The Romance of the Harem

by Anna Harriette Leonowens

But now this last scene was too much for the former. It snapped asunder the fragile cord that still bound him to his father, and placed him in the position of an antagonist.

Every nation has certain constitutional peculiarities which give rise to practices and phases of thought very startling to others, who are, in such points, differently constituted. The most remarkable peculiarity of this kind is the reverence with which parents are regarded in Siam. No matter how unjust, capricious, cruel, and repulsive a parent may be, a child is bound to reverence his or her slightest wish as a sacred obligation.

For Dhamaphat, therefore, even to question his father's actions was, he felt, a moral dereliction. He was full of remorse and regret, and thought with despair of the fate that awaited him.

He had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across a canal, led him into a lonely field; here he motioned back the slaves who attempted to follow him, and strode rapidly out into the open country, where he no longer heard the sounds of revelry, feasting, and licentious mirth. Rambling through the many tangled forest-paths, he gradually emerged into a low, wooded expanse. The air was full of delicious fragrance, and alive with strange noises. He saw in the distance the calm, majestic river, all aglow with its myriads of lights and lanterns, yet it failed to call forth a single reflection; he could picture nothing but the face of the strange girl, and that haunted him all the way. He pressed on, tired, feverish, with sad and troubled thoughts; he reached the wall that skirts the city; throwing some silver to the guards, who knew him well, he passed out of the gate, and out of the city of the "Invincible," to the visible archangel of nature.

Here the solitude was startling; no more streets, no more lights, no more houses. Even the quiet river seemed to hush on her white and shining bosom the soft light of the moon, as if it were the face of a beloved child, until she caught a reflection of its beauty, and was transfigured down a hundred feet deep, as far as light could penetrate, into a clear, translucent soul, in its first dreamless sleep.

Moved by some secret purpose, he hurried on through a profusion of flowering plants and trees; he passed unnoticed the slender betel and cocoanut palms, and the numerous species of huge convolvuli "that coiled around their stately stems, and ran e'en to the limit of the land," the long lance-leaves of the wild plantains, the rich foliage of the almonds, the gorgeous oleanders that broke through the green masses in every variety of tint, from the richest crimson to the lightest pink. Presently he dashed aside a huge night-blooming cereus, and stood before a long, low building, a partly ruined monastery, adjoining an ancient and dilapidated Buddhist temple.

The monastery was a sort of long, low corridor or hall, lined on each side with chambers, each about ten feet deep, and lighted by a small aperture in the wall.

It was a gloomy place, old and unhealthy. Poisonous plants, creepers, and flowers reigned jubilant here, with ruin and desolation for companions.

Yet, dismantled, worm-eaten, and ruined as the building appeared, it had been the school of young Dhamaphat for nearly ten years, and it was the home of a solitary old man, who had spent forty years of his lifetime forgetful of friends, affections, food, sleep, and almost of existence in his contemplations of the mystery of things beyond, and that still greater mystery called life; his friends and relations had endeavored by every artifice, the allurements of beauty and every other imaginable gratification, to divert him from the resolution he had adopted. Every attempt to dissuade him had been in vain. And now he had gained a fame as widespread as the most ambitious heart could desire. Among the people he was known under the title of P'hra Chow Sâduman, the sainted priest of heaven. Prodigious stories were afloat about him. Born of noble parents, he had from his early youth practised an asceticism so rigorous and severe that it had prepared him, it was thought, for his supernatural mission. It was not only alleged, but believed, that at the sound of his inspired voice the dead arose and walked, the sick were healed; that diseases vanished at the touch of his hand; sinners were converted by his simple admonition; wild beasts and serpents were obedient to his word; and that in his moments of ecstasy he floated in the air before the eyes of his disciples, passed through stone walls and barred gates, and, in fact, could do whatsoever he willed.