II

Now in the meantime, all this while King Mitra continued, living in his

capital among the hills, just as if King Chand had never been born,

with a soul that was divided, as it were, with exact precision, between

his dead wife and his living daughter, who resembled one another like

the two Twilights,[10] so closely, that he could not look at his

daughter, without thinking of his wife, nor call his wife back to his

recollection without bringing his daughter with her, like a shadow of

herself. And between them his soul hovered, going backwards and

forwards, till he was hardly able to discern, of the present and the

past, which was the reality, and which only a dream. And so as he

continued, one day there came to see him in his palace his prime

minister, Yogeshwara. Now this minister was well named, being very old

and very crafty, and in spite of the King's inattention, he had borne

the kingdom on his own shoulders all his life, preserving it intact.

For his wisdom resembled his white head, and there was not a black hair

in the one, nor a weak spot in the other: since both had reached the

perfect state of being without a flaw.

So when he entered, he said slowly to the King: O Maháráj, certainly

thy kingdom hangs over the very brink or ruin. And then, the old King

looked at him with a smile. And he said: O Yogeshwara, I know of

nothing in the world that could utterly destroy this kingdom, except

thy own death. For then, indeed, it would be not merely on the brink,

but lost and already lying at the very bottom of the abyss. But as it

is, I see thee there before me, in vigour and health. How, then, can

any ruin be impending? And Yogeshwara said: O King, here is Chand, the

son of Chand, the very image of his father, for he has all his father's

warlike ability, with youth and its energy superadded, about to fall

upon thy kingdom like a thunderstorm. And during his father's

lifetime, though my hair turned white, as if with terror, and my

ear-root wrinkled, as if with anxiety, nevertheless I managed, somehow

or other, by the aid of thy royal fortune and the Lord of Obstacles, to

turn his attack always upon others, and keep him busy at a distance

from our territory. But now, all other kings being subdued, this young

Chand, burning to outdo his father, has determined to fall at last on

thee, being as it were ravenous for still more earth,[11] in the form

of these thy hills. And he has sent a message, saying: That unless

King Mitra will instantly make submission and pay tribute, he will hear

the tread of King Chand's armies coming up towards the hills[12] like

the roar of the rains in the burst of their flood. Nor is there any

hope that he can be resisted by force, for he and his armies will sweep

away ours, like a wind scattering a heap of leaves.

So when he had spoken, the old King looked at him again, smiling

exactly as before. And he said: O Yogeshwara, certainly this cloud

seems to threaten a devastating storm. And yet, I am ready to stake my

whole kingdom, that thou hast already devised a means of averting the

catastrophe: nay, of even turning it to our advantage, so that this

Chand-cloud, instead of sweeping away all our crops in ruin, will on

the contrary water all our fields for another harvest.

Then said Yogeshwara: Maháráj, something indeed I have meditated. And

yet, all search would have been vain, and all deliberation idle, had I

not, by the special favour of the Elephant-faced deity, discovered a

diplomatist far abler than myself. And the old King laughed; and he

exclaimed: Ha! that is news indeed! O Yogeshwara, tell me quickly,

whether this wonder of diplomacy is young. For the time must come,

though long may it be coming, when, like every other man, thou too wilt

have to change thy birth for another: and then I shall require him to

replace thee. And little did I dream, that my kingdom contained within

it another such as thou art. Truly, I am curious to see him. Then

said Yogeshwara: Say rather, her: and often hast thou seen her, for it

is no other than thy own daughter.

And as the King started, Yogeshwara said again: O King, there are

circumstances, in which sex makes all the difference between wisdom and

folly: and cases, in which a woman, just because she is a woman, will

make a more invincible negotiator than all the ministers, from

Dhritaráshtra[13] down, that ever lived. And this is such a case, and

all the more, because the woman is such a woman as thy daughter, whom I

think that the Creator must have framed, with an eye to this very

situation. And now, then, I will tell thee, that I foresaw this from

the first, and I kept it as it were stored in reserve as a resource in

the hour of exigency, to be, if the Lord of Obstacles were only

favourable, the triumph of my policy and its crown, and the copingstone

of my career. And with this very object it was, that long ago, as thou

knowest, I obtained thy permission to cultivate thy daughter, and to

train her, and to tutor her; and as I watched her growing, I said

within myself: Some day, this sowing of thine, aided by my culture,

will be fruitful, and it may be, she will prove an instrument of

policy, to save the kingdom from destruction, when every other

instrument has failed. And very apt indeed was my pupil, and yet there

is another Master, who has done infinitely more for her, in this matter

of diplomacy, than I. For I think that the very God of Love himself

has befriended this kingdom, and conspired to assist it in its need,

lending his aid to supplement my own insufficient efforts, and mixing

in thy daughter's composition some bewildering ingredient, peculiar to

herself.

