Chapter 8

And so as I mused, touching all unconsciously the strings of my lute which was lying in my hands suddenly a thought came into my mind of its own accord. And I took the lute and unstrung it, and chose from among its strings one, which I rolled like a bangle on my wrist. And I said to the lute aloud: Old love, we will work together: for if indeed she is my enemy, she is thine as well. And if, as those assassins said, she is only a body without a soul, playing on us both merely for her own amusement, then we will give her together a music lesson of a novel kind, and teach her that the deadliest of all poisons is a love that has been betrayed.

And suddenly I heard loud laughter, like an echo to my words. And I looked up, and lo! there was Haridása, standing in the open door. And he said: What is this, O Shatrunjaya? Whom art thou about to poison, or who is going to poison thee? And hast thou solved thy problem, since I saw thee from the camel's back, pondering on thy own beauty? Or hast thou arrived already at the poison in the bottom of love's cup? How is good advice thrown away upon a fool! Did I not warn thee? Wilt thou never understand that the nectar of a woman is like the red of dusk, lasting for but an instant, and like the cream of milk, turning sour if it is kept, and like foam of the sea, which exists only during agitation, melting away into bitterness and ordinary water as soon as it is still? As indeed every woman well knows, without needing to be told, and therefore it is that she is nectar always to a stranger, and insipid, even when she is not very disagreeable, to her friends, losing her fascination, like the thirst of the antelope[32] on Marusthalí, for all that approach her too near: since all her delusion depends upon her distance, and vanishes altogether by proximity. Keep her always at a distance, O Shatrunjaya, if thou art anxious to remain under the spell.

And I said: Haridása, I am only a fool, as thou sayest, but thou art wise. And now, wilt thou serve me at a pinch, by something more than good advice? And he said: By what? Then I said: To-night, I have business that I cannot avoid, and yet I cannot go out, unless I can find one whom I can absolutely trust to remain here till morning in my place, to guard a deposit. And so, wilt thou be my guard? And Haridása said: I cannot refuse, if thy need be extreme. For men to be absolutely trusted are very rare, and I am one. And is thy deposit large? And I laughed, and I said: Nay, on the contrary, it is very small. And it will be here in another moment, for I have been waiting for it all day long. And as I spoke, lo! Chaturiká appeared in the door, as if by a toss of the curtain,[33] And I said to Haridása: Here it is.

And seeing that I was not alone, Chaturiká turned, as if to go away. And I called out to her, saying: Wait but for a single instant, O thou destitute of patience, and give me back my key that I gave thee last night, since I am in sore need of it. And then she came to me in silence and gave me a key. And I said: Hast thou put off the petitioner as I desired, to another day? And she said: Yes. And then I went to the door, and shut it. And I said to Haridása: I have an appointment, with one who may be friend or foe, for I cannot tell. But here is a hostage, that I leave behind me. Keep her for me, and never take thy eyes off her, and give her back to me, safe and sound, on my return. But if the sun rises to-morrow, and I am not here, cut her head off, for she will have led me into a trap, all unaware that she was setting it for herself as well.

And Haridása looked thoughtfully at Chaturiká as she stood aghast, rubbing his chin with his hand. And he said slowly: It would be a great pity, my pretty maiden, if he came late, for thy head looks very well as it is on thy little body, which without it would look as melancholy as a palm broken short off by the wind.[34] And yet, do not weep. For Shatrunjaya is a bad judge of men and women, and I am a very good one. And if, as I think, he is altogether wronging thee by his suspicion, thou hast absolutely nothing to fear from me, and I will be thy father and thy mother till he returns to free thee in the morning. So dry thy tears, and I will return to thee in a moment to make thee laugh.

And he led me away out at the door, and shut it behind him. And he said: Shall I tell thee the name of thy very pretty deposit? Dost thou think I do not know what thou art endeavouring so clumsily to hide? Nectar when she turns towards thee: poison when she turns away?

And as I started, staring at him in stupefaction, he said with a laugh: Ha! thou hast heard it before? Didst thou not betray to me thy secret unawares, repeating it before? What! dost thou not know, it is the Queen's verse, which all the people in the city sing of every man who dooms himself by becoming the Queen's lover? I could have told thee, even without seeing Chaturiká at all, that it was Táráwalí herself who was thy nectar, and is going to be thy poison; and well I understand who is the friend or foe to whom thou art just about to go. It is the Queen.

