  Publius, the governor of the island, who in gratitude to Paul for the healing of his father has opened his house to the Christians for their meetings, now expresses, through Sergius Paulus, his guest, a wish to hear himself the story that Mary MagdalenÉ is relating. The company accordingly assemble in his house, and Publius is in courtesy asked to act as a kind of master of the feast. He accepts the part, and discharges it with much urbane demonstrativeness. Interrupting Mary at one point of her story with exclamations of surprise and pleasure, he proposes to Krishna that he offset what has just been told with something parallel from the life of his master Buddha. Krishna reluctantly complies, when, after some comment following from Paul, Mary resumes her narrative. INTERLUDE OF KRISHNA. For many following days in Melita There was no season of hospitality To man from Nature under open sky, Genial for ease and comfort out of doors. But the fair spacious halls of Publius Stood smiling ever ready to entertain Resort of Paul or any dear to Paul Whether for social worship in prayer and psalm, With hearing of Paul discourse of things divine, Or for communion sweet of friend and friend. Here presently were gathered yet again The company that had with one accord Already twice assembled to give ear To Mary MagdalenÉ while she told Her story still unfinished of the Lord. Publius, as Roman to his Roman peer— And Roman peer so versed in all the arts And all the accomplishments urbane that make Amenity in companionship—had said To Sergius Paulus (likewise, for his sake, And be content, abide with me a guest." Now Sergius had to Publius rehearsed The things that Mary those two afternoons Recounted, and the Roman lord would fain Hear from her lips the rest. So he was there— Guest in a sort, while host, at his own hearth— And Sergius Paulus said: "O Publius, thou— Most welcome, as thou makest us welcome here— Shalt, so it please thee, us all it will please, Be the feast-master in the present feast Of story and of audience. Krishna here"— And courteous toward the Indian Sergius bowed— "Has also a story to tell us of his lord. Whether with alternation and relief Between our two historians, or in course, Till one have finished, be the order best, Judge thou for all, and all will grateful be." "Let Mary MagdalenÉ then go on," Said Publius, "if she will, from where she ceased At the last audience;" and he turned to her With, "Sergius has most kindly made me know So far thy story, madam, with the rest And with the peace of Krishna and of all, I will upon occasion interrupt— For haply the occasion may arise— To ask what contrast or what parallel To this or that of Jesus, Buddha yields." So Mary, with some heightened flush like shame To speak in this new place and presence, yet Sedately like herself and with a charm Already round her ambient from the pure, The perfect, the accomplished womanhood That hers was, purged of self, charm by all felt At once ere her beginning, thus began: "I think that I was saying, as my words I stayed at our last gathering on the shore, How little like a tragedy so nigh It looked to us, when we beheld the throngs Strewing Christ's way before him with their robes Flung down, and with green branches of the palm, And shouting their hosannas to His name. But Jesus was not blinded as were we! He, on the brink of the descent arrived Steep from the Mount of Olives leading down, Of splendor from the temple roofs and walls, And, far removed from glorying at the sight As king might welcomed to his capital, Wept over it, with much-amazing tears, And cried: 'Hadst thou but known, but known, even thou, Yea, even in this thy day but known the things That to thy peace belong! But they are hid Now from thine eyes. For days will come on thee—' And then such dreadful days he told us of— Days which our holy apostles think are nigh, Whence their 'Maranatha!' so often heard, Reminder watchword of the Lord at hand, They solemnly adjuring by the days Reserved for our Jerusalem, a wrath To come upon her to the uttermost Then when He, with the angels of His power, And as the lightning shineth suddenly Ablaze from one end to the other of heaven, Shall back return in clouds to execute His judgment on the city that slew Him!" And Mary with a loyal look toward him Of honor for his kindly courtesy That day and ever bountiful to them— Look too betokening welcome of his return To share the audience of her tale again Late interrupted by that message brought Seeming to be of sinister import— Mary, with such a meaning so conveyed, Paused, while