked the beauty, with quite +European cattishness.</p> + +<p>“How well you speak English!” Lychnis graciously replied, desirous of +friendly relations.</p> + +<p>At this also there was a titter, and the demure child explained with +readiness and a remarkable virtuosity in the method of allusion that +her lovely cousin had learnt this and more from Quentin.</p> + +<p>Lychnis closed her eyes, not caring to learn whether the slender +young lady had also learnt at the same knee. Quentin, in his hateful +irresponsibility, she savagely reflected, knew no restraints. But how +would it be to spend the rest of her life among these twittering golden +mice? The sad one, the intelligent one, perhaps she would not lightly +permit herself what seemed to Lychnis to require the profound assent +of reason and imagination. Yuan might take her away, of course. She +suffered a wave of anger that he did not come.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="39">39</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_y.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>YUAN +was away in the mountains, and as day after day passed without him +Lychnis sank deeper into doubt and misery. Then at last he came back, +sought her out, spent all his time with her, and they began to weave +their lives into one strand. They spent days and nights in the Flying +Dragon, often at great distances from the valley; or sometimes they +sought strange experiences among the neighbouring forests and crags; +and the summer wore on to its full splendour. Afterwards she gave +Ambrose some account of these various experiences, and he chose three +or four to illustrate the progress of her relations with Yuan.</p> + +<p>She began to be influenced increasingly, it appears, by the silent and +deliberate guidance of his mind. He had means of conveying his thoughts +to her without speech, and this means he used more and more effectively +as their intimacy deepened. One afternoon of serene and golden beauty +they were strolling, steeped in this conversation, through a birch-wood +among the hills. They came upon three Rishi, or mountain wizards, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>contemplating the smoke of incense in a green circle under the trees. +Behind the Rishi was a porcelain image, shrined among leaves, a thing +of infinite stillness. The two friends silently joined the group; Yuan +leaned against a birch trunk, chin in hand. Lychnis lay prone. But from +time to time she looked round at Yuan, for he seemed to have withdrawn +his mind from her, to have plunged himself, without thought for her, in +the contemplation of the smoke of incense. And the three Rishi were of +the most repulsive ugliness—the first huge and sensual, with a belly +that burst through filthy rags, distended ears, and the face of a demon +of wrath; the second small and thin, with the face of a froward newt; +the third deformed in the spine, crab-armed, lascivious and cruel. +They took no notice whatever of the newcomers, and sat for so long in +a tremendous immobility, like that of the brooding porcelain figure, +that the flap of a leaf overhead reverberated through the forest and +seemed to echo down long passages in the mind. Their foul and repulsive +appearance began to be more incongruous with so profound a stillness; +their ugliness was so clearly not the sign of any present passion that +they seemed to grow unreal. They might be about to vanish. She suddenly +perceived in their faces the signs of immortal, worldforgetting <span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span>youth. +Then came a solitary message from Yuan, that these were men who had +left behind them the passions of the world and given themselves to the +experience of reality. “It is the presence of reality,” he said to her +mind, “that displays the unreality of the outward world.” The wrathful +one stirred faintly at the passage of thought from mind to mind; his +wrinkled eyelids perceptibly twitched.</p> + +<p>Yuan returned to the contemplation, and Lychnis found herself being +drawn in—wandering, rather, in a world of fancies on the edge of what +was too cold and uncongenial for her to enter. At first the sensations +in her body intensified. There was an itch for movement in legs and +fingers. She was acutely aware of the thrust of her chin in her hand, +the strain of the muscles at waist and abdomen, a fly buzzing in her +hair, a pebble under her knee. But a gentle wind played on her calves +and head. Discomforts faded. She became aware of the beautiful lines +and relations of her body. She relaxed, and the tree-roots on which +she was lying seemed to embrace her, to gain contact with her; the +life of the tree gained contact with her life. She turned on her back +in the embrace of the birch-tree, and began pondering on the delicate +tracery of leaves, swaying and glowing in the peaceful sky. She was in +a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>world of trees—birch, poplar, chestnut and ash; tall silver trunks, +brown twisted trunks, smooth boles, tender shoots, branches carrying +a weight of ivy; green tranquil leaves, broad, flat leaves hanging on +long stems, white fluttering leaves like clouds of butterflies; in a +world of pale green and misty substance, and deep green with dark, +lucid caves, splashes of golden yellow, blurs of red-brown. There was +an imperceptible, infinite rustling, an unseen flitting of birds, +sometimes a note; a tranquil diffused light, and beyond the tree-tops +an immense pure well and medium of light, a warm sun-drenched region +of inter-stellar space, longed for by the senses. The roots under her +body stretched up to a silver trunk that lifted its weight of foliage +into the world of foliage and light, lifting her spirit with it. She +was among myriads of leaves, exulting, whispering choirs. It seemed to +her that the spirits of those who have loved the light of the sky dwelt +in them, tasting the sun and the warm winds, saturated with light, +with air, with the unseen medium of life and being. A profound calm, a +strength of reposed, victorious soul, pervaded the leaves, a dignity of +that which fears neither life nor death, not subject to them. Sometimes +a bevy of young leaves fluttered with a gust of angelic laughter, or +there was a vast stir of passionless conversation, a communion of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span>those who are beyond passion, reposing in the myriad forest leaves. +She felt, certainly, a presence. It was what she had perceived in the +hideous faces of the Rishi. A presence that was not a presence; a +presence seen in the structure of beauty, but yet it was not beauty; +she found it also in music, in a formula, in the valley, in the eyes +of Yuan, but it was not any of these; not happiness or unhappiness, +nor life or death, but pre-existent and yet non-existent—such phrases +from Yuan’s conversation came to her mind. She turned her gaze to the +serene and smiling face of the porcelain figure among the leaves. It +was a thing of great stillness. It was inactive, but it seemed charged +with activity. “It lives,” was her first thought; and pat came the +silent answer from Yuan: “It more than lives. There is more than life.” +A vista was opened to her. The presence in the life of the trees, in +the not-life of the figure, in the unreal faces of the Rishi, was the +same presence—the intangible, the unnameable. She perceived a reality +outside thought, unhuman and without the warmth and pleasure of +thought, a reality that she could not grasp with mind or senses; but +the experience of it brought joy.</p> + +<p>And dimly, only dimly, she felt Yuan beside her in the sea of forest +thoughts, leaf thoughts, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span>as if he guided her where she floated. In +the apprehension of him, in that realm of experience, there was no +distaste. She felt closer to him when her senses were submerged. She +was where there are no distinctions of this and that.</p> + +<p>Her thoughts were broken into by spoken words. The Rishi were coming +to the end of their contemplation, and they returned to the world in a +state of unhuman gaiety. There still sounded in them the mirth of the +Paradise where they had been.</p> + +<p>Their gaiety abruptly came to an end. “There are two imperfect beings +in contemplation with us,” said the demon of wrath.</p> + +<p>“One,” added the newt, “is very imperfect, being full of half-thoughts, +and even whole thoughts, and long pauses of irrelevant dreaming. Those +who have thoughts in their minds should not gather round the smoke of +incense.”</p> + +<p>“The other,” contributed the third, “is nearly thoughtless, nearly +unconscious; but he impedes the flow of reality into himself and among +us by some attachment to the passions and desires of men.”</p> + +<p>“A brother!” piped the newt, with a gurgle of newt-like laughter, “an +immortal, has drowned the never-ending merriment of the immortals in a +draught of red and serious desire!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span></p> + +<p>Yuan did not change countenance, but he drew her away, and they were +followed as they went down the rocky path among the birches by sounds +of immense hilarity. This is the life he is destined for by family +tradition, reflected Lychnis, and he is to become like these, though +not so ugly.</p> + +<p>His conversation on the way down was somewhat of that which is more +important than desire and life, beside which human pleasure is +insignificant. “Those,” he said, explaining the point of view of his +three acquaintances, “who have once found the satisfaction of non-being +desire it, and they shun the things that belong to existence, as, for +example, friendship and love.”</p> + +<p>That might not be inconvenient, in some circumstances, was the thought +that presented itself to her attention. It came forcibly at first, then +faded in a myriad quivering forest thoughts, at the heart of which, in +a radiation of light and power, through a wisp of the smoke of incense, +the image of the porcelain saint eternally smiled. An unearthly smile, +it was, without scorn and without pity—a smile that made all human +experience seem irrelevant, and all human language conceited.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="40">40</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AT +the height of summer the rains came; the fiery flowers and the +fantastic hills were extinguished in a blur of rain, in a steam and +smell of rain throughout the valley, in clouds of rain drifting among +the crags, arrows of rain slanting across the Lake.</p> + +<p>For a day or two Yuan and Lychnis stayed at home, amusing themselves +in the laboratories, talking in the library, studying paintings on +silk, handling bronzes and porcelain, looking out at the rain. They +had plenty to say and do, but the deluge had a voice for Lychnis, and +she desired to feel the drench on her body, to be enveloped in the +embrace of warm rain. The third day, therefore, they took a punt and +a cormorant, and went fishing, with only the protection of a flat +umbrella, she in her glass-green silk, he in his hunting costume of +russet-brown with a note of crimson. Forthwith they were gasping under +the minute insistent drive of the myriad rain arrows. They made their +way down the squelching path, among dripping laurels, to the shore.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span></p> + +<p>She laughed. “We are in the power of the rain. It’s delicious.” And he +smiled back, knowing how softly and surely the rain prevails.</p> + +<p>“See,” he called, “the subject for a picture—Rain on a Sheet of Water +and Ducks swimming under a Willow.”