DESPAIR
Thanks to the English who had interposed and had stopped the War, a
Treaty of Peace had been signed between the Maharajah of Mysore and my
master, the King of Golconda.
But, under an appearance of friendship, there still brooded a bitter
enmity; and as a renewal of hostilities would have been the ruin of my
master, who was less powerful than his enemy, a method was sought to
confirm and strengthen the Treaty.
The plan decided upon was terrible--terrible for _me_--and brought
about the catastrophe which the Hermit had foretold; and as he had
predicted, I was the maker of my own misfortunes....
Parvati all at once began to act strangely. A preoccupation which she
did not impart to me absorbed her constantly, and I was unable to
decide whether she was happy, or sad. For hours at a time she would
sit motionless, leaning back, gazing straight before her, her little
hands clenched on the arms of her rattan chair.
I thought I could perceive that she was restless and impatient--as if
expecting something; but she, who usually confided to me every thought,
now was silent and reserved.
One day I saw her in the great Avenue of Tamarind Trees looking
attentively at something which she held in the palm of her hand; she
would lift it and bring it near--then hold it off at a distance,
looking at it with half-closed eyes. She ended by letting her arms fall
at her side, and bowing her head.
I drew near and saw that her eyes were full of tears. At this I uttered
a little plaintive cry, and knelt before her, trying to make her
understand how it pained me to be ignorant of that which was grieving
her.
She understood me, and patting me gently with her hand, she made me
rise.
"I am going to tell thee everything to-day, Iravata," said she. "If I
have been silent till now it was because I dreaded to announce things
that might never come to pass; to speak of them seemed only to make
them more real, and to bring them nearer. I had hoped that all would
fade away, like the clouds which sometimes gather in the sky, and seem
to threaten a tempest, but which yet disappear without bringing a
storm. But now all is settled."
I trembled with anxiety on hearing her speak so sadly; she had seated
herself on a bench of carved wood lacquered in red and gold, and she
now continued, looking at the thing she held hidden in her hand:
"I am a Princess," said she. "Till lately I had supposed that this
meant only that I was more powerful, more free, as well as richer than
other mortals. I have learned that this is not all. There are duties
which we owe to the people of whom we are the rulers, and our duty
sometimes is to sacrifice our happiness to their welfare."
(The "happiness of the people!"--"sacrifice herself!" what was I about
to hear?)
All at once she opened her hand and showed me a little picture set
round with gold and diamonds:
"See this," said she, "it is a Prince--look well at it.... See this
large, heavy face, this dark complexion, almost black under the white
turban; see that thick mouth, and that bristling moustache, those long
half-shut eyes, with such a sneering expression! It is not what one
would imagine the face of a young Prince to be--and yet," added she,
"it is no doubt flattered!"
She raised the picture to the level of my right eye, and I shut the
other in order to see better.
So far as an elephant can judge of a likeness, and above all after
the description she had given, it seemed to me the face of a terrible
being--an enemy; and I hardly glanced at the picture when I was seized
with a hatred of the person it represented, although I did not yet know
how much reason I had to detest him.
"This Prince is named Baladji-Rao," said Parvati. "He is the Son of the
Maharajah of Mysore, who at the time of my birth was making an unjust
war upon my father, and who would have put him to a shameful death, had
you not rescued him, my Iravata. Well! behold how strange is the fate
of princes! This Baladji, whose father strove to make me an orphan--is
to be my husband--they are about to marry me to him, in order to
cement more strongly the Treaty which has been signed, and preserve the
peace of the two Kingdoms."
_Marry her_!
"The Prince has never seen me, and I am not acquainted with him; how
can there be anything like friendship between us? But it is not, alas!
a question of friendship--but of politics. I must sacrifice myself to
the good of the State. To lament would be unworthy of my noble birth,
and to appear sad would only distress my parents, who are delighted
with the alliance."
I was thunderstruck. For a few moments I remained mute; but I could
not control myself and very soon began to stamp and utter screams of
distress.
"No.... No! Iravata," cried she: "do not do so; thy cries seem only
to echo my own despair--and I am not willing to give it expression! I
smother my grief in my heart, and force back my tears. I am resolved
to be a truly Royal maiden, worthy of the long line of ancestors which
form in history a brilliant chain, of which I am the last link. But
they shall not separate thee from me.... That I will never allow!"
Not separate her from me when she was already so little with me! Ah!
why could she not have remained a child, over whom I was permitted to
watch?... To be together then was a pleasure for her, as much as for
me! While now she was full of thoughts in which I had no part--taken up
with amusements in which I counted for nothing. When she was married
she would have a Court of her own, and a whole Palace to organize and
direct--and what would become of me?
I was ashamed at thinking only of myself, and forgetting her sorrows;
but a new feeling which I could not control had been aroused and was
raging in me--a fury, and a savage hatred for the stranger who was
going to take my Princess away from me.
She forbade me to express my anguish, and it choked me. I had not,
myself, any "royal" soul; I owed nothing to my "ancestors." I was only
a beast of the forest, taught by my association with men to think, and
to suffer; when I suffered I had to cry out; and since my Princess
would not permit me to do so in her presence--I rushed away, and went,
like a wounded animal, to lie and grieve on my bed in the stable!