  Felix and Drusilla on the one hand and Krishna on the other disclose the contrasted feelings severally excited in them by what they had just witnessed in the lot of Shimei. Krishna seeks from his friend Sergius Paulus explanation of the relations that subsisted between those ministering Christians and the sufferer. He at length requests and obtains an interview with Paul, and the two have a conversation, one result of which is that Krishna asks to hear a full account of the life and character of Jesus Christ. Paul proposes that Mary MagdalenÉ give this account, but Krishna courteously declines to receive it from the lips of a woman. The ship meantime puts in at The Fair Havens, whence, after a short stay in that anchorage, it sets sail, against the advice of Paul. PAUL AND KRISHNA. As one transported to a different sphere, Some sinless planet fairer far than ours, Amid new scenes and aspects there beheld, Would watch and wonder and not understand, So had the most of that ship's company, Not understanding, but much wondering, watched What passed between the wretched Shimei And those his ministers of grace and love. Felix, discoursing with Drusilla, said (For he, by virtue of his being himself, Perforced divined accordingly—amiss) "Much painful cultivation, for no fruit! Paul, turn and turn about, that time did seem His enemy at advantage to have had, And prospect was that Shimei, won to him With all those unexpected services (Sore needed, in such sorry case, no doubt!) Would, could he first make shift to clear himself, Right face about at Rome and, far from being Swear him snow-white with turncoat testimony. How easily king Jupiter, with that pass Of playful lightning, brought it all to naught!" Said Felix; then, with change abrupt from sneer, Grim added this, in sullen afterthought: "That lightning was a neat dispatch for him! I wish that it had fallen on me instead." "Ill-omened from thy lips such words as those," Drusilla answered. "And what love to me Speak they, thy wife and queen—not with her lord Joined in thine imprecation dire of doom? Perhaps indeed we shall be separate In death—with death, despite the difference, But differently horrible to both! For I have my forebodings, bred of thine, And dread to be somehow hereafter caught In some form of calamity unknown But unescapable and horrible And final and fatal as that Shimei's. And what if he, our son (thine image—form, And face, and character, and all) dear pledge To me of love that once his father bore His mother, happy she as worthy judged, Be in that dread catastrophe involved!" Drusilla thus half feigned contagious fears, But half she felt them; for in truth she now, So long in shadow from her husband's mood, Was under power of gloomy imaginings. Yet, felt or feigned her fears, she made them spells This day to conjure with, when to her own Image the little Felix's she joined In desperate hope to spur her husband's spirit Out of the slough of his despondency And comfort him by making him comfort her. But Felix was not fiber fine enough To feel even, less to heed, appeal wrung out Though from sincerest pain for sympathy; And now his own crass egoism coarsely knew How shallow, or how hollow, or how false, This subtler egoism of his consort was. Drusilla's art defeated its own end; Felix more murkily lowered, and muttered fierce Betwixt set teeth in husky tones and low: "Aye, and why not thou too along with me? Count thyself meant—thyself not less than me— At CÆsarea in the judgment hall— Said, and much more conveyed without being said— By that Jew Paul, of dark impending doom. If I am wicked, sure thou art wicked too; The gods must hate us, if they hate, alike. Let us, since hated jointly, jointly hate. Perhaps compact and cordial partnership Betwixt us in some hatred chosen well Will be almost as good as mutual love!" Drusilla to such savage cynicism Gave loth ear bitterly, as one well sure It were not wise in anything to cross Her husband's brutal whim, and he went on: "There is that milksop Sergius Paulus—he Roman, forsooth! The Roman in his blood, If ever Roman ran therein true red, Has been washed white with something else infused. I much misdoubt that Paul has brought him round To be disciple of the Nazarene. A pretty pair, a Roman and a Jew— Like us, my dear Drusilla! And the Jew, In either case, the chief one of the pair!" With such communings entertained those two, Adulterer and adulteress, the hours; The passion that they once had miscalled love, Yea, even that passion—long in either breast With the disgust of sick satiety Palled—now at length by guilt and guilty fears, Brood of ambition disappointed, slain: But in the ashes of such burned-out love Smouldered the embers of self-fuelled hate, Fell fire that thus on Sergius fixed its fangs! Meanwhile that Indian Krishna, deep in muse, Masked with impassable demeanor mild From all about him, from himself even, masked A trouble of wonder that he could not lay. He gazed with gentle furtiveness at Paul And strove to read the riddle of the man. He felt Paul's spirit different from his own; His own was placid with placidity Resembling death, or trance and apathy That would be, were it perfect, death. But Paul, Not placid, peaceful rather, seemed to live Not less but more intensely than the rest, His fellow-creatures round him in the world; 'Impossible! Passion reconciled with peace!' Thought Krishna; 'I seek peace through passion slain, Expecting, I the seeker, not to be At all, the moment I a finder am. This Hebrew has the secret now of peace; Strange peace, not passionless, but passionate!