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

Presently the marriage ceremonies came on, and Hiranyadatt the Baniya expended a lakh of rupees in feasts and presents to the bridegroom. The bodies of the twain were anointed with turmeric, the bride was made to hold in her hand the iron box for eye paint, and the youth a pair of betel scissors. During the night before the wedding there was loud and shrill music, the heads and limbs of the young couple were rubbed with an ointment of oil, and the bridegroom’s head was duly shaved. The wedding procession was very grand. The streets were a blaze of flambeaux and torches carried in the hand, fireworks by the ton were discharged as the people passed; elephants, camels, and horses richly caparisoned, were placed in convenient situations; and before the procession had reached the house of the bride half a dozen wicked boys and bad young men were killed or wounded.[90] After the marriage formulas were repeated, the Baniya gave a feast or supper, and the food was so excellent that all sat down quietly, no one uttered a complaint, or brought dishonour on the bride’s family, or cut with scissors the garments of his neighbour.

      The ceremony thus happily concluded, the husband brought Madansena home to his own house. After some days the wife of her husband’s youngest brother, and also the wife of his eldest brother, led her at night by force to her bridegroom, and seated her on a bed ornamented with flowers.

      As her husband proceeded to take her hand, she jerked it away, and at once openly told him all that she had promised to Somdatt on condition of his not killing himself.

      “All things,” rejoined the bridegroom, hearing her words, “have their sense ascertained by speech; in speech they have their basis, and from speech they proceed; consequently a falsifier of speech falsifies everything. If truly you are desirous of going to him, go!

      “Receiving her husband’s permission, she arose and went off to the young merchant’s house in full dress. Upon the road a thief saw her, and in high good humour came up and asked—

      “Whither goest thou at midnight in such darkness, having put on all these fine clothes and ornaments?”

      She replied that she was going to the house of her beloved.

      “And who here,” said the thief, “is thy protector?”

“Kama Deva,” she replied, “the beautiful youth who by his fiery arrows wounds with love the hearts of the inhabitants of the three worlds, Ratipati, the husband of Rati,[91] accompanied by the kokila bird,[92] the humming bee and gentle breezes.” She then told to the thief the whole story, adding—

      “Destroy not my jewels: I give thee a promise before I go, that on my return thou shalt have all these ornaments.”

      Hearing this the thief thought to himself that it would be useless now to destroy her jewels, when she had promised to give them to him presently of her own good will. He therefore let her go, and sat down and thus soliloquized:

      “To me it is astonishing that he who sustained me in my mother’s womb should take no care of me now that I have been born and am able to enjoy the good things of this world. I know not whether he is asleep or dead. And I would rather swallow poison than ask man for money or favour. For these six things tend to lower a man:—friendship with the perfidious; causeless laughter; altercation with women; serving an unworthy master; riding an ass, and speaking any language but Sanskrit. And these five things the deity writes on our fate at the hour of birth:—first, age; secondly, action; thirdly, wealth; fourthly, science; fifthly, fame. I have now done a good deed, and as long as a man’s virtue is in the ascendant, all people becoming his servants obey him. But when virtuous deeds diminish, even his friends become inimical to him.”

      Meanwhile Madansena had reached the place where Somdatt the young trader had fallen asleep.

      She awoke him suddenly, and he springing up in alarm quickly asked her, “Art thou the daughter of a deity? or of a saint? or of a serpent? Tell me truly, who art thou? And whence hast thou come?”

      She replied, “I am human—Madansena, the daughter of the Baniya Hiranyadatt. Dost thou not remember taking my hand in that grove, and declaring that thou wouldst slay thyself if I did not swear to visit thee first and after that remain with my husband?”

      “Hast thou,” he inquired, “told all this to thy husband or not?”

      She replied, “I have told him everything; and he, thoroughly understanding the whole affair, gave me permission.”

“This matter,” exclaimed Somdatt in a melancholy voice, “is like pearls without a suitable dress, or food without clarified butter,[93] or singing without melody; they are all alike unnatural. In the same way, unclean clothes will mar beauty, bad food will undermine strength, a wicked wife will worry her husband to death, a disreputable son will ruin his family, an enraged demon will kill, and a woman, whether she love or hate, will be a source of pain. For there are few things which a woman will not do. She never brings to her tongue what is in her heart, she never speaks out what is on her tongue, and she never tells what she is doing. Truly the Deity has created woman a strange creature in this world.” He concluded with these words: “Return thou home with another man’s wife I have no concern.”

Madansena rose and departed. On her way she met the thief, who, hearing her tale, gave her great praise, and let her go unplundered.[94]

      She then went to her husband, and related the whole matter to him. But he had ceased to love her, and he said, “Neither a king nor a minister, nor a wife, nor a person’s hair nor his nails, look well out of their places. And the beauty of the kokila is its note, of an ugly man knowledge, of a devotee forgiveness, and of a woman her chastity.”

      The Vampire having narrated thus far, suddenly asked the king, “Of these three, whose virtue was the greatest?”

      Vikram, who had been greatly edified by the tale, forgot himself, and ejaculated, “The Thief’s.”

      “And pray why?” asked the Baital.

      “Because,” the hero explained, “when her husband saw that she loved another man, however purely, he ceased to feel affection for her. Somdatt let her go unharmed, for fear of being punished by the king. But there was no reason why the thief should fear the law and dismiss her; therefore he was the best.”

      “Hi! hi! hi!” laughed the demon, spitefully. “Here, then, ends my story.”

      Upon which, escaping as before from the cloth in which he was slung behind the Raja’s back, the Baital disappeared through the darkness of the night, leaving father and son looking at each other in dismay.

      “Son Dharma Dhwaj,” quoth the great Vikram, “the next time when that villain Vampire asks me a question, I allow thee to take the liberty of pinching my arm even before I have had time to answer his questions. In this way we shall never, of a truth, end our task.”

      “Your words be upon my head, sire,” replied the young prince. But he expected no good from his father’s new plan, as, arrived under the sires-tree, he heard the Baital laughing with all his might.

      “Surely he is laughing at our beards, sire,” said the beardless prince, who hated to be laughed at like a young person.

      “Let them laugh that win,” fiercely cried Raja Vikram, who hated to be laughed at like an elderly person.

      * * * * * * *

      The Vampire lost no time in opening a fresh story.

      THE VAMPIRE’S FIFTH STORY

       —Of the Thief Who Laughed and Wept.

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