The Ten-foot Chain; or, Can Love Survive the Shackles? A Unique Symposium Read online

  FIRST TALE

  AN INDIAN JATAKA

  BY ACHMED ABDULLAH

  _This is the tale which Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in Tartary, and milk brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East and the North, and Captain General of the Golden Horde, whispered to the Foolish Virgin who came to him, bringing the purple, spiked flower of the Kadam-tree as an offering, and begging him for a love potion with which to hold Haydar Khan, a young, red-faced warrior from the west who had ridden into camp, a song on his lips, a woman's breast scarf tied to his tufted bamboo lance, a necklace of his slain foes' skulls strung about his massive chest, and sitting astride a white stallion whose mane was dyed crimson in sign of strife and whose dainty, dancing feet rang on the rose-red marble pavement of the emperor's courtyard like crystal bells in the wind of spring._

  _This is a tale of passion, and, by the same token, a tale of wisdom. For, in the yellow, placid lands east of the Urals and west of harsh, sneering Pekin, it is babbled by the toothless old women who know life, that wisdom and desire are twin sisters rocked in the same cradle: one speaks while the other sings. They say that it is the wisdom of passion which makes eternal the instinct of love._

  _This is the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was free in her own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who plucked the white rose without fearing the thorns._

  _This, finally, is the tale of Vikramavati, King of Hindustan in the days of the Golden Age, when Surya, the Sun, warmed the fields without scorching; when Vanyu, the Wind, filled the air with the pollen of the many flowers without stripping the trees bare of leaves; when Varuna, Regent of Water, sang through the land without destroying the dykes or drowning the lowing cattle and the little naked children who played at the river's bank; when Prithwi, the Earth, sustained all and starved none; when Chandra, the Moon, was as bright and ripening as his elder brother, the Sun._

  _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_

  Vasantasena was the girl's name, and she came to young KingVikramavati's court on the tenth day of the dark half of the monthBhadra. She came as befitted a slave captured in war, with herhenna-stained feet bound together by a thin, golden chain, her whitehands tied behind her back with ropes of pearls, her slim young bodycovered with a silken robe of the sad hue of the tamala flower, in signof mourning for Dharma, her father, the king of the south, who hadfallen in battle beneath the steel-shod tusks of the war elephants.

  She knelt before the peacock throne, and Vikramavati saw that her facewas as beautiful as the moon on the fourteenth day, that her black lockswere like female snakes, her waist like the waist of a she-lion, herarms like twin marble columns blue-veined, her skin like the sweetlyscented champaka flower, and her breasts as the young tinduka fruit.

  He looked into her eyes and saw that they were of a deep bronze color,gold flecked, and with pupils that were black and opaque--eyes thatseemed to hold all the wisdom, all the secret mockery, the secretknowledge of womanhood--and his hand trembled, and he thought in hissoul that the bountiful hand of Sravanna, the God of Plenty, had beenraised high in the western heaven at the hour of her birth.

  "Remember the words of the Brahmin," grumbled Deo Singh, his old primeminister who had served his father before him and who was watching himanxiously, jealously. "'Woman is the greatest robber of all. For otherrobbers steal property which is spiritually worthless, such as gold anddiamonds; while woman steals the best--a man's heart, and soul, andambition, and strength.' Remember, furthermore, the words of--"

  "Enough croakings for the day, Leaky-Tongue!" cut in Vikramavati, withthe insolent rashness of his twenty-four years. "Go home to yourwithered beldame of a wife and pray with her before the altar of unbornchildren, and help her clean the household pots. This is the season whenI speak of love!"

  "Whose love--yours or the girl's?" smilingly asked Madusadan, captain ofhorse, a man ten years the king's senior, with a mocking, bitter eye, agreat, crimson mouth, a crunching chest, massive, hairy arms, the honeyof eloquence on his tongue, and a mind that was a deer in leaping, a catin climbing. Men disliked him because they could not beat him in joustor tournament; and women feared him because the purity of his life,which was an open book, gave the lie to his red lips and theslow-eddying flame in his hooded, brown eyes. "Whose love, wise king?"

  But the latter did not hear.

  He dismissed the soldiers and ministers and courtiers with an impatientgesture, and stepped down from his peacock throne.

