An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition by F. W. Bain
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F. W. Bain >> An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition
[2] This method of disposing of objectionable suitors is
unfortunately not available in Europe. A great swallowing
capacity is a feature of the species Rakshasa. The "coming
as soon as thought of" (_dhyatagata_) is the Indian
equivalent of "rubbing the lamp" in the Arabian Nights.
[3] _Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?_ Every
Oriental would side with Shakspeare in this matter: love,
in the East, is not love, unless it comes like a flash of
lightning.
[4] This might be either that of a woman or a snake, for
the Nagas, to whom she belonged, waver between the two. The
Naga, it may be well to remind the reader, is a being
possessed of magic powers, especially that of _glamour_ or
_blearing the eye_, which appealed so powerfully to Spenser
and Sir Walter Scott.
[5] Krishna, whose colour, it is to be noted, is blue.
[6] In every sense of the word: _mohajalamaya_ is stronger
than any English equivalent.
[7] The Underworld, the home of the snakes.
II.
So as Aja stood upon the wall, looking out over the desert, suddenly all
vanished from before his eyes. And he saw before him no city, and no
desert. But he found himself in a dusky wood, thick with tall
_tamala_[8] trees, and lit by a light that was neither that of the sun
nor that of the moon. And all around him huge red poppies waved gently
without a wind, mixed with great moon-lotuses, whose perfume went and
came by turns as it hung on the heavy air. And under the shadow of the
black leaved trees large bats flew here and there with slow and
noiseless flap, and on the branches monstrous owls with topaz eyes like
wheels of flame sat motionless, as if to watch. And a dead silence like
that of space whence all three worlds have been removed left Aja nothing
else to hear but the beat of his own heart. And the hair rose up upon
his head with sheer amazement. And he said to himself: Ha! what new
wonder is this, and what has become of the city wall? And where in the
world have I got to now, and how? Now let me be very wary, for the
danger is evidently coming near.
[8] A tree with very black bark and white blossoms, dear to
exotic poets, such as e.g. Jayadewa.
And as he stood, grasping his sword, prepared, and looking quickly right
and left, suddenly he saw a thing which rivetted his gaze to it, as if
with an iron nail.
A little way off, among the poppies, was standing up like a lonely
column all that was left of one of the walls of a ruined temple, whose
fallen pillars were lying scattered all around it, half concealed by
creeping leaves. And as he gazed intently at this upright fragment of a
fallen wall, he saw upon it the image of a sculptured woman, which stood
out so distinctly that he could not take his eyes from it. And after a
while, he said to himself: Surely that can be no stone statue, but a
real woman of flesh and blood, actually leaning, who knows why, against
that bit of a broken wall. And he looked and looked, and after a while,
filled with irresistible curiosity, he went nearer, but very slowly, and
as it were on his guard, to see.
So as he gazed, wonder and admiration gradually crept into his soul, and
stole his recollection unaware. And he became wholly intent on the stone
image, and forgetful of his situation. And he ceased to wonder at
finding himself in the wood, so great was his new wonder at the beauty
of the woman on the wall. And he said to himself: Surely he was a master
artist, whoever he was, that made this woman out of stone, if stone
indeed she be. For even now, near as I am, I can hardly believe she is
made of stone.
And the more he looked, the more he marvelled. For she seemed in his
eyes like a frozen mass of lunar camphor, moulded into a female form,
standing cold and pure and still, alone by herself in that strange half
light, that hovered as it were irresolute between the natures of night
and day. And she stood with her right hand on her hip, which jutted out
to receive it like the curve of a breaking wave: and her bare right
breast stood out and shone like a great moonlit sea pearl, while the
other was hiding behind the curling fold of the pale green garment that
ran around her, embracing her with clinging clasp like a winding wisp of
emerald foam fondly wrapping the yielding waist of Wishnu's sea-born
wife. And she was very tall, and shaped like Shri, and she stood with
her head a little bent, and her sightless eyes fixed as it were on empty
space, just as though she were listening for some expected sound. And
as he continued to gaze at her, a wonder that was almost horror crept
into his mind. For her face was not like that of an image, but rather
resembled a mask, or the face of a very beautiful woman, that very
moment dead. For the colour seemed as it were to have only just faded
from her cheek, and the blood seemed only just before to have left her
pallid lips, and the sight was as it were hanging yet in her great long
open eyes, that were fixed on the distant sky. And he stood, gazing, as
if the very sight of her had made of him another image like herself.
