Steven Millhauser - Voices in the Night - Stories

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Gautama’s Tale. When the servant leaves, Gautama sits cross-legged on a rice mat and, thanking his friend warmly for the delights of the Sorrowful Enclosure, tells his tale. He recognized Chanda’s ingenuity everywhere: the stone trees with their black leaves, the globed lanterns hanging like small moons, the elegant boat-swan, the women disposed in pleasing arrangements of grief. And his heart was stirred, not only by his friend’s thoughtfulness but by the women themselves. It seemed to him that they were playing a part, which pleased him as a lover of theatrical performances, but he soon sensed that the attitudes of grief had released in them a genuine sorrow that lay buried in their hearts. He, a man bearing within him his own darkness, spoke to them of life’s perplexities, of the shadows born of sunlight. The result was curious: tears that had been artful soon changed to passionate tears, which flowed along cheeks and dampened the translucent silk that clung to young breasts so perfectly formed that they appeared to be the work of a master sculptor. He passed from girl to girl, until the pavilion was a great hall of woe, a musical composition of sobs and moans. The tears he was able to evoke he was also able to soothe away; by the second night the girls were calm, and indeed their grief, though heartfelt, did not run deep, for beneath their flights of sorrow lay the vast country of youthful happiness. His task completed, he left in the middle of the second night. All the women were sleeping peacefully, their foreheads smooth and childlike. Mindful of the oarsman, who might be under orders to report his movements, Gautama made his way to the opposite shore of the isle. The lake was broad and the water deep, but the son of King Suddhodana was well trained in the art of swimming. He removed his silks, wrapped them about his head like a turban, and swam to the far side. A path led to the sturdy trellis-wall. He climbed swiftly, naked except for the turban of silks. The immense trellis-roof, covered by interwoven vines, was supported throughout the enclosure by cedarwood pillars disguised as trees. The overhanging edges of the roof rested so that the horizontal slats lay between the vertical strips at the top of the trellis-walls. Gautama pushed up an edge of vine-covered roof, made his way over the top of the wall, and lowered the roof in place. He climbed down the outside of the wall by placing his toes in the spaces of the trellis. At the bottom he removed his turban of silks. He fastened his garments about him and set forth on familiar paths. Overhead, the moon was so perfectly round and so brilliantly white that he wondered whether it, too, was an artificial moon suspended from the heavens by an artisan’s assistant. On turning paths, through well-known woods and parks, he walked until he came to the Bower of Quiet Delights. For seven days and seven nights he sat beside the fountain, under a red-blossoming kimsuka tree. For seven days and seven nights he reflected on his life. On the morning of the eighth day he rose and went out to seek his friend, to whom he wished to recount his adventures and announce his decision. But why does Chanda look troubled? Can he read the heart of his friend?

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Father and Son. In the Hall of Private Audience, King Suddhodana listens with alarm and close attention as his son explains that the time has come. The time has come for him to leave the world of the Three Palaces and seek his way in the larger world. The way he seeks is inward. He has had glimpses of it, intuitions, here in the world of his father, but he is continually distracted by the things that bring him most pleasure. Moreover, he is causing unhappiness to the very people for whom he wishes only happiness, namely, his father, his wife, and his friend. For these reasons he seeks permission to go out into the world and find what he cannot find here: himself. The King, as he listens, understands that he must answer with extreme care. He can, of course, simply refuse permission. His son prides himself on obedience. But Gautama is restless; he will obey, but rebelliously. What the King wants isn’t a troubled and fretful obedience, but a joyful embrace of a father’s wishes. “Are you not happy?” he asks his son. The Prince answers that he is the happiest man alive, but for one thing. “And what is that thing?” “It is this. My happiness is a sun that casts an inner shadow.” The King, irritated that his son should speak to him in riddles, restrains his anger. A man stands to inherit a mighty kingdom, and he speaks of shadows. But the King understands that he is losing his son. A shadow passes over his own heart. He replies that it would be irresponsible of him to give his beloved son permission to renounce the kingdom that is his to inherit. But when the father is no longer able to rule, and the kingship passes to the son, then he may do as he likes, for there will be no one above him. The King is startled to feel tears on his face. His tears shake him, and as he weeps he turns his face away from his son.

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In Which Gautama Observes a Gate. Gautama sits on the shore of the Lake of Solitude, where the swan once spoke to him as in a dream. Now the swans drift silently on the still water. He cannot disobey his father. He will assume the crown. He will conquer neighboring kingdoms. He will be merciless in battle. His inner restlessness will drive him to victory after victory, until there can be no more victories, since all his enemies will be enslaved or dead. The world will be his. King Siddhartha Gautama! Lord of the Earth and Sky. An impatience comes over him as he watches the swans under the swans in the dark water. Why don’t they do something? Why are they just sitting there? Why don’t they break away and fly off to unknown lands? This is no place for him. He wants to run, to shout, to ride in his chariot, to hurl a javelin at the sun. He wants — oh, what does he want? He wants to tear out his insides with a sword. He wants to cut off his head and hand it to his father. Here, Father: I cannot obey you. Irritably he rises and makes his way toward the gate in the wall. Outside, he strides along a shady path. Partly because he can’t bear the idea of returning to his chamber, where nothing awaits him but his own fretful thoughts, and partly for reasons that elude him, he finds himself stepping from the path into a thicket. Like a boy playing in the woods, he reaches up to a strong branch and pulls himself into the leaves of a mimosa tree. He climbs to the branch above and sits there, a wingless bird. Through the leaves he can see the path, the wall, and the gate in the wall. Slowly the gate begins to open. One of the King’s guards steps onto the path. He looks about, turns toward the open gate, and beckons. Chanda emerges. Gautama watches as they walk along the path, speaking in low voices, and pass slowly out of sight.

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The Laugh. High in his tree, Gautama laughs. It’s a laugh he has never heard before, and though it disturbs him, he discovers that he cannot make himself stop. Gautama knows many kinds of laughter, for happiness reigns in the world of the Three Palaces. There is the giddy laughter of concubines as they splash in the Fountain of Dreams, the playful laughter of friends as they rest after a footrace, the tender laughter of Yasodhara as she listens to him reciting a small adventure of the day. There is the witty laughter of highborn ladies, the fierce laughter of guards as they roll ivory dice in the courtyard. But the laughter that issues from Gautama, as he sits in the branches of the mimosa tree, the laughter that pours from him like flocks of birds, like fire, the laughter that hurts his ribs and scorches his throat and will not stop, though he wishes it to stop, is not like the laughter of the Three Palaces, and Gautama, who is trained to notice how one thing is distinguished from another thing that is like it in all ways but one, tries, even as he laughs, to understand the difference. And as he continues to laugh, harder and harder, he comes to understand that what distinguishes his laughter from the laughter he has known — the laughter of sunlight, the laughter of the summer moon — is that it is a laughter that is not happy.