Chapter XXI

So those two lovers stood together in that arbour on the edge of the hill, not knowing where they were, and all ignorant of time. And the King's daughter sobbed, until she laughed, and laughed until she sobbed, till at length the King took her in his arms, and seating himself in his old seat, set her on his lap, and held her like a child, rocking her to and fro, and wishing that her agitation might never have an end, so only that he might continue rocking her for ever on his knee.

And at last, becoming once more mistress of herself, she said to him in a whisper: Thou didst well to return, without losing any time. For hadst thou remained absent but a very little longer, I would have thrown myself to the bottom of the cliff, and then they would have found there not, as thou saidst, thy bones, but mine. But as it is, I am alive, to be already a burden to thee, and as yet, the _yuga_ has only just begun. And he said: O burden, I am not in any hurry to set thee down. And I will carry my flower, thou shalt find, to the _yuga's_ very furthest end.

And as he spoke, she turned in his arms, and looked towards the flower, and she said, very low: When, after thy departure, suddenly I saw the flower that I gave thee lying, left by thee, despised, alone, there came into my heart such an agony, that death itself would have been relief. And the King said, with emotion: I will build for it a shrine of gold: but as for thee, thy shrine is in my heart. But now, O Guru of my heart, there is still something to be done: for thou hast not yet placed thy garland on my neck.

And instantly she jumped up and brought it. And she said: With my own hands, I wove it for thee, and the charm that I sang to it, unknown to thee, for thee, has produced its result. And as the King stood before her, she reached up, with a smile, on tiptoe, and put the garland round his neck, together with the other garland of the creeper of her arms. And the King drew her, with his own arms, towards him, and their souls met upon their lips, and lost in each other, became inextricably united, in the paradise-oblivion of a kiss without an end.

* * * * *

And old Yogeshwara, in his ambush, said softly to himself, with tears in his eyes: Now it is time for me to go, for now I am superfluous; and this is the end, and the battle is won. And she was right, and I was wrong; and she alone knew her way to the only true and perfect end, without which all was incomplete; and I am nothing but an old fool. And in my folly I actually ventured to chide her, and reprove her, not perceiving that it was not she, but I, who was to blame, coming within a very little of utterly destroying all, by my presumptuous and impertinent interference, unable to appreciate her incomparable skill, and conceitedly deeming myself a better judge as to how this matter ought to be conducted to a successful termination, than herself: as if a woman and the Deity of Love did not know how to manage their own business better than all the grey-haired dotards in the three great worlds!

[1] A spring month, our April, devoted especially to marriages.

[2] There is no English equivalent for this term. A guru is the spiritual guide of the Hindoo family: a kind of father confessor.

[3] A woman who goes to meet her lover of her own accord.

[4] The deception of Yogeshwara was all the more likely to deceive the King, in that it was based on Hindoo traditional maxims. Manu says: [vii. 147] "_Let the King, for secret council, ascend to a mountain-top, or a lofty terrace, or repair to some lone wood, where there are not even any talking birds._"

[5] _Manmatha_: the God of Love, the _Churner_ of the Soul.

[6] The God of the Wind.

[7] _i.e._, Love.

[8] _i.e._, Love.

[9] _i.e._, they all lack Maheshwara's third eye, which consumed Love's body with a fiery glance, when the audacious little deity dared to inspire the Great God himself with passion for Párwatí as she stood before him.

[10] The English reader should bear in mind, that, in Sanskrit, recollection and love are often, as here, denoted by the same word.

[11] Nothing in India is so delightful as the grace with which the women, even the oldest and the ugliest, handle that part of their garment that serves them for a veil. It is an everlasting beauty to see them, as they walk along the street, quietly drawing it around them: a thing lost among us altogether, like its motive.

[12] There is a play on the word, which means also a woman.

[13] This is the swayamwara, or self-choice of a bridegroom, everywhere exemplified in old Hindoo tales.

[14] This is substantially a quotation from Manu: only it is not the Guru, but the Guru's wife, whom the pupil is there forbidden to approach. The princess plays upon the sex.

[15] In the swayamwara ceremony, the mark of selection was the placing of a garland around the successful wooer's neck, by the hands of the bride herself.

[16] A species of Arisæma, which we call "cobra-lily," and the natives, _snake-root_. Though there are many flowers intrinsically more beautiful, I do not know one more quaintly original, than this: shooting up, in dark wet woods, by roots of trees, old walls, or among dead leaves, pure and white and lonely and strangely suggestive of some wild individuality, silently symbolical of old sweet stories of Naiads and Dryads and Russian Rusalkas and Heine Loreleis.

[17] (Pronounce _yuga_ and _kalpa_ as monosyllables, to rhyme with fugue and pulp.) A _yuga_ is, as we should say, a geological Age: a _kalpa_, a whole series of such ages.

A Cordial Understanding

And the very next morning, King Mitra's capital went as it were wild with joy, with smiles in the form of red banners hung from every housetop, and laughter in the form of drums beaten in every street, and shouts of victory in every mouth: since all had heard that King Chand was going to marry the King's daughter, and so would the hereditary enemy become a friend.[1] And the marriage was celebrated with all its rites, with speed that did not however keep pace with King Chand's impatience, who almost lost his reason on account of the delay of the astrologers in fixing the auspicious day. And as soon as he had led his bride with trembling hand around the fire, he took her away to his own home.

