When they ventured again to remove their hands from their faces, they were just floating out between the last of the forest palms.
Before them lay the heavenly Gunga, its silvery expanse teaching out to the far horizon, while at their feet wavelets of liquid starlight lapped, as if with tongues of flame, the pearl-grey sand of the flat shore.
As a rule, the sky begins to grow gradually clearer down towards the horizon, but here the order was reversed; the ultramarine blue passed into indigo, and finally deepened to an all but absolutely black border, which rested on the silver waters.
Of the perfume of the blossoms of Paradise, there was nothing left. But whereas, in the malachite valley, that memory-laden perfume of perfumes lay dense around the Coral Tree, here there blew, along the stream of the universe, a cool and fresh breath which took for its perfume the absence of all perfume—perfect purity. And Vasitthi seemed to quaff it greedily as a refreshing draught, while it took Kamanita’s breath away.
Here also, of the music of the genii, one did not catch the faintest note. But from the stream there seemed to rise up mighty sounds like the deep booming of thunder.
“Listen,” whispered Vasitthi, and raised her hand.
“Strange,” said Kamanita. “Once on my journeyings I had found quarters in a hut which stood at the entrance to a mountain ravine, and past the hut there flowed a charming little rivulet with clear water in which I washed my feet after my wanderings. During the night, a violent rain fell and, as I lay awake in my hut, I heard the rivulet, which in the evening had rippled softly by, rush and rage with ever-increasing vehemence. At the same time my attention was caught by a banging, thundering sound which I could not explain to myself at all. The next morning, however, I saw that the clear brook had become a raging mountain torrent, with waters grey and foaming, in which huge stones rolled and bounded as they dashed onward. And these it was that had caused the uproar. How dost thou suppose that just here, when listening to these sounds, this memory out of the time of my pilgrimage should rise within me?”
“It comes from this,” answered Vasitthi, “that the sounds are analogous, though in that mountain stream merely stones, while here in the stream of the heavenly Gunga, worlds are rolled and propelled along. These it is from which the booming sounds like thunder proceed.”
“Worlds!” exclaimed Kamanita, horrified.
Vasitthi smiled, and, as she did so, floated onward; but Kamanita, full of terror, caught and held her back by the robe.
“Take care of thyself, Vasitthi. Who knows what powers, what fearful forces hold sway over this stream of the universe, forces into whose power thou mightst fall, by forsaking the shore. I tremble already at the thought of seeing thee torn suddenly from me.”
“Wouldst thou not dare to follow me, then?”
“Certainly, I would follow thee. But who knows whether I could reach thee, whether we should not be torn from one another? And even if we remained together, what misery would it not be to be borne away to the illimitable, far from this abode of bliss.”
“To the illimitable!” repeated Vasitthi dreamily, and her glance swept over the surface of the heavenly Gunga, far out to where the silver flood touched the black border of the sky, and seemed to desire to penetrate ever farther. “Is it possible, then, for eternal happiness to exist where there is limitation?” she asked, as if she were lost in thought.
“Vasitthi!” exclaimed Kamanita, becoming alarmed in earnest. “I wish I had never led thee hither! Come, love, come!”
And even more anxiously than from the Coral Tree did he draw her thence.
She followed him not unwillingly, turning her head at the first palms as she did so, and casting a last glance backward at the heavenly stream.
And again they were throned on their lotus seats in the crystal pond, again they floated between trees bearing blossoms of jewels, again mingled with the ranks of the Blest, joined in the dances, and enjoyed the raptures of heaven, happy in their unclouded love.
Once, in the dance, they met their friend of the white robe, who greeted them with—
“So ye have really been at the shores of the Gunga?”
“How canst thou possibly know that we have been there?”
“I see it; for all who have been there wear, as it were, a shadow on their brows. For that reason I don’t wish to go. And ye will also not go a second time—no one does.”
XXIX
Amid the Sweets of the Coral Blossom
As a matter of fact, they did not again visit the inhospitable shores of the heavenly Gunga. Often, however, they turned their flight toward the valley of the malachite rocks. Reposing under the mighty crown of the Coral Tree, they breathed that perfume of perfumes which streamed from the crimson blossoms, and, in the depths of their memory, there was opened up to them the vista of their former lives—life preceding life in some strangely appointed order, back into the far-distant past.
Sometimes in palaces, sometimes in huts, they saw themselves again, but whether robed in silk and muslin, or clad in the coarse fabrics of the village loom, the mutual love was ever there. At one time, it was crowned with the happiness of their union, at another, separation due to life’s destiny, or to death, was their sad lot, but, happy or unhappy, the love remained the same.
And they saw themselves in other times, when human beings were mightier than now, in those eternally unforgettable heroic days, when he tore himself from her arms and bestrode his war elephant, in order