  "Fool!" said Madusadan, as he looked through a slit in the curtain froman inner room and saw that the king was raising Vasantasena to her feet;saw, too, the derisive patience in her golden eyes.

  "A fool--though a king versed in statecraft!" he whispered into the earof Shivadevi, Vasantasena's shriveled, gnarled hill nurse who hadfollowed her mistress into captivity.

  "Thee! A fool indeed!" cackled the old nurse as, side by side with thecaptain of horse, she listened to the tale of love the king wasspreading before the slave girl's narrow, white feet, as Kama-Deva, theyoung God of Passion, spread the tale of his longing before Rati, hiswife, with the voice of the cuckoo, the humming-bee in mating time, andthe southern breeze laden with lotus.

  "You came to me a slave captured among the crackling spears of battle,"said Vikramavati, "and behold, it is I who am the slave. For your sake Iwould sin the many sins. For the sake of one of your precious eyelashesI would spit on the names of the gods and slaughter the holy cow. Youare a light shining in a dark house. Your body is a garden of strangeand glorious flowers which I gather in the gloom. I feel the savor andshade of your dim tresses, and think of the home land where the hillwinds sweep.

  "My love for you is as the soft sweetness of wild honey which the beesof the forest have gathered among the perfumed asoka flowers--sweet andwarm, but with a sharp after-taste to prick the tongue and set the bodyeternally longing. To hold you I would throw a noose around the farstars. I give you all I have, all I am, all I shall ever be, and itwould not be the thousandth part of my love for you. See! My heart is acarpet for your little lisping feet. Step gently, child!"

  Vasantasena replied never a word. With unwinking, opaque eyes, shestared beyond the king, at a slit in the curtain which separated thethrone-room from the inner apartment. For through the embroidered foldsof the brocade, a great, hairy, brown, high-veined hand was thrust, thebroad thumb wagging mockingly, meaningly, like a shadow of fate.

  And she remembered the huge star sapphire set in hammered silver thattwinkled on the thumb like a cresset of passion. She remembered how thathand had plucked her from amidst the horse's trampling feet and thesword-rimmed wheels of the war-chariots as she crouched low above herfather's body. She remembered the voice that had come to her, clearthrough the clamor and din of battle, the braying of the conches, theneighing of the stallions, the shrill, angry trumpeting of theelephants--

  A voice sharp, compelling, bitter--

  "Captive to my bow and spear, little flower, but a slave for the king,my master. For such is the law of Hind. He will love you--not beingaltogether a fool. But perhaps you will not love him. Being but astammering virgin boy, perhaps he will heap your lap with all thetreasures in the world. Being an honest gentleman, perhaps he will treatyou with respect and tenderness, with the sweet fairness of the blessedgods. And perhaps--even then--you will not love him, little flower.

  "Perhaps you will turn to the captain of horse as the moon rises like abubble of passion from the deep red of the sunset. Perhaps you will readthe meaning of the koel-bird's love-cry, the secret of the jessamine'sscent, the sweet, throbbing, winglike call of all the unborn children inthe heart and body and soul of Madusadan, captain of horse."

  "A bold man, this captain of horse!" Vasantasena had smiled through hertears, through the savage clang of battle.

  "A reckless man--yet a humble man, little flower. Reckless and humble asthe moist spring monsoon that sweeps over th
e young shoots ofbluish-white rice. For"--here he had put her in front of him, on thecurve of the peaked, bossed saddle--"will the rice ripen to the touch ofthe savage, clamoring monsoon?"

  And he had drawn slightly away from her. He had not even kissed her,though they were shielded from all the world by the folds of the greatbattle flag that was stiff with gold, stiffer with darkening gore. Inthe fluttering heart of Vasantasena rose a great longing for thisinsolent warrior who spoke of love--and touched her not.

