II
And meanwhile Makarandiká, ignorant and careless of all that was occurring in that world of the Widyádharas which she had thrown away like a blade of grass, and utterly forgotten, was living like a siddhá in a moon without a spot, having, so to say, attained emancipation in the form of the husband of her own choice. And for his part, Arunodaya, having lit upon the very wife of his former birth, contrary to expectation, and married her again, lived with her like one plunged for an instant in an ocean of intoxication, salt as her beauty[35] and infinite as her devotion, and unfathomable as her eyes. And for a while, he seemed to be the very image of a bee drowned in the honey of a red lotus, or a chakora surfeited with the beams of a young moon. And in order to make up to Makarandiká, and console her for the loss of her power of flying through the air, which of all her sciences she most regretted, he built for her innumerable swings, with gold and silver chains, and one, that she loved the best, on the very roof she first arrived on. And she used to pass her time in it, whenever she had nothing else to do, swinging softly to and fro, and looking across the sea; tasting, by means of the swing and her own imagination, some vestige of her lost equality with all the birds of heaven. And though she never so much as whispered it aloud, yet sometimes, her unutterable longing to possess once more that power which she had lost for ever, as she watched the sea-birds flying, brought tears into her eyes, which she never let Arunodaya see.
And yet, though she had utterly lost all her magic sciences, she still retained the whole of that other magic, which the Creator has not limited only to Widyádharís, of feminine fascination. And like the moon, she was a very bundle of bewitching arts,[36] whose potency was doubled by the intensity of her affection for her lord. For a woman who does not feel affection for her own husband resembles a sunset from which the sun and all his redness are withdrawn.
And she was, moreover, so absolutely bent upon erasing from his recollection every vestige of the dim image of the wife of his former birth, for whom she had substituted herself, like a new moon eclipsing an old one, that she thought of nothing else: and the thought of this former wife resembled a thorn that was fixed ineradicably in her own heart. And she busied herself all day and night, in occupying his whole attention, and laying snares for his soul, by dancing, and singing, and telling him innumerable stories, and making as it were slaves of all his senses, enthralling his eyes with the variety of her beauty, and captivating his ears with the sorcery of her voice, and chaining his desires to herself by never-ending wiles of caressing attention, in the form of embraces of soft arms, and kisses like snowflakes, and glances shot at him out the very corner of her eye, enveloping him with such a mist of the essence of a woman's sweetness as to keep him from seeing any other thing at all. For her Widyádharí nature gave to all her behaviour grace that was far beyond the reach of any ordinary mortal, and she seemed like an incarnation of femininity, divested of all the grossness and clumsy imperfection that it carries when mixed with the element of death, so that her touch seemed softer, and her step seemed lighter, and her outline rounder, and her smile far sweeter and her passion purer, and her whole love ecstasy deeper and truer than any woman's could ever be.
But as for the prime minister, when he came, according to agreement, and Arunodaya showed her to him on the day of the full moon, he was so utterly bewildered by the very sight of her that she turned him as it were to stone. And after staring at her in stupefaction, being wholly bereft of appropriate speech, and as it were deserted by his reason, which lay prostrate at her little golden-bangled feet, he went away in silence. And after a long while, he said to himself as he sat alone: Beyond a doubt, this inexplicable King has somehow or other managed to find a very miracle of a queen, as far as beauty goes. For her very ankles alone, are enough to drive a lover mad, and worth more than the whole body of any other woman; so that whoever began to look at her, beginning with her feet, would never get any higher, but remain for ever worshipping their slender and provoking curve, with a thirst that was never quenched. She must be Rati or Priti, fallen, nobody knows how, into a mortal birth, and leaving Kama in despair. And yet, whether she be, as he supposes, the very wife of his former birth, or not, I am irretrievably disgraced. For he has managed this matter all alone, without so much as consulting me. And thus, not only have I lost my opportunity, of taking as it were tribute from all the surrounding kings, but I am very much mistaken if some of them, or even all, will not take umbrage at the slight put upon all their daughters by this unrelated queen,[37] and band together, and suddenly attack him, bewildered as he is by her disastrous intoxication; and so, the kingdom will be uprooted, since he is likely to be so entirely wrapped up in her that he will think of nothing else. And it may be that he will discover in the future that he has lost more, by disregarding his prime minister, than he has gained, by marrying even for the second time the wife of his former birth. And if, as I suspect, this is all but a trick, time will show up the imposture, and then it will be my turn. For if ever he should discover she has cheated him, all the coquetry and coaxing in the world will not keep him from abhorring her, for stealing his affection, and diverting it away from its proper object, to herself. For as a rule, men object to being cheated, even to their own advantage, since the cheater seems to argue that the cheated is a fool. But in the meantime I must wait, since it is useless to do anything, till the charm has lost its magic by dint of repetition. For beauty resembles amber: it attracts, but does not hold: and like a razor, loses virtue every time that it is used: till at last, it becomes altogether blunt, and impotent, and without either edge or bite. And then, unless I am very much mistaken, this lovely false wife of his previous existence will find, that she has to reckon with a formidable rival, in his recollection of the true.