And then, Maheshwara tossed the last leaf into the air. And as it
floated away down the stream, he said to the goddess, as she listened
with attention: And yet he never came, as I told thee at the
beginning. For Narasinha was beforehand with him, after all.
And the Daughter of the Snow sat silent, looking away down the river
after the floating leaf, until it was lost to sight. And then she said
slowly: Why didst thou say in the beginning that Táráwalí was the most
extraordinary of all women, past, present, or to come? For I was
deceived by thy encomium, expecting a woman altogether different from
her, who was only but a specimen of her sex.
And the Moony-crested god burst into loud laughter. And he exclaimed:
Speak low, O Snowy One: for if thy mortal sisters overheard thee
betraying their secrets and their cause, they would be very angry, and
perhaps begin to curse thee as a traitor, instead of offering thee
worship, as they all do now. What! dost thou actually deem her to be
but a type of all the rest? Surely, thou must have been asleep all the
time that I was reading, after all: since thou hast either
misunderstood her altogether, or it may be, wilt not do her justice,
out of jealousy: since no woman in the three worlds can ever be
trusted to judge another fairly, treating her always as a criminal and
a rival, and falling on her tooth and nail, especially if, like
Táráwalí, she sets custom at defiance, going by an independent
standard of her own. But now, let me help thee to see how utterly
mistaken is thy estimate of a character so rare as hardly to be
matched in the whole of space and time for her cleverness and her
candour and her tranquillity of soul, leaving her beauty out of the
account, as that one element in her common to a very host of others.
For the Creator was not such a bungler as to confine all feminine
beauty to a single instance, but scattered it universally, since
almost every woman in the world, no matter what her face be like,
shares in the wonderful fascination exerted over men by the shape
essential to her sex, which is far the most important thing of all,
being general instead of special, as every woman seen dimly in the
dark, or at a distance, or with her face hidden by a veil, will prove,
being then above all most attractive when her face cannot be seen at
all: as the story that I told thee of the ugly lady, not long ago,
shows, if thou hast not forgotten it.[37] Whereas the thing special to
Táráwalí was her incomparable soul, in which were mingled elements
hardly ever to be found combined, gentleness and strength, and
simplicity almost naive, with subtlety beyond all comparison, and
pride that never took offence, and superlative beauty with humility,
and submissiveness with extreme independence of spirit, and kindness
without weakness, and feminine sweetness of disposition with the
intellectual vigour of a man, and his courage, and his candour, all of
which combined with her extraordinary bodily beauty to make her a
paragon of intoxication utterly irresistible to every male[38] she
came across, like a very Prakriti in a woman's form.
And Párwatí said: How canst thou lavish such praise on a woman so
deservedly slain by her infuriated lover, when he suddenly awoke to
the discovery of the real nature behind the mask?
And the great god laughed again, and he looked at her shrewdly and he
said: Aha! Snowy One, said I not that thou wert asleep as I read? I
shall have to repeat to thee the story all over again another time.
Dost thou actually not see that all she said, from beginning to end,
was absolutely true? For Shatrunjaya told the whole story very well,
as he understood it; but he did not understand completely, and made a
terrible error in the most important point of all, being led astray by
what he had heard, and easily taken in. For blinded by his rage
against his rival Narasinha, he came suddenly to the wrong conclusion,
and slew her by mistake, never so much as giving her time for any
explanation. For her eyes never wavered, as he thought, for guilt, but
for quite another reason. And Narasinha really was, exactly as she
said, her tyrant, nor had she anything to do with his assassination of
her lovers, which he committed all on his own account, out of
jealousy, paying no attention at all to her intercession. But in her
gentleness, she shrank from the very idea of any violence, and this
was the true cause of the wavering of her eyes, foreseeing as she did
another attempt on Shatrunjaya, which she could not avert. And my
heart was grieved at her death at the hands of a lover whose life she
had saved, and would have saved again if she could. For she was worth
far more than he.
And the Daughter of the Snow said: But what was she doing with such a
multitude of lovers at all?
