Lost Horizon (20 page)

“Quite often,” replied Chang with a broad smile. “The lamas, of course, are immune, and so are most of us when we reach the riper years, but until then we are as other men, except that I think we can claim to behave more reasonably. And this gives me the opportunity, Mr. Conway, of assuring you that the hospitality of Shangri-La is of a comprehensive kind. Your friend Mr. Barnard has already availed himself of it.”

Conway returned the smile. “Thanks,” he answered dryly. “I’ve no doubt he has, but my own inclinations are not—at the moment—so assertive. It was the emotional more than the physical aspect that I was curious about.”

“You find it easy to separate the two? Is it possible that you are falling in love with Lo-Tsen?”

Conway was somewhat taken aback, though he hoped he did not show it. “What makes you ask that?”

“Because, my dear sir, it would be quite suitable if you were to do so—always, of course, in moderation. Lo-Tsen would not respond with any degree of passion—that is more than you could expect—but the experience would be very delightful, I assure you. And I speak with some authority, for I was in love with her myself when I was much younger.”

“Were you indeed? And did she respond then?”

“Only by the most charming appreciation of the compliment I paid her, and by a friendship which has grown more precious with the years.”

“In other words, she didn’t respond?”

“If you prefer it so.” Chang added, a little sententiously: “It has always been her way to spare her lovers the moment of satiety that goes with all absolute attainment.”

Conway laughed. “That’s all very well in your case, and perhaps mine too—but what about the attitude of a hot-blooded young fellow like Mallinson?”

“My dear sir, it would be the best possible thing that could happen! Not for the first time, I assure you, would Lo-Tsen comfort the sorrowful exile when he learns that there is to be no return.”

“
Comfort
?”

“Yes, though you must not misunderstand my use of the term. Lo-Tsen gives no caresses, except such as touch the stricken heart from her very presence. What does your Shakespeare say of Cleopatra?—‘She makes hungry where she most satisfies.’ A popular type, doubtless, among the passion-driven races, but such a woman, I assure you, would be altogether out of place at Shangri-La. Lo-Tsen, if I might amend the quotation,
removes
hunger where she
least
satisfies. It is a more delicate and lasting accomplishment.”

“And one, I assume, which she has much skill in performing?”

“Oh, decidedly—we have had many examples of it. It is her way to calm the throb of desire to a murmur that is no less pleasant when left unanswered.”

“In that sense, then, you could regard her as a part of the training equipment of the establishment?”

“
You
could regard her as that, if you wished,” replied Chang with deprecating blandness. “But it would be more graceful, and just as true, to liken her to the rainbow reflected in a glass bowl or to the dewdrops on the blossoms of the fruit tree.”

“I entirely agree with you, Chang. That would be
much
more graceful.” Conway enjoyed the measured yet agile repartees which his good-humored ragging of the Chinese very often elicited.

But the next time he was alone with the little Manchu he felt that Chang’s remarks had had a great deal of shrewdness in them. There was a fragrance about her that communicated itself to his own emotions, kindling the embers to a glow that did not burn, but merely warmed. And suddenly then he realized that Shangri-La and Lo-Tsen were quite perfect, and that he did not wish for more than to stir a faint and eventual response in all that stillness. For years his passions had been like a nerve that the world jarred on; now at last the aching was soothed, and he could yield himself to love that was neither a torment nor a bore. As he passed by the lotus-pool at night he sometimes pictured her in his arms, but the sense of time washed over the vision, calming him to an infinite and tender reluctance.

