offered him hospitality, which was readily enough accepted, and he
entertained him for some time as a guest. Then, having reason to be
satisfied with his conduct, Hemgupt admitted him to his secrets, and
finally made him a partner in his business. Briefly, the villain
played his cards so well, that at last the merchant said to himself,
‘I have had for years an anxiety and a calamity in my house. My
neighbours whisper things to my disadvantage, and those who are
bolder speak out with astonishment amongst themselves, saying, “At
seven or eight people marry their daughters, and this indeed is the
appointment of the law: that period is long since gone; she is now
thirteen or fourteen years old, and she is very tall and lusty,
resembling a married woman of thirty. How can her father eat his rice
with comfort and sleep with satisfaction, whilst such a disreputable
thing exists in his house? At present he is exposed to shame, and
his deceased friends are suffering through his retaining a girl from
marriage beyond the period which nature has prescribed.” And now,
while I am sitting quietly at home, the Bhagwan (Deity) removes all
my uneasiness: by his favour such an opportunity occurs. It is not
right to delay. It is best that I should give my daughter in marriage
to him. Whatever can be done to-day is best; who knows what may
happen to-morrow?’
Thus thinking, the old man went to his wife and said to her, ‘Birth,
marriage, and death are all under the direction of the gods; can
anyone say when they will be ours? We want for our daughter a young
man who is of good birth, rich and handsome, clever and honourable.
But we do not find him. If the bridegroom be faulty, thou sayest, all
will go wrong. I cannot put a string round the neck of our daughter
and throw her into the ditch. If, however, thou think well of the
merchant’s son now my partner, we will celebrate Ratnawati’s marriage
with him.’
The wife, who had been won over by the hunchback’s hypocrisy, was
also pleased, and replied, ‘My lord! when the Deity so plainly
indicates his wish, we should do it; since, though we have sat
quietly at home, the desire of our hearts is accomplished. It is
best that no delay be made; and, having quickly summoned the family
priest, and having fixed upon a propitious planetary conjunction,
that the marriage be celebrated.’
Then they called their daughter—ah, me! what a beautiful being she
was, and worthy the love of a Gandharva (demigod). Her long hair,
purple with the light of youth, was glossy as the bramra’s[76] wing;
her brow was pure and clear as the agate; the ocean-coral looked
pale beside her lips, and her teeth were as two chaplets of pearls.
Everything in her was formed to be loved. Who could look into her
eyes without wishing to do it again? Who could hear her voice without
hoping that such music would sound once more? And she was good as she
was fair. Her father adored her; her mother, though a middle-aged
woman, was not envious or jealous of her; her relatives doted on her,
and her friends could find no fault with her. I should never end were
I to tell her precious qualities. Alas, alas! my poor Ratnawati!
[76] A large kind of black bee, common in India.
So saying, the jay wept abundant tears; then she resumed:
When her parents informed my mistress of their resolution, she
replied, ‘Sadhu—it is well!’ She was not like most young women,
who hate nothing so much as a man whom their seniors order them to
love. She bowed her head and promised obedience, although, as she
afterwards told her mother, she could hardly look at her intended, on
account of his prodigious ugliness. But presently the hunchback’s wit
surmounted her disgust. She was grateful to him for his attention to
her father and mother; she esteemed him for his moral and religious
conduct; she pitied him for his misfortunes, and she finished with
forgetting his face, legs, and back in her admiration of what she
supposed to be his mind.
She had vowed before marriage faithfully to perform all the duties
of a wife, however distasteful to her they might be; but after the
nuptials, which were not long deferred, she was not surprised to find
that she loved her husband. Not only did she omit to think of his
features and figure; I verily believe that she loved him the more for
his repulsiveness. Ugly, very ugly men prevail over women for two
reasons. Firstly, we begin with repugnance, which in the course of
nature turns to affection; and we all like the most that which, when
unaccustomed to it, we most disliked. Hence the poet says, with as
much truth as is in the male:
Never despair, O man! when woman’s spite
Detests thy name and sickens at thy sight:
Sometimes her heart shall learn to love thee more
For the wild hatred which it felt before, &c.
