Grannie went on: Then the princess took her little husband away in great
distress, and built a large palace with seven wings, and began to
cherish her husband with great care.
I jumped up and down in my bed and clutched at the bolster more tightly
than ever and said: "What then?"
Grannie continued: The little boy went to school and learnt many lessons
from his teachers, and as he grew up his class-fellows began to ask him:
"Who is that beautiful lady living with you in the palace with the seven
wings?"
The Brahman's son was eager to know who she was. He could only remember
how one day he had been gathering sticks and a great disturbance arose.
But all that was so long ago that he had no clear recollection.
Four or five years passed in this way. His companions always asked him:
"Who is that beautiful lady in the palace with the seven wings?" And the
Brahman's son would come back from school and sadly tell the princess:
"My school companions always ask me who is that beautiful lady in the
palace with the seven wings, and I can give them no reply. Tell me, oh,
tell me, who you are!"
The princess said: "Let it pass to-day. I will tell you some other day."
And every day the Brahman's son would ask: "Who are you?" and the
princess would reply: "Let it pass to-day. I will tell you some other
day." In this manner four or five more years passed away.
At last the Brahman's son became very impatient and said: "If you do not
tell me to-day who you are, O beautiful lady, I will leave this palace
with the seven wings." Then the princess said: "I will certainly tell
you to-morrow."
Next day the Brahman's son, as soon as he came home from school, said:
"Now, tell me who you are." The princess said: "To-night I will tell you
after supper, when you are in bed."
The Brahman's son said: "Very well"; and he began to count the hours in
expectation of the night. And the princess, on her side, spread white
flowers over the golden bed, and lighted a gold lamp with fragrant oil,
and adorned her hair, and dressed herself in a beautiful robe of blue,
and began to count the hours in expectation of the night.
That evening when her husband, the Brahman's son, had finished his meal,
too excited almost to eat, and had gone to the golden bed in the
bedchamber strewn with flowers, he said to himself: "To-night I shall
surely know who this beautiful lady is in the palace with the seven
wings."
The princess took for her food that which was left over by her husband,
and slowly entered the bedchamber. She had to answer that night the
question, who was the beautiful lady that lived in the palace with the
seven wings. And as she went up to the bed to tell him she found a
serpent had crept out of the flowers and had bitten the Brahman's son.
Her boy-husband was lying on the bed of flowers, with face pale in
death.
My heart suddenly ceased to throb, and I asked with choking voice: "What
then?"