Vikram and the Vampire. Richard F. Burton
she replied, delighted with the proposal – and what old woman would not be? – ‘there is no need for putting off so urgent an affair till the morrow. Get your paper ready, and I will immediately give it.’
Trembling with pleasure, the prince ran to find his friend, who was seated in the garden reading, as usual, and told him what the old nurse had engaged to do. He then began to debate about how he should write his letter, to cull sentences and to weigh phrases; whether ‘light of my eyes’ was not too trite, and ‘blood of my liver’ rather too forcible. At this the minister’s son smiled, and bade the prince not trouble his head with composition. He then drew his inkstand from his waist-shawl, nibbed a reed pen, and choosing a piece of pink and flowered paper, he wrote upon it a few lines. He then folded it, gummed it, sketched a lotus flower upon the outside, and handing it to the young prince, told him to give it to their hostess, and that all would be well.
The old woman took her staff in her hand and hobbled straight to the palace. Arrived there, she found the Raja’s daughter sitting alone in her apartment. The maiden, seeing her nurse, immediately arose, and making a respectful bow, led her to a seat and began the most affectionate inquiries. After giving her blessing and sitting for some time and chatting about indifferent matters, the nurse said, ‘O daughter! in infancy I reared and nourished thee, now the Bhagwan (Deity) has rewarded me by giving thee stature, beauty, health, and goodness. My heart only longs to see the happiness of thy womanhood,58 after which I shall depart in peace. I implore thee read this paper, given to me by the handsomest and the properest young man that my eyes have ever seen.’
The princess, glancing at the lotus on the outside of the note, slowly unfolded it and perused its contents, which were as follows:
She was to me the pearl that clings
To sands all hid from mortal sight,
Yet fit for diadems of kings,
The pure and lovely light.
She was to me the gleam of sun
That breaks the gloom of wintry day;
One moment shone my soul upon,
Then passed – how soon! – away.
She was to me the dreams of bliss
That float the dying eyes before,
For one short hour shed happiness,
And fly to bless no more.
O light, again upon me shine;
O pearl, again delight my eyes;
O dreams of bliss, again be mine! —
No! earth may not be Paradise.
I must not forget to remark, parenthetically, that the minister’s son, in order to make these lines generally useful, had provided them with a last stanza in triplicate. ‘For lovers,’ he 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:
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 withholds me from the tomb?
And this was the termination exultative, as he called it:
O joy! 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 learned 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 Naglok60 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,’
Meaning marriage, maternity, and so forth.
Yama is Pluto; ‘mother of Yama’ is generally applied to an old scold.
Snake-land; the infernal region.