He did not think he had ever been so happy, even in the years of his life before the great barrier of the War. He liked the serene world that Shangri-La offered him, pacified rather than dominated by its single tremendous idea. He liked the prevalent mood in which feelings were sheathed in thoughts and thoughts softened into felicity by their transference into language. Conway, whom experience had taught that rudeness is by no means a guarantee of good faith, was even less inclined to regard a well-turned phrase as a proof of insincerity. He liked the mannered, leisurely atmosphere in which talk was an accomplishment, not a mere habit. And he liked to realize that the idlest things could now be freed from the curse of time-wasting, and the frailest dreams receive the welcome of the mind. Shangri-La was always tranquil, yet always a hive of un-pursuing occupations; the lamas lived as if indeed they had time on their hands, but time that was scarcely a featherweight. Conway met no more of them, but he came gradually to realize the extent and variety of their employments; besides their knowledge of languages, some, it appeared, took to the full seas of learning in a manner that would have yielded big surprises to the Western world. Many were engaged in writing manuscript books of various lands; one (Chang said) had made valuable researches into pure mathematics; another was coordinating Gibbon and Spengler into a vast thesis on the history of European civilization. But this kind of thing was not for them all, nor for any of them always; there were many tideless channels in which they dived in mere waywardness, retrieving, like Briac, fragments of old tunes, or like the English ex-curate, a new theory about
Wuthering Heights
. And there were even fainter impracticalities than these. Once, when Conway made some remark in this connection, the High Lama replied with a story of a Chinese artist in the third century B.C. who, having spent many years in carving dragons, birds, and horses upon a cherry-stone, offered his finished work to a royal prince. The prince could see nothing in it at first except a mere stone, but the artist bade him “have a wall built, and make a window in it, and observe the stone through the window in the glory of the dawn.” The prince did so, and then perceived that the stone was indeed very beautiful. “Is not that a charming story, my dear Conway, and do you not think it teaches a very valuable lesson?”

Conway agreed; he found it pleasant to realize that the serene purpose of Shangri-La could embrace an infinitude of odd and apparently trivial employments, for he had always had a taste for such things himself. In fact, when he regarded his past, he saw it strewn with images of tasks too vagrant or too taxing ever to have been accomplished; but now they were all possible, even in a mood of idleness. It was delightful to contemplate, and he was not disposed to sneer when Barnard confided in him that he too envisaged an interesting future at Shangri-La.

It seemed that Barnard’s excursions to the valley, which had been growing more frequent of late, were not entirely devoted to drink and women. “You see, Conway, I’m telling you this because you’re different from Mallinson—he’s got his knife into me, as probably you’ve gathered. But I feel you’ll be better at understanding the position. It’s a funny thing—you British officials are so darned stiff and starchy at first, but you’re the sort a fellow can put his trust in, when all’s said and done.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” replied Conway, smiling. “And anyhow, Mallinson’s just as much a British official as I am.”

“Yes, but he’s a mere boy. He don’t look at things reasonably. You and me are men of the world—we take things as we find them. This joint here, for instance—we still can’t understand all the ins and outs of it, and why we’ve been landed here, but then, isn’t that the usual way of things? Do we know why we’re in the world at all, for that matter?”

“Perhaps some of us don’t, but what’s all this leading up to?”

Barnard dropped his voice to a rather husky whisper. “Gold, my lad,” he answered with a certain ecstasy. “Just that, and nothing less. There’s tons of it—literally—in the valley. I was a mining engineer in my young days and I haven’t forgotten what a reef looks like. Believe me, it’s as rich as the Rand, and ten times easier to get at. I guess you thought I was on the loose whenever I went down there in my little armchair. Not a bit of it. I knew what I was doing. I’d figgered it out all along, you know, that these guys here couldn’t get all their stuff sent in from outside without paying mighty high for it, and what else could they pay with except gold or silver or diamonds or something? Only logic, after all. And when I began to scout round, it didn’t take me long to discover the whole bag of tricks.”

“You found it out on your own?” asked Conway.

“Well, I won’t say that, but I made my guess, and then I put the matter to Chang—straight, mind you, as man to man. And believe me, Conway, that Chink’s not as bad a fellow as we might have thought.”

“Personally, I never thought him a bad fellow at all.”

“Of course, I know you always took to him, so you won’t be surprised at the way we got on together. We certainly did hit it famously. He showed me all over the workings, and it may interest you to know that I’ve got the full permission of the authorities to prospect in the valley as much as I like and make a comprehensive report. What d’you think of that, my lad? They seemed quite glad to have the services of an expert, especially when I said I could probably give ’em tips on how to increase output.”