And then, all at once, the King exclaimed: Ah! no, not so. O

Yogeshwara, thou art mistaken, for he took it from her mother. Ah!

cunning god, well he knew, where to find the fascination he required.

O her voice! and her eyes! and the smile upon her lips! and O alas! for

the sweetness that is gone for ever! Aye! indeed, there breathed from

every part of her something that I cannot name, some spell, some

property, some fragrance, flung as it were from some intoxicating

source within her soul, to drive me to despair.

And as the King stopped, sadly fixing his eyes upon the ground,

Yogeshwara said again: Maháráj, whether the Deity took it, as thou

sayest, from the Queen her mother, or invented it afresh, I cannot

tell: but certain it is, that the feminine delusion in thy daughter is

the very masterpiece of a Deity skilled beyond all others in the

production of the irresistible: and old as I am, and versed in all the

varieties and ways of women, I never saw anything that resembled it

before. And often, as I have watched her, innocently casting what thou

hast called her fragrance about her in the air, with none to note it,

and all unconscious of her own inexplicable charm, like a great blue

lonely lotus-flower growing on a silent mirror of black water in an

undiscovered forest-pool, never even dreaming of looking at its own

reflection in the water, towards which all the time it bends, as if to

kiss it, absolutely blind to the loveliness that almost touches it, and

issues from itself, depriving everyone that sees it of his reason, I

have striven in wonder to discover, exactly in what the charm

consisted, and in what part of her it lay: and yet I could not, so

craftily has the Creator distributed it everywhere about her. And yet,

musing over it alone, it has seemed to me to be a thing compounded, as

it were, of contradiction. For as you listen to her, you are amazed by

her intelligence, and when you look at her, you smile as it were

against your will, and yet with an inclination to laugh, from pure

delight, so strange and so surprising and somehow or other, absurdly

delicious does it seem, for such sagacity to lodge, incongruously, in

such a casket, so dainty, and so delicate, and so curiously and

beautifully mocking as it were the cruder mould of all her ordinary

sisters, that it leaves you puzzled and perplexed and doubtful, whether

to treat her as a woman or a child, or something altogether different

from both. And there is a sort of exhilarating, and as it were,

caressing sweetness, and a sound resembling liquid laughter, falling

far away and yet lurking, somewhere or other, in the tone of her voice,

as it gives utterance to aphorisms worthy of Brihaspati,[14] that

flatters and intoxicates the ear, stealing through it straight into the

soul, and lending to everything she says, even were it nonsense, a

power of persuasion not its own. And as if this, coupled to her

beauty, were not enough, there is something affectionate, and

confiding, and as it were, an appealing submission that is mixed, I

cannot tell how, with a kind of proud and half playful, half serious

defiance, that flatters and delights and bribes and corrupts you in her

behaviour, and would utterly disarm you, even if you were, what is

absolutely impossible, her enemy; so that if once you looked at her,

you would be helpless, and wholly unable to be angry with her, no

matter what she did; for she would laugh at your anger and beguile it,

like a bewitching child endeavouring to play with incomparable grace

the part of a woman, and challenging you to find fault with her on any

ground whatever. And yet she has the cunning of her sex in so large a

measure, that she seems to have monopolised it all. And now I am a

booby, and all my experience is of less value than a straw, if there is

even one young man in the eight quarters of the world capable of

looking at her for an instant without losing all his senses at one

blow; were he even the very incarnation of asceticism. But as to this

young Chand, I have followed him from his childhood, by means of my

spies, and know him; and very cheap do I hold his professions of

misogyny and _brahmacharyam_, now that his father is away. For an old

misogynist may be in earnest, and actually mean what he says, having

been deceived and betrayed and disgusted, by reason of his experience

of some women in particular, with all. But the man whose wisdom is

taken at second-hand from another, and who is filled only with the

conceit of a knowledge not drawn from his experience, finds it crumble

to pieces as a rule at the very first touch of reality and life, like

sand: since a single shock to any part of his imaginary fortress brings

the whole to the ground with a run. For finding it untrustworthy in

any one point, he distrusts it all, and is left utterly defenceless, at

the mercy of his antagonist. And of all kinds of conceit, that of a

youth, himself, as Chand is, formed as it were of amber, on purpose to

