forth into the forest. Suddenly the eyes of the Raja’s son and the
Raja’s daughter met. She started back with a little scream. He was
fascinated by her beauty, and began to say to himself, ‘O thou vile
Kama,[51] why worriest thou me?’
[51] Cupid in his two forms, Eros and Anteros.
Hearing this, the maiden smiled encouragement, but the poor youth,
between palpitation of the heart and hesitation about what to say,
was so confused that his tongue clave to his teeth. She raised her
eyebrows a little. There is nothing which women despise in a man more
than modesty,[52] for mo-des-ty——
[52] This is true to life; in the East, women make the first
advances, and men do the _bégueules_.
A violent shaking of the bag which hung behind Vikram’s royal back
broke off the end of this offensive sentence. And the warrior
king did not cease that discipline till the Baital promised him to
preserve more decorum in his observations.
Still the prince stood before her with downcast eyes and suffused
cheeks: even the spur of contempt failed to arouse his energies. Then
the maiden called to her friend, who was picking jasmine flowers so
as not to witness the scene, and angrily asked why that strange man
was allowed to stand and stare at her? The friend, in hot wrath,
threatened to call the slave, and to throw Vajramukut into the pond
unless he instantly went away with his impudence. But as the prince
was rooted to the spot, and really had not heard a word of what had
been said to him, the two women were obliged to make the first move.
As they almost reached the tank, the beautiful maiden turned her head
to see what the poor modest youth was doing.
Vajramukut was formed in every way to catch a woman’s eye. The Raja’s
daughter therefore half forgave him his offence of mod——. Again she
sweetly smiled, disclosing two rows of little opals. Then descending
to the water’s edge, she stooped down and plucked a lotus. This she
worshipped; next she placed it in her hair, then she put it to her
ear, then she bit it with her teeth, then she trod upon it with her
foot, then she raised it up again, and lastly she stuck it in her
bosom. After which she mounted her conveyance and went home to her
friends; whilst the prince, having become thoroughly desponding and
drowned in grief at separation from her, returned to the minister’s
son.
‘Females!’ ejaculated the minister’s son, speaking to himself in a
careless tone, when, his prayer finished, he left the temple, and
sat down upon the tank steps to enjoy the breeze. He presently drew
a roll of paper from under his waist-belt, and in a short time was
engrossed with his study. The women seeing this conduct, exerted
themselves in every possible way of wile to attract his attention and
to distract his soul. They succeeded only so far as to make him roll
his head with a smile, and to remember that such is always the custom
of man’s bane; after which he turned over a fresh page of manuscript.
And although he presently began to wonder what had become of the
prince his master, he did not look up even once from his study.
He was a philosopher, that young man. But after all, Raja Vikram,
what is mortal philosophy? Nothing but another name for indifference!
Who was ever philosophical about a thing truly loved or really
hated?—no one! Philosophy, says Shankharacharya, is either the gift
of nature or the reward of study. But I, the Baital, the devil, ask
you, what is a born philosopher, save a man of cold desires? And
what is a bred philosopher but a man who has survived his desires? A
young philosopher?—a cold-blooded youth! An elderly philosopher?—a
leucophlegmatic old man! Much nonsense, of a verity, ye hear in
praise of nothing from your Rajaship’s Nine Gems of Science, and from
sundry other such wise fools.
Then the prince began to relate the state of his case, saying, ‘O
friend, I have seen a damsel, but whether she be a musician from
Indra’s heaven, a maiden of the sea, a daughter of the serpent kings,
or the child of an earthly Raja, I cannot say.’
‘Describe her,’ said the statesman in embryo.
‘Her face,’ quoth the prince, ‘was that of the full moon, her hair
like a swarm of bees hanging from the blossoms of the acacia, the
corners of her eyes touched her ears, her lips were sweet with lunar
ambrosia, her waist was that of a lion, and her walk the walk of
a king-goose.[53] As a garment, she was white; as a season, the
spring; as a flower, the jasmine; as a speaker, the kokila bird; as
a perfume, musk; as a beauty, Kama-deva; and as a being, Love. And
if she does not come into my possession I will not live; this I have
certainly determined upon.’
