Chita

“ We are nearing Chita; the husband of the lady to whom I gave my place has arrived to meet her and take her home. He is an engineer. They are deeply engaged 7in discussing local politics. The husband talks of a coming strike, and tells me that if I wish to see political meetings I had better stay in Chita. There are meetings every evening; some of them are dispersed by the police. I now realise the importance of flowers in this country; it is “a land of sand and ruin and gold.” The young clerk has produced two perforated bouquetholders (is there such a word?) ”

“ But Feliu, answering her anxiety with one of his favorite proverbs, suggested a heroic remedy:—
—"The world is like the sea: those who do not know how to swim in it are drowned;—and the sea is like the world," he added.... "Chita must learn to swim!"
And he found the time to teach her. Each morning, at sunrise, he took her into the water. She was less terrified the first time than Carmen thought she would be;—she seemed to feel confidence in Feliu ”

“ Take her and do what you will with her, put spells upon her or what you like, but if you injure one hair of her head I will have you choked with a wedge of raw puraka and I will cast your body to the sharks, Le Juan.”
“As you please,” said the old woman; “I will do what I can.”
She did.
She christened Chita, Katafa, or the “Frigate Bird,” a creature associated with wanderings and great distances, and then gradually and year by year she isolated Katafa from the tribe, absolutely and in all but speech. ”

“ So while 'Chita is stepping on the gas button and handing out a swell line of sympathy I begins to hint that there's one particular reason why I hated to leave El Placida. Oh, we'd played around some before that. Strictly off stage stuff, though; a little mandolin practice in the moonlight, a few fox trot lessons, and so on. But before the old man I'd let on to be skirt shy. It went big with him, I noticed. But there in the car I decides that the only way to keep in touch with the family check book is to make a quick bid for 'Chita. ”

“ His blood lust was satiated and the gods had spoken, at least so it seemed to Uta Matu, and when Laminai got on his feet again and tried to seize his prey he received a clip on the side of the head from the old man’s right fist, strong to save as to kill.
But the chief had reckoned without Le Juan. The sight of the rescued Chita filled the priestess of Nanawa with the most dismal forebodings. It was a girl-child, belonging to the murdered papalagi whose spirits, through it, would surely find revenge. Le Juan, despite her devotion to sorcery or maybe because of it, was a very clever woman. ”

“ Now, how can you isolate human beings from their fellows so that whilst living, talking, eating and moving amongst them they are as much apart as though ringed round with a barrier of steel? It seems impossible, but it was not impossible to Le Juan. She imposed upon Chita the rarest of all the forms of tabu, taminan. There were men and women on Karolin tabued from touching the skin of a shark, from eating certain forms of shell-fish, and so forth, and so on, but the terrible tabu of taminan debarred its victims from touching any human creature or being touched. ”

“ The body of Zorogoff was not buried in Chita. The second day after his death, there appeared in the city, 295from down Urga way, a lama from Outer Mongolia with frosty whiskers, a pinnacle cap and a greatcoat of fine fur with sleeves which reached to the ground. He came with a retinue mounted on camels, and the leading man held aloft a small purple banner which caused many men to submit their necks when they saw it pass. ”

“ And his men, Miguel and Mateo, were at the other end of the cheniere.
With a scream Carmen aroused Feliu. He raised himself upon his elbow, rubbed his eyes, and asked her, with exasperating calmness, "Que tienes? que tienes?" (What ails thee?)
—"Oh, Feliu! the sea is coming upon us!" she answered, in the same tongue. But she screamed out a word inspired by her fear: she did not cry, "Se nos viene el mar encima!" but "Se nos viene LA ALTURA!"—the name that conveys the terrible thought of depth swallowed up in height,—the height of the high sea. ”