  _This is the tale of the grape that is never pressed, that never loses its sweetness, though white hands squeeze its pulp, day after day, night after night._

  _This is the tale of the book that is never read to the end, though eyes, moist and smarting with longing, read its pages till the candles gutter out in the gray dawn wind and the young sun sings its cosmic song out of the East, purple and golden._

  _This is the tale of love which rises like a mist of ineffable calm, then sweeps along on the red wings of eternal desire--the tale of love that is a chain forged of steel and scent, a chain of unbreakable steel mated to the pollen of the glistening areka-flower._

  _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_

  "See!" said Shivadevi, the old nurse, to Vasantasena, who shimmeredamong the green, silken cushions of her couch like a tiger-beetle in anest of fresh leaves. "Vikramavati, the king, has bowed low before you.He has removed from your hands and ankles the pearl and gold fetters. Hehas taken off your robe of mourning and has thrown about your shouldersa sari woven of moonbeams and running water. He has seated you besidehim on the peacock throne, as a free woman--not a slave."

  "Yes," replied Vasantasena. "He has placed his head and his heart on thesill of the door of love. He brought me his soul as an offering. AndI"--she yawned--"I love him not."

  "He has heaped your lap with many treasures," went on the old woman."Jasper from the Punjab has he brought to you, rubies from Burma,turquoises from Thibet, star-sapphires and alexandrites from Ceylon,flawless emeralds from Afghanistan, white crystal from Malwa, onyx fromPersia, amethyst from Tartary, green jade and white jade from Amoy,garnets from Bundelkhand, red corals from Socotra, chalcedon from Syria,malachite from Kafiristan, pearls from Ramesvaram, lapis lazuli fromJaffra, yellow diamonds from Poonah, black agate from Dynbhulpoor!"

  Vasantasena shrugged her slim shoulders disdainfully.

  "Yes," she said. "He put the nightingale in a cage of gold andexclaimed: 'Behold, this is thy native land!' Then he opened thedoor--and the nightingale flew away to the green land, the free land,never regretting the golden cage."

  "He grovels before you in the dust of humility. He says that his life isa blackened crucible of sin and vanity and regret, but that his lovefor you is the golden bead at the bottom of the crucible. He has givenyou freedom. He has given you friendship. He has given you tendernessand affection and respect."

  "Yes," smiled Vasantasena. "He has given me his everything, his all.Without cavil, without stint. Freedom he has given me, keeping thebitter water of humility as his own portion. But all his generosity, hisfairness, his humility, his decency--all his love has not opened theinner door to the shrine of my heart. In the night he comes, with theflaming torches of his passion; but my heart is as cold as clay, as coldas freezing water when the snow wind booms down from the Himalayas. Themadness of the storm and the waves is upon him, but there is noanswering surge in the tide of my soul. In my heart he sees the worldgolden and white and flashing with laughter. In his heart I see theworld grim and drab and haggard and seamed with tears. For--generous,fair, unstinting--he is also selfish and foolish, being a man unwise inthe tortuous, glorious ways of love. Daily he tells me that I am thewell of his love. But never does he ask me if his love is the stone ofmy contentment."

  "Perhaps he does not dare," cackled the old nurse.

  "Being modest?"

  "Yes."

  "Only the selfish are modest, caring naught for the answering spark inthe heart of the loved one. And the love of woman is destroyed by humbleselfishness as the religion of a Brahmin by serving kings, the milk of acow by distant pasturage, and wealth by committing injustice. There isno worth in such wealth--nor in such love. This is Veda-truth."

  And in a high, proud voice she added:

  "I love Madusadan, captain of horse. I will kiss his red, mocking lipsand bend to the thrill of his strong body. Pure he is to all the world,to all women--so the bazaar gossip says--but I, and I alone, shall lightthe lamp of passion in his heart. Free am I! But the unsung music in hisheart shall be a loved fetter around mine. Clasped in his arms, life anddeath shall unite in me in an unbreakable chain.

  "I will bury my hands deep in the savage, tangled forest that is hissoul and follow therein the many trails. I will read the message of hishooded, brown eyes, the trembling message of his great, hairy hands. Hisheart is a crimson malati-flower, and mine the tawny orchid spotted withpurple that winds around its roots."

  "Gray is the hair on his temples. He is the king's senior by ten years."

  "Years of wisdom," laughed Vasantasena. "Years of waiting. Years ofgarnering strength."

  "He is not as kindly as Vikramavati, nor as great, nor as generous."

  "But he is wise--wise! He knows the heart of woman--the essence, theinnermost secret of woman."

  "And that is--"

  "Patience in achieving. Strength in holding. Wisdom in--_not_ demandingunless the woman offers and gives sign."