Secondly, the very ugly man appears, deceitfully enough, to think
little of his appearance, and he will give himself the trouble to
pursue a heart because he knows that the heart will not follow after
him. Moreover, we women (said the jay) are by nature pitiful, and
this our enemies term a ‘strange perversity.’ A widow is generally
disconsolate if she loses a little, wizen-faced, shrunken-shanked,
ugly, spiteful, distempered thing that scolded her and quarrelled
with her, and beat her and made her hours bitter; whereas she will
follow her husband to Ganges with exemplary fortitude if he was
brave, handsome, generous——
‘Either hold your tongue or go on with your story,’ cried the warrior
king, in whose mind these remarks awakened disagreeable family
reflections.
‘Hi! hi! hi!’ laughed the demon; ‘I will obey your majesty, and make
Madan-manjari, the misanthropical jay, proceed.’
Yes, she loved the hunchback; and how wonderful is _our_ love! quoth
the jay. A light from heaven which rains happiness on this dull, dark
earth! A spell falling upon the spirit, which reminds us of a higher
existence! A memory of bliss! A present delight! An earnest of future
felicity! It makes hideousness beautiful and stupidity clever, old
age young and wickedness good, moroseness amiable, and low-mindedness
magnanimous, perversity pretty and vulgarity piquant. Truly it is
sovereign alchemy and excellent flux for blending contradictions is
_our_ love, exclaimed the jay.
And so saying, she cast a triumphant look at the parrot, who only
remarked that he could have desired a little more originality in her
remarks.
For some months (resumed Madan-manjari), the bride and the bridegroom
lived happily together in Hemgupt’s house. But it is said:
Never yet did the tiger become a lamb;
and the hunchback felt that the edge of his passions again wanted
blunting. He reflected, ‘Wisdom is exemption from attachment, and
affection for children, wife, and home.’ Then he thus addressed my
poor young mistress:
‘I have been now in thy country some years, and I have heard no
tidings of my own family, hence my mind is sad. I have told thee
everything about myself; thou must now ask thy mother leave for me to
go to my own city, and, if thou wishest, thou mayest go with me.’
Ratnawati lost no time in saying to her mother, ‘My husband wishes to
visit his own country; will you so arrange that he may not be pained
about this matter?’
The mother went to her husband, and said, ‘Your son-in-law desires
leave to go to his own country.’
Hemgupt replied, ‘Very well; we will grant him leave. One has no
power over another man’s son. We will do what he wishes.’
The parents then called their daughter, and asked her to tell them
her real desire—whether she would go to her father-in-law’s house,
or would remain in her mother’s home. She was abashed at this
question, and could not answer; but she went back to her husband, and
said, ‘As my father and mother have declared that you should do as
you like, do not leave me behind.’
Presently the merchant summoned his son-in-law, and having bestowed
great wealth upon him, allowed him to depart. He also bade his
daughter farewell, after giving her a palanquin and a female slave.
And the parents took leave of them with wailing and bitter tears;
their hearts were like to break. And so was mine.
[Illustration: He dismissed the palanquin-bearers.]
For some days the hunchback travelled quietly along with his wife,
in deep thought. He could not take her to his city, where she would
find out his evil life, and the fraud which he had passed upon her
father. Besides which, although he wanted her money, he by no means
wanted her company for life. After turning on many projects in his
evil-begotten mind, he hit upon the following:
He dismissed the palanquin-bearers when halting at a little shed in
the thick jungle through which they were travelling, and said to his
wife, ‘This is a place of danger; give me thy jewels, and I will hide
them in my waist-shawl. When thou reachest the city thou canst wear
them again.’ She then gave up to him all her ornaments, which were of
great value. Thereupon he inveigled the slave girl into the depths of
the forest, where he murdered her, and left her body to be devoured
by wild beasts. Lastly, returning to my poor mistress, he induced her
to leave the hut with him, and pushed her by force into a dry well,
after which exploit he set out alone with his ill-gotten wealth,
walking towards his own city.