— Extinction not of being, here forestalled, Like that for which I strive by ceasing striving (With fear lest after all I miss the mark, And only strive to cease, not cease to strive) Nay, no nirvÂna antedated, his— That hope of our lord Buddha hard to win— But life increased with life to such a power As is the mighty river's grown too great To register in eddy or ripple even Resistance in its channel overcome. Is life then, boundless, better than blank death?' So Krishna mused in doubt beholding Paul, Until at last to Sergius Paulus he, Breaking the seals of silence, spoke and said: "If to thy thinking meet, bring me, I pray, But first tell me who was, and what, that Jew To such plight of sheer wretchedness reduced That to be rid by lightning of his life Seemed blessing, whatsoever might ensue Hereafter to him in his next estate, Doubtless some sad metempsychosis due. Was he perhaps a kinsman near of Paul?" "Nay, kinsman none, save as all Jews are kin, Descended from the same forefather old," Said Sergius. "Then perhaps of some of those, Near kinsman," Krishna said, "women with men, Who watched with that long patience over him, And won him as from death to life with love?" "Nay, also not their kinsman," Sergius said, Pleasing himself with saying no more, to see How far the silence-loving Indian drawn By unaccustomed wonder still would seek. "Some reverend father of his people, then," Krishna adventured guessing, "whom, oppressed With undeserved calamity, they yet Honored themselves with honoring to the end?" "O nay, far otherwise than such, he was," Said Sergius, "vile, most vile by them esteemed, And crime committed or fomented still." "Then haply—not of purpose, but by chance"— Said Krishna, groping deeper in his dark, "That vile man yet, if even by wickedness, Had wrought some service to these kindly folk Which they would not without requital pass?" "Still from the mark," said Sergius, "thy surmise. That evil man no end of evil deed Instead had plotted and led on in guile Against these gentle people to their woe. Last, and but late, during this selfsame voyage Of theirs from Syria to Rome, on board That other vessel whence they came to us, He sought, with midnight bribe and treachery, To compass violent death for Paul, a man, As thou hast seen, beyond belief beloved, And for good cause, of all. That failing, he With perjury and well-supported fraud Of adamantine front and impudence, Charged upon Paul attempt to murder him." So Sergius Paulus, with some generous heat, He said no more and Krishna naught replied. After much vexing controversy vain With winds that varying ever blew adverse, They had made the roadstead of The Havens Fair. Here they dropped anchor, glad of peace and rest And leisure to consider of their way, Whether they still would forward stem despite The threats of winter, or there wait for spring. Krishna fell silent when those things he heard From Sergius Paulus; silent Krishna fell, But in his bosom shut deep musings up Whereof the first he, in due season brought To speech with Paul while they at anchor rode, Propounded with preamble soft and suave In words like these: "Much merit hast thou hope Doubtless, yea, and most justly, to have earned, Thou, and thy Hebrew fellow-voyagers, With all that ill-deservÉd kindness shown Him, thy base countryman, whom, thunderstruck, Fate hurried lately hence to other doom. A millstone burden bound about the neck Is karma such as his to weigh one down— Thou speakest; merit or demerit, what Accrues to one inseparable from himself, In part his earning, heritage in part, The harvest reapt of virtue or of vice— Aye, karma such as his was weighs one down In dying, to new life more dire than death. Hard-won a karma like thine own, but worth The winning though ten thousand times more hard!" Paul felt the Indian's gentleness and loved Him with great pity answering him: "I know Thy meaning, and I take the courtesy, While yet the praise I cannot, of thy words. My karma is not mine as won by me With either easy sleight or hard assay— The karma thou hast seemed in me to find: That was bestowed, and is from hour to hour With ever fresh bestowal still renewed. I had a karma once indeed my own, Much valued, wage it was of labor sore, But it grew hateful in my opened eyes And I despised it underneath my feet To be as dross rejected and abjured." Paul's sudden vehemence in recital seemed