F. W. Bain

“ And at that very moment, King Ruru shouted in amazement and in intoxication: Watsatarí! What! Watsatarí! What! have I regained thee also, in addition to my life?
And as he listened, all at once the heart of that old Brahman bounded in his body like a deer. And every vestige of his purpose and his muttering vanished from his soul like a dream. And he ran with feet that resembled wings straight towards them, crying aloud in agony and despair, not knowing what he said: Ah! she is mine. Ah! robber of a king, she is not thine. Ah! she is mine. ”

“ Thou art thyself the judge. And should I listen to thee, thou tellest me beforehand, I should be utterly worthless in thy eyes, and a discredit to myself, and my husband, and my sex. For the three worlds shudder at the spectacle of a woman that is traitor to her lord. Go then away very quickly, and forget that thou hast ever seen my face.
And Trishodadhi, as he listened, exclaimed in ecstasy to himself: Ha! good wife and subtle argument. Now she has slain him, as it were, with his very own sword. And utterly oblivious of his muttering, he listened eagerly for the remainder of the tale. ”

“ Yet how can I resist one who can so easily effect by violence the end at which he aims, if I refuse? And yet, I fear for my husband, and what thou sayest may, after all, be true. Will thou swear to me, thou wilt take me to my husband? And I said to myself: She has caught herself in the trap; and who will be her husband but myself? And I exclaimed: Watsatarí, if I am lying to thee, may I fall into a lower birth! Ha! pippala, as I think, the deity was listening, and bound me in this very body of an elephant, remembering my words, in obedience to my own curse. ”

“ O pippala, art thou at last the pippala I am looking for, or only a common tree?
And as Trishodadhi heard him, stupor came upon him, and he said to himself in amazement: Ha! what is this wonder, that an elephant should speak with an intelligible voice, and that I should understand him? And then, all at once, he exclaimed, in an ecstasy of delight: Ha! I understand. I can understand the language of the beasts. Now, beyond a doubt, this is a fruit of the tree of my asceticism, whose approaching term is the cause of my comprehension of his words. ”

“ That mischief-making deity, the god of Love, who delights in getting others into trouble, got himself, once upon a time, if we may trust the poets, into trouble of no ordinary kind. For seeing, as he thought, his opportunity, he attempted to inflame Maheshwara himself with passion for the virgin Daughter of the Snow, who was standing shyly just in front of him, like an incarnation of irresistible seduction, raised to the highest power by the contrast between her coarse bark garments and the perfect beauty of the figure they enclosed. ”

“ But now, there is one thing, from which it may very well be doubted, whether even any sage, no matter what his elevation, was ever wholly free—regret. The strongest soul possesses the most powerful recollection, and unless madness intervene, to cut the thread by obliterating memory, there are things that refuse to be forgotten. And where recollection is, there is sure to be were it but a vestige of regret; for memory is love. And what, then, is it, that is of all things most peculiarly the object of regret; that laughs at all efforts to reduce it to oblivion and nonentity ”

“ Or hast thou actually forgotten the wisdom of all my own old Hindoo sages, that thou wouldst saddle the responsibility for the ripening of the fruit of works, on me? As my people's works have been, so is their condition: they are but gathering the fruit of the tree of their own wrong-doing in a previous existence. And the crimes of a former birth dog them like death, and lie on them like a shadow: they only have themselves to blame, and now there is no help for it, but in themselves. And they must work out their own emancipation, not by petulance and violence, but by penance and austerity. ”

“ There are no others equal to them, even in the sea. And she sighed a very little, and she said with regret: Their beauty is for other eyes than mine. And I watched her eagerly, saying to myself: Ha! can it be that this delicious beauty resembles all her far inferior sisters, and is tempted by the pearls she cannot see? O pippala, I tell thee, that though it made for my advantage, it was a grief to me to find her, as I thought, like other women. Ha! but I did her wrong, and did not know her, for she had something in her soul that I did not understand. ”

“ And like flame, that suddenly bursts out anew in the ashes of a fire extinct, so all at once grief, and fierce regret, and a passionate yearning for the wife that played him false, surged and struggled in the dark oblivion of his ocean of recollection, so that he swayed and tottered as he sat. And utterly forgetting all, he let his rosary suddenly drop out of his hand, and turned abruptly round, to see as well as hear. And when he looked, he saw the elephant, standing still with drooping ears, leaning against the pippala's trunk. ”