And he took me by both hands, and looked straight into my eyes. And he said: Fool! and art thou actually hoping still for the nectar that is gone? Thy hope will be in vain. I told thee, without naming her, to hold her very cheap, if ever thou wouldst have her hold thee dear. It was useless to restrain thee, for thou wouldst not have believed me, no matter what I said. There was but a single chance. For the moment that she sees that her fascination works, and that her lover lies gazing without reason or senses at her terrible beauty, she is satisfied, and throws him away: whereas had he only the strength to resist it, she might against her will fall in love with him herself for sheer exasperation at her impotence, in his case alone. But she swept thee clean away like a straw in a flood, and thou art lost. Thou hast been playing unaware with a queen-cobra, that has smitten thy soul with the poisonous fascination of its magnificent hood and its deadly eyes, and bitten thy heart with its venomed fang; and now all remedies are worse than useless, and come too late. I can see death written on thy brow, and almost smell its odour in the air. Beware of Narasinha!

And he went in, and shut the door upon himself and Chaturiká, leaving me alone in the street.

XXIV

And I stood in the street, staring at the door as it shut behind him, as motionless as a tree. And I murmured to myself: Nectar when she turns towards thee: poison when she turns away! So then, it is the Queen's verse, sung of others and sung of me! And this was the meaning all the time! And this is what Chaturiká was thinking of, every time she said it, laughing at me in her sleeve, as beyond a doubt she has laughed at many another man before! And this is what the people say! And all the time I thought myself exceptional, I was only being made a fool, and one of a large number, and a laughing-stock for the whole city, and branded, as it were, with ridicule and ignominy as a plaything of the Queen, and going about unconsciously with her label round my neck: Nectar when she turns towards thee: poison when she turns away!

And suddenly, rage rushed into my heart in such a flood that it felt as if it were about to burst. And from motionless that I was, I began all at once to run in the direction of the palace, as though about to wreak my vengeance on the Queen without waiting for a single instant. And then I stopped abruptly and began to laugh. And I exclaimed: Am I actually going mad, for as yet it is still day, and I cannot even get into the garden till the sun has set. And after thinking for a moment, I went away to the river bank to wait till the sun was down. And there I threw myself down at full length upon the ground, with my chin upon my hands.

And then, strange! as I lay, little by little my heart began to cool, and all its fury ebbed gradually away. For as I thought of Táráwalí, it seemed as it were to say to me: I cannot find room, on second thoughts, for any rage at all, since I belong absolutely to the Queen. And all my rage turned slowly into such unutterable longing that her image seemed to grow dim, seen through the mist of eyes that were suffused with tears, as recollection brought her back to me saying: This is how she looked when she saw thee first, and this again, is how she lay in the swing, and this again, when she stood up before thee, as a _chetí_, in the moonlit boat. And I exclaimed in desperation: Alas! O Táráwalí, must I then condemn thee, whether I will or no? For they all say the same of thee, and as it might seem, it must be true, and yet no matter, for I absolutely cannot either hate thee or believe them, when I think of thee as I saw thee myself. And my heart laughs in scorn at all the efforts of my reason, never wavering for an instant from thy side, like an incorruptible ally, that cannot be induced by any bribe whatever to abandon its allegiance. Aye! would she but open her arms to me again, I should forget everything else in the three worlds, to snatch her in my own. How is it possible to hate her? And beyond all doubt, that rascal I slew hit the mark, when he said that Narasinha cannot quarrel with her, being utterly unable to do without her, disarmed in all his attempts to oppose her by his own conviction that she is absolutely indispensable to his own life. For she may have deserved ten thousand deaths, and yet what does it matter, if for all that she is a thing that once lost or destroyed can never be replaced, as indeed she is, resembling the _Kaustubha_,[35] or the third eye of the Moony-crested god, of which in the three worlds there is only one. And so since he cannot do without her, she is beyond all reach, and invulnerable, doing with impunity exactly what she pleases, caring nothing whether he loves or hates her, and laughing at the very notion of being brought to book, secure in the magic circle of her own irresistible attraction, whose very power of destroying all others is her own protection, like a spell with a double edge, such that, as that rascal said, she cannot refrain from amusing herself by trying its effect on all.

And who could find it in his heart to blame her for delighting in the exercise of her own spell, like a child rejoicing in its toy, aye! even were he himself its victim, as its effect would be the same, no matter what she did, seeing that she must attract whether she will or no? Being what she is, she cannot help it: it is involuntary and beyond her control. And alas! I fell before it without a shadow of resistance, enslaved even before I saw it by her own dream, not even affording her the pleasure of watching her fascination gradually overcoming opposition, and asserting its power, and subduing me to her domination, against my will. And so I became a thing of no value to her at all, since in my case there was nothing to overcome. Ah! had I only been capable of seeming to be one on whom her charm would not work, then indeed, as Haridása says, I might have prevailed: and she might herself have fallen victim to the man who defied her fascination and laughed in her face, out of pique and irritation at her own impotence. And all the more, if what that rascal said have any truth, that she actually took a momentary fancy to me, strange as it seems. But alas! as he said, it is all too late.