Less vehemence from recalling of long-past Strong spurning, than that spurning now renewed. Unmoved the Indian save to mild surprise Made answer: "Our lord Buddha teaches us Our karma is inalienably ours, The fatal fruit of what we do and are, No more to be divided from ourselves Than shadow from its substance in the sun. But, nay, that figure fails; our karma is Substantial and enduring more than we. We die, our karma lives; it shuffles off Us as outworn, and takes unto itself Forever other forms to fit its needs, Until the cycle is filled of change and change, And misery and existence cease together. Such karma is, the one substantial thing, And such are we, mere shadows of a day. Pray then explain to me how thou dost say Thou ridst thee of a karma once thine own; And how moreover thou canst add and say Thou tookst another karma, given, not won. I fain would understand the doctrine thine." With something of a sweet despondency Pathetically tingeing his good will, Paul on the gentle Indian gazed and said: "O brother, with all wish to meet thee fair, Yet know I that I cannot answer thee, Save as in parable and paradox Beyond thine understanding, yea, and mine." Paul so replied because his mind indeed Sank in a sense sincere of impotence; But partly too because he felt full well How all-accomplished in the skill of thought, How subtle, and how deep, the Indian was, As how by nature and by habit fond Of allegory and of mystery. He deemed that he should best his end attain Of feeding this inquiring spirit fine With the chief truth, by frankly staggering him, As the Lord staggered Nicodemus once, With that which in his doctrine was the highest And hardest to receive or understand, Set forth in terms of shadow to perplex, But also tempt to further curious quest. Merging the Indian's idiom in his own "That karma, erst so valued, I escaped How? by becoming other than I was. The old man died and a new man was born, With a new karma given him, of pure grace, A seamless robe of snow-white righteousness, Enduement from the hand of One that died To earn the right of so bestowing it. Raiment of filthy rags with pride I had worn Before, not knowing, painful patchwork pieced Upon me of such works of righteousness Mine own as cost me dear indeed, yet worth Nothing to hide my nakedness and shame. Now I am clad in Jesus' righteousness, A shining vesture, with nor seam nor stain." "Proud words, albeit not proudly spoken, thine," Said Krishna; "spotlessly enrobed art thou In righteousness and karma without flaw, Then thou hast reached the issue of The Way And art already for nirvÂna ripe: Gautama could not make a bolder claim When, conquering, he attained the Buddhaship. Yet meekly thou madest mention of pure grace, A paradox indeed, perplexing me, Such boldness mixed with such humility." "Yea," Paul said, "the humility it is That makes the boldness thou hast found in me; It were defect of right humility Not boldly to obey when Christ bids do. Christ bids me take His perfect righteousness; I can be humble but by taking it— Boldly? yea, or as if boldly, for here Humility and boldness twain are one." "To thee thy teacher Christ," said Krishna, "seems Something the same as Buddha is to me: Yet other, more; not teacher simply, Christ To thee, and master, setter forth of wise Instructions and commands obeying which Thou also now, as he once saved himself, Mayst thyself save through merit hardly earned. Thy Christ is will, not less than wisdom; power And help, as well as guidance in the way. Sovereign creator and imparter, he Which makes thee other than thou wast before, And therefore frees thee from the fatal yoke And bondage of the karma thou hadst won With labor when thou wast the former man: The words are easy, but the sense is hard." "Hard?" Paul said; "nay, outright impossible To any soul of man that still abides His old first natural self unchanged to new. Submit thyself unto the righteousness Of God, and thou the mystery shalt know With knowledge deeper than the mind's most deep Divinings of the things she cannot speak." "To fate, the universe, and necessity," Said Krishna, "I submit, because I must. But to submit because I will, to any thing, Much more to any one, that is, give up My will, which is my self, my very self, To be another's and no longer mine, Consent to be another person quite Than I have been, and am, and wish to be— This thou proposest to me, if I take Becoming what thou art by vital change From something different that thou wast before. I frankly tell thee I have not the power So to commute myself, had I the will." "'I cannot' is 'I will not' here," said Paul; "No power is needful of thine own save will: Will, and thou canst; God then in thee is power. Consider, it is only to submit." "I feel my inmost will in me disdain," Said Krishna, "this effacement of myself." "Yea, yea," said Paul, "it is the carnal mind In thee, the primal unregenerate self Ever in all at enmity with God, Which is not subject to the law