by Talbot Mundy
“There are rules to be learned. No one can use even a hammer and a saw without knowing the rules. We can’t even walk without first learning how to do it, or play the piano without learning the notes.”
“Some people can. They do it naturally, without thinking. I can, and I never took a music lesson.”
“You obey the rules intuitively. That doesn’t make them not-rules. Rule Number One of Evolution, which is the Law of Life, is ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’”
“Is that what you teach children! But Nancy, it isn’t true! I know it isn’t! It’s a lie! I want my baby, for instance, and my husband’s confidence, and faith that life’s worth living, and—”
“Listen to the second rule. It’s in the Ninety-first Psalm: ‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High ...’ You know the rest of it, don’t you?”
“Of course. I know it by heart.”
“What does your heart tell you?”
“Nothing. A heart is just a physical organ. What I used to believe has turned out so totally false that — Nancy, can you look around at the world, and then believe such piffle? War, cruelty, poverty, sickness, lying propaganda, pain, death — dead babies — not mine only — babies bombed to death in—”
“Listen to the third rule: ‘And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not the milk of human kindness, I am nothing.’”
“Oh yes. Thirteenth Corinthians. I had to say it at school and then put sixpence in the poor box. Kindness? I don’t even know what it means. I don’t know much knowledge; and I’ve no faith left, although I did have some once; but I don’t believe I ever did know what human kindness really means. I thought I was being kind to Tom. The fact is, I was cruel.”
“My dear, if you will be kinder to yourself you will learn what skittles facts are.”
“Oh, you mean mind over matter? Don’t you believe in facts? Isn’t it a fact that you and I are here, talking to each other? Isn’t your school a fact? Wasn’t my baby a fact? Mind can’t change that, can it?”
“Try giving mind a chance.”
“What do you mean?”
“Accept the fact of spiritual evolution. Recognize it. Trust your clairvoyant vision, and then look at the other facts.”
“I can’t trust it. I daren’t. It’s like dreams.”
“Master it. Govern it.”
“I can’t. It runs away with me. It leads me into all kinds of—”
“Stop!”
Nancy Strong glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was a quarter to twelve. She stood up and took a step toward Elsa. The firelight shone on their faces. They were half-reliefs, unreal, bright-eyed, against wavering shadow from which the cat’s eyes watched them.
“We’ve had enough of that hysteria, young woman. Ally yourself one way or the other. Every alliance is a horse and a rider. Ride or be ridden. Tell me what you think your soul is.”
“I haven’t one:”
“Quite right. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“I used to believe the old superstition that I have a soul to be saved from hell. It’s a lie.”
“Yes, it’s a lie. You are your soul. How could you have what you are?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not a body that has a soul. You are your soul. Soul! You have a body and brain that are no more you than that dress which your body is wearing. Wake up.”
“I’m wide awake. At any rate, my brain tells me I am.”
“Listen, Elsa. Your brain is no more you than this portrait is Lobsang Pun. Even the most bigoted and stupid second-rate scientists know nowadays that brains can’t think. Brains are like radio sets, to be controlled and used and tuned in. They’re too often tuned in to the sort of nonsense you’ve been talking tonight. Your mind is no more in your brain than Lobsang Pun is in his photograph.”
“If my brain doesn’t think, what does?”
“You do. And you will either believe what your senses tell you, in a glass darkly, or what you see face to face, with your clairvoyant vision. Your brain sees illusion, because it’s part of the illusion, and you tune it in to the illusion. It can see reality if you’ll let it. Clairvoyance is soul — vision — it’s you — the real you — waking — one degree of evolution closer to reality, seeing things more nearly as they really are.”
“But, Nancy, it’s unendurable. It isn’t—”
“Learn to control it. Others will do that for you, if you don’t.”
“How can others control it, if I can’t?”
“They will control you without your knowing they’re doing it, unless you remember the rules. And if they can’t control you they will treat you the way they treated Jesus and Joan of Arc and countless others.”
“Didn’t Jesus know the rules?”
“Yes. Joan of Arc had soul-vision, but without understanding the rules. She won battles and saved France. But she had wielded the sword. She had accepted the reality of hatred, cruelty and death. You know what happened to her.”
“You’re not trying to encourage me with her fate, are you?”
“Jesus, on the other hand, had vision and knew all the rules. He rejected the sword, repudiated the brain-mind illusion of matter-substance, and—”
“Yes, and got crucified.”
“But arose from the dead.”
“You believe that? You don’t believe that, do you?”
“I know it. That’s different from believing. Whoever believes can disbelieve. I know.”
“I wish I even believed.”
“Jesus broke once and for all the solid hypnotic illusion of matter- consciousness, and said: ‘I go my way.’ It’s a long way, Elsa. But it’s the way of evolution. And they’ll Joan of Arc you on the way, unless you remember the rules.”
“That sounds cheerful!”
“‘Who is not with me, is against me.’ Trust the one or the other. The reality or the illusion. But don’t try both, or you’ll find yourself giving to Caesar the things that are God’s and trying to buy God with Caesar’s counterfeit credit.”
“Nancy, there’s no fanatic in me. Really there isn’t. You sound as if you’re inviting me to be a martyr.”