“ Then said Kalánidhi: Nay, there is no hurry. For what if I asked for a crore of crystal jars, filled to the very brim with amrita, which, never having tasted, I am curious to taste? And Indra said: That also shall be thine, and so the bargain is complete. Then said Kalánidhi: Nay, for there might still be something lacking. What if I should say, that I long for a single blossom of Wishnu's párijáta tree? For when I am in the cemetery, how should I endure to stay, even for a single moment, without its odour as an antidote to the reek of burning bodies and the stench of dying pyres? ”

“ Fool! art thou actually grieving for the loss of a woman? What! dost thou not know, that he who loses one, can find without any difficulty a hundred other women, just as good or better than herself? And as he spoke, all at once I began to laugh, and as I laughed, I cried. And I exclaimed: Ha! old thief, I am obliged to thee; and like a good physician, thou hast cured my malady, with words that are sharper than a knife. But beware! for if I ever meet thee again, I will have thee thrown to be trampled by an elephant. ”

“ I will give thee a crore of elephants, black as ink, with golden tusks; or if thou wilt, raiment woven out of the beams of the rising or the setting sun, or crystal vats of camphor strained from the midnight moon, or endless strings of jewels, or anything thou wilt. Then said Kalánidhi: What is the use of elephants, even black as ink with golden tusks, at the very bottom of the sea? And as for jewels, the sea floor is their very home, and I find them strewn at my very feet. And as for clothing, what do I want but my own hair? Then said Indra: Choose, then, for thyself, what I shall give thee. ”

“ See, now, every way thou hast acted like a fool. What! gain a woman's love by murdering her husband! Then what a monster must have been the woman thou art ready to adore! And I said hastily: I am no murderer of thy husband, as I told thee. And moreover, O thou angry beauty, not every woman loves her husband; and thine is far too old for thee, and leaves thee, moreover, deserted and alone. ”

“ Aye! thou art right, I turned my heart into a caravanserai, to which I welcomed every worthless guest; but now I swear to thee, the very sight of thee has cleansed it like a pure river, which, ousting everything, has left there nothing, but the crystal of itself. Then she said: O King, they say of thee in the bazaar, that thou wast bent like a golden bar from straight to crooked, by the evil behaviour of thy queen. And is it true? And I said, eagerly: Aye! she it was that turned me, as thou sayest, aside, into the jungle of depravity. ”

“ But come with me, O lotus, and thou shall gain at one stroke both the forest and the king. For here am I, a king, and beside us is the forest, stretching like the ocean to the south, whose farther shore no hunter ever sees. And far away within it, I will build thee a marble palace that shall laugh at even Alaká, set like a pearl in the middle of an emerald of gardens, full of pools of golden lotuses, whose roots are nibbled by a multitude of silver swans. ”

“ And this is the solid reason why the old Hindoo sages denoted both Love and Recollection by one and the same word. Memory, remembrance, regret, reminiscence;—all these are clearly closely akin, near relatives of Love. What is indifferent to us we soon forget; but we remember what we love, and the longer, in proportion as we love it more. And thus it comes about, that the most formidable obstacle to the would-be sage, the candidate for honours, as we might call him, in renunciation of the world, is his own recollection, his memory of the past. ”

“ For where I am, she will be also, seeing that a good wife such as she is cannot desert her husband, even in a dream. But if, as I am now about to do, I can only place myself beyond his reach, she also will be safe. For he will not dare openly to carry her away, at least for a little while, and in the interval, I will remove her secretly myself. And now the deity has sent thee to me, in the very nick of time; and I place her in thy hands, more valuable than any necklace. ”

“ But feminine ingenuity is a far more formidable antagonist, which no man has ever yet successfully encountered since the beginning of the world, since it is half protected by his own innumerable scruples in its favour, being utterly destitute of any sort of scruple of its own. And so, should Kalánidhi assist you, and fail after all, there is nothing to be done: and under the weight of this Brahman's mountain of accumulated merit, you must sink to the very bottom of the ocean of defeat, like an earth bereft of the tortoise to save it on its back. ”