[53] Raja-hans, a large grey goose, the Hindu equivalent for our
swan.
The young minister, who had heard his prince say the same thing more
than once before, did not attach great importance to these awful
words. He merely remarked that, unless they mounted at once, night
would surprise them in the forest. Then the two young men returned
to their horses, untethered them, drew on their bridles, saddled
them, and catching up their weapons, rode slowly towards the Raja’s
palace. During the three hours of return hardly a word passed between
the pair. Vajramukut not only avoided speaking; he never once replied
till addressed thrice in the loudest voice.
The young minister put no more questions, ‘for,’ quoth he to
himself, ‘when the prince wants my counsel, he will apply for it.’
In this point he had borrowed wisdom from his father, who held in
peculiar horror the giving of unasked-for advice. So, when he saw
that conversation was irksome to his master, he held his peace and
meditated upon what he called his ‘day-thought.’ It was his practice
to choose every morning some tough food for reflection, and to chew
the cud of it in his mind at times when, without such employment, his
wits would have gone wool-gathering. You may imagine, Raja Vikram,
that with a few years of this head-work, the minister’s son became a
very crafty young person.
After the second day the Prince Vajramukut, being restless from grief
at separation, fretted himself into a fever. Having given up writing,
reading, drinking, sleeping, the affairs entrusted to him by his
father, and everything else, he sat down, as he said, to die. He used
constantly to paint the portrait of the beautiful lotus gatherer, and
to lie gazing upon it with tearful eyes; then he would start up and
tear it to pieces and beat his forehead, and begin another picture of
a yet more beautiful face.
At last, as the pradhan’s son had foreseen, he was summoned by
the young Raja, whom he found upon his bed, looking yellow and
complaining bitterly of headache. Frequent discussions upon the
subject of the tender passion had passed between the two youths, and
one of them had ever spoken of it so very disrespectfully that the
other felt ashamed to introduce it. But when his friend, with a view
to provoke communicativeness, advised a course of boiled and bitter
herbs and great attention to diet, quoting the hemistich attributed
to the learned physician Charndatta—
A fever starve, but feed a cold,
the unhappy Vajramukut’s fortitude abandoned him; he burst into
tears, and exclaimed, ‘Whosoever enters upon the path of love cannot
survive it; and if (by chance) he should live, what is life to him
but a prolongation of his misery?’
‘Yea,’ replied the minister’s son, ‘the sage hath said—
The road of love is that which hath no beginning nor end;
Take thou heed of thyself, man! ere thou place foot upon it.
And the wise, knowing that there are three things whose effect upon
himself no man can foretell—namely, desire of woman, the dice-box,
and the drinking of ardent spirits—find total abstinence from them
the best of rules. Yet, after all, if there is no cow, we must milk
the bull.’
The advice was, of course, excellent, but the hapless lover could
not help thinking that on this occasion it came a little too late.
However, after a pause he returned to the subject and said, ‘I have
ventured to tread that dangerous way, be its end pain or pleasure,
happiness or destruction.’ He then hung down his head and sighed from
the bottom of his heart.
‘She is the person who appeared to us at the tank?’ asked the
pradhan’s son, moved to compassion by the state of his master.
The prince assented.
‘O great king,’ resumed the minister’s son, ‘at the time of going
away had she said anything to you? or had you said anything to her?’
‘Nothing!’ replied the other laconically, when he found his friend
beginning to take an interest in the affair.
‘_Then_,’ said the minister’s son, ‘it will be exceedingly difficult
to get possession of her.’
‘_Then_,’ repeated the Raja’s son, ‘I am doomed to death; to an early
and melancholy death!’
‘Humph!’ ejaculated the young statesman rather impatiently, ‘did she
make any sign, or give any hint? Let me know all that happened: half
confidences are worse than none.’
Upon which the prince related everything that took place by the side
of the tank, bewailing the false shame which had made him dumb, and
concluding with her pantomime.
The pradhan’s son took thought for a while. He thereupon seized the
opportunity of representing to his master all the evil effects of
bashfulness when women are concerned, and advised him, as he would be
a happy lover, to brazen his countenance for the next interview.
Which the young Raja faithfully promised to do.