attract the sex, like grass, who boasts himself proof against a woman's

glamour, never even dreaming what it is or what it means, is the

greatest, and the shortest, and the most easily annihilated, and the

most easily abandoned, and forgotten and forgiven, both by women and

the world. And thy daughter will bring him to his senses, and deprive

him of his reason, in the same instant that he sees her: for then he

will suddenly discover what a woman means: since till now, she has been

to him nothing but a word. And now, O King, I have told thee: and now

all rests with thee alone. For thy daughter must in any case marry

somebody: and where could be found for her a better husband than this

very Chand, whose alliance would be the salvation of the state?

And when he ended, after a while, the King said, very slowly: Old

friend, thy words resembled a sword, driven into my heart. And as I

listened to thy voice, holding up before me, like a skilful painter,

the picture of my daughter's charm, I saw in it, as in a mirror,

another standing all the while beside her, looking at me all the while

with the affection in her eyes that I shall never see again. And I

flew back in an instant, carried on thy voice, to old sweet idle hours,

when like thee I used to sit and watch and muse, striving to discover

the essence and the secret of that very self-same charm. And I would

give a hundred lives only to be young Chand, and have that charm

employed on me, again. And if he is able to resist it, I do not envy

him, nor think the more of him on that account. But let us try, and

see. For as to the wisdom and the policy of what thou hast proposed,

there cannot be a doubt of it: and my daughter must alas! be married,

as thou sayest, either to another, or to him. Only they say, that this

young Chand is so declared an enemy of women, as never even to suffer

any one of them so much as to approach him. And how, then, is the

charm to work? For in magic of this kind, the spell will not act,

unless the magician be in contact with his object. And how, then,

shall we bring about the meeting of the charmer and the charmed?

Then said Yogeshwara: O King, I have a stratagem to meet that very

difficulty, which, if my experience is not utterly at fault, is the

real, and the only one before us. For could we only place them in

proximity, I am ready to cut my own head off, if he can ever get away.

And thy daughter will fall into the scheme, and understand it, almost

before we begin to tell her, and require no instructions, since this is

a matter in which she is wiser than us all: and to go about to tell a

young beauty how to lay her snares for her natural and proper prey

would be to give lessons to the spider how to make his web. Moreover,

I do not doubt that she will take part in the plot not merely with

avidity, but something more. For she has heard, as who has not? of

this young Chand, and nothing is so attractive to the curiosity of a

woman as a young woman-hater: since every woman thinks, in her heart,

that she could perhaps persuade him to count her an exception to his

rule, and every woman in her heart partly agrees with him, since, if

she could have chosen, she would have preferred to be a man. And women

have been adorers, since the beginning, of exactly such young warriors

of whom he is the type.

So, then, by Yogeshwara's advice, King Mitra sent an answer to the

message of King Chand, saying: That King Mitra was ready to accede to

all King Chand's demands, and pay him tribute in any such form as he

might choose, if only King Chand would come up in person, under the

safe-conduct of King Mitra, to require it. For the matter would touch,

in its adjustment, the honour of both families, and the hereditary

differences could only be determined by personal arrangement on the

spot.

And when Chand got his answer, he said to his ministers: See, now,

everything is settled, though I would rather have settled it by arms.

But as it is, now, by all means, I will go up, and give him the

personal interview he asks. For I have never yet been among his hills,

nor seen his capital: moreover, it is only fair to make concessions to

pride willing to be humbled, and families careful of their honour.

And his ministers consulted together, and they said: Maháráj,

doubtless, the safe-conduct of King Mitra is unexceptionable, and above

suspicion: for he is a man of his word. And yet, be on thy guard. For

though King Mitra be incapable of deceit, his minister, Yogeshwara, has

almost as much craft as the Creator. For though he could not make a

world, he could preserve it, once it was made, almost as well as its

maker, so unfathomable is his policy and guile. Moreover, King Mitra

has a daughter, who resembles his minister in being an incarnation of

deception, only in a different form. For feminine beauty has befooled

more men than were ever beguiled by any other form of fascination or

illusion. Therefore beware! for we think it probable that a snare has

been prepared for thee.