“ Whoever aims at emancipation must first, by a long and strenuous course of penance and austerity, sever these attachments, till even though he still remains among them, they run off him like water from a duck; and he goes on living, according to the classic formula, like a wheel that continues to revolve when the original impetus has ceased, or like a branch that goes on swaying after the departure of the bird. He is awake, as opposed to those who still remain blinded by illusion; he is free, as contrasted with the bound; his soul is unattached. ”

“ And he shall be attacked, not as he anticipates, but by that very avenue along which he least looks for danger, and one which, for all that, is the weakest and least guarded, and the best and the straightest way by which to reach and penetrate his soul—his ears. For sight can be assaulted only by what is present; but the ears are a passage by which I shall steal like a snake into the past, and pierce his very heart. ”

“ O Maharáj, thy wita is offering thee husks, and keeping back the kernel; possessing as he does a daughter more beautiful than the moon. And hearing this, I flew into a rage. And I sent for the wita, and compelled him, under penalty of death, to produce his daughter; and I took her away from him, disregarding all his prayers. So at last, finding all his supplications useless, all at once that wita yielded, and acquiesced in his dishonour, like an elephant tamed. ”

“ O lady, art thou dreaming, or what is this delusion? And then, angrily she stamped her little foot upon the ground. And she said sternly, yet with derision: O King, has not thy own experience yet taught thee, that kings are harder to conceal than the very sun at noon? And has thy dealing with such multitudes of women not yet shown thee, that even a king, versed in trickery and every diplomatic art, might take lessons in intrigue from any woman, aye, even from so incomplete a specimen of womankind as me? Hast thou allowed thyself to be outwitted even by the blind? ”

“ And if thou wilt, I will take thee clean away, turning my back upon my kingdom and the world, like yonder necklace which I have left for thy sake lying unregarded in the grass, and asking of thee in return nothing but thyself. Dost thou not know, what fate awaits thee here? Canst thou endure to live, deserted by thy husband, who is either dead or gone, the object of the scorn and derision and hard usage of the world, a very target for the arrows of contempt? ”

“ O King Ruru, I congratulate thee from my heart on thy extraordinary talent for deceit. And I waited, just to hear what further artifice thou hadst concocted, in order to beguile me. And I admire thy roguery, and as I think, King Bhartrihari [12] was but a novice in comparison with thee, such a master art thou of thy trade, and all the arts of cozening my sex. But now, cease wallowing like a hog in the mire of lying and deceit, and tell me truly, what thou hast done with my husband. ”

“ Art thou not aware, that women, as a rule, flutter round a king like silly moths about a torch, ready to burn up, not only the wings of their reputation, but even their very souls in the form of the honour of their husbands, so that only they may bathe for a moment in his glitter, before shrivelling in its flame? Or didst thou trust in thy favour as a man; for I have heard that no man in thy kingdom can compare with thee: not considering that I was blind, and unable either to admire or dislike thee, even though thy ugliness were such as to frighten me away? ”

“ So as they came towards her, Kalánidhi gazed at them sleepily in wonder, and murmured softly to herself: What in the world can the gods want, so badly, as to bring them here, all together in a lump? For these must be the gods, since their eyelids do not wink. Something must surely have gone amiss in heaven, and beyond a doubt, sore indeed must be the need that drives them, for instead of sending Mátali, they have actually come themselves. ”

“ I am cheated by the Creator and this husband, and coming just too late, I am robbed of the very fruit of this untimely birth. And after all, what is this husband? Is he a husband who goes away and leaves thee, like a flower dropped negligently upon the road, and have I not found thee, made ownerless by his absence, and picked thee up, to wear thee in my hair? Can he be thy owner, of whom it is not even certain that he lives? Aye! doubtless he is dead, and thou hast not any longer the pretext of a husband, to bar thee from my claim. ”

“ For there is no degree of evidence, whether of eyes, or of ears, or of any other sense, which true love would not utterly refuse to credit or receive, against that conviction begotten by love, confiding in its object, seeing that love is absolutely free from any shadow of suspicion, and clings to its faith in spite and in the teeth of all. But jealousy belongs only to a spurious love that is really only vanity and egoism in disguise, and is therefore never sure, but everlastingly uneasy, like Trishodadhi. ”