  And she went out into the garden that stretched back of the palace inwild, scented profusion, bunching its majestic, columnar aisles ofbanyan figs as a foil for the dainty, pale green tracery of thenim-trees, the quivering, crimson domes of the peepals bearded to thewaist with gray and orange moss, where the little, bold-eye gekkolizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumedfretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead withburnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom shehad summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veilslipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressedher red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child.

  _The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night, says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion._

  _You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon._

  _Love's play is worship._

  _Love's achievement is a rite._

  _Love's secret is never read._

  _Always around the corner is another light, a new light--golden, twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp._

  _Reach to it--as you never will--and there is the end of the chain, the end of the tale._

  _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_

  "You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he sawVasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse.

  The girl smiled.

  "It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I."

  "I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love."

  "As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in hishand."

  "I gave you freedom. I gave you the wealth of all Hindustan, the wealthof the outer lands. I gave you my soul, my heart, my body, my strength,my ambition, my faith, my secret self."

  "You gave me everything--because you love me. I gave younothing--because I do not love you."

  "Love can do the impossible," gravely said the captain of horse, whileVasantasena nestled more closely to his arms. "It was because of lovethat Vishnu, the Creator, changed into a dwarf and descended to thelowermost regions, and there captured Bali, the Raja of Heaven and ofEar
th. It was because of love that, as Ramachandra, helped by the monkeyfolk, he built a bridge between India and Ceylon, and that, as Krishna,he lifted up the great mountain Golonddhan in the palm of his hand as anumbrella with which to shield his loved one against the splintering,merciless rays of Surya, the Sun, the jealous, yellow god.

  "Love can do all things--except one. For love can never create love,wise king. Love can force the stream to flow up-hill, but it cannotcreate the stream when there is no water."

  Silence dropped like a shadow of fate, and Vikramavati turned slowlyand walked toward the palace.

  "To-morrow," he said over his shoulder, in an even, passionless voice,"you shall die a death of lingering agony."

  Madusadan laughed lightly.

  "There is neither to-day nor to-morrow nor yesterday for those wholove," he replied. "There is only the pigeon-blue of the sunlit sky, thecrimson and gold of the harvest-fields, the laughter of the far waters.Love fills the cup of infinity."

  "To-morrow you will be dead," the king repeated dully.

  And again Madusadan laughed lightly.

  "And what then, O wise king, trained in the rigid logic of Brahmin andParohitas?" he asked. "Will our death do away with the fact that once welived and, living, loved each other? Will the scarlet of our death wipeout the streaked gray of your jealousy? Will our death give you the loveof Vasantasena, which never was yours in life? Will our death rob oursouls of the memory of the great sweetness which was ours, the beauty,the glory, the never-ending thrill of fulfillment?"

  "Love ceases with death."

  "Love, wise king, is unswayed by the rhythm of either life--or death.Love--that surges day after day, night after night, as year after yearthe breast of the earth heaves to the spring song of the ripening rice,to the golden fruit of the mango groves.

  "Death? A fig for it, wise king!

  "Let me but live until to-morrow in the arms of my loved one, and thesweetness of our love shall be an unbreakable chain--on through athousand deaths, a thousand new births, straight into Nirvana--intoBrahm's silver soul!"

  "Ahee!" echoed Vasantasena. "Let death come and the wind of life lull;let the light fail and the flowers wilt and droop; let the stars gutterout one by one and the cosmos crumble in the gray storm of finaloblivion--yet will our love be an unbreakable chain, defying you, Oking--defying the world--defying the very gods--"

  "But not defying the laws of nature, as interpreted by a wise Brahmin!"a shrill, age-cracked voice broke in, and Deo Singh, the old primeminister who had come down the garden trail on silent, slippered feet,stepped into the open.

  "No! By Shiva and by Shiva! Not the laws of nature, the eternal laws oflogic, as interpreted by a priest well versed in Sruti and Smriti--inrevelation and tradition. Not the laws of nature, rational andevidential, physical and metaphysical, analytical and synthetical,philosophical, and philological, as expounded by a Parohita familiarwith the Vedas and the blessed wisdom of the ancient Upanishads ofHind!"

  He salaamed low before Vikramavati.