the friendly Roman plied his quest: "But wherefore did Jerusalem desire To slay one innocent of crime like him? Some reason of state I dared to guess there was, But what the reason of state, thou didst not tell," Turning to Paul he said, and Paul replied: "The Jewish rulers of the people said: 'This Jesus, if we let him thus alone, Will draw all men to follow after him; The Romans then will come and take away Alike this city which belongs to us, Yea, and the nation over which we rule.' The rescued remnant of authority Wielded by the chief priests and Pharisees Over our nation under Roman sway, To forfeit if the fame of Jesus grew." "And grow it did surpassing even their fears," Mary resumed, at silent sign from Paul; "For but a little while before, and nigh Jerusalem, a height of miracle Jesus had wrought. One four days dead, nay, one Already four days in his sepulcher, Our Lord, with only 'Lazarus, come forth!'— Commanded in loud voice before the tomb— Summoned to life again. The dead came forth Bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his head Bound with a napkin round about—no pause, Not of an instant, in obeying that word, Prevention none felt from impediment. Abrupt descent then from such miracle To the plain level of sobering commonplace. For he whom Jesus from the dead could call To leave his tomb, to stand upright, to walk, Unconscious of obstruction, swathed about With grave-clothes though he was, must be released By others from his bonds; the Master said While Mary told these things, a sense diffused Of something felt by all the Christians there, Felt, but acknowledged not in word or sign, Signalled itself despite to all the rest; And through a kind of dumb intelligence It came that Publius, Julius, and that deep Discerning Indian, Krishna, with one mind To all, unspoken, fixed inquiring gaze On Rachel and on Stephen, who their hands Meantime had silently, unconsciously, With simultaneous mutual movement clasped, As if in token of some memory Which they that moment felt between them rise, Some sacred memory, some undying love. Then Mary, with the happy instinct hers Of what was fitting to be said, and when, And what more fitting to be left unsaid, And how to say all, or how silent be, Assuming, with a look of deference First toward the twain, their present leave to speak— Granted to her as so much trusted in Said, with a certain courtesy implied For Publius as the master of the feast, And for the others needing to be told: "That Lazarus, raised by Jesus from the dead, Is to the Christians of this company A name the dearer that to two of us He is the dearest memory of their lives. For after he had risen from the dead At Jesus' call he lived his human life As he before had done, till in due time A husband and a father he became. But Rachel lives in honored widowhood, As, with her, half in orphanhood lives Stephen, Because he after fell asleep in Christ To be waked only when Christ comes again." A tender pause succeeded, which all filled With solemn, some with wondering, thought; and then, Tempered, beyond his will or consciousness, To a contagious mood of sympathy, Publius most gently as feast-master spoke: "The height of miracle well calledst thou For greater wonder were not possible. To see it, as thou sawest it, was a gift Indeed from the supernal powers; next is, To have it in report of one who saw it; And then, for attestation of thy word, Where attestation surely need was none Yet serving for attestation, to behold Here those who knew the dead man raised to life As husband and as father—all makes seem The story like reality itself. "And now," to Krishna turning, Publius said: "O Krishna, pray from thee a parallel. What comparable wonder wilt thou show That thou hast seen thy master Buddha work?" The countenance fell to Krishna hearing this, But quickly himself recovering he replied "I am not able out of all I know Concerning Buddha aught this day to tell As one that saw and heard; I never saw, I never heard, lord Buddha act or speak." "Then from report that some eye-witness gave Thee, speak and tell us what thou wilt, and we A little from his lively hope, but fain To ease the discomposure of his guest. But Krishna, in no wise more cheerful, said: "Nor from eye-witness have I aught received That my lord Buddha either said or did: He lived and passed five hundred years ago." "But doubtless some memorials," Publius said, "Were written by eye-witnesses of him, While he still lived, or close upon his death, To keep so dear a memory alive And certify it to all aftertime. So, out