“ The word all at once bursts from Feliu's mouth, with that peculiar guttural snarl of the "r" betokening strong excitement,—while he points to something rocking in the ebb, beyond the foaming of the shell-reef, under a circling of gulls. More dead? Yes—but something too that lives and moves, like a quivering speck of gold; and Mateo also perceives it, a gleam of bright hair,—and Miguel likewise, after a moment's gazing. A living child;—a lifeless mother. Pobrecita! No boat within reach, and only a mighty surf-wrestler could hope to swim thither and return! ”

“ Arjuna Yes, it is Chitra. I wonder in fulfilment of what vow she has gone on her pilgrimage. Of what could she stand in need? Chitra Her needs? Why, what has she ever had, the unfortunate creature? Her very qualities are as prison walls, shutting her woman's heart in a bare cell. She is obscured, she is unfulfilled. Her womanly love must content itself dressed in rags; beauty is denied her. She is like the spirit of a cheerless morning, sitting upon the stony mountain peak, all her light blotted out by dark clouds. Do not ask me of her life. It will never sound sweet to man's ear. ”

“ The railway-station you would understand in one word—money. But Shiba, the wondrous, the beautiful—no money was there, nor anything but silence and awe. Grim and ancient vaults of cryptomeria, shrines whose charms of color and form intoxicate one's eyes, tombs of Japan's ancient rulers by the sword, the shoguns, temples where art has lavished itself like libations to the gods of the place, and over all the dead silence which awes one into littleness, and somehow befits the worship of Buddha, Prince of Heaven. And here too was Kito, unhallowed, unbeautiful, like a shade, haunting the beauty. ”

“ On the Gulf side of these islands you may observe that the trees—when there are any trees—all bend away from the sea; and, even of bright, hot days when the wind sleeps, there is something grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group of oaks at Grande Isle I remember as especially suggestive: five stooping silhouettes in line against the horizon, like fleeing women with streaming garments and wind-blown hair,—bowing grievously and thrusting out arms desperately northward as to save themselves from falling. ”

“ As I have suggested, there is very little that can rationally be said about this play Chitra. To indicate something of the nature of so perfect a work is the sole office that I can profitably perform.
Chitra, daughter of a King who had no sons, was brought up to live the life and perform the activities of a man, with a man’s hardness of frame and a man’s directness of will. One day while hunting in the forest, she found sleeping in her path Arjuna, the great warrior of the Kuru Clan. “Then for the first time in my life I felt myself a woman, and knew that a man was before me....” ”

“ The gift that I proudly bring you is the heart of a woman. Here have all pains and joys gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a daughter of the dust; here love springs up struggling toward immortal life. Herein lies an imperfection which yet is noble and grand. If the flower-service is finished, my master, accept this as your servant for the days to come! I am Chitra, the king's daughter. Perhaps you will remember the day when a woman came to you in the temple of Shiva, her body loaded with ornaments and finery. That shameless woman came to court you as though she were a man. ”

“ A man's chiton seldom came below his knees, but the wearer could always regulate the length, and workmen and all those engaged in active occupations were generally well-girded, that is, they pulled up the chiton, so that it was short, with part of it hanging over the girdle. Older men usually allowed the chiton to hang to its full length.
In the house, the chiton was the only garment required, and workmen and all young men engaged in active pursuits seldom wore anything else out of doors, but out of the house, the older men generally added a mantle known as the himation. ”

“ But you have dissolved my vow even as the moon dissolves the night’s vow of obscurity.
Chitra
Oh, shame upon you! What have you seen in me that makes you false to yourself? Whom do you seek in these dark eyes, in these milk-white arms, if you are ready to pay for her the price of your probity? Not my true self, I know. Surely this cannot be love, this is not man’s highest homage to woman! Alas, that this frail disguise, the body, should make one blind to the light of the deathless spirit! Yes, now indeed, I know, Arjuna, the fame of your heroic manhood is false. ”

“ Chitra What more is there to tell? Arjuna I seem to see her, in my mind's eye, riding on a white horse, proudly holding the reins in her left hand, and in her right a bow, and like the Goddess of Victory dispensing glad hope all round her. Like a watchful lioness she protects the litter at her dugs with a fierce love. Woman's arms, though adorned with naught but unfettered strength, are beautiful! My heart is restless, fair one, like a serpent reviving from his long winter's sleep. ”