In the meantime, a wayfaring man, who was passing through that
jungle, hearing the sound of weeping, stood still, and began to say
to himself, ‘How came to my ears the voice of a mortal’s grief in
this wild wood?’ He then followed the direction of the noise, which
led him to a pit, and peeping over the side, he saw a woman crying
at the bottom. The traveller at once loosened his girdle cloth,
knotted it to his turban, and letting down the line pulled out the
poor bride. He asked her who she was, and how she came to fall into
that well. She replied, ‘I am the daughter of Hemgupt, the wealthiest
merchant in the city of Chandrapur; and I was journeying with my
husband to his own country, when robbers set upon us and surrounded
us. They slew my slave girl, they threw me into a well, and having
bound my husband they took him away, together with my jewels. I have
no tidings of him, nor he of me.’ And so saying, she burst into tears
and lamentations.
[Illustration: He set out alone with his ill-gotten wealth.]
The wayfaring man believed her tale, and conducted her to her home,
where she gave the same account of the accident which had befallen
her, ending with, ‘Beyond this, I know not if they have killed my
husband, or have let him go.’ The father thus soothed her grief:
‘Daughter! have no anxiety; thy husband is alive, and by the will
of the Deity he will come to thee in a few days. Thieves take
men’s money, not their lives.’ Then the parents presented her with
ornaments more precious than those which she had lost; and summoning
their relations and friends, they comforted her to the best of their
power. And so did I.
The wicked hunchback had, meanwhile, returned to his own city, where
he was excellently well received, because he brought much wealth with
him. His old associates flocked around him rejoicing; and he fell
into the same courses which had beggared him before. Gambling and
debauchery soon blunted his passions, and emptied his purse. Again
his boon companions, finding him without a broken cowrie, drove him
from their doors; he stole, and was flogged for theft; and lastly,
half famished, he fled the city. Then he said to himself, ‘I must go
to my father-in-law, and make the excuse that a grandson has been
born to him, and that I have come to offer him congratulations on the
event.’
Imagine, however, his fears and astonishment when, as he entered the
house, his wife stood before him. At first he thought it was a ghost,
and turned to run away, but she went out to him and said, ‘Husband,
be not troubled! I have told my father that thieves came upon us, and
killed the slave girl and robbed me and threw me into a well, and
bound thee and carried thee off. Tell the same story, and put away
all anxious feelings. Come up and change thy tattered garments—alas!
some misfortune hath befallen thee. But console thyself; all is now
well, since thou art returned to me, and fear not, for the house is
thine, and I am thy slave.’
The wretch, with all his hardness of heart, could scarcely refrain
from tears. He followed his wife to her room, where she washed his
feet, caused him to bathe, dressed him in new clothes, and placed
food before him. When her parents returned, she presented him to
their embrace, saying in a glad way, ‘Rejoice with me, O my father
and mother! the robbers have at length allowed him to come back to
us.’ Of course the parents were deceived; they are mostly a purblind
race; and Hemgupt, showing great favour to his worthless son-in-law,
exclaimed, ‘Remain with us, my son, and be happy!’
For two or three months the hunchback lived quietly with his wife,
treating her kindly and even affectionately. But this did not last
long. He made acquaintance with a band of thieves, and arranged his
plans with them.
After a time, his wife one night came to sleep by his side, having
put on all her jewels. At midnight, when he saw that she was fast
asleep, he struck her with a knife so that she died. Then he admitted
his accomplices, who savagely murdered Hemgupt and his wife; and
with their assistance he carried off any valuable article upon
which he could lay his hands. The ferocious wretch! As he passed my
cage he looked at it, and thought whether he had time to wring my
neck. The barking of a dog saved my life; but my mistress, my poor
Ratnawati—ah, me! ah, me!—
‘Queen,’ said the jay, in deepest grief, ‘all this have I seen with
mine own eyes, and have heard with mine own ears. It affected me in
early life, and gave me a dislike for the society of the other sex.
With due respect to you, I have resolved to remain an old maid. Let
your majesty reflect, what crime had my poor mistress committed? A
male is of the same disposition as a highway robber; and she who
forms friendship with such a one, cradles upon her bosom a black and
venomous snake.’
‘Sir Parrot,’ said the jay, turning to her wooer, ‘I have spoken.