</p> + +<p>They found their punt, and she remembers the touch of his wet hand as +he helped her on board. They pushed off, and the rain fell steadily and +softly all about them. The sky was full of grey, swirling veils; pale, +driving gusts swept the leaves and the white lilies. The shore receded, +there was a blur of willows in a slant of rain, a glimpse of rock like +a grey core of rain, and then they were together in a warm, misty +oblivion.</p> + +<p>Lychnis put up her face to the soft downpour, taking warm caresses +on her eyes, in her mouth. The rain drenched her, soaked into her +hair, smoothed the silk robe to her body so that she seemed stripped, +blinded her, beat her, knew every part of her, and prevailed. She felt +shameless and searching caresses down back and limbs, between her +breasts and over her torso, on knees and feet. The rain was possessing +her, but the face of the rain that watched her was Yuan’s. She held up +her mouth to the down-drenching lover, saying, “I adore you.”</p> + +<p>The voice of Yuan replied, “Water-lily.” He <span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span>was regarding her, +she realized, with a keen gaze, more than ordinarily prolonged and +remorseless. He held her with his gaze, as if he admitted, now, a +special relation between them, and wished her to admit it, too. +Close to her, shut in by the changing wall of rain, he seemed big +and immediate, like a god, like the rain-god. His features, his +yellow skin, his piercing eyes, the slash of crimson on his brown +tunic—sole note of colour in a drifting, grey universe—had a terrifying +distinctness. He was very close and real and living, though his +life—the life behind his unreadable eyes—was not the life of men. +Perhaps because it was not Yuan who looked at her, but the swirling +rain, not Yuan, but the voice of the universe who spoke, distaste for +his flesh vanished. Yuan was dissolved and received into the body of +the rain, and she desired him. Past and future vanished; all else was +shut out; there was no earth or heaven—only herself in a space of warm, +saturating water, floating on water; herself, a cormorant with a fish, +and the god of the universe. In his eyes, deep and unreadable and +fascinating like the black lake-water, she was about to drown.</p> + +<p>He came towards her. She felt her hands taken. The face, impending, +intent, was close to hers. The mouth, a calm flower in the rain, was +stretched out to her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span></p> + +<p>She offered herself to the terror of his mouth and the fierce and +shining infinity that looked out of his eyes. There was no person in +them, only a stupendous power. Yuan had vanished; what held her was +not Yuan. Her own body, her own person, seemed also to dissolve and +stream away in the rain. There was a sudden blinding drive, a hurricane +embrace of rain, and in the midst of it his small mouth was a spot of +fire.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="41">41</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_n.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>NEXT +day they climbed up among the crags in gusty weather, and as +evening drew on they were overtaken by a shower. There was a mountain +temple by a torrent in the shadow of a rock. They crossed the torrent +by a bridge and took shelter.</p> + +<p>While Yuan contemplated a bronze image of Kwannon, Lychnis looked +out at the crags, the pines, the valley below where the torrent fell +booming. Far away was the Lake and the island in a mist of rain. Or +sometimes she watched Yuan. She had abandoned everything to him, and +waited for what he might be about to command. She was living in the +intoxication of what seemed an unending now, and made no conjectures as +to what might happen when now ended.</p> + +<p>All day their talk had been of the regions where he had taken her with +the power of his mind (and where she had followed easily), of tree +life, of insect life (a weird region), of chill regions beyond, out of +which life takes origin. This seemed to her cold talk for lovers, and +she fancied she was ready that it should become warmer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span></p> + +<p>She called to him: “Yuan.”</p> + +<p>His voice answered from within: “Lychnis.”</p> + +<p>“We are like the gods up here. Down there I see the world, where Wang +Li is.” Her mind did not admit the thought of others on the far side of +the Lake.</p> + +<p>“Do the gods live for ever, and are they eternally happy?” she asked. +Her thoughts were all of an immense duration of happiness in some +illimitable space of light, with dim shapes of mountains and pavilions. +But a shadow fell across her mind, an annihilating thought of a +cessation, of a space of nothing, of her lover wilfully dissolving in +emptiness, deliberately ceasing to be.</p> + +<p>At her question, a swift, stony chill seemed to pass across his face. +“Your question has no relation to reality,” he coldly replied.</p> + +<p>“I know you think it,” she answered. “I see quite well that it is +absurd. You have made me understand that life is relative and all that. +But it is a queer thought for a woman in love. My brains have all gone, +you see, because of it, and I—the I that is the living Lychnis, and +this body—clamour to be recognized.”</p> + +<p>She had not spoken to him or to herself so boldly before, but the +thought of what he was always calling the eternal, non-existing +Lychnis, with no body for caresses, the Lychnis pre-existent <span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span>in a +state precedent to matter and intelligence and life, was not congenial +to her. But was she ready for an alternative? At once her words +presented their own meaning clearly to her mind, and she experienced +a terror that she chose to find delicious. There he was, tall and +brooding, near her in the gloom of the evening. She was ready to +think of herself as having been seized, as captive to the masked, +expressionless god.</p> + +<p>A gust of wind boomed in the roof of the hut.</p> + +<p>“It is chilly here,” she said. “Are we going away to-night to the +forests in the south, where it is so warm?”</p> + +<p>He stood close to her, and her orchid-petal hands lay in his. She +divined a formidable debate in his mind, and wished that she could have +read the eyes that gazed past her through the window. If he did not +take her to the forests.... If they stayed here.... This might become +her bridal chamber. She let the thought take her fully, and in the face +of reality looked through the window for an escape. There was only rain +and frowning crags and the valley, and perhaps the shadow of a picture +of someone far off who could have given her advice. The bridal chamber! +She was happy as she was, after all, in a now that might as well be +unending, and perhaps, if she was to be possessed by Yuan, it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span>would +have to be in the glow of that moment of assent in the rain-world, now +somewhat past.</p> + +<p>He made no reply to her thoughts. With him it was crisis. He chose the +flowering moment of desire to show his contempt for it. Most probably +the moments of silence were an eternity of the anguish of renunciation.</p> + +<p>“Is anything the matter?” She caught some faint shadow of dismay on the +strong mask of his visage. “Are you displeased?”</p> + +<p>There was no answer. There had been a change in Yuan, like the change +that comes over a man at the moment of death. Her breath troubled her, +and she beat in terror at the gates of his mind. “Oh, Yuan! Yuan! +Answer for pity’s sake!” But he had closed the gates of his mind +against her for ever. She stormed, now, to come in, to be his, to +accept the whole sequel of her actions, to accept the experience to +which she had given herself in its entirety. But the experience had +committed treason against her; she was forsaken of God.</p> + +<p>“Oh what has happened? What is the matter?” she pleaded. “Why have +you gone cold to me?” But she pleaded with a porcelain idol in a dark +mountain temple. Her lands still lay in his like lilies in the hands +of an image. She tore them away, and took hold of the window-sill and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>bowed her head into them and sobbed, until the fear of the universe +that had turned mercilessly against her silenced even her sobbing with +its formidable cold. Then there was a movement on the still face of +the image; the god put out a ray of protection against the terror that +threatened to overwhelm her, but he left her without refuge from her +grief and dismay. She was to face that, he seemed cruelly to determine, +unaided.</p> + +<p>After a time he touched her on the shoulder and beckoned her to follow +him. She went after him into the twilight garden behind the temple, and +there he plucked a peach from a little tree and bade her eat it. “This +fruit,” he said, “is only for the favoured of God when they have become +fitted to endure deep experiences.”</p> + +<p>Saying this he walked away, and she followed him across the torrent, +homeward through rain that beat her now and loved her no more. He held +his face from her. Once, indeed, he turned to her suddenly, and she +seemed, almost against credence, to see an expression of suffering. +But before it had gained a hold even on her memory it was gone, and he +strode on again.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="42">42</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>THE +oppressive heat of summer was over, and during the still nights +when the lotus fades Lychnis heard of the wild geese flying southward. +She saw nothing of Yuan for nine days. But entering the summer +pavilion among the tree-tops one brilliant night of autumn she found +him seated cross-legged on the floor, in a haze of moonlight, ragged, +bare-chested, in a rapt meditation. He made no sign of having perceived +her. She sat herself down in his neighbourhood and waited, recognizing +in the moonlight—ghostly remembrance of summer sunshine she was used to +there—details of the bleached, airswept room. Her eyes were drawn to +the space of vast, shimmering sky in the door. A branch of pine thrust +across that space, she remembers, and she watched the delicate shadow +of the pine-branch swaying slightly on the bare floor, travelling +remorselessly like time towards the idol seated by the doorway. He was +so still that soon she believed herself to be dreaming.</p> + +<p>When at last a voice issued from his profound immobility she felt the +assault of terror, as if a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span>phantom had spoken. “There is an imperfect +being in contemplation with me,” the figure said.</p> + +<p>“It is I, Lychnis,” she answered meekly.</p> + +<p>He seemed scarcely aware of her. He was indeed dead in the body. “An +echo reaches me. A voice that spoke once in the world of unreality.” +His tones were the high, uncertain tones of a spirit. He turned his +face, and it was illuminated by an unearthly brilliance. It was like +talking with a god enthroned in a ghostly radiance of the night sky, +and the floor between them seemed a gulf of interstellar space.</p> + +<p>“Here on this lonely earth,” she answered, “speaks a mouth you have +kissed.”</p> + +<p>“What do you desire of me?”</p> + +<p>“I desire to talk about ourselves and about love.” She was suddenly +sharp and insistent. One sees her seated on a cushion, her head bent +attentively towards him, or hanging somewhat like a child’s, and when +her head was hanging like that, one learns, it was because she had +become aware of a new, surprising element—an element of disrespect.