“Yes. But not a fanatic. Martyr means living witness, not dead witness. A witness sees, knows, and gives evidence of the truth and nothing but the truth. A fanatic believes, but doesn’t know; so he’s afraid. Fear destroys the fanatic’s sense of humor and makes him hysterical. A fanatic desires proof of what he believes but can’t prove. He tries to create the proofs usually by doing violence to others. But a witness is proof of what he knows. He is it. He is the knowledge itself. He is the secret truth and its evidence.”
“Why secret?”
“Because the self-styled realists can’t see it. Their conceit won’t let them see it. If they even believed it blindly they would take your truth and try to use it to strengthen materiality. The power-cravers, the money-hungry, the self-important — the opportunists — will use you, and then lose you, the way the French lost Joan of Arc. They’ll canonize you when it’s too late.”
“Then you want me to see, and say nothing?”
“I am not inviting you to cast pearls before swine. Which side will you be witness for? You or your senses? Spirit or matter? Dark logic or bright intuition?”
Elsa quoted, laughing: “‘Almost thou persuadest me to—’”
“My appeal is to you. Not the pig, but the poet. The real you. But if it helps you to use logic, use it,” said Nancy. “Do you realize that e you can’t drop a grain of sand into the sea without eventually moving every drop of water in all the oceans in the world?”
“Yes, I read that years ago in the Atlantic Monthly. It seems almost incredible. But I suppose it’s true.”
“It is mathematically and physically true and demonstrable. But even the sea, as our senses perceive it, is only phenomenal — a part o
f the illusion of thought. You — you yourself with a grain of sand can move every drop of all those billions of tons of water. How much more then will one thought, violently flung, disturb the whole mass of illusion in which we think we live and move and have our being!”
“Good heavens — then shouldn’t we think?”
“Yes. But think. Don’t parrot other people’s fears at secondhand. See — know — trust your vision — and remember Rule One.”
“But not talk about it? Not tell anyone?”
“Not unless you want to be Joan-of-Arc’d by the thought manipulators, propagandists and the devils who use others’ vision for their own ends.”
“But you’re telling it”
“I am talking to you, not to your material illusion. This is a communion, not a battle of brains. ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name ...’”
“I always wondered what that meant.”
“Arguing with the crowd increases and enrages the illusion that already blinds them. It makes it easier for hypnotists to control them. That is the sole reason for secrecy. The truth enrages the liars. But one by one, two by two, sometimes three by three, we can find our way out from the illusion of desire, into reality. That makes it easier for all the others to follow.”
“Mustn’t we desire anything?”
“No. Desire presupposes that we have not. Desire is the exact opposite of real consciousness. Desire for the illusion of material means to the spiritual end made me hesitate to come here and start this school. But I gave up desiring. I obeyed, and came, and found what was needed. It was waiting for me. Desire, hatred, malice are the essence of illusion. They’re its substance — what it’s made of. They produce war, cruelty, poverty — and in the end disillusion — and then new beginnings. But why exhaust the horrors of illusion before—”
“Mayn’t we own anything?”
“You’ll find you can’t help owning things. But don’t let things own you. Never regard things as more than shadows of ideas.”
The clock struck twelve. “Midnight,” said Nancy Strong. “Middle of nothing. But we can’t ignore time as long as we’re imprisoned in it. Time waits for no man, and space confines us. But time and space are illusions. You and I can prove it.”
The front door bell rang — sudden and loud. The servant’s footsteps hurried along the hallway. Nancy Strong sat down.
“Remember,” she said, “we can prove nothing, and be nothing, without the milk of human kindness. Even faith is worth nothing without it, and hope is a fool.”
“How can you tell it from charity?”
“By its humor. That’s the milk of it. Charity has absolutely no humor. True kindness is humor, plus vision and courage.”
“Nancy, you don’t seem particularly humorous this evening.”
“Child, if I had laughed, you might have feared I was laughing at you instead of with you. Who is our visitor? Look.”
“You mean go out and—”
“Look. It might be one of three people. Who is it?”
“Bulah Singh” said Elsa. “I can see him on the doorstep. What shall I do? I’m supposed to be ill at the monastery! Can’t I escape to my room before he comes in here?”
“Run away if you wish,” said Nancy Strong. “But why not face him? He is only a fact. And he has no sense of humor.”
CHAPTER 13
Bulah Singh looked at his best as he entered Nancy Strong’s big living room. The servant who ushered him in switched on the light, but at a sign from Nancy he switched it off again. The Sikh stood framed in the light from the hall, handsome, important, a shade mysterious. But when the servant closed the door at his back and he walked forward, then the firelight that shone on his eyes showed also the shape of his mouth. His stride was vaguely feline.
“I surprise you?” he suggested.
“No,” said Nancy. “But didn’t Miss Burbage’s movements surprise you? I expected you would come here. Please put some wood on the fire before you sit down.”
