Bubbles of the Foam

by F. W. Bain

But when she felt him touch her, she stopped suddenly and turned, and looked at him, as if in the extremity of fear. And all at once, she began to laugh, as if she was mad, with round eyes that were filled with amazement and derision. And she exclaimed: Ha! Babhru, is it thou? But I left thee behind me in the wood. Ha! thou also art deserted, and rejected, and despised. Come, then, and let us escape very rapidly together. And she seized him by the arm, and began to drag him violently along. And she lowered her voice to a whisper, and began to speak, so quickly, that the words stumbled over one another as they rushed out of her mouth. And she said: Poor Babhru, thou art so ugly, that she could not love thee in return, quite forgetting that she was herself so ugly that nobody could love her either. But he was so beautiful, so beautiful, so beautiful that she ran away and left thee in the lurch: never even dreaming that all the other women were as silly as herself. Ah! the other women, they were so many and so cruel. There were no other women in the wood. Was it lonely, Babhru, in the wood, after she went away? Poor ugly Babhru, all alone in the wood, while we were kissing each other in the city. She used to see thee, Babhru, as she kissed him, sitting all by thyself in the wood, and weeping by thyself. She loved thee just a very little. Didst thou remember? But in the city, she feared, she feared, to see thee suddenly appear. But very likely, thou didst not know where she had gone. Thou wouldst have killed him, Babhru. Why didst thou not run after her? But they would not have admitted thee, poor Babhru, thou art so very ugly: and thou wouldst only have wandered, going round and round the palace, outside, outside, while all the time he was kissing thy lotus and trampling on its heart, inside. And yet she was his cousin, and the daughter of a king. Ha! Babhru, thou wert ignorant, and didst not know. But there were so many other women, all alike. Couldst thou even have discovered her among them all? Her eyes, her eyes were different: her eyes were dreamy, and her kisses like snowflakes. Surely it was better, after all, in the wood: there were no other women there. Didst thou imagine, Babhru, thou wert the only one to be dishonoured and befouled, trodden down into the mud and thrown away? But the very pools were there to teach thee, thou art so ugly, so ugly: and she was so beautiful. Couldst thou expect any better fate than hers? How could she love thee, being herself so unworthy to be loved? And he was like the very god of love, wandering in the wood. But it was she, that lost her way. He knew his way very well indeed. How could she expect, to keep him all to herself? Is not the whole world full to the very brim of women, with cruel eyes? O Babhru, why wert thou such a fool as to think one woman any better than another? Fool that she was, to think to keep him all to herself! O Babhru, thou art absolutely nothing, in comparison with him. Thou art so rude and coarse and rough, and he is more beautiful than any woman. And he was so gentle and so kind, and his kisses were so sweet. No, it was Babhru who was kind, and he was like a snake. Listen, and let me tell thee: kisses that are sweet are the bitterest of all: when other lips come in between. Thou feelest them, the other lips, between his lips and thy own. And his lips were a flower that is visited by a thousand bees. O Babhru, how canst thou know anything about it, since thy lips have never kissed anyone at all? Kiss me, poor Babhru, and thou shall learn by experience the poison of a kiss, from lips that are sticky with the honey left by other bees.

IV

And as Babhru listened, gazing at her with alarm, with his reason swept as it were along in a flood of grief, and humiliation, and compassion, and sheer amazement, and hardly understanding the words flowing from her mouth like the water of a stream, she stopped short, and laid her hand upon his own. And he started at its touch, for it burned him like a flame, as if she was on fire. And she said with a smile, while the tears were running down her face: Babhru, dost thou know, Aranyání was a creeper, supported by a noble tree? And yet somehow or other, the tree has disappeared. Who knows? for doubtless it was all eaten away within, and hollow, and as I think, the ants must have devoured it, leaving absolutely nothing but emptiness, and earth, and dust. So beautiful it seemed outside, surely the poor creeper could not tell, how base, and rotten, and horrible it was within. So when I saw it suddenly, inside, it hurt me here. And she put both her hands upon her heart, and began to sob. And then, all at once, she began again to laugh. And she said: Aye! she was a pearl, and a swan, and I know not what beside, and now she is absolutely nothing, like a broken pot. And the golden boat has perished, never so much as reaching even the shadow of the sea. Babhru, it was a lie: it was a miserable boat, all full of holes, that sank into the cold black water like a stone. Base and rotten, how could it swim, loaded with such an innumerable host of other women? Base, ah! who knows better than Aranyání the agony of finding it was base. Was Aranyání base, Babhru, dost thou know? And all the women hated each other, she and all the others; Babhru, it was hell in the golden boat. And she was worst of all, she wept, and wept, and wept, till at last they turned her out, and Chamu took her away. And then it was, I think, she died. It hurt her so to go away, she must have died; and Chamu took her and carried her away when she was dead. And she was so terrified of Chamu. Atirupa, Atirupa, save, O save me from Chamu's eyes. Babhru, beware of Chamu, for he is the very worst of all; worse even than the women. She was frightened of his laughter: it was worse, far worse, than all the laughter of the women. They pushed her from their boat, and Chamu took her. And she begged and begged and begged him only to leave her in the sand; for then she would have died, and never lived to see her father and Babhru any more. O Babhru, why didst thou not die also, before they brought her back? Chamu, Chamu, did Atirupa give you Aranyání, to kiss her dead body on the sand?