</p> + +<p>“Ourselves? Love? Self and love are renounced and forgotten, or if +remembered they are the remembered pain of some past life.” He spoke +like a dreamer in paradise, unwilling to wake.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span></p> + +<p>“That is taking things very seriously,” she said, speaking thoughts +that astonished her as they came into her mind. “Perhaps, after all, +love is not a thing to be taken so seriously.” A quiver of pain +troubled her as she said it, remembering what delights she had thought +to obtain from life and love.</p> + +<p>Did he stir in his cave of radiance? “The moment of love is past. It +was perfect, and needs no addition. In any sense that is not tedious it +lives forever, and may be continually enjoyed by those who live in the +blissful regions of non-being. The personal in love is nothing.”</p> + +<p>“All the same,” she put in, “it is delicious.”</p> + +<p>“In love,” he repeated, “there is one moment that is eternal. As in +art there is a moment of perfect balance, which cannot be added to or +diminished without ruin, so in love.”</p> + +<p>“Then,” she said, mocking, “I am for promiscuity. The more moments the +better.”</p> + +<p>“But the delights of the lover and the artist,” he replied, “if they +could be prolonged for ever, would not be worth even a hint of the +experience of non-being.”</p> + +<p>Alongside this verbal exchange, alongside the mockery that had come so +unexpectedly to life in her mind, she was hurt with images of days they +had spent together. She resumed: “I will not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span>talk mockery. Let us be +plain about the issue. We loved. We experienced the beginnings of a +perfect life together. You have broken it. You have made a renunciation +in accordance with the tradition of your family. You have sacrificed +me to attain your queer paradise. I want you to satisfy me that it was +right to do so.”</p> + +<p>He said nothing for a long time. She thought that he might reply with +questions: whether they had indeed loved; whether their life together +would have remained perfect; whether, indeed, there had not been +already a hesitation on her part. Then he spoke:</p> + +<p>“The supreme experience of the senses is the renunciation of love.”</p> + +<p>This did not seem to her an answer. She still waited, and soon he +spoke again, looking steadily out through the doorway into the space +of moonlight. His face was frozen and pure. “Do you still trouble my +peace?”</p> + +<p>“I grieve for our beautiful ruined love. I cannot, cannot forget it.”</p> + +<p>His tones fell now with strange modulations, and there came to her +cadences of the flute he played to her in the forest. “The shadow of +the pine-branch travels across the floor, reaches my foot, passes over +my body, but does not enter me. It is thus with the memory of love. +It is thus <span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span>also with the memory of the world. Around me, when I was +a boy, I saw a world of rock and grass and blue sky. Then, when I had +meditated on these, and perceived the secret life of water-meadow, +torrent and flower, the seen world dissolved. Rock and grass became +vaporous like the sky. I saw trees like apparitions, landscapes of +shifting smoke, mountains of mist beyond mountains of mist melting +endlessly away into an infinite horizon of æther. The world became a +contemplation in the smoke of incense. It has gone, and now I meditate +on what has taken its place. I am possessed of what is greater than +joy. I have come into the calm of nothingness, into the lightless and +ineffable regions of non-being, where there is neither splendour nor +darkness. It is an ecstasy. There is no ripple from the created world; +no tremor of the pain or passion of men; nothing that appertains to the +mind of men; nothing in terms of thought and feeling, of aspiration or +regret. The pure lily is no more than the filthy fungus; the loftiness +of mountains and depth of waters are as the flatness and mud of the +river-bed. I believe in the unnameable, without shape or substance, +infinite and inexpressible; one in man, plant and inanimate matter; +spirit of spirit, origin of origin, form of form. I believe in the way +that cannot be followed, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>the truth that cannot be taught, the life +which is more than life. It does nothing, yet there is nothing which +it does not achieve; creates all things, yet in itself is not; all +worlds and systems of worlds are born in it, yet it cannot be seen or +heard; in its nothingness life and death and all modes of conceivable +being reside; it does not exist, yet it is home to the soul of man. It +is ineffable. I therefore renounce the world. I renounce joy and pain; +the vision of spring and the solemn reaping of autumn; the delight in +mountain and tree, in cloudscape, in the fierce tiger, in the flight of +wild geese. I renounce the pride of life and the pleasure of the body, +and I renounce for ever the memory and taste of love.”</p> + +<p>The cadences that came like waves out of the moonlit silence ceased. +His visage was white and numb. One could not tell if the deep, oblong +eyes were seeing or if they were blind. Did he breathe? Did the bare +porcelain chest move? He might have been some hypnotic image, drowning +her resentment in sleep.</p> + +<p>But the rim of the moon came suddenly into the doorway, making a +change, releasing her from a spell. It was intolerable that he should +despise the memory of their intimacy, and reject all she had given him +of her mind and senses. “Why, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span>why did you kiss me that time?” she +asked, in a storm of protest.</p> + +<p>“I do not remember,” said the calm voice.</p> + +<p>Now he seemed immensely foreign and impenetrable, as if she had been +in love with a creature. Fiercely she remembered the Jupiter swan that +had made love to her that first morning, in a fit of inexplicable +desire. Had it been like that with Yuan? No communion of spirit at +all? Her ideas about him had been fictions of the mind. The angry +desire to be kissed once again by that fiction whose mouth was a spot +of fire at once consumed her. She longed in a storm of resentment to +wake his senses again, to see those flower-lips crumpled with the +fire of passion, to see them grey with the ashes of it. But what art +had she to tempt him with? Or, indeed, what art could have equalled +the natural beauty of her shape, the fragile and intoxicating bloom +and mystery of her person, the troubled loveliness of her mouth, of +her eyes? Troubled, certainly, they were, but in them was a gleam of +that unstriving and creative energy on which her lover meditated. In +those subtle and moving relations between shoulder and breast, in the +ineffable curves of her body, shone openly his uncreated principle from +which all order and beauty proceeds.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span></p> + +<p>These, maybe, were his thoughts, and evidently he perceived hers. “That +which is accidental in your loveliness has no force with me. Only the +eternal has force. The eternal shines in you.”</p> + +<p>Once again, amazingly, there streamed up in her a fountain of mockery, +but the icy reality of his renunciation froze her mockery at her lips. +“I believe,” she said, hesitatingly—“I believe that I am more of an +adept than Yuan, for I could laugh. I could laugh like old Wang and +the Rishi. I am less bound to the world and to passion than Yuan if I +can laugh. To renounce is to be bound by the tie of renunciation.” But +no sign of emotion or any response appeared on his face, and swiftly +once more she fell under the hypnotic spell of his stillness. He could +not be mocked into life. She had to meet him in the reality in which +he rested. “I am a woman,” she said. “I see no opposition between your +unnameable and my now. Time may surely be made delicious, for the +unnameable must be in time, too, and in the usage of love. It certainly +is for a woman.”</p> + +<p>“The supreme experience of the senses,” he repeated, “is the +renunciation of love. The renunciation is imperfect if it is only made +by the one. You have apprehended the bliss that I now experience. I +brought it to your spirit, but your own nature made you capable of +receiving it. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span>Your thoughts and desires are not altogether of earth. +The earth in you is earth, not of human flesh, but of the narcissus. +You have eaten the mystic peach. Why cannot you therefore go all the +way with me and renounce your share of what we had in the world?”</p> + +<p>She felt a vague terror. She faltered. “Even the narcissus needs the +usage of love.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you not learn to attain the full ecstasy of contemplation in +the heart of the unnameable?”</p> + +<p>“I do not desire to sit here motionless, like a dreaming flower, +without texture or colour, and receive in my dream a seed from your +dream to beget a dream.”</p> + +<p>“It is life that is a dream,” he corrected. “To dread the unnameable is +to be a lost child that dreads to find home.”</p> + +<p>“Home! You have found home ... through me!” She received illumination. +“You brought me here as an excuse for renunciation, as an exercise; you +used me to make your renunciation as difficult, as exquisite, and as +notable as you could. And now, perhaps, some shadow of earthly passion +makes you urge me to accompany you. I will not. I have a home for my +spirit as well....” She broke off, for now terror snatched at her like +the cold hand of death. It <span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span>was the dread that he would paralyse her +life and make her sit there for ever in a cold and spiritual trance. +There was some unknown and compelling reason why she should escape; +there was some urgent and unrecognized desire. The satisfaction of her +being, she now knew, was elsewhere. With a cry she fled from that bare, +moon-swept pavilion, and left the symbol of her experience staring into +the moonlight.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="43">43</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AMBROSE +finds it difficult to decide from the recital that Lychnis +gave him what was her dominant mood during the following days. There +was an element she did not dwell on, but it was important—an element +of incredulity, perhaps, at finding her grief supportable. We see her +flitting about the woods, driven, in company with the leaves; the +wind was her own bewilderment. Mostly she went with her eyes on the +ground. Sometimes, no doubt, she would stamp her foot in anger for the +pleasant days Yuan had ruined, and wring her hands out of helplessness. +But it seems there were also days of which she tells little—days when +she surprisingly lost her trouble in adoration of their splendid +heedlessness. That heedlessness was a character of the universe with +which she now discovered in herself a surprising affinity.</p> + +<p>Of one critical day she told nothing at all until long after, and for +some time Ambrose left blank pages in the diary. But one day he was +able to fill them in.