“It lives,” was her first thought; and pat came the silent answer from Yuan: “It more than lives. There is more than life.” A vista was opened to her. The presence in the life of the trees, in the not-life of the figure, in the unreal faces of the Rishi, was the same presence—the intangible, the unnameable. She perceived a reality outside thought, unhuman and without the warmth and pleasure of thought, a reality that she could not grasp with mind or senses; but the experience of it brought joy. And dimly, only dimly, she felt Yuan beside her in the sea of forest thoughts, leaf thoughts, as if he guided her where she floated. In the apprehension of him, in that realm of experience, there was no distaste. She felt closer to him when her senses were submerged. She was where there are no distinctions of this and that. Her thoughts were broken into by spoken words. The Rishi were coming to the end of their contemplation, and they returned to the world in a state of unhuman gaiety. There still sounded in them the mirth of the Paradise where they had been. Their gaiety abruptly came to an end. “There are two imperfect beings in contemplation with us,” said the demon of wrath. “One,” added the newt, “is very imperfect, being full of half-thoughts, and even whole thoughts, and long pauses of irrelevant dreaming. Those who have thoughts in their minds should not gather round the smoke of incense.” “The other,” contributed the third, “is nearly thoughtless, nearly unconscious; but he impedes the flow of reality into himself and among us by some attachment to the passions and desires of men.” “A brother!” piped the newt, with a gurgle of newt-like laughter, “an immortal, has drowned the never-ending merriment of the immortals in a draught of red and serious desire!” Yuan did not change countenance, but he drew her away, and they were followed as they went down the rocky path among the birches by sounds of immense hilarity. This is the life he is destined for by family tradition, reflected Lychnis, and he is to become like these, though not so ugly. His conversation on the way down was somewhat of that which is more important than desire and life, beside which human pleasure is insignificant. “Those,” he said, explaining the point of view of his three acquaintances, “who have once found the satisfaction of non-being desire it, and they shun the things that belong to existence, as, for example, friendship and love.” That might not be inconvenient, in some circumstances, was the thought that presented itself to her attention. It came forcibly at first, then faded in a myriad quivering forest thoughts, at the heart of which, in a radiation of light and power, through a wisp of the smoke of incense, the image of the porcelain saint eternally smiled. An unearthly smile, it was, without scorn and without pity—a smile that made all human experience seem irrelevant, and all human language conceited. 40