And Chand laughed, and exclaimed: I am obliged to ye all, for your

wisdom and advice, and now I am warned. But the matter is very simple,

being wholly an affair of force, and mine is by far the greater.

Therefore there is no room at all for me to be beguiled, even by

Yogeshwara. And as to the daughter, little do I fear her. For I have

an armour of proof around my heart, so thick, that never an arrow from

her quiver can so much as reach it, were it sharpened even by the very

God of Love.

And then, the God, whose banner bears a bull on it,[15] paused. And he

said: O Snowy one, it chanced, that when Chand uttered this brag, it

was the season of Spring, who, with his flowers and his buds, was all

around him as he spoke. And as fate would have it, he was overheard by

Love himself, who was hovering near him in the air; for he happened to

be paying a visit to his friend.[16]

So when that god of the bee-strung bow heard him, he said to Madhu: O

Madhu, who is this boaster, who claims, notwithstanding his extreme

youth, to be proof against me and my weapons?[17] For thou hast been

here longer than I, who have only just arrived.

And Madhu told him all about King Chand, and his antipathy to women.

And when Love heard it, he looked at Chand for a long time, with very

great attention. And after a while, he said: O Madhu, it is very

singular to hear such overweening and presumptuous words, falling from

the mouth of such a youth as this. For he is exactly the man who in my

hands would be a deadly weapon against almost any member of that sex,

which he fancies himself able to resist.

Then said Madhu: Perhaps it is not only fancy. For often have I laid

snares for him, but always without success.

And Love laughed, with lips that curled in derision like his own bow.

And he said: Dear Madhu, thou shouldst have come to me, for aid. Thou

art but half thyself, without thy friend. And he looked at Chand, out

of the long corner of his eye, that resembled a woman's. And he said:

I have an affection for these arrogant youths, for it is my hobby and

my delight to bring them to submission. And now I will teach him a

lesson, in his own art of war, that he has still to learn, not to

despise his enemy; and prove to him, by my own favourite method of

ocular demonstration, that a woman and my deity are more than match for

greater force than his. And indeed, the conjunction[18] is altogether

fortunate. For it so happens that I have by me, just ready for him, a

new just-opened flower-intoxicant in the form of a young woman, whose

exasperating eyebrows alone, unless I am much mistaken, will shoot, in

spite of his glorious brag, a poisoned shaft into his heart, and

sticking there, will sting it, with such intolerable pain, as will

hardly be assuaged by a very storm of secret kisses, rained on the

flame of his desire, or dropped on his fainting soul, one by one, with

snow-flake touch, of pity and compassion, from her dainty and reluctant

lips.

[1] The word here used for _indelible affection_ means also _deep blue_.

[2] _i.e._, the Himálaya mountain. This was, in a sense true: and yet,

she prevaricated.

[3] This epithet refers to his story-telling abundance. Shiwa is

credited with the invention of all the stories in literature.

[4] Pronounce to rhyme with "stunned." (As these names will constantly

recur, I have, for the benefit of the English reader, cut them down,

retaining only their core. At length, they are names of the moon and

sun, meaning respectively the Friend of the Lotuses, and the _Fierce_

fire of the Sun.)

[5] Notwithstanding the system of very early marriage, cases of this

kind are common in the old stories: as is necessary: for in fairy

tales, unmarried heroines and heroes are _sine quibus non_.

[6] This refers to a story in the _Panchatantra_, well known in Europe

as the fable of the fox who had lost his tail.

[7] _i.e._, of virginity.

[8] _i.e._, the God of Love.

[9] _v._ the _Kumára Sambhawa_, for a full account of Párwati's wooing.

[10] Dusk and Dawn.

[11] The special duty of a king, according to the old Hindoo sages, is

to hunger and thirst after earth, like Ovid's Eresichthon.

[12] The monsoon which travels N.E.

[13] One of the heroes in the Mahabhárata.

[14] The preceptor of the gods; as we should say, a Solon.

[15] _i.e._, Maheshwara.

[16] _i.e._, Spring. Káma and Madhu--Love and Spring--are sworn

friends in Hindoo mythology: an obvious poetical allegory, like the

_ver_ and _Venus_ of the old Romans.

[17] _i.e._, women.

[18] An astrological term, which in modern Marathi, well known to the

god, means a marriage.