‘And, now,’ said the other, ‘be comforted, O my master! I know her
name and her dwelling-place. When she suddenly plucked the lotus
flower and worshipped it, she thanked the gods for having blessed her
with a sight of your beauty.’
Vajramukut smiled, the first time for the last month.
‘When she applied it to her ear, it was as if she would have
explained to thee, “I am a daughter of the Carnatic;”[54] and when
she bit it with her teeth, she meant to say that “My father is Raja
Dantawat,”[55] who, by the bye, has been, is, and ever will be, a
mortal foe to thy father.’
[54] Properly Karnatak; karna in Sanskrit means an ear.
[55] Danta in Sanskrit is a tooth.
Vajramukut shuddered.
‘When she put it under her foot it meant, “My name is Padmavati.”’[56]
[56] Padma means a foot.
Vajramukut uttered a cry of joy.
‘And when she placed it in her bosom, “You are truly dwelling in my
heart” was meant to be understood.’
At these words the young Raja started up full of new life, and after
praising with enthusiasm the wondrous sagacity of his dear friend,
begged him by some contrivance to obtain the permission of his
parents, and to conduct him to her city. The minister’s son easily
got leave for Vajramukut to travel, under pretext that his body
required change of water, and his mind change of scene. They both
dressed and armed themselves for the journey, and having taken some
jewels, mounted their horses and followed the road in that direction
in which the princess had gone.
Arrived after some days at the capital of the Carnatic, the
minister’s son having disguised his master and himself in the garb of
travelling traders, alighted and pitched his little tent upon a clear
bit of ground in one of the suburbs. He then proceeded to inquire
for a wise woman, wanting, he said, to have his fortune told. When
the prince asked him what this meant, he replied that elderly dames
who professionally predict the future are never above ministering to
the present, and therefore that, in such circumstances, they are the
properest persons to be consulted.
‘Is this a treatise upon the subject of immorality, devil?’ demanded
the King Vikram ferociously. The Baital declared that it was not, but
that he must tell his story.
[Illustration: Went up to her with polite salutations.]
The person addressed pointed to an old woman who, seated before
the door of her hut, was spinning at her wheel. Then the young men
went up to her with polite salutations and said, ‘Mother, we are
travelling traders, and our stock is coming after us; we have come on
in advance for the purpose of finding a place to live in. If you will
give us a house, we will remain there and pay you highly.’
The old woman, who was a physiognomist as well as a fortune-teller,
looked at the faces of the young men and liked them, because their
brows were wide and their mouths denoted generosity. Having listened
to their words, she took pity upon them and said kindly, ‘This
hovel is yours, my masters, remain here as long as you please.’
Then she led them into an inner room, again welcomed them, lamented
the poorness of her abode, and begged them to lie down and rest
themselves.
After some interval of time the old woman came to them once more,
and sitting down began to gossip. The minister’s son upon this asked
her, ‘How is it with thy family, thy relatives, and connections;
and what are thy means of subsistence?’ She replied, ‘My son is a
favourite servant in the household of our great king Dantawat, and
your slave is the wet-nurse of the Princess Padmavati, his eldest
child. From the coming on of old age,’ she added, ‘I dwell in this
house, but the king provides for my eating and drinking. I go once a
day to see the girl, who is a miracle of beauty and goodness, wit
and accomplishments, and returning thence, I bear my own griefs at
home.’[57]
[57] A common Hindu phrase equivalent to our ‘I manage to get on.’
In a few days the young Vajramukut had, by his liberality, soft
speech, and good looks, made such progress in nurse Lakshmi’s
affections that, by the advice of his companion, he ventured to
broach the subject ever nearest his heart. He begged his hostess,
when she went on the morrow to visit the charming Padmavati, that she
would be kind enough to slip a bit of paper into the princess’s hand.
‘Son,’ she replied, delighted with the proposal—and what old woman
would not be?—‘there is no need for putting off so urgent an affair
till the morrow. Get your paper ready, and I will immediately give
it.’