And suddenly I started to my feet with a beating heart. And I exclaimed: Too late! But what if it were not too late, after all?

And as I stood, thinking of it, struck into sudden agitation by my own idea, hope glimmered in the darkness of my soul like the first faint streak of rosy dawn at the end of a black night. And the dream of the bare possibility of bringing back Táráwalí with all her old intoxicating sweetness almost took away my breath. And after a while, I said to myself: Yes, indeed, he actually said, that she took a fancy to me, even though it were only for a moment. And how could he have known it, if she had not herself confessed it to Chaturiká, from whom alone he could have heard it, since very certainly he never learned it from Táráwalí herself? Aye! and was not Chaturiká herself far sweeter at the beginning, just as if she knew I was no ordinary lover, but one with a little foothold in the Queen's heart? And if, then, I was ever there, why could I not return? And if her fancy has gone to sleep, could I not awake it? Can it be already so absolutely dead as never to revive, with not a single spark among the ashes to be refanned into a flame? How would it be, could I but manage to persuade her she was utterly mistaken, in supposing that I was only a miserable victim of her spell? How, if I could convince her that I valued all her fascinations at a straw? Would she not at least be tempted to try them all on me again, if only to test them and discover whether I was lying or in very truth proof against all the power of her charm? And if only she did, what then? For once she began, it would all depend on me, whether she ever stopped any more.

And all at once, I uttered a shout of hope and exultation and excitement, suddenly taking fire at the picture painted by my own craving imagination. And I exclaimed: Ha! who knows? And at least, I can try. And even if I fail, it cannot possibly be worse than it is already, drowned as I am in misery without her: whereas, if I could succeed! Ah! I would barter even emancipation for a single kiss! And O that my courage may not fail, turning coward at the very first sight of her again! For the struggle to appear indifferent, in such an ocean of rapture, will be terrible indeed, since even now, the very thought of it makes me tremble, being enough to make me fall weeping at her feet. And now the sun is setting, and it is time to go: and in a very little while, fate will decide, whether she and I are to die or live. For I cannot live without her, and unless she will allow me to live with her, she shall not live at all, either alone, or with anybody else. For she will kill me, by driving me away, and I will take her with me, if I am to die.

XXV

And then I went away with rapid steps, all through the city, till I reached the little ruined temple, that stood exactly opposite the door that Chaturiká had shown me the night before. And I hid myself behind the image of the Moony-crested god, and watching my opportunity that none should see me, all at once I crossed the street and tried the key in the door, almost shaking with anxiety, lest after all she had played me false, by giving me at haphazard some key that would not fit. But O joy! the key turned, and the door opened, and I went through. And very carefully I closed it again, and then, first of all, I hid the key in a hole in the wall, making sure of my return. And then I drew a deep sigh, almost unable to believe myself once more in that garden which held Táráwalí hidden somewhere in its dark recesses. And I said to myself, with emotion: Ah! now, come what may, at least I shall look upon her again, and very soon. And even for that alone, I am ready to die. And it may very well be that death is close at hand. For if Chaturiká is in the pay of Narasinha, as she very well may be, and has betrayed me, I may be walking straight into a trap. For his assassins may be posted in the trees in almost any number. And little should I care to die, so long as they only slew me on my return; but I am terribly afraid of being slain before I see her. For then indeed I should suffer the agony of a double death.

And I went on slowly in the shadow of the trees, guessing my direction, for I was going by a way I did not know, fearing not at all the death that might suddenly spring out upon me, but dreading far more than death the possibility of its anticipating my discovery of the Queen. And little by little, as nothing happened, I forgot my fears, saying to myself: To-morrow I will give Chaturiká anything in the world, and beg her pardon for suspecting her of breaking faith. But in the meantime, I must above all manage to come upon Táráwalí unawares, and escape her observation until I catch sight of her myself: for if she saw me first, she might hide, or even go away altogether, leaving me to look for her in vain, and making all assassination superfluous, since if I do not find her I shall simply die of my own accord, long before morning, of disappointment and despair. And so I went on very slowly, making absolutely no noise, like a Shabara stalking a wild elephant in the forest, dying of expectation, and yet not daring to make haste, for fear of losing all: until at last, after a very long time, I came to the terrace by the pool once more. And then I looked, and suddenly I caught sight of her, standing alone, like a pillar, on the very verge of the terrace steps.