And then, at last, he stepped forward. And he put out his left hand, and
touched her with his forefinger on the shoulder that was bare.
And instantly, as if his touch had filled her with a flood of life, a
shiver ran like quicksilver over her stony limbs. And as he started
back, to watch, the colour came back into her face, and red blood rushed
into her lips, and deep blue suddenly filled her eyes. And the tresses
of hair around her head turned all of a sudden a glossy black, that
shone with a blue-green lustre, as if reflecting the grassy sheen of her
winding robe. And her bosom lifted slowly, and fell again with a deep
sigh. And all at once, she abruptly altered her position, and her eyes
fell straight on Aja, standing just before her. And she lifted up,
first one eyebrow, and then the other, till they formed a perfect bow,
for they joined each other in the middle. And she uttered a faint cry,
as if in joy, exclaiming: Ha! can it be, and is it thou? Or am I
dreaming still?
III.
And Aja stood, staring at her with stony gaze, like a mirror of her own
surprise. And he said to himself: Surely it is not she, but I myself,
that am the dreamer. For here since the sun rose last, I have escaped
the desert, and found this city without a man, and acquired a bride of
peerless beauty: and now here is another, rising as it were from the
dead, and seeming to expect me. And he continued standing silent, gazing
at her, sword in hand. And after a while, she said: What! is my form,
then, so frightful as to rob thee of thy tongue? Or art thou going to
use that sword against me? Speak: but in the meanwhile, let me see,
whether I have lost the use of my limbs, as thou hast that of thy
tongue, after so long a sleep. And she leaped from her little pedestal,
and moved a little way here and there, waving her beautiful arms about:
and after a while, she came back, and sat down just before him, on one
of the fallen pillars that were lying about the ground. And all the
while Aja watched her, as if fascinated by a serpent, saying within
himself: She moves like nothing I ever saw, save a panther or a gliding
snake[9]. And then, all at once, she again put up one eyebrow, and said
to him with a smile: Must I, then, actually tell thee, that I am
Natabhrukuti[10]? Then Aja said: O lady, it is obvious. For thy bent
brow would plant arrows even in the heart of the Great Ascetic. And she
said again: O husband, is this thy welcome, after so long a separation?
[9] It is a wonderful thing to see a cobra move. Nothing
can describe it.
[10] That is, _the Beauty of the arched eyebrows_.
(Pronounce _Nat_- to rhyme with _but_.)
And Aja bounded, as if bitten by a snake. And he exclaimed: Thy husband!
What! Am I then thy husband also? Does thy whole sex want to get me for
a husband? But O thou beauty of bending brows, how can he be thy
husband, that never saw thee in his life before? And only this morning,
I was still wifeless, and a day has not elapsed, since I became
another's husband. And he stopped short, again confounded at the effect
of his own words. For hardly had they passed his lips, when Natabhrukuti
started up, swelling with rage and convulsed with fury, with eyes that
blazed like fiery stars. And she exclaimed: Never! never! Never shall
she possess thee, nor any other than I myself. And then, like a flash of
lightning, her rage vanished as quickly as it came. And she looked at
him with imploring eyes, and said: Slay me now, with thy long bright
sword, and send me back to that nonentity out of which thou hast just
recalled me: but speak not of another woman in front of me. Alas! and am
I all forgotten? And tears rolled from her great blue eyes, and fell
like suppliants at her feet.
And Aja put up his left hand, and tugged at his hair in the extremity of
his amazement. And he said: O thou strange offended lady, I am utterly
bewildered, and resemble one that has lost his way at midnight in a
wood. And thy anger and thy grief are alike altogether incomprehensible.
How can I possibly have forgotten one, whom as I just now told thee, I
never saw in my life before? Then she said: Nay, not in this life, but
the last. For I was the wife of thy former birth.
Then Aja laughed, and he said: O beauty, who remembers his former
birth? For like every other man, and like my ancestor the sun, I have
risen up into light out of the sea of dark oblivion, into which I must
sink again at last. And then she looked at him with a deep sigh. And she
said: Alas! This is a punishment indeed, and worse by far than all the
rest, if after having endured so long the state of a stone upon a wall,
I am again become a woman, only to find myself repudiated and all
forgotten, by him, on whose account I suffered all. Listen, then, and I
will tell thee the story of thy former birth. It may be, that, in the
hearing, some scattered reminiscences will be as it were awakened, to
stir again in the dark lethargy of thy sleeping soul.