Trembling with pleasure, the prince ran to find his friend, who was
seated in the garden reading, as usual, and told him what the old
nurse had engaged to do. He then began to debate about how he should
write his letter, to cull sentences and to weigh phrases; whether
‘light of my eyes’ was not too trite, and ‘blood of my liver’ rather
too forcible. At this the minister’s son smiled, and bade the prince
not trouble his head with composition. He then drew his inkstand from
his waist-shawl, nibbed a reed pen, and choosing a piece of pink and
flowered paper, he wrote upon it a few lines. He then folded it,
gummed it, sketched a lotus flower upon the outside, and handing it
to the young prince, told him to give it to their hostess, and that
all would be well.
The old woman took her staff in her hand and hobbled straight to
the palace. Arrived there, she found the Raja’s daughter sitting
alone in her apartment. The maiden, seeing her nurse, immediately
arose, and making a respectful bow, led her to a seat and began the
most affectionate inquiries. After giving her blessing and sitting
for some time and chatting about indifferent matters, the nurse
said, ‘O daughter! in infancy I reared and nourished thee, now the
Bhagwan (Deity) has rewarded me by giving thee stature, beauty,
health, and goodness. My heart only longs to see the happiness of
thy womanhood,[58] after which I shall depart in peace. I implore
thee read this paper, given to me by the handsomest and the properest
young man that my eyes have ever seen.’
[58] Meaning marriage, maternity, and so forth.
The princess, glancing at the lotus on the outside of the note,
slowly unfolded it and perused its contents, which were as follows:
1.
She was to me the pearl that clings
To sands all hid from mortal sight,
Yet fit for diadems of kings,
The pure and lovely light.
2.
She was to me the gleam of sun
That breaks the gloom of wintry day;
One moment shone my soul upon,
Then passed—how soon!—away.
3.
She was to me the dreams of bliss
That float the dying eyes before,
For one short hour shed happiness,
And fly to bless no more.
4.
O light, again upon me shine;
O pearl, again delight my eyes;
O dreams of bliss, again be mine!—
No! earth may not be Paradise.
I must not forget to remark, parenthetically, that the minister’s
son, in order to make these lines generally useful, had provided them
with a last stanza in triplicate. ‘For lovers,’ he said sagely, ‘are
either in the optative mood, the desperative, or the exultative.’
This time he had used the optative. For the desperative he would
substitute:
4.
The joys of life lie dead, lie dead,
The light of day is quenched in gloom;
The spark of hope my heart hath fled—
What now withholds me from the tomb?
And this was the termination exultative, as he called it:
4.
O joy! the pearl is mine again,
Once more the day is bright and clear,
And now ’tis real, then ’twas vain,
My dream of bliss—O heaven is here!
The Princess Padmavati having perused this doggrel with a
contemptuous look, tore off the first word of the last line, and
said to the nurse, angrily, ‘Get thee gone, O mother of Yama,[59]
O unfortunate creature, and take back this answer’—giving her the
scrap of paper—‘to the fool who writes such bad verses. I wonder
where he studied the humanities. Begone, and never do such an action
again!’
[59] Yama is Pluto; ‘mother of Yama’ is generally applied to an
old scold.
The old nurse, distressed at being so treated, rose up and returned
home. Vajramukut was too agitated to await her arrival, so he went
to meet her on the way. Imagine his disappointment when she gave
him the fatal word and repeated to him exactly what happened, not
forgetting to describe a single look! He felt tempted to plunge his
sword into his bosom; but Fortune interfered, and sent him to consult
his confidant.
‘Be not so hasty and desperate, my prince,’ said the pradhan’s son,
seeing his wild grief; ‘you have not understood her meaning. Later in
life you will be aware of the fact that, in nine cases out of ten,
a woman’s “no” is a distinct “yes.” This morning’s work has been
good; the maiden asked where you learned the humanities, which being
interpreted signifies “Who are you?”’
On the next day the prince disclosed his rank to old Lakshmi, who
naturally declared that she had always known it. The trust they
reposed in her made her ready to address Padmavati once more on
the forbidden subject. So she again went to the palace, and having
lovingly greeted her nursling, said to her, ‘The Raja’s son, whose
heart thou didst fascinate on the brim of the tank, on the fifth day
of the moon, in the light half of the month Yeth, has come to my
house, and sends this message to thee: “Perform what you promised;
we have now come;” and I also tell thee that this prince is worthy
of thee: just as thou art beautiful, so is he endowed with all good
qualities of mind and body.’