of such memorials known to thee, Fresh still, though old five hundred years, because Then written when the images were fresh, Imprinted on the writer's mind of things He either saw or heard himself from Buddha— Strange virtue has eye-witness testimony In simultaneous records of the time To stay, though old, perennially young— I say, then, out of such memorials stored And treasured up in mind to thee speak thou, And it shall be to us as if thou hadst seen." Publius, with all sincerity of aim To hearten Krishna and make most the worth Of that which he, although eye-witness not, Nor yet reporter from eye-witness known, Should proffer to that hospitality Of audience touching his dear master Buddh, Had unawares confused him more and more. For the first time the Indian felt give way A little, melting underneath his feet, His standing-ground of settled certitude: 'Was it all quicksand? Nothing there of rock?' But he made answer: "O my courteous host, All is uncertain, for tradition all, Concerning times, and order of events. Indeed, we Indians care not for these things, But trust full easily, or, not trusting, yet Rest as if trusting, in much unconcern Whether that which we learn be wholly true, Or partly not; and yet I have heard it said That, close upon the passing of the Buddh, A council of five hundred faithful met Who said together in accord complete— No sentence varying, nay, no syllable— The mighty mass of all the Exalted One's Nor again afterward an hundred years, When such rehearsal came a second time. So, truth to say, where all is doubt—for me, I fear there was, for half five hundred years After he died, no record in writing made Of what our master Buddha wrought and taught. Save for those synods of rehearsal met, That precious memory lived precariously, As himself lived, the master, vagabond And mendicant from loyal mouth to mouth. But such tradition was too vital to die; Compact of only vocal breath, it still Persisted and would still for aye persist Though never at all in written record sheathed. "But the fourth part of a millennium After lord Buddha died, a synod sat Of his discreet disciples, who decreed That then at least a record should be framed In writing of the master's deeds and words." "Most fit," said Publius, who to complaisance, His impulse and his habit, now adjoined A certain willingness not unamiable As host and as symposiarch, and make cheer All that he could for Krishna; "aye, most fit; And doubtless they were men, that synod, famed For wisdom and for virtue; name them thou, Or at least some, the chief, that we may here Honor them for their worth." But Krishna said (For, by some sense of disadvantage stung, He took reprisals of his gentle sort): "What if I could not name them? What if they, Concerned less to survive themselves in fame, Mere empty wraiths of sound to mortal ears In futile issues of dissolving breath, Repeated echoes of unmeaning names— What if, I say, concerned less so to be Vainly themselves remembered for a day Than to keep living for the use of men The saving truths their master Buddha taught, Those saints and sages of the elder time Let themselves perish quite from human thought?" But Publius interposed, insisting, fain To show some ground of reason in his mind, Why he desired to know those ancient names. "Yet were it some support," he said, "to faith In those same saving truths as truly saved Themselves for men, after so long a term Of vagabondage (to take up thy word), Of vagabondage and of mendicancy— The fourth part of a thousand years consumed In flying forward hither from mouth to mouth—" So far, uncertain of his way, he groped; Bethinking then himself of one more chance, That might be, of the proof he sought, he said: "And still, O Krishna, if those nameless ones, Deserving well to be not nameless, nay, Of far-renownÉd name; nor less, but more, Deserving that they waived their own desert; If these—nobly not mindful whether they Remembered or forgotten were of men, Yet heedful not to let the coming time Fail of the truth that they themselves had found So dear, or dwell in any needless doubt Of its just phrase—committed at the last The task of fixing it in written form To some illustrious man who would consent Obscure, unknown to aftertime, and lend The great weight of his name to the result, For satisfaction to inquiring souls— Why, that were much, indeed perhaps enough, And I before required beyond my right." Demand upon demand sincerely so Urged by the genial host upon his guest As if urbane concessions granted him, Involved the patient Indian more