</p> + +<p>All was turning brown in the woods. Not a green leaf of summer. +Nothing but early twilight <span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span>falling over the mountain hut, and sad +autumn rain. Yet, oddly, she did not feel a commensurate gloom. The +clouds drove across the sky, now lowering and resentful, now swift +and angry, now melting in vapour of tears, now piling onward high and +contemptuous. But her spirit did not answer these changes; it remained +calm; it derived a satisfaction from the magnificence of the moving +cloudscape; it exulted, even, in the deep and steady passion of the +waterfall pouring from the wooded shoulder of a mountain, in the vast +tranquillity of the high crags that floated above seas of rain. She +stood in the shelter of an overhung rock—a tiny, green-robed figure in +the majesty of the mountains—and examined her state of mind. Where was +her grief? Washed away on the rain that swept in gusts over the distant +Lake. Where was the bundle of moods that made up her troublesome self? +Blown away on the winds that tore through the pines, shattered and +obliterated like the leaves of summer. Had she any regret for her +loneliness? She was incredulous to find that she desired no companion, +that she had need of no human being. Had she any fear of the solitude +of the mountains? She looked round at the wizard shapes of pine-tree +and rock to see if she could frighten herself, and there was nothing in +her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span>mind but a strange, sweet, and growing exultation. All alone under +the huge overhung crag she laughed her tiny insect laugh—and checked +herself, for surely it was absurd that she felt no grief. But there it +was, a sensation as if waves out of heaven had flowed into the body +that her self, Lychnis, had vacated. Such a thing was preposterous, she +decided; and pursued her way homeward, resolvedly denying the almost +intolerable pleasure that invaded her. She walked with the heavy gait +of one who suffers.</p> + +<p>Then, fronting her, in a thicket by a glade, she perceived the merry, +blanched face of Wang Li, peeping among brown leaves that fluttered +and danced on his aged bald head. A wild fawn nuzzled in his hand. He +called her, and she approached him with the demure gait of one who is +sorrow-stricken, but underneath this dissembling her heart beat like a +bird’s, for she seemed to be standing within the play of forces that +flowed from him. Out of the corner of her eye she stole a glance at +the smiling, scant-bearded visage. He was unguessably old, yet younger +than the flowers that had been in the glade that April. He was full of +a frightening, unhuman wisdom; on his face there played the wrinkles +of a vast laughter. And unmistakably she found in herself something +corresponding.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span></p> + +<p>“So Yuan has abandoned you,” he said, “and you do not know where to +find some relief from your temporary sorrow.”</p> + +<p>She caught his eye. There were lightnings in it before which her +dissembling vanished like silk on hot coals. She broke into peal +after peal of laughter, and Wang beat his old head in an ecstasy of +merriment. The fawn cropped the grass in complete indifference.</p> + +<p>But swiftly she became grave again. “I do not understand myself,” she +told him.</p> + +<p>“It is simple enough.”</p> + +<p>“All the same, I don’t understand why, when I was so dearly in love +with Yuan....”</p> + +<p>“In love with your left knee!”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean then? Was I not in love?” She reflected, almost +prepared, now, to believe it. “It is true, there was always a +hesitation. But I can explain that.”</p> + +<p>He doubled up with laughter.</p> + +<p>“I really can. There was a difference of flesh between us. He was a +foreigner, you see.”</p> + +<p>The echoes of his laughter drifted to the mountains.</p> + +<p>She was a little mortified. “It is insulting of you not to believe +me. I only know that I shall never love any man again.” Now the deep +pleasures <span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span>of the summer came back to her heart, giving it a twist.</p> + +<p>The fountains of Wang’s mirth were too much for him. His bleached and +shrunken old body could hardly contain the elemental upwelling. The +universe itself laughed at her in his old eyes as it had rained in +Yuan’s. “Let us walk,” he gasped; “let us go home.” He wiped tears from +his cheeks. Then once more the beauty of it overwhelmed him. “She can +never love again!” He held his sides.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she expostulated, “there is nobody. I could not love my father +or my old friend Ambrose. The rest bore me. I do not want love. I have +this queer new pleasure in me instead.”</p> + +<p>They scrambled down the valleys, he subject to recurrent fits of +amusement. She could not withstand him, and at last allowed herself to +regard Yuan’s seriousness and her own bewilderment as a joke. “What has +come to me?” she asked the old Sage.</p> + +<p>“Death,” he answered.</p> + +<p>Was this true? She felt as one who recognizes that a tide is about to +seize and drown her.</p> + +<p>“If not dead, you are dying,” he continued. “Did not Yuan give you the +mystic peach that shrivels the soul and leaves a house for another +inhabitant?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span></p> + +<p>“But you said I am to love,” she protested, displaying an agitation +that came uppermost in spite of herself, an agitation that did not +really seem to belong to her. “How can I love when I am dead and have +no desire?”</p> + +<p>“Cannot the immortal take pleasure in love—in compelling lips, in hands +that awaken, in...?” In so-and-so and in so-and-so. The old man made +her blush with his account of the delights of the senses.</p> + +<p>“But you,” she interpolated—“you are a Sage ... you are above +desire....”</p> + +<p>“A Sage is not necessarily a drivelling idiot,” he replied. “I am very +old. It is more than a hundred years since I was interested in what may +interest a younger man, and the immortal in-dweller has other objects +with me. But there was a time.... The unnameable, when he takes the +place of the self, has no objection whatever to making use of the +furniture. But he is master of desire.”</p> + +<p>“But why did I not stay with Yuan and meditate with him for ever?”</p> + +<p>“Because you are a woman and have more sense. Oh, the seriousness of +these young men! He will get over it, as I did. But he has done his +duty.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span></p> + +<p>“But why did he give me the peach?” She had so many questions to ask.</p> + +<p>“The immediate occasion was your firmness of heart in following the +strange beckonings of the imagination. In consequence you have lost +your soul and gained the no-soul. This is immortality. Regard yourself +as one of the lucky ones of the world, for infinity now lives in you. +Joy and sorrow will be lost in transcending experience. None can +withstand the silent and invisible force that possesses you, and nobody +can take it away. Accept what has happened to you, young woman. Regard +yourself as being dead to the world, and at the same time, when your +lover kisses that coral mouth, bite his lip with your little teeth.”</p> + +<p>They had come to the shore of the Lake, and he took her back to the +island in his boat. She gave herself to the tide of immortality that +was flowing into her throat, choking the life in her. She had become +very serious now, but suddenly he looked up and said: “What fools +we are to speak what cannot be spoken, imagining that what we say +corresponds with reality!” His ironical laughter rang out over the Lake.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="44">44</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_o.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>ONCE +more Ambrose is sitting with Lychnis on the verandah. It is a warm +autumn afternoon, and they are taking pleasure in the sunset glory of +aster, dahlia and chrysanthemum that surrounds the Pavilion, and in the +golden cloud-rack of leaves that now drifts on the lawn.</p> + +<p>She came back, he tells us, so self-possessed, this once moody and +relentless fairy. She had a certain calm dignity, unself-conscious and +convincing—because, as Wang told her, she had lost her self in what is +more authoritative than self; she had opened the way and permitted in +herself the play of forces that brook no questioning, at once terrible +and lovely.</p> + +<p>She was perched on the rail of the verandah, clinging to a post, in a +fit of meditation, and sometimes a leaf drifted against her cheek or +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“I realize now,” she said, “how completely I had forgotten you all. I +do really think you had passed—all of you—utterly out of my mind. It +is surprising. It would have been quite easy never to see you—any of +you—again.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span></p> + +<p>“So loosely,” remarked Ambrose, “are people bound to one another! It is +true—many men might be one’s father, or one’s husband. It is a habit +formed accidentally.”</p> + +<p>“I find it odd that my lot should have fallen with just you and the +others.”</p> + +<p>“You do not find it disturbing that human relationships should be so +fluid, sentiment so flimsy, and the universe so heedless?”</p> + +<p>“I find it beautiful. I should hate the world, now, if it were not all +death and change. I have no use for anything that is not inexorable. I +like the universe to stare pitilessly—with eyes resembling Yuan’s. It +is only the cold and the passionless that I can admire. Ambrose, fancy +a universe all mushy with love, like an over-ripe pear!”</p> + +<p>“Excellent!” Ambrose remembers being conscious of enthusiasm in his +voice, more surprisingly of a flush on the flower-texture of her face.</p> + +<p>“Yuan helped me to enter the mind of tiger and eagle, to become the +tiger and the eagle, and I found in them what I now find in myself, +something I can’t describe—something immense. I have been a tree, too, +you know, and a lotus, and a beetle. What I found in all of them Yuan +has now become. He has given himself entirely to the contemplation of +it in its nakedness, untransformed into bird, or mountain, or man. +I did not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span>want to follow his example, I suppose, because there are +things I may find amusing in the world. Wang says that, having found +the kingdom of the unnameable, the world has been given to me as well, +and this is in order. But I think I have still just a little farther to +go. The peach hasn’t quite done its work, and when I’m entirely dead +perhaps I shall be like Yuan.”</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater came along the verandah and sat down beside Ambrose. +His eye was more pheasant-like than ever. He was glum. Lychnis had +given him the outline of her story, and informed him of her willingness +to go where he liked, but she had not given him certain information. +He could have got it with a question, but he did not care at any time +to get his information by direct questioning, and this was a question +somewhat difficult to put.</p> + +<p>Ambrose replied to her thoughts.</p> + +<p>“There are people,” he observed, “so securely in alliance with our +friend Yuan’s unnameable that they do not fear to step down into the +world and drink deeply of its pleasures.”</p> + +<p>“You, too, have tasted—” she began, and relapsed—refused, swiftly, to +meet him in a common experience. “There are so many ways of approaching +what it is I desire to say,” she continued, “and no words for it. But +it really doesn’t <span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span>matter. The chief thing is that nothing any longer +matters, except the continual experience. One is so at peace.”</p> + +<p>“The peace of God,” Ambrose interjected.</p> + +<p>“I suppose one must say ‘God.’ But there is a great danger of being +misunderstood.”