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

said sagely, “are either in the optative mood, the desperative, or the exultative.” This time he had used the optative. For the desperative he would substitute:

      4.

       The joys of life lie dead, lie dead,

       The light of day is quenched in gloom

       The spark of hope my heart hath fled

       What now witholds me from the tomb

      And this was the termination exultative, as he called it:

      4.

       O joy I the pearl is mine again,

       Once more the day is bright and clear

       And now ’tis real, then ’twas vain,

       My dream of bliss—O heaven is here!

The Princess Padmavati having perused this doggrel with a contemptuous look, tore off the first word of the last line, and said to the nurse, angrily, “Get thee gone, O mother of Yama, [59] O unfortunate creature, and take back this answer”—giving her the scrap of paper—“to the fool who writes such bad verses. I wonder where he studied the humanities. Begone, and never do such an action again!”

      The old nurse, distressed at being so treated, rose up and returned home. Vajramukut was too agitated to await her arrival, so he went to meet her on the way. Imagine his disappointment when she gave him the fatal word and repeated to him exactly what happened, not forgetting to describe a single look! He felt tempted to plunge his sword into his bosom; but Fortune interfered, and sent him to consult his confidant.

      “Be not so hasty and desperate, my prince,” said the pradhan’s son, seeing his wild grief; “you have not understood her meaning. Later in life you will be aware of the fact that, in nine cases out of ten, a woman’s ‘no’ is a distinct ‘yes.’ This morning’s work has been good; the maiden asked where you learnt the humanities, which being interpreted signifies ‘Who are you?” ’

      On the next day the prince disclosed his rank to old Lakshmi, who naturally declared that she had always known it. The trust they reposed in her made her ready to address Padmavati once more on the forbidden subject. So she again went to the palace, and having lovingly greeted her nursling, said to her, “The Raja’s son, whose heart thou didst fascinate on the brim of the tank, on the fifth day of the moon, in the light half of the month Yeth, has come to my house, and sends this message to thee: ‘Perform what you promised;’ we have now come; and I also tell thee that this prince is worthy of thee: just as thou art beautiful, so is he endowed with all good qualities of mind and body.”

      When Padmavati heard this speech she showed great anger, and, rubbing sandal on her beautiful hands, she slapped the old woman’s cheeks, and cried, “Wretch, Daina (witch)! get out of my house; did I not forbid thee to talk such folly in my presence?”

The lover and the nurse were equally distressed at having taken the advice of the young minister, till he explained what the crafty damsel meant. “When she smeared the sandal on her ten fingers,” he explained, “and struck the old woman on the face, she signified that when the remaining ten moonlight nights shall have passed away she will meet you in the dark.” At the same time he warned his master that to all appearances the lady Padmavati was far too clever to make a comfortable wife. The minister’s son especially hated talented, intellectual, and strong-minded women; he had been heard to describe the torments of Naglok [60] as the compulsory companionship of a polemical divine and a learned authoress, well stricken in years and of forbidding aspect, as such persons mostly are. Amongst womankind he admired—theoretically, as became a philosopher—the small, plump, laughing, chattering, unintellectual, and material-minded. And therefore—excuse the digression, Raja Vikram—he married an old maid, tall, thin, yellow, strictly proper, cold-mannered, a conversationist, and who prided herself upon spirituality. But more wonderful still, after he did marry her, he actually loved her—what an incomprehensible being is man in these matters!

      To return, however. The pradhan’s son, who detected certain symptoms of strong-mindedness in the Princess Padmavati, advised his lord to be wise whilst wisdom availed him. This sage counsel was, as might be guessed, most ungraciously rejected by him for whose benefit it was intended. Then the sensible young statesman rated himself soundly for having broken his father’s rule touching advice, and atoned for it by blindly forwarding the views of his master.

      After the ten nights of moonlight had passed, the old nurse was again sent to the palace with the usual message. This time Padmavati put saffron on three of her fingers, and again left their marks on the nurse’s cheek. The minister’s son explained that this was to crave delay for three days, and that on the fourth the lover would have access to her.

When the time had passed the old woman again went and inquired after her health and well-being. The princess was as usual very wroth, and having personally taken her nurse to the western gate, she called her “Mother of the elephant’s trunk, [61]” and drove her out with threats of the bastinado if she ever came back. This was reported to the young statesman, who, after a few minutes’ consideration, said, “The explanation of this matter is, that she has invited you to-morrow, at nighttime, to meet her at this very gate.

      “When brown shadows fell upon the face of earth, and here and there a star spangled the pale heavens, the minister’s son called Vajramukut, who had been engaged in adorning himself at least half that day. He had carefully shaved his cheeks and chin; his mustachio was trimmed and curled; he had arched his eyebrows by plucking out with tweezers the fine hairs around them; he had trained his curly musk-coloured love-locks to hang gracefully down his face; he had drawn broad lines of antimony along his eyelids, a most brilliant sectarian mark was affixed to his forehead, the colour of his lips had been heightened by chewing betel-nut—

      “One would imagine that you are talking of a silly girl, not of a prince, fiend!” interrupted Vikram, who did not wish his son to hear what he called these fopperies and frivolities.

      —and whitened his neck by having it shaved (continued the Baital, speaking quickly, as if determined not to be interrupted), and reddened the tips of his ears by squeezing them, and made his teeth shine by rubbing copper powder into the roots, and set off the delicacy of his fingers by staining the tips with henna. He had not been less careful with his dress: he wore a well-arranged turband, which had taken him at least two hours to bind, and a rich suit of brown stuff chosen for the adventure he was about to attempt, and he hung about his person a number of various weapons, so as to appear a hero—which young damsels admire.

      Vajramukut asked his friend how he looked, and smiled happily when the other replied “Admirable!” His happiness was so great that he feared it might not last, and he asked the minister’s son how best to conduct himself?

      “As a conqueror, my prince!” answered that astute young man, “if it so be that you would be one. When you wish to win a woman, always impose upon her. Tell her that you are her master, and she will forthwith believe herself to be your servant. Inform her that she loves you, and forthwith she will adore you. Show her that you care nothing for her, and she will think of nothing but you. Prove to her by your demeanour that you consider her a slave, and she will become your pariah. But above all things—excuse me if I repeat myself too often—beware of the fatal virtue which men call modesty and women sheepishness. Recollect the trouble it has given us, and the danger which we have incurred: all this might have been managed at a tank within fifteen miles of your royal father’s palace. And allow me to say that you may still thank your stars: in love a lost opportunity is seldom if ever recovered. The time to woo a woman is the moment you meet her, before she has had time to think; allow her the use of reflection and she may escape the net. And after avoiding the rock of Modesty, fall not, I conjure you, into the gulf of Security. I fear the lady Padmavati, she is too clever and too prudent. When damsels of her age draw the sword of Love, they throw away the scabbard of Precaution. But you yawn—I weary you—it is time for