and more. Pressed beyond even his measure now at length, He brooked no longer to allow the toils To multiply about him which he felt Were fast entangling him to helplessness. He boldly spoke to disengage himself: "We of the East, O Publius, are not such As you are of the West. We do not count The years as you do, fixing fast our dates. We live content a kind of timeless life That moves continuous on from age to age Unreckoned. Countless generations come And go, and come and go, like forest leaves From year to year, and no one takes account As these, are ever to each other like, Harvest and harvest endlessly the same. What profit were there in a history, What history indeed were possible, Of either leaves or men? Let leaves and men Together to oblivion go; be sure There will not fail to follow leaves and men To fill the places never vacant left. "But then we Easterns are yet otherwise Different from you; for we remember more. Because we do not write our records down, We all the better keep them safe in mind. Doubtless we mix them much with fantasy: We are not nice to draw a certain line Between what we remember and what dream. All is as dream to us, for we ourselves Are dream, and oft imagination wakes Where memory sleeps; but, so the form be full, Somehow, somewhence, it matters naught to us Whether from fact it be, remembered right, Or half from fancy fitted to the fact. Exemplar of the human possible. We cannot dream him fairer than he is, Or was—for he perhaps is not—and so We fling the rein down on our fancy's neck And let her freely take her own wise way. "I will not warrant you the truth of it, That is, the insignificant truth of fact, Mere fact, but if the deeper truth of fit And fair will answer you, I can relate The story of one miracle of Buddh, The sole one of the Sutta Pitaka, That chiefest treasure of our sacred texts. This, though to raising of the dead no match, Yet, to my mind, is meet and memorable, For that therewith a lovely word is joined Of tuneful teaching from the master's lips." "Let us have both, the wonder and the word," Said Publius, and the Indian thus complied: "'The BlessÉd to the sacred Ganges came And found the stream an overflowing flood. The others looked for boats and rafts to cross, Or else wove wicker into basket floats; Would stretch his arm, or his arm being stretched Would bring it back, so quickly at his wish, Had changed the hither for the thither side. There standing, he the wicker-weavers saw, And thus broke forth in parable and song: They who traverse the ocean of desire, Building themselves a causeway firm and good Across the quaking quagmires, quicksands, pools, Of ignorance, of delusion, and of lust, Whilst the vain world its wicker baskets weaves— These are the wise, and these the saved indeed.'" A pang of suffering love and loving ruth, For Buddha himself, long quit of earthly strife, But more for Buddha's disciple present there, Shot through the heart of Paul hearing these things. He sighed in spirit heavily, but said, When Publius seemed to seek a word from him: "If I have taken the Buddha's sense aright, Who find a means of ceasing from desire And entering into passionless repose, A state from death itself scarce different. Contrariwise taught Jesus: 'BlessÉd they That hunger and that thirst;' that fan desire To all-consuming flame of appetite— But it must be for righteousness they pant. Not from desire, but from impure desire, To cease—that is salvation; and we best Cease from impure desire when we to flame The whitest fan desire for all things true, For all things honorable, and all things just, For all things pure, and all things lovely, all Of good report, and worthy human praise. Passion for these things, being pure passion, burns The impure passion out: but passion such Is kindled only at the altar fire Of the eternal God's white holiness. "No God find I in all the Buddha's thought— A ghastly gap of void and nothingness, O Krishna, to the orphaned human heart That aches with longing and with loneliness, And, 'O, that I might find Him!' ceaseless cries In yearnings that will not be pacified, Fatherless in a dreadful universe! I would thy Buddha had felt after God, And haply found Him, or been found of Him! I wonder if, not knowing it, he did! Sadly I wonder when of this I think, That he who comes to God mu st needs believe God is, and a rewarder is of such As diligently seek Him—such alone. But may one seek God unawares? With hope I wonder, when I think again of Him, The Light that lighteth every soul of man That anywhere is born into the world. O