When Padmavati heard this speech she showed great anger, and, rubbing
sandal on her beautiful hands, she slapped the old woman’s cheeks,
and cried, ‘Wretch, Daina (witch)! get out of my house; did I not
forbid thee to talk such folly in my presence?’
The lover and the nurse were equally distressed at having taken the
advice of the young minister, till he explained what the crafty
damsel meant. ‘When she smeared the sandal on her ten fingers,’ he
explained, ‘and struck the old woman on the face, she signified that
when the remaining ten moonlight nights shall have passed away she
will meet you in the dark.’ At the same time he warned his master
that to all appearances the lady Padmavati was far too clever to make
a comfortable wife. The minister’s son especially hated talented,
intellectual, and strong-minded women: he had been heard to describe
the torments of Naglok[60] as the compulsory companionship of a
polemical divine and a learned authoress, well stricken in years and
of forbidding aspect, as such persons mostly are. Amongst womankind
he admired—theoretically, as became a philosopher—the small,
plump, laughing, chattering, unintellectual, and material-minded.
And therefore—excuse the digression, Raja Vikram—he married an
old maid, tall, thin, yellow, strictly proper, cold-mannered, a
conversationist, and who prided herself upon spirituality. But more
wonderful still, after he did marry her, he actually loved her—what
an incomprehensible being is man in these matters!
[60] Snake-land; the infernal region.
To return, however. The pradhan’s son, who detected certain symptoms
of strong-mindedness in the Princess Padmavati, advised his lord to
be wise whilst wisdom availed him. This sage counsel was, as might be
guessed, most ungraciously rejected by him for whose benefit it was
intended. Then the sensible young statesman rated himself soundly for
having broken his father’s rule touching advice, and atoned for it by
blindly forwarding the views of his master.
After the ten nights of moonlight had passed, the old nurse was again
sent to the palace with the usual message. This time Padmavati put
saffron on three of her fingers, and again left their marks on the
nurse’s cheek. The minister’s son explained that this was to crave
delay for three days, and that on the fourth the lover would have
access to her.
When the time had passed the old woman again went and inquired after
her health and well-being. The princess was as usual very wroth, and
having personally taken her nurse to the western gate, she called her
‘Mother of the elephant’s trunk,’[61] and drove her out with threats
of the bastinado if she ever came back. This was reported to the
young statesman, who, after a few minutes’ consideration, said, ‘The
explanation of this matter is, that she has invited you to-morrow, at
night-time, to meet her at this very gate.’
[61] A form of abuse given to Durga, who was the mother of
Ganesha (Janus); the latter had an elephant’s head.
When brown shadows fell upon the face of earth, and here and there a
star spangled the pale heavens, the minister’s son called Vajramukut,
who had been engaged in adorning himself at least half that day. He
had carefully shaved his cheeks and chin; his mustachio was trimmed
and curled; he had arched his eyebrows by plucking out with tweezers
the fine hairs around them; he had trained his curly musk-coloured
love-locks to hang gracefully down his face; he had drawn broad lines
of antimony along his eyelids, a most brilliant sectarian mark was
affixed to his forehead, the colour of his lips had been heightened
by chewing betel-nut——
‘One would imagine that you are talking of a silly girl, not of a
prince, fiend!’ interrupted Vikram, who did not wish his son to hear
what he called these fopperies and frivolities.
——and whitened his neck by having it shaved (continued the
Baital, speaking quickly, as if determined not to be interrupted),
and reddened the tips of his ears by squeezing them, and made his
teeth shine by rubbing copper powder into the roots, and set off
the delicacy of his fingers by staining the tips with henna. He had
not been less careful of his dress: he wore a well-arranged turban,
which had taken him at least two hours to bind, and a rich suit of
brown stuff chosen for the adventure he was about to attempt, and he
hung about his person a number of various weapons, so as to appear a
hero—which young damsels admire.
Vajramukut asked his friend how he looked, and smiled happily when
the other replied ‘Admirable!’ His happiness was so great that he
feared it might not last, and he asked the minister’s son how best to
conduct himself?