Chapter XIV

So she sat awhile, looking at him with mischief in her laughing eyes, at which he gazed with senses that began to leave him out of joy. And all at once, she held up before him the lily in her hand. And she said: Dost thou recognise this flower? And the King looked at it carefully, bending forward half to see it, half in order to get closer to the hand that held it up. And he said: No: it is a flower of a kind very singular indeed, and of strange beauty, that I have never seen before. Then she said: It is my flower, chosen by me, and preferred to all the others, to be mine, and like myself, a native of the hills. And if ever, in any former birth, I was myself a flower, beyond a doubt, I was this: for as I see it, when I wander in the forest, I am drawn as it were towards it, whether I will or no, and it speaks to me, in its language, of a long forgotten state when we were one. And now, canst thou employ it in battle as a sword? And yet, for all that, is it good for nothing? Then he said: O Guru, I see thy meaning and thy malice. It would indeed be a folly and a sin, to employ the sweet flower as a sword. And were it mine, I would place it in a shrine, and worship it as it deserves, since it exactly resembles the hood of the snake that overshadows Maheshwara, save only that it is white.[16] And now, since it is thy flower, it shall also be mine. Then she said: But as yet it is not thine. And whether I give it thee, or not, depends on my decision in thy case. And I incline to think, not. For it is but an hour, since thou wert ready to condemn all flowers whatever as things of naught, only because the poor flowers were not swords. And the King said: Dear Guru, be not hasty and unjust. Could he be blamed for not appreciating flowers that had never seen one in his life? Then she said: And what, then, had he seen one, and only one? Much I fear, lest, once having experienced the sweetness of one flower, he might be tempted to run riot among them all.

And the King said, with emphasis: Guru, thy fear is vain, and void of substance, and like my own antipathy before.

And she stooped, and picked up at random another flower from the floor. And she said: See! is not this one just as beautiful and tempting as the first? But the King put up his hands before his eyes, exclaiming: I will not even look at it at all. Then she said, softly: Who will believe the bee, that swore a deadly feud against all flowers, now swearing to confine himself to one? Are not all bees naturally rovers, and hard to satiate, such is their appetite for variety? And he said: I know nothing of the bees, but this I know, that for myself, I want no flower but one. Then she said: And for how long? And he said: For a _yuga_. And she exclaimed: What! only a single _yuga_?[17] And he said: A _kalpa_. And she said: Thy desire for the flower has then, after all, a limit, if a long one? And the King said: Multiply _yuga_ by _yuga_, and _kalpa by kalpa_, it is the same.

And she said: And what, during all these _yugas_ and _kalpas_, wouldst thou be doing with thy flower? And he said: Nay, I will show thee, then, when it is mine. Of what use are the words of one unworthy of belief?

And she waited for a while, with a hesitation compounded half of indecision, half of the wish to keep him in suspense. And then all at once she laughed, and blushed, and threw the flower towards him, saying: Come, I will try thee, for a single _yuga_. And if, at its end, my flower is still with thee, who knows what I may give thee in the next?