And meanwhile Makarandika, ignorant and careless of all that was
occurring in that world of the Widyadharas which she had thrown away
like a blade of grass, and utterly forgotten, was living like a siddha
in a moon without a spot, having, so to say, attained emancipation in
the form of the husband of her own choice. And for his part, Arunodaya,
having lit upon the very wife of his former birth, contrary to
expectation, and married her again, lived with her like one plunged for
an instant in an ocean of intoxication, salt as her beauty[35] and
infinite as her devotion, and unfathomable as her eyes. And for a while,
he seemed to be the very image of a bee drowned in the honey of a red
lotus, or a _chakora_ surfeited with the beams of a young moon. And in
order to make up to Makarandika, and console her for the loss of her
power of flying through the air, which of all her sciences she most
regretted, he built for her innumerable swings, with gold and silver
chains, and one, that she loved the best, on the very roof she first
arrived on. And she used to pass her time in it, whenever she had
nothing else to do, swinging softly to and fro, and looking across the
sea; tasting, by means of the swing and her own imagination, some
vestige of her lost equality with all the birds of heaven. And though
she never so much as whispered it aloud, yet sometimes, her unutterable
longing to possess once more that power which she had lost for ever, as
she watched the sea-birds flying, brought tears into her eyes, which she
never let Arunodaya see.
[Footnote 35: A play on words, _salt_ and _beauty_ being the same
(_lawanya_).]
And yet, though she had utterly lost all her magic sciences, she still
retained the whole of that other magic, which the Creator has not
limited only to Widyadharis, of feminine fascination. And like the moon,
she was a very bundle of bewitching arts,[36] whose potency was doubled
by the intensity of her affection for her lord. For a woman who does not
feel affection for her own husband resembles a sunset from which the sun
and all his redness are withdrawn.
[Footnote 36: _Kala_ means _arts_ as well as _digits_.]
And she was, moreover, so absolutely bent upon erasing from his
recollection every vestige of the dim image of the wife of his former
birth, for whom she had substituted herself, like a new moon eclipsing
an old one, that she thought of nothing else: and the thought of this
former wife resembled a thorn that was fixed ineradicably in her own
heart. And she busied herself all day and night, in occupying his whole
attention, and laying snares for his soul, by dancing, and singing, and
telling him innumerable stories, and making as it were slaves of all his
senses, enthralling his eyes with the variety of her beauty, and
captivating his ears with the sorcery of her voice, and chaining his
desires to herself by never-ending wiles of caressing attention, in the
form of embraces of soft arms, and kisses like snowflakes, and glances
shot at him out the very corner of her eye, enveloping him with such a
mist of the essence of a woman's sweetness as to keep him from seeing
any other thing at all. For her Widyadhari nature gave to all her
behaviour grace that was far beyond the reach of any ordinary mortal,
and she seemed like an incarnation of femininity, divested of all the
grossness and clumsy imperfection that it carries when mixed with the
element of death, so that her touch seemed softer, and her step seemed
lighter, and her outline rounder, and her smile far sweeter and her
passion purer, and her whole love ecstasy deeper and truer than any
woman's could ever be.
But as for the prime minister, when he came, according to agreement, and
Arunodaya showed her to him on the day of the full moon, he was so
utterly bewildered by the very sight of her that she turned him as it
were to stone. And after staring at her in stupefaction, being wholly
bereft of appropriate speech, and as it were deserted by his reason,
which lay prostrate at her little golden-bangled feet, he went away in
silence. And after a long while, he said to himself as he sat alone:
Beyond a doubt, this inexplicable King has somehow or other managed to
find a very miracle of a queen, as far as beauty goes. For her very
ankles alone, are enough to drive a lover mad, and worth more than the
whole body of any other woman; so that whoever began to look at her,
beginning with her feet, would never get any higher, but remain for ever
worshipping their slender and provoking curve, with a thirst that was
never quenched. She must be Rati or Priti, fallen, nobody knows how,
into a mortal birth, and leaving Kama in despair. And yet, whether she
be, as he supposes, the very wife of his former birth, or not, I am
irretrievably disgraced. For he has managed this matter all alone,
without so much as consulting me. And thus, not only have I lost my
opportunity, of taking as it were tribute from all the surrounding
kings, but I am very much mistaken if some of them, or even all, will
not take umbrage at the slight put upon all their daughters by this
unrelated queen,[37] and band together, and suddenly attack him,
bewildered as he is by her disastrous intoxication; and so, the kingdom
will be uprooted, since he is likely to be so entirely wrapped up in her
that he will think of nothing else. And it may be that he will discover
in the future that he has lost more, by disregarding his prime minister,
than he has gained, by marrying even for the second time the wife of his
former birth. And if, as I suspect, this is all but a trick, time will
show up the imposture, and then it will be my turn. For if ever he
should discover she has cheated him, all the coquetry and coaxing in the
world will not keep him from abhorring her, for stealing his affection,
and diverting it away from its proper object, to herself. For as a rule,
men object to being cheated, even to their own advantage, since the
cheater seems to argue that the cheated is a fool. But in the meantime I
must wait, since it is useless to do anything, till the charm has lost
its magic by dint of repetition. For beauty resembles amber: it
attracts, but does not hold: and like a razor, loses virtue every time
that it is used: till at last, it becomes altogether blunt, and
impotent, and without either edge or bite. And then, unless I am very
much mistaken, this lovely false wife of his previous existence will
find, that she has to reckon with a formidable rival, in his
recollection of the true.
[Footnote 37: Every reader of Scott will recall the "kinless loons."]