whence _forum_, so called from its great wealth, Flaxius became a great
man at court, because he despised riches and was a sage, being, of
course, greatly honoured and admired and coloured up as an incongruity,
and inexpensive at that. And at last the king consulted with him on
all matters, social, familiar, or financial, from taxing a province
down to buying a new bayadere. In all of which the Immortal displayed
singular sagacity and exquisite good taste.
This monarch had, of course, three sons, by which ye may know that
I have started on a fairy tale, the head of which is, as usual, the
part which comes last, or the youngest. This third became very dear to
Flaxius, because he was a brave, frank, innocent, clever youth, worth
looking after and loving. And his name was Arjūn.
Now in the gust and whirlwind, and flit and flow of hailstones and
rain-drops which make the pelting incidents of court-life, there being
little rest or peace in it, Flaxius began to note that a cloud was
coming over the soul of Arjūn, and from this ante-chamber of the dream,
he soon passed to the bright hall of perception, that his pupil or
friend was in love. And ere long the expected confidence came in these
words:
‘Thou knowest, O wise among men, that I have never set my heart on
love of woman. For the article in its best quality has ever been so
exceeding cheap and abundant about our court, and I have had so freely
my pick and choice of _primeurs_, that it was unto me only as my meals.
Moreover, all the books which I have studied have taught me that the
preferring one girl to another is mere idle fancy, even as tastes in
food are simply the result of caprice and custom, and that female
nature is all, in fact, folly. This I did steadfastly believe, till it
chanced that one day in the woods far beyond the city I met with a maid
of exceeding beauty, who, as I found by conversation, was so witty and
wise, original and good, that it soon appeared to me that I had all
along been in ignorance and error as to what Woman might be. And, in
short, all my philosophy went to the Seven Hells, where it may remain
for ever for all I care, being in love through and through--dyed in the
grain.
‘And this girl, Sakhára, is the daughter of a Brahmin of kingly race,
but exceeding poor. So when I told my father of my love----’
‘Why then,’ interposed Flaxius,
‘“Fire flashed from the monarch’s eyes,
And high his wrath began to rise.”’
‘Yea,’ replied Arjūn, ‘and, in short, he swore by the Cow that I should
never marry her unless it were shown to be the special will of the
gods.’
‘H’m!’ observed Flaxius, ‘I have noticed that the special will of the
gods is generally manifest in anything to which we agree, and could
the king be brought to assent to this, in any way, the divine sanction
would soon be perceptible. Therefore, my son, fret not thy soul, but go
and amuse thyself, for in love-troubles, as in all others, he who is
least uneasy comes the soonest to ease. I will see what can be done.’
It came to pass that the next day, Flaxius, while walking in the
forest and listening to the chattering of the holy monkeys in the
trees o’erhead--whose conversation was, however, of a most frivolous
and unholy character--met with a man who was evidently a poor devil on
general principles, but who appeared to be a decidedly superior person,
when one investigated the particulars, for he had a very intelligent
face of dark hue, a keen, shrewd eye, and a goodly mien. He was clad in
black.
‘I beg you, great sir,’ he said to Flaxius, ‘to take heed how you speak
to me or even look at me or let my shadow fall on you, else you will
find yourself in for hell or a long penance, for I am a pariah, and my
name is Dschim Crow.’
‘And I,’ replied Flaxius, ‘not being a fool, and having travelled in
many lands, and seen the vanity of all things human, would probably be
ranked with you, could the Brahmins read my soul.’
‘Ay,’ answered the outcast, ‘’tis one of the precepts of our
philosophy, that mankind are all divisible into the found-out and the
not-found-out.’
‘A good saying,’ replied Flaxius. ‘Have ye then a philosophy?’
‘We are the only true philosophers,’ answered the Pariah, ‘for ours is
the sole system that teaches the error of excess of wisdom, law, and
goodness. As is shown by our literature, which comprises every work of
true humour ever written in India.’
‘Better and better,’ said Flaxius; ‘and I believe you the more, because
such a literature is the natural result of such a principle. And what
are some of the works to which you refer?’
‘There is, firstly,’ answered the outlaw, ‘the story of “Vikram and
the Vampire,” in which the _Baital_ teaches the sage in a series of
twenty-five lessons how to show himself a fool just two dozen times, by
being over wise.
‘Secondly, the “Life of the Gūrū Simple,” by which we may learn that a
good man may be a great goose.
‘Thirdly, the “Marvellous Tale,” showing how Boorum-bunder Pop, the
Buddhist, broke open a poultry-house and stole all the fowls, by virtue
of the holy fourteen formulas of Sakhya Mūni.