“I can see you’re going to be altogether at home here,” said Conway.

“Well, I must say I’ve found a job, and that’s something. And you never know how a thing’ll turn out in the end. Maybe the folks at home won’t be so keen to jail me when they know I can show ’em the way to a new gold mine. The only difficulty is—would they take my word about it?”

“They might. It’s extraordinary what people
will
believe.”

Barnard nodded with enthusiasm. “Glad you get the point, Conway. And that’s where you and I can make a deal. We’ll go fifty-fifty in everything of course. All you’ve gotter do is to put your name to my report—British Consul, you know, and all that. It’ll carry weight.”

Conway laughed. “We’ll have to see about it. Make your report first.”

It amused him to contemplate a possibility so unlikely to happen, and at the same time he was glad that Barnard had found something that yielded such immediate comfort.

SO ALSO WAS THE High Lama, whom Conway began to see more and more frequently. He often visited him in the late evening and stayed for many hours, long after the servants had taken away the last bowls of tea and had been dismissed for the night. The High Lama never failed to ask him about the progress and welfare of his three companions, and once he enquired particularly as to the kind of careers that their arrival at Shangri-La had so inevitably interrupted.

Conway answered reflectively: “Mallinson might have done quite well in his own line—he’s energetic and has ambitions. The two others—” He shrugged his shoulders. “As a matter of fact, it happens to suit them both to stay here—for a while, at any rate.”

He noticed a flicker of light at the curtained window; there had been mutterings of thunder as he crossed the courtyard on his way to the now familiar room. No sound could be heard, and the heavy tapestries subdued the lightning into mere sparks of pallor.

“Yes,” came the reply, “we have done our best to make both of them feel at home. Miss Brinklow wishes to convert us, and Mr. Barnard would also like to convert us—into a limited liability company. Harmless projects—they will pass the time quite pleasantly for them. But your young friend, to whom neither gold nor religion can offer solace, how about
him
?”

“Yes, he’s going to be the problem.”

“I am afraid he is going to be
your
problem.”

“Why mine?”

There was no immediate answer, for the tea-bowls were introduced at that moment, and with their appearance the High Lama rallied a faint and desiccated hospitality. “Karakal sends us storms at this time of the year,” he remarked, feathering the conversation according to ritual. “The people of Blue Moon believe they are caused by demons raging in the great space beyond the pass. The ‘outside’ they call it—perhaps you are aware that in their patois the word is used for the entire rest of the world. Of course they know nothing of such countries as France or England or even India—they imagine the dread altiplano stretching, as it almost does, illimitably to them, so snug at their warm and windless levels, it appears unthinkable that any one inside the valley should ever wish to leave it; indeed, they picture all unfortunate ‘outsiders’ as passionately desiring to enter. It is just a question of viewpoint, is it not?”

Conway was reminded of Barnard’s somewhat similar remarks, and quoted them. “How very sensible!” was the High Lama’s comment. “And he is our first American, too—we are truly fortunate.”

Conway found it piquant to reflect that the lamasery’s fortune was to have acquired a man for whom the police of a dozen countries were actively searching; and he would have liked to share the piquancy but for feeling that Barnard had better be left to tell his own story in due course. He said: “Doubtless he’s quite right, and there are many people in the world nowadays who would be glad enough to be here.”

“
Too
many, my dear Conway. We are a single lifeboat riding the seas in a gale; we can take a few chance survivors, but if all the shipwrecked were to reach us and clamber aboard we should go down ourselves .… But let us not think of it just now. I hear that you have been associating with our excellent Briac. A delightful fellow countryman of mine, though I do not share his opinion that Chopin is the greatest of all composers. For myself, as you know, I prefer Mozart .…”

Not till the tea-bowls were removed and the servant had been finally dismissed, did Conway venture to recall the unanswered question. “We were discussing Mallinson, and you said he was going to be
my
problem. Why mine, particularly?”

Then the High Lama replied very simply: “Because, my son, I am going to die.”