IV.
And then she began to speak. And as she spoke, she leaned forward, as
she sat upon the fallen pillar, and fastened her great eager eyes like
magnets on his own. And as Aja watched them, they played as it were upon
his heart. For their colour wavered and changed and faltered, shifting
ever from hue to hue, turning golden and ruddy amber, and emerald-green
and lotus-blue; and over her eyes her arching brows lifted and fell and
played and flickered, fixing his troubled soul like nails, and
rivetting his attention, till her singing voice sounded in his head like
a distant tune crooned in the ear of a sleepy man. And she waved slowly
her long round arms, all the while she spoke. And she said: Far away,
over the sea, lies thy own forgotten land, and presently I will tell
thee, and even show thee, where it is. And there it was, in our former
birth, that thou and I were boy and girl. But thou wert the son of a
mighty King, and I was only a Brahmani, a poor man's daughter, and my
father was an old ascetic, far below thee in everything else, but caste.
And I lived alone with my old father, in the very heart of a great
forest, in a little hut of bark, over which the _malati_ creeper grew so
thick, that nothing was visible of that little hut, except its door. And
then one day I was seen by thee, standing still in that very door, with
my pitcher on my head: as thou wert passing through the wood to hunt
upon thy horse. And that moment was like a sponge, that blotted from the
mind of each everything but the other's image. And I made of thee my
deity, and forgot everything in the three great worlds, for thee alone.
And thou, that day, didst clean forget thy hunting: or rather, the God
of Love showed thee game of another kind[11], and from pursuing thou
didst fall to wooing a quarry that wished for nothing so much as to be
thy prey. And we married each other that very day, which ah! thou hast
all forgotten. What! dost thou not remember how I used to meet thee
every day in the little hut, when my father was away in the wood engaged
in meditation? What! hast thou really all forgotten how it was thy
supreme delight to bring me garments and costly jewels, which I put on
for thy amusement, thy forest-queen of the little hut? Has thy memory
cast away every vestige of reminiscence of thy old sweet love in the
little hut? So then it happened that on a day we were together, blind
and drunk with each other's presence, shut within the little hut like a
pair of bees in a nectared lotus. And I was standing like an idol,
dressed like the queen of a _chakrawarti_[12], loaded with gold on
wrists and feet, with great pearls wound about my neck; and thou wert
contemplating me, thy creature[13], with intoxication, and hard indeed
it was to tell, which of us two was the idol, and which was the
devotee. And as we woke up from a kiss that lasted like infinity, lo! my
father stood before us. And he said slowly: Abandoned daughter, that
hast forgot thy duty in thy passion for this King's son, become what
thou hast represented, an idol[14] of stone on the wall of a ruined
temple far away: and thou, her guilty lover, fall again into another
birth, and be separated from thy guilty love. Then being besought by us,
to fix some period to the curse, he said again: When ye two shall meet
again, and thy husband in his curiosity shall touch thee with his
finger, she shall regain her woman's state, and be as she was before.
And now all this has come about, exactly as he said. And I have found
thee once again, only to find alas! alas! that thou hast left thy heart
behind thee in that old delicious birth.
[11] In Sanskrit, hunting and wooing can be mixed up
together by plays on words.
[12] An emperor. Hindoo idols are dressed and undressed,
like dolls, by their officiating priests.
[13] She means, he was her Creator.
[14] The Hindoos have no word, because they have not the
idea, of an _idol_. They call it a _god_ or an _image_. Our
word _idol_ implies the antagonism to paganism involved in
Christianity, and no two books are more alike than S.
Augustine's _City of God_ and Ward's _Hindoo Mythology_.
V.
So as he listened, Aja's soul was filled as it were with a mingled
essence of wonder and irresolution and sheeny beauty and singing sound.
For the tone of her voice was like a lute, and before his eyes hovered a
picture of waving arms and witching curves, out of which her dreamy
eyes, from which he could not take his own, seemed as it were to speak
to him of love reproachful and old regret. And all at once, with a
violent effort, he roused himself as if from sleep with open eyes. And
he shifted his sword to the other hand, and passed his right across his
brow. And he said, in some confusion: O thou strange and sweet-tongued
woman, certain this much is, that I am filled by thee with emotion that
I do not understand. And yet I know not what to think, or even say. For
even apart from the promptings of a former birth, thy beauty and thy
haunting voice, which I seem as it were to have heard before, are quite
sufficient to rouse emotion even in a stone, much more in a man of flesh
and blood.