“ Enter CHITRA. Chitra Why are you sitting all alone? Arjuna I am trying to imagine what kind of woman Princess Chitra may be. I hear so many stories of her from all sorts of men. Chitra Ah, but she is not beautiful. She has no such lovely eyes as mine, dark as death. She can pierce any target she will, but not our hero's heart. Arjuna They say that in valour she is a man, and a woman in tenderness. Chitra That, indeed, is her greatest misfortune. When a woman is merely a woman; when she winds herself round and round men's hearts with her smiles and sobs and services and caressing endearments ”

“ The chiton, χιτών, was formed by sewing together at the sides two pieces of linen, or a double piece folded together, leaving spaces at the top for the arms and neck, and fastening the top edges together over the shoulders and upper arm with buttons or brooches; more rarely we find a plain sleeveless chiton. The length of the garment varied considerably. The χιτωνίσκος, worn in active exercise, as by the so-called “Atalanta” of the Vatican, or the well-known Amazon statues (Greek Art, fig. 40) , reached only to the knee ”

“ The unaccustomed dress clung about my shrinking shame; but I hastened on my quest, and found Arjuna in the forest temple of Shiva. Madana Tell me the story to the end. I am the heart-born god, and I understand the mystery of these impulses. Chitra Only vaguely can I remember what things I said, and what answer I got. Do not ask me to tell you all. Shame fell on me like a thunderbolt, yet could not break me to pieces, so utterly hard, so like a man am I. His last words as I walked home pricked my ears like red hot needles. "I have taken the vow of celibacy. I am not fit to be thy husband!" ”

“ Of what use to her are learning and great achievements? Could you have seen her only yesterday in the court of the Lord Shiva's temple by the forest path, you would have passed by without deigning to look at her. But have you grown so weary of woman's beauty that you seek in her for a man's strength? With green leaves wet from the spray of the foaming waterfall, I have made our noonday bed in a cavern dark as night. There the cool of the soft green mosses thick on the black and dripping stone, kisses your eyes to sleep. Let me guide you thither. Arjuna Not today, beloved. Chitra Why not today? ”

“ Madana I know, that is why thy father brings thee up as his son. He has taught thee the use of the bow and all the duties of a king. Chitra Yes, that is why I am dressed in man's attire and have left the seclusion of a woman's chamber. I know no feminine wiles for winning hearts. My hands are strong to bend the bow, but I have never learnt Cupid's archery, the play of eyes. Madana That requires no schooling, fair one. The eye does its work untaught, and he knows how well, who is struck in the heart. Chitra One day in search of game I roved alone to the forest on the bank of the Purna river. ”

“ Then by the boon of gods I obtained for a year the most radiant form that a mortal ever wore, and wearied my hero's heart with the burden of that deceit. Most surely I am not that woman. I am Chitra. No goddess to be worshipped, nor yet the object of common pity to be brushed aside like a moth with indifference. If you deign to keep me by your side in the path of danger and daring, if you allow me to share the great duties of your life, then you will know my true self. ”

“ These excitable and impressionable people of the Hindu Kush spring to arms under little provocation when once the spirit of fighting is abroad. News of what was occurring in Chitral would rapidly reach them, and in every house and hamlet little else would be spoken of. Unless, therefore, the British officers in contact with them could steady them by their influence, there would be a great risk that, thoughtlessly, and rashly, they might rise against us as the Chitralis had done. ”

“ The short chiton seems to be the usual dress of daily life; it was especially worn when free movement was required, and was therefore the suitable garment for war or hunting, for gymnastic exercises or manual labour. The long chiton, which was afterwards regarded as especially Ionic, and certainly maintained itself longer in Ionia and in Attica than in the rest of Greece, was not, however, unknown to the Doric races. It was the usual dress for men of advanced age and good position ”