The days passed as we floated down the river to Srinagar. On board the Kedarnath, now lying in our first berth beneath the chenars near and yet far from the city, the last night had come.
Next morning I should begin the long ride to Baramula and beyond that barrier of the Happy Valley down to Murree and the Punjab.
Where afterwards? I neither knew nor cared. My lesson was before me to be learned. I must try to detach myself from all I had prized - to say to my heart it was but a loan and no gift, and to cling only to the imperishable. And did I as yet certainly know more than the A B C of the hard doctrine by which I must live?
"Que vivre est difficile, 0 mon cocur fatigue!" - an immense weariness possessed me - a passive grief.
Vanna would follow later with the wife of an Indian doctor. Ibelieved she was bound for Lahore but on that point she had not spoken certainly and I felt we should not meet again.
And now my packing was finished, and, as far as my possessions went, the little cabin had the soulless emptiness that comes with departure. I was enduring as best I could. If she had held loyally to her pact, could I do less. Was she to blame for my wild hope that in the end she would relent and step down to the household levels of love?
She sat by the window - the last time I should see the moonlit banks and her clear face against them. I made and won my fight for the courage of words.
"And now I've finished everything - thank goodness! and we can talk. Vanna - you will write to me?""Once. I promise that."
"Only once? Why? I counted on your words.""I want to speak to you of something else now. I want to tell you a memory. But look first at the pale light behind the Takht-i-Suliman."So I had seen it with her. So I should not see it again. We watched until a line of silver sparkled on the black water, and then she spoke again.
"Stephen, do you remember in the ruined monastery near Peshawar, how I told you of the young Abbot, who came down to Peshawar with a Chinese pilgrim? And he never returned.""I remember. There was a Dancer."
"There was a Dancer. She was Lilavanti, and she was brought there to trap him but when she saw him she loved him, and that was his ruin and hers. Trickery he would have known and escaped. Love caught him in an unbreakable net, and they fled down the Punjab and no one knew any more. But I know. For two years they lived together and she saw the agony in his heart - the anguish of his broken vows, the face of the Blessed One receding into an infinite distance. She knew that every day added a link to the heavy Karma that was bound about the feet she loved, and her soul said "Set him free," and her heart refused the torture. But her soul was the stronger. She set him free.""How?"
"She took poison. He became an ascetic in the hills and died in peace but with a long expiation upon him.""And she?"
"I am she."
"You!" I heard my voice as if it were another man's. Was it possible that I - a man of the twentieth century, believed this impossible thing? Impossible, and yet - what had I learnt if not the unity of Time, the illusion of matter? What is the twentieth century, what the first? Do they not lie before the Supreme as one, and clean from our petty divisions? And I myself had seen what, if I could trust it, asserted the marvels that are no marvels to those who know.
"You loved him?"
"I love him."
"Then there is nothing at all for me."
She resumed as if she had heard nothing.
"I have lost him for many lives. He stepped above me at once, for he was clean gold though he fell, and though I have followed Ihave not found. But that Buddhist beyond Islamabad - you shall hear now what he said. It was this. 'The shut door opens, and this time he awaits.' I cannot yet say all it means, but there is no Lahore for me. I shall meet him soon.""Vanna, you would not harm yourself again?""Never. I should not meet him. But you will see. Now I can talk no more. I will be there tomorrow when you go, and I will ride with you to the poplar road."She passed like a shadow into her little dark cabin, and I was left alone. I will not dwell on that black loneliness of the spirit, for it has passed - it was the darkness of hell, a madness of jealousy, and could have no enduring life in any heart that had known her. But it was death while it lasted. I had moments of horrible belief, of horrible disbelief, but however it might be I knew that she was out of reach for ever. Near me -yes! but only as the silver image of the moon floated in the water by the boat, with the moon herself cold myriads of miles away. I will say no more of that last eclipse of what she had wrought in me.
The bright morning came, sunny as if my joys were beginning instead of ending. Vanna mounted her horse and led the way from the boat. I cast one long look at the little Kedarnath, the home of those perfect weeks, of such joy and sorrow as would have seemed impossible to me in the chrysalis of my former existence.
Little Kahdra stood crying bitterly on the bank - the kindly folk who had served us were gathered saddened and quiet. I set my teeth and followed her.
How dear she looked, how kind, how gentle her appealing eyes, as I drew up beside her. She knew what I felt. She knew that the sight of little Kahdra crying as he said good - bye was the last pull at my sore heart. Still she rode steadily on, and still Ifollowed. Once she spoke.