Then she shook her head sadly, looking at him with glistening eyes; and
she said, with a smile of ineffable sweetness: Ah! this is as I thought,
and the instinct of thy former birth is clouded over and effaced, by
thy meeting with this other woman in the morning of this very day. Alas!
how small, how very small, the interval of space and time that divides
the paradise of joy from the dungeon of despair! For had this our
reunion been sooner by only a single day, I should have caught thy heart
before it had been occupied by this all too fortunate other woman, who
now holds it like a fortress, garrisoned by a prior claim. But what is
this priority of claim? Can she, who by thy own confession has known
thee only a single day, dare to dispute priority with the darling of thy
former birth[15]? Wilt thou break thy faith with me, to keep thy faith
with her? Aye! and wilt thou, after all, gain so much by the exchange?
Is she beautiful, then, this other woman? But I am beautiful, too? And
she stood up, and looked at Aja with her head thrown back and proud
eyes, as though to challenge his condemnation of her own consummate
beauty. And she said again: Is she, then, this other beauty, either
more faithful or more beautiful than I am? Speak, and tell me if thou
canst, in what I am inferior, or why I am to be despised, in comparison
with her.
[15] Though, in Europe, this insidious appeal might lack
force, it is otherwise in India: whose millions doubt their
former birth no more than they doubt their own existence.
It is not long since a woman in Cutch burned herself with
her own dead son, because, she averred, he had been her
husband in her former birth.
And Aja looked at her again, and felt abashed, and half ashamed, he knew
not why. And he murmured to himself: She does not lie: for beautiful she
is indeed, and need not fear comparison with any woman in the world. And
it may be, she is partly right, and if I had met her yesterday, before
my heart was full, she would have had little difficulty in entering in
and capturing it, almost without resistance. And he stood looking at her
silently, uncertain what to say or do, and half inclined to pity her,
and half afraid of her and of himself, admiring her against his will,
and as it were confessing by his very silence the power of her appeal.
For notwithstanding the preoccupation of his heart, his youth and his
sex became as it were allies with her against his resolution, compelling
him to acknowledge the supremacy of the cunning god, and the spell of
feminine attraction incarnate in her form.
And she stood there before him, for a little, with beauty as it were
heightened by resentful reproach of the slighting of itself, and the
disregard of its tried affection. And then all at once she sank down
upon the ground, as if she were tired, and remained sitting among the
poppies, with her chin resting on her left knee, which she embraced with
her arms, watching him, and as it were, waiting with humility and
patience for a decision in her case. And every now and then, she closed
her eyes, and opened them again, as if to make sure that he was there.
And Aja looked round in the silence, at the poppies and the lotuses, and
the great owls that seemed to watch him, and back again at her. And his
head began to whirl, and he muttered to himself: Is this a dream, and
what does it all mean? And is she returning to the condition of an
image, disgusted by my coldness and disdain? And what is to be done? And
he looked at her face, deprived, by the closing of their lids, of the
moon of her eyes, and resting like a mask upon its chin. And he said
within himself: Her eyebrows move, as if they were alive. And he felt as
it were unable to look away from them: and at last, annoyed with
himself, he closed his eyes also as though to escape their persecution.
VI.
And then, he said to himself: This is cowardice, and after all, no
refuge; for I seem to see her still, through the shutters of my lids.
And he opened his eyes once more. And instantly, he leaped from the
ground like a wounded stag, with a cry. For the wood, with all its
lotuses and poppies, was gone. And in its place, he saw before him a
forest with its great green trees all lit by the shining of the sun. And
just in front of him there stood a little hut, buried in the blossom of
the _malati_ creeper. And in its doorway was standing a young Brahman
woman, with a pitcher on her head. And she beckoned to him with a smile,
and he looked, and lo! it was Natabhrukuti. Then moved as if against his
will, on feet that carried him towards her as it were of their own
accord, he approached her. And as he drew nearer, there came from that
creeper a wave of perfume, resembling that of jasmine, but sweeter, and
so pungent that it entered like fire into his soul. And then she lifted
the pitcher from her head, and set it down upon the ground, and caught
him by the hand, and drew him within the hut. And there she cast herself
into his arms, whispering in his ear, very low, so as to caress it as
she spoke with her lips: My father is away, and now we are alone, and
the day is all before us. Come now, what shall I do for thy delight?