</p> + +<p>“This experience,” he observed, “is enjoyed in various forms by many +people, yet it is one experience. The truth is one truth, expressed +with modifications due to climatic or other circumstances. It is named +after the system of Jesus, or Mithra, or Buddha. There is the Holy +Ghost, or the intent contemplation; the paradise of Nirvana or the Holy +City, with tastefully-jewelled gates—a hundred different expressions of +the same thing. There is a form of the experience marketed by priests, +another by wine-merchants at twelve and sixpence the bottle, and this +has the advantage that it augments the national revenue. But whether +the experience in itself has anything at all to do with reality, we are +not in a position to decide.”</p> + +<p>“I am glad you can laugh at it,” she said, with friendliness. “It +is the mark of those elected to salvation that they can laugh at +themselves. Those who have known truth laugh a lot—like Wang. I have +learnt that.”</p> + +<p>“You have learnt a great deal, Lychnis.” Lord <span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span>Sombrewater entered the +conversation. “Does there remain any region of experience which you +have not understood?”</p> + +<p>Ambrose perceived from her enigmatic smile that she understood her +father’s question. She did not seem willing to give an unequivocal +answer. Lord Sombrewater had no hesitation in questioning her +intimately before him, and it would have been in accordance with her +own relation with him to reply plainly. But she did not answer plainly. +He noted that there had been some change, and wondered whether he +should not seek an opportunity to withdraw.</p> + +<p>“There is no region of experience that I have not understood,” she +replied.</p> + +<p>“Upon exploration, I presume?” queried Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“It is a question whether a thing that has not been physically +experienced can be understood,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>He turned his head away in swift impatience.</p> + +<p>“Hallo! hallo!” A stinging shout travelled to them across the lawn. It +was Quentin coming back from an expedition with Fulke Arnott and Ruby. +Seeing Lychnis on the verandah, he rushed over the lawn like a bear, +leapt the rail, put his arm round her, where she clung to the post, +and kissed her full on the lips. Then he drew back <span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span>and gazed at her, +saying reverently: “The Holy Spirit returns. The morning dew is once +more seen on the flowers. The lamp of heaven shines, banishing for ever +the dissensions of this little band and, as we hope, the bad temper of +our host. If you require a husband, command me——” He paused for her +reply, and Lord Sombrewater remained still, shading his face with a +plump, capable hand. She shook her head, laughing. “Then I will be your +virgin for ever,” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>But she looked at him so that he began to laugh, and laughed until he +shook the verandah.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” she desired him, “if I answered ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to a plain +question, would you believe that I told truth?”</p> + +<p>“I should never listen to what you said,” he replied, “but to you +speaking. There is no question of believing you. There is that in you, +I perceive, that cannot disguise itself with lies. But permit me, +once more, before I resign the world. We have not seen that autumn +gold-brown hair for so many days, those shadows like mauve asters—or +are they heliotrope?—those copper lights, those dahlia-red lips, that +delicious cavern, those little white teeth....” He kissed her again. +“And now,” prayerfully folding his hands, “to that All which is more +than Nothing, that Nothing <span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span>which is less than Everything.” He looked +sideways at her.</p> + +<p>“You are a restless man,” she said, smiling. “You have no peace in you.”</p> + +<p>Ruby and Fulke Arnott followed on to the verandah, he sheep-faced, she +with her radiance a little qualified.</p> + +<p>“The wedded pair,” Quentin announced—“at least, not yet wedded in time. +A marriage has been imagined, let us say, and will shortly be achieved +in matter, between—and so forth. Rejecting Achilles, Venus prefers and +elevates the chimpanzee. I am envious. I have no morsel.”</p> + +<p>Fulke glowered, powerless to silence him. He would not look in the +direction of Lychnis. Ruby, on the whole, tended to behave as if it did +not matter what Lychnis had done, since it was Lychnis who had done +it, and always provided that Lychnis made no attempt to recapture the +affections of Fulke. But her impulses were checked by the somewhat cold +behaviour of her father, who presently came out on the verandah.</p> + +<p>“Good-afternoon, Lychnis,” he said. “Back again?”</p> + +<p>She smiled at him and said nothing.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow we depart, early in the morning.” Once more Lord Sombrewater +entered the conversation, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span>abruptly. He glanced at his daughter, +Ambrose saw, for the effect of his words. She displayed nothing but an +infrangible placidity.</p> + +<p>“Thank God!” muttered Fulke. “Back to dear, dirty old Europe, with all +there is to fight in it. By the tripes of St. Francis——”</p> + +<p>“Fulke, dear!” It was Ruby who remonstrated.</p> + +<p>“I forgot, darling.” He glanced at Lychnis, and went scarlet. “What I +mean is, I long sometimes for the good old fight against the forces of +capital....”</p> + +<p>Lychnis laughed out—a laugh of pure, satisfying joyousness. “Fulke—my +dear Fulke—you are coming to life too, like Quentin. You are all coming +to life again. For I must confess,” she explained, “that you had all +become a little faded before I went to stay on the Rock. You had lost +personality, you know, beside Wang and Yuan.”</p> + +<p>“By the foul liver of St. Eno ...” began Fulke. “I’m sorry, my dearest.”</p> + +<p>“Well I’m blessed!” exclaimed Sir Richard. He looked uncertainly at +Sombrewater, bit his lip, and gravely said his say. “It is reported, +Arnold, that there are bandits in the countryside.”</p> + +<p>“I am disinclined to remain,” Sombrewater replied. “We must trust to +the name of the Dragon. He owes us that, I think. What do you <span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span>say, +Lychnis? I do not desire to force you to go or to stay.”</p> + +<p>“Let us go.”</p> + +<p>“We are at one, then, on this, at any rate.” He spoke testily. “You had +all better begin to pack.”</p> + +<p>They departed, except Sir Richard. Lychnis also made as if to go to her +room.</p> + +<p>“Your room has been changed,” Ambrose had to point out.</p> + +<p>She turned, puzzled. “By whose orders?”</p> + +<p>“At my request, Lychnis,” said Sir Richard gravely.</p> + +<p>“What does this mean, Richard? I had not been told of this.” Lord +Sombrewater was sharp.</p> + +<p>“I had in mind to save her the inconvenience of the questioning to +which Ruby would no doubt subject her.”</p> + +<p>“This is not at all kindly done, Richard. You say in effect——” His +lordship’s anger was rising, and then he seemed to realize the weakness +of his position and turned on his daughter. “For God’s sake, Lychnis, +tell us—are you my daughter still, or ... or another man’s wife ... or +... my God! this hurts me ... his mistress!”</p> + +<p>Ambrose watched the scene with interest. The dusk was gathering. The +questions seemed to flap and flutter against the luminous calm of her +spirit like blundering bats. She stood among them smiling <span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span>a little +(though her breast did indeed heave somewhat), and replied: “You compel +me to answer a question that seems impertinent. What is it to anyone +here what has happened to me while I have been away? But if you place +so much importance on the difference between one state and another, and +if it hurts you to be kept in suspense, I will tell you—I am a virgin.”</p> + +<p>There was silence. Then Sir Richard spoke: “I beg your pardon, +Lychnis,” and went into the Pavilion.</p> + +<p>When he was gone, her father hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks. +“Thank God, my darling, you are still my daughter! You belong to no +other man.” He drew back, and looked at her as if to reassure himself. +“It is true—quite true—is it not?”</p> + +<p>She suffered his kissing and his question, and answered: “Quite true.” +Then he, too, went into the house; but whether he felt quite sure that +he was secure of her love and sole possessor of her, Ambrose doubts.</p> + +<p>Lychnis, on her part, looked at Ambrose with a somewhat dubious smile. +“In his business affairs my father has much of the calm of Wang Li. He +makes use of impersonal forces, and that is why he is pre-eminent. But +in his relations with me he is destroyed by desire. It is odd, is it +not? They do <span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span>not realize, they do not mind, that morally I was Yuan’s +mistress. I was prepared”—she spoke to him with a hesitation that was +unusual in their talking together—“I was prepared to be his entirely. I +did not shirk that, Ambrose. It was only accident that I was not. You +understand that, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“In such cases it is so often accident.”</p> + +<p>“In such cases.... Am I a case?”</p> + +<p>Her eyes were the dusk looking at him, the brown autumn night, +the velvety secret of interstellar space, the cold and heedless +contemplation of God. He feasted on the beauty of it, when she had gone.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="45">45</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>THE +last night in the valley was deep and secret and starry, deep +blue with a streak of night-changed green where the bamboo grove was, +mysterious with secret processes in grove and torrent, blue and starry +like a still painting on a screen. Not far from the Pavilion a stream +flowed slow and deep through a tunnel of trees and hanging creeper. +Ambrose stood by a gleaming gilded bridge, listening to the rhythm of +the water, feeling the close, secret life of the foliage. Over against +the living wall of the grove he saw cigar-ends moving in irregular +paths, fantastic planets in a dense æther. Over the bamboo flickered a +myriad superb fire-insects, creation of Yuan’s. Beyond the grove burned +a million gold stars.</p> + +<p>The gurgle of the mysterious river in the darkness was flowing sound, +hypnotic rhythm, music streaming out in streaks of some foreign colour +through the thick and shifting blue substance of the dark night. After +some time, he tells us, he became aware that his strange and peaceful +meditation now held a different element—a queer <span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span>thridding, an insect +noise coming from within the grove of bamboo. Of a sudden it rose high +and clear, and he remembered that it was Lychnis—Lychnis with her lute, +playing the thoughts and motions of her spirit. “Lily-blossom of the +world!” he murmured to the dim lilies that swayed at his feet. “Cold +loveliness of being that buds for a moment of time out of the secrecy +and darkness of unbeing!” He worshipped at this living monstrance of +the body of God.