And all at once, Babhru began to tremble like a leaf. And he exclaimed: Aranyání, Aranyání! And suddenly she fell down and began to kiss his feet. And then, he shuddered, and began to sob, as if a sword had run into his heart: and the sweat broke out upon his brow. And he stooped down, and lifted her violently up, saying in a low voice that shook like himself: Aranyání, thy reason has deserted thee. Come now, and I will take thee home.

And she said with a shriek: Nay nay, for the ghost of my father is waiting there, to drive me away. Come away into the wood where it is dark. And she dragged him by the hand, and she whispered: Babhru, I have a thing to ask of thee. Wilt thou kill me with thy knife in the darkness? for otherwise I must abandon the body of my own accord.

And Babhru started, and he exclaimed, with horror: Aranyání, art thou mad? What! should I kill thee, I, kill thee, who art my very soul?

V

And she gazed at him awhile in silence, and then, there came into her eyes an anguish that was mixed with disappointment and despair. And she turned away, and murmured, as if speaking to herself, with melancholy: He also is my enemy. They will not even kill her. They keep her living, when she only asks for death, not even letting her escape, shutting her like a prisoner in the dungeon of her lonely soul. Even Chamu would not kill her: though she prayed him. He only laughed. And yet she was already dead, slain long ago, and done away, leaving nothing but a corpse.

And she stood for a moment, as if reflecting, and all at once, she turned, and looked at Babhru, with a face that was wan in the moonlight, and eyes that were filled with anxiety, and misery and pain. And suddenly, they changed, becoming filled with laughter and hatred and derision. And she came up close to him, as if to whisper in his ear, and suddenly she struck him in the face, with a shout of laughter. And she said, contemptuously: Thou wilt not kill me? Poor Babhru, thou hast not even yet begun to understand. Dost thou remember Aranyání, that told thee stories, long long ago, in the wood? She is dead. Far away in the desert they took her heart, and tore it and trod it into pieces, and flung her body out, to wander in the world alone, dressed in the clothes of misery and shame. And this it is, thou wilt not kill. Thou wouldst actually keep her miserable body still alive, to live with in the torture of this wood, where Aranyání lived long ago, to suffer every instant the horror of recollection, and to be mocked for ever by the memory of a happiness that is changed into despair. Like monkeys that go by among the trees, they found a fruit, and bit it, only to go on and leave it lying, deserted and outraged and dishonoured on the ground. Thou thinkest to find happiness in watching her dead body? Thou wilt not kill her, poor Babhru? Dost thou know what she will think of, living beside thee in the wood? Dost thou think, it will be thou? Alas, poor ugly Babhru, it will be he. And every time she sees thee, she will compare thee and him, thy body with his body, thy eyes with his eyes. Her lips would never touch thee without thinking of his own. Thou wilt only love what he rejected, and bite at the very place which the monkeys bit before thee when they threw the fruit away. The taste would be so bitter that thy love would turn to hatred in a day. She would loathe the very sight of thee, and every time she looked at thee, her eyes would tell thee, thou wert so ugly and contemptible in comparison with him. They have flung thee the relic of a life that they would not take away, merely in derision. Wilt thou live even with a victim that despises thee? Half dead and half alive, like a lizard mangled by a passing crow, and left to writhe: a deer, struck by an idle hunter, left wounded in the jungle, unable even to procure its death, to ebb away its life through burning days and black intolerable nights, eyed by the vultures sitting by. And thou wouldst be the vulture? Thou wilt only be a jackal, eating what the lion leaves. What! live beside her, knowing that another is buried in her heart. Wilt thou feed, like a dog, even on the bodies of the dead? Poor Babhru, dost thou not understand. She cast thee off and left thee for a lover that she never will forget, and living like a vampire in her body that is dead, he will utterly despise thee, laughing at thee in her eyes. Ah! Wilt thou actually wait to understand, till a little Atirupa comes, to spit, exactly like his father, in thy face?

VI