And as he went away, Yogeshwara said to him, at the city gate: O King Chand, dost thou bear a grudge against the old minister that lured thee into a snare? And Chand laughed, and said: O Yogeshwara, I wish I had a minister like thee. And as to the grudge, I owe thee what I am anxious to repay. Come to my capital below, when thou hast leisure, and ask me for anything whatever of most value to thee in the three worlds, and it is thine. And Yogeshwara said instantly: I choose thy bride. And Chand laughed again, and said: It is well chosen: and now I see, that thy reputation for wisdom is well deserved. Nevertheless, thou wilt have to choose again, for thou hast asked for the only thing I will not give.

So then, as they went away, Yogeshwara said softly to himself: Now, were I only a young man, my fortune would be made. But as it is, I am old, and my work is done: and I have attained the fruit of my birth. And see! how the Deity, in this case, as frequently before, has brought about things contrary to all expectation, and such as no man could have believed even to be possible, by the very simplest means. For King Chand and his son have done nothing all their lives, but subdue the regions of the earth: whereas King Mitra has done absolutely nothing, except marry a wife and beget a daughter. And yet, aided by my policy, this daughter has, like a wishing-tree, dropped all Chand's gains into our lap, and so far from losing anything, we have gained all. So much more powerful has proved this slender digit of the moon than all the fury of the sun. And now, then, I will put off the burden of the State, and spend the days that still remain to me in accumulating merit, by penance and austerities.

And he handed over everything to his son, and becoming a pilgrim, went to Wáránasi. And there he took up his station on the margin of the holy stream, and sat there, motionless and speechless, till he died. And they made a pyre and burned him on the Ghat: and his soul entered another body, while the ashes of the old one floated down the river, and were lost at last in the waters of the sea.

And then, Maheshwara stopped.

And after a while, the Daughter of the Mountain said softly: O Moony-Crested, thy story, after all, proves absolutely nothing. For beyond a doubt, Chand would have loved his beautiful and crafty mountain-bride every whit as much, had she never committed any fault at all.

Then said the God: O Daughter of the Snow, thou art altogether mistaken. For the fact that he had, as it were, to forgive her for a fault, in the very crisis and ecstasy of his passion, increased it not merely a hundred, but a thousand-fold, and enriched it with a sweetness which otherwise it could never have possessed. And so it is in every other case: for therein lies the flattery of sex.[2] And each sex loves the other better, if it love at all, for having something to forgive. For nothing augments affection so much as the forgiveness of its object. And the tests of love are only two, the power of recollection, and the capacity to forgive. For false love forgets at once, and cannot forgive at all. But love that is really love forgives for ever, and never forgets.

Then said the mountain goddess: But in what, then, lies the superiority of sex to sex, and man to woman? And why is not he a mine of faults, as well as she?

And as she spoke, she was conscious of a change: and all at once she looked, and found that she was lying, not on the Great God's breast, but on the green side of a hill. And instantly she exclaimed, in a pet: Now he has cheated me again, suddenly substituting this green hill for his own body, and going somewhere else, leaving me in the lurch, without an answer to my doubt. And now I shall have to wait, until he chooses to return. And doubtless he thinks, that after a little while, I shall have utterly forgotten all about it; but on the contrary, I will very carefully remember to make him answer, and I will take my hair down, and keep it so, until he does. And in the meantime, I will go, and listen to my own praises; and show myself, it may be, for a moment, in return for them, to my worshippers in the Windhya hills.

[1] The _upahára sandhi_, or alliance produced by a gift from one of the contracting parties, is, according to Wishnusharma, of the fourteen different kinds of alliance, the best. I have selected _Cordial Understanding_ as its nearest equivalent.

[2] _Abhimánika_ is a piece of profound psychology, utterly beyond translation. It means the intense self-gratification, or egoistic pride felt by either lover, conscious of monopolising the other's love, in being that other's adequate and reciprocal opposite and satisfaction: the strange and sweet emotion, half bashful, half triumphant; that seethes and bubbles in a young man's soul, when first a woman falls in love with him.

THE END

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A Digit of the Moon

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GREAT POSSESSIONS

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Mrs. Ward's latest book is the romance of a mysterious bequest. Sir David Bright, a distinguished soldier and prominent figure in London society, has died leaving the bulk of his immense fortune not to his wife, but to an unknown woman living in Florence. Starting with this somewhat melodramatic situation, the author has told a fascinating story of London life marked by pictures of the great world, a presentation at court, and all the lesser observances of fashionable society, with moving and sympathetic character studies, and throughout a strong and striking plot. _The Great Possessions_ might be called the English _House of Mirth_.

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By F. W. BAIN

_Translated from the Original Manuscripts_

A Digit of the Moon
And Other Love Stories from the Hindu

A Draught of the Blue
together with
An Essence of the Dusk

An Incarnation of the Snow
A Mine of Faults
The Ashes of a God