</p> + +<p>Then again he listened intently to the queer realities of spirit that +she was creating with form and movement in the night. The plectrum that +had made a thridding of crickets now made a whispering of the leaves +of the bamboo. Next, solid and clear out of her vision, a sound like +the patter of pearls raining on a temple of porcelain. With composure +and quiet deliberation she made her lute sing the secret of life of the +valley, strength of giant pine, depth and stillness of the lake, high +wind among crags; in it dreamed the exaggerated shapes of Yuan, Hsiao +and Wang Li. It was there in the grove she sang. Ambrose gazed, as one +gazes with the mind into an experience striving to see what is there, +as if he should see her at the heart of the grove in a transfiguration. +But there obtruded upon his gaze, now used to the darkness, the figures +of the seven <span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span>Sages, listening in their chairs. Had Richard Frew-Gaff +ears, he wondered, to hear her turn the stars and all physical reality +into voices of ghosts? Did Blackwood receive some whisper of the truth +Wang aimed at him? Quentin listened with limbs stretched out in a +rigor of emotion. Terence he dimly perceived with hands wrung between +his knees, frowning perhaps on some new, queer beauty. Sombrewater +had bowed his head in his hand—understanding too fully that he had a +strange lost girl for a daughter. Fulke and Ruby, no doubt, were making +love among the trees, perhaps out on the starry Lake; perhaps they +heard and were afraid.</p> + +<p>His mind returned to the lute-player in the grove. Now she was making +a music that was icy and terrible. Image of pine, lake, and crag +became faint and vanishing. There was nothing human in it, but only a +loneliness of Himalayan peaks and a coldness of outer space. It was the +vision of Yuan. The coldness descended even on the heart of Ambrose as +he was floated near upon the edge of extinction. The starry sky, the +lawn, the grove, the bright gilded bridge, swam, and there was nothing +solid. Suddenly her plectrum tore the strings with a sound like the +rending of silk. There was silence, and out of it there grew a divine +laughter.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="46">46</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_a.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>AMBROSE +gave a pull with his paddle and drove his canoe head-on into +the grey and misty margin of an islet. He shivered, for the cold of +daybreak was still on the water. He had meant to stop here, at the bend +of the Lake, and look finally at the valley and the island, to reflect +on the march of time, taste for a due moment an emotion nobler than +sadness, as the beloved valley and the rich experience of the summer +faded from bright now into dim past. But valley and rock had vanished +in morning vapour. There was nothing but an islet glimpsed in a sepia +mist, a blur of willow, a crag high overhead in the vapour, a dejected +heron brooding on one leg in the shallows.</p> + +<p>Idle for a moment, he let his craft drift out from the reeds. Even the +Lake itself, he reflected, some current in it, was bearing him away +towards the river, towards the hidden Dragon Gorge. He dipped a blade, +and paddled slowly across the water, past islets of reed and bamboo +that stood out of the mist, looking for some place where a lane in the +mist might give him a glimpse of the Valley. Once, indeed, there was a +rift, a view of what seemed some part of the Rock. He was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span>like a man +seeking in his memory for something familiar and forgotten.</p> + +<p>Silently over the water came Lychnis in her white dress, paddling +alone, looking steadfastly in front of her. Their boats rasped.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry,” he said quietly. “I did not mean to intercept you.”</p> + +<p>“It seems to be fated that our paths in life should drift together.” +She spoke very coldly, and he admitted to himself that something was +gone from their relationship. He cleared his mind—opened it to the +possible implications of that change. They came to him.</p> + +<p>“The mist is lifting,” he said, and they both looked back over the +islet-studded water. The distant Rock, the shore of the Lake with their +own mooring-raft of bamboo, a deep grey blur, came into sight like a +dream remembered at morning when sleep cannot be regained.</p> + +<p>She turned her head steadily away, and the mists closed again, blotting +out lake and islet and crag. A voice came from her. “One had pleasant +days there.” The blade of her paddle hung, and the voice came from her +again: “It is not the same, only remembering.”</p> + +<p>She sped her canoe, and he watched her become a blot of white and pale +brown, vanishing in grey vapour.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="47">47</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_u.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>UNDER +the leadership, once more, of Such-a-one, the homeward journey +began. Sprot had been released from imprisonment on the mountain of +meditation. The mists lifted soon after they had entered the Gorge of +Dragons; the autumn sunshine was warm; violets were to be seen where +lawn or grove came down to the water’s edge, and a memory of early +summer lingered among the sombre brown shadows under and about the +cliffs. Lychnis would not let them camp in the creek where they had +spent a night when they were journeying the other way. The violets were +ghosts, and the autumn song of birds was an echo, for it seems that her +firmness of heart had left her when they entered the Gorge.</p> + +<p>So they went swiftly on, helped by the seaward current. Lord +Sombrewater watched Lychnis with anxiety, and Quentin lay in wait, +hoping to catch some advantage out of her reaction. But she shunned +everyone, and was a fiend to Ruby, who lay in her boat.</p> + +<p>Late at night they came to the mouth of the Gorge and pitched their +tents (but not where they <span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span>had pitched them before) and slept. Ambrose, +however, preferred to keep watch for any portent that might appear, and +at dawn, when he was fishing among the reeds at the deep-flowing mouth +of the Gorge, Lychnis came to him, sweet with the morning, flushed with +despair.</p> + +<p>“It has gone,” she said flatly. “Gone! What shall I do if I am seduced +and deserted by my experience that I loved, Ambrose?”</p> + +<p>“Do you consider,” he asked, “that you have had the experience of God?”</p> + +<p>“Do women have the experience of God unless they are in love?” She +laughed a little, twisting her fingers among the reeds. “God? It is +not a word that means anything. I only had an experience. I don’t know +how to describe it, unless you have had it yourself. I had come to see +the world, men and trees and mountains, as a varying manifestation +of the same substance. I saw that everything was continuous, and the +pine and pheasant on the branch were only another form of me. Me, did +I say? There was no longer any me. Something else was there, and it +gave me joy. It was more wonderful and satisfying than anything I had +ever supposed could happen. I felt myself a piece of the universe, no +longer in opposition to it, an unhappy little piece of separation. The +infinite and inevitable had taken the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span>place of my soul, and now it has +left me, and however shall I get it back?”</p> + +<p>“Calling this experience, for convenience, the experience of God,” he +replied, “one can only reply that God is not to be thought of as a +common seducer. Believe me, before long the satisfaction you speak of +will again fill your heart. Why, there is no cause for despair. This +reaction was to be foreseen!”</p> + +<p>Her slender body was enshrined within the radiance of the rising sun +in a frame of burning willows; her hair was an aureole of gossamer; +but the heart in the midst of her was black. “I cannot feel hope!” she +exclaimed. “I think God will forget me. He must have so many friends.”</p> + +<p>“A thing not really worth saying,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“You are angry with me.” She lifted her face to study him. “You are +almost not impersonal.”</p> + +<p>There was a silence. She would not sit down beside him. It seemed she +must say something that desired to be said with the advantage that +standing gave her. Or was she about to take flight before it could +say itself? There is a disguised desire in her, was his thought—some +powerful desire that she does not recognize, yet, for what it is.</p> + +<p>“You cannot comfort me,” she told him. “My coldness of heart, that +made me laugh, has left <span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span>me, and I am weak enough to be crying for the +Valley and the Pavilion, and all those summer days and the deep nights, +and—and Yuan. Ambrose—Ambrose—” She seemed on the point of vanishing, +but she spoke on: “You are a man of whom I can ask this—the only one. +You are calm, passive. You will not mind. You see, your memory is so +marvellous, you will never forget one hour of all the weeks we spent +there or one thing that was ever said. And you have seen my soul +stripped naked, so that it is wrong I should ever be the bride of +another man. I desire you to marry me, so that I can always be near you +and look in your mind and be reminded of the Valley, and always possess +the days we spent there. Will you, Ambrose?”</p> + +<p>She blushed very furiously.</p> + +<p>Ambrose sat and looked steadily at his float passing him slowly on the +stream. He smiled queerly to himself. Desire has marvellous ways of +presenting itself to the mind, he reflected. Then, aloud: “In all this +it seems to be assumed that I should be prepared to remain a flawless +and in no way troublesome glass in which you could feast your heart +on the scenes of the past. I ought to warn you—the assumption, which +you perhaps make, that I should be a cold, convenient husband, is +unjustified.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span></p> + +<p>She swayed on her feet, and her eyes stared at his unreadable face as +if a spear from an unseen hand had smitten her side, and she was at +grips with the reluctant secret of death. The delicious cavern of her +mouth opened, but no words came. He gave her no help. He met her stare +coldly, giving no shadow of a look that might carry the word of love.</p> + +<p>“Think that over,” he added, and returned to his fishing.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="48">48</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_l.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>LATE +in the afternoon, three days’ journey from the Gorge, they put up +for the night at a mountain-village inn. The inn was high and isolated, +the innkeeper attentive (obedient to the sign of the Dragon). But he +warned them that a band of revolutionary troops was thought to be +approaching the neighbourhood, with fire and sword.</p> + +<p>“Are they, the festering blackheads?” Fulke’s revolutionary sympathies +were a little alienated since his engagement to Ruby. “A lot of +scrofulous thieves unworthy of the high name of revolutionary. By the +giblets of St. Francis’s little dog——! I beg pardon, my darling.”</p> + +<p>“You were going to remark,” put in Quentin, “that these do not carry +bricks for the New Jerusalem.”</p> + +<p>The Sages, the two girls, and Ambrose were gathered in the eating-room +of the inn, talking, and watching the effect of sunset among the hills. +Lychnis alone was silent, turning a matter over and over. Apparently +she had recovered her firmness of heart, but not the transcendent +experience. She had come to a point where she was indifferent <span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span>to the +past and future. The green tip of a budding flower of joy was fighting +the winter snow and icy wind, the cold death in her mind.