I have nothing more to say _but_ that you he-things are all a
treacherous, selfish, wicked race, created for the express purpose
of working our worldly woe, and——’
‘When a female, O my king, asserts that she has nothing more to say,
_but_,’ broke in Churaman, the parrot, with a loud dogmatical voice,
‘I know that what she has said merely whets her tongue for what
she is about to say. This person has surely spoken long enough and
drearily enough.’
‘Tell me then, O parrot,’ said the king, ‘what faults there may be in
the other sex.’
‘I will relate,’ quoth Churaman, ‘an occurrence which in my early
youth determined me to live and to die an old bachelor.’
When quite a young bird, and before my schooling began, I was caught
in the land of Malaya, and was sold to a very rich merchant called
Sagardati, a widower with one daughter, the lady Jayashri. As her
father spent all his days and half his nights in his counting-house,
conning his ledgers and scolding his writers, that young woman had
more liberty than is generally allowed to those of her age, and a
mighty bad use she made of it.
O king! men commit two capital mistakes in rearing the ‘domestic
calamity,’ and these are over-vigilance and under-vigilance. Some
parents never lose sight of their daughters, suspect them of all evil
intentions, and are silly enough to show their suspicions, which is
an incentive to evil doing. For the weak-minded things do naturally
say, ‘I will be wicked at once. What do I now but suffer all the
pains and penalties of badness, without enjoying its pleasures?’
And so they are guilty of many evil actions; for, however vigilant
fathers and mothers may be, the daughter can always blind their eyes.
On the other hand, many parents take no trouble whatever with their
charges: they allow them to sit in idleness, the origin of badness;
they permit them to communicate with the wicked, and they give them
liberty which breeds opportunity. Thus they also, falling into the
snares of the unrighteous, who are ever a more painstaking race than
the righteous, are guilty of many evil actions.
What, then, must wise parents do? The wise will study the characters
of their children, and modify their treatment accordingly. If a
daughter be naturally good, she will be treated with a prudent
confidence. If she be vicious, an apparent trust will be reposed
in her; but her father and mother will secretly ever be upon their
guard. The one-idea’d——
‘All this parrot-prate, I suppose, is only intended to vex me,’
cried the warrior king, who always considered himself, and very
naturally, a person of such consequence as ever to be uppermost in
the thoughts and minds of others. ‘If thou must tell a tale, then
tell one, Vampire! or else be silent, as I am sick to the death of
thy psychics.’
‘It is well, O warrior king,’ resumed the Baital. After that Churaman
the parrot had given the young Raja Ram a golden mine full of good
advice about the management of daughters, he proceeded to describe
Jayashri.
She was tall, stout, and well made, of lymphatic temperament, and
yet strong passions. Her fine large eyes had heavy and rather
full eyelids, which are to be avoided. Her hands were symmetrical
without being small, and the palms were ever warm and damp. Though
her lips were good, her mouth was somewhat underhung; and her voice
was so deep, that at times it sounded like that of a man. Her hair
was smooth as the kokila’s plume, and her complexion was that of
the young jasmine; and these were the points at which most persons
looked. Altogether, she was neither handsome nor ugly, which is an
excellent thing in woman. Sita the goddess[77] was lovely to excess;
therefore she was carried away by a demon. Raja Bali was exceedingly
generous, and he emptied his treasury. In this way, exaggeration,
even of good, is exceedingly bad.
[77] The beautiful wife of the demigod Rama Chandra.
Yet must I confess, continued the parrot, that, as a rule, the
beautiful woman is more virtuous than the ugly. The former is often
tempted, but her vanity and conceit enable her to resist, by the
self-promise that she shall be tempted again and again. On the
other hand, the ugly woman must tempt instead of being tempted, and
she must yield, because her vanity and conceit are gratified by
yielding, not by resisting.
‘Ho, there!’ broke in the jay, contemptuously. ‘What woman cannot
win the hearts of the silly things called men? Is it not said that a
pig-faced female who dwells in Landanpur has a lover?’
I was about to remark, my king! said the parrot, somewhat nettled, if
the aged virgin had not interrupted me, that as ugly women are more
vicious than handsome women, so they are more successful. ‘We love
the pretty, we adore the plain,’ is a true saying amongst the worldly
wise. And why do we adore the plain? Because they seem to think less
of themselves than of us—a vital condition of adoration.