The Sikh complied. He didn’t like doing it. Instead of making him feel at ease it cost him some of the tactical aggressiveness that he had studiously built up. He was aware that, behind his back, Nancy and Elsa were comparing notes — eyes meeting silently and uniting their mental resistance against him. He was at pains to look judicial and self-assured when he sat down, facing Elsa. But it didn’t quite work. They formed a triangle, with firelight on their faces, high chair-backs behind them, and beyond that darkness. The cat lay on the hearthrug studying the occasional exploding spits of rain that fell down the chimney. Bulah Singh leaned forward and stroked the cat’s head.
“A wet night,” he remarked.
“Are you cold?” Nancy Strong asked him. “Would you care for a drink?”
“No, thanks. I came on important business. May I speak with Miss Burbage alone?”
“Why alone?” asked Elsa, wondering at herself. It was her own voice, but it didn’t sound like hers.
The Sikh looked hard at her. “Because that may be to your advantage,” he answered.
“Official business?” Nancy Strong suggested.
“Not yet. I would like to keep this part of it off the record. I am depending on you to be as discreet as I have known you to be on previous occasions.”
“You don’t want me to listen? Very well,” said Nancy. “Shall I leave you alone together?”
“Nancy, I wish you wouldn’t,” said Elsa. “I’ve no secrets from you. I’d much rather you’d stay.”
Nancy Strong smiled at the Sikh: “But Bulah Singh” she said, “wouldn’t trust an old gossip like me. He knows all — tells nothing. He is like Akhnaton.” That was the cat’s name.
Bulah Singh was in the wrong mood. He didn’t like the remark. “I know some secrets,” he retorted darkly. “It is my professional occupation to know what is going on. I was told that Miss Burbage was ill at the monastery. She appears to be quite well. Is it a secret why she was brought here by a back route — why the monks have put her luggage in your godown?”
“I advised it,” said Nancy. “Has her luggage come? Good.”
“If you had consulted me I would have provided transportation, openly and aboveboard,” said Bulah Singh. “It is a good thing she is out of the monastery. That place is a nest of intrigue.”
“Mu-ni Gam-po,” Nancy answered, “has been my friend more years than I care to count. So I suppose that’s a dig at me?”
The Sikh smiled ambushed insolence: “I know more than you suspect. Do you forget my offer to exchange confidences? You rejected it. You preferred to force me, instead, to use other means of finding out what it is my duty to know. Even you can’t keep all the secrets.”
“Flatterer!” said Nancy.
“May I speak to Miss Burbage, alone?”
“What do you want to talk about?” Elsa demanded. She felt rather contemptuous, strangely enough; but perhaps that was a reaction from Nancy Strong’s attitude.
The Sikh looked hard at her: “About Andrew Gunning.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
Elsa felt her heart skip two beats. But when she spoke to Nancy her voice was quite normal: “Is there another room we can go into?”
“No, dear, stay where you are. I will go to my office and wait there. I have a letter to write.”
“But you’ll be cold.”
“No, there’s an oil stove. I will leave the office door ajar, so just call out to me when you’ve finished talking.”
The Sikh stood until Nancy Strong left the room and the door shut with a thud and the click of a brass latch. Then, still standing:
“Miss Burbage, you are in a false position,” he said abruptly. “You make a mistake when you try to keep your movements secret from me. It can’t be done. Why are you here?”
He sat down, bolt upright, his face growing gradually more determined, more menacing, as he watched Elsa’s. She was curled up in the armchair with her feet under her, because she had taken off her shoes
to dry them at the fire and she didn’t choose that the Sikh should see the hole in the toe of her stocking. She looked puzzled. Bulah Singh wanted her well frightened. She realized that. But he also wanted to present himself as a magnanimous official who could excuse and protect if properly respected. She understood that, too. She wasn’t being clairvoyant in the usual way. The thought behind the Sikh’s words was revealing itself as color. It was muddy color, dull red, steel-blue, and gray-green, one appearing through the other and never still for a moment. So she knew he was thinking of several alternatives and hesitating what to say. But she couldn’t tell what it was all about, and she felt no alarm.
“I was invited here,” she answered.
“Tell me,” he said abruptly, “what do you know about Andrew Gunning’s past in the United States?”
Elsa frowned, startled, but not frightened, though she felt she should be. There was calculated menace in the Sikh’s carefully chosen tone of voice, and in the way his tongue played on his teeth above the outthrust lower lip. She felt that the attack was aimed at herself, not Andrew. Some of Nancy Strong’s phrases began flooding her mind. They made no sense, and she didn’t believe them, but there they were: proof of evolution — spiritual process — the Lord is my shepherd — milk of human kindness — wake up!
“I mean his history before you met him,” said Bulah Singh. “I know enough about your present relationship.”
That should have stung, but it didn’t. It should have angered her. It didn’t. She felt no impulse to answer. T he Sikh repeated the question:
“What do you know about Andrew Gunning’s past in the United States? He must have told you. Tell me. It is important.”
That instant she saw a vision of Andrew. It was a composite memory- portrait. It included Andrew in a snowstorm, heating water on a yak-dung fire, in the lee of a rock, ready for an unborn baby — Andrew carving portraits of Chenrezi — Andrew and Dr. Lewis and Mu-ni Gam-po — but no Andrew at that moment. She had no idea where he was or what he might be doing.