</p> + +<p>The Sages and Ruby were apprehensive, at the same time somewhat +boastful. Ambrose found a great deal to amuse him in their +conversation, for, strangely enough, each considered that he alone +among all the others had probed the experience of the summer to the +bottom. Blackwood, perhaps, was the most jaunty. He did not really +quite know where he stood in regard to life, but he fully trusted +that he should soon find out, and in the meantime took an extra lump +of sugar in coffee. Ambrose surmises that the words of Wang Li had +given sanction for the release of impulses too long pent up and not +dissipated or re-directed, and in the first capital they came to there +would be an expenditure of energy.</p> + +<p>Sprot was assertive. “I always said,” he pointed out to them, “that +you would come round to my point of view. You admit that I was right +about....” He did not venture to name names.</p> + +<p>“A fool,” observed Lord Sombrewater, who had no longer any regard to +Sprot’s feelings—“a fool is a man who knows from birth what it takes +others seventy years to find out.”</p> + +<p>But Sprot was not put out. “I do hope,” he continued, “that we are not +in real danger here.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span></p> + +<p>“If we are not,” observed Frew-Gaff, “it will probably be due to your +friends in the Valley.”</p> + +<p>“I would like to feel certain that we shall see Europe again,” put in +Blackwood anxiously.</p> + +<p>“I trust,” said Frew-Gaff, “that the Dragon will fulfil his +obligations. I fear, from what the villagers say, that we are in for +trouble.”</p> + +<p>“It would always be possible to go back,” said Fulke. “We had a +wonderful time there, after all. I for one should be contented to stay +there for the rest of my life—now.” He looked fondly at his wench, who +leaned against his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Blackwood promptly, “do not let us go back—not unless the +danger is really considerable.”</p> + +<p>“Great things are awaiting us in Europe,” said Terence. “I feel it. I +have seen Europe in a vision, and we are to arrive there safely after +this time of exile and cleansing purgatory.”</p> + +<p>“The Valley would be a very nice place with a decent up-to-date +hotel and a golf-course,” said Sprot. “I should like to see a little +enterprise and capital put into that Valley. Men were made to work, not +to think. I shall never forget....” He shuddered as he thought of that +frightful period of imprisonment with twelve lunatics on the mountain +of meditation.</p> + +<p>“I have not yet understood,” remarked Lord <span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span>Sombrewater, “what there +was to prevent your coming away.”</p> + +<p>“What there was...! Well, if you were put on a rock surrounded by +water, and every time you put your foot in the water to wade across you +were sort of shrivelled all up your legs and spine with a frightful +tingling pain, you’d soon know what there was to prevent you coming +away.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t you jump?”</p> + +<p>“Jump? I tried once! Those devils always seemed to know what you were +thinking about, night and day, and when I jumped one of them gave me a +twitch that sent me in head first. Not till my dying day shall I forget +it. I couldn’t remember where I was for a week. My God! if I had my way +with them!” He went purple at the thought of the indignities to which +he had been subjected. “Go back you may,” he added, “but you go without +George Sprot.”</p> + +<p>“There are some experiments that I greatly desire to make,” added +Frew-Gaff. “I believe I can reproduce some things we have seen lately, +if I can only grasp one or two principles that baffle me.” He kindled +his brows.</p> + +<p>“That you never will,” thought Lychnis. She despised them for having +hopes and fears. It was all one to her, she told herself, if she were +slain there that night. She was looking out through the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span>window of the +inn. Opposite, a toppling jade crag flamed with a faint fire of sunset +from beyond the Valley. The scene did not move her greatly, she found. +She was calm in face of the once heart-hurting beauty of sunsets. She +turned once more to examine her thoughts, all upside down as Ambrose +had put them. He sat there with his back to her, but the current of all +her moods was toward him.</p> + +<p>As the last rays of light departed from the Chinese landscape, stranger +here to them than in the Valley, they heard sounds of considerable +excitement in the village. They all went out into the street, and +presently little crowds of chattering peasants began to pass the inn. +The innkeeper came out at Lord Sombrewater’s request. Such-a-one had +vanished.</p> + +<p>“Ask what the trouble is, Lychnis,” commanded Lord Sombrewater.</p> + +<p>“Refugees,” the innkeeper conveyed, standing impassively with his hands +hidden in his sleeves.</p> + +<p>“What is happening, then?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He directed their gaze across the Valley. A young moon had risen over +the zigzagging mountain, and there on the precipitous side of it, not +half a mile from the inn, were a hundred lights—the camp-fires of the +revolutionaries—and on other hills there were other lights.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span></p> + +<p>Even as the Sages were looking at one another, and Ruby and Fulke, +in each other’s arms, were making appointments for eternity, a flash +came from the hillside. The revolutionaries had discharged their +field-piece. The shell burst very short. They tried again, with the +same effect, and this seemed to put them in a frenzy, for they began +a furious cannonade and opened fire with their rifles. But not a shot +came over the village, and they slew nothing but the breeze. The +villagers, perceiving that the strangers were miraculously protected, +sought to share in the working of the charm, and soon the party was +surrounded by a dense crowd of bead-eyed Orientals, chattering in the +dark. The flash of guns and a flare in the sky told that the attack was +proceeding over a wide front.</p> + +<p>Lychnis watched the proceedings with unconcern.</p> + +<p>Very soon, perceiving the uselessness of his artillery, the enemy +commander changed tactics, and seemed, from the noise that his troops +made, about to deliver a hand assault.</p> + +<p>“There are perhaps five thousand of them,” muttered Sombrewater. +“Richard—if we could get the girls away? If you could steal down to the +river and get off in the boats?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span></p> + +<p>“It could be tried,” said Sir Richard tentatively. “But it is for you +to go, Arnold....”</p> + +<p>“Leg it with me,” suggested Quentin, prepared to die if his last hours +might be amorous.</p> + +<p>“I will not leave this spot in any circumstances whatever,” Lychnis +answered, low and decisively.</p> + +<p>Lord Sombrewater was about to speak, but the words perished in his +mouth, for at that moment the colossal apparition of a dragon, with +eyes like burning topaz, writhed in fearful silence through the Valley +and vanished among the hills. The clamour of the attack ceased, and the +people of the village prostrated themselves.</p> + +<p>“We were rewarded by heaven,” said Quentin devoutly, “for the purity of +our lives!”</p> + +<p>But the attack was forward again. The enemy came on, yelling like +pandemonium, and one after another the flame-beasts came galloping out +of the mountains, and where they passed through the attacking forces +their trail was blazed with paralysed men.</p> + +<p>“This helps,” exclaimed Sombrewater, “but they’re still swarming up +every valley. Do you see them where the flame goes? They’re not being +held.” He sought for his daughter’s hand, and she gave it him. She wore +the smile of a holy one. It had come to her that there was nothing but +a quietness akin to the quietness of space in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span>her heart. The world +might crack and she would be calm, for there was now nothing in her +subject to death.</p> + +<p>It was true that the enemy were not being held, but the mind that +was defending the Sages had reserves in hand; indeed, he disposed of +the attack in a way that was cynically humorous. In the days when +Yuan had taken interest in appearances his interest had been keen and +productive. As he had told them, he was able to reproduce appearances +and conjure up phenomena. The secret of the toys he had devised for the +defence of the Valley had been communicated, in accordance with family +tradition, to the engineers, and they, doubtless, were handling the +matter at the present time. With great subtlety the fiery dragons were +managed so as to force the attack into certain defined areas. They did +not kill, except inadvertently, and, once he was used to them, they +served to provoke the enemy to defiance, so that he was gradually drawn +on. Yet for a long time it seemed to the Sages as if the defence must +fail. But now the dragons were followed by monsters in human form, with +blue, scowling faces and tongues of red fire, who floated over the +forest. Their robes seemed to blow and flap in the breeze, disclosing +the limbs of demons; shadows of hate lurked on their brows, and their +green eyeballs <span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span>glowed balefully. Each carried a scimitar under his +arm, and one of them, by way of preparatory gesture, cynically shaved +a forest from the mountain. The revolutionaries were checked, but amid +scenes of compulsion and terror their commander forced his way to the +village—a big, hideous man—hewing and slaughtering with an immense +curved blade.</p> + +<p>He was on them, with a dozen followers, before the Sages realized +what had happened, and Fulke and Ruby were already in their hands. +The commander himself, smiling like a death’s head, fixed his eyes on +Lychnis and swung his blade. She found herself looking darkness in +the face, and there was only one thought in her mind—Ambrose would +die too. His existence and hers would disappear in the non-existing. +Already from the cold threshold she looked back at the world, and saw +it as a bright place where those who had learnt to stare in the face +of darkness might command and enjoy desire. Then she saw Ambrose. His +eyes were very far away. He, too, was looking in the face of darkness. +Or did he not love her then? For her, now, he suddenly became the +darkness, the heedless, the unnameable. It was in him, in him, that her +existence was to disappear.</p> + +<p>The bandit lifted his curved blade. It swung once, twice, hissing, +and she still brooded on her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span>revelation. But Such-a-one appeared +at an upper window in the inn with a device in his hand, and at the +third death-bringing swing of the blade he dealt with the chemical +composition of the bandit in such a way that the characteristics which +distinguish the living from the dead suddenly ceased to be present. +Thus also with his followers.</p> + +<p>The din and yelling were now terrific. Lychnis ran to help Ruby, who +had fainted, and tended her while the conflict raged. The angel of +annunciation had visited her and her eyes shone, and Ruby, coming to +herself, perceived that something had happened to her friend. “Oh, +Licky,” she exclaimed, “are we dead? For you look like a spirit in +heaven.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered Lychnis. “I have died, and I am looking back at the +world. I see that I never knew till I died what it was that I wanted.”</p> + +<p>But Ruby, seeing the battle and hearing the din, was puzzled. “I do not +know what you mean,” she murmured. “I only feel that you have become +different from the living.”</p> + +<p>“It is true, my dearest—really true.” Lychnis smiled at her friend.