Jayashri made some conquests by the portion of good looks which she
possessed, more by her impudence, and most by her father’s reputation
for riches. She was truly shameless, and never allowed herself less
than half a dozen admirers at the time. Her chief amusement was to
appoint interviews with them successively, at intervals so short that
she was obliged to hurry away one in order to make room for another.
And when a lover happened to be jealous, or ventured in any way to
criticise her arrangements, she replied at once by showing him the
door. Answer unanswerable!
When Jayashri had reached the ripe age of thirteen, the son of a
merchant, who was her father’s gossip and neighbour, returned home
after a long sojourn in far lands, whither he had travelled in the
search of wealth. The poor wretch, whose name, by the bye, was
Shridat (Gift of Fortune), had loved her in her childhood; and he
came back, as men are apt to do after absence from familiar scenes,
painfully full of affection for house and home and all belonging to
it. From his cross stingy old uncle to the snarling superannuated
beast of a watchdog, he viewed all with eyes of love and melting
heart. He could not see that his idol was greatly changed, and nowise
for the better; that her nose was broader and more club-like, her
eyelids fatter and thicker, her under lip more prominent, her voice
harsher, and her manner coarser. He did not notice that she was an
adept in judging of men’s dress, and that she looked with admiration
upon all swordsmen, especially upon those who fought on horses and
elephants. The charm of memory, the curious faculty of making past
time present, caused all he viewed to be enchanting to him.
Having obtained her father’s permission, Shridat applied for
betrothal to Jayashri, who, with peculiar boldness, had resolved
that no suitor should come to her through her parent. And she, after
leading him on by all the coquetries of which she was a mistress,
refused to marry him, saying that she liked him as a friend, but
would hate him as a husband.
You see, my King! there are three several states of feeling with
which women regard their masters, and these are love, hate, and
indifference. Of all, love is the weakest and the most transient,
because the essentially unstable creatures naturally fall out of it
as readily as they fall into it. Hate being a sister excitement will
easily become, if man has wit enough to effect the change, love; and
hate-love may perhaps last a little longer than love-love. Also, man
has the occupation, the excitement, and the pleasure of bringing
about the change. As regards the neutral state, that poet was not
happy in his ideas who sang,
Whene’er indifference appears, or scorn,
Then, man, despair! then, hapless lover, mourn!
For a man versed in the Lila Shastra[78] can soon turn a woman’s
indifference into hate, which I have shown is as easily permuted to
love. In which predicament it is the old thing over again, and it
ends in the pure Asat[79] or nonentity.
[78] The Hindu _Ars Amoris_.
[79] The old philosophers, believing in a ‘Sat’ (τὸ ὄν),
postulated an Asat (τὸ μὴ ὄν) and made the latter the root of the
former.
‘Which of these two birds, the jay or the parrot, had dipped deeper
into human nature, mighty King Vikram?’ asked the demon in a
wheedling tone of voice.
The trap was this time set too openly, even for the royal personage
to fall into it. He hurried on, calling to his son, and not
answering a word. The Vampire therefore resumed the thread of his
story at the place where he had broken it off.
Shridat was in despair when he heard the resolve of his idol. He
thought of drowning himself, of throwing himself down from the summit
of Mount Girnar,[80] of becoming a religious beggar; in short, of a
multitude of follies. But he refrained from all such heroic remedies
for despair, having rightly judged, when he became somewhat calmer,
that they would not be likely to further his suit. He discovered that
patience is a virtue, and he resolved impatiently enough to practise
it. And by perseverance he succeeded. The worse for him! How vain are
men to wish! How wise is the Deity, who is deaf to their wishes!
[80] In Western India, a place celebrated for suicides.
Jayashri, for potent reasons best known to herself, was married
to Shridat six months after his return home. He was in raptures.
He called himself the happiest man in existence. He thanked and
sacrificed to the Bhagwan for listening to his prayers. He recalled
to mind with thrilling heart the long years which he had spent
in hopeless exile from all that was dear to him; his sadness and
anxiety, his hopes and joys, his toils and troubles, his loyal love
and his vows to Heaven for the happiness of his idol, and for the
furtherance of his fondest desires.