Christ, Thou Brightness of the Father's glory, Immanuel, God with us, the Son of Man, The Son of God, God Himself manifest On earth to us, Redeemer, Brother, Lord!" The strain of such ascription bursting forth Unbidden, and unboundedly intense In tone, from the great heart of Paul surcharged With passion of devotion to his Lord To save men, wrought in all who heard an awe Of immanent God. But Krishna to the quick Was touched with tenderness toward Paul to hear Paul's tenderness toward Buddha, far removed Although it were from reverence like his own. To Publius there seemed no fitting thing For modulation to the mood from Paul, Save to let Mary now resume the word. She said: "After the raising from the dead Of Lazarus, we disciples of the Lord Ought not to have been astonished or dismayed At anything that in His wisdom He, His wisdom and His power, might either do Or suffer to be done. But we were blind, And it did seem to us so violent, So opposite to all that should have been, When He, that Lord of life and glory, let The soldiers take him prisoner. At first Indeed, when He stood forth and said to them, 'Whom seek ye?' and they, ignorant, said to Him, 'Jesus of Nazareth,' and thereupon He answered, 'I am he,' they, at that word Than they could bear to hear and stand upright, Went backward and fell prostrate on the ground. This, as I think, was not so much against Those who thus suffered as for us who saw— To reassure our faith that naught then done Was done without His sovereign sufferance, who Such things could, then even, and so easily, work. "But I have told now what I did not see, For it was midnight when this came to pass— Deep in the garden of Gethsemane, A little paradise of olive trees Where oft the Master loved to be retired; A few disciples only were with Him there, His chosen apostles; and not all of these, For one of them a little while before Had gone out from among them—well foreknown By Jesus wherefore, it was to betray His Lord and Master to His enemies! Judas, the name of this one was, and he Had given it for a sign to those that sought To lay hands on our Master, 'Whomsoever I kiss, that same is He; make sure of Him.' Came up to Jesus with his proffered kiss Of salutation; but the Lord would not Receive it, till He had first made known to all His understanding of its treachery: 'Judas,' He said, 'betrayest thou with a kiss The Son of Man?' When Judas had his sign Given, he fell back among the band he had brought. Then was it that the Lord asked them, not yet Enough assured or haply stunned with fear, 'Whom seek ye?' and declared Himself to them. So Judas was of those who prostrate fell Recoiled before the glory of the Lord Flashing in sudden glimpse from out the shame Like lightning disimprisoned from a cloud— Foretasted retribution of his crime! Thus much not as eye-witness I relate, But having heard it from eye-witnesses So many and so close upon the time That half it seems as if myself had seen it. "I saw when, with the breaking of the dawn, After a night to Jesus of such strain And pain in agony and bloody sweat, And disappointment in his hopes from friends, And dreadful bodings of the doom so nigh, And being rudely hustled to and fro Between one jurisdiction and another, Everywhere treated with all contumely Both of accusing and reviling word And of gross act in blasphemous affront To the image of God in man—were He but man!— But He being God, conceive the blasphemy Of spitting in that heavenly human face Divine, and smiting Him in mockery, Blindfolded not to see whence came the blow, Then bidden prophesy, 'Who struck thee, Christ?' (The very slaves there smote Him with their hands)— I say that after such a night to Him Who condescended to be human, God Although He was, and felt all human woe, I saw when, morning having broken, they Led Jesus last to Pilate in his hall. There He stood lamblike, so pathetical In His meek majesty I could have wept For heart-break in sheer pity of His state, But that the fountain was dried up in me In anguish that fed on my soul like fire." The anguish whereof Mary spoke that fed So like an inward fire upon her soul, Seemed to surge back on her in memory; And it was after strong recoil subdued That she resumed to say: "Ye will not ask That I tell all again, how shame on shame Was wreaked upon my Lord, until no more Was possible from men. Pilate himself (Now Pilate was the Roman governor) Pilate himself, I think, was moved to pity, Though, paltering, he with cruel weakness bade Scourge that sweet human
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