And Maheshwara said: Thou art like Shatrunjaya himself, biased against
her by the insinuations of Haridása, and the discreditable behaviour
of that little liar Chaturiká, who betrayed her as well as others, and
by the idle talk of the people, which she rightly compared herself to
the croaking of so many frogs. For low people always put the very
worst interpretation upon the actions of kings, and especially of
queens, of whom all the time they know less than nothing, exactly as
she said. And Shatrunjaya's opinion of her wavered, in spite of all
his worship, being coloured by the scandal that he heard, so that he
saw her through its mist, as strangers always do. And if she had too
many lovers, it was all the fault of the Creator, who endowed her with
such fascination, combined with the kindness of her heart: since she
blamed herself for their misery, and could not bear to send them away
without making them as it were some reparation for her crime of being
beautiful beyond all resistance. And this was her only fault.
Then said the Mountain-born, with emphasis: I hate her: for a woman
should confine herself to one.
And Maheshwara said, looking at her with affection: Ah! Snowy One,
thou art right, and thou art wrong. For not every woman is a
counterpart of thee. And moreover, to be rigidly inaccessible[39] is
terribly hard, when a woman is as she was, a very incarnation of
bewildering intoxication, and kind into the bargain. For then she
resembles a fortress, besieged night and day and mined everlastingly
by innumerable hosts absolutely determined to get in; and sleepless
indeed must be the garrison that guards it; and often it yields of
sheer weariness and fatigue, unable any longer to endure the strain.
And Táráwalí was absolutely right when she said that her lovers drove
her, against her inclination, into the reputation of a lady of many
lovers, since they were all so infatuated by the very sight of her
that they never let her alone. For love that really finds its object
will face ten thousand deaths to reach it, and is very hard to repel.
And it laughs in utter scorn at arguments, and bribes, and barriers,
and dangers, and refusals, bent with a burning heart upon one thing
only, to reach its goal, dead or alive, no matter which. And when a
woman is an incarnation of that object, she moves the whole world with
her little finger, and is fatal, and raised into a category above all
ordinary rules. And Táráwalí was moreover in a peculiar position, for
her husband had thrown her away of his own accord, so that she
actually belonged to nobody but herself, and injured herself alone, if
she could not always help yielding when a lover pushed her terribly
hard, by touching her heart like Shatrunjaya in the matter of his
dream. And very few indeed are the women who would not have done the
same, for he was a great musician, and a man among men, and very
young. And very rare indeed is the woman who is qualified to censure
her. For most women keep their wheel upon the track, either because
nobody ever tries to make them leave it, or simply for fear, either of
being punished, or of other women's tongues. And not one in a crore
could have resisted half the pressure that Táráwalí had to bear, for
the very greatest of a winning woman's charms is exactly the one which
she possessed in supreme perfection, her soft and delicious
willingness to oblige and please, and place all the sweetness of her
personality at the absolute disposal of her lover, as Shatrunjaya
understood at the very first sight of her: a thing so utterly
irresistible, that when it is combined, as it was in her, with
intelligence masculine in its quality, its owner sweeps away every
man's reason like a chip in a flood. And there was a special reason
for Táráwalí's intelligence.
And the goddess said: What was the reason? And the Moony-crested god
said: It was the necessary consequence of the actions of a former
birth. For in the birth before, she was a man, doomed by _gati_[40] to
become a woman in the next, by reason of a sin. And she said again:
What sin? Then said Maheshwara: Ask me another time, O thou cajoler:
for it is a long story, and now I have no more leisure: since I must
go and bestow the favour of my presence on a ceremony performed by a
pious devotee who has built me a new temple at Wáránasi. And canst
thou guess who it is?
And the Daughter of the Snow said: How in the world can I guess his
name, of whom I never heard before?
And the Moony-crested god said: It is not a he, but a she: being no
other than Táráwalí herself, in yet another birth. And she is still
only a woman, for she has not yet succeeded in raising herself by
merit into the condition of a man. And it may be long before she
succeeds. For it is easy to sink, but it is hard for any creature to
rise into a status of being superior to its own, and the women who
emerge into manhood are very rare. For the goodness that is synonymous
with real existence[41] is only to be found in those who have behind
them the accumulated effort and desert of ages, standing on a peak
loftier by far than any of thy father's snowy summits, which cannot be
attained in any single birth by no matter what exertions or
austerities. But when once any being has attained it, emancipation
dawns, touching it into colour more beautiful by far than any tints
the rising sun has ever thrown on newly fallen mountain snow.