  "It is written in the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Books, the Lay of Brahmthe Lord, that each crime shall find condign punishment, be it committedby high caste or low caste, by prince or peasant, by raja or ryot. Toeach his punishment, says the Karma, which is fate!"

  "And--these two?" demanded Vikramavati. "What punishment shall be metedout to the faithless woman and the faithless captain of horse, Brahmin?"

  Deo Singh spread out his fingers like the sticks of a fan.

  "They have chosen their own sentence, these worshipers of Kartikeya, Godof Rogues and Rascals," he chuckled. "Of a chain they spoke. Anunbreakable chain that defies all laws, except belike"--again he laugheddeep in his throat--"the wise laws of nature. Weld them together withsuch a chain, forged by a master smith, made so strong that not even atough-thewed captain of horse may break it with the clouting muscles ofhis arms and back. A chain, ten feet long, so that they may never be faraway from each other, so that they may always be able to slake the hot,turbulent thirst of love, so that they may never have to wait for thethrill of fulfillment as a beggar waits at life's feast, so that day andnight, each hour, each minute, each second they may revel in thesunshine of their love, so that never they may have to stand helplessbefore the flood-tide of their desire.

  "Grant them their wish, O king, being wise and merciful; and then lockthem into a room containing the choicest food, the sweetest drinks, thewhitest flowers, the softest, silkenest couch draped with purple andgold. A room such as lovers dream of--and fools! Leave them theretogether for three days, three nights, three sobbing, crunching, killingeternities! With no sound, no touch, no scent, no taste, but their ownvoices, their own hearts and souls and minds and bodies! And at the endof the three days----"

  "Yes?" asked Vikramavati.

  "They will have suffered the worst punishment, the worst agony on earth.Slowly, slowly for three days, three nights, three eternities, they willhave watched the honey of their love turn, drop by drop, into gall.Their passion--slowly, slowly--will turn into loathing; their desireinto disgust. For no love in the world can survive the chain ofmonotony!"

  * * * * *

  Thus it was done.

  A chain of unbreakable steel, ten feet long, was welded to the girl'sright wrist and the man's left, and they were locked into a house--ahouse such as lovers dream of--that was guarded day and night by armedwarriors, who let none within hailing distance, whose windows wereshuttered and curtained so that not even the golden eye of the sun mightlook in, and around which a vast circular clearing had been made withtorch and spade and scimitar so that neither bird nor insect nor beastof forest and jungle might live there and no sound drift into thelovers' room except, perhaps, the crooning sob of the dawn wind; and atthe end of the third night carefully, stealthily, silently the king andthe Brahmin walked up to the house and pressed their ears against thekeyhole, and they heard the man's voice saying:

  "I love you, little flower of my happiness! I love you--you who are allmy dreams come true! When I look into your face the sun rises, and thewaters bring the call of the deep, and the boat of my life rocks on thedancing waves of passion!"

  And then the girl's answer, clear, serene:

  "And I love _you_, Madusadan, captain of horse! You have broken thefetters of my loneliness, the shackles of my longing! I waited, waited,waited--but you came, and I shall never let you go again! You havebanished all the drab, sad dreams of the past! You have made your hearta prison for my love, and you have tossed away the key into theturbulent whirlpool of my eternal desire!"

  _"Did the chain gall them?" asked the Foolish Virgin, who had come to Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in Tartary and milk brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East and the North and Captain General of the Golden Horde._

  _"No, Foolish Virgin," replied Jehan Tugluk Khan. "Their love could not have lived without the chain. It was their love which WAS the chain--made it, held it, welded it, eternal, unbreaking, unbreakable. Ten feet long was the chain. Each foot of steel--eternal, unbreaking, unbreakable--was a link of their love, and these links were: Passion, patience, completion, friendship, tolerance, understanding, tenderness, forgiveness, service, humor."_

  _This is the end of the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was free in her own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who plucked the white rose without fearing the thorns._

  _And, says the tale, if you would make your chain doubly unbreakable, add another foot to it, another link. There is no word for it. But, by the strength and sense of it, you must never lull your love to sleep in the soft cradle of too great security._

  _For love demands eternal vigilance._

  _LISTEN, O AZZIA, O BELOVED, TO MY JATAKA!_