The Mahatma and the Hare | Page 8

one of them. But I see and know. Of course you who
read will say that this is but a dream of mine, and it may be. Still, if so,
it is a very wonderful dream, and except for the change of the passing
people, or rather of those who have been people, always very much the
same.
There, straight as the way of the Spirit and broad as the breast of Death,
is the Great White Road running I know not whence, up to those Gates
that gleam like moonlight and are higher than the Alps. There beyond
the Gates the radiant Presences move mysteriously. Thence at the
appointed time the Voice cries and they are opened with a sound like to
that of deepest thunder, or sometimes are burned away, while from the
Glory that lies beyond flow the sweet-faced welcomers to greet those
for whom they wait, bearing the cups from which they give to drink. I
do not know what is in the cups, whether it be a draught of Lethe or
some baptismal water of new birth, or both; but always the thirsting,
world-worn soul appears to change, and then as it were to be lost in the
Presence that gave the cup. At least they are lost to my sight. I see them
no more.
Why do I watch those Gates, in truth or in dream, before my time? Oh!
You can guess. That perchance I may behold those for whom my heart
burns with a quenchless, eating fire. And once I beheld--not the mother
but the child, my child, changed indeed, mysterious, wonderful,
gleaming like a star, with eyes so deep that in their depths my humanity
seemed to swoon.
She came forward; she knew me; she smiled and laid her finger on her
lips. She shook her hair about her and in it vanished as in a cloud. Yet
as she vanished a voice spoke in my heart, her voice, and the words it
said were--

"Wait, our Beloved! Wait!"
Mark well. "Our Beloved," not "My Beloved." So there are others by
whom I am beloved, or at least one other, and I know well who that one
must be.
*****
After this dream, perhaps I had better call it a dream, I was ill for a long
while, for the joy and the glory of it overpowered me and brought me
near to the death I had always sought. But I recovered, for my hour is
not yet. Moreover, for a long while as we reckon time, some years
indeed, I obeyed the injunction and sought the Great White Road no
more. At length the longing grew too strong for me and I returned
thither, but never again did the vision come. Its word was spoken, its
mission was fulfilled. Yet from time to time I, a mortal, seem to stand
upon the borders of that immortal Road and watch the newly dead who
travel it towards the glorious Gates.
Once or twice there have been among them people whom I have known.
As these pass me I appear to have the power of looking into their hearts,
and there I read strange things. Sometimes they are beautiful things and
sometimes ugly things. Thus I have learned that those I thought bad
were really good in the main, for who can claim to be quite good? And
on the other hand that those I believed to be as honest as the day --well,
had their faults.
To take an example which I quote because it is so absurd. The rooms I
live in were owned by a prim old woman who for more than twenty
years was my landlady. She and I were great friends, indeed she tended
me like a mother, and when I was so ill nursed me as perhaps few
mothers would have done. Yet while I was watching on the Road
suddenly she came by, and with horror I saw that during all those years
she had been robbing me, taking, I am sorry to say, many things, in
money, trinkets, and food. Often I had discussed with her where these
articles could possibly have gone, till finally suspicion settled upon the
man who cleaned the windows. Yes, and worst of all, he was
prosecuted, and I gave evidence against him, or rather strengthened her
evidence, on faith of which the magistrate sent him to prison for a
month.
"Oh! Mrs Smithers," I said to her, "how /could/ you do it, Mrs.
Smithers?"

She stopped and looked about her terrified, so that my heart smote me
and I added in haste, "Don't be frightened, Mrs. Smithers; I forgive
you."
"I can't see you, sir," she exclaimed, or so I dreamed, "but there! I
always knew you would."
"Yes, Mrs.