CHAPTER XX

DESPAIR

Thanks to the English who had interposed and had stopped the War, a Treaty of Peace had been signed between the Maharajah of Mysore and my master, the King of Golconda.

But, under an appearance of friendship, there still brooded a bitter enmity; and as a renewal of hostilities would have been the ruin of my master, who was less powerful than his enemy, a method was sought to confirm and strengthen the Treaty.

The plan decided upon was terrible--terrible for _me_--and brought about the catastrophe which the Hermit had foretold; and as he had predicted, I was the maker of my own misfortunes....

Parvati all at once began to act strangely. A preoccupation which she did not impart to me absorbed her constantly, and I was unable to decide whether she was happy, or sad. For hours at a time she would sit motionless, leaning back, gazing straight before her, her little hands clenched on the arms of her rattan chair.

I thought I could perceive that she was restless and impatient--as if expecting something; but she, who usually confided to me every thought, now was silent and reserved.

One day I saw her in the great Avenue of Tamarind Trees looking attentively at something which she held in the palm of her hand; she would lift it and bring it near--then hold it off at a distance, looking at it with half-closed eyes. She ended by letting her arms fall at her side, and bowing her head.

I drew near and saw that her eyes were full of tears. At this I uttered a little plaintive cry, and knelt before her, trying to make her understand how it pained me to be ignorant of that which was grieving her.

She understood me, and patting me gently with her hand, she made me rise.

"I am going to tell thee everything to-day, Iravata," said she. "If I have been silent till now it was because I dreaded to announce things that might never come to pass; to speak of them seemed only to make them more real, and to bring them nearer. I had hoped that all would fade away, like the clouds which sometimes gather in the sky, and seem to threaten a tempest, but which yet disappear without bringing a storm. But now all is settled."

I trembled with anxiety on hearing her speak so sadly; she had seated herself on a bench of carved wood lacquered in red and gold, and she now continued, looking at the thing she held hidden in her hand:

"I am a Princess," said she. "Till lately I had supposed that this meant only that I was more powerful, more free, as well as richer than other mortals. I have learned that this is not all. There are duties which we owe to the people of whom we are the rulers, and our duty sometimes is to sacrifice our happiness to their welfare."

(The "happiness of the people!"--"sacrifice herself!" what was I about to hear?)

All at once she opened her hand and showed me a little picture set round with gold and diamonds:

"See this," said she, "it is a Prince--look well at it.... See this large, heavy face, this dark complexion, almost black under the white turban; see that thick mouth, and that bristling moustache, those long half-shut eyes, with such a sneering expression! It is not what one would imagine the face of a young Prince to be--and yet," added she, "it is no doubt flattered!"

She raised the picture to the level of my right eye, and I shut the other in order to see better.

So far as an elephant can judge of a likeness, and above all after the description she had given, it seemed to me the face of a terrible being--an enemy; and I hardly glanced at the picture when I was seized with a hatred of the person it represented, although I did not yet know how much reason I had to detest him.

"This Prince is named Baladji-Rao," said Parvati. "He is the Son of the Maharajah of Mysore, who at the time of my birth was making an unjust war upon my father, and who would have put him to a shameful death, had you not rescued him, my Iravata. Well! behold how strange is the fate of princes! This Baladji, whose father strove to make me an orphan--is to be my husband--they are about to marry me to him, in order to cement more strongly the Treaty which has been signed, and preserve the peace of the two Kingdoms."

_Marry her_!

"The Prince has never seen me, and I am not acquainted with him; how can there be anything like friendship between us? But it is not, alas! a question of friendship--but of politics. I must sacrifice myself to the good of the State. To lament would be unworthy of my noble birth, and to appear sad would only distress my parents, who are delighted with the alliance."

I was thunderstruck. For a few moments I remained mute; but I could not control myself and very soon began to stamp and utter screams of distress.

"No.... No! Iravata," cried she: "do not do so; thy cries seem only to echo my own despair--and I am not willing to give it expression! I smother my grief in my heart, and force back my tears. I am resolved to be a truly Royal maiden, worthy of the long line of ancestors which form in history a brilliant chain, of which I am the last link. But they shall not separate thee from me.... That I will never allow!"

Not separate her from me when she was already so little with me! Ah! why could she not have remained a child, over whom I was permitted to watch?... To be together then was a pleasure for her, as much as for me! While now she was full of thoughts in which I had no part--taken up with amusements in which I counted for nothing. When she was married she would have a Court of her own, and a whole Palace to organize and direct--and what would become of me?

I was ashamed at thinking only of myself, and forgetting her sorrows; but a new feeling which I could not control had been aroused and was raging in me--a fury, and a savage hatred for the stranger who was going to take my Princess away from me.

She forbade me to express my anguish, and it choked me. I had not, myself, any "royal" soul; I owed nothing to my "ancestors." I was only a beast of the forest, taught by my association with men to think, and to suffer; when I suffered I had to cry out; and since my Princess would not permit me to do so in her presence--I rushed away, and went, like a wounded animal, to lie and grieve on my bed in the stable!