And she ran and shut the door; and then, taking from a chest rich
clothes and splendid jewels, she began to put them on, saying as she did
so: See! am I becoming more fit to be thy queen? And he watched her,
stupefied, like one in a dream, and all the while she bathed him with
intoxicating side glances shot like arrows from the bow of her arching
brows. And at last, she came slowly towards him, walking on tiptoe, and
attitudinising, placing herself exactly in the posture in which he had
seen her first among the poppies on the wall, with one hand on her hip.
And she said, lifting her brow, with a smile that stole his reason: Now,
then, the idol is ready for the devotee. And at that moment the door
opened, and an old Brahman entered through it. And he said slowly:
Abandoned daughter, that hast forgot thy duty in thy passion for this
King's son, become what thou hast represented, an idol of stone on the
wall of a ruined temple far away; and thou her guilty lover, fall into
another birth, and be separated from thy guilty love.
And then, Aja heard no more. The world whirled around him; the blackness
of night closed over his soul; he uttered a terrible cry, and fell to
the ground in a swoon.
VII.
And when he came to himself, he was back again among the poppies in the
_tamala_ wood. And he was lying on the ground, with Natabhrukuti bending
over him, holding him by the hand, with anxiety in her eyes. And
instantly he started up, and seizing his sword, stood gazing at her with
stupefaction. And he said to himself: Am I dead or dreaming? And what
does it all mean? Is it a delusion of the Creator, or a mirage and a
madness of the desert, out of which I have never yet escaped at all?
Aye! beyond a doubt, I am wandering still in the waste of sand, raving
mad, and dying; and haunted by phantoms that are the premonitors of
approaching death.
So as he stood, balanced in the swing of perplexity, and doubting his
own reason, Natabhrukuti looked at him fixedly, with concern and
affection and curiosity in her eyes. And she said: Surely thou art ill.
And why then dost thou shrink from me, as though I were a thing of
terror: I, who ask for nothing but to tend thee all my life? For it was
but now, as we spoke together in this wood, I looked up and saw thee
suddenly close thy eyes. And as I watched thee, wondering to see thee
sleeping as it were erect, there burst from thy lips a fearful cry, and
I had but time to catch thee falling, and let thee sink upon the ground.
And I brought thee to thyself, by fanning thee, as well as I might, with
this great leaf.
And she held it up before him, while he continued to gaze at her in
silence. And as he did not speak, she looked at him curiously, and
muttered under her breath, as though speaking to herself, and not
intending him to hear: Can he have suddenly recollected his former
birth, and is this the reason why he is staring at me, as if wishing to
compare me with a picture in his head? And as he still kept silence,
presently she said aloud: Dear, thou art sick: and much in need of
medicines, such as I alone can give thee. Why wilt thou not confide in
me? For I am a cunning leech, and know the virtue of every herb and
every vegetable drug better than Dhanwantari[16] himself. And I have
made myself mistress of every species of the art of healing, and in
particular, I have fed myself on perfumes, and on the essences of
flowers, and all the scented odours of aromatic shrubs, till I have
myself become as it were a very attar, incarnate in a woman's form. Dost
thou doubt it, and think me to be boasting? then try me, and I will
prove to thee my power by experiment, in any way thou wilt I will soothe
and shampoo[17] thee with a hand softer than a snowflake's fall and
cooler than the icy moon: or, if thou wilt, I will croon to thee old
airs, and put thee to sleep like a tired child, resting thy head on this
bosom which once was thy delight, with melodies that shall speak to thee
of drowzy bees and moaning winds: or I will steal thy waking senses from
thee and lure them into slumber as it were against thy will by snaring
them with fragrances more luscious than that _parijata_ blossom, which
Wishnu once trailed through the intoxicated world, to drive it into
madness at the moment, and leave it filled with inconsolable regret when
it was gone. See, take this, and smell it, and thou wilt be better even
now.
[16] The physician of the gods, the Hindoo Aesculapius.
[17] The _Samwahanam_ is one of those old Hindoo medical
resources which we have only recently been wise enough to
copy.