“And what is grief, my lotus flower?”
For in all his life he had neither heard the word nor seen the thing and she spoke an unknown language. And as she sobbed on, he lifted her face gently in his two hands and looked at her closed eyelids, the lashes wet and matted on her cheek with running tears, she pale as death, the rich colour dead in her lips, and on his beautiful face was amazement and no more, for how could he pity who had lived only in the presence of joy? And at last he said very slowly as if bewildered:
“My rose, my delight, what is this new thing, and what have you to tell me? Speak that I may rejoice also.”
And his words stung some terror in her because he could not understand and it seemed that she must bear the burden of grief and the hidden secret of the world’s woe not only for him and herself, but for all the earth. For from any creature born human, though young and beautiful and a Prince, it may well seem a daring too great for mortals to deny grief and affront sorrow and to shut the door in their grey faces—knowing them waiting and watching outside. So the words broke from her sobbing lips:
“This morning I woke, and in the august quiet of the dawn I knew that my hope of hopes was given to me and my joy brimmed and sparkled in the cup of jewelled gold from the Gods, and I would have turned then into my lord’s breast to tell of it, but that night you had not passed with me but in the chamber of deodar, so I lay and dreamed awake, lost in bliss until they brought me word that our father would speak with me, and I went.”
“But all this was good, my lily swaying on blue waters. And what was your hope?” he said with a hand coming and going softly in her hair, and the monotony and gentleness of his touch soothed her like the immeasurable falling of far-distant water—no louder than the humming of a bee. And drawing more quiet breath, she continued:
“Our father asked me, lord of my soul, whether still you escaped away in soul from all the love and laughter about you. For when this is so, is it not that we fail to make you glad, and am not I, your wife, the worst sinner? O heart of my heart, what more is there that we have not done? Tell me, I beseech you.”
And he answered, “Nothing,” looking above her head to the heights.
Passionately she caught his hands in hers.
“Then, O beloved, if we have done all and fail, what is it that draws you from me? What is your soul’s desire? When our father, believing a man might weary of my poor beauty, sought out new faces for the Painted Chambers, did I weep? I smiled, though—But no, I will not say it. If it was your pleasure, what should I be but glad? But still you were drawn from us, and it has been a terror that bit into my soul, when waking in a white moonlight, I have seen you sitting with alien eyes fixed upon the great march of the stars. And yet I have kept silence. But now, lord of my life I ask this—where is it your soul goes, and to whom?”