And I stopped short in the shadow of a tree, to watch her for a little and master my emotion, holding my breath, and lost, not only in the ecstasy of being close to her again, but in sheer admiration of the wonder that I saw. For she was dressed as it seemed all in silver gauze, looking ashy pale in the moonlight, and she was standing absolutely straight up, with her two hands clasped behind her head, turning half towards me, so that I could just see her dark hair between her two bent arms, lit up not by a star, but a diadem like a young moon, that shone all yellow as if made by a row of topaz suns, so that she looked like a feminine incarnation of the Moony-crested god, smeared with silver sheen instead of ashes. And as she stood still with her two feet close together, gazing at the pool, with her head leaning a little back against the pillow of her hands, alone in the very middle of the terrace on the very edge of its top step, with nothing but the dusk for her background, resembling a great jar, her solitary silent figure, rising from its narrow base into lustrous moonlit curves that ended in the tall bosses of her breast, spread wide by her opened arms, stood out in a vision of exact and perfect balance, so marvellously lovely, that as I gazed at it, remembering how I held it in my arms, unable to contain my agitation, I uttered a deep sigh.

And instantly, she spoiled the picture, by changing her position, and looking straight towards me. And not being able to see me clearly by reason of the deep shadow that obscured me, she came back along the terrace in my direction, walking exactly as she did before, with the same intoxicating straightness of carriage, and the same rapid and undulating step, till I could have laughed aloud for very joy to see her coming to me, like the desire of my own heart incarnate in her round and graceful form. And as she reached me, she said, with exactly the same low and sweet and gentle voice that I was yearning with all my soul to hear again: Thou art late, for I have been waiting for thee a long time.

And suddenly I came as it were to myself, on the very verge of ruining all, by falling at her feet:[36] saying to myself with an effort: Now then, all is lost beyond redemption, unless I play the man. And I came out of the shadow, saying with obeisance: O lovely Queen, that is thy own fault, and not mine.

And she started back, with a faint cry, exclaiming in the extremity of sheer amazement: Shatrunjaya! How in the world hast thou got in here?

And I answered with a smile, though my heart beat like a drum within me: Ah! thou delicious Queen, in this lower world many things come about contrary to expectation, of which this is one. And if thy own surprise is extreme, so is mine: since, as it seems, my coming is not only unexpected, but unwelcome. And yet how short a time it is, since thou didst entertain me with a sweetness so extraordinary, and so spontaneous, and so mutually tasted, that I thought only to give thee pleasure by repeating the experience, and that is why I came. And if thou art sorry to look at me again, I do not share in thy feeling, since all the pains I have taken to arrive are repaid by even a single glance at thyself. For surely even Indra's heaven cannot hold anything so unimaginably lovely as thou art to-night.

And still she stood, gazing at me with strange eyes, and she murmured to herself, half aloud: Shatrunjaya! It cannot be! And I said: Nay, thou very lovely lady, but it can: since here I am, and I am I. And why not? Didst thou think I had forgot, what could not easily be forgotten, how we floated together in thy cradle among the lotuses? Or is it any wonder if I have thought of nothing else, ever since, but how to return? But as to how I came, it is a secret, that I do not choose to tell, since the fancy may take me to come again. And judging by thy excessive condescension when we met before, I did not think very much to displease thee, if I ventured to substitute myself this evening for another, who cannot even hope to rival me in the only thing that matters, my unutterable adoration of thyself: since of thy favour we are both of us equally unworthy. And yet, if, as it seems, I was utterly mistaken and the substitution is not to thy taste, I can very easily atone for my blunder by going away again at once. Dost thou really imagine me one to force himself upon a lady who wishes him away? O thou very lovely Queen, not at all. For I am just as good a man among men, as thou art a woman among women: and if I am not to thy taste, then, O thou fastidious beauty, neither art thou to mine. For the essence of every lovely woman's charm is her caress, which springs from her affection, and the desire to make herself nectar to her lover, without which salt, even beauty is beautiful in vain. And I care absolutely nothing for a beauty that does not take the trouble to be sweet. And well I know, by experience, how sweet thou canst be, aye! sweeter by far than any honey whatsoever, if it pleases thee to try. So choose for thyself, whether I shall stay, and revel like a great black bee in thy sweetness, as once I did before; or go away. But let me tell thee, pending thy decision, that if thou dost not take thy opportunity when it offers, it will never more return; for as I said, I do not like coming where my coming is met with distaste. But as I think, if thou wilt allow me to advise thee, and help thee to decision, we may as well make the most of one another, now that we are here, otherwise the moonlight will be wasted altogether, since to-night at least, thy other lover will not come. For I have taken care to exclude him, and we shall not be disturbed by any disagreeable interruption. And so, either thou wilt have to do without a lover altogether, or take me, for sheer want of something else. And the first would be a pity, and all the delicious trouble thou hast taken to deck thy beauty for its proper object, the delight of a lover, would be lost. For in thy silver ashes and thy moony tire, thou needest no third eye to destroy thy enemies, since thy divinity is so overpowering that not to employ it as it was designed to be employed would be a crime.

XXVI