Creatures of the Night (Boxed Set Edition). Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

the bright god who exerts his sway over the three worlds, heaven and earth and grewsome Hades,[22] had marked out the prince once more as the victim of his blossom-tipped shafts and his flowery bow. How, indeed, could he hope to escape the doom which has fallen equally upon Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and dreadful Shiva the Three-eyed Destroyer[23]?

      By reason of her exceeding beauty, her face was a full moon shining in the clearest sky; her hair was the purple cloud of autumn when, gravid with rain, it hangs low over earth; and her complexion mocked the pale waxen hue of the large-flowered jasmine. Her eyes were those of the timid antelope; her lips were as red as those of the pomegranate’s bud, and when they opened, from them distilled a fountain of ambrosia. Her neck was like a pigeon’s; her hand the pink lining of the conch-shell; her waist a leopard’s; her feet the softest lotuses. In a word, a model of grace and loveliness was Dangalah Rani, Raja Bhartari’s last and youngest wife.

      The warrior laid down his arms before her; the politician spoke out every secret in her presence. The religious prince would have slaughtered a cow—that sole unforgivable sin—to save one of her eyelashes: the absolute king would not drink a cup of water without her permission; the staid philosopher, the sober quietist, to win from her the shadow of a smile, would have danced before her like a singing-girl. So desperately enamoured became Bhartari Raja.

      It is written, however, that love, alas! breeds not love; and so it happened to the Regent. The warmth of his affection, instead of animating his wife, annoyed her; his protestations wearied her; his vows gave her the headache; and his caresses were a colic that made her blood run cold. Of course, the prince perceived nothing, being lost in wonder and admiration of the beauty’s coyness and coquetry. And as women must give away their hearts, whether asked or not, so the lovely Dangalah Rani lost no time in lavishing all the passion of her idle soul upon Mahi-pala, the handsome ambassador of peace and war. By this means the three were happy and were contented; their felicity, however, being built on a rotten foundation, could not long endure. It soon ended in the following extraordinary way.

In the city of Ujjayani,[24] within sight of the palace, dwelt a Brahman and his wife, who, being old and poor, and having nothing else to do, had applied themselves to the practice of austere devotion.[25] They fasted and refrained from drink, they stood on their heads and held their arms for weeks in the air; they prayed till their knees were like pads; they disciplined themselves with scourges of wire; and they walked about unclad in the cold season, and in summer they sat within a circle of flaming wood, till they became the envy and admiration of all the plebeian gods that inhabit the lower heavens. In fine, as a reward for their exceeding piety, the venerable pair received at the hands of a celestial messenger an apple of the tree Kalpavriksha—a fruit which has the virtue of conferring eternal life upon him that tastes it.

      Scarcely had the god disappeared, when the Brahman, opening his toothless mouth, prepared to eat the fruit of immortality. Then his wife addressed him in these words, shedding copious tears the while:

“To die, O man, is a passing pain; to be poor is an interminable anguish. Surely our present lot is the penalty of some great crime committed by us in a past state of being.[26] Callest thou this state life? Better we die at once, and so escape the woes of the world!”

      Hearing these words, the Brahman sat undecided, with open jaws and eyes fixed upon the apple. Presently he found tongue: “I have accepted the fruit, and have brought it here; but having heard thy speech, my intellect hath wasted away; now I will do whatever thou pointest out.”

      The wife resumed her discourse, which had been interrupted by a more than usually copious flow of tears. “Moreover, O husband, we are old, and what are the enjoyments of the stricken in years? Truly quoth the poet—

      Die loved in youth, not hated in age.

      If that fruit could have restored thy dimmed eyes, and deaf ears, and blunted taste, and warmth of love, I had not spoken to thee thus.”

After which the Brahman threw away the apple, to the great joy of his wife, who felt a natural indignation at the prospect of seeing her goodman become immortal, whilst she still remained subject to the laws of death; but she concealed this motive in the depths of her thought, enlarging, as women are apt to do, upon everything but the truth. And she spoke with such success, that the priest was about to toss in his rage the heavenly fruit into the fire, reproaching the gods as if by sending it they had done him an injury. Then the wife snatched it out of his hand, and telling him it was too precious to be wasted, bade him arise and gird his loins and wend him to the Regent’s palace, and offer him the fruit—as King Vikram was absent—with a right reverend brahmanical benediction. She concluded with impressing upon her unworldly husband the necessity of requiring a large sum of money as a return for his inestimable gift. “By this means,” she said, “thou mayst promote thy present and future welfare.[27]”

      Then the Brahman went forth, and standing in the presence of the Raja, told him all things touching the fruit, concluding with “O, mighty prince! vouchsafe to accept this tribute, and bestow wealth upon me. I shall be happy in your living long!”

      Bhartari Raja led the supplicant into an inner strongroom, where stood heaps of the finest gold-dust, and bade him carry away all that he could; this the priest did, not forgetting to fill even his eloquent and toothless mouth with the precious metal. Having dismissed the devotee groaning under the burden, the Regent entered the apartments of his wives, and having summoned the beautiful Queen Dangalah Rani, gave her the fruit, and said, “Eat this, light of my eyes! This fruit—joy of my heart!—will make thee everlastingly young and beautiful.”

      The pretty queen, placing both hands upon her husband’s bosom, kissed his eyes and lips, and sweetly smiling on his face—for great is the guile of women—whispered, “Eat it thyself, dear one, or at least share it with me; for what is life and what is youth without the presence of those we love?” But the Raja, whose heart was melted by these unusual words, put her away tenderly, and, having explained that the fruit would serve for only one person, departed.

      Whereupon the pretty queen, sweetly smiling as before, slipped the precious present into her pocket. When the Regent was transacting business in the hall of audience she sent for the ambassador who regulated war and peace, and presented him with the apple in a manner at least as tender as that with which it had been offered to her.

      Then the ambassador, after slipping the fruit into his pocket also, retired from the presence of the pretty queen, and meeting Lakha, one of the maids of honour, explained to her its wonderful power, and gave it to her as a token of his love. But the maid of honour, being an ambitious girl, determined that the fruit was a fit present to set before the Regent in the absence of the King. Bhartari Raja accepted it, bestowed on her great wealth, and dismissed her with many thanks.

He then took up the apple and looked at it with eyes brimful of tears, for he knew the whole extent of his misfortune. His heart ached, he felt a loathing for the world, and he said with sighs and groans[28]:

      “Of what value are these delusions of wealth and affection, whose sweetness endures for a moment and becomes eternal bitterness? Love is like the drunkard’s cup: delicious is the first drink, palling are the draughts that succeed it, and most distasteful are the dregs. What is life but a restless vision of imaginary pleasures and of real pains, from which the only waking is the terrible day of death? The affection of this world is of no use, since, in consequence of it, we fall at last into hell. For which reason it is best to practice the austerities of religion, that the Deity may bestow upon us hereafter that happiness which he refuses to us here!”

      Thus did Bhartari Raja determine