In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful- the Smiting!
A day when the soul shall know what it has sent on or kept back.
A day when no soul shall control aught for another. And the bidding belongs to God.
THE KORAN.
I
Now the Shah-in-Shah, Shah Jahan, Emperor in India, loved his wife with a great love. And of all the wives of the Mogul Emperors surely this Lady Arjemand, Mumtaz-i-Mahal - the Chosen of the Palace - was the most worthy of love. In the tresses of her silk-soft hair his heart was bound, and for none other had he so much as a passing thought since his soul had been submerged in her sweetness. Of her he said, using the words of the poet Faisi, -"How shall I understand the magic of Love the Juggler? For he made thy beauty enter at that small gate the pupil of my eye, And now - and now my heart cannot contain it!"But who should marvel? For those who have seen this Arjemand crowned with the crown the Padishah set upon her sweet low brows, with the lamps of great jewels lighting the dimples of her cheeks as they swung beside them, have most surely seen perfection. lie who sat upon the Peacock Throne, where the outspread tail of massed gems is centred by that great ruby, "The Eye of the Peacock, the Tribute of the World," valued it not so much as one Jock of the dark and perfumed tresses that rolled to her feet.
Less to him the twelve throne columns set close with pearls than the little pearls she showed in her sweet laughter. For if this lady was all beauty, so too she was all goodness; and from the Shah-in-Shah to the poorest, all hearts of the world knelt in adoration, before the Chosen of the Palace. She was, indeed, an extraor- dinary beauty, in that she had the soul of a child, and she alone remained unconscious of her power; and so she walked, crowned and clothed with humility.
Cold, haughty, and silent was the Shah-in-Shah before she blessed his arms - flattered, envied, but loved by none. But the gift this Lady brought with her was love; and this, shining like the sun upon ice, melted his coldness, and he became indeed the kingly centre of a kingly court May the Peace be upon her!
Now it was the dawn of a sorrowful day when the pains of the Lady Arjemand came strong and terrible, and she travailed in agony.
The hakims (physicians) stroked their beards and reasoned one with another; the wise women surrounded her, and remedies many and great were tried; and still her anguish grew, and in the hall without sat the Shah-in-Shah upon his divan, in anguish of spirit yet greater. The sweat ran on his brows, the knotted veins were thick on his temples, and his eyes, sunk in their caves, showed as those of a maddened man. He crouched on his cushions and stared at the purdah that divided him from the Lady; and all day the people came and went about him, and there was silence from the voice he longed to hear; for she would not moan, lest the sound should slay the Emperor. Her women besought her, fearing that her strong silence would break her heart; but still she lay, her hands clenched in one another, enduring; and the Emperor endured without. The Day of the Smiting!
So, as the time of the evening prayer drew nigh, a child was born, and the Empress, having done with pain, began to sink slowly into that profound sleep that is the shadow cast by the Last. May Allah the Upholder have mercy on our weakness! And the women, white with fear and watching, looked upon her, and whispered one to another, "It is the end."And the aged mother of Abdul Mirza, standing at her head, said, "She heeds not the cry of the child. She cannot stay." And the newly wed wife of Saif Khan, standing at her feet, said, "The voice of the beloved husband is as the Call of the Angel. Let the Padishah be summoned."So, the evening prayer being over (but the Emperor had not prayed), the wisest of the hakims, Kazim Sharif, went before him and spoke:-"Inhallah! May the will of the Issuer of Decrees in all things be done! Ascribe unto the Creator glory, bowing before his Throne."And he remained silent; but the Padishah, haggard in his jewels, with his face hidden, answered thickly, "The truth! For Allah has forgotten his slave."And Kazim Sharif, bowing at his feet and veiling his face with his hands, replied:
"The voice of the child cannot reach her, and the Lady of Delight departs. He who would speak with her must speak quickly."Then the Emperor rose to his feet unsteadily, like a man drunk with the forbidden juice; and when Kazim Sharif would have supported him, be flung aside his hands, and he stumbled, a man wounded to death, as it were, to the marble chamber where she lay.
In that white chamber it was dusk, and they had lit the little cressets so that a very faint light fell upon her face. A slender fountain a little cooled the hot, still air with its thin music and its sprinkled diamonds, and outside, the summer lightnings were playing wide and blue on the river; but so still was it that the dragging footsteps of the Emperor raised the hair on the flesh of those who heard, So the women who should, veiled themselves, and the others remained like pillars of stone.
Now, when those steps were heard, a faint colour rose in the cheek of the Lady Arjemand; but she did not raise the heavy lashes, or move her hand. And he came up beside her, and the Shadow of God, who should kneel to none, knelt, and his head fell forward upon her breast; and in the hush the women glided out like ghosts, leaving the husband with the wife excepting only that her foster-nurse stood far off, with eyes averted.
So the minutes drifted by, falling audibly one by one into eternity, and at the long last she slowly opened her eyes and, as from the depths of a dream, beheld the Emperor; and in a voice faint as the fall of a rose-leaf she said the one word, "Beloved!"And he from between his clenched teeth, answered, "Speak, wife."So she, who in all things had loved and served him, - she, Light of all hearts, dispeller of all gloom, - gathered her dying breath for consolation, and raised one hand slowly; and it fell across his, and so remained.
