And then, as the laughter surged again in Aja's soul, saying within
himself: Out on this pitiable old scarecrow of a King, whose only
thought is dancing! the King turned, and stood aside. And Aja looked,
and instantly, the laughter died out of his heart, which ceased as it
were to beat. And he murmured to himself: Ha! this is the most wonderful
thing of all. King and women and desert and all vanished out of his
mind, as if the sentiment that suddenly seized it filled it so
completely as to leave room for nothing else. And he stood still gazing,
feeling as though he were spinning round, though he was standing still
as death. For there before him stood this enigmatical King's daughter.
And like her father, she also seemed an incarnation of the soul of
grief, not as in his case ignominious, and an object of derision, but
rather resembling a heavenly drug, compounded of the camphor of the cold
and midnight moon, that had put on a fragrant form of feminine and fairy
beauty to drive the world to sheer distraction, half with love and half
with woe. For like the silvery vision of the newborn streak of that Lord
of Herbs, she was slender and pale and wan, formed as it seemed of some
new strange essence of pure clear ice and new dropt snow, and she loomed
on the soul of Aja out of the blackness of his trance like a large white
drooping lily, just seen in the gloom of an inky night. And her hair and
brow were the colour of a thunder-cloud in the month of Chaitra[9], and
like that cloud, the heavy sorrow hung in her great dark mournful eyes,
drenching him as it were with a shower of dusky dreamy dewy beauty, and
drawing him down bewitched and lost like the victim of a haunted pool
into the snaky eddy of their silent unfathomable recess. And yet her
deep red lips trembled, as it were on the very border of a smile, as if
they were hinting against their will of a mine of laughter and subtle
snares that they were not allowed to use. And she had risen up to come
and meet him, yet was hanging back as if reluctant, and so she stood,
all reflected in the polished floor, with her head thrown back to look
at him, for she was very small, like one on the very point of imploring
help, yet shrinking, as if too proud to ask it from a stranger, balanced
as it were between reliance on her own pure and pleading beauty and
doubtfulness of its reception. So she halted irresolute, with glorious
throat that was hovering still over the swell of her lifted breasts,
poised as it were on the very verge of tumultuous oscillation, like that
of Rati, preparing with timidity to cast herself at the feet of the
three-eyed God, to beg back the body of her burned-up husband in a
passion of love-lorn tears.
[9] April.
And Aja stood before her, like the sea when the digit of the moon rises
suddenly over its waves, stirred with a tumult of strange emotions, and
yet lit by a heavenly ray, a mass of agitated darkness mixed with
dancing, trembling light; all unaware that he was himself to the King's
daughter exactly what she was to him, a weapon of bewilderment in the
hands of the cunning god of the flowery bow, who shot him suddenly at
her, like an arrow of intoxication, and pierced her through the very
middle of the soft lotus of her heart.
So they two stood awhile in silence. And all at once, Aja spoke, not
knowing that he spoke aloud. And he said, very slowly: How many
husbands, then, have already had this lustrous beauty, who looks for all
as pure and pale and undefiled as a new young delicate jasmine bud? And
instantly, as if roused from sleep by his reproach, he saw the colour
leap up into her cheek, and spread like dawn flushing over her burning
throat and brow. And she drew a sudden breath, and her bosom heaved
abruptly as if with a sob of shame. And at that moment, the voice of the
King her father broke harshly into Aja's dream, saying: Alas! alas!
Never a husband has had her yet, though she is now long past sixteen,
and could even teach Tumburu dancing.
And then, as if the King's words had suddenly lifted a weight from his
soul, Aja burst into a shout of laughter. And he tottered, as if to
fall. And he caught at the old King's arm, and gripped it so that he
almost screamed, exclaiming amid his laughter: Ha! King, I am also the
son of a King: and now I will be thy son-in law. And she shall have a
husband at last, and teach him, if she pleases, dances, that even
Tumburu does not know. And with that, he fell into such a paroxysm of
laughter, that weak as he was, he could not stand, but fell: and his
laughter turned to sobbing. Then the King's daughter turned to her
father, with an angry flush on her brow. And she said, with strong
emotion: O father, wilt thou delay for ever to send for food and water?
Dost thou not see that this King's son, great and powerful though he be,
is weak, and it may be, perishing, before thy face, of hunger and
thirst, having escaped by a miracle out of the desert to die by thy
neglect.
And she clapped her hands, stamping her foot in indignation. Then the
women ran, and took up Aja, and carried him away. And they bathed him,
and tended him, and fed him till he was recovered: and after a while,
they brought him back, into the presence of the King.