of God, Neither indeed can be; to be, were death To that old self which must resist, to live: The carnal mind is enmity to God; When enmity to God ceases in one, Then ceases in that one the carnal mind, The original man with his self-righteousness His karma, if thou please, his good, his ill. He is no more, and all that appertains Forever; but there lives a second self By resurrection from that sepulcher— By fresh creation rather from the dead— A new regenerate man at one with God, For to the law of God agreed in will, Replaced the carnal with the spiritual mind, Warfare and death exchanged for life and peace." Into Paul's voice, he ceasing with those words, There slid a cadence as of reverie: He seemed to muse so deeply what he said That he less said than felt it; 'life' and 'peace,' So spoken, no mere sounds upon the tongue, Were audible pulses of the living heart. Invasion thence of power seized Krishna's soul, And, 'Life and peace!' he murmured, 'Life and peace!' But said aloud: "Strange union, peace with life! We look for peace only with death, last death, That death indeed beyond which nothing is, No further transmigration of the soul, No soul, no karma, all pure passionless Non-being; not a state, since state implies To do or suffer or at all to be: Absolute zero, such the Buddhist's peace." "'I am come,' Jesus said," so Paul replied, "'That ye might have life, more abundant life.' Life, life, deep stream and full, a river of God, Pours endless, boundless, from the heart of Christ; 'Ho, every one that thirsteth, drink,' said He, 'Lo, drink and live with mine eternal life.'" "I fear fallacious promises of good," Sighed Krishna; "life were good indeed with peace. But me, I hope not any good save flight, Save flight and refuge inaccessible From persecuting and pursuing ill. Being is misery; I would cease to be; No hope have I, and no desire, but that. Hope is for children; I am not a child To chase the ends of rainbows, seeking gold: There is no hope that does not make ashamed. I dare not hope, eagerly, even for death, Lest that likewise elude my clutch at last. Despair no less I shun; despair is naught But hope turned bitter and sour, postponed too long. From every passion that can shake my calm. Calm is my good, and perfect calm is death, Therefore I wait for death with death-like calm. Thou wouldst disturb the calm with hope of life, Fair, but fallacious; let me alone to die." With soft pathetic deprecation so Krishna, in form of words, half faltering, begged From Paul no more, yet added: "I would hear Something of what he was, thy master; what He did as well as taught; and whence he came, And when, and where, and how; and how he lived And died, having achieved his Buddhaship." "For me," Paul said, "I never truly knew My Master while He lived among us here, Almighty God incarnate in the form Of servant—glory and blessing to His name!— Though after He in triumph from the dead Rose, and ascended far above all height Into the heaven of heavens to be with God— Whence he had stooped the dreadful distance down To His humiliation among men— Then He revealed Himself in power to me, And knew Him for co-equal Son of God. But thou, besides that in this power and glory No man may see Him save He show Himself, Wouldst wish a picture of the life He lived, The manner of man He was, while still on earth, The death He died, and how He died His death. There is one here among us well can draw The living picture thou wouldst look upon, For she was with Him when He walked the ways Of Galilee and Jewry doing good; She saw Him suffer when by wicked hands His blindfold yet more wicked countrymen— Alas, among them I!—put Him to death. With early morning at His sepulcher, His emptied sepulcher, she weeping stood And saw—but what she saw and all her tale Of Jesus as she knew and loved Him here, Is Mary MagdalenÉ's right herself With her own lips and is her joy, to tell." "Lord Buddha would not let a woman teach," Indulging so much of recoil concealed As might consist with utmost courtesy "And Mary MagdalenÉ will not teach, But only in simplicity with truth Bear testimony of eye-witness how Immanuel Jesus lived His life on earth." While thus they talked a movement on the deck, Words of command and bustle to obey, Betokened that the purpose was to leave The sheltered anchorage of The Havens Fair And tempt the dangers of the winter deep. Paul saw it and suddenly broke off discourse With Krishna, saying to him: "They err in this; Surely we here should winter. Let me speak A moment with the master of the ship." Krishna with such surprise as disapproved Dimly in his immobile features shown, Watched while this intermeddling strange went on; Strange intermeddling ventured, strangely borne, Captive to captor bringing advice unsought; For Paul to the centurion also turned When now the master and the owner both Agreed against him; but that Roman chose Likewise his part with them to sail away.
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