‘Fourthly, how Ah-Sin the Chinese sage, who had been converted to the
true religion, and came to the Gate of Nirvana, descended to earth, and
meeting Brahma on a pilgrimage in human form, cheated him out of all
his money at cards.
‘Fifthly, how the holy Brahmin, Baro Chor, pilfered from the divine cow
of Waschischta a pint of the milk of experience, from which he churned
the butter of wisdom, which is in twenty thousand _slokas_ or verses.
‘_Parraco tute_,’ replied Flaxius in Prakrit, ‘I had rather thou
wouldst read it than I. Any more?’
‘There is the divine legend how Krishna, the chastest of the gods, made
love, in extreme, to twenty thousand milk-maids all at once, with the
moral of “Be virtuous and you will be happy.” After which he was always
blue in the face.’
‘Truly, I do not wonder at it,’ remarked Flaxius. ‘I have seen a man
look blue for less than that. Any more?’
‘Well there is the Thieves’ Bible teaching the divine worship of Kàli,
which they study devoutly in spirit and in truth, all the more because
it teaches them how to commit burglary, personal theft, and murder.
‘And with this the _Bāro Lil_, or Scripture of the Trablūs Dom, who
call themselves the Rom or Romany, teaching the sanctity of stealing
shirts from clothes-lines, the piety of pilfering hens, the holy art
of passing off bad horses for good, and the divineness of telling
fortunes.’
‘A goodly library!’ remarked Flaxius. ‘Dost thou know aught of magic?’
‘I have picked up a few tricks,’ replied the Pariah, ‘which I learned
from a Mahatma, such as the three card game, thimble-rig, floating in
the air, putting cigarettes under cushions, and sending letters from a
distance. My one great game is, however, to turn a girl into a tree, or
the reverse. But with all my fine accomplishments I could never conjure
up my wife or a dinner, and I need a meal now, most deucedly.’
‘Friend,’ said Flaxius, ‘I will conjure thee up a good dinner and teach
thee the art of doing it, if thou wilt impart to me those tricks of
thine.’
‘By Yamen!’ cried the jovial Bohemian, ‘thou art generous, for I deem
thy secret worth forty of mine any day. He who hath a woman may have
nothing to eat, but devil the place was I ever in where, if I had a
bountiful dinner, I could not get a girl to share it with me. By the
way,’ he inquired, ‘does this dinner of yours embrace drink--not water,
you know, but _tátto pani_ or spirits?’
‘Also that,’ said Flaxius with a smile. ‘Behold!’
There was not far from them a large earthenware pot, left by some
traveller. Flaxius bade the Outcast dig a hole in the ground. In this
the pot, upside down, was half-buried. Then he chanted in a mystic
ancient Indian tongue:
‘Baro duvel dikkamì,
Kūshto hāben, well avri!
O choro Rom se bokalo,
Kekno māss, kek kokalo;
Kekno kil, ne kel pā mui:
Bitcha leste sari dui,
Te tatto pani kater Rom,
Om mani padmi hom!’[9]
‘Mighty spirit, look on me!
Let a dinner come from thee!
Outcast hungers here alone,
Hath no meat and ne’er a bone.
Cheese nor butter for his mouth,
Send to him, I pray thee, both!
Also spirits in this hour,
O Jewel in the lotus flower!’
And this done, the feast began, for on removing the pot there appeared
beneath it a rice curry, surmounted with a fine piece of roast beef,
garnished with chillies, two chupattis or wheat-cakes, jaggree sugar
and a great flask.
‘Now by the thousand years in hell, which I am to catch for eating that
beef,’ exclaimed the Outcast, ‘I call that a good meal. Thank the devil
and your lordship--if ye be not one and the same--and for what I am
about to devour, make us truly thankful,’ as the tiger said when he ate
up the Buddha. _Yeck lav se tacho sā desh_:
‘One word’s as good as ten,
Leather away--Amen!’
‘And _toddy_--by all the goblins!’ he exclaimed as he sampled the
bottle, ‘strong and abundant enough to demoralise an elephant. Verily I
can now be clear through to the further end of my ideal of bliss, for,
as your lordship knows, _that_ man is a _bachtalo beng_ or lucky devil
who knows when he is well off, or as the great Sanskrit poet, Jan Kitz,
sings:
‘“It is a flaw,
In happiness to see beyond our bourne,
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
And spoils the singing of the nightingale.”
‘Therefore let us _not_ see beyond our bourne--at least not till we get
there; which, as our great ancestor Cain says in his precepts, is more
than most men manage to do.’
‘Was Cain thy ancestor?’ inquired Flaxius. ‘I would fain hear the
legend if one there be?’
‘Thou shalt hear it in spirit and in truth,’ replied the Outcast. ‘In
the spirit of toddy, and on the truth of a gypsy, know then, what is
known to everybody of every language, and in every land, that in the
beginning were Cainos and Abelos. And unto them was a sister. And
Cainos slew his brother and took his sister to wife. But she, being
told that it was wrong, fled from him, and took refuge in the sun,
where she dwells to this day. Then Cainos for all his sins was sent to
live in the moon, and because it is cold, there he is always bearing
thorns to feed the fire. And longing for his sister, he, in the moon,
ever pursues her. But others say that when the sun has set and ere the
moon has risen, then they meet, which accounts for their love lasting
so long, since they do not see too much of one another. But however
it be, they are gods of all us wanderers, because they are always
wandering over the heavens. And we are their descendants, and therefore
under a curse, for which indeed we do not care a curse--when we can get
toddy!
‘“When the evening fire is burning,
And the women return from town;
And the crows to their nests returning,
We will drink till the moon goes down:
And merrily sing and prattle,
While music rings over the plain;
And if there’s enough in the bottle,
We’ll drink till she rises again.”
‘Now the sun is called in our tongue Kam or Kàn, and the moon Tchen or
Zen, even as tongues turn it, hence we their children are the Zen-kan
or Zingan. And this is the true story of our race, whence ye may see
what a fine lot we are.
‘And now, your Illustriousness, since it takes two to make a bargain,
or as a bargain requires a pair, which must consist of a couple,
and as duality demands separate units, or a double of singles, and a
duplicate repeated units, and twins bi-fold births, and as according to
the Vedas there are needed twice-five fingers to make a hand-shake, and
the Shastras assert that if one parent be wanting there can be no child
born--
‘Heaven-a-mercy, man!’ cried Flaxius, ‘what the devil art thou driving
at?’
‘Only this, O heaven born! that as thou hast kept thy word and given
me the dinner without an end, and the flask inexhaustible, I will
forthwith repay, reciprocate, discharge, settle, acquit bequests with,
strike a balance, clear off old scores, liquidate, poney up my dues
to the tune of “On the nail,” and show myself a man of honour and a
gentleman by telling thee how to turn a tree into a girl or a girl into
a tree, albeit I do not guarantee the quality of the timber. But by
their fruit shall ye know them.’
‘’Tis well,’ answered Flaxius. ‘Proceed with thy process.’
And the Outcast proceeded. But here I must draw the veil of secrecy
over the mirror of curiosity. I did not mind, O reader, letting thee
know how to raise a dinner by means of sorcery, but I draw the line at
girls. For there are, as it is, rather too many girls in the world if
we may believe the Census, and too few trees, if we are to put faith
in agricultural newspapers, and therefore I think it just as well that
this metamorphosis be not added to those of Daphne and the Dryads.
* * * * *
When Flaxius returned to the _Ruppeny-gav_ or Silver City of
Chotahazripoora, he went straight to the golden palace or _Sonafilisin_
and entered the _Tatcho-bar Kamora_ or Diamond Chamber, where he found
the king shadowing the day time of his lordly soul in the dark void of
night with sleepless woe, which is to say that he was in a gloomy fit
of the blues and bored to death.
‘_Sarshān_, your majesty. How art thou?’ inquired Flaxius in the court
tongue.
‘_Sarshān yer kokero, puro!_ How are you yourself, O ancient?’ replied
the mighty monarch. ‘As for me, I am in trouble. I have, as thou
knowest, more than a thousand mothers-in-law in my family?’
‘Yea,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and I have known a man ere now to be always in
hot water with only one.’
‘And they are all nagging me to get first of all my three sons married,
and then the daughters. Canst thou see a way out of it?’ he added
anxiously.
Flaxius reflected a long time, in order not to make his wisdom too
cheap, nor yet ‘to set himself by flippancy too light, too high above
the level of his king,’ and then replied:
‘Thou knowest, O sublime Superiority, that I have deeply studied the
science of dreams, and can command them. Therefore will I somnambulate
in sleep, and draw conclusion from its imagery.
‘“The figments and conceits, the myths and fads,
The grey chimeras and the visions blue;
The phantasms and shadows of the soul,
The whims and vagaries and rhapsodies,
Extravaganzas of the booming soul,
The hum-bugs which go sailing in the dark,
The air-drawn dodgers and the bug-bears wild,
The Flying Dutchmen in the sea of sleep,
The castles in the air and homes i’ the moon,
Utopias and fair Atlantises,
The happy valleys of the bards of yore,
The fairy lands and the Millenia
Of Prester John and of Micomicon,
Wherein Alnaschar found _le pot au lait_,
And where the fay Morgana rules supreme,
Shall be explored down to their deepest dream,
And the last shadow of their last ideal,
And the last fairy coin struck in their mint
Be studied deeply in the minutest case,
To answer well thy question, O my King!”’
‘_S’e pmi duvel!_ As my Spirit may help me!’ cried the monarch in
admiration. ‘I will say this for thee, Flaxius, that beside thee as a
bard Kalidasa is nowhere, and that what thou canst not do in poetry is
not worth a-doing. Therefore, let us drink!’
And they drank.
When Flaxius appeared the next morning before his majesty, it was with
the grand and important air of a man who has been dreaming on a royal
order, and filled up every detail in first class style. The courtiers
looked at him with awe, and even his Highness regarded him with a
kind of fearful respect, as if apprehending that he might go off, or
explode, or burst in some mysterious way. He was manifestly relieved
when an attendant maiden brought to the sage a golden goblet of Soma,
or India pale ale; and when the wise man had drained off about a pint
thereof, he sighed as if all danger of a conflagration was for the time
extinguished. So great a thing is it to be known to be possessed of a
secret.
‘By your majesty’s royal command!’ said Flaxius--and all around became
as still as the mice-stars in heaven before the cat-moon--‘By your
majesty’s royal command I dreamed and I found myself in a far isle of
light holding a trumpet shell of pearly hue, which Glendoveers do blow
whene’er they meet. Then from a bowery strand just opposite--an island
of the sea--there came enchantment with the shifting wind that did both
drown and keep alive my ears. And as I listened all my sense was filled
with that new blissful golden melody; a living death was in each gust
of sounds; each family of rapturous, hurried notes, aunts, cousins,
nieces, daughters, all most beautiful, fell one after one, yet all at
once, like pearl beads dropping sudden from their strings.’
‘Ahem!’ muttered the Outcast, who had in the daring disguise of a
respectable person found his way into the assembly. ‘It seems to me
that I have heard something like that before!’
‘Then,’ continued Flaxius, ‘there rose amid wild clouds incarnadine,
the form of Siva with his glory on. He bore in one hand the _Triçula_
or trident; and without speaking, he pointed impressively at its three
points.’
All present were in breathless awe.
‘Then he disappeared, and I beheld the terrible Vishnu. He held up his
three fingers and vanished in turn.
‘And anon from the cloud there came an awful Rakhshi or demon. And he
held up three arrows--winked at me and nodded, and disappeared in a
clap of thunder!
‘From which I learned, O king, that thou must gather together all the
most beautiful princesses who are eligible. Then turn all the people in
the town out of their houses for one day, and put a princess into every
house.’
The excitement was at its height.
‘Then, O king, let thy three sons, armed with bows and arrows, send
each a shaft at random into the city. And where it hits, there will
each bride be found.’
‘What thou hast said, O Flaxius, shall be done,’ replied the king.
And it was done, _secundum artem_, in the proper way. Each prince
took his place at the great window, and let fly an arrow. The eldest
and the second-best son, one after the other, hit a house. It was
considered a great miracle that both of them were perfectly delighted
with the success which attended their aim, but Flaxius, observing a
wink in the eye of the Outcast, elicited from him the fact that both
of the princes, who were excellent archers, had been previously and
respectively in love with these very girls, and that there had been, in
fact, a little arrangement made by the help of the gypsy. For as Rum
Kove, the poet, sang in Zend:
Full many a shaft at random sent
Hits mark the archer surely meant.
Now it happened that Arjūn, the youngest, could pull the long bow
better than any of them; in fact, he had been heard to say that he
could split a hair at a hundred yards, or hit a thunderbolt with a
bolt head as it passed whizzing by. And there was in the armoury of
the palace a mighty bow which no one else on earth could bend, which
he chose for this occasion, but by the secret suggestion of Flaxius
he aimed over the town. And when he discharged the arrow, he gave the
bow and it, at the instant, a peculiar impulse, which skilled archers
understand, so that the shaft flew miles away far into the forest.
Then messengers were sent to trace its course, which they did; and
on returning repeated that they had found it sticking in the top of
a tamarind-tree, in the foliage, like a hairpin passed through the
chignon or gathered hair of a maiden.
So the king summoned Flaxius and all the learned men to know what
should be done. And it was unanimously agreed that Arjūn must marry the
tree; there being many precedents to prove that trees were a kind of
human beings, only that they grew with their heads in the ground, their
forked branches being legs. Also, that according to legends of many
lands, men have descended from them.
[On which subject the Outcast expressed his assent, _sotto voce_, to
Flaxius, but added that he believed the said men had first ascended
them to steal fruit.]
So there was a procession formed; and going to the tamarind-tree, the
king and prince and all concerned bowed before it, expressing hopes
that it was in good health; and finally proposed the marriage. When at
that instant came a charming breeze, before which the tree bowed its
head as if in assent, and the match was concluded. Then rich gifts were
laid before the bride and left there with a guard, and the king and his
cortège returned home.
When lo! the next day there were found spread on a table in the grand
hall of the palace, other gifts, exceeding rich, with a purple scroll,
on which was inscribed in letters of silver:
‘The Tamarind herself commends,
And to the prince these presents sends,
And humbly begs of him that he
Will seek the forest speedily;
Unto the spot where she doth bide,
And bear away his loving bride.’
So they all went once more. And when they were before the tree, they
saw it slowly shrink to smaller space, its foliage turning into curling
hair, till in its place there stood a maiden fair.
And this was, of course, the fair Sakhara, who being found to be of
royal blood, was duly wedded to Arjūn--the king sagely observing that
‘it was manifestly the will of the gods.’ And here endeth the story of
her and of Arjūn.
Now by the powerful influence of Flaxius there was a special
investigation of the case of the Outcast, by the entire College
of Brahmins, with a view to his rehabilitation, since there were
precedents for it. And it was found that in a previous existence,
a million of years before, he had been a Crow. And of him the most
learned of the Brahmins discovered the following history of his Jatakas
in an ancient Sanscrit scroll:
THE HISTORY OF BHUSANDA
Contemplate steadfastly the divine glory, cast thy soul into the
sparkling depths of the infinite sea, whose fishes are gods, whose
waves are the ages!
It is written in the Ramayana, it was told of yore by the Rishis. Once
there was a man named Bhusanda, who was the Crow that related to the
eagle Garuda, the bird of Vishnu, the deeds of Rama to convince him
that the latter was greater than Shiva and Vishnu.
Nor was Bhusanda utterly evil, neither was he bad, but the spirit of
mockery was in him, for, ever doing good deeds, he wanted reverence; he
was as a silver bell with a flaw.
And when a youth, Bhusanda was worshipping Shiva in the temple, there
entered the holy Gūrū, his teacher. And Bhusanda, seeing him enter, for
a jest, being also mightily exalted with ideas of his own wisdom, did
not greet or notice his Gūrū. Which thing the teacher, in his extreme
humility and mildness, would have passed unnoted. But the God above,
in his rage at this insolence, thundered from heaven at Bhusanda the
awful doom of eternal damnation.
Then the Gūrū who knew not revenge or anger, flung himself on his face
before the God and prayed for a remission of the sentence. And the God,
relenting, said:
‘He shall pass through one thousand transformations, in all of them
shall he be poor, but crafty and wise. He shall adore Vishnu, yet ever
call aloud my name!’
Then after his death, he became a serpent, and so passed through a
thousand forms, and at last became a Brahmin again. Yet was he still,
as erst, incorrigible; and the devilry of quizzing and satire would not
leave his heart, despite his goodness. Among men, gods, and devils, no
one dared so much as he for a joke.
Now there are ten sons of Brahma, even the ten Rishis, and these are:
Daksha, Pulastya, Agni, Washishta, Brigu, Atri, Maritshi, Narada,
Pulagen, Kratū. Each of them--all of them--truly an awful _gooroo_! And
one day when one of these was lecturing on the attributes of God, his
own father, Bhusanda, ventured to differ with him in opinion, yea even
to contradict him. Whereupon the Rishi, in a rage at such stupendous
impudence, condemned him in his next life to become a crow; which he
did, but took it all so cheerfully, and continued to say so many good
things, that the Rishi, to soften the sentence, taught him to call the
name of _Rama_. [Whom the Romi or Gypsies worship, and from whom they
take their name, the crow being among the Brahmins the symbol of the
sun, who is the mother of the Romany.]
Now when Rama was born, the Crow flew unto him, and accompanied him in
all his childhood; and as the god performed his great deeds, Bhusanda,
every morning, on the top of the Blue Mountain, narrated them to all
the birds assembled, who spread them over all the world. And so in
due time it was written that he should become a man again, named
Dschim Crow, and turn up some day or other at the court of the city of
Chotahazripoora in company with a great and marvellous sage named F----.
* * * * *