</p> + +<p>A vast blaze of light thrust the reeling hills out into blackness, +and they saw a mass of the enemy pallid and paralysed in the ghastly +glare. Then Ruby shrieked, for a monstrous flame-demon <span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span>swung a +scythe through a huge circle of the night, and the men who had been +standing huddled before him stood no more. The rest of the attacking +horde turned to save themselves while they could. Then, with a hiss +and a roar that seemed to blast the forests, fire sprang from every +hillside and streamed over the flying forces. The sky became full of +burning villages, and the ears were stifled with the streaming of +unearthly flames. Stricken phantom hosts scattered in panic terror +along the spines of the mountains; crags of burning sulphur toppled +down upon them in obliterating thunder; the mountains themselves seemed +to collapse upon flying armies of spectres; and of the actual and +substantial fugitives who sought among the rocks for some cover from +this spectacle there was none whose heart was not squeezed and ruptured +by the cold hand of fear.</p> + +<p>Our friends watched in silence until the cynical and jocular fireworks +came to an end in fitful lightning and muttering thunder. The terror of +the Dragon was in their minds. But there were two in whom terror had no +place.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">316</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="49">49</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-img"> +<span class="drop-img"><img src="images/drop_t.png" alt='' data-role="presentation" style="height: 3em;"></span>THEY +did not at once enter the paradise that was now theirs. They did +not even speak of it to each other. They pondered the golden future +in secret, and only sometimes, by a glance more subtly effective than +kisses, acknowledged that their blood ran to the same rhythm. For those +who feed their hearts on the substance of eternity there is no haste.</p> + +<p>At last, on a spring morning, the <cite>Floating Leaf</cite> lay in +Southampton Water. They stood at the rail, the two of them, looking +at the bed of smokestacks, masts and cranes that flourished in the +Hampshire foreshore. It was necessary that something should be said, +now that this daily companionship was to end.</p> + +<p>He regarded her steadfastly. The corners of her mouth were turned up, +and she smiled faintly at the water.</p> + +<p>“You are making a fox-face,” he observed.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking of the Valley.”</p> + +<p>“Pleasantly?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very pleasantly! But how far away it seems, and how strange the +things we all talked about, even the words we used! They would <span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">317</span>sound +comic in this atmosphere. Was it real, or did we dream it? Or is this +unreal, England and these liners and railways?”</p> + +<p>“All life is unreal, as you and I know,” he answered her. “We accept +it, because we must; but sometimes reality is felt. It sticks through, +and the world seems queer beside it. You and I have it for always in +our hearts.”</p> + +<p>“That is true,” she said, “even if we dreamt, even if we did really for +a time live in a landscape on a vase or a silk. But how did it come to +you, this experience of unbreakable, calm joy that has come to me?”</p> + +<p>“I came by it years back, in war and disaster.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you and I have it, and not the others?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot answer that. It is predestination. There are some that cannot +help but be saved.”</p> + +<p>She touched his hand. “We are in love with one another, are we not, +Ambrose?”</p> + +<p>He answered, “Yes.”</p> + +<p>“It took me so long to find out. One could not recognize a happiness +that was so wonderful and so close. Why did you not tell me?”</p> + +<p>“I did not want to plant love in you. I wanted it to come of necessity, +from the centre of your being.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">318</span></p> + +<p>“Did it hurt, when you saw me in love with Yuan?”</p> + +<p>He smiled.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she cried, “I love you because you are cold and unmoved and +unescapable, like Fate! I love you because you do not desire me and +my beauty is nothing to you. I die and am forgotten in the night of +your being. You are death and change itself, the beautiful, pitiless +universe in which we are all swallowed and become nothing.”</p> + +<p>“You also,” he answered. “We have eaten the peaches of immortality, +you and I, and we are no longer you and I. We have tasted the fruit, +the substance of the universe, that is eaten in the endless fields of +Nirvana. We are dead, and we can descend into the world like gods, to +command and enjoy desire.”</p> + +<p>“You do desire me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my flower, my insect.”</p> + +<p>She was in his arms, face to face with his unswerving regard. What she +found in his eyes must have contented her.</p> + +<p>“You understand—everything?” He asked to hear her say “Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Everything.”</p> + +<p>“And this time there is nothing to get over?—no repugnance?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span></p> + +<p>Once more she drew up the corners of her mouth, and, “On the contrary,” +he heard.</p> + +<p>He kissed her, and there was that in his embrace to catch away her +breath with surprise and joy.</p> + +<p>When Lord Sombrewater came along the deck and saw them sitting together +he was struck by something new in their attitude. An immense and +unexpected possibility presented itself to his mind.</p> + +<p>“What’s this?” he asked, with his swift, birdlike regard.</p> + +<p>Lychnis told him, and he made no attempt to conceal his satisfaction. +“Well, really, this is most gratifying! As you must marry—I suppose you +must—some day——”</p> + +<p>“To-day,” she interpolated.</p> + +<p>He was somewhat taken aback. “We’ll see—we’ll see. Time enough. But +if it must happen, I’d rather a thousand times it was Ambrose than +anyone else in the world. Really, very gratifying—very gratifying—and +surprising. You old pike! I shall feel that her husband has not taken +her away from me—has not——” He coughed. “A half-share, perhaps—really, +not more than a half-share. Why, with Ambrose you’ll hardly be married +at all.” He beamed, and they exchanged a tingling glance. Then, +formally, they received his blessing. “God bless you both—a thousand +times. You old pike!” Lord Sombrewater blew <span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span>his nose and, as a second +thought, went off to announce the news to the Sages, and, in due +course, to his wife.</p> + +<p>They sat side by side, and looked at the smooth water and the spring +sky, and wondered at the instant and almost intolerable reality of the +happiness that was in them.</p> + +<p class="p2">Ambrose did not forsake his notebooks upon his marriage, but he does +not write much about himself or intimately about Lychnis. One sees +them, though, with that infinite serenity in their souls, contemplating +the world with instructed affection and containedly giving themselves +to the surprises and exquisite pleasures of love.</p> + +<p class="p2">Lord Sombrewater seems to have regarded the birth of a grandson with +mixed feelings. Apparently it was not somehow what he had expected.</p> + +<p class="p2 center"> +<span class="smcap">The End</span> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="transnote"> + <div class="large center"><b>Transcriber’s Notes:</b></div> + <ul class="spaced"> + <li>Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.</li> + <li>Table of contents added.</li> + </ul> +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76764 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/76764-h/images/colophon.jpg b/76764-h/images/colophon.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..85464a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/colophon.jpg diff --git a/76764-h/images/cover.jpg b/76764-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cff32b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_a.png b/76764-h/images/drop_a.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f6e5bf --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_a.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_b.png b/76764-h/images/drop_b.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e3565a --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_b.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_d.png b/76764-h/images/drop_d.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..790b6b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_d.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_e.png b/76764-h/images/drop_e.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd1a9e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_e.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_i.png b/76764-h/images/drop_i.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..90c1fb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_i.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_j.png b/76764-h/images/drop_j.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9ef77d --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_j.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_l.png b/76764-h/images/drop_l.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..be9a6ac --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_l.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_n.png b/76764-h/images/drop_n.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..20c9673 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_n.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_o.png b/76764-h/images/drop_o.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf22579 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_o.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_p.png b/76764-h/images/drop_p.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..457807a --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_p.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_s.png b/76764-h/images/drop_s.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0705686 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_s.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_t.png b/76764-h/images/drop_t.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..feec6cb --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_t.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_u.png b/76764-h/images/drop_u.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e99adf --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_u.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_w.png b/76764-h/images/drop_w.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..746e55b --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_w.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/drop_y.png b/76764-h/images/drop_y.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..aeef473 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/drop_y.png diff --git a/76764-h/images/logo.jpg b/76764-h/images/logo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b91a0ea --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/logo.jpg diff --git a/76764-h/images/title.jpg b/76764-h/images/title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..35e0265 --- /dev/null +++ b/76764-h/images/title.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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