And the elephant said: Pippala, when she spoke, I uttered a cry. And I
exclaimed: Ha! the husband! O alas! I had forgotten him. Then she
said quietly: But I had not. And I cried: O alas! alas! Out, out upon
this husband, for he was born only for my ruin and despair. Now, like
a cloud of pitchy black, he stands between my soul, and the digit of
the moon that I adore. Aye! but for him, I might be hanging like a
moonstone bathed in the nectar camphor of its beams. O why did fate
suffer him to come between us! why did I not meet thee first, before he
ever saw thee? Ha! what would it cost the Creator to obliterate a
single husband, and strike him from the roll of entities, making him
absolutely nothing and a thing that has never been, thinner than the
memory of a forgotten dream? Alas! I am cheated by the Creator and
this husband, and coming just too late, I am robbed of the very fruit
of this untimely birth. And after all, what is this husband? Is he a
husband who goes away and leaves thee, like a flower dropped
negligently upon the road, and have I not found thee, made ownerless by
his absence, and picked thee up, to wear thee in my hair? Can he be
thy owner, of whom it is not even certain that he lives? Aye!
doubtless he is dead, and thou hast not any longer the pretext of a
husband, to bar thee from my claim. And instantly she said: Then, if
he is really dead, it is my duty to follow him through the fire, which,
could I only learn his death with certainty, I would do without delay.
And I exclaimed: Nay, nay, dare not to dream of fire, for how knowest
thou he is dead? Beyond a doubt, he is not dead, but only hidden; and
wouldst thou dream of such criminal impiety as to take it on thyself to
precede him into the other world. I tell thee, it is thy duty to await
him. And she said: Then if he is not dead, I am no widow, but his wife.
And I exclaimed with tears: Alas! dead or alive, he blocks the way, and
I am lost. But what then, if he never should return? What if year
follows year, and still he chooses to be absent, while all the time the
lotus of thy beauty fades, and envious wrinkles crawl slowly, one by
one, to feed like worms on thy soft delicious skin, and occupy the
corner beneath thy little ear, turning thy dark tresses white, as if
with fear of the shadow of approaching age and death? Am I to stand
idly by, like a spectator, and watch the river of my happiness flow by
me, in the form of thy decaying charm? And she said in a low voice:
Each night and day I will expect him, and when he comes, let it be when
it may, he shall never catch me unprepared, but find me waiting, sad by
reason of his absence, and joyous like a city hung with banners to
receive its lord, at the moment of his return.
And I gazed at her for a little, poised as it were between affection
and despair; for as she spoke, the colour rose and stood upon her
cheek, and her lip trembled, and her steady eyes seemed to gaze into
the distance, seeing not me, but that absent husband: and I knew that
as she said, so would she do. And I wrung my hands, and wept for
sorrow. And I exclaimed: Ha! it is unjust, and I am the plaything of a
destiny that I fastened on myself by sins committed in a former birth,
in the form of this dark shadow of a husband, who is present even in
his absence, though as it seems, time and space have swallowed him, as
the ocean swallows up a little stone, dropped from the feather of a
passing swan into the very middle of the sea. And know, O pippala,
that it was exactly as I said. For that husband of hers returned no
more, but vanished, and neither I nor any other ever saw him more, or
knew where he had gone.
And Trishodadhi, as he listened, said within himself: Ha! little does
this elephant imagine who it is, that sits and listens to him now. And
oblivious of